Historical varieties of space, scale and speculation in South Africa: the uneven and combined geographical development of financialised capitalism

The central problem of Varieties of Capitalism analysis is its failure to assess dynamics of capital accumulation associated with finance and uneven and combined development. This is an especially critical shortcoming in what is probably the capitalist world's most extreme example of these phenomena, dating back at least two centuries. In reviewing the stylised history of financialised South African capitalism, a great many insights are provided about the ebb and flow of capital across space, scale and speculative outlets. These insights should lead policy makers into a much different understanding of the costs/benefits of financial liberalisation in the contemporary world. Yet central to this article's thesis is that with financialised economic activity comes banker power, and hence it is unrealistic to assume the a neoliberal Treasury and Reserve Bank will make the changes required to lessen the adverse effects of South Africa's extreme uneven and combined development.