by Shaun Arendse<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On 7 March President\nRamaphosa announced in parliament that the ANC government will nationalise the\nReserve Bank. He explained that the ANC had taken a \u201cclear resolution that the\nBank should be owned by the people of SA\u201d. This was adopted as policy at the\nANC\u2019s 2017 conference under the pressure of their factional struggle. However,\ncoming from the billionaire Ramaphosa, this latest announcement is not aimed at\ngenuinely transforming the lives of working class and poor people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Political manoeuvres<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather, Ramaphosa\nis trying to out-manoeuvre the Zuma-linked \u2018radical economic transformation\u2019\nfaction within the ANC who have been championing the policy. They would portray\nany delays in implementing the ANC resolution as proof that Ramaphosa is the\npuppet of \u2018white monopoly capital\u2019. Also, as the election approaches the EFF\nwould use the issue in the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out-manoeuvring his\npolitical opponents by implementing \u2018their\u2019 policies is the same tactic that\nRamaphosa used over the issue of land expropriation without compensation. It is\nnot too difficult for this tactic to succeed. This is because none of the ANC\nfactions or any of the parties in parliament stands for anything other than the\ndefence of the capitalist profit system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rhetoric of\n\u2018radical economic transformation\u2019 is in reality the programme of a section of the\naspirant black capitalist class. They are not rich enough for their liking and\nwant to use the capitalist state to accumulate wealth. This was the class\ninterest underlying Zuma\u2019s crude \u2018state-capture\u2019 policy. Historically, it was\nhow the aspirant Afrkaner capitalist class used the apartheid state. Up to a\npoint, Ramaphosa can balance the interests of the aspirant black capitalists\nwith those of the established capitalist class (who at least were willing to\ngive him a seat at their dinner table!) who above all else demand a \u2018stable\u2019\neconomic environment to guarantee their property and profits. There is no fundamental<\/em><\/strong>\ncontradiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Letting the \u2018cat\nout of the bag\u2019 in January, the bosses\u2019 newspaper Business Day<\/em> published an editorial explaining that: \u201cOwnership is\nnot key to the operation of central banks, so in most cases it is irrelevant\nwhether they are owned by the state or private shareholders.\u201d They went so far\nas to call the debate a \u201cred herring\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across the\nworld-capitalist economy it is unusual<\/em><\/strong> for a reserve (or central)\nbank to have private shareholders. Only six other countries are in the same\nboat as South Africa. The imperialist countries that dominate the South African\neconomy, for example the UK and USA, have wholly government-owned central\nbanks. This is to say nothing of the government-owned and -controlled People\u2019s\nBank of China under the Chinese state-capitalist regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bosses\u2019 economic dictatorship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The real issue\nfor the capitalist class, both in South Africa and internationally, is the so-called\n\u201cpolitical independence\u201d of reserve and central banks. In the media the need\nfor this is put forward as common sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this \u2018common\nsense\u2019 is new. It only emerged as part of the worldwide neo-liberal capitalist\ncounter-revolution of the late 1970s. After a period of economic crisis and\nsharp class conflict the bosses and capitalist politicians decided they needed\nto put the most basic levers of the capitalist economy beyond the democratic reach\nof the working class and poor majority \u2013 in case they elected left-wing or\nsocialist governments. Control of central and reserve banks was therefore\nhanded-over to unelected bureaucrats and \u2018specialists\u2019. This undemocratic\nregime developed its international mirror. Equally unelected and unaccountable\ncredit ratings agencies became the capitalist class\u2019s global police force.\nDoing whatever they demand is also now presented as \u2018common sense\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In keeping with\ncapitalist \u2018best practise\u2019, the SA Reserve Bank\u2019s \u201cpolitical independence\u201d is\nguaranteed by the same constitution which defends capitalist property rights.\nThe Reserve Bank is mandated by the constitution to control interest rates in\norder to control inflation (price rises). This encourages restraint in\ngovernment spending on health, education, housing and services. It rewards austerity\nof the sort that Ramaphosa and Mboweni delivered in their February budget. It\npromotes tax cuts for the rich, privatisation and outsourcing, as well as\nunemployment and the holding down of wages across the economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The debate around the nationalisation of the\nReserve Bank could shine a light on the real class interests of the bosses that\na so-called \u201cindependent\u201d Reserve Bank serves. This is what is really making\nsome SA capitalists nervous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A socialist policy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Should the Reserve\nBank be nationalised? We say YES! Kick-out the 650 private shareholders. But\nwhy stop there? The \u2018big four\u2019 SA banks \u2013 Standard Bank, ABSA, FNB and Nedbank \u2013\nmade profits of R40.1 billion in the first six months of 2018. This is where\nthe wealth is sitting for socialist<\/em><\/strong> economic transformation in\nthe interests of the working class and poor. The entire financial system,\nincluding the \u2018big four\u2019 banks and major insurance companies, should be\nnationalised. This would lay the foundation for a democratically planned\neconomy run in the interests of the working class and poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But we do not\nwant a nationalised banking sector run by unelected pro-capitalist bureaucrats\nanymore than we want a Reserve Bank run by them. The economy must be under the\ndemocratic control and management of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our answer to\nthe propaganda that Reserve Bank \u201cindependence\u201d is necessary to control inflation\nis simple \u2013 price controls<\/em><\/strong> democratically supervised and enforced by\nworkers and communities. If bosses ignore these controls and try, for example, to\noff-set wage-rises by increasing prices their companies should be occupied by\nworkers and nationalised too. If the bosses try and sabotage a socialist\neconomy with \u2018capital flight\u2019 (i.e. taking their money overseas) a workers\u2019\ngovernment would put in place capital controls<\/em><\/strong> to keep the money\nhere. Appeals would have to be made to workers in other countries for class\nsolidarity and to lay the foundations for a worldwide socialist plan of\nproduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On this\nsocialist basis the working class can enjoy full employment, permanent jobs, a\nliving wage, high quality and affordable housing, health, education and other\nservices. Workers must organise to demand that their trade unions take-up this\nprogramme as the only answer to the fake radicalism in the \u2018debates\u2019 of the capitalist\npoliticians around the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank. We must expose their\nrhetoric and their propaganda and demand a society genuinely run in the\ninterests of the majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the mass\nclass struggles that will develop under the weight of capitalism\u2019s economic\ncrisis this programme must be adopted as part of the working class\u2019s war plan\nfor conquering the commanding heights of the economy. Workers need to campaign\nfor a socialist programme in their trade unions and a leadership willing to\nfight for it. This must include the trade unions taking the lead in the\ncreation of a mass workers party capable uniting the working class in mass\nstruggle guided by a socialist programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 7 March President Ramaphosa announced in parliament that the ANC government will nationalise the Reserve Bank. However, coming from the billionaire Ramaphosa, this latest announcement is not aimed at genuinely transforming the lives of working class and poor people.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}