Class Struggle and the Periodisation of the State in South Africa¶
Robert Davies; David Kaplan; Mike Morris; Dan O'Meara (1976). Class Struggle and the Periodisation of the State in South Africa. Review of African Political Economy, No. 7, Special Issue on South Africa (Sep.-Dec. 1976). ROAPE Publications Ltd. / Taylor & Francis.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | theoretical or conceptual |
| Period studied | 1920–1948 (with a brief sketch to the 1960s) |
| Regions | South Africa, Witwatersrand, Transvaal |
| Themes | origins segregation, business and state, politics ideology elections, agriculture land, manufacturing industrial policy, macro fiscal finance debt, labour markets wages, unions strikes, comparative theory |
| Citation key | davies1976 |
Argument¶
Using Poulantzas's concepts of power bloc, hegemony, form of state and form of regime, the authors periodise the South African state through conflict among fractions of the dominant classes rather than through the capital-labour relation. They argue that national capital (agriculture and manufacturing) displaced foreign mining capital as hegemonic fraction in 1924 on the back of the 1922 Rand revolt and an alliance with the white new petty bourgeoisie. National capital then used tariffs, subsidies, railway rates and taxes on gold to channel mining surplus into national development. Fusion (1933-4) is read as a change in form of regime, not of hegemony. Wartime manufacturing hegemony proved tenuous and fell apart over the unresolved farm labour crisis, African unionisation and the United Party's ambivalence on migrancy. The Nationalist Party's 1948 victory is explained as a bid to restore national-capital hegemony and resolve agriculture's labour crisis, and its policies ultimately prepared the ground for monopoly capital's hegemony in the 1960s.
Evidence and method¶
Government commissions and committees, House of Assembly debates, Union Statistics, Official Yearbooks, Chamber of Mines papers, unpublished letters in the Fremantle, Duncan and Smuts papers, and newspapers (Die Burger, Cape Times, Die Transvaler, The Star). Statistics on wages, white employment, tax and subsidy figures and sectoral income are quoted selectively from these sources. Theory is drawn from Poulantzas.
Place in the debates¶
- liberal vs revisionist/Marxist interpretations of apartheid and capitalism (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Marxist-structuralist. Apartheid is the outcome of struggle among capital fractions to restructure relations of exploitation, chiefly agriculture's labour crisis. It is not an irrational racial departure from capitalist logic, and it is not simply the uniform will of a unified capital.
- mining capital vs national capital as the dominant force shaping the state (see The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital). Argues that national (agricultural and manufacturing) capital held hegemony from 1924, and that the state taxed gold to subsidise it, in contrast to accounts of a state subordinate to mining capital.
- the Pact government as a white workers' state (see The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital). Rejects it: 'the workers' state (even the white workers' state) was a myth'. White wages did not recover and the gains were mainly employment under the civilised labour policy.
- United Party policy in the 1940s as gradual liberalisation (see Origins, coherence and ideology of apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism). Disputes the common assumption that the UP was liberalising. Its policy was contradictory, and wartime relaxations 'were born of its inability to act decisively'.
Findings¶
-
National capital achieved hegemony in 1924 through an alliance with part of the white new petty bourgeoisie, with support from wider white and black wage earners. (p. 7)
in alliance with a fraction of the new petty bourgeoisie and supported by strata of the white and black wage eaming classes, national capital achieved hegemony.
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The 1922 armed strike was the decisive political and ideological break in the rule of mining capital. (p. 6)
It was the armed struggle of 1922 which was the real political and ideological crisis point in the rule of mining capital.
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Pact tariff protection imposed measurable costs on the mines, which therefore kept opposing it. (p. 7)
According to the Chamber of Mines' own estimate, tariff protection imposed an extra cost equivalent to 6d per ton of ore milled (out of a total cost of 17/- per ton).
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The Pact did not restore the pre-1922 job colour bar on the mines. (p. 9)
Nor was this a period which saw the restoration of the racial demarcation of jobs which had existed before 1922.
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The poor-white problem grew sharply and drove civilised labour policy, which raised white private-sector employment under the Wage Board and fair-labour clauses. (p. 10)
Partly as a result of these measures the numbers and percentage of whites employed in private industry increased over the period from 66,189 or 30.7 per cent in 1923/4 to 87,173 or 45.2 per cent in 1932/3.
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The Hertzog government's refusal to leave the gold standard, against the view of all capital fractions, produced a disjuncture between class interest and party representation, which the authors read as a change in form of regime. (p. 14)
The Hertzog government's stubborn refusal to abandon the Standard when all fractions of capital were strongly advocating such a policy, represented a disjuncture
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Taxation of gold financed state support for agriculture and infrastructure under fusion. (p. 16)
Direct taxation of the Gold Mines provided fully one third of all state revenues in the fusion period and provided the material basis for generous state assistance to agriculture
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Wartime manufacturing growth shifted the balance of sectors and gave manufacturing a tenuous hegemony. (p. 20)
By 1943 its contribution to National Income was greater than each of the primary sectors, rising by over 90 per cent between 1939 and 1945 (from ?67.9m to ?132.7m).
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Wartime industrial expansion drew African labour, including labour tenants, from farms and mines into industry, deepening the farm labour crisis. (p. 21)
The increase of Industry's African labour force by some 115 ,000 during the war, had profound effects on other fractions of capital.
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United Party ambivalence on labour and black organisation cost it rural and white working-class votes in 1948. (p. 24)
This ambivalence produced critical defections in the 1948 general elections, resulting in the loss of 36 seats and a Nationalist Party victory.
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Apartheid is interpreted primarily as a restructuring of labour relations to solve agriculture's labour crisis. (p. 25)
Yet apartheid represented primarily an attempt to restructure relations of exploitation to cope with agriculture's labour crisis
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The Nationalist state ended up establishing monopoly-capital hegemony in the 1960s, not national capital's. (p. 26)
the NP state during the sixties reorganised the power bloc to establish the hegemony of interpenetrated monopoly capital.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Board of Trade and Industries Report (1945), on the Customs Tariff Act of 1925 | commission or official report | 1945 report on 1925 Act | Establishes that the 1925 Customs Tariff Act inaugurated a deliberate protection policy, as evidence of national capital's hegemony. |
| Customs Tariff Act of 1925 | legislation gazette | 1925 | Used as an index of the state's protective intervention for national capital (28 items newly protected). |
| Chamber of Mines estimates of tariff and railway tariff costs per ton milled | chamber of mines or recruiting records | 1920s-1930s | Quantifies the cost burden that protection and railway restructuring imposed on mining capital. |
| Chamber of Mines Report of General Meeting 1931 (President's statement) | chamber of mines or recruiting records | 1931 | Shows the Chamber's objections to export subsidies and special duties under the gold standard. |
| Estimate of direct state subsidisation of agriculture (unnamed source) | secondary literature compilation | to 1933 | Quantifies the subsidies to agriculture under the Pact government. |
| 1926/7 Mining Industry Arbitration Board | commission or official report | 1926-27 | Cited for the view that national capital did not want mine wage increases. |
| Mining wage rate and white/black employment statistics, 1921-1932 | official statistical series | 1921-1932 | Shows white miners' wages stayed below pre-1922 levels and the white-to-black ratio changed little, so the Pact brought no big gains. |
| Mines and Works Act 1926 | legislation gazette | 1926 | Evidence of statutory colour bar concession to white miners. |
| 1913 parliamentary Select Committee and House of Assembly Debates 1922 (Tielman Roos) | parliamentary debates | 1913, 1922 | Quoted to show the dominant classes regarded unemployed poor whites as a threat to stability. |
| Estimates of the number of poor whites, 1916-1933 | secondary literature compilation | 1916-1933 | Shows the growing scale of the poor white problem that motivated civilised labour policy. |
| Wage Act of 1925 and fair labour clauses (Customs Tariff Act, government tenders) | legislation gazette | 1925 | Documents state mechanisms for promoting white (civilised) labour in private industry. |
| Employment statistics for whites in private industry, 1923/4-1932/3 | official statistical series | 1923/4-1932/3 | Shows white employment share in private industry rose under civilised labour policy. |
| Official statistics on poor whites absorbed by the state sector by 1931 | official statistical series | to 1931 | Quantifies state absorption of poor whites into public employment. |
| Select Committee on the Gold Standard (evidence of Federated Chamber of Industries and South African Agricultural Union) | parliamentary debates | 1932 | Evidence that all fractions of capital urged abandonment of the gold standard. |
| Depression-era economic indicators (wheat price premium, agricultural net income, gold taxation, mining profits and tax 1932-33) | official statistical series | 1927-1933 | Quantifies differential Depression impact and the state's extraction of mining surplus via the Excess Profits Tax. |
| State budget expenditure and agricultural assistance figures, 1927/8-1939/40 | official statistical series | 1927/8-1939/40 | Shows the growth of state support for agriculture financed from gold mining taxation. |
| Marketing Act 1937 | legislation gazette | 1937 | Example of state powers benefiting agriculture and the reaction of Mines and Industry. |
| Commission on industrial protection (1930s), report quoted | commission or official report | 1930s | Shows that even a critical report left the policy of protection largely unchanged. |
| Native Service Contract Act (1932), Hertzog Bills of 1936, Native Lands and Trusts Act 1936 | legislation gazette | 1932-1936 | Interpreted as measures to resolve the agricultural labour crisis consistent with national capital's hegemony. |
| National income and sectoral output statistics 1939-1945, wartime tax and labour data | national accounts macro | 1939-1945 | Documents manufacturing expansion, gold taxation and labour shortages during the war. |
| Agricultural price indices and mechanisation data, 1934/5-1947 | official statistical series | 1934-1947 | Shows the wartime recovery of agricultural prices and mechanisation alongside the labour crisis. |
| Board of Trade and Industries recommendation on African semi-skilled labour; wartime state measures | commission or official report | WWII | Supports the claim that the war drew Africans into semi-skilled industrial work while the state protected whites. |
| Hansard 1947, Column 5009 (Minister of Native Affairs) | parliamentary debates | 1947 | Quoted to illustrate the United Party's contradictory labour policy. |
| Fagan Commission Report (Native Laws Commission) | commission or official report | 1946-1948 | Used to show the UP's ambivalence on migrant labour and stabilisation. |
| 1948 general election results (seats lost by UP, Nationalist gains) | election returns | 1943-1948 | Shows the defection of rural and mining constituencies that gave the NP victory. |
| Union Statistics, Official Yearbooks, government committees and Commissions, House of Assembly Debates (general) | official statistical series | 1920s-1940s | General base of empirical material for the article. |
| Fremantle, Duncan and Smuts papers (unpublished letters) | state archives | 1920s-1940s | Unpublished correspondence said to supply empirical material, though not cited specifically. |
| Newspapers: Die Burger, The Cape Times, Die Oosterlig, Die Transvaler, The Star | newspapers periodicals | 1920s-1940s | Consulted generally for political and class-fraction positions. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Theory-driven historical periodisation applying Poulantzas's concepts (power bloc, hegemony, form of state vs regime). The argument uses selective narrative evidence from state policy, party politics and scattered statistics across three periods (Pact, Fusion, 1940-48) to interpret class-fraction conflict. No systematic test or data series is built.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| National capital (agriculture and manufacturing) captured hegemony from mining capital in 1924 after the post-war crisis and the 1922 strike isolated mining capital. (p. 6) | Narrative of protection disputes, party realignments and the 1922 strike; the Board of Trade and Industries history and party changes; no systematic data. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The Pact state used tariffs, subsidies, railway rates and ISCOR to transfer mining surplus to national capital, imposing quantifiable costs on the mines. (p. 9) | Customs Tariff Act 1925, Board of Trade 1945 report, Chamber of Mines cost estimates, subsidy estimate. | Partial data |
| The Pact brought white wage earners no dramatic wage gains, but civilised labour policy raised white employment in industry and the state sector. (p. 11) | Wage and employment series for mines and private industry; official statistics on poor whites absorbed; Wage Act and Mines and Works Act. | Partial data |
| Coalition/fusion in 1933-34 was a change in form of regime, not in hegemony; national capital remained hegemonic with compromises to mining capital, as shown by the Excess Profits Tax and continued protection and agricultural subsidies. (p. 12) | Gold standard debates, Select Committee evidence, EPT figures, budget expenditure on agriculture. | Partial data |
| During WWII manufacturing held a tenuous hegemony as industrial output boomed and gold mining bore the tax burden, while agriculture faced a labour exodus. (p. 20) | National income by sector, tax percentages on gold mining, agricultural price indices, tractor counts, African industrial employment increase. | Partial data |
| The United Party's inability to resolve labour and class crises, shown in the Fagan Commission and the 1946 mine strike, led agricultural and white worker defections and the NP victory in 1948. (p. 24) | Hansard 1947, Fagan Commission report, 1948 election seat outcomes. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Apartheid primarily restructured relations of exploitation to solve agriculture's labour crisis (influx control, labour bureaux) and later paved the way for monopoly capital's hegemony. (p. 25) | Asserted on the basis of the described post-1948 measures, without cited data. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
The authors note that the article is a periodisation of the political and not an analysis of relations of exploitation, and that it does not cover post-1948 struggles. They give no discussion of data limitations; many figures are introduced as 'estimates' or 'according to official statistics'.
Gaps in the evidence¶
Claims about hegemony and class-fraction interests rest on selected quotations and aggregate figures, with few cited series or archival files. Testing them would need systematic evidence such as Chamber of Mines and Federated Chambers of Industries records, Agricultural Union submissions, Hansard voting patterns, constituency-level election returns and budget accounts by revenue source. These sources largely existed then and are accessible in South African archives and published official series. Systematic sectoral data would be needed to verify claims such as the one-third share of state revenue from gold mining, and to show causal links between class fractions and policy.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.