The LRA and work-place forums: Legislative provisions, origins, and transformative possibilities

No Abstrac

Africa's adjustment to transnational capital : the political economy of the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development.

This dissertation situates Africa’s macro-restructuring through the AU-NEPAD in the context of a disciplined post-colonial Africa. It challenges the claims of the AU-NEPAD as being reflective of the aspirations of Africa’s people and the appropriate African solution to Africa’s structural challenges. This study argues that the ostensible counterhegemonic discourse of AU-NEPAD vis-à-vis global capitalism merely expresses a new politics of reformism that ensures Africa integrates its national circuits of accumulation into global capitalism on the terms of transnational capital. Africa’s adjustment to transnational capital through the AU-NEPAD is not the same as national debt based conditionality adjustment. Instead, AU-NEPAD macro-restructuring is treated as a multidimensional class project to ensure a new African order is constituted in which Africa’s states and societies are further subordinated to the non-hegemonic rule of transnational capital. AU-NEPAD macro-restructuring is central to facilitating Africa’s continental passive revolution and creating the conditions for a new scramble for Africa’s natural resources, markets and states. This study explains the role of AU-NEPAD macro-restructuring as a class project of the transnational fraction of Africa’s ruling classes in three ways. First, it highlights how the shifting relations of force of a disciplined Africa spawned a conjuncture in which nationally based transnational class formation and structural change created the conditions for a continental project of Afro-neoliberal macro-restructuring. This study historicises the underpinnings of this project. It shows how a class consensus emerged around new concepts of control for the macro-restructuring of Africa. Such new concepts of ‘security and stability’, ‘liberal democracy’, ‘globalisation’ and ‘partnership’ cemented the basis for a common Afro-neoliberal consensus within the transnational fraction of Africa’s ruling classes. This consensus expressed itself concretely through the AUNEPAD and indigenised transnational neoliberalism as Afro-neoliberalism at the continental level. iv Second, this study goes inside the AU-NEPAD project to understand how Afroneoliberalism works at the level of macro-restructuring as distinct from national structural adjustment to transnational capital. It shows how macro-restructuring is a form of adjustment but grounded in situated class practices at a continental level. Such class practices are materially grounded and express the structural and direct power of the transnational fraction of Africa’s ruling class to advance AU-NEPAD macrorestructuring. Concepts, principles, discourses, policy frameworks and various tactics are expressions of these class practices. In this study the AU-NEPAD is based on five key strategic thrusts which inform class practices inside AU-NEPAD macro-restructuring: (i) the discourse of the African Renaissance and Afro-neoliberal capitalism through which pan-Africanism is appropriated; (ii) the imposition and construction of partnership on the continent; (iii) using peace and stability interventions not just to end conflict but to implant Afro-neoliberal societies and assimilate illiberal Africa; (iv) excluding and coopting mass forces and (v) fostering ‘partnership’ with the US-led transnational historical bloc. Finally, this study explains AU-NEPAD macro-restructuring as a class project by bringing into view how Afro-neoliberalism as an instrument of class rule is further defined at the intersection with and through responses from key multi-lateral and private transnational institutions within the US-led transnational historical bloc. This study shows how the UN, the IMF and World Bank, the G8 and the World Economic Forum embrace AU-NEPAD macro-restructuring and globalise a consensus about what Africa means and what its development challenges and solutions are. In this process of hegemonic engagement Africa is integrated into global capitalism through a new balance between consent and coercion and the politico-ideological integration of the Afroneoliberal historic bloc into the US-led transnational historical bloc on the terms of transnational capital

BRICS and the New American Imperialism

"BRICS is a grouping of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Volume five in the Democratic Marxism series, BRICS and the New American Imperialism challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalism. It offers novel analyses of BRICS in the context of increasing US induced imperial chaos, deepening environmental crisis tendencies (such as climate change and water scarcity), contradictory dynamics inside BRICS countries and growing subaltern resistance. The authors revisit contemporary thinking on imperialism and anti-imperialism, drawing on the work of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the leading theorists after Marx, who attempted to understand the expansionary nature of capitalism from the heartlands to the peripheries. The richness of Luxemburg’s pioneering work inspires most of the volume’s contributors in their analyses of the dangerous contradictions of the contemporary world as well as forms of democratic agency advancing resistance. While various forms of resistance are highlighted, among them water protests, mass worker strikes, anti-corporate campaigning and forms of cultural critique, this volume grapples with the challenge of renewing anti-imperialism beyond the NGO-driven World Social Forum and considers the prospects of a new horizontal political vessel to build global convergence. It also explores the prospects of a Fifth International of Peoples and Workers.

Jenseits von Marikana: Der Post-Apartheid-Staat in Südafrika

This article situates the Marikana massacre, in which 34 mine workers were gunned down by police in South Africa, in the context of what the South African state has become, and questions the characterisation of the post-Apartheid state as a “developmental state”. This contribution first highlights what is at stake when the post-Apartheid state is portrayed as a “developmental state” and how this misrecognition of the state is ideologically constituted. Second, it argues for an approach to understanding the post-Apartheid state by locating it within the context of the rise of transnational neoliberalism and the process of indigenising neoliberalism on the African continent. Third, it examines the actual economic practices of the state that constitute it as an Afro-neoliberal state. Such economic practices are historicised to show the convergence between the post-Apartheid state and the ideal type neoliberal state coming to the fore in the context of global neoliberal restructuring and crisis management. The article concludes by recognising that South Africa’s deep globalisation and globalised state affirm a form of state practice beyond utilising market mechanisms that includes perpetrating violence to secure its existence. Marikana makes this point.Dieser Beitrag setzt das Marikana-Massaker, bei dem 34 Bergarbeiter von der Polizei erschossen wurden, in Bezug zum derzeitigen Zustand des südafrikanischen Staates. Gleichzeitig wird die Charakterisierung des Post-Apartheid-Staates als „Entwicklungsstaat“ infrage gestellt. Der Autor beleuchtet zunächst, was diese Charakterisierung impliziert und inwieweit diese Fehlinterpretation ideologisch begründet ist. Er plädiert dann für einen Ansatz, der den Zustand des Post-Apartheid-Staates im Kontext des wachsenden Einflusses des Neoliberalismus sowie der „Indigenisierung“ des Neoliberalismus auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent erklärt. Schließlich analysiert er die aktuellen wirtschaftspolitischen Entscheidungen, die den südafrikanischen Staat zu einem „afro-neoliberalen“ Staat machen, und zeigt die Konvergenz zwischen diesen Entscheidungen und einem idealtypischen Staat im Rahmen von globaler neoliberaler Umstrukturierung und Krisenmanagement. Der Autor kommt zu dem Schluss, dass die tiefe Einbindung Südafrikas in die Globalisierung eine Form staatlichen Handelns bedingt, die über die Ausschöpfung von Marktmechanismen hinaus auch die Gewaltanwendung zur Sicherung der eigenen Existenz einschließt. Die Vorgänge in Marikana sind dafür ein Beleg

Beyond Marikana: The Post-Apartheid South African State Jenseits von Marikana: Der Post-Apartheid-Staat in Südafrika

This article situates the Marikana massacre, in which 34 mine workers were gunned down by police in South Africa, in the context of what the South African state has become, and questions the characterisation of the post-Apartheid state as a “developmental state”. This contribution first highlights what is at stake when the post-Apartheid state is portrayed as a “developmental state” and how this misrecognition of the state is ideologically constituted. Second, it argues for an approach to understanding the post-Apartheid state by locating it within the context of the rise of transnational neoliberalism and the process of indigenising neoliberalism on the African continent. Third, it examines the actual economic practices of the state that constitute it as an Afro-neoliberal state. Such economic practices are historicised to show the convergence between the post-Apartheid state and the ideal type neoliberal state coming to the fore in the context of global neoliberal restructuring and crisis management. The article concludes by recognising that South Africa’s deep globalisation and globalised state affirm a form of state practice beyond utilising market mechanisms that includes perpetrating violence to secure its existence. Marikana makes this point.<br>Dieser Beitrag setzt das Marikana-Massaker, bei dem 34 Bergarbeiter von der Polizei erschossen wurden, in Bezug zum derzeitigen Zustand des südafrikanischen Staates. Gleichzeitig wird die Charakterisierung des Post-Apartheid-Staates als „Entwicklungsstaat“ infrage gestellt. Der Autor beleuchtet zunächst, was diese Charakterisierung impliziert und inwieweit diese Fehlinterpretation ideologisch begründet ist. Er plädiert dann für einen Ansatz, der den Zustand des Post-Apartheid-Staates im Kontext des wachsenden Einflusses des Neoliberalismus sowie der „Indigenisierung“ des Neoliberalismus auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent erklärt. Schließlich analysiert er die aktuellen wirtschaftspolitischen Entscheidungen, die den südafrikanischen Staat zu einem „afro-neoliberalen“ Staat machen, und zeigt die Konvergenz zwischen diesen Entscheidungen und einem idealtypischen Staat im Rahmen von globaler neoliberaler Umstrukturierung und Krisenmanagement. Der Autor kommt zu dem Schluss, dass die tiefe Einbindung Südafrikas in die Globalisierung eine Form staatlichen Handelns bedingt, die über die Ausschöpfung von Marktmechanismen hinaus auch die Gewaltanwendung zur Sicherung der eigenen Existenz einschließt. Die Vorgänge in Marikana sind dafür ein Beleg

Epidemiological Neoliberalism in South Africa

The Covid-19 pandemic inaugurated a new global conjuncture of the neoliberal class project. More than four decades of constant recalibration of financialized market rationality to deal with ‘market failures’ – market reform agendas, austerity, rising authoritarianism and exclusionary nationalism – have not ended the neoliberal project. The result is a set of contradictions ramifying through the entire capitalist system, its structures, its social relations and the ecological basis of its existence – a crisis of socio-ecological reproduction in its broadest sense. This crisis has become exemplified by the Covid-19 pandemic. Within a short period of time the global power structure, national ruling classes, and capital had to find new modes of rule. A global public health emergency, foregrounding the need to ensure the well-being of societies and manage crisis-ridden globalized economies, brought a different set of imperatives to the fore. Decades of privatizing and underfunding public health care, sharp social inequalities, and externally dependent economies all fell short. It is in this context that Joe Biden’s proclamation that ‘trickle-down economics has never worked’ has to be understood. While the Biden administration appears to be upending some of the key tenets of neoliberal ideology, the conjunctural shift propelled by the Covid-19 pandemic has been playing itself out differently in other parts of the world. In South Africa the response to the pandemic took place in a context of more than two-and-a-half decades of neoliberal restructuring. Managing a crisis-ridden, globalized, and carbon-based capitalist economy, South Africa’s deeply corrupt government continued to use a financialized market rationality as the basis for its response, including policies to mitigate the socio-economic impacts and challenges the pandemic presented. The ruling class is completely disconnected from the suffering in society, displaying a strong appetite for criminalized accumulation, while the crisis of legitimacy of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its allies intensifies. A failing class project has been rammed down the throat of a fear-ridden and vulnerable society

Beyond Marikana: the post-apartheid South African state

This article situates the Marikana massacre, in which 34 mine workers were gunned down by police in South Africa, in the context of what the South African state has become, and questions the characterisation of the post-Apartheid state as a “developmental state”. This contribution first highlights what is at stake when the post-Apartheid state is portrayed as a “developmental state” and how this misrecognition of the state is ideologically constituted. Second, it argues for an approach to understanding the post-Apartheid state by locating it within the context of the rise of transnational neoliberalism and the process of indigenising neoliberalism on the African continent. Third, it examines the actual economic practices of the state that constitute it as an Afro-neoliberal state. Such economic practices are historicised to show the convergence between the post-Apartheid state and the ideal type neoliberal state coming to the fore in the context of global neoliberal restructuring and crisis management. The article concludes by recognising that South Africa’s deep globalisation and globalised state affirm a form of state practice beyond utilising market mechanisms that includes perpetrating violence to secure its existence. Marikana makes this point.Dieser Beitrag setzt das Marikana-Massaker, bei dem 34 Bergarbeiter von der Polizei erschossen wurden, in Bezug zum derzeitigen Zustand des südafrikanischen Staates. Gleichzeitig wird die Charakterisierung des Post-Apartheid-Staates als „Entwicklungsstaat“ infrage gestellt. Der Autor beleuchtet zunächst, was diese Charakterisierung impliziert und inwieweit diese Fehlinterpretation ideologisch begründet ist. Er plädiert dann für einen Ansatz, der den Zustand des Post-Apartheid-Staates im Kontext des wachsenden Einflusses des Neoliberalismus sowie der „Indigenisierung“ des Neoliberalismus auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent erklärt. Schließlich analysiert er die aktuellen wirtschaftspolitischen Entscheidungen, die den südafrikanischen Staat zu einem „afro-neoliberalen“ Staat machen, und zeigt die Konvergenz zwischen diesen Entscheidungen und einem idealtypischen Staat im Rahmen von globaler neoliberaler Umstrukturierung und Krisenmanagement. Der Autor kommt zu dem Schluss, dass die tiefe Einbindung Südafrikas in die Globalisierung eine Form staatlichen Handelns bedingt, die über die Ausschöpfung von Marktmechanismen hinaus auch die Gewaltanwendung zur Sicherung der eigenen Existenz einschließt. Die Vorgänge in Marikana sind dafür ein Beleg