Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa (review)

Studies on South Africa tend to overemphasize race over class. Yet class is equally important, since apartheid "shaped and reshaped distribution in South Africa" (17). Because income inequality in South Africa increased in the ten years following apartheid, Seekings and Nattrass argue for a "fundamental reorientation of the growth strategy and of the role of the state in shaping distribution" (17).

During the apartheid regime, poor white people benefited economically—especially through education, reserved labor positions, and pensions; thus race coincided with class. While the state cut benefits for Africans, it intervened actively to create a privileged minority based on race and gender through its welfare policies. According to these authors, once white people's economic power was entrenched, they no longer relied on racial discrimination for protection. Thus, by the 1970s labor-market policies entrenched a distributional regime which was difficult to change.

In theory, deracialization aimed at removing racial discrimination from policy by opening economic opportunities to formerly disadvantaged racial groups. But in fact deracialization in South Africa left the apartheid economic structure intact: in postapartheid South Africa the prosperous group is multiracial, the middle group mostly African, while the "impoverished" third category is "entirely African" (343). Adopting conservative macroeconomic policies and inheriting a budget which was "already surprisingly redistributive" (356), the government failed to address economic inequality.

As alternatives for South Africa, the authors draw on the Dutch and Irish experiences, where "social accords" addressed economic inequality. In the case of Holland, the 1982 Wassenaar Accord established a social pact "aimed at solving problems caused by adversarial labour relations" (384) and calling for a high degree of decentralization in which low wage earners were compensated with tax breaks. The Dutch case exemplifies a system that became more inclusive, though at the expense of productivity. The Irish social accord allowed management to "tie negotiations to local labour-market conditions while maintaining wage moderation at the national level" (387). Firms unable to pay the agreed wage increases could appeal their cases. The Irish case succeeded because of transnational corporations' investment.

Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa provides a good analysis on three points: economic inequality, its existence in postapartheid South Africa, and the need for a different growth trajectory. However, the authors are less persuasive when they use social accords in Ireland and the Netherlands as growth-path alternatives for South Africa. Which South African companies can challenge international ones, as happened in the Irish case? What role does race play in South Africa (where a majority of workers are Africans)? How will the corporate sector agree to a social accord without pressure from the ANC? Finally, in the age of globalization when companies have wider investment choices, what unique market opportunities does South Africa have to offer?

This study's strength lies in the authors' challenge, for scholars and laypersons alike, to go beyond racial economic inequalities by adding the class dimension as they seek practical solutions to economic inequality in South Africa.