[Debate] (Fwd) Numsa moots nationalisation
Patrick Bond
pbond at mail.ngo.za
Sat May 19 09:36:37 BST 2012
Mines, banks, land etc. must all be nationalised - Irvin Jim
Irvin Jim
17 May 2012
NUMSA general secretary's presents union's 2012 discussion documents
*Statement by Irvin Jim, NUMSA general secretary, on Numsa 25^th
Anniversary and Launch of its 2012 Policy Discussion Documents
Statement*, *May 17 2012, University of Johannesburg, Bunting Road,
Johannesburg, May 17 2012*
/"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggles."/ (The Communist Manifesto, 1848)
National Office Bearers of Numsa
ANC led Alliance leaders present
Cosatu leaders present
Cosatu affiliates leaders resent
Numsa shopstewards
All weather Friends of Numsa
Government representatives in attendance
Business representatives
The media of course!
Friends and Comrades!
*A. Numsa at 25*
1. I am deeply humbled by history to be present at this important
occasion, the occasion to mark Numsa's 25 years of unbroken and heroic
shopfloor and revolutionary struggles for socialism, as the only answer
to the problems of humanity.
2. During the past 25 years, this year. Numsa has seen a quarter of a
century of heroic revolutionary struggles representing workers in all
the factories we organise in, and in our communities, country and the
world at large; for the struggle for socialism.
3. The current leadership of Numsa on behalf of the entire membership of
Numsa as an organization continues to be proud of the sacrifices made by
all our forbearers who build various unions which merged and formed
Numsa in 1987. We do so to bear testimony to the fact that indeed a
giant was born, in 1987, in the name of Numsa!
4. We remember with pride, Sam Ntuli, Mbuyiselo Ngwenda, Moses Phako,
George Makgatswane, John Gomomo, Bimba Manqabashana, George Nkadimeng,
Jabulile Ndlovu, Mthuthuzeli Tom,, David Makgatho, Victor Railo, Daniel
Kmubheka, Paul Sehlogo and Vincent Mabuyakhulu, among many others.
5. The revolutionary contributions made by all these comrades, together
with the collectives of past national leadership produced by metal
workers at different epochs of our revolution, teaches all of us one
single lesson: that both the old and young generation must learn from
each other and that the sky is the limit for metal workers all over the
world. We shall continue to celebrate their contributions.
6. It is impossible to thank all the past members and leaders of Numsa
enough. Numsa is what it is today because of the selflessness,
sacrifices, revolutionary commitment and consistence in the pursuit of
the interests of the Numsa members at the shop floor and the broader
working class.
7. This year Numsa is 25 glorious years old. It is a mature, militant
and revolutionary trade union. Numsa is fearlessly anti-capitalist and
an unashamedly a Socialist union, a real Red Union! We owe this to the
members of Numsa - all of them - past and present, for building this union.
8. It is not by accident that even during the greatest global capitalist
recession Numsa has continued to grow, as reflected in its membership
report to Congress.
9. Numsa continues to grow even as all its sectors are going through
tough times simply because many ordinary workers have come to identify
with Numsa's militant and revolutionary defence of their shop floor and
community struggles.
10. As we celebrate 25 years of hard work in defence of the shop floor
and community rights of our members and the broader working class, let
us not forget that every second, every minute, every hour of the past 25
years has been secured through the hard work, discipline and dedication
to the defence of ordinary members of Numsa and the broader working class.
11. We are proud and happy, and today we must openly thank all our
workers of Numsa in our locals, regions and at head office. Each one of
them, past and present, have left a mark and laid a brink, in the
building of Numsa.
12. As a union, we are not a company and we do not make profits, and
thus we cannot compete with the private sector in terms of wages and
conditions of service. All workers at Numsa thus make huge sacrifices,
personal sacrifices, to ensure that Numsa survives, is vibrant and
continues to grow.
13. At 25 years, we say "thank you" to all Numsa workers past and present.
14. I can, without any doubt, say today that Numsa is strong and a
militant, campaigning and revolutionary Socialist trade union!
*B. What exactly is Numsa?*
1. From its inception, Numsa has always embraced and celebrated its two
fundamental roles: a defender of its member's shop floor rights and
interests and a revolutionary formation committed to advancing the
struggle for the leadership of the working class in society: the
struggle for a socialist democratic order.
2. As a trade union, Numsa does not demand any ideological, political or
religious preconditions for membership; to become a member of Numsa one
only has to be employed in the sectors in which Numsa organises and of
course one has to subscribe to the objectives of the Numsa Constitution.
3. Numsa recruits and organises its members on the basic understanding
that the unity of the working class in general, and members of a trade
union in particular, is sacrosanct. Further, as a trade union, numbers,
its mass membership, is what gives it its greatest strength on the shop
floor.
4. As a revolutionary formation committed to the struggle for a society
free of oppression, discrimination and exploitation, Numsa is
unashamedly a committed revolutionary trade union. This means that Numsa
draws from the rich Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theoretical and
ideological traditions.
5. Thus arising from its rich Marxist-Leninist traditions, Numsa was and
is opposed to capitalism; Numsa was opposed to the Apartheid capitalist
system, and continues to be opposed and fights all forms of oppression,
discrimination and exploitation both on the shop floor and in society.
6. It order to contribute to its constitutionally stated goal of a
society free of oppression, discrimination and exploitation, Numsa
believes that such a society can only be brought about by the abolition
of capitalism and the establishment of worker leadership and control of
society - and the eventual abolition of class society.
7. Such a free and truly egalitarian society can only be achieved under
the leadership of an organised and united working class.
8. A rich set of values defines and guides Numsa:
a. Fighting and opposing discrimination in all its forms within the
Union, the factories and in society;
b. Striving for maximum unity amongst organised metalworkers and
organise every unorganised metalworker into our national industrial Union;
c. Ensuring that all levels of our Union are democratically structured
and controlled by the worker members themselves through elected worker
committees;
d. Encouraging democratic worker leadership and organisation in our
factories and in all spheres of society;
e. Reinforcing and encouraging progressive international
worker-to-worker contact so as to strengthen the worldwide society of
metalworkers.
9. These and the rich traditions of worker control and maximum internal
democracy and democratic centralism guide the union in its day to day work.
*C. The conditions of the working class in South Africa today: the
reality we inhabit*
1. What is the situation for the working class in South Africa today?
What are the challenges confronting Numsa as a revolutionary trade union
and all progressive working class formations in South Africa today?
2. To properly answer these questions, we perhaps must visit some of the
liberation movement's important documents and strategic objectives, and
determine how far the country has gone towards achieving these
objectives, post 1994.
3. We then must also conduct a detailed Marxist analysis of the
performance of the working class in achieving its goal of moving the
country away from Apartheid capitalism to an egalitarian working class
country, to a Socialist Republic of South Africa.
4. In 1969, the ANC at Morogoro said the following, about the liberation
struggle in South Africa:
"/In our country - more than in any other part of the oppressed world -
it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of
the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a
fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than
formal political democracy. To allow the existing economic forces to
retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy
and does not represent even the shadow of liberation."/
*C.1. Unemployment*
1. In our new democratic South Africa today:
1. On average, 400 000 young people do not proceed with their studies
after writing matriculation exams every year
2. 72% of the unemployed are young people; 95% of them do not have
tertiary education because of the limited capacity of the tertiary
sector to absorb them and no money to proceed with further studies,
among other problems.
3. 68% of the unemployed have been unemployed for more than a year
4. 60% of the unemployed have either never worked in their lives or have
not worked in the past 5 years
5. 60% of the unemployed have less than secondary education
6. Unemployment among Africans was estimated to be 38% in 1995 and it
stood at 45% in 2005, now the unemployment rate among Africans is almost
50%. Among whites the unemployment rate is estimated to be around 6%.
7. Among Africans of working age, only 36% are absorbed into employment
whilst on the other hand, 65% of Whites of working age are absorbed into
employment
8. For young people, being African reduces the chance of being employed
by 90%, in comparison to being white
9. Despite similar qualifications, whites are on average 30% more likely
to be employed than Africans
1. This situation painted by the statistics above are a reflection of
the continuing and persisting Apartheid capitalist economic and social
relations.
2. We have failed in the past 18 years to address the property question
in South Africa in favour of all the people of South Africa.
*C.2. Mass poverty*
1. During the Morogoro Conference of the ANC in 1969, the ANC further
said the following on the indissoluble link between national and
economic emancipation in South Africa:
/"Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a very real
way bound up with economic emancipation. We have suffered more than just
national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their due in the
country's wealth; their skills have been suppressed and poverty and
starvation has been their life experience. The correction of these
centuries-old economic injustices lies at the very core of our national
aspirations. We do not understand the complexities which will face a
people's government during the transformation period nor the enormity of
the problems of meeting economic needs of the mass of the oppressed
people. But one thing is certain - in our land this cannot be
effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic resources are
at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated by
sections or individuals be they White or Black."/
2. Where are we today, in terms of eradicating poverty, despite all the
commendable efforts at providing mass housing, mass electrification,
mass sanitation and piped water within the constraints of South African
racial capitalism?
1. The UNDP Report 2010 that 44% of workers in South Africa live on less
than R10 a day (This is almost equivalent to a loaf of brown bread)
2. Each member of the household has to survive on R547.34 a month, which
translates into R18 a day
3. The majority of persons that are not employed rely on financial
assistance from a person within their household (77.5%), but 44% of
these employed people themselves survive on less than R10 a day.
4. 48% of the South African population, almost half of the people in
South Africa, live below R322 a month, which is less than R10 a day
5. Almost 25% of South African households have inadequate access to
food, this figure was 20% in 2009
6. Because of the scale of poverty, almost 20% of people who head
households save money by walking to work.
3. These statistics confirm that it is impossible to win the struggle to
restore the dignity of the majority of the people of our country by
piecemeal social reforms.
4. We need a radical redistributive NDR at the heart of which will be to
resolve the property question in South Africa by radically increasing
the share of wealth which goes to the majority of the population.
5. The situation above anywhere in the world would lead to a social
revolution.
*C.3. Inequality*
1. The main aims and objectives of the South African national democratic
revolution are properly captured in the Freedom Charter, a seminal
revolutionary document of the ANC and its allies. A core tenet of the
Freedom Charter says:
/"The people shall share in the country's wealth!/
/The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans,
shall be restored to the people; The mineral wealth beneath the soil,
the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of
the people as a whole; All other industry and trade shall be controlled
to assist the well-being of the people; All people shall have equal
rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all
trades, crafts and professions."/
2. Again, despite all the post 1994 reforms and aimed at eliminating
mass poverty and inequality and advancing equal access to social and
economic opportunities within the context of South African semi colonial
economy and society, today, 18 years after formal democracy was declared
in South Africa we have the following picture:
1. Whites earn 8 times what Africans earn.
2. The bottom 50% of the South African population lives on 8% of
national income, and the top 50% lives on 92% of national income.
3. The top 5% earners take 30 times what the bottom 5% earners take.
4. The directors of the top 20 listed companies on Johannesburg Stock
Exchange earn 1728 times the average worker, in the US the directors
there earn 319 times.
5. Approximately 71% of African female-headed households earn less than
R800 a month and 59% of these had no income
6. 58% of African male-headed households earn less than R800 a month and
48% had no income
7. An average African man earns in the region of R2 400 per month,
whilst an average white man earns around R19 000 per month
8. Most white women earn in the region of R9 600 per month, whereas most
African women earn R1 200 per month
9. 56% of Whites earn no less than R6 000 per month whereas 81% of
Africans earn no more than R6 000 per month.
10. Among Africans 55% live in dwellings with less than 3 rooms and 21%
live in 1-room dwellings, whereas at least 50% of White households lives
in dwellings with more than 4 rooms
11. 70% of matriculation passes is accounted for by 11% of the schools
which are historically White, Indian and Coloured
12. The pass rate in black schools is an average of 44% whereas in white
schools it is 97%
13. Classroom sizes in white schools are 24 learners, in African schools
they are 32, but in Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga the sizes are
between 40 and 50 learners.
14. The life expectancy of a white South African now stands at 71 years
and that of a black South African stands at 48 years, whites expect to
live 23 years more than Africans
15. Only 9% of the African population belong to a medical aid scheme
whilst 74% of the white population do.
3. The share of income going to the majority of the people of South
Africa who, by and large are the black and African working class and the
rural poor clearly confirms that without nationalisation the commanding
heights of the economy, the situation can only deteriorate.
*C.4. The dominance of imperialism and white monopoly capital: patterns
of ownership and Control*
1. The 1989 Programme of the South African Communist Party "The Path to
Power" says the following about the South African struggle for national
democracy, white monopoly capitalists and racial oppression in the
section on the origins of Colonialism of a Special Type:
/"The struggle for national democracy is also an expression of the class
contradiction between the black and democratic forces on the one hand,
and the monopoly capitalists on the other. The stranglehold of a small
number of white monopoly capitalists over the great bulk of our
country's wealth and resources is based on colonial dispossession and
promotes racial oppression. This concentration of wealth and power
perpetuates the super-exploitation of millions of black workers. It
perpetuates the separate plight of millions of the landless rural poor.
And it blocks the advance of black business and other sectors of the
oppressed. This reality, therefore, forms the basis of the antimonopoly
content of the national democratic programme."/
2. The picture of "Colonialism of a Special Type" is quite stubborn to
this day, 18 years into our democracy:
a. In 2008, 62% of all promotions and recruitments to top management
positions are drawn from the white population, which is 12% of the South
African population
b. Whites make up 75% of all top management positions in the economy,
almost 20 years into democracy and they continue to promote each other.
c. 70% of South African exports are from petrochemicals (SASOL), Basic
Iron and Steel (Arcelor Mittal) and the mines.
d. SASOL is about 30% foreign-owned, and is privately owned, was
state-owned and was privatized.
e. Arcelor-Mittal is 65% foreign owned, was state-owned and now is
privately owned.
f. Anglo-American has since delisted from Johannesburg Stock Exchange
and is now headquartered in London, strategic mines remain
privately-owned and foreign-owned.
g. The financial sector accounts for 22% of South Africa's GDP and is
dominated by 4 banks two of which have significant foreign ownership:
h. ABSA is 56% foreign-owned whilst Standard Bank is at least 40%
foreign owned.
i. The wholesale and retail sector makes up 14% of South African GDP and
also has significant foreign-ownership, Massmart is 60% foreign-owned,
Shoprite is 35%, Truworths is 50%, Foschini is 40%, JD Group is 40%, and
Lewis is 30%.
j. Beyond the above sectors, there is a need to have a comprehensive
programme to deal with monopoly capital on a sector-by-sector basis:
construction, quarrying, pharmaceuticals, forestry, etc.
k. The land question remains a problem: The department of Rural
Development and Land Reform is still chasing the 30% land reform goal of
white own agricultural land; only 10% of the 30% land earmarked for land
restitution has been transferred to black farmers, the target date for
the 30% is 2014.
l. The Commission on Restitution of Land Rights has managed to only
settle 33 of the targeted 1695 claims during the 2009/10 financial year.
m. There is no progress on scrapping the willing buyer willing seller
capitalist market strategy, despite the Polokwane resolution on the matter.
n. Foreign ownership of land is said to be under review, but the state
seems to be dilly-dallying around the issue.
o. Housing, access to basic service, education, health and so on all are
racially determined with black Africans condemned to the worst services.
3. Clearly, post 1994, South Africa is trapped in a constitutional order
that protects the vested interests of white monopoly capital, now
increasingly penetrated by foreign capital.
4. We need to revisit the 1996 Constitution and place the people of
South Africa, rather than the vested historic capitalist and Apartheid
economic interests, at the heart of our post 1996 Constitutional Order.
Our failure to do so will condemn South Africa, eternally, to hell.
*D. The Policy Discussion Documents*
1. While we could fill many volumes of books if we chose to write about
everything we have cared about in the past 25 years, we have chosen
instead to focus on just under ten themes. Thus we have produced 10
Policy Discussion Documents.
2. After the Numsa Congress, Numsa will host a Policy Conference to
process both the Resolutions of the Congress and the policy outcomes,
and thus complete the work of crafting its policies.
3. Below we briefly outline some features of the Policy Discussion
Documents.
*D.1. Discussion Document 1: Numsa's Political, Social, Economic and
International Trajectory: 2008 to date*
1. In this Document we discus the global and national class balance of
forces into which the current leadership was ushered, in 2008.
2. We discusses the work done in all the four areas (political, social,
economic and international), honestly, and raise areas of weakness that
require attention by Congress and the entire union.
3. A reasonable amount of space is spent dealing with the relationship
of Numsa with the ANC led alliance and its partners, including raising
problematic areas.
4. The Document also paints post 1994 South Africa graphically, with
socio-economic statistics.
5. When the global crisis of capitalism is combined with South Africa's
inherited development challenges, we discover that truly, only a
redistributive, decent employment creating growth path can lead South
Africa to meaningful economic, social an cultural development.
6. Thus we are forced because of what we know in this Document, to
conclude that South Africa, 18 years after 1994, must return to the
basics of the Freedom Charter if it must avoid the evolutions that are
currently raging all over the world.
7. But, despite everything else, we celebrate our victory over the
massive threat to weaken the union from the mass retrenchments as a
result of the global and South African economic crises - the union has
grown to slightly over 300 000 members - the largest it has ever been!
*D.2. Discussion Document 2: Numsa and Nationalisation*
1. This Document explains the political, theoretical and historic basis
of the necessity for the revolutionary demand for nationalisation within
the history of the South African capitalist revolution and its evolution.
2. We locate the demand for nationalisation properly within the logic
that explain why it is impossible to restore the dignity of the majority
of the people of South Africa who are by and large the working class and
the rural poor without first restoring the wealth of the country into
the hands of the people of South Africa as a whole.
3. We examine the Freedom Charter (1955) and its historic role as a
mobilising power during the struggle against Apartheid capitalism.
4. It is evident that anything short of the full implementation of he
Freedom Charter can only lead to the entrenchment of racial capitalism
in South Africa, and the continued impoverishment of the majority.
5. In this Document, we reject the revisionism, and the confining of the
demand for nationalisation to the matter of the mines only.
6. Nationalisation in our understanding and political practice is the
demand not only for resolving the historical injustice of dispossession,
oppression and exploitation, it is also about the uprooting of racism
and building the basis for a truly democratic South Africa.
7. Thus for us nationalisation must include all the commanding highest
of the economy such as banks, mines, telecommunications, land, food and
food chains, petrochemicals and so on.
8. Such nationalisation must be without compensation as it is virtually
impossible to achieve it otherwise.
9. Numsa understands the necessity for nationalisation in South Africa
as the only basis for establishing a united, non sexist, non racist and
truly democratic society and country in which all have a place in the sun.
*D.3. Discussion Document 3: Towards a metallic minerals beneficiation
strategy*
1. This Document is based on the research Numsa has done in the metallic
mining sector on beneficiation.
2. We discover, in this Document, the greatly robbery which arises from
the fact that we export unprocessed minerals and import finished goods,
made from many of our minerals.
3. The Document spends huge amount of spae and time exposing the global
value chains involving the various metallic mineral found in South Africa.
4. More than anywhere else, it is here, discussing beneficiation, that
we confirm that unless we nationalise the mines, it is impossible to
control significant segments of value chains.
5. The sheer size of the wealth that is created by metallic minerals
when compared to the development challenges we face make the case for
nationalisation absolutely necessary. At is now, South African people as
a whole are swindled everyday out of their natural wealth.
6. The Document offers a sharp critique of govenement thinking on
beneficiation.
7. At Numsa we are convinced that South Africa has more than enough
metallic mineral resources, which, if owned by the people as a whole,
and locally beneficiated, would erase poverty, unemployment and destroy
the current explosive levels of inequality in the ountry.
*D.4. Discussion Document 4: Numsa and Post 1994 South African Monetary
and Financial Policies*
1. In this Document we examine the evolving views of Numsa, over the
past 25 years, on the South African Reserve Bank.
2. We examines the constitutional mandate of the South African Reserve
Bank in the light of the post 1994 development challenges outlined
above, and we draw some conclusions including the following:
* The Reserve Bank has failed the majority of the people of this
country, especially the working class and the poor, because of its
fixation on protecting the value of the Rand at the expense of jobs
and the creation of real wealth in the country.
* The SAR's maintenance of high interests rates, inflation targeting
and such similar anti - industrialisation, anti jobs measures are
discussed.
* The fact of the SAR being a privately owned bank is rejected, and
Numsa demands that the SAR be nationalised.
* Numsa demands a complete overhaul of South Africa's monetary and
financial policies in line with a redistributive, decent job growing
economy an the overall development of the people of this country.
* Numsa rejects the privileging of money capital over industrial capital.
3. This Document uses hard evidence to support Numsa assertions.
4. Ultimately, of course, we rrgues for monetary and financial policies
to be redistributive, employment creation based and thus growth and
development promoting.
*D.5. Discussion Document 5: Numsa and the Alliance*
1. In this Document we uncover the history of Numsa's views and
positions on the question of the ANC led Alliance.
2. The Document examines the various nuanced relationships in the
Alliance and between Numsa and the Alliance and its partners.
3. Numsa is very clear that the ANC led Alliance is an alliance of
classes. We do not regard the ANC as the alliance.
4. Thus starting from 1987, Numsa has consistently called for the
Alliance to function as an alliance of conscious class forces.
5. We have demanded that the Alliance, and not the ANC, must be the
strategic centre of power. In this regard, we have always suggested ways
in which the Alliance should function.
6. At Numsa, while it is important for the working class to fight for
hegemony in all key sites of power, we have consistently demanded for
the independence and autonomy of each Alliance partner.
7. Our demand for the SACP to have its General Secretary in office all
the time must be seen in this light - our understanding that the
Alliance is an Alliance of independent and autonomous class formations.
8. Over the years we have come to recognise and accept the ANC as the
prime organisation to lead the struggle during this phase of the
National Democratic Revolution (NDR), Numsa recognises that within the
NDR, there is potential to advance, uninterruptedly, if the working
class win hegemony over society, to socialism.
9. In our 9^th Congress we will be examining the performance of the
Alliance and determining how we can contribute to growing the capacity
of the Alliance to prosecute a socialist oriented NDR.
10. Numsa is convinced though, that without the Alliance becoming the
strategy centre of power and placing the demands of the Freedom Charter
at the heart of the work of the Alliance, and thus restoring the
revolutionary character of the Liberation Movement, the dark colonial
and racist forces will triumph over the ANC and its Alliance.
*D.6. Discussion Document 6: 1994 Democratic Breakthrough*
1. In this Document we attempt to lays the for a working class
assessment of the 1994 democratic breakthrough.
2. We explore the balances of forces globally and internally,
immediately before and after 1994.
3. We then explores the two leading tendencies in the ANC - negotiations
and complete defeat of the Nationalists, especially between 1986 and 1994.
4. We explore the constitutional outcomes of the negotiations.
5. We then examine the limits for a radical Socialist oriented NDR, post
1994.
6. Numsa is convinced that the 1996 Constitution, an outcome of the
negotiations, heavily privileged property rights at the expense of
uprooting the colonial character of South African economy and society -
the real basis and cause of the development crisis in South Africa.
7. Thus we are convinced that the continuing persistence of the
Apartheid features in our economy and society are a direct consequence
of the negotiations and its outcome, the 1996 compromise Constitution.
8. Further, we are convinced that time has come to end the Sun Set
Clauses, and to do a though review of the performance of the 1996
Constitution with a view to exposing the extent to which it has helped
South Africa to undo its Apartheid capitalist features in the economy
and society.
9. We will be demanding for this in all the Liberation Movement
formations constitutional meetings this year.
*D.7. Discussion Document 7: Numsa and Industrial Policy*
1. We outlines the contours of Numsa's struggles on the question of
industrial development
2. In the Document, we singles out key issues around industrial
development vwith rspet to:
1. Macroeconomic policy
2. Monetary/fiscal policy
3. Trade policy
4. Current government developments: IPAP
5. Suggests what is to be done
2. We suggest that nationalisation, beneficiation and control of global
value chains in which South Africa has a significant take are crucial
promoting industrialisation in South Africa oriented to providing, on
democratic basis, the basic social and economic necessities all South
Africans need to live decent lives.
3. Our call for an industrial strategy is premised on our demand for a
redistributive, decent work led, redistributive and social development
promoting growth path.
*D.8*. *Discussion Document 8: Class and Gender*
1. This Discussion Document takes a "Devil's Advocate" stance and raises
tough questions on the question of gender and class, and the systemic an
structuring location of women as a social formation, in capitalist society.
2. An attempt is made to stick to a strict Marxist-Leninist analysis of
the question of gender and the place of women in capitalist society,
thus locating their social and cultural behaviour within a system of
social existence that is premised on the commodification of human
relationships.
3. The Paper raises critical theoretical, ideological and revolutionary
practical suggestions on the question of gender, women and men, and
their relationships.
4. The Paper concludes by affirming the fact that only in a social
system free from exploitation and oppression, can the relationships
between men and women be truly "free" and equal. And of course such a
society is a socialist one.
*D.9. Discussion Document 9: Rural and Agricultural Development post 1994*
1. This Discussion Document responds to the National Development Plan
(NDP) of the National Planning Commission (NPC), dealing with rural and
agricultural development.
2. We highlight how the NDP conceals the ghastly rural and agricultural
statistics, in order to smooth over the neglect of both these crucial
aspects of national development.
3. We thus reveal the frightening conditions of life in the rural areas
especially for black and Africans.
4. But, more importantly, the Paper exposes the critical intolerable
conditions of rural black and African women.
5. The failure of develop agriculture and the concentration in this
sector of a few large farms is highlighted, thus exposing further why
rural social relations and poverty are worsening.
6. The dominance of the MEFC and its treatment of the rural economy and
social space is dealt with
7. Suggestions on rural and agricultural development are made including
expropriation of land without compensation to speed land reforms.
*D.10. Discussion Document 10: Numsa's Critique of NDP*
1. We examine the origins of the NPC - the working class dissatisfaction
with post 1994 South Africa, among others:
* The adoption of neo-liberalism by the ANC government
* The abandoning of the RDP
* The sidelining of the Alliance in policy formulation and implementation
* The dominance of Treasury
* The absence of a nationwide plan and planning framework
2. We raise the structural matter of the relationship of the NPC to the
ANC government and to the ANC itself, and we reject the effort to place
the NPC beyond reach of both government and the ANC.
3. We reject the fake attempt at being non ideological when in fact the
NPC's outputs clearly betray a neoliberal bent.
4. The NPC and its Diagnostics - we note that the NPC in its Diagnostics
merely diagnosed the symptoms, rather than the root cause, of our
development challenges: the underlying Apartheid and colonial character
of our economy and iuts social relations.
5. We reject the migration of Treasury government employees into the NPC
who were central to burying the hopes and aspirations of millions of
South Africans under their neoliberal management of national finances.
6. We find that the NDP fails to outline how finance capital will be
subordinated to industrial capital, and thus expansion of the real
economy, creation of decent jobs and promotion of equality and
elimination of poverty.
7. We conclude, among other things that:
i. Both the Diagnostics Report and the NDP are based on a false,
theoretically weak analytical foundation - in a thinly veiled attempt to
conceal the underlying false neoliberal assumptions about South Africa
and its development challenges.
ii. We find that the NDP is not anchored around the dynamic to destroy
"Colonialism of a Special Type" (CST) post 1994, in South Africa, and
thus it easily joins the many false promises of development in South
Africa post 1994.
iii. Thus we suggest that everything about the NPC needs to be redone
in order to define properly what it is, where it must be located and
what it must do, in post 1994 South Africa.
*E. Numsa 9^th Congress in Durban, 2012*
1. Numsa is ready to host its 9^th National Congress in Durban from the
3^rd to the 8^th of June, 2012.
2. The Congress coincides with nationwide celebrations of Numsa's 25
years of existence and uninterrupted revolutionary struggles at the
shopfloor, in our communities, in South Africa and the whole world.
3. We expect our delegates to debate robustly all the Resolutions and
policy proposals, and to emerge with a leadership capable of leading the
organisation during this phase of class struggles in South Africa and
the whole world.
4. As usual, we are confident that the Union will emerge stronger, more
united, militant as ever and with a singular revolutionary focus to
represent its members on the shopfloor and in the country as a whole,
and on the world stage.
*5. Looking ahead, to the next Quarter of a Century*
1. South Africa is a racist capitalist country grown on the history of
slavery, colonialism, white monopoly capitalism and Apartheid. Numsa has
a historic revolutionary duty to play, in undoing this history which
conditions our present and haunts our future.
2. Numsa will continue to challenge the basic foundation of the South
African economy - the domination of the Minerals/Energy/Finance Complex
(MECFC), with a view to contributing to liberating the country from this
dominance, and to rebuild the manufacturing sector.
3. Numsa will continue to argue that the Minerals/Energy/Finance
Complex, and the white community it supports in South Africa, are
premised on the continued colonial exploitation of black and African
labour, and that our historic task is to dismantle this domination and
exploitation and in its place, fight for a truly free and democratic
Socialist South Africa.
4. We look forward to the next 25 years of class struggles!
On behalf of all the members of Numsa, I thank you all, very much, for
coming to observe this day with us!
*/Irvin Jim/*
*/Numsa General Secretary/*
*/17^th May, 2012/*
*/Johannesburg/*
/Issued by NUMSA, May 17 2012
/
/
***
/
NUMSA on nationalisation
NUMSA
17 May 2012
Union discussion document for the 2012 national congress, May 17 2012
*Numsa 2012 National Congress Policy Discussion Documents*
*Numsa and Nationalisation: The economic basis of the struggle for freedom*
*May 2012*
/"The people shall share in the country's wealth!/
/The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans,
shall be restored to the people; The mineral wealth beneath the soil,
the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of
the people as a whole; All other industry and trade shall be controlled
to assist the well-being of the people; All people shall have equal
rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all
trades, crafts and professions."/
//(Kliptown, 26 June 1955,///"The Freedom Charter")/
"/The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggles./
/Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master
and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant
opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now
open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary
reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the
contending classes./"
(Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 1848, in "Manifesto of the Communist
Party")
*A. Purpose and Origins of the Numsa Policy Discussion Documents*
1. This year, 2012, Numsa turns 25 years. These have been 25 hard years
of revolutionary struggle, of wielding together into one giant metal
workers union of several fragmented unions.
2. At 25, Numsa is very proud to mark a quarter of a century of
revolutionary work on the shop floor, in working class communities and
against the Apartheid capitalist establishment.
3. As a union that unashamedly is Socialist in the Marxist-Leninist
traditions, is an affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU), Numsa in 2012 proudly marks 25 years of heroic
shopfloor and community struggles together with all the formations of
the Liberation Movement - struggles which culminated into the
destruction of the abominable Apartheid system in 1994.
4. At 25 years and with slightly more than 300 000 members, Numsa has a
lot to celebrate and be proud of, in 2012.
5. This Policy Discussion Document forms part of a number of Policy
Discussion Documents Numsa has produced to mark 25 years of
revolutionary shop-floor and community struggles in support of our
strategic revolutionary goal of winning working class power in the
economy and in society.
6. These Policy Discussion Documents are produced in order to stimulate
internal Numsa policy debates and engagements, but also to invite the
general public both in and outside South Africa, to join Numsa in
thinking through how best to advance the struggle for an egalitarian
Socialist Republic of South Africa, as the only real cure of all the
social, economic, political and cultural challenges currently
threatening the very existence of the post 1994 democratic South Africa.
7. Numsa is happy and inviting written submissions on any aspects of all
the Policy Discussion Documents.
8. These Policy Discussion Documents are not academic papers, for
engagement purely at the academic level. The Papers are written for the
broadest possible engagement within and outside Numsa, for the purposes
of assisting Numsa to craft its policies, after 25 years!
9. At this stage, unless expressly stated, none of the Policy Discussion
Documents must be construed as representing or expressing Numsa's Policy
on any subject.
10. The Policy Discussion Documents must be viewed as having been
produced for the sole purpose of stimulating internal Numsa policy
debates and inviting external views.
11. After the Numsa 2012 National Congress, Numsa will hold a full
National Policy Conference in which both the policies and resolutions
outputs from the 2012 National Congress and the outcome of engagements
on the Numsa Policy Discussion Documents will be processed into Numsa
Draft Policy Positions, for onward transmission and adoption by the
relevant Numsa constitutional structures.
12. All the Policy Discussion Documents have freely benefited from
official Liberation Movement documents in general and from Numsa and
Cosatu resolutions and policy documents in particular.
13. Thus in all those instances in which there is a perfect coincidence
between Numsa's position and any formation of the Liberation Movement,
no strenuous effort has been made to cite the relevant documents!
*B. The class struggles around redistribution, growth and development
pre and post 1994 South Africa: popular socialist nationalisation versus
protection of white economic interests?*
1. This Numsa Policy Discussion Document lays out the theoretical,
political and ideological grounds for the debate and formulation of
Numsa's policy on Nationalisation, 25 years after the birth of Numsa.
2. Without being too laboriously detailed, this Discussion Paper first
illustrates what 18 years after 27 April 1997, South Africa has become.
3. The picture of what South Africa is after 1994 is designed to
facilitate a deeper understanding of the economic basis and the
magnitude of the social and economic challenges confronting the task of
building a truly equal and democratic South African society, as the only
and absolute rational basis for building a fully democratic, non racist
and non sexist and prosperous South Africa, post 1994.
4. The Discussion Document then examines the leading theoretical,
philosophical and political document that best captured the vision of a
truly democratic post Apartheid South Africa - the Freedom Charter.
5. An examination of some of the leading documents of the Liberation
Movement such as the ANC 1969 Morogoro Strategy and Tactics; the SACP
Road to Socialism and a cluster on economic policy and others follows.
6. The Document then proceeds to review the 1994 democratic break
through. The two main tendencies - negotiations with the Apartheid
regime versus military overthrow and defeat of Apartheid - of the ANC
are examined with a view to illustrating what potential or lack thereof
could be found in the outcomes of the negotiations (which tendency, of
course, prevailed).
7. The review of some of the key political documents of the Liberation
Movement is designed to facilitate an appreciation of the main content,
the strategic goals, of the struggle for freedom in South Africa,
especially in the light of the ANC having turned 100 years this year, 2012.
8. An attempt is made to illustrate the balance of class forces globally
and in South Africa, immediately before, during and after 1994, and the
fate of nationalisation is examined in the light of the negotiated
settlement.
9. The Paper then proceeds to expose how the debate on nationalisation
has evolved post 1994, culminating into the 2010 ANC NGC. An effort is
made, in particular, to illustrate the nuanced positions of the SACP,
COSATU, and the ANC on the question of nationalisation.
10. An appendix to this Policy Discussion Paper uses Zambia as a good
example of what to, and what not to do, with nationalisation.
11. The remainder of the Paper exposes the class basis for the demand
and renunciation of nationalisation in South Africa today.
12. The discussion on "nationalisation" contained in this Document does
not claim to be exhaustive and exclusive either of methodology used, the
evidence adduced, or the theories advanced. Thus this Paper gladly
welcomes any additions, deletions, criticisms, and corrections as the
matter may be, as long as these are aimed at advancing the quality of
the debates on the matter of nationalisation in South Africa today.
13. We are convinced that the treatment of the subject of
nationalisation in this Document lays a solid basis for the Union to
engage with the matter of redistribution, employment, growth and
development in South Africa in that order, and the essence of the demand
for nationalisation in the unique South African context and history.
*C. Race, Class and Gender and National oppression and exploitation in
South Africa: an anatomy of the South African Economy and Society post 1994*
1. What are some of the key features of South African society and
economy after April 27, 1994? While formal Apartheid has ended, and much
by way of social improvements of the lives of the people has happened
through the ANC government, we find the realities below, persisting, and
in many instances, worsening.
2. From the socio-economic perspective, South Africa is clearly more a
concentration of the extreme of that which is bad than that which is
good in the world. To demonstrate this concentration of global extremes
in our country, the World Development Report (2006) begins its overview
of the state of global inequalities by a story of two South Africans,
one black and female and the other white and male.
3. The gist of the story is that the black female South African has a
7.2 percent chance of dying in the first year of her life, whereas the
white male has 3 percent chance of dying.
4. We also learn from this Report that the black South African female
can expect to live 12 years shorter than the white male, and that an
average male Swede can expect to live 30 years more than an average
black South African female[1]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftn1>.
5. The life expectancy of South Africans was the highest in 1992, at 62
years. Ever since then life expectancy fell to 50 years in 2006[2]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftn2>.
6. Although South Africa is ranked 79 globally in terms of GDP per
capita, we rank 178 in terms of life expectancy, 130 in terms of infant
mortality, and 119 in terms of doctors per 1000 people.
7. Some of these health statistics have slightly improved during the
democratic dispensation; nevertheless a major concern is the discrepancy
between the per capita size of output and the comparative performance of
South Africa in terms of human development.
8. The situation seems to have worsened since 2006. The life expectancy
of a white South African now stands at 71 years and that of a black
South African stands at 48 years, according to the South African
Institute of Race Relations Survey (2009). Whites therefore expect to
live 23 years more than blacks according to the study.
9. Such are the prospects facing black people in general in South
Africa, particularly African South African women. In general, the
quality of life of an average African South African is not rosy compared
to that of their white counterparts.
10. Black households are three times more likely to earn below a monthly
income of R3 500 compared to white households.
11. Being white alone significantly reduces the chances of a household
earning less than R3 500 a month.
12. African households are three times more likely to stay in informal
settlements compared to white households.
13. White households are four times more likely to have access to a
mortgage compared to a black household[3]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftn3>.
14. The World Development Report records that even accessing a loan to
start a business ultimately boils down to the race question.
15. The nature of income inequalities in South Africa shows that the
race factor continues to be dominant.
16. An average African man earns in the region of R2 400 per month,
whilst an average white man earns around R19 000 per month. The racial
income gap is therefore roughly R16 800 among males.
17. Most white women earn in the region of R9 600 per month, whereas
most African women earn R1 200 per month. The racial income gap in
monthly incomes among women is therefore R8 400.
18. The race gap is therefore overwhelmingly severe among males. A
comparison between African men and White women shows the dominance of
race as well. The gap in monthly income between African men and White
women is R7 200.
19. These patterns of income distribution determine the future evolution
of chances of having better life.
20. To quote the World Development Report (2006): "/Disadvantaged
children from families at the bottom of the wealth distribution do not
have the same opportunities as children from wealthier families to
receive quality education.////So these disadvantaged children can expect
to earn less as adults. Because the poor have less voice in the
political process, they-like their parents-will be less able to
influence spending decisions to improve public schools for their
children. And the cycle of underachievement continues/". This is what
the Report calls the "inequality trap". This is the situation that we
are in.
21. The unemployment rate among Africans is 29%, for coloureds it stands
at 22% and for Indians it is 13%.
22. For whites, the unemployment rate is 5%, which is comparable to that
of advanced economies.
23. This shows that, even when it comes to access to opportunities to
earn income, Africans remain severely marginalized.
24. Africans have lived in a depression for many decades. This has
generated among Africans massive discouragement to participate in
mainstream economic activity.
25. The rate of participation of Africans in the labour force is 52% and
for whites it is 68%.
26. Because of the continued structures of domination and exclusion, it
will not be wrong to conclude that most Africans do not participate in
the labour force because they are the least absorbed in employment.
27. Among Africans of working age (between 15-64 years), only 36% are
absorbed into employment whilst on the other hand, 65% of Whites of
working age are absorbed into employment[4]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftn4>.
28. The scourge of unemployment affects the youth the most.
29. Of the unemployed 72 percent are young people aged between 15 and 34
years of age. Of the unemployed youth, 78 percent are African[5]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftn5>.
30. The proportion of Africans in total youth unemployment is 90%.
Already, there is a significant number of youth that has never engaged
in any type of employment. This situation shows that South Africa may be
in a "racially defined inequality trap".
31. The key drivers of unemployment are race, gender, location and
education.
32. Unemployment affects those with less than Std 10 the most.
33. Almost 50% of African heads of households have less than Std 7 and
in contrast, only 8% of white heads of households have the same level of
education.
34. Beneath the official unemployment figures lies a terrible situation
in South Africa's labour market. Between the third quarter of 2008 and
the third quarter of 2009, for example, the number of discouraged
work-seekers grew by 561 000.
35. The total number of people who have been discouraged to look for
employment now (2009) stands at 1 632 000, which is 5% of people of
working age.
36. On an annual basis, the number of discouraged work-seekers rose by
40.6% in the second quarter of 2009. In the third quarter of 2009, this
is figure rose by 52.4%.
37. Discouraged work-seekers are rising way faster than all categories
of unemployment. The migration of active job seekers into the
discouraged places a significant long-term constraint on the improvement
of the labour market, because it is in the discouraged segment that
whatever little skill people might have had, is eroded.
38. With parents a significant number of whom have less than Std 7
education, earning less than R3 000 a month, with a high probability of
being denied access to loans and mortgages, the majority of African
youth and children are likely to be trapped in vicious generational
cycle of being out-competed nationally and globally in the ownership and
control of the means of production.
39. Indeed "70% of (matriculation) exam passes are accounted for by just
11% of schools, the former white, coloured, and Asian schools"[6]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftn6>.
40. What is of major concern is that 12-year olds in South Africa
perform three times less than 11-year olds in Russia when it comes to
reading and 16-year olds in South Africa perform three times less than
14-year olds in Cyprus when it comes to mathematics[7]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftn7>.
41. Nevertheless, white learners perform in line with the international
average in both science and mathematics, which is twice the score of
African learners.
42. The reason for this pattern of development is rooted in our
apartheid past.
43. The structures of domination and exclusion continue to find
expression in our democratic dispensation.
44. In the private sector, top management is 60% white male, 14% white
female, 9% African male and 4% African female[8]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftn8>.
45. Coloured and Indian males account for an average of 4%, whilst
females account for an average of 1.4% of top management in the country.
46. In other words 74% of top management of the South African economy is
drawn from 12% of the population.
47. As the patterns of promotion reveal, South Africa's private sector
is transforming in such a way that for every gain by an African by way
of economic advancement, a more than proportionate gain accrues to the
white elite.
48. Perhaps this, in practice, is what makes the slogan of "a better
life for all" appealing to all South Africans across race, class and
gender divides!
49. The distribution of income also shows that the legacy of apartheid
is alive and well.
50. Of the people who have no income at all, it is estimated that 90%
are African and 5% are White.
51. Of those who earn in excess of R2.5 million, 58% are White and 30%
are African. In other words, 58% of those who earn more than R2 million
per annum are drawn from 12% of the population.
52. In addition, 56% of Whites earn no less than R6 000 per month
whereas 81% of Africans earn no more than R6 000 per month.
53. These income disparities are deeply connected to the social
relations of production at the factory floor and other places of work.
54. The fact that top management and senior managers continue to be
predominantly drawn from the white population perpetuates historical
networks that determine the probability of promotion and recruitment,
and this in turn determines whether one moves to a higher income bracket
or not.
55. That 45% of all top management promotions went to white males and
17% went to white females is one indictment on the socio-economic
quality of our democracy.
56. African males and females account for 13% and 6% of all promotions
and recruitment in top management respectively.
57. In short, 62% of all promotions and recruitments were drawn from 12%
of the South African population. This means that the current democratic
dispensation continues to reproduce the colonial character of the
control of the forces of production in our economy.
58. There has been progress in the provision of housing; 74% of South
African households live in brick structures, flats and townhouses.
59. Nevertheless there remain 15% of households who live in shacks,
which amounts to 1.875 million households.
60. Despite the progress that has been made in the provision of decent
human settlements, the quality of housing remains a major challenge.
61. It is estimated that 46% of South African households live in
dwellings with no more than 3 rooms, 17% of households live in 1-room
dwellings.
62. Among Africans, 55% live in dwellings with less than 3 rooms,
whereas at least 50% of White households lives in dwellings with no less
than 4 rooms.
63. These disparities in the conditions of living are a direct
consequence of the legacy of apartheid, and the accumulation path that
underpins it.
*D. The Freedom Charter and Nationalisation*
1. The Freedom Charter is a very short document. Rather than quoting a
few provisions of the Freedom Charter, in order to trace the historic
significance of the demands for justice, equality, redistribution,
employment, growth and development as would be supported by
nationalisation; we quote the entirety of the Freedom Charter.
2. Quoting the entire Freedom Charter, and reading it as an integrated
whole, will provide a better and clearer understanding of why true
democracy and non racism and non sexism, and thus the possibility for
unleashing the full potential of the people of South Africa, are only
possible when ALL the provisions of the Freedom Charter are implemented.
3. Further, quoting the entirety of the Freedom Charter, and reading it
as a composite whole, offers the possibility to understand the
relationship between the economy and society envisioned in the Freedom
Charter, and the kind of democracy possible only when true equality
would have been achieved, as outlined by the provisions of the Freedom
Charter.
4. We quote the Freedom Charter, below:
/"WE, THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH AFRICA, declare for all our country and the
world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black
and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it
is based on the will of all the people; that our people have been robbed
of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government
founded on injustice and inequality; that our country will never be
prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying
equal rights and opportunities; that only a democratic state, based on
the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without
distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;/
/And therefore,/
/We, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals,
countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter;/
/And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength
nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won./
/The people shall govern!/
/Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a
candidate for all bodies which make laws; All people shall be entitled
to take part in the administration of the country; The rights of the
people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex; All bodies
of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be
replaced by democratic organs of self-government./
/All national groups shall have equal rights!/
/There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and
in the schools for all national groups and races; All people shall have
equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk
culture and customs; All national groups shall be protected by law
against insults to their race and national pride; The preaching and
practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall
be a punishable crime; All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside./
/The people shall share in the country's wealth!/
/The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans,
shall be restored to the people; The mineral wealth beneath the soil,
the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of
the people as a whole; All other industry and trade shall be controlled
to assist the well-being of the people; All people shall have equal
rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all
trades, crafts and professions./
/The land shall be shared among those who work it!/
/Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and
all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and
land hunger; The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed,
tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers; Freedom of
movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land; All shall have
the right to occupy land wherever they choose; People shall not be
robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be
abolished./
/All shall be equal before the law!/
/No-one shall be imprisoned, deprived or restricted without a fair
trial; No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government
official; The courts shall be representative of all the people;
Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and
shall aim at re- education, not vengeance; The police force and army
shall be open to all on an equal basis and shall be the helpers and
protectors of the people; All laws which discriminate on grounds of
race, colour or belief shall be repealed./
/All shall enjoy equal human rights!/
/The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to
meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their
children; The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected
by law; All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside
to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad; Pass
Laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be
abolished./
/There shall be work and security!/
/All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their
officers and to make wage agreements with their employers; The state
shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full
un-employment benefits; Men and women of all races shall receive equal
pay for equal work; There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national
minimum wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and
maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers; Miners, domestic
workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as
all others who work; Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and
contract labour shall be abolished./
/The doors of learning and of culture shall be opened!/
/The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent
for the enhancement of our cultural life; All the cultural treasures of
mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and
contact with other lands; The aim of education shall be to teach the
youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human
brotherhood, liberty and peace; Education shall be free, compulsory,
universal and equal for all, children; Higher education and technical
training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and
scholarships awarded on the basis of merit; Adult illiteracy shall be
ended by a mass state education plan; Teachers shall have all the rights
of other citizens; The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in
education shall be abolished./
/There shall be houses, security and comfort!/
/All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently
housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security; Unused
housing space to be made available to the people; Rent and prices shall
be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry; A preventive
health scheme shall be run by the state; Free medical care and
hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers
and young children; Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built
where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, crèches and
social centres; The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall
be cared for by the state; Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the
right of all:/
/Fenced locations and ghettos shall be abolished, and laws which break
up families shall be repealed./
/There shall be peace and friendship!/
/South Africa shall be fully independent which respects the rights and
sovereignty of all nations; South Africa strive to maintain world peace
and settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war;
Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by
upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all; The people
of the protectorates Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland shell be
free to decide for themselves their own future; The right of all people
of Africa to independence and self-government shall be recognized, and
shall be the basis of close co-operation. Let all people who love their
people and their country now say, as we say here:/
/THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR, SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES,
UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY."/
5. This Policy Discussion Paper on Nationalisation proceeds from the
understanding that ALL the provisions of the Freedom Charter have equal
significance, as they are all when taken together and implemented,
capable of not only abolition racial discrimination, but creating the
economic basis for a truly democratic South Africa in which or people an
nation groups are free and equal.
6. Further, it must be borne in mind that the Freedom Charter captures
the aspirations and hopes for a democratic and free future South Africa
completely different from the lived one of racial and economic
superiority by a minority population group.
7. The Freedom Charter restores citizenship to all South Africans,
establishes the economic basis for equality, and elaborates the
essential and necessary social, political and cultural conditions for a
democratic South Africa.
8. The Freedom Charter so prophetically notes that:
a. ".....*/our country will never be prosperous or free until all our
people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities/*."
9. When claims are made that the Freedom Charter demands
nationalisation, it is because correctly, it is impossible to */transfer
the ownership of the country's wealth to the people as whole/* by any
other means than through nationalisation.
10. It is impossible, and the picture painted of South Africa 18 years
after 1994 proves this, for all South Africans to enjoy equal rights and
opportunities without the wealth of the country being transferred to the
people as a whole!
11. Neither, for that matter, is prosperity for the country possible -
without this popular ownership of wealth, the Freedom Charter correctly
noted that South Africa will be condemned to forever be a poor country,
no matter how rich a small enclave may be.
12. But more tellingly, without equal property rights through equal
economic and social opportunities, there can be no real universal
equality of citizenship, thus there can be no real democracy.
13. This is what the reading of the totality of the Freedom Charter
reveals: an incisive understanding, and a laying out of the material
basis for eradicating racism, restoring full citizenship to all South
Africans, establishing equality of economic, social, cultural and
political life to all South Africans. This is the possible vision that
bound black and white South Africans to the Freedom Charter.
14. The Freedom Charter, it may be claimed, lays out the barest minimum
for a Socialist South Africa. However, this is not what the Freedom
Charter actually sets out to do: it sets out to establish equal rights
to property in South Africa by all its citizens, and thus lays the only
viable and sustainable basis for genuine democracy.
15. The Freedom Charter firmly places the resolution of the property
question in South Africa at the heart of the struggle for full
citizenship, abolition of racism, restoration of equality and
establishment of democracy.
16. In the light of the persistence of extremely skewed ownership
patterns in post 1994 South Africa, extreme forms and levels of poverty,
mass unemployment because of the systemic and structural failure to
unlock the vast natural and human potential of South Africa still
trapped in a racial capitalism, the question must be answered: outside
of popular nationalisation, how else can South Africa liberate its
peoples from mass poverty, impossible levels of unemployment and
extremely unhealthy levels of inequality?
*E. The ANC Morogoro Strategy and Tactics, the Liberation Movement and
Numsa on social and economic policy immediate pre and post 1994*
*E.1. ANC Morogoro Strategy and Tactics Document, 1969*
1. Arguably, the ANC Morogoro Strategy and Tactics document (1969) must
rank among the most profound analysis and elaboration of the history of
the struggle against the Apartheid system and the strategy and tactics
the Liberation Movement as led by the ANC needed to use against the
regime, and contains some extremely valid eternal truths about what
needed to be done, to uproot racism in post Apartheid South Africa.
2. While its analysis of the stage of the struggle in 1969 must be
understood within the then existing global and South African class
balance of forces, the fundamental theoretical, historical, political
and economic truths it contained about South Africa are as valid today,
as they were then - principally because the fundamental pillars of the
South African economy - the property relations - remain the same, even
if there have been some changes including new penetration of imperialism.
3. Several observations made in the Morogoro Strategy and Tactics
document stand out today. The Morogoro Strategy and Tactics Documents
laid a very profound basis tackling racism, creating a democratic
society, building an economy on the foundation of economic justice and
equality and thus thrusting South Africa into a future of sustained
development and peace.
*E.1. Numsa and the Liberation Movement: economic thought*
1. As an industrial union affiliated to Cosatu, over the past 25 years
Numsa has, together with all the affiliates of Cosatu and with Cosatu,
consistently argued for the full implementation of the Freedom Charter,
as the basic premise upon which a truly democratic South Africa can be
born, and the only viable means of uprooting racism and its pillars in
both the South African economy and society.
2. As an industrial union most affected by the rise and dominance of
finance capital over all other forms of capital in general and over
industrial capital in particular, and the resultant massive job losses
as a result of industrial decline in South Africa, Numsa has been in the
forefront in calling for an industrial strategy and policy for South
Africa, post 1994, premised on the need for redistribution, creation of
decent employment and the provision of basic necessities to all the
people of South Africa.
3. Further, Numsa, as an industrial union, has experienced firsthand the
disastrous consequences of the abandonment of the Reconstruction and
Development Programme and the eventual adoption of GEAR in South Africa.
4. A fundamental thread running throughout Numsa's critique of post 1994
South African economic policies has been the failure to effect
revolutionary redistributive measures through state ownership of the
commanding heights of the economy, through nationalisation as clearly
stipulated in the Freedom Charter (1955).
5. The basis and rationale for the demand for nationalisation and the
form of nationalisation being fought for are to be found in the very
essence of the more than 350 years of resistance to slavery, colonialism
and colonial capitalism, and Apartheid capitalism in South Africa by the
majority of the people of this country.
6. Further, as perfectly captured in the Freedom Charter, it is
impossible to win for all the people of South Africa lasting democracy
and peace without first transferring the wealth of the country into the
hands of the people as a whole.
7. The injunction to transfer the wealth of the land into the hands of
the people as a whole so that nether sections of black or white groups
or individuals must dominate in the economy is the only real basis for
creating an egalitarian, truly equal and democratic South Africa.
Anything short of this is an illusion bound to explode into social
conflict sooner than later.
8. While Numsa is a Socialist trade union, the demand for changing the
economic power relations (and thus political, social and cultural power
relations) by prizing off the hands of a small minority from their
strangle hold on the economy is not in fact in itself a demand for a
Socialist South Africa. This is simply a pre requisite for ending
centuries of consciously constructed structures and systems of
dehumanisation of the majority by a minority, and constructing a single
human community in South Africa.
9. It is important to emphasise the fact that the Freedom Charter
demands do not amount to Socialism, or to racial expropriation of a
minority; the Freedom Charter dimply lays bare the most elementary
conditions upon which the common human of all South Africans can be
established, for the liberation of all the people of South Africa into a
single country.
10. In order to avoid a lengthy and possibly bulky expose of the
fundamental elements Numsa and the Liberation Movement and Cosatu have
canvassed on the question of nationalisation, we find the Cosatu Report
on the ANC research on "State Intervention in the Mineral Sector" - a
document produced as a result of the 2010 ANC National General Council,
a very good summary of the major arguments and positions Numsa has
advanced on the question of Nationalisation in the past 25 years,
together with Cosatu.
11. We state the basic positions and arguments Numsa has championed below.
12. It is impossible to liberate South Africa from the stranglehold of
white monopoly capital, and thus to address the property question in
favour of all South Africans, without first nationalising all monopoly
industries as a way of effecting the transfer of wealth into the
ownership of the people of South Africa as a whole.
13. Only by the state breaking the vicious stranglehold on the economy
of South Africa of white monopoly capital (now increasingly being
penetrated by foreign capital) will the twin necessary and essential
conditions for liberating all the people of South Africa from the
systemic and structural foundations of racism and simultaneously
creating the only real and sustainable basis for a lasting democratic
dispensation and thus laying the foundation for the dismantling of the
dominance of the Minerals/Energy/Finance Complex which thus far is
preventing the South African economy from flourishing.
14. Nationalisation for Numsa has not been limited to mining. Consistent
with the Freedom Charter, mining, banks, telecommunications, transport,
food and so on - especially industries and sectors that are very
monopolised - must be nationalised as a precondition for resolving the
property question in South Africa. Anything short of this, as the ANC
stated so clearly in 1969, will not even be a shadow of liberation!
15. It is important to separately emphasise the significance of
transferring monopolies into the ownership of the people through the
state via the mechanism of nationalisation as a means of transferring
ownership of the commanding heights of the economy to the people as a whole.
16. This is because without doing this, the power of these monopolies
will continue to prevent any meaningful state interventions in the
economy and society on behalf of all the people of South Africa. Only
vested interests and a sprinkling of black and African surrogates will
benefit such as through BEE deals.
17. The demand for the nationalisation of key economic sectors in
mining, telecommunications, petrochemicals, banks and so on must be
understood as a the basis for creating a truly equal and democratic
South African society.
18. A key weakness in the debates and discussions on this unavoidable
demand for nationalisation has been the simplistic collapsing of this
essential and necessary demand to the very basis and sustainability of
the non racial democratic South Africa with merely the expropriation of
the white population.
19. This is far from the truth. South Africa cannot become a truly non
racial society without first equalising economic opportunity, without
first addressing the property question which currently vests a
disproportionate share of economic power in a tiny minority surrounded
by a sea of mass poverty, unemployment and in conditions of extreme
inequalities.
20. BEE is not capable of resolving the property question, the ownership
question, the power question, in the South African economy and society.
At the most, it can buy some time for the vested economic and social
interests, but, more dangerously, it can and does act as a stimulus to
fanning mass anger in the millions of South African who continue to feel
left out and marginalised by the post 1994 "democratic breakthrough".
21. An objective and clear examination of the South African economy,
especially mining, clearly shows that this is a highly monopolised
sector, and that South Africa has a massive global advantage because of
the presence of certain minerals which are crucial to the global economy.
22. Thus it is impossible to scientifically defend the simple argument
that South Africa would suffer an economic boycott if it nationalised
mines. The truth is the world needs our minerals and they will seek to
trade with us however we redefine the ownership and control question!
23. It is not by accident that it is he children of the black and
African working class who are most strident in the demands for
nationalisation post 1994.
24. The socio-economic statistics on South Africa above clearly
indicates the most obvious fact: South Africa is sitting on a ticking
time bomb of youth mass poverty and unemployment. It is impossible to
resolve the youth poverty and unemployment crisis without the state
taking command of commanding heights, monopoly industry, and directing
all other industry to serve the people as a whole.
25. The fate of a prosperous, truly democratic South Africa cannot be
mortgaged to the vested interests of the current ownership structures of
existing monopolies and the mines.
26. Put bluntly, no law, no international commercial agreements, no
constitution must be allowed to continue to threaten South Africa with
the ever growing threat of social revolution because the strategic
economic asserts of the country are in a few private hands who are so
insensitive to the need to create a truly democratic South Africa in
which the life of every human being shall be protected.
27. The South African 1996 Constitution has mechanisms for amending it.
Sufficient political will and leadership to mobilise the majority of
South Africans to achieve this is possible, on the basis that the
intention is the release, to liberate, South African economic potential
from the monopolies that threaten to blow the country to smithereens!
28. Any international agreements entered into immediately before and
after 1994 which today constrains South Africa from removing the
systemic and structural features in our economy that continue to
reproduce our Apartheid economy and society are illegal in international
law; they are a violation of our right to self determination. We simply
must act in ways that serve all the people of South Africa. That is our
sovereign right.
29. We have recently seen how the US and many European countries have
moved to protect and recreate their industrial bases, to save their
banks from collapsing, to curtail imports and so on. We have even seen
how the British government refused to work with the IMF and the EU in
order to protect its currency. And in all these situations their
conditions are far less horrific than ours.
30. What then, prevents us from acting in the best interests of all our
people by eliminating the persisting Apartheid property relations in
South Africa?
31. A separate Policy Discussion Document discussing the 1994 democratic
breakthrough in South Africa will raise sharply some of the underlying
class and other reasons why perhaps South Africa is stuck with the
Apartheid economy and its social relations.
32. Viewing the Freedom Charter as an ANC document is self defeating. It
is a blue print, the only one thus far, capable of bringing to birth the
only kind of South Africa free from racial oppression, capable of
creating the necessary conditions for a truly democratic and united
South Africa, and thus guaranteeing the safety and freedom of all South
Africans.
33. The illusion that piecemeal social and economic reforms such as have
happened since 1994 can hold the country together is equivalent to
putting our heads in the proverbial sands. It took a revolution to
create the conditions holding the country back. Why do we think it will
take less than a larger revolution to create a new democratic South
Africa free from racism, mass poverty, unemployment and extreme
inequalities?
*E.2. The 1994 democratic breakthrough and the question for
nationalisation: the victory of the "negotiators" against the
revolutionaries in the ANC?*
1. Numsa has always maintained that the deep seated economic and social
crisis of South Africa is a product of the specific combination of the
history of South African capitalism and Apartheid.
2. Thus, while piecemeal reforms could bring some temporary relief to
the millions of South Africans, particularly the black and African
working class, nothing short of a radical national democratic revolution
- a complete uprooting of capitalist and Apartheid economic and social
relations and their replacement by a democratic order - could lay the
foundations for a democratic South Africa in which all human beings
would be truly valued and hope to live meaningful and productive lives.
3. Numsa has consistently maintained that the South Africa revolution -
the movement from Apartheid to a South Africa free from Apartheid cannot
be achieved without first destroying the economic basis of the Apartheid
system.
4. South African racism had its basis in the economic oppression and
exploitation of black and African labour. It is impossible to achieve a
truly democratic South African society free of racism without first
removing the economic basis of this racism in the first place -
effectively the colonial exploitation of black and African labour.
5. In the late 80s, it has now become very clear that two major
tendencies begun to evolve in the ANC, especially in the ANC in exile.
One tendency maintained its adherence to the Freedom Charter and sought
to defeat with Apartheid regime through a combination of both political
and armed means. The second tendency saw the political means -
negotiating with the Apartheid regime for a "settlement" as the most
viable means.
6. So much has been written about the international balance of class
forces in the 80s including the decline of the experiment in socialism
in Eastern Europe, the rise of neo-liberalism, the financialisation of
the world economy and its consequent "globalisation" and essentially the
re emergence of the US as an imperial and financial leader of the world.
7. We have been told a million times how the global balance of forces
made a socialist transition, let alone a radical social democratic one
impossible. Thus we must believe, the move towards a neo-liberal
transition was "inevitable" given the global balance of forces in favour
of neo-liberalism, and the weakening and eventual collapse of the
socialist block.
8. In the end, we have been told, the global economic and political
situation in favour of neo-liberal forces seriously constrained the new
democratic South African state in the choice of policy options available
to it.
9. Thus for example, the dominance of finance capital globally meant
that South Africa, like all other states, needed to obey its dictates or
face the risk of a financial boycott, de-industrialisation or worse
still, capital flight.
10. Further, and more important to this discussion, we were told that
"nationalisation had failed" and the new policy prescriptions entailed
returning state economic asserts to the private sector - privatisation.
11. The state was supposed to withdraw from the economy and consign
itself to being a regulation setter and enforcer through the courts.
12. Everything possible needed to be done to "attract foreign
investment" including reducing social spending even if it meant that
human life would be sacrificed in the end, as in the case of South Africa.
13. Inside South Africa, inside the Africana community, things were
changing fast. Reformers of the Apartheid system - those who sought to
reduce social conflict in South African society by allowing the gradual
reduction of the oppression of black and African people by relaxing some
of the Apartheid laws - found themselves increasingly splitting into two
main camps - those who wanted to gradual reforms and those who wanted to
simply do away with Apartheid altogether - as a social system.
14. Inside the ANC, those who sought the route of a negotiated
settlement increasingly begun to doubt the possibilities of a military
and outright victory, over Apartheid, and thus begun to seek to
negotiate with "Pretoria".
15. Meanwhile, inside South Africa itself, the late 80s were among the
most militant, the most violent anti Apartheid years.
16. In the face of the internal onslaught on the Apartheid system,
especially through the UDF and many other anti Apartheid organisations
and community structure in black and African townships, the Apartheid
government was actually forced to ban many organisations.
17. Thus we see two contradictory assessments of the balance of forces:
externally, we see the rise of finance capital and its global production
and social relations (demands for privatisation, commercialisation,
price controls, deregulations, mass retrenchments of labour, withdrawal
of the state in the provision of basic social services and its
replacement by profit seeking private sector, and the weakening and
collapse of the socialist block among others), internally in South
Africa, real splits in the Africana community on how to manage the
social and economic crisis of the Apartheid system, leading to the
emergence of a significant rebellions of a group of Africanas calling
for the abandonment of Apartheid and a rapid increase in popular
discontent against the Apartheid system in black and African townships
and shack areas.
18. There was also the escalation of "black on black" violence, now
known to have been largely sponsored by the Apartheid regime.
19. In the meantime, the campaign for the economic boycott of South
Africa was biting the South African economy heavily.
20. It was in this environment during which the negotiators defeated the
pro militant and military overthrow of the Apartheid regime.
21. Today we have written proof of the many secrete meetings in which
the representatives of "Pretoria" and the Africana community and the
leadership of the ANC met to iron out details about the negotiations
process and elements of the content of the negotiations.
22. At some point, key leaders of the ANC who did not support the
negotiated settlement, especially its secret nature, found themselves
out of the secrete processes and meetings.
23. The key issues the negotiations focused on were of course the
release of all political prisoners, the unbanning of all political
parties and resistance formations and the end to violence as
preconditions for negotiations.
24. The Africana community wanted, among other things, guarantees
against nationalisation, the protection of minority education,
linguistic and cultural rights, the entrenchment of a Bill of Rights in
the constitution including the protection of property rights.
25. The ANC of course wanted the principle of one man one vote agreed
upon, the Bill of Rights, protection of economic and social rights
besides the entrenchment of liberal political and legal rights, and land
reforms, among others.
26. It has been suggested that in fact it was a key secrete ANC
negotiator who proposed a "transitional period" in order to answer the
question o how the democratic constitution was to be passed and brought
into play.
27. In summary, the negotiations essentially had to deal with the fears
of the white population in general and the Africana community in
particular and the hopes and expectations of the black and African
majorities.
28. What is at issue in this discussion document is the fundamental
question: to what extent did the negotiated settlement create the
necessary and essential conditions for the violation and or
implementation of the Freedom Charter including nationalisation as a
mechanism for democratising the economy?
29. Further, to what extent did the negotiated settlement transform
parliamentary Apartheid into constitutional apartheid via the protection
of property rights, recognition of minority rights, protection of
linguistic and cultural rights?
30. As the social economic statistics of the past 18 years show, post
South Africa, while making many admirable steps towards formal liberal
democracy and the provision of basic social services including social
grants, has, in many ways, caught itself in the ever spiralling mass
unemployment, poverty and extreme inequalities.
31. The ANC government in its 10 years review of the country has
acknowledged the persistence of systemic and structural features of the
Apartheid capitalist system, and recognised this as the key driver of
the worsening social conditions of the majority of the people of South
Africa, notwithstanding the good work the ANC since 1994.
32. Clearly the ANC negotiators could not achieve both the demand of the
Freedom Charter to nationalise and simultaneously allay the economic
fears, loss of land through exproriation and loss of superior social
status of the white population.
33. The entrenchment of the property clauses in the constitution, and
the protection of the land from expropriation without compensation
(unless a court confirmed certain conditions including the market value
of the land, in the case of expropriation for public purposes) put paid
to any possibility of a radical transition in favour of all the people
of South Africa.
34. In the concluding part of this Discussion Document below, we include
the Cosatu Report on the research Report of the ANC team that was
supposed to be tasked to research on the question of nationalisation of
mines.
35. We find the position of Cosatu in the document below very accurately
captures all our main arguments on the nationalisation of mines in
general, and the nationalisation of all commanding heights of the
economy, in line with the Freedom Charter.
36. In the Cosatu Report on the output of the 2012 ANC NGC, it is clear
that it is impossible to move South Africa out o its current
constricting accumulation regime without nationalising the commanding
heights of the economy.
37. Further, in the Cosatu document, it is clear that the world needs
South African minerals, and thus South Africa holds the upper hand and
can dictate the terms of how its minerals are owned, processed and sold.
*F. The 2010 ANC NGC and Nationalisation*
*(Read the Cosatu CC Report on the SMS document of the ANC, April 2012)*
*E. Example of lived Nationalisation: Zambia*
1. This Discussion Document caries an appendix detailing some key
lessons from the nationalisation experience of Zambia.
2. The effort here is to de-bank the ideologically driven myth that
Zambia's nationalisation was a total failure that led to the collapse of
the economy.
3. Rather, as real objective evidence shows, without nationalisation,
Zambia would never have resolved the issue of the massive social,
economic and cultural backloads and challenges which British colonialism
wrought on the people of Zambia.
4. Evidence shows that free universal education up to university level
including building its own universities and thousands of schools, free
health care including building its own hospitals and clinics throughout
the country, the creation of viable new town and cities, massive social
an cultural upliftment of Zambians - all these could not have been
possible without nationalisation of the commanding heights of the
economy in Zambia.
5. Further, evidence from Zambia confirms that the property questions in
post colonial settings can only be viably addressed in favour of the
entire nation through nationalisation - this is the only route to
expropriate the expropriators and to place the nation and its economy on
a new accumulation regime. The alternative is stagnation and leaving the
loal population in their worsening state of poverty, unemployment and
inequalities.
6. Available evidence confirms that had it not been for exogenous forces
such as the 70s global oil crisis, the removal of the gold standard, and
the eventual loss of earnings from copper, Zambia would have sustained
its status as the fastest industrialising and urbanising country in Africa.
7. Placing the full blame on the collapse of copper mining in Zambia is
a conscious misreading of available evidenced in order to "demonise"
nationalisation in favour of retaining existing ownership patterns?
8. Roads, expansion of rail, a new industrial layout nationwide,
housing, education, health and many similar achievements were scored
including shifting the economic balance of forces in favour of the
majority of Zambians (who directly benefited from copper earnings and
jobs on the mines) and supply side economic activity.
9. Obviously Zambia was denied the technology to capture key components
of the manufacturing value ad process requiring copper, deliberately.
10. Economic restructuring at the height of neo-liberalism affected all
economic activities and industries equally - whether state or privately
owned, but with a focus on prizing state hands from the state in order
to bring them under the control and ownership of the privatisers.
11. It is not by accident that the government that re privatised the
copper mines - the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy - first lost its
support from the part of the country that had apparently clambered the
most for change - the copper mining towns.
12. The reason is very simple: the massive loss of jobs after the profit
motive took over the mines once more simply killed towns, through
thousands of Zambians out of work, and through millions of Zambia across
the country onto poverty.
13. Today, rough estimate place unemployment anywhere above 75% of the
working population (with more in the countryside of course) and show
similar levels of absolute poverty.
14. "Private investors" have not invested in schools and hospitals, and
a once literate country has gone back to having a sizeable chunk of its
population into functional illiteracy.
15. But the most devastating effect of re-nationalisation of the mines
has been the destruction of jobs, towns and the loss of revenue to the
government, thus the failure to maintain and sustain the post
independence gains in social development.
16. Telling, not all the buyers have been credible. Anglo American
Corporation bought some of the mines only to abandon them, apparently in
an effort to boost the price of copper and to punish Zambia (for
nationalising in the first place) and others are fly by night type who
do not have the financial muscle to own and run the mines.
17. Zambia thus is more an example of ho not to give the pigs back that
which you have rescued from them!
*G. The call for nationalisation is also the call for expropriation of
the expropriators!*
1. The demand for nationalisation as contained in the Freedom Charter
must never be confused with nationalisation as just another means of
managing strategic economic actors, in the post colonial era in general
and in South Africa in particular.
2. Nationalisation is not a fashion or some management technique, in
South Africa; it is about resolving the property question in defence of
a democratic order, post 1994.
3. Failure to place the commanding heights of the economy in the hands
of the people as a whole through the state can only lead to the
worsening of poverty, unemployment and inequality, and a deterioration
of infrastructure, the failure to tap into the national potential for
the entire country to participate meaningfully in developing the
economy, leading to the eventual social revolution.
4. BEE, or any piecemeal social and economic reforms cannot replace the
imperative to urgently resolve the property question in South Africa,
the ownership question of land and the commanding heights of the economy.
5. Failure to nationalise will inevitably lead to more concentrations
and monopolies and the domination of the South African economy by
foreign interests.
*H. Conclusions*
a. The struggle for nationalisation in South Africa post 1994 is a class
struggle around redistribution, decent employment, and eradication of
poverty, growth and real development for all the people of South Africa.
b. Only by placing the commanding heights of the economy in the hands of
all the people of South Africa through nationalisation of the mines,
banks, telecommunications, petrochemicals, water, food, and so on, can a
truly democratic and free South Africa come into life.
c. There will be no real dent made in the edifice of white racism in
South Africa without first uprooting the economic foundation of South
African racism: white domination of the economy and society.
d. The demand for placing the wealth of the country in the hands, and at
the service of all South Africans as contained in the Freedom Charter
must not be confused with the struggle for socialism. This is simply the
most basic, the most elementary block in the foundation for a democratic
and peaceful South Africa.
e. The Freedom Charter should be read as a singular whole, with all the
parts contributing to a truly liberated South Africa. Isolating the
political content and ignoring the economic content of the Freedom
Charter is a dangerous mistake - the new South Africa is a house build
on sand.
f. The working class of South Africa of all colours have a revolutionary
role to play in championing the demands for an egalitarian, non racist
South Africa founded on an economic basis that is owned and sustains the
lives of all South Africans, and not just a portion**of it.**Anything
short of this is a recipe for social disaster!
*Footnotes:*
**
------------------------------------------------------------------------
**
[1]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftnref1> World
Development Report (2006): Equity and Development.
[2]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftnref2> World
Development Indicators, 2009.
[3]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftnref3> This
evidence is based on an analysis of 2005/06 Income-Expenditure Surveys
and the Community Survey (2007) by Statistics South Africa.
[4]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftnref4> Labour
Force Survey, October 2009.
[5]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftnref5> See
H. Bhorat (2006): Youth and education in South Africa, Wolpe Trust Dialogue.
[6]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftnref6> See
G. Barnard (2009): Realizing South Africa's Employment Potential, OECD
Working Paper No. 662.
[7]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftnref7> It
is due to such realities that the ANC noted in 1969: "We have suffered
more than just national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their
due in the country's wealth; their skills have been suppressed and
poverty and starvation has been their life experience. The correction of
these centuries-old economic injustices lies at the very core of our
national aspirations".
[8]
<file:///C:%5CUsers%5CJames%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5CTemp1_Attachments_2012_05_17.zip%5CNumsa%20and%20Nationalisation.doc#_ftnref8> See
the Employment Equity Report (2008/2009).
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