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South African Debates on the Basic Income Grant: Wage Labour and the Post-Apartheid Social Policy

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Franco Barchiesi (2007). South African Debates on the Basic Income Grant: Wage Labour and the Post-Apartheid Social Policy. Journal of Southern African Studies, 33(3). Taylor & Francis.
Type journal article
Scope Post-1994 South African economy
Method archival narrative
Period studied 1994–2003
Regions South Africa
Themes transition post apartheid, inequality poverty unemployment, labour markets wages, unions strikes, macro fiscal finance debt, politics ideology elections
Citation key barchiesi2007

Argument

Post-apartheid social policy has relied on wage labour and labour market participation as the main route to social inclusion. This contrasts with a material reality in which waged employment is in profound crisis. The Taylor Committee's 2002 endorsement of a Basic Income Grant (BIG) challenged that discourse, but the Committee, COSATU and the government all kept the BIG subordinate to job creation and fiscal discipline. The author argues that GEAR-style macro-economic conservatism, together with the unions' framing of the BIG as an employability measure, led to the BIG's stalemate. The government's praise of work ethics and stigmatising of 'dependency' is presented as ironically continuous with apartheid-era social policy discourse.

Evidence and method

Government reports (Lund Committee 1996, 1997 White Paper, 1999 Interdepartmental Task Team, 2002 Taylor Report), NEDLAC and COSATU documents, Taylor Committee transcripts, interviews with union officials and the Committee chair (2000-2001), secondary literature on basic income, social citizenship and chronic poverty.

Findings

  • Unemployment and the precarious character of new jobs frame the post-1994 crisis of wage labour. (p. 2)

    the unemployment rate has been hovering consistently at around 35-40 per cent, if discouraged jobseekers are included. Only one-third of the economically active African population is in full-time employment

  • The late apartheid welfare system relied on employment-linked protections, and apartheid-era strikes and insurgency pushed the state to widen black access to services. (p. 5)

    The late apartheid state was forced to expand access to services for the black majority, as testified by the increasing coverage of old-age pension grants for Africans

  • The post-1994 settlement combined political democratisation with orthodox macro-economic policy. (p. 6)

    The transition to democracy took the form of a negotiated compromise that committed the ANC government to protect corporate prerogatives and adopt an orthodox, free-market path to financial adjustment

  • Social assistance expanded sharply even as social insurance was cut back. (p. 8)

    Between 1997 and 2004 the number of social grant recipients soared from 2.5 to 7.5-million.

  • The labour federations' 1998 Jobs Summit BIG proposal was modest and framed as facilitating job-seeking. (p. 10)

    The demanded BIG was set at R100 per month to be provided on a universal, non-means tested basis.

  • Finance Department objections shaped the Taylor Committee's work and the timing of its report. (p. 14)

    what concerned the government was not the grant's potential to create jobs, but rather its costs combined with that of other grants.

  • The Taylor report endorsed the BIG only conditionally, with phased implementation and fiscal caveats; the author reads this as capitulation. (p. 14)

    'the conditions for an immediate implementation of the Basic Income Grant do not exist'

  • Senior ANC and government figures rejected the BIG and reaffirmed wage-centred inclusion. (p. 15)

    minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, lambasted the BIG as an 'unsustainable' and 'populist' idea.

  • The author reads the ANC government's wage-labour rhetoric as symbolic compensation for fiscal constraints and continuous with apartheid social policy discourse. (p. 16)

    The ANC government has, therefore, opted for symbolic compensation by continuously praising wage labour as the cornerstone of social discipline and inclusion.

  • COSATU's own limited conception of the BIG contributed to its stalemate. (p. 16)

    COSATU, in particular, has never really departed from a view of the BIG as an active labour market policy measure