(Apologies for cross-posts and late notice... similar chats scheduled
for Palo Alto on Monday, Berkeley on Tuesday and NYC at MR on May 7 -
details at http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs)
BROWNBAG LUNCH DISCUSSION:
Patrick Bond on Southern African Political Economy:
new theories, analyses, strategies
DATE: Friday, April 27
TIME: 12:30-2pm
VENUE: ActionAid's new office: 1420 K Street, NW Suite 900
Patrick Bond - who directs the Centre for Civil Society in Durban, South
Africa - will be in Washington, DC on Friday. At ActionAid at 1420 K,
12:30-2pm, he will discuss new ideas in political economy drawing upon
two books copublished by CCS this year:
* The Accumulation of Capital in Southern Africa
* Beyond Enclavity in African Economies
These books (free for download at http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs), as well as
the March 2007 special issue of the Review of African Political Economy
(on 'primitive accumulation'), include papers from a 2006 Colloquium on
Economy, Society and Nature. They capture the new ways that
'superexploitation' - profits drawn from beyond the sphere of market
transactions, by use of theft and piracy, coercion and violence, and
extreme commodification - is being understood. The idea applies to old
challenges like the race/class debate in a context of systemic migrancy
(and rural women's role in the reproduction of cheap labor), as well as
recent problems as diverse as new-generation corporate welfarism in
economic development, microfinance evangelism, health system
degradation, water commercialization and carbon trading ('the
privatization of the air').
CCS is part of an informal network in Southern Africa and around the
world - which ActionAid also contributes actively to - searching out
insights of analysis, measurement, and resistance strategy/tactics under
conditions of globalization, persistent economic volatility, excess
corporate power and the fusion of popular resistances. The two recent
books and the Roape special issue draw upon the work of the late
Southern African economists Guy Mhone and Jose Negrao, as well as German
revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. A further volume on superexploitation in
South Africa devoted to the legacy of the late Harold Wolpe -
*Transcending Two Economies: From Wolpe to Mbeki and Back* - is also due
out shortly.
***
THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
NEW BOOK, FREE TO DOWNLOAD:
http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/RL%20Capital-africa.pdf
HARD COPIES AVAILABLE:
Berlin: at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung head office, after 19 February
Durban: at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society,
after 22 February
Joburg: at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung office, after 22 February
Cape Town: at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Seminar with AIDC, ILRIG and
LRS, 28 February
(Launch details to follow)
***
The Accumulation of Capital in Southern Africa:
Rosa Luxemburg’s contemporary relevance
Edited by Patrick Bond, Horman Chitonge and Arndt Hopfmann
The revived interest in Luxemburg’s ideas about imperialism is
not surprising. More than her contemporaries (Lenin, Bukharin,
Hilferding), she pointed out the dialectical relations between
markets and the ‘non-market’ spheres of life, to which we should
add the environment. These relations are central to a new period
of ‘primitive accumulation’ that has generated powerful resistance
in many corners of the earth. Southern Africa is an especially
important site to reconsider the dynamics of capital accumulation,
given the reliance of regional businesses upon superexploitative
systems such as colonialism, apartheid and neoliberalism.
This collection is drawn from a collaboration between the Rosa
Luxemburg Foundation and University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre
for Civil Society, in which the Rosa Luxemburg Political Education
Seminar 2006 overlapped with the Centre’s Colloquium on
Economy, Society and Nature. The event attracted some of the
world’s leading political economists alongside regional analysts.
This volume features work by Luxemburg, Arndt Hopfmann, Jeff
Guy, Ahmed Veriava, Massimo De Angelis, Elmar Altvater, Patrick
Bond, Isobel Frye, Caroline Skinner, Imraan Valodia, Greg Ruiters,
Leonard Gentle, Ulrich Duchrow, Ntwala Mwilima, S’bu Zikode,
Salim Vally and Trevor Ngwane.
***
Capitalists have come to understand that to destroy the subsistence
economy altogether would not be in their best interests for two reasons:
fi rst, and most obviously, the employers are not prepared to absorb
the entire subsistence sector; second, and more subtly, self-provisioning
has provided subsidised wage labour. Luxemburg knew this as well as
anyone, and Southern Africa is an exemplary case. For me, the Durban
conference was an eye-opener. You had poor young people, who live in
shacks constructed of the sort of materials that you could scrounge up in
the nearby dump, going toe to toe with some of the smartest and most
articulate academics you can imagine. There was mutual respect on all
sides, as is evident in this excellent collection.
– Michael Perelman, California State University and author of
The Invention of Capitalism: The Secret History of Primitive
Accumulation
***
About Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg, born in Poland on March 5 1871, was an eminent
representative of European democratic socialist thinking and action.
Along with Karl Liebknecht, she was the most important representative of
internationalist and anti-militaristic positions in the German Social
Democratic Party. She was a passionate and convinced critic of
capitalism, as witnessed by her book The Accumulation of Capital, and
from this criticism she drew the strength for revolutionary politics.
After leaving the Social Democratic Party, Luxemburg co-founded the
German Communist Party. She was assassinated on January 15 1919 by
military men who later openly supported German Fascism.
Contents
Contributors
Preface – Arndt Hopfmann
Introduction – Patrick Bond and Horman Chitonge
PART ONE: THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL IN THEORY AND HISTORY
Excerpts from The Accumulation of Capital - Rosa Luxemburg
The Accumulation of Capital in historical perspective - Arndt Hopfmann
‘No eyes, no interest, no frame of reference’: Rosa Luxemburg, Southern
African historiography, and pre-capitalist of modes of production – Jeff Guy
Unlocking the present? Two theories of primitive accumulation - Ahmed
Veriava
Enclosures, commons and the ‘outside’ – Massimo De Angelis
PART TWO: CONTEMPORARY ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL
Imperialism and new commodity forms – Elmar Altvater
Luxemburg and South African subimperial accumulation - Patrick Bond
Two economies? A critique of recent South African policy debates –
Caroline Skinner and Imraan Valodia
New faces of privatisation: From comrades to customers – Greg Ruiters
Black Economic Empowerment and the South African social formation –
Leonard Gentle
PART THREE: SOCIAL STRUGGLES AGAINST ACCUMULATION
Property for people, not for profit - Ulrich Duchrow
The regional labour movement - Ntwala Mwilima
The shackdwellers movement of Durban – S’Bu Zikode
Against the commodification of education – Salim Vally
Challenging municipal policies and global capital – Trevor Ngwane
Contributors
Elmar Altvater taught at the Free University in Berlin for many years,
and is a leading authority on political economy and environment.
Patrick Bond, a political economist, is research professor at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal where he directs the Centre for Civil Society.
Horman Chitonge is a doctoral candidate at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society. A Zambian, he holds degrees from
the University of Zimbabwe and UKZN School of Development Studies.
Massimo De Angelis is a Reader in economics at the University of East
London. He edits The Commoner website and blog: www.thecommoner.org.
Ulrich Duchrow is associated with the German prophetic faith
organisation Kairos, and is based at the University of Heidelberg.
Leonard Gentle directs the International Labour Research and Information
Group in Cape Town.
Jeff Guy is research fellow at the Campbell Collection in Durban, and
has taught at universities in Southern Africa and Norway. He has
published several books on the destruction of the Zulu kingdom, and Zulu
resistance.
Arndt Hopfmann holds a PhD in Development Economics, and was formerly
senior lecturer at the University of Leipzig and the Free University in
Berlin. He directs the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Regional Office in
Johannesburg.
Ntwala Mwilima is a researcher based at the Labour Resource and Research
Institute in Windhoek, Namibia.
Trevor Ngwane is a student at the UKZN Centre for Civil Society and
general secretary of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee.
Greg Ruiters holds the Matthew Goniwe professorship at the Rhodes
University Institute for Social and Economic Research.
Caroline Skinner is a research fellow at the UKZN School of Development
Studies.
Imraan Valodia is a senior research fellow at the UKZN School of
Development Studies.
Salim Vally is a senior researcher at the University of the
Witwatersrand Education Policy Unit.
Ahmed Veriava is conducting masters degree research at the UKZN Centre
for Civil Society and works with the Anti-Privatisation Forum in Gauteng.
S’Bu Zikode is a leader of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Durban movement of
shackdwellers.
***
BEYOND ENCLAVITY IN AFRICAN ECONOMIES:
THE ENDURING WORK OF GUY MHONE
Edited by Patrick Bond for the IDEAs Conference in memory of Guy Mhone:
Sustainable Employment Generation in Developing Countries
25-27 January, Nairobi
GUY MHONE (1943-2005) was the leading economist to have worked across
post-colonial Southern Africa. His employers included the International
Labour Organisation in Lusaka, Harare and Maseru, the Southern African
Political Economic Series Trust, the South African Department of Labour,
and the University of the Witwatersrand; his heart and labours were
largely for the benefit of progressive civil society organisations,
especially organised labour. Mhone’s books included The Political
Economy of a Dual Labour Market in Africa (1982); Malawi at the
Crossroads (edited, 1992); The Case for Sustainable Development in
Zimbabwe (coauthored, 1992); and The Informal Sector in Southern Africa
(1997).
Sponsors: The University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society,
International Development Economics Associates, the Wits University
Graduate School of Public and Development Management and the University
of Nairobi Institute for Development Studies and Department of Economics
Financial support: Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa and
ActionAid Malawi
CONTENTS
1) Guy Mhone’s Life - Patrick Bond
2) Labour Market Discrimination and its Aftermath - Guy Mhone
3) Enclavity - Adebayo Olukoshi
4) Guy Mhone at Work - Judica Amri-Makhetha
5) Guy Mhone as Mentor – Omano Edigheji
6) Guy Mhone as Teacher – Tawanda Mutasah
7) Personal Reflections on Guy Mhone - Thandika Mkandawire
8) Honouring the Memory of Guy Mhone - Codesria
CONTRIBUTORS
Judica Amri-Makhetha is Director of the International Labour Office for
Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland, based in Pretoria.
Patrick Bond is Director of the Centre for Civil Society at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.
Omano Edigheji is Research Director at the Centre for Policy Studies in
Johannesburg.
Thandika Mkandawire is Director of the United Nations Research Institute
for Social Development in Geneva.
Tawanda Mutasah is Director of the Open Society Initiative of Southern
Africa in Johannesburg.
Adebayo Olukoshi is Director of the Council for the Development of
Social Science Research in Africa, Dakar.
