{"id":293,"date":"2019-08-27T14:01:08","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T12:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=293"},"modified":"2019-09-19T11:17:49","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T09:17:49","slug":"capitalist-power-and-white-minority-rule","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=293","title":{"rendered":"Capitalist Power and \u2018White Minority Rule\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is an edited version of Chapter 8<\/a> of South Africa\u2019s Impending Socialist Revolution<\/a>, published in 1982 by the Marxist Workers Tendency. It has been edited to present a concise summary of the roots of the apartheid regime in the historical development of South African capitalism. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

South African\ncapitalism has never been able to provide for the basic needs of the working\npeople. By the time that the bourgeoisie had established itself in South\nAfrica, capitalism already existed as a world\nsystem<\/strong> and was already entering its highest, convulsive stage of wars and\nrevolutions: the epoch of imperialism. The world market was already under the\ndomination of monopoly capital, and was in the process of being carved up and\nrecarved in the competition between the imperialist powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then and since,\nthere has been no possibility in South Africa of the development of an\nautonomous \u2018national economy\u2019. This is true of all<\/strong> capitalist countries in the epoch of imperialism. With the\ndevelopment of monopoly capitalism, the whole world economy fell under the\ndomination of the main industrial powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To accumulate\nwealth, the SA capitalist class has always been compelled to buy, produce and\nsell commodities on the terms laid down in the world market \u2013 terms over which\nit could have little influence. The possibilities for the development of\ncapitalism in South Africa have been shaped within these limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capitalists\nwere fortunate that South Africa possessed natural resources \u2013 gold and\ndiamonds \u2013 which have given them special access to the world market. But the\nmining of gold and diamonds could create only a limited base for capitalist\ndevelopment. More and more in the modern world, economic progress has come to\nrest on diversified industrial production, on the manufacture of an increasing\nrange and volume of commodities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each section of\nthe capitalist class internationally must compete<\/strong>\non the world market in order to increase, or even maintain, its sale of\nmanufactured products. To compete effectively on the world market has\nincreasingly required economies of scale<\/strong>\n\u2013 that is to say, huge concentrations of investment, using the most advanced\nmachinery and technique, to produce goods as cheaply as possible for mass\nmarkets. On this basis, the giant monopolies of the imperialist countries have\ncome to dominate not just their own home markets, but the world market as a\nwhole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The present-day\nsociety in South Africa has developed entirely in the shadow of international\nmonopoly capitalism. South Africa\u2019s dependence on the world market is shown in\nthe fact that its foreign trade (which is largely with the major capitalist\ncountries) has for several decades amounted to one-third or more of total\nproduction \u2013 among the highest ratios in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While South\nAfrica is today an industrialised country, in its relations with world\ncapitalism it retains many of the features of the under-developed countries.\nOverwhelmingly, its imports<\/strong> consist\nof industrial products, in particular machinery and other capital goods. Exports<\/strong>, on the other hand, consist\noverwhelmingly of mineral or agricultural products \u2013 raw materials or\nsemi-processed materials. Throughout the 1970s, gold alone has contributed more\nthan a third of the value of export sales. In 1980, all minerals and mineral\nproducts accounted for roughly three-quarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s\nindustrial development has only been accomplished by the bourgeoisie on the\ntwin pillars of cheap labour and state intervention in the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like all the\nweaker sections of the capitalist class internationally, the SA bourgeoisie has\nbeen unable to achieve the economies of scale needed to compete with the\nimperialist monopolies in manufacturing. To establish even a foothold in the\nmarket for manufactured products, they have had to seek other means of cutting\ntheir costs. In particular, wherever possible, they have savagely held down the\nwages of the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even to develop\ngold-mining on a profitable basis, the capitalists in SA from the start\ncondemned the majority of mineworkers \u2013 the blacks \u2013 to conditions of poverty\nand inhuman exploitation. It took the mighty struggles of the mineworkers and\nlarge-scale withdrawals of labour in 1974-1975 to achieve any appreciable\nincrease in real wages \u2013 and then against the background of a sharp rise in the\nworld price of gold. Similar pressures on profitability have governed the\ndevelopment of manufacturing industry, with the capitalists holding the wages of\nthe workers to bare survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Protection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From an early\nstage the state intervened to protect the development of capitalist industry.\nBy imposing tariffs against some cheap imported commodities, it has assisted\nthe local bourgeoisie to sell their higher-priced products on the domestic\nmarket. Light industry, in particular the consumer goods industry (e.g.\ntextiles) has been protected in this way since the 1920s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitalist\nfarming, too, has been developed on the basis of state protection, especially\nby means of subsidies, price fixing and negotiated export markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In areas vital\nto the growth of industry, such as electricity and iron and steel, the enormous\noutlays required made it impossible for the capitalists themselves to undertake\nthe necessary investment. Already private ownership and private profit stood in\ncontradiction to economic progress. Thus the capitalist state intervened to\nbuild the transportation network and to construct ESCOM and ISCOR, and later\nSASOL (for oil-from-coal), FOSCOR (for chemical production) and ARMSCOR (for\nmilitary hardware and munitions). Today\nthe state is the largest single investor and employer. 57% of plant and\nmachinery etc. is under its control.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On these\nfoundations of cheap labour and state intervention, capitalist production has\nundergone enormous expansion. But far from freeing South Africa from\nimperialism, this very development has locked the SA capitalist class all the\nmore tightly into the imperialist network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Integration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all the\nendeavours of the South African bourgeoisie to establish their \u2018economic\nindependence\u2019 (one of the principal goals of Afrikaner nationalism in the\npast), economic growth in fact has resulted only in the closer integration of the national economy with the world economy,<\/strong>\nsubjecting it all the more directly to the upswings and downswings of world\ncapitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industrial\ngrowth in South Africa \u2013 as in all the younger and weaker countries \u2013 has\nrequired the importation of ever-larger volumes of sophisticated machinery.\nSouth Africa imports 90% of the machinery needed for production. But these\nimports, of course, must be paid for or financed. Relative to imports, South\nAfrica\u2019s exports have generally grown more slowly. At the same time the prices of\nraw materials have tended to lag behind those of manufactured goods, subjecting\nSouth Africa to similar inequalities in the terms of trade to those experienced\nby the whole of the ex-colonial world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, while\nSouth Africa\u2019s exports increased four times in value in the boom period between\n1960 and 1975, imports increase six\ntimes<\/strong> over the same period. To compensate for the imbalance, the economy\nhas fallen chronically into debt to the major imperialist countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expansion of\nproduction in South Africa has gone hand in hand with the growth of an\ninterlocking partnership in the ownership of the means of production between\nthe imperialist investors and the SA bourgeoisie \u2013 English speaking and, to an\nincreasing extent, Afrikaans-speaking as well. The concentration of capital\ninto fewer and fewer hands has proceeded apace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost from the\noutset, mining fell under the control of huge monopolies, especially the De\nBeers company and, later, the Anglo-American Corporation (which later merged\ntogether). In time, with the development of manufacturing, the monopolies moved\nin there as well to take control of the most profitable opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the top 100\nindustrial and commercial companies, one-third are controlled by only six\nmonopoly groups. The Anglo-American Corporation alone controls over 600\ncompanies involved in virtually every sector of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Multi-nationals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially since\nthe 1960s foreign investment has poured into the country, its total rising from\nR3,109 million in 1964 to R22,886 million in 1979. Aided by the banks and\nfinance houses, bigger SA companies gobble up their smaller rivals and enter\npartnerships with foreign investors. Even agriculture falls increasingly under\nthe domination of big corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more,\nthe biggest SA monopolies \u2013 Anglo-American, Barlow-Rand, Rembrandt, for example\n\u2013 take on the character of multi-nationals, venturing out from their base in\nthe SA nation-state to seek profitable avenues for exploitation around the\nworld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tendency\ntowards greater concentration and greater integration of the productive forces\nwithin each country and beyond national borders is inherent in economic development itself.<\/strong> It is because of the\ncapitalist basis of the system that development turns into a crushing burden on\nthe backs of the working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless capitalism is overthrown, there can be no\nescape from the stranglehold of imperialism and monopoly capitalism.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very growth\nof capitalism has stored up huge contradictions in the economy, which are now\nbecoming acute. The need of the bourgeoisie to maintain the system of cheap\nlabour has placed narrow limits on the home market for products which the\nbourgeoisie needs to sell. What workers are not paid they cannot spend! The\nexpansion of production thus runs up all the more quickly against the confines\nof the nation-state, and adds to the importance of the export market for the\ncapitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regime\u2019s\npolicy of \u2018import substitution\u2019 has largely exhausted its effectiveness. This\nhas been an attempt to stimulate SA industry by barring the import of certain\nconsumer goods and light component parts, and requiring a rising proportion of\n\u2018local content\u2019 in manufacturing. This has had some effect, particularly in\ndeveloping motor vehicle production. But the SA market has proved too limited\nfor import substitution to be carried forward profitably in crucial spheres of\nmachine production, electronics and other sophisticated goods which are of\ngrowing importance for economic development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economies of\nscale necessary to make production even remotely competitive in these fields,\nrequire a vast and expanding market \u2013 something which neither South Africa nor\nthe impoverished Southern African region as a whole possesses. Thus even the\nrise of South Africa as a minor imperialist power, dominating the\nsub-continent, has not released the SA bourgeoisie from the pressures of world\ncapitalism. They are forced to scramble out beyond their so-called \u2018natural\nmarket\u2019 in Southern Africa \u2013 where they also face growing competition from\nstronger imperialists \u2013 and swim for their lives in the shark-infested waters\nof the world market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even during the\nperiod of the post-war boom, when the world market was expanding rapidly, the\nSA capitalists could succeed in gaining only a limited foothold for their\nmanufacturing exports. Now, as the world market stagnates in the developing\ncrisis of capitalism, and as competition intensifies between the major powers,\nthe future prospects for the development of SA industry on a capitalist basis\ngrow dim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be the\ncase under and government in future \u2013 white or black \u2013 that remains on a\ncapitalist basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The migrant labour system \u2013 bedrock of capitalism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the\nbeginnings of capitalist development in South Africa to the present, the\nmigrant labour system has been the bedrock of wage slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This system came\ninto existence in the course of colonial conquest, and was based on the \u2018native\nreserves\u2019 into which the remnants of the dispossessed tribes were driven and\nconfined. The colonial rulers had shattered the foundations of the tribal\neconomy, but discovered they still needed the institutions of the tribe in\norder to perpetuate their social control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An army of\noccupation is too expensive a means for a ruling class to maintain its power in\nthe longer term. Yet the white settler population alone, still raw, unruly and\ndivided within itself on class and national lines, provided at first too weak\nan instrument for the sure dictatorship of capital over the indigenous people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the\nmine-owners looked to the countryside to find a pillar for their rule. Having\nstarted to separate the African people from their land \u2013 thus creating a\npotential proletariat of mass proportions \u2013 the bourgeoisie did not want a\nlarge-scale immigration to the new towns. Instead, they wanted a system of\ndrawing black labour to the centres (primarily to the mines) under the\nstrictest regulation. This was the origin of the present migrant labour system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally the\nmigrant labour system was useful to the capitalists also for economic reasons \u2013\nas a means of compelling the family of the worker to toil on the land in order\nto supplement sub-starvation wages. But above all its purpose had been\npolitical \u2013 as a method of social control; as a mechanism for maintaining the\n\u2018tribe\u2019 which could not, of course, be maintained in the township.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reserve\nsystem was not devised by the ruling class as a means of livelihood for the\nAfrican people \u2013 of that matter they have always show the most callous\ndisregard. The purpose of the reserves has been to house labour, and to govern\nit under a \u2018tribal\u2019 structure dictated and financed by Pretoria. The so-called\n\u2018tribal\u2019 populations of the reserves have survived not by tribal production but\nby the wages of migrant labour<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willy-nilly,\nhowever, capitalist development concentrates the working class in large-scale\nproduction in the towns. Capitalism in South Africa has proved to be no\nexception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Doubled<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Official\nstatistics concede that the percentage of Africans living in the towns doubled\nfrom 17% in 1936 to 33% in 1970. Despite 12,5 million pass arrests in the last\n30 years, and all the other vicious measures of the regime to halt African\nurbanisation and confine workers\u2019 families to the reserves, researchers\nestimate that about 50% are now living in the urban areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the process\nof growth, capitalism has sucked into the cities workers from all over Southern\nAfrica \u2013 at one time from as far afield as Tanzania and Angola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vast\nconcentrations of workers are congregated in the main industrial centres of the\nWitwatersrand, Durban-Pinetown, Port Elizabeth, East London and Cape Town. Thus\ncapitalism has brought into being the grave-digger of the system, which the\nbourgeoisie has always feared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless,\nthe migrant labour system continues to serve the capitalist as their most vital\ninstrument in the oppression of the African working class. From the pass laws\nwritten by the Chamber of Mines for the Kruger government in 1894, to the\n\u2018Wiehahn-Riekert\u2019 strategy of the regime today, the method of the ruling class\nhas not altered in its essentials: the mass of the black workers in the cities\nmust remain \u2018temporary sojourners\u2019, present only so long as they are needed to\nsupply their labour power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A working class\nentrenched in the cities can more easily create the stable organisations \u2013\ntrade union and political \u2013 needed to struggle against its exploitation and\noppression. The mass of the African workers in South Africa have to build their\norganisations against the enormous obstacles of the pass laws and migrant\nlabour. Militant workers\u2019 leaders are regularly banished to remote country\ndistricts; workers on strike are \u2018endorsed out\u2019 of the towns and forcibly\ndeported to the reserves in their thousands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Separation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The separation\nof the worker from the family, and the confinement of the latter in the\nreserves, reduces the pressure on the capitalist class to concede housing,\namenities and welfare for the aged, the sick and the unemployed. Barrack\naccommodation and compounds, long hours of overtime work, hazardous conditions\nof health and safety, and perpetual insecurity of employment \u2013 these are the\nconsequences of the system for the migrant workers themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, the extreme exploitation and oppression of migrant labour undermines the\norganising power and the bargaining power of the whole of the black working\nclass. It provides the basis for cheap labour in the entire economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The migrant labour system is the central pillar in the\nnational oppression of the black people, enormously strengthening the hand of\nthe ruling class against the struggle of the masses for industrial and\npolitical rights.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Peasants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggles of\nthe migrant workers have long disproved the claims that they are \u2018peasants\u2019 or\n\u2018peasant-workers\u2019. Yet these terms remain the intellectual currency of the ANC\nand CP leadership (and also of the Unity Movement fragments which falsely claim\nthe heritage of Trotsky).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shows a\nfailure to understand that the basis of tribal and peasant agriculture has been\ndestroyed in South Africa and can never be restored. Consciousness has a\ncertain life of its own and can linger long after its objective basis has been\nremoved. But the consciousness of the migrant workers has been melted and\nrecast over and over again in the course of the most militant class struggles,\nin which the classic weapon of the working class \u2013 strike action \u2013 has been\nprominently to the fore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, on the land, within the confines of the reserves, the institutions of\n\u2018tribal\u2019 government have been thoroughly exposed as part and parcel of the\nsystem of national oppression. With the chiefs transformed from leaders,\nadvisors and representatives of the rural communities into paid puppets and\npolice agents of the oppressor, the people have turned massively to outright\nopposition to their authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the 1940s\nonwards, the general struggle of the people against the chiefs signalled the\nhistoric change which had come about in the consciousness of the population in\nthe reserves. The Pondoland uprising at the outset of the 1960s marked not the\nbeginning but a dramatic climax of this struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nself-organisation of the people separately from the \u2018tribal\u2019 councils, and the\ndecision systematically to eliminate the chiefs, showed that the tribal shell\ncould never again be filled with living content. The task, as the emerging\nrural proletariat recognised, was to unite with the workers\u2019 movement in the\ntowns. Common organisations<\/strong> of the\nsettled and migrant workers were \u2013 and are \u2013 essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, in 1963,\nCongress leaders were still mistakenly calling for the formation of separate \u2018peasant committees of migrant workers in\nthe towns\u2019<\/strong>! Unfortunately, despite all the development that has taken place\nsince then, this approach has never been corrected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead the\nconception of a mass \u2018peasantry\u2019 is defended, especially by the CP leaders, in\nan attempt to justify a \u2018two stages\u2019 approach to the South African revolution.\nBut in fact, as explained in previous chapters, even the existence of a large\npeasantry would in no way justify the theory of stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Capitalist power and \u2018white minority rule\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full equality\nand an end to all race discrimination, freedom of movement, the right to meet\nand organise freely in trade unions, the right to elect the government \u2013 these\nare the immediate democratic aims for which the oppressed people are fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the working\npeople, these rights are not ends in themselves but means<\/strong> for defending and advancing their material conditions of\nlife. In capitalist society a democratic system of government can endure while\nthe capitalist class is able to stabilise its rule by conceding tolerable\nliving conditions and material improvements to the working class. When the\nworkers\u2019 basic demands cannot be met, even previously \u2018democratic\u2019 capitalists\nreveal themselves as hostile to democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa,\nas we have shown, capitalism depends of necessity on the system of cheap\nlabour. The inability of the capitalist class in South Africa to concede\nmaterial improvements to the workers beyond the most narrow limits has meant,\ncorrespondingly, the inability of capitalism to afford concessions in the\nsphere of democratic reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus every\nstruggle of the ever-growing working class, even for the smallest advances, has\nbrought it directly up against the repressive machinery of the state \u2013 against\nthe police, the state officials and the army. The reliance of the bosses on\nnaked dictatorship against the workers is brought home daily in the class\nstruggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the\ndecades, the preservation of capitalist profits and capitalist rule has\nrequired the constant strengthening, refining and expansion of the repressive\nmachinery of the state. The rapid development of the economy during the 1960s\nwhich brought with it the massive growth of the working class, found its\nnecessary counterpart in the cancerous growth of bureaucratic and police\ntyranny, and in the new barbaric nightmares devised by the Special Branch in\nthe torture chambers of the prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over generations capitalism has proved to be the enemy\nof democracy in South Africa, and remains so.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All along, the\nbourgeoisie in South Africa has been too weak to maintain its dictatorship by\nits own resources alone. Indeed, without the armed assistance of imperialism,\nthe SA bourgeoisie would have been unable even to create a unified state for\nitself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dependent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Union of\nSouth Africa, which it inherited in 1910, was a state largely fashioned by\nBritish imperialism, and resting on imperialist support. Despite all the\nbeatings of the drums of \u2018national independence\u2019 by sections of the SA\nbourgeoisie, their state remains today dependent in critical respects on\nreinforcement by world capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even today, the\nclaims of the ruling class to \u2018independent\u2019 arms production or to the\n\u2018independent\u2019 development of nuclear power fail to conceal its continuing military\nand technical reliance on the major Western powers. And equally apparent is the\ncontinuing political support which imperialist governments provide for the\nSouth African capitalist state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, in contrast\nwith those colonies where there was very little economic development, support\nfrom beyond the borders of South Africa has been an insufficient basis for the\nruling class to construct and stabilise its dictatorship over the rising\nworking class. Capitalism has been compelled to seek a social footrest within\nthe population of South Africa itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the\ngenerations, the bourgeoisie has cultivated the support of the white middle\nclass and the white labour aristocracy against the black workers, setting the\nwhites apart and granting them privileges and an elevated status over the black\npeople. In this way the capitalist\ndictatorship in South Africa became consolidated as the system of apartheid \u2013\nof national oppression and white privilege.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The raw material\nfor the system of national oppression lay in the old colonial situation itself\n\u2013 in the conquest of the indigenous people; in the existence of a white settler\ncommunity on the land and in the towns; in differences of culture and language;\nin the importation of skilled whites earning wages many times the wages of the\nunskilled blacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this raw\nmaterial of prejudice and privilege was systematically moulded and developed by\nthe capitalist class and its successive governments. The divisions within\nsociety were deliberately hardened and deepened so as to bring into being the\nmodern apartheid system with all its savage refinements. In the process the\nemerging black middle class also was subjected to many of the burdens and\nhumiliations that are the lot of the black working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the\nstrength and the weakness of the capitalist class in South Africa is revealed\nin the character of its social base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand,\nthe support of the white middle class and the white aristocracy of labour has\ngiven the SA capitalist class generations of political stability \u2013 and even a\ncertain room to manoeuvre within the domination of imperialism. Out of these\nwhite layers the army, the police force and the state bureaucracy have chiefly\nbeen filled, and factory foremen and supervisors drawn. Stampeded behind\nbarriers of racial privilege they have formed a bastion of reaction, millions\nstrong, against the mass of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, the racist character of capitalist rule \u2013 directed of necessity against\nthe entire black population \u2013 reflects the weak position of the South African\nbourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the older\ncapitalist countries of Europe, where capitalism arose out of petty production\nover a long period of time, broad layers of the middle class provided the\ninitial buffer for the bourgeoisie against the emerging proletariat. Only with\nthe transition to imperialism did the capitalist class begin to extend the base\nof its support among the upper layers of the working class. We have explained\nalready the conditions in Europe which made this process necessary, and possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa,\non the other hand, the late but meteoric development of capitalism rapidly\npolarised society between the monopoly capitalists on the one hand, and the\nmass of the working people on the other. From the start, the middle layers of\nsociety were relatively insignificant. No room existed for a middle class to\ndevelop a substantial role in production. This was especially true of the black\nmiddle class which, from the beginning, was stunted in its development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The social\nweakness of the middle class ruled out the possibility for the bourgeoisie to\nrest its rule simply on this layer. The bourgeoisie turned increasingly towards\nthe development of its dictatorship on the basis of divisions of race, with the\ncultivation of a white aristocracy of labour to supplement the white petty\nbourgeoisie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wherever it\nexists, capitalism engenders lines of competition and division among workers\nwhich cannot be overcome by purely spontaneous struggles. It is precisely the\ndevelopment of class-conscious leadership within the ranks of the workers\u2019\nmovement which is needed in the struggle to bring about the unity of the\nworking class. The weakness of the forces of Marxism in South Africa and\ninternationally left scope for the bourgeoisie to carry out its policies of\ndivide-and-rule with deadly effect upon the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the creation\nof a privileged section of the working class \u2013 the whites \u2013 did not take place\nwithout conflict. At every stage the bourgeoisie was obliged to balance its\nneed for a stable basis of support among the whites against the imperatives of\nprofit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Racial\nprotection of jobs, access to collective bargaining mechanisms, increased\nmaterial welfare, have only been extended to the white workers with reluctance.\nThis has only been done \u2013 as is clearly shown by events from the 1890s to 1922\nand from the 1930s to the 1950s \u2013 to\nward off greater dangers from the mass of the workers (the blacks), only in\nconditions of economic advance for capitalism, and only on the terms laid down\nby the ruling class itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The privileges\ngranted to the white workers were preceded by the repression of their sectional\nclass action (most decisively the crushing of the 1922 Rand Revolt).\nConversely, those layers of the white working class who were denied special treatment\nby the ruling class \u2013 such as the women garment workers during the 1930s \u2013\nremained open to a programme of struggle on the basis of working-class unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A crucial role\nin this system of rule has been played by the reactionary leadership of the\nwhite workers\u2019 organisations. From the treacherous, vacillating \u2018liberals\u2019 such\nas Anna Scheepers to avowed reactionaries such as the racist Arrie Paulus,\nthese leaders have consistently collaborated with the capitalist class in\nmaintaining the divisions of colour and privilege within the working class and\nin supporting the regulation of trade unions by the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the elaborate structure of class collaboration\nthat forms the foundation of what appears as \u2018white minority rule\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an edited version of Chapter 8 of South Africa\u2019s Impending Socialist Revolution, published in 1982 by the Marxist Workers Tendency. It has been […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":419,"parent":282,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-293","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/293\/revisions\/769"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}