Summary notes from the Harold Wolpe Forum debate of 20 May 2003: ‘An incomplete transformation: What is to be done?’ Speaker: Emeritus Professor Sampie Terreblanche, Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch An incomplete transformation: What is to be done? Introduction My book A history of inequality in South Africa 1652–2002 is about the unequal distribution of property, opportunities and income, mainly about the following:
Unequal power relations and uncontrolled power blocs These blocs were as follows:
Systemic periods in South African history The source of inequality in South Africa is systemic deprivation:
Labour is always an important issue in colonialism. Slavery and inboekelingskap were feudalistic forms of forced labour. By 1838 inboekelingskap, indentured labour and slavery was abolished, but the British settlers convinced the authorities to put ‘master and servant’ laws on the statute book to continue the system of unfair black labour repression. Similar laws remained in force until 1986. In the mid 19th century, labourers had to enter into five year contracts with their employers. Any complaint lodged by the employer against the labour saw the labourer jailed. From 1840 onwards black people were systematically deprived of their land, forcing them to seek income through contract labour. When gold was discovered in South Africa, in 1986, Germany was the economic pace setter in Europe. Although London was the financial centre of the world, England was in a depression and it had a negative balance of payments. The gold was of low quality, so extracting it needed huge investment and cheap labour. All attempts to recruit cheap labour failed. In 1894 Cecil John Rhodes signed the Glen Gray Act into law to force people off the land in Transkei and onto the labour market, but there was still not enough cheap African labour. So Britain wanted to control the Transvaal Republic to pressurise blacks residing in those areas onto the labour market. Milner was ordered to make labour cheaper, so he imported 64 000 Chinese to work on the mines. The South Africa Native Affairs Commission appointed by Milner reported in 1905 that the only way to get enough cheap labour would be to deprive blacks of their traditional farming livelihoods – to turn Africans into a landless proletariat with no choice but to seek contract labour. The Union of South Africa came into being in 1910. The new government sought to address the labour problems of the mines and maize farmers. In 1913, the Botha-Smuts government enacted the Land Act – the single most important piece of legislation passed before 1994. ‘Squatter’ farming and share cropping were prohibited and the pass laws enacted. From 1913 to the early 1970s, the exploitation of cheap South African labour was the rock on which the agricultural and mining industries were built. A process of impoverishment The income of black South Africans per capita as a % of white income levels for 1917, 1970 and 2000 were as follows:
In 2000, the income of Africans as a share of white income went up from 6.8% in 1970 to 15%. However, the rise was not uniformly distributed – while the income of the top 25% of Africans went up, the income of the bottom 60% went down. Racial income shares During the period 1900–1975:
Over the period 1975–2000:
The sharp decline in the income of the poorest 40% of African households since 1970 1. The percentage increase in the per capita income of all Africans from 1917–1970 was as follows:
2. The percentage decline in the household income of the poorest 40% of Africans from 1975–2003:
3. The household income of the poorest 40% of African households in 2003 is only 40% of what it was in 1975. 4. The annual mean income of the poorest 40% of African households declined from ±R5 200 in 1975 to ±R2 240 in 2003 (1996 prices). Unemployment
Reasons for the further impoverishment of the poorer 50% of the population since 1994 The socio-economic conditions of the poorer 50% of the total population deteriorated in the post-apartheid period in spite of increased social spending on blacks. Social spending increased from ±51% in 1993 to ±58% in 2003 of non-interest government spending. However, the structural dynamics endogenous to the situation of disrupted social structures and abject poverty or, to put it differently, the socio-economic legacy of apartheid has acquired a momentum of its own and is rolling on. The government’s social policy and poverty alleviation programmes are insufficient to turn the situation around. Poverty traps The poorer 50% of the population are the victims of several poverty traps that have increased their poverty:
An incomplete transformation We have experienced a remarkable political transformation in 1994, but not a parallel socio-economic transformation. Over the last nine years, the top 30% of the population has become richer and the poorest 50% poorer. The socio-economic legacy bequeathed to the new government by the apartheid regime in 1994 was worse than it was thought to be. Since the mid-1970s, poverty is like a snowball rolling down a hill, picking up momentum as it goes. The new government is spending more on poverty alleviation, but not enough to stop the rolling snowball. Why is the government not spending more? The ANC government’s power and sovereignty are restricted and it does not control enough resources to administer a socio-economic transformation. The transitional period (±1985–1994) 1. At the end of the 1980s all the main power blocs were in a crisis:
2. The bargaining power of the corporate sector was very much enhanced in the early 1990s by:
3. Since 1978 English and Afrikaner corporations became excessively involved in politics in desperate attempts to solve their accumulation crisis. They played positive and negative roles in the long transitional period. There was a double negotiation process: the formal negotiations at Kempton Park and informal negotiations, many of them held at the Development Bank of Southern Africa in the early 1990s.
During the negotiations, the growing social crisis was neglected:
The political and economic transformations of the past 30 years 1. In 1970 our dual politico-economic system was one of white political dominance plus racial and colonial capitalism. This was a very dysfunctional system because ±80% of blacks were systematically exploited.
3. Our new politico-economic system is an African elite democracy plus and open, globally-oriented First World enclave.
The corporate sector believes its own myth about the functionality of the so-called free market economy
Unequal power relations in the post-apartheid period 1. We are still confronted in the post-apartheid period with the problem of unequal power reations:
South Africa is presently a two-world nation The one nation is multi-racial, powerful and rich and it inhabits the First World enclave. This group comprises 15 million people, 5 million white, and 10 million black. The other nation is black, powerless in the socio-economic sense, very poor, and it inhabits the Third World periphery. This nation is a lumpen proletariat of 23 million people, almost exclusively black. The other 8 million is the upper lower class. The position of this group is not problematic – it wavers between the two nations. The lumpen proletariat (the middle lower class and the lower lower class) are the very poor, and their breadwinners are mostly unemployed. This group makes up 50% of the population but it gets only 3.3% of all income. As the trend towards ‘enclavity’ continues unabated, the enclave will detach itself further from the labour market of the lumpen proletariat and it will not be inclined to serve the poor, even if a higher economic growth rate is attained. Government remains adamant that it is winning the battle against poverty but as long as the capacity of the public sector is weak, the government will not serve the poor. Consequently the gap between the bourgeoisie and the lumpen proletariat will become bigger and bigger. Has the poorest 50% of our population become poorer since 1994? This question has become very controversial. Since November 2002, President Thabo Mbeki has claimed on at least three occasions that the poor have not become poorer and that the government is succeeding in pushing back the frontiers of poverty. He has also said that it is irresponsible and/or unpatriotic for South Africans to say that the poor are getting poorer. What the newest statistics say about poverty
The dynamic characteristics of the poverty problem
An agenda for socio-economic transformation
Rob Davies MP I welcome the publication of this book. I will comment on Chapter 11 of the book which is about how Sampie Terreblanche sees the way forward. His last points are a sobering reminder of the challenges and impact of restructuring via globalisation. There has been this debate that has been whether things get better or whether things are getting worse. Prof Terreblanche’s argument is a left version of the ‘things have got worse’ school of thought. I don’t believe the reality of the lives of the poor can be captured by this simple dichotomy. Things have both got better and they have got worse. Things have got better in the sense that there has been important delivery of social services and the social wage – for example, the building of 1.3 million houses and significant improvements in the provision of water and electricity. Also, people engage in defence of their rights in various forums. The restructuring of processes by globalisation has had both positive and negative effects. The negative effects have been felt mainly by people in lower skilled industries – about 1 million have lost their jobs in these sectors. This is one of the main reasons that we have greater poverty. Unlike what Prof Terreblanche has said, President Thabo Mbeki is not in denial about the extent of poverty. The president has spoken about two societies, one of which is characterised by poverty. On page 424 of his book, Prof Terreblanche says that the basic propositions of the ‘trickle down’ effect will not work, that there will be no higher economic growth. I agree this is not a way forward. But what does he identify as an alternative? He says we must find the solution in the continental European social democracy which he contrasts with ‘Anglo American neoliberalism’. I think it is important to understand how neoliberalism has come to have an influence on our economic policies. It was not about elite pacting in the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s offices at the time of Codesa. Although Lionel Philips wined and dined Smuts and Botha, he did not buy them off. Our economic policies are the influence of processes associated with globalisation – agreements in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which effectively say ‘open up your markets or you don’t trade’. More important is the mechanism known as ‘the market message’ – if we are not ‘market friendly’, there will be outflows of capital instead of inward investment. We found ourselves on a slippery slope – we adopted some of the market package to attract investment, it did not work, then we went further. Many countries have done this. There have been some important changes in global forces which have created opportunities and risks. The Asian crisis of 1998 punctured the idea that if you adjust to the world economy, if you embrace neoliberalism, economic growth will follow. The pressure on the WTO which started in Seattle focuses on the way the global economy is characterised by global inequality. An article in the most recent African Communist says the battle is now about the US asserting its power over other countries regardless of their economic ideas. Prof Sampie offers us a ‘capitalism vs capitalism’ choice. Will Hutton has shown how neoconservatism can be destructive. He says the financial engineering which took place in Boeing put shareholder value above aircraft engineering. Because this is not the case in Airbus, he says, Airbus has new aircraft models and Boeing does not. Neoliberalism has asserted itself, even in continental European social democracy. I don’t believe that locating our solution between different types of Northern capital will work. We need to be located in the South. Social democracy leaves the relations of production of capitalism intact, and it puts a social welfare system on top of that. I don’t believe that this broad church that is the ANC simply embraces neoliberalism, it also concentrates on social delivery. In the circumstances, do we need to spend more on social services, or do we need to do something else? Neither social democracy nor ‘trickle down’ economics will work. We are a developing country and the problems are developmental ones. The discourse in government is beginning to move from a focus on macro-economy to one on micro-economy. The need to roll back the frontiers of poverty informs debates and interventions into the real productive relations in the economy that give rise to poverty. There is discussion about infrastructure investment, public works programmes, labour intensity and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods, including upgrading informal employment. The Growth and Development Summit will seek to unlock resources in programmes where they are underutilised. Most of these debates are taking place in the broad ANC Alliance. Everybody should buy and read Prof Terreblanche’s book. Questions and comments Interest rates
Prof Terreblanche: High interest rates are linked up with global capitalism. We had to protect ourselves against the cold wind of international competition by imposing high interest rates. Rob Davies: There is a growing momentum for a small reduction in interest rates. Financial orthodoxy is not necessarily getting us what we want. Our currency is overvalued in some respects. Shifting assets out of South Africa
Prof Terreblanche: The shifting of the main listing of corporations like Anglo American and Old Mutual shifted a large part of South African assets out of the country. I don’t know if it is possible to unscramble the omelette. Government denial about poverty
Social wage gains are undermined by poverty
Prof Terreblanche: Poverty has become worse. The social wage would have been important if there were no disconnections of new services supplied to poor people. Neoliberalism
Prof Terreblanche: The phrase ‘Tina’ is used – ‘there is no alternative’ – but there are always alternatives. We were bulldozed into global capitalism and liberalised trade and capital flows to our detriment. Even the economically conservative journal The Economist has argued there may be merit in poor countries liberalising trade, but that capital liberalisation is not working for poor countries. Gear promised us foreign direct investment of 5–6% of GDP annually, but we have only received 1%. Rob Davies: I don’t want to go into whether there was too much surrender or an alternative, but we now find ourselves is a situation where Tina no longer rules, it is now ‘Theba’ – ‘there has to be an alternative’. The government is initiating significant developmental interventions to deal with structural inequality and poverty in South Africa. I don’t think we will necessarily find a model for what we should do in the East. The economies of the Far East developed at a different time. The World Bank has acknowledged Malaysia’s success, but that also happened at a different time. We need to learn lessons from the experience of others and build them in to what we decide to do. We need policy-led interventions to address poverty. Job creation Rob Davies: The challenge is not just about job creation in the formal sector – sustainable livelihoods is the name of the game. The alternative is not just a social wage package, but a restructuring of the relations of production to directly address livelihoods. Some jobs may come from public works programmes, deliberately choosing labour-intensive techniques to ensure there is real practical labour absorption. Is social democracy a model for us?
The importance of power relations in history
Prof Terreblanche: Power relations is what my book is about. A new set of unequal power relations were instituted in the 1990s, with the corporate sector in the driving seat and government as the junior partner. Poverty is not only a Southern problem
Rob Davies: There is an underclass in many countries, there are more feral children in South Africa and an even larger number in Somalia. The formal capitalist economy must change. Asset redistribution
Rob Davies: I am sure that asset redistribution is a critical element of the battle against poverty, but the housing programme has shown that the transfer of assets does not, on its own, form the basis for enabling people to start other things or stimulate demand. There needs to be a total package of measures to enable people who acquire assets to make productive use of them. The role of education
Prof Terreblanche: Government is currently spending R55 billion a year on education – quite a large amount. But some parts of the Department of Education are very poor, especially the part that used to deal with ‘African’ education. This provides employment for teachers, but in many places there is not much school. That part of apartheid is being perpetuated. We need to institutionalise a culture of service and education. We must concentrate on education, formal education and inservice education. In the US, the amount spent on post formal education is four times the amount spent on formal education. Rob Davies: Skills development and training are very important. People who have lost jobs are mostly people with less than matric qualifications. People in lower skilled positions have found their jobs have been outsourced and there is a mismatch between what is needed and what they have to offer. Training is not enough, we need to assist people to establish alterative productive activities as well. The promotion of sustainable livelihoods with co-operatives is becoming more important. BIG Prof Terreblanche: The government is not doing what is necessary to address the nature of our poverty problem – people have no cash flow. I am in favour of a Basic Income Grant, the philosophy is a good one, but I have some reservations about its applicability. The government has to play a bigger role, but rolling back the role of the state is part of the neoliberal endeavour. Rob Davies: Hopefully the Basic Income Grant is up for debate, along with other practical measures to address poverty. |
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