The ANC & black capitalism in South Africa

Abstract

The emphasis initially laid by the ANC on national reconciliation after 1994 meant that its ideas about Black economic-empowerment (BEE) were non-threatening to white interests. However, the governments' recent strategy is more assertive, having the aim of creating a black capitalist class, which is both "patriotic' and productive, as laid down in the ANC's guiding theory of the "National Democratic Revolution". Corporate capital is responding with recognition of the inevitability and potential advantages of BEE. However, given the centrality of the state to the deliberate task of creating black capitalism, there are considerable dangers of the latter's lapse into Asian-style cronyism. The "patriotic" nature of black capitalism s therefore in sharp contestation with its "parasitism".