TAKING POWER SERIOUSLY South Africa’s new progressive magazine standing for social justice. ISSUE NO. 67/68 DECEMBER 2019 RSA 22 R25 incl. VAT Chile: neoliberal oasis in flames | Bolivia: Evo’s fall, the fascist right and the power of memory Shadow of Liberation Contestation and Compromise in the Economic and Social Policy of the African National Congress, 1943–1996 Vishnu Padayachee and Robert van Niekerk This book seeks to answer the question of what happened between 1990 and 1996, years during which the ANC abandoned its earlier advocacy of a social democratic welfare state to embrace instead ‘market driven’ neo-liberalism. Padayachee and Van Niekerk’s achievement in researching this story from the surviving archival materials as well as the recollections of participants is impressive. Combining fi ne scholarship with vivid narrative, this is an economist’s detective story. Print ISBN: 978-1-77614-395-5 — Tom Lodge, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Peace and Confl ict Studies, University of Limerick Format: 234 x 156 mm When the prospect of a negotiated settlement came onto the political agenda in the 1980s, Extent: 288pp one outcome of policy discussions within the ANC was the birth of the Macro Economic Research Group (MERG). This book provides the fi rst comprehensive account of what became Price: R350 • US$30 of MERG, once considered the ANC’s ‘trickle up’ economic plan, and sheds interesting light Rights: World on a chapter of our recent history that is often forgotten. — Z. Pallo Jordan, head of ANC’s Department of Information and Publicity from 1987, cabinet Subject: Politics & Government, minister 1994–2009, and a member of National Executive Committee of the African National Economics Congress until 2014. Publication date: October 2019 Shadow of Liberation explores in intricate detail the twists, turns, contestations and compromises of the African National Congress’ (ANC) economic and social policy-making, particularly during the transition era of the 1990s and the early years of democracy. Padayachee and Van Niekerk focus on the primary question of how and why the ANC, @WitsPress #ShadowofLiberation given its historical anti-inequality, redistributive stance, did such a dramatic volte-face in #ANCeconomicpolicy the 1990s and moved towards an essentially market-dominated approach. Was it pushed or did it go willingly? What role, if any, did Western governments and international www.witspress.co.za fi nancial institutions play? And what of the role of the late apartheid state and South African business? Did leaders and comrades ‘sell out’ the ANC’s emancipatory policy vision? ORDERING INFORMATION Drawing on the best available primary archival evidence as well as extensive interviews with key protagonists across the political, non-government and business spectrum, the authors argue that the ANC’s emancipatory policy agenda was broadly to establish a social democratic welfare state to uphold rights of social citizenship. However, its economic policy framework to realise this mission was either non-existent or egregiously misguided. Africa: Blue Weaver: With the damning revelations of the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture Tel: 021 701 4477 on the massive corruption of the South African body politic, the timing of this book could [email protected] not be more relevant. South Africans need to confront the economic and social policy choices that the liberation movement made and to see how these decisions may have UK & Europe: +44 (0)20 7240 0856 www.eurospangroup.com facilitated the conditions for corruption– not only of a crude fi nancial character but also of our emancipatory values as a liberation movement – to emerge and fl ourish. North & South America: Retailer and Wholesale orders: About the Authors Phone 855-802-8236 Vishnu Padayachee is Distinguished Professor and Derek Schrier and Cecily or [email protected] Cameron Chair in Development Economics at the School of Economic and Business Consumer orders: [email protected] Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He was a member of or visit http://witsuniversitypress.nyupress.org the Steering Committee of the Macroeconomic Research Group (MERG). Robert van Niekerk is Chair of Public Governance at the Wits School of Governance. FOR ALL MEDIA ENQUIRIES, REVIEW He was active in policy-making processes for a democratic South Africa in education COPIE S OR INTERVIEW REQUESTS, PLEASE CONTACT: and health during and after the 1990’s transition era, including serving as a co- [email protected] ordinator and policy analyst for the health section of the National Commission on www.witspress.co.za Higher Education. Tel: +27 (0)11 717 8700 contents 11 | The uprising in Lebanon Editorial Analysis 02 |Something has got to give 32 | Reclaiming Pan‑Africanism for social emancipation News Briefs and 35 | The need for comprehensive Social Media sex education 04 | News Briefs 05 | Social Media What do we mean by? 36 | The fourth industrial revolution Feature: global wave of uprisings 06 Sudan: a cry for justice and International a revolution far from ending 06 |Sudan: a cry for justice and a 38 | Radical resistance to authoritarian revolution far from ending democracy in Nigeria 08 |More than just a “Spring” 41 | Turkey’s war for occupation 11 |The uprising in Lebanon 44 | Bolivia: Evo’s fall, the fascist right, and the power of memory 14 |The battle to defend Hong Kong’s autonomy 16 |Chile: neoliberal oasis in flames Culture 47 | The Debt Delusion Economy matters 48 | Activists and the surveillance state 18 |The Mid Term Budget austerity 50 | Joker isn’t an ode to the far right – it’s a warning against austerity and unemployment plan: let the 32 Reclaiming Pan-Africanism debate and the opposition begin! for social emancipation 52 | Poetry 20 |Tax Justice: more failed reform proposals from the OECD New Politics 22 |Eskom: unbundling and privatisation 54 | From anti‑ to alter‑globalisation are not the answer 24 |Eskom in SA’s wider political economy crisis 27 |How seven thousand Quebec workers went on strike against climate change 28 |Rebuilding links between trade unions and co‑operatives for counter‑power 30 |The growing retail sector in Africa and the role of African retail trade unions 50 Joker isn’t an ode to the far right – it’s a warning against austerity We welcome feedback Email your comments to [email protected] or visit www.amandla.org.za for additional articles, news and views. Tweet us @AmandlaMedia // Facebook amandla! media // Subscribe to Amandla! website at www.amandla.org.za // To post material on the website, contact [email protected] Something has got to give NUM and Numsa at Eskom. The other would be with the public sector unions around shrinking the size of the public sector wage bill. In general, the forces of neoliberal capital, represented by the ratings agencies, are pulling them in this direction. And they are wedded to that neoliberal strategy – the smaller state and the expanded private sector. What deters the Ramaphosa faction from actually making progress with that strategy is not primarily fear of the organised working class. Yes, it’s true that, even if Cosatu is a shadow of its former self, public sector workers are still capable of responding if their interests are seriously threatened. But the more serious threat is from the “revolutionaries” of the Magashule / Zuma, “Radical Economic Transformation” faction, waiting for their opportunity. Neoliberalism is We have a gang economy in many townships around the country. People left with such hopelessness that they will yesterday’s strategy ever get employment, even at a poverty wage, that they participate in a parallel economy of drugs and abuse. meanwhile, the lessons of the small, outsourced state are being s if it wasn’t bad enough. as their own hospitals, their own doctors increasingly revealed. The mass protests if the suffering of the and their own schools and universities. in Chile against the results of the most impoverished masses of The government can cut public health extreme version of neoliberal strategy. ASouth Africa wasn’t deep expenditure as much as they like. It won’t Privatising, retrenchments, cutting enough. Already we are experiencing affect the members of Discovery Health. budgets, withdrawing subsidies, raising unprecedented levels of homelessness Their risk is a different one – predatory user fees – all of these increase the costs and hunger. Already we are witnessing a doctors who will chop them up for profit. and pain for the poor. They are fuelling seemingly endless wave of retrenchments, But it will affect the long lines of poor protests from Chile to Iraq, , from Sudan as a manufacturing industry, already and working class people who form the and Iran to Lebanon. We report on some decimated in the last 25 years, continues queues outside the clinics; who queue all of these in this issue of Amandla. to shrink. Already, as we have highlighted day to get treatment. Already, some of And the irony is that these neoliberals in this magazine recently, we have a them get sent home if they have not got who want to shrink the state are so far gang economy in many townships there early enough. The numbers sent behind the times. They ignore: around the country. People left with home will increase. The numbers who • The failing outsourcing giants of the such hopelessness that they will ever get fail to get reasonably prompt treatment uK economy. employment, even at a poverty wage, that will increase. The numbers who don’t get • The forced de facto renationalisation they participate in a parallel economy of the medicine they need will increase. The of train services because of the sheer drugs and abuse. They are not deviant numbers who die in our health facilities incapability of outsourced companies.