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Contradiction and Uneven Development in South Africa: the Constrained Allocation of African Labour-Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Fred Curtis
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In the post-World War II period, South African capitalism is considered by many to have been reproduced on the basis of ‘cheap’ African labour-power. This is generally understood to mean that the prosperity of capitalism in the Republic depended on the poverty of the African majority. On the one hand, between 1950 and 1979, gross domestic product grew (in constant 1970 prices) from R4·4 billion to R15·5 billion. On the other hand, Africans on average earned wages that were below subsistence levels as defined by such minimal indices as the poverty datum line, and that were only 5 to 25 per cent as large as those earned on average by whites – see Tables 1 and 2. As generally analysed, both overall growth and the absolute and relative poverty of Africans were the direct result of the apartheid policies of the régime, in particular those responsible for the so-called cheap labour system.

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The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 381 - 397
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

page 381 note 1 Labour-power is the potential for work, as opposed to labour which is the actual work done. In Marxian theory, labour-power is a commodity which is transformed into labour in the production process; the amount extracted from a given supply depends on class struggles in the workplace.

The analysis is confined mainly to the 30-year period commencing 1948. After 1978, many of the factors discussed here changed markedly, in form if not always in content – see South African Research Service, South African Review I: same foundations, new facade? (Braamfontein, 1983).Google Scholar

page 381 note 2 Nattrass, Jill, The South African Economy: its growth and change (Cape Town, 1981), p. 25.Google Scholar The rand, abbreviated by R, is the South African unit of currency. In 1976, one U.S. dollar was worth R0.87; by 1982 this had risen to R1.09.

page 381 note 3 The P.D.L. is an index of the minimal expenditure on necessities needed to maintain minimum health. See Potgeiter, J. F., ‘The Poverty Datum Line’, in South African Journal of Economics (Johannesburg), 41, 2, 1978, pp. 161–3;Google ScholarHorrell, Muriel, Laws Affecting Race Relations in South Africa (Johannesburg, 1978)Google Scholar; and South African Institute of Race Relations, Survey of Race Relations in South Africa (Johannesburg), various years.Google Scholar

page 381 note 4 See Curtis, Fred, ‘“Cheap” African Labor-Power and South African Capitalism: 1948–1978’, in Zarembka, Paul (ed.), Research in Political Economy, Vol. 7 (Greenwich, Conn., 1984).Google Scholar Racial wage differentials are not discussed further for reasons of length.

page 383 note 1 For a fuller treatment of this literature, see Curtis, op. cit.

page 383 note 2 E.g. Horwitz, Ralph, The Political Economy of South Africa (New York, 1967);Google ScholarHoughton, D. Hobart, The South African Economy (New York, 1976);Google Scholar Nattrass, op. cit.; and Porter, Richard C., ‘A Model of the Southern Africa Type Economy’, in American Economic Review (Nashville), 68, 5, 1978, pp. 743–55.Google Scholar

page 383 note 3 See Horwitz, op. cit. p. 427.

page 383 note 4 E.g. Legassick, Martin, ‘South Africa: capital accumulation and violence’, in Economy and Society (London), 3, 3, 1974, pp. 253–90;Google ScholarMagubane, Bernard, The Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa (New York, 1979);Google ScholarMorris, M. L., ‘Capitalism and Apartheid: a critique of some current conceptions of cheap Labour power’, in Adler, Terry (ed.), Perspectives on South Africa (Johannesburg, 1979), pp. 51–95;Google Scholar and Wolpe, Harold, ‘Capitalism and Cheap Labour-Power in South Africa: from segregation to apartheid’, in Economy and Society, 1, 4, 1972, pp. 425–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 383 note 5 See Legassick, loc. cit., and Wolpe, loc. cit.

page 383 note 6 The wage was less than the cost of reproduction of labour-power before the 1940s, according to Wolpe, loc. cit. p. 450, due to subsistence production in the African redistributive economies which provided some use-values for consumption by African migrant workers.

page 384 note 1 For a more extended discussion, see Curtis, Fred, ‘Mode of Production of Class Process: “cheap” African labor-power in South Africa, 1948–1978’, Yale University Southern Africa Research Seminar, New Haven, Connecticut, 1983, available from the author.Google Scholar

page 384 note 2 Of course, much attention has been paid in the literature to the political, and, to a lesser extent, the ideological contradictions produced by apartheid and the state.

page 384 note 3 No attempt is made here to conduct a thorough class analysis. Further, racial wage discrimination and non-capitalist aspects of the social formation are also omitted. For a fuller treatment, see Curtis, ‘The Value of African Labor-Power in South Africa’, ‘Mode of Production of Class Process’, and ‘“Cheap” African Labor-Power and South African Capitalism’.

page 385 note 1 For a fuller discussion of the theoretical basis of the following equations, see Resnick, Stephen and Wolff, Richard, ‘The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Western Europe’, in Review of Radical Political Economics (New York), 11, 3, 1979, pp. 3–22Google Scholar, and ‘Classes in Marxian Theory’, in ibid. 13, 4, 1982, pp. 1–18. For reasons of length, the present discussion is couched in terms of values and not prices of production.

page 385 note 2 This is a variation on the usual presentation; here it is assumed for simplicity that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the value of labour-power and the amount of variable capital — in other words, that both the number of workers and the length of the working day are fixed.

page 386 note 1 van der Merwe, P. J., ‘The Economic Influence of the Bantu Labour Bureau System on the Bantu Labour Movement’, in South African Journal of Economics, 1969, p. 43;Google Scholar and Survey of Race Relations, various years.

page 386 note 2 Pass laws and influx controls also reproduced political control. See Greenberg, Stanley B. and Giliomee, Hermann, ‘Labour Bureaucracies’, in South African Labour Bulletin (Durban), 8, 4, 1983, pp. 37–50;Google Scholar and South African Research Service, op. cit.

page 386 note 3 Job reservation is also usually included in this term, but is omitted here as pertaining largely to the racial differentiation of the wage.

page 386 note 4 This assumes that the wage = the value = the price of labour-power. For a full discussion of this relationship, see Curtis, Fred, ‘The Value ofAfrican Labor-Power in South Africa’, Association for Economic and Social Analysis, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1981, Discussion Paper No. 2.Google Scholar

page 387 note 2 Thus, the size of the reserve army does not have automatic inverse effects on the wage. Rather, its effects are mediated by economic, political, and cultural factors.

page 387 note 3 According to my reading of the literature, this issue was first raised in Burawoy, Michael, ‘The Function and Reproduction of Migrant Labor: comparative material from Southern Africa and the United States’, in American Journal of Sociology (Chicago), 81, 5, 1976, pp. 1051–87.Google Scholar Curiously, with the exception of Savage, Michael, ‘Costs of Enforcing Apartheid and Problems of Change’, in African Affairs (London), 76, 304, 1977, pp. 287–302, no-one seems to have pursued this point.Google Scholar

page 387 note 4 Savage, loc. cit. pp. 296–9.

page 387 note 5 The concept of a subsumed class process was first presented by Resnick and Wolff, loc. cit. 1979 and 1982, based on suggestions by Marx in Vol. III of Capital.

page 388 note 1 The conditions of existence for the capitalist extraction of surplus labour can also be reproduced by non-class processes.

page 388 note 2 One underlying factor in intra-capitalist conflict in South Africa concerns the actual specification of the directed allocation of Africans amongst the different sectors and geographical locations of capitalist employment.

page 388 note 3 On supervisors in South Africa, see Curtis, ‘The Value of African Labor-Power in South Africa’, pp. 181–2.

page 388 note 4 The state is not only comprised of subsumed class processes, as discussed below, but may also be constituted by the capitalist extraction of surplus value itself. In addition, surplus value may be distributed in non-tax forms to other non-state subsumed class processes. See Resnick, Stephen and Wolff, Richard, ‘A Marxist Theory of the State’, in Wade, Larry L. (ed.), Political Economy: recent views (Boston, 1983), pp. 121–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 389 note 1 Survey of Race Relations, 1982, p. 57.

page 389 note 2 See Curtis, ‘The Value of African Labor-Power in South Africa’, pp. 56–8 and 66–8.

page 389 note 3 Here it is assumed again that the value = the price of labour-power.

page 389 note 4 Kaplan, Irving et al. , Area Handbook for the Republic of South Africa (Washington, D.C., 1971), p. 680.Google Scholar

page 390 note 1 For the sale of wage-commodities at prices greater than their value, see the discussion of African traders in Curtis, ‘“Cheap” African Labor-Power and South African Capitalism’.

page 390 note 2 On the Transport Services Levy Act, see Horrell, op. cit. pp. 77–8 and 107–8.

page 390 note 3 See ibid. pp. 109–10; and Maasdorp, Gavin and Ellison, P. A., ‘The Township Today’, in Maasdorp, and Humphreys, A. S. B. (eds.), From Shantytown to Township: an economic study of African poverty and rehousing in a South African city (Cape Town, 1975), pp. 83–102;Google Scholar and Kraak, Gerald, ‘Financing of Worker Accommodation in Cape Town’, Southern Africa Research and Development Unit, Cape Town, 1981, Working Paper No. 35.Google Scholar

page 391 note 2 Perlman, op. cit. In 1976, as part of their protests, African students destroyed many municiple beerhalls and waged an anti-alcohol campaign with their parents. This drastically reduced beer and liquor sales and led once more to rent and fare increases. See Kraak, op. cit. p. 43.

page 391 note 3 On the 1983 bus boycott in the Ciskei and the brutal state response, see Haysom, Nicholas, ‘Ruling with the Whip: a report on the violation of human rights in the Ciskei’, Development Studies Group, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1983.Google Scholar

page 392 note 1 State transportation may have, at the same time, also reduced productivity due to long waits, crowded services, and frequent accidents. See Greenberg, Stanley B., Race and State in Capitalist Development: South Africa in comparative perspective (New Haven and Johannesburg, 1980), p. 188;Google Scholar and Hlope, Stephen S., ‘The Crisis of Urban Living Under Apartheid Conditions: a socio-economic analysis of Soweto’, in Journal of Southern African Affairs, II, 3, 1977, p. 344.Google Scholar

page 392 note 3 On the former, see Wilson, Francis, Labour in the South African Gold Mines, 1911–1969 (Cambridge, 1972), p. 57.Google Scholar On the latter, see Kooy, Alide, ‘Farm Labour in the Karoo’, in Wilson, Francis et al. (eds.), Farm Labour in South Africa (Cape Town, 1977), p. 109.Google Scholar

page 392 note 4 I am indebted to David Ruccio for pointing out that in terms of Marx's Vol. I analysis this represented a C–C rather than a C–M–C exchange of commodities.

page 392 note 5 Computed from data in Wilson, op. cit.

page 394 note 1 See Shapiro, Janet, ‘Political and Economic Organisation of Women in South Africa’, in African Perspective (Johannesburg), 15, 1980, pp. 1–15;Google Scholar and Joanne Yawitch, ‘Black Women in South Africa: capitalism, employment, and reproduction’, in ibid. 1982.

page 394 note 2 Yawitch, Joanne, ‘The Incorporation of African Women into Wage Labour, 1950–1980’, in South African Labour Bulletin, 9, 3, 1983, pp. 82–93.Google Scholar

page 394 note 4 On the very complex question of child-rearing – which involved both African men and women in different ways – see Curtis, ‘“Cheap” African Labor-Power and South African Capitalism’.

page 394 note 5 On domestic servants and the quantity and quality of ‘in kind’ use-values received from employers, see Cock, Jacklyn, Maids and Madams: the politics of exploitation (Johannesburg, 1980).Google Scholar

page 395 note 1 These extended concepts were developed by Resnick and Wolff, ‘The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Western Europe’ and ‘Classes in Marxian Theory’.

page 396 note 1 See Platzky, Laurine and Walker, Cherryl, ‘Review of Relocation’, in South Africa Research Service, op. cit.;Google Scholar and Doug Hindson and Marian Lacey, ‘Influx Control and Labour Allocation: policy and practice since the Riekert Commission’, in ibid. pp. 97–113.

page 396 note 2 See Charles Meth, ‘Class Formation: skill shortage and black advancement’, in ibid. pp. 193–8.

page 396 note 3 See Michael Evans, ‘Restructuring: the role of the military’, in ibid. pp. 42–9.