African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers

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1987 - 19882

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Has files: YesSubject: search.filters.subject.Apartheid. Economic aspects. South Africa

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    Mishap or crisis? The apartheid economy's recent record in historical perspective
    (1988-06) Moll, Terence
    The South African economy has performed poorly in recent years. One line of interpretation views this poor performance as a severe and unfortunate cyclical downswing from which the economy is slowly recovering. Another by contrast regards it as symptomatic of an economic crisis; many variations between these views can be found. This is of course an ideologically-loaded issue since the 'mishap' position is associated with the South African government and the 'crisis' view with its left-wing opponents who foresee national economic recovery only once significant economic and political restructuring of society has taken place. I shall begin by describing the recent economic record of South Africa in its post-War context, and draw out some causes of the current decline. I will then consider whether the causes of decline are temporary/cyclical or long-term, whether they are likely to weaken or worsen, and how the decline as a whole should be characterised.
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    Manufacturing capital and the apartheid state: The case of industrial decentralisation
    (1987-08) Glaser, Daryl
    The relationship between manufacturing capital and the policies of the post-war apartheid state has become a focal point of contention in debates between "conventional" and "revisionist" analyses. A growing corpus of literature from both camps now recognises that organised mining and agricultural capital collaborated, both before and after the war, in establishing many of the institutions of labour and political control today associated with apartheid. But accounts diverge widely when it comes to the role of manufacturing capital. Liberals have conventionally viewed the interests of manufacturing with its frequent demand for semi-skilled, settled, occupationally and geographically mobile labour, and for an expanded domestic market, as incompatible with the restrictive and coercive labour regime of apartheid. Marxist writers of the early 1970s challenged this orthodox view, arguing that apartheid played a functional and supportive role in South Africa's generally impressive record of post-war industrial growth. More recently, Greenberg and Lipton have argued that manufacturing capital has little vested interest in post-war structures of racial domination. Lipton, reasserting the old liberal orthodoxy, argues that secondary industry actively opposed apartheid; Greenberg portrays industry as passively conforming to its strictures. The following study of struggles between capital and the state over industrial decentralisation policy since World War II takes issue with these various accounts.