[DEBATE] : (Fwd) South Africa's Minerals Energy Complex - UKZN workshop on 17-18 June

[Patrick Bond]

The Minerals Energy Complex: Economic Development Strategic Research 
Initiative (EDSRI) workshop, 17th and 18th June 2008      Print

Just over a decade ago, Ben Fine and Zav Rustomjee co-authored what some 
regard as one of the most significant books on the South African 
economy, entitled The Political Economy of South Africa, from 
Minerals-Energy Complex to Industrialisation. (WUP, 1996). The book 
generated some debate both within academia as well as in policy circles 
for a while, in the context of the political developments in South 
Africa at that time, and the need for the new government both to 
understand more about the nature of the South African economy, and to 
think through, given this, the kind of policy framework that would be 
required to address the appalling legacy that apartheid had left. But it 
would not be unfair to say that the MEC as a way of characterising the 
SA system of capitalist accumulation has, since the late 1990s, been 
ignored and dismissed.
 
Now 10 years later, the Economic Development Strategic Research 
Initiative (EDSRI) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, (which is a 
cluster of departments in the broad area of economic development and 
political economy, which was established by the Research Office to 
promote research in this area across the University's many campuses), 
convened by Professor Vishnu Padayachee, has decided to revisit that 
debate by hosting a day and half workshop on the theme The MEC: how 
significant does it remain to an understanding of the nature of the 
Political Economy of South Africa?  The workshop will debate and discuss 
the ways in which the MEC has evolved, mutated in the light of factors 
such as the globalisation of the SA economy after apartheid; the shift 
to the centre of the economy of finance; the demise of the mining 
finance-houses; the listing in London of  some of South Africa's major 
mining and finance houses, such as Anglo-American, BHP Billiton and 
others; changes in the global demand and supply of key commodities in 
the wake of developments in China and India, and the energy crisis 
currently being experienced in SA.
 
A wide variety of SA scholars, and also international scholars who can 
meet their flight costs will be invited (including Ben Fine) as well as 
some key national and provincial government officials in departments 
such as Trade and Industry, Minerals and Energy, Finance, as well as 
labour and civil society organisations working on areas of the economy 
and energy. The workshop will offer a unique opportunity for leading 
scholars and policy-makers and civil society to meet to think through 
and debate academic and policy issues related to the structure of the SA 
economy, as well as to key aspects such as industrialisation, energy, 
finance, conglomerates, electricity. We believe that such an academic 
and policy meeting has not occurred in South Africa since the heady 
early days of the transition to democracy, and is long overdue. EDSRI 
intends to use the papers presented as a basis of commissioning an 
edited volume on this theme, and to explore the potential for an 
externally funded programme of continuing collaborative research and 
related activity in training and policy advice.

For planning purposes, anybody wishing to attend should contact Vishnu 
Padayachee.
 
The draft programme follows below:

      Day One (June 17th) evening, Ikes Bookshop,
48a Florida Rd. Morningside, Durban.
      17h00-18h00: cocktails, light dinner
18h00-18h15: Welcome (Vishnu Padayachee)
18h15-18h45: Bill Freund (UKZN): Intellectual traditions in the study of 
the South African political economy.
18h30-19h00: Discussion

      Day Two (June 18th), Makaranga Gardens Lodge, Kloof.
      08h30: Registration, coffee
      Morning session: Chair: Vishnu Padayachee (SDS, UKZN)
      09h00: Welcome: Vishnu Padayachee (UKZN)
09h15-10h00: Ben Fine (SOAS, University of London): Revisiting the MEC 
10 years on.
10h00-10h45: Nicolas Pons-Vignon and and Seeraj  Mohamed (CSID, Wits): 
Financialisation and the MEC.
10h45-11h00: Tea
      11h00-11h45: Simon Roberts (Competition Commission and Wits): 
Industrial policy under democracy: apartheid's grown-up infant 
industries - Iscor and Sasol.
11h45-12h30: Eddie Webster and Andries Bezuidenhout (Sociology/SWOP, 
Wits): Trajectories of manufacturing: white goods manufacturing in 
Australia, South Africa and South Korea.
12h30-13h00 Discussion of morning papers
      13h00-14h15: Lunch
      Early afternoon session: Chair: Jim Fairburn (Economics, UKZN)
      14h15-15h00: Patrick Bond (Director, CCS, and SDS): The MEC, 
carbon trading and climate change
15h00-15h45: Jackie Dugard: (Acting Director, CALS, Wits) A rights based 
approach to electricity provision
      15h45-16h30: afternoon tea (deliberately longish)
 
Late afternoon session: Chair: Glen Robbins (SDS, UKZN)
IT support (Skype): Patrick Bond
      16h30-16h50: (via SKYPE) Gavin Capps (University of Johannesburg): 
A Bourgeois Reform with Social Justice? Platinum Mining, the Mineral 
Development Bill and the Post-apartheid Transformation of the MEC.
16h50-17h10: (via SKYPE) David MacDonald (Queens, Canada): Electric 
capitalism: conceptualizing electricity and capital accumulation in 
(South) Africa.
      Early evening session Chair: Vishnu Padayachee
17h10-18h00: The way forward: ideas about taking this debate forward.
Keith Hart 20 minutes, followed by general discussion
18h30: Drinks/dinner