Defending South African Capitalism: A Review of Merle Lipton's Capitalism and Apartheid¶
Bill Freund (1987). Defending South African Capitalism: A Review of Merle Lipton's Capitalism and Apartheid. University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop, 'The Making of Class', 9-14 February 1987. University of the Witwatersrand, History Workshop.
| Type | conference paper |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | synthesis review |
| Period studied | 1870–1986 |
| Regions | South Africa, Witwatersrand, Kimberley, East Rand, Zambian Copperbelt |
| Themes | origins segregation, business and state, labour markets wages, politics ideology elections, unions strikes, mining migrant labour, manufacturing industrial policy, transition post apartheid, comparative theory |
| Citation key | freund1987a |
Argument¶
Freund reviews Merle Lipton's Capitalism and Apartheid, which he reads as an apologia for South African capitalism and a plea for white liberal, middle-ground politics. Lipton argues that apartheid and capitalism can be disengaged, that manufacturers opposed apartheid labour controls, and that business is growing more reformist. Freund credits her research and her account of the long-run shift away from rigid labour controls. He argues that she is too generous to capitalists and has a weak concept of the capitalist state. He says she understates how far capital valued racial hierarchy, migrancy and wage differentials as tools of control, overstates business opposition to the state after 1948 and in the 1980s, and underestimates township militancy. He places the 1970s revisionists (Legassick, Wolpe) as functionalist but still foundational, to be contextualised and used critically. His conclusion is that apartheid is a 'Tar Baby' from which business cannot escape.
Evidence and method¶
Close reading of Lipton's text, with page citations to her book. Comparative and secondary literature: Legassick (1974), Burawoy on the Zambian Copperbelt, Mabin and Turrell on Kimberley compounds, Webster's foundry-management poll, Bernstein's survey of management attitudes on influx control, Marx's 1870 letter on Irish and English workers. Press and court reports from 1986 (Financial Mail on General Motors, court revelations on SAAWU and the security police in East London).
Place in the debates¶
- Liberal vs revisionist/Marxist views on the relation of capitalism to apartheid (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Takes a middle course. He accepts that Lipton's evolutionary account of declining functionality is strongly supported, and that the 1970s revisionists were too functionalist. He insists, against Lipton, that capital valued racial hierarchy and was not indifferent to colour, and that revisionism must be contextualised rather than discarded.
- Did manufacturing capital oppose apartheid labour controls? (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Rejects Lipton's claim. Manufacturers opposed state rigidity over hiring but valued cheap, disorganised black labour, differentials, separate townships and, in some cases, migrant labour.
- Role of white labour in forging apartheid (see The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion). Agrees with Lipton that white workers had an autonomous material interest in racial boundaries. He cites Greenberg and Webster, and says she ignores left scholars who explain this.
- Nature of the capitalist state and capital-state conflict after 1948 (see The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital). Argues Lipton has a weak concept of the capitalist state. Hegemony (Gramsci) better explains state-business tensions, which were secondary to the Nationalist government's basic sympathy for capitalist accumulation.
- Business as an agent of reform in the 1980s (see Why apartheid ended: reform, transition and elite bargaining). Sceptical. Most business backed Botha until 1985, was equivocal on the Emergency, feared majoritarianism, and liked trade unions only when the alternative was disruption.
Findings¶
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Freund characterises the book as an apologia for capitalism and a plea for liberal middle-ground politics. (p. 2)
The second is that it functions as an apologia for South African capitalism historically and contains a plea for the continued centrality of white liberals and of a middle-of-the-road politics
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Lipton rejects monocausal explanations of apartheid, stressing class interests (white labour and parts of capital), racism/ethnicity, ideology and security. (p. 3)
apartheid cannot simply be explained as the outcome of capitalism or of racism.
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Lipton holds that manufacturers and merchants had no need of apartheid labour policies and opposed them. (p. 3)
did not need,and indeed opposed,most apartheid labour policies.
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Freund concedes that Legassick's functionalism cannot explain later developments. (p. 4)
he presented a version of capitalism in South Africa that is too lacking in contradiction and overly functionalist to explain more recent developments properly.
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Freund accepts that the functional link between capitalism and compounds, passes and bans on black unions has been broken. (p. 5)
It is no longer possible to assert that South African capitalism has an inherent need for compounds, passes,the absence of black labour unions,etc.
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Mining capital deliberately managed racial boundaries, contradicting the claim that capital was indifferent to the colour of its workers. (p. 6)
There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that mining capital did not want an all-African labour force on the Witwatersrand any more than it wanted a ruinously expensive all-white one.
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Even in the 1980s many manufacturers favoured influx control, as shown by Bernstein's survey. (p. 9)
A study of management attitudes by Ann Bernstein of the Urban Foundation made even later records a large minority (45%)who preferred the retention of all or some influx control legislation.
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Business remained fundamentally loyal to the post-1948 state despite specific disputes over labour policy. (p. 10)
business retained a fundamental loyalty to the state and its characteristic institutions and could not have been more remote from an alliance with any forces that might seek to bring it down
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Until 1985 South African capitalists overwhelmingly backed Botha's reforms, undermining Lipton's claim of growing business opposition. (p. 11)
Until 1985,this meant that virtually all South African capitalists backed the Botha government,which seemed to offer them what they require
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Business support for unions is conditional on crisis avoidance and profitability. (p. 12)
Trade unions,in short,are tolerable to big business when the alternative is disruption and crisis but their appeal diminishes with bad times and low profits.
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Freund's closing judgement: business is trapped in apartheid rather than conspiring to keep it. (p. 14)
The problem is not that South African capitalists converge in a secret conspiracy to retain apartheid; it is that apartheid is the Tar Baby from which they find no escape.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merle Lipton, Capitalism and Apartheid (the book under review), including its survey evidence and sectoral analysis | secondary literature compilation | c.1900s-1986 | The object of the review; its claims, quotations and surveys are weighed against other evidence and arguments. |
| Surveys of white and black opinion relied on by Lipton | author survey or fieldwork | 1970s-1980s | Freund treats them as probably accurate on white attitudes but very dubious on black views, and as proof only of support for cautious change. |
| Eddie Webster, Cast in a Racial Mould (1985), p.204-05, poll of East Rand foundry managers from a 1980 publication | secondary literature compilation | 1980 | Shows that foundry managers preferred migrant 'homeland' labour, undercutting the claim that manufacturers opposed apartheid labour controls. |
| Ann Bernstein, 'Influx Control in Urban South Africa: An International and Empirical View' (Urban Foundation study of management attitudes) | secondary literature compilation | mid-1980s | Shows 45% of managers preferred retaining all or some influx control, used to argue that capital still values extra-economic controls. |
| Alan Mabin, 'Labour, Capital, Class Struggle and the Origins of Residential Segregation in Kimberley 1880-1920', Journal of Historical Geography 12(1), 1986; and R.V. Turrell on Kimberley compounds | secondary literature compilation | 1871-1920 | Evidence that capital deliberately separated white and black workers and used racial hierarchy as a managerial tool before the Rand. |
| Michael Burawoy, The Politics of Production (1985), on the Zambian Copperbelt | secondary literature compilation | colonial and post-colonial Zambia | Comparative case used to argue that racial hierarchy aided mining capital's control and that productivity declined after its dismantling. |
| Karl Marx, 1870 letter to Meyer and Vogt, in Marx and Engels on Colonialism (1959) | other | 1870 | Quoted analogically to argue that capital deliberately exploits ethnic and racial divisions among workers. |
| Financial Mail, 1986 (praise of General Motors for crushing union resistance to disinvestment plans) | newspapers periodicals | 1986 | Anecdotal evidence that business does not generally prefer strong unions. |
| Recent court revelations on SAAWU and business cooperation with the security police in East London | other | 1980s | Used to dispute Lipton's reading of peaceful co-existence between business and SAAWU. |
| Business Charter (cited by Lipton) | company records or reports | 1980s | Cited as evidence of the political barrenness of business circles and their fear of mass democratisation. |
Inference¶
Quantification: None.
Critical review essay: Freund evaluates Lipton's arguments by logical critique, comparative cases (Kimberley, Zambian Copperbelt, Marx on Irish/English workers), selective secondary survey evidence and contemporary press and anecdotal evidence, set against revisionist and Gramscian theory of the state.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Lipton is wrong that capital, especially manufacturing and mining, was indifferent to colour; differentials and racial hierarchies were valuable to management. (p. 6) | Mabin/Turrell on Kimberley, Burawoy on the Copperbelt and Marx's 1870 letter used as comparative and analogical evidence. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Manufacturers have not uniformly opposed extra-economic controls, even in the 1980s; many prefer migrant labour. (p. 8) | Webster's summary of a 1980 foundry managers' poll and Bernstein's Urban Foundation study (45% favoured retaining influx control). | Partial data |
| Lipton exaggerates the extent of conflict between capital and the state after 1948 and the 1940s reform potential; reforms were administrative and later withdrawn. (p. 9) | Argument from the historiography and conceptual critique of the capitalist state; no new primary data. | Asserted |
| The late-1950s business slowdown reflected international recession, not hostility to apartheid. (p. 10) | Asserted by reference to the international recession; no data cited. | Asserted |
| Business opposition to the state is overstated; most capitalists backed the Botha government until 1985 and remain reluctant to move beyond the existing order. (p. 11) | Business Charter, Financial Mail, reaction to the state of emergency and the Relly visit to the ANC, as impressions from 1986. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Lipton overstates the appeal of trade unions to capital; firms replace African workers with Coloured or white workers when disruption rises. (p. 12) | Financial Mail on GM, court revelations on East London, and an unsourced observation about Port Elizabeth firms. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The broad evolution Lipton describes, with apartheid growing less functional to capital, is well supported, and white labour did independently drive racial boundaries. (p. 5) | Freund's assessment of Lipton's sectoral analysis and the wider literature (Greenberg, Webster), no new data. | Partial data |
The author's caveats¶
Freund notes that the surveys Lipton relies on are very dubious regarding black views, and that Lipton's reading stops after 1978 with many omissions in later literature; he does not discuss the limitations of his own evidence.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The review relies on a few secondary-cited polls and press anecdotes, with no systematic data on employer attitudes, hiring patterns or investment behaviour. Firm-level records, employer association archives (e.g. FCI, Chamber of Commerce), Hansard and commission evidence on industrialists' positions, and employment series by race and sector would test the claims on capital's preferences. Most of this existed in the 1980s and is accessible now.
Replicability: Not applicable.