Louis said: > In a technical sense the Afrikaner bourgeoisie exploited both white and > black workers, but what does that mean? Yes, a white diamond-cutter > produced surplus value, just as a black miner did but the white worker > would likely have a black gardener and maid. These people were the > social base of apartheid, just as many southern White small farmers and > workers backed slavery. > > In my opinion, the USA and its wealthier imperialist allies have an > apartheid like relationship to the rest of the world.
I think we need to remember that capitalist political regimes (and regime change) can promote and/or assist classes and class strata, but governments _do_not_create_classes_. The rise of the Afrikaner capitalist stratum, in the 1950s and '60s, occurred in spite of and at the expense of the Anglo-South African ascendancy. Decades later, still under Apartheid, there were poor Afrikaners and a black middle class. The end of Apartheid allowed black capitalists to leapfrog two or three dominant strata. "IN 1976, Sam Molope, who had worked for a number of bakeries in the 1950s and 1960s, started his own bakery in Ga-Rankuwa with a R100 000 loan. He was confined to the township then because of apartheid laws which prohibited blacks from owning businesses in "white" areas. But despite the restrictions, Molope Bakeries grew into into a profitable business and is now one of the black empowerment success stories. Today he boasts a mill, three bakeries producing about 57 000 loaves of bread a day, and has been appointed sole supplier of apples, English muffins, birthday cakes, and sweets to McDonald's in sub-Saharan Africa." * * * * "Comparisons are often drawn with Afrikaner empowerment. Robin McGregor of McGregor Information Services, in a historical comparison, concludes that it took Afrikaner business over 20 years - from 1959 to 1980 - to achieve 10% control of the JSE, a level that black business has reached just four years after seriously entering the stock market. His own research estimates that as at February 1998 black investors had significant influence over 53 companies on the JSE with a market capitalisation of over R111-billion (10% of the JSE) - though his figures include all companies where shareholding is above 1%." Thabo Kobokoane, 1999?, "The road to empowerment" http://www.btimes.co.za/99/0425/survey/survey20.htm The fact that the white working class strata in South Africa is decidedly _not_better off under the ANC governments, [cf : Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass, 2001, "Class, Distribution and Redistribution in Post-Apartheid South Africa", http://www.commerce.uct.ac.za/DPRU/seekings&nattrass.pdf ] should disabuse us of any remaining illusions about the nature of the new order and its agenda. Unless, of course, one subscribes to the idea that "the cake is too small" in South Africa. Or that the white workers should be punished in the place of white capitalists, who are doing quite nicely, it seems: "Some 98% of executive directors on Johannesburg's stock exchange-listed companies are white, according to the research group BusinessMap, and they preside over 97% of the exchange's total value. Whites comprise just 10% of the population of 45 million but they occupy around 80% of all corporate positions, said Bob Mattes, of the polling group Afrobarometer. A decade ago they occupied perhaps 99.9%. Paradoxically, those who retained good jobs and lifestyles tend to complain loudest about the ANC government's shortcomings. Executives who answered a questionnaire about crime, housing, education and other issues gave doom-laden, incorrect answers, prompting the publication of two books about good news in South Africa to stop the grumbling. One of apartheid's goals was to guarantee jobs and housing to poor white Afrikaners. Apartheid's demise ended their sinecures in state employment and heavily subsidised industries. Those without useful skills have struggled to find new jobs. They are among those begging at traffic lights. Others offer to tell a joke for 20p. While canvassing in recent weeks President Thabo Mbeki said he was surprised to find whites living in poverty. Many white farmers complain bitterly about the past decade with the end of state subsidies." [Rory Carroll, The Guardian, Tuesday April 13, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/southafrica/story/0,13262,1190638,00.html ] More broadly speaking, I think it's fair to compare the South African experience to the developed world is fair (inasmuch as any analogy is "fair"). But, IMO, examining situations at the level of nations or ethnicities does not, _usually_, tell us as much about exploitation or oppression, as an examination of economic classes within particular states. The notion of exploitation being organised according to race, caste, gender, sexuality (etc), rather than economic class _per_se_, is also convenient to the aspirations of subordinate strata of the capitalist classes (i.e. strata organised according to race, caste, gender, sexuality, etc). It is a useful means of them gaining support from people who subjectively see themselves as members of the same cultural grouping, in political projects guarding the flanks of capitalist accumulation (or worse...). And it must be true if liberal "imperialists" are always saying "mea culpa, mea maxima", right? > It would be good if a large section of the white working class would begin to understand > that the cheap oil that makes their SUV's feasible comes from the blood > of Nigerians et al, but it would be best not to have any illusions over > the matter. Capitalism _always_ means that a few people profit from the exploitation of a majority (i.e. wage earners): to extend your metaphor, there are plenty of workers in developed countries who can't afford SUVs, and otherwise benefit much less from the "blood of Nigerians" than do the Nigerian compradors and/or national bourgeoisie. regards, Grant.
