State-building, market regulation and citizenship in South Africa:
TL;DR: This article argued that the enduring characteristic of the political economy of modernization in South Africa was not so much the mobilization of cheap African labour, mostly migrants from across Southern Africa, but was rather the institutionalization of high wages and protected incomes for economic, social and political insiders.
Abstract: Public policy in post-apartheid South Africa has been characterized by a mix of state regulation and ‘neo-liberalism’. This article argues that this mix is rooted in the model of economic modernity adopted in South Africa in the 1920s and 1930s, and underpinned by the institutions of a modern state. In an economy transformed by mining and subsequent secondary industrialization, the state played a central role in facilitating capitalist growth, including through the regulation of labour. I argue that, contrary to the conventional understanding, the enduring characteristic of the political economy of modernization in South Africa was not so much the mobilization of cheap African labour, mostly migrants from across Southern Africa, but was rather the institutionalization of high wages and protected incomes for economic, social and political insiders. Anglo-centric institutions and conceptions of industrial and social citizenship were adapted to the colonial context in South Africa. The imperatives of both go...
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: Seekings and Nattrass as mentioned in this paper present an immense amount of quantitative and qualitative information regarding inequality in South Africa during the apartheid and post-apartheid periods, concluding that there was a significant redistribution of income by the state to poorer sections of the population.
Abstract: Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa. By Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. 464p. $55.00. Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass present an immense amount of quantitative and qualitative information regarding inequality in South Africa during the apartheid and post-apartheid periods. Their descriptive findings involve assertions that both support and challenge existing knowledge. For example, they conclude that during the apartheid era, there was significant redistribution of income by the state to poorer sections of the population; that apartheid “converted the state-imposed advantages of race into the market-rewarded advantages of class” (p. 379); the “deracialization” of class began not with the assumption of power by the African National Congress in 1994 but rather in the early 1970s; the end of apartheid has not led to a reduction but to an increase of inequality; the “distributive regime” that produces inequality did not really change after majority rule was achieved in 1994; there are now as many rich black South Africans as there are white South Africans; and that the most significant contributor to inequality is the high level of unemployment.
264 citations
TL;DR: Lieberman as discussed by the authors provides a rich historical and comparative account of the rise and consolidation of the two very different tax states of South Africa and Brazil and provides a first-rate work of comparative political economy.
Abstract: Race and Regionalism in the Politics of Taxation in Brazil and South Africa. By Evan S. Lieberman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 344p. $75.00 cloth, $24.99 paper. Evan Lieberman has produced a first-rate work of comparative political economy. Just as importantly, he has done so by going boldly (and engagingly) where so few have gone before—into the tax state. Given how critical the capacity of a state to tax economic elites is to the provision of public goods, redistribution, and the promotion of development in general, it is indeed shocking to realize just how little attention this question has received from political scientists (there being as always some notable exceptions). Lieberman sets out to correct this gap not only by carefully and meticulously defining and measuring different tax states but also by providing a rich historical and comparative account of the rise and consolidation of the two very different tax states of South Africa and Brazil.
131 citations
68 citations
61 citations
References
More filters
01 Jan 2001
7,155 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight the role of business in national economies and show that there is more than one path to economic success, and explain national differences in social and economic policy.
Abstract: What are the most important differences among national economies? Is globalization forcing nations to converge on an Anglo-American model? What explains national differences in social and economic policy? This pathbreaking work outlines a new approach to these questions. It highlights the role of business in national economies and shows that there is more than one path to economic success.
5,778 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors specify the origins, mechanisms and results of the autonomous power which the state possesses in relation to the major power groups of "civil society" and argue that state autonomy, of both despotic and infrastructural forms, flows principally from the state's unique ability to provide a territorially centralised form of organization.
Abstract: This essay tries to specify the origins, mechanisms and results of the autonomous power which the state possesses in relation to the major power groupings of ‘civil society’. The argument is couched generally, but it derives from a large, ongoing empirical research project into the development of power in human societies. At the moment, my generalisations are bolder about agrarian societies; concerning industrial societies I will be more tentative. I define the state and then pursue the implications of that definition. I discuss two essential parts of the definition, centrality and territoriality, in relation to two types of state power, termed here despotic and infrastructural power. I argue that state autonomy, of both despotic and infrastructural forms, flows principally from the state's unique ability to provide a territorially-centralised form of organization.
1,691 citations
TL;DR: In this article, substantial differences between Apartheid and segregation are identified and explained by reference to the changing relations of capitalist and African pre-capitalist modes of production and the supply of African migrant labour-power, at a wage below its cost of reproduction, is a function of the existence of the precapitalist mode.
Abstract: Conventionally, Apartheid is regarded as no more than an intensification of the earlier policy of Segregation and is ascribed simplistically to the particular racial ideology of the ruling Nationalist Party. In this article substantial differences between Apartheid and Segregation are identified and explained by reference to the changing relations of capitalist and African pre-capitalist modes of production. The supply of African migrant labour-power, at a wage below its cost of reproduction, is a function of the existence of the pre-capitalist mode. The dominant capitalist mode of production tends to dissolve the pre-capitalist mode thus threatening the conditions of reproduction of cheap migrant labour-power and thereby generating intense conflict against the system of Segregation. In these conditions Segregation gives way to Apartheid which provides the specific mechanism for maintaining labour-power cheap through the elaboration of the entire system of domination and control and the transformation of ...
1,056 citations
"State-building, market regulation a..." refers background in this paper
...…transformation of governance in the mid-twentieth century, whether due to the shifting requirements of industrialization and capital accumulation (Wolpe, 1972; Legassick, 1974b), the imprint of British colonial thinking on rural governance (Mamdani, 1996) or the embrace of modern modes of…...
[...]
...A second set of scholars has emphasized the transformation of governance in the mid-twentieth century, whether due to the shifting requirements of industrialization and capital accumulation (Wolpe, 1972; Legassick, 1974b), the imprint of British colonial thinking on rural governance (Mamdani, 1996) or the embrace of modern modes of surveillance and planning (Robinson, 1996; Breckenridge, 2005, 2012; Posel, 2011)....
[...]
Book•
09 Apr 2009TL;DR: In this article, Allen argues that the British industrial revolution was a successful response to the global economy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and that in Britain wages were high and capital and energy cheap in comparison to other countries in Europe and Asia.
Abstract: Why did the industrial revolution take place in eighteenth-century Britain and not elsewhere in Europe or Asia? In this convincing new account Robert Allen argues that the British industrial revolution was a successful response to the global economy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He shows that in Britain wages were high and capital and energy cheap in comparison to other countries in Europe and Asia. As a result, the breakthrough technologies of the industrial revolution - the steam engine, the cotton mill, and the substitution of coal for wood in metal production - were uniquely profitable to invent and use in Britain. The high wage economy of pre-industrial Britain also fostered industrial development since more people could afford schooling and apprenticeships. It was only when British engineers made these new technologies more cost-effective during the nineteenth century that the industrial revolution would spread around the world.
972 citations
"State-building, market regulation a..." refers background in this paper
...In the nineteenth century, wages were higher in Britain than anywhere else in Europe (see Allen, 2009)....
[...]