The Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa

327 Pages·2000·1.56 MB·English

by  Patrick Bond

Patrick Bond
Elite Transition
From Apartheid to Neoliberalism
in South Africa
P
University of Natal Press
Pluto Press Pietermaritzburg
South Africa
LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA

First published 2000 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA
Published in South Africa 2000 by
University of Natal Press
Private Bag X01. Scottsville 3209, South Africa
Copyright © Patrick Bond 2000
The right of Patrick Bond to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
ISBN 0 7453 1024 9 hbk Pluto edition
ISBN 0 7453 1023 0 pbk Pluto edition
ISBN 0 86980 971 7 South African edition
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bond, Patrick.
Elite transition : from apartheid to neoliberalism in South Africa/
Patrick Bond.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0–7453–1024–9
1. Elite (Social sciences)—South Africa. 2. South Africa—Economic
conditions—1991– 3. South Africa—Politics and government—1994–
I. Title.
HN801.Z9 E427 2000
305.5'2'0968—dc21
99–048854

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Contents
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations vi
Introduction: Dissecting South Africa’s Transition 1
PART I: POWER AND ECONOMIC DISCOURSES
1. Neoliberal Economic Constraints on Liberation 15
2. Social Contract Scenarios 53
PART II: THE ASCENDANCY OF NEOLIBERAL SOCIAL POLICY
3. Rumours, Dreams and Promises 89
4. The Housing Question 122
PART III: INTERNATIONAL LESSONS
5. The World Bank as ‘Knowledge Bank’ (sic) 155
6. Beyond Neoliberalism? South Africa and Global
Economic Crisis 192
Notes and References 253
Index 303
List of Acronyms and
Abbreviations
ABSA Amalgamated Banks of South Africa
AC African Communist
ANC African National Congress
BEE Black Economic Empowerment
Cansa Campaign Against Neoliberalism in South Africa
CBM Consultative Business Movement
CBO Community-Based Organisation
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CoNGO Co-opted Non-Governmental Organisation
Cosatu Congress of South African Trade Unions
DBSA Development Bank of Southern Africa
DDA Department of Development Aid
DEP Department of Economic Planning (ANC)
Fabcos Foundation for African Business and Consumer
Services
FM Financial Mail
Frelimo Front for the Liberation of Mozambique
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP Gross Domestic Product
Gear Growth, Employment and Redistribution
HIPC Highly-Indebted Poor Countries
HSRC Human Sciences Research Council
HWP Housing White Paper
IDT Independent Development Trust
IFC International Finance Corporation
IFP Inkatha Freedom Party
LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS/vii
IMF International Monetary Fund
Iscor Iron and Steel Corporation
ISP Industrial Strategy Project
JCI Johannesburg Consolidated Investments
JSE Johannesburg Stock Exchange
KP Conservative Party
LAPC Land and Agricultural Policy Centre
LGTA Local Government Transition Act
LTCM Long-Term Capital Management
MDC Movement for Democratic Change
MDM Mass Democratic Movement
Merg MacroEconomic Research Group
Nail New African Investments Ltd
NEM Normative Economic Model
NGDS National Growth and Development Strategy
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NHF National Housing Forum
NIS National Intelligence Service
NP National Party
Numsa National Union of Metalworkers (South Africa)
OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development
PEP Professional Economists Panel
PPT Presidential Project Team (Umtata)
PR Public Relations
R&D Research and Development
RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme
RDS Rural Development Strategy
SAB South African Breweries
SACP South African Communist Party
SADC Southern African Development Community
SAHT South African Housing Trust
Sanco South African National Civic Organisation
SANDF South African National Defence Force
Sangoco South African Non-Governmental Organisation
Coalition
TAU Transvaal Agricultural Union
TEC Transitional Executive Committee
THEMBA ‘There Must Be an Alternative’
TINA ‘There Is No Alternative’
viii/ELITE TRANSITION
UDI Unilateral Declaration of Independence (Rhodesia)
UDS Urban Development Strategy
UF Urban Foundation
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
WTO World Trade Organisation
Introduction
Dissecting South Africa’s
Transition
This book aims to fill some gaps in the literature about South Africa’s
late twentieth-century democratisation. There is already an
abundance of commentary on the years of liberation struggle and
particularly on the period 1990–94 – empiricist accounts, academic
tomes, self-serving biographies – and many more narratives have
been and are being drafted about the power-sharing arrangements
that followed the April 1994 election, as well as the record of the ANC
in its first term.
Some of these have been penned by progressives and are generally
critical of the course the transition has taken thus far. In the
development of an extremely rich heritage of thinking and writing
about change in South Africa, have the dozen or more serious
commentaries from the Left missed or skimmed or perhaps de-
emphasised anything that this work can augment?
I believe so, namely a radical analytic-theoretic frameworkand some
of the most telling details that help explain the transition from a
popular-nationalist anti-apartheid project to official neoliberalism –
by which is meant adherence to free market economic principles,
bolstered by the narrowest practical definition of democracy (not the
radical participatory project many ANC cadre had expected) – over an
extremely short period of time. It is sometimes remarked that the
inexorable journey from a self-reliant, anti-imperialist political-
economic philosophy to allegedly ‘home-grown’ structural adjustment
that took Zambian, Mozambican/Angolan and Zimbabwean
nationalists 25, 15 and 10 years, respectively, was in South Africa
1