Class Struggle and the State¶
Duncan Innes; Martin Plaut (1978). Class Struggle and the State. Review of African Political Economy, No. 11 (Jan.-Apr. 1978). ROAPE Publications Ltd. / Taylor & Francis.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | theoretical or conceptual |
| Period studied | 1910–1932 |
| Regions | South Africa, Witwatersrand |
| Themes | origins segregation, politics ideology elections, unions strikes, resistance social movements, business and state, labour markets wages, mining migrant labour, comparative theory |
| Citation key | innes1978 |
Argument¶
Innes and Plaut criticise Davies, Kaplan, Morris and O'Meara's Poulantzian periodisation of the South African state (ROAPE 7) for treating inter-capitalist 'secondary contradictions' and power-bloc hegemony as the motor of history. They argue this separation of politics from the relations of exploitation drifts towards liberal historiography and pluralism, and relegates black workers to a passive role. They hold that the state is the political form of capital's domination over labour, and that its trajectory is set by the capital-labour struggle. As an alternative they sketch the period from the First World War to the Depression. African and white worker militancy after 1918 drove capital and the state to divide the working class by race, crush white labour after 1922 and destroy the ICU by 1932. This defeat is said to have laid the basis for the rapid growth of the 1930s.
Evidence and method¶
Close reading of the Davies et al. article (quoted extensively with page references) and of Poulantzas. The alternative account draws on secondary sources and statistics: national income and manufacturing shares, union membership, strike counts, white wage rates, and employment by race and sex in industry. It cites a paper by Jon Lewis. No archival work is presented, and the authors call the account schematic.
Place in the debates¶
- Poulantzian fractions-of-capital/power-bloc analysis vs class-struggle Marxism on the South African state (see The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital). Rejects the fractions/hegemony framework as pluralist and economistic. Insists the state must be located in the capital-labour struggle with black workers at the centre.
- Liberal vs revisionist interpretation of apartheid, the state and the economy (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Argues that Davies et al. come close to liberal historiography, in which Afrikaner interests capture the state and distort the economy. The authors place themselves in a radical Marxist tradition.
- Was 1924 a class alliance between national capital and white workers (Pact government)? (see The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital). Denies a class alliance. Sees the Pact as an assault on and neutralisation of white workers combined with co-option of their leaders.
- Sources of 1930s growth (see Did the apartheid economy fail? Growth, productivity, investment and the post-1970s crisis). Attributes the 'golden period' of accumulation to the defeat of white and black workers in the 1920s, which allowed higher exploitation of all labour.
Findings¶
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The central criticism: the Davies et al. article does not deal seriously with the capital-black labour relationship that it purports to analyse. (p. 2)
the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the most important section of the proletariat - i.e. black workers - is never really dealt with except in a most cursory fashion.
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Separating the political from the relations of exploitation is held to undermine a Marxist analysis of the state. (p. 3)
it is only if we are able to establish the unity between politics and the relations of exploitation (and not isolate them from each other in the analysis)
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The Poulantzian approach makes competition within capital the supposed driver of accumulation and relegates the class struggle. (p. 4)
the dynamic of accumulation comes to be situated, not in the relations of conflict between capital and labour, but primarily in the relations of competition within capital itself.
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The state is conceived as the political form of capital's general domination, and its success against labour determines the path of capitalist development. (p. 6)
The state is the political form of the domination of capital in general over labour and seeks to impose this domination (and not the whims of particular capitals) on labour.
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Rapid growth and the rise of manufacturing in 1918-39 are the phenomenon the alternative account sets out to explain. (p. 7)
by 1939 the National Income was 2.35 times larger than it had been in 1918, while the manufacturing sector rose at a faster rate than any other
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Labour shortages in World War I strengthened migrant workers' bargaining power and led to strikes and the 1920 mine strike. (p. 7)
Immediately after the war serious strikes by African (migrant) dock and municipal workers were followed in 1920 by the massive African mine workers strike (involving 71,000 workers).
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Capital sought to substitute cheaper black semi-skilled labour for white skilled labour on the mines, provoking the 1922 Rand Revolt. (p. 8)
to replace high cost white skilled labour with lower cost black semi-skilled labour in the hope that this would mean they could both 'satisfy' black demands for higher wages
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After 1922 white workers' organisation, strikes and wages fell sharply. (p. 8-9)
trade union membership among whites fell from 108,242 to 81,861 immediately after the suppression of the Revolt
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White mine wages were cut after the Revolt. (p. 9)
between 1925 and 1932 these ranged on average between ?259 and ?327 per annum compared with an average of ?419 per annum prior to the 1922 Revolt.
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Employment in private industry shifted towards black and female labour between 1915/16 and 1929/30. (p. 9)
the number of white male workers employed in private industry rose by 22%, while the number of white females rose by 65% and the number of black males by 49%.
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The state destroyed the ICU and crippled the ANC and Communist Party by 1932, and this defeat of labour underpinned 1930s growth. (p. 10)
By the end of 1932 the ICU had been destroyed as an organisation, the ANC and the Communist Party had become virtually impotent
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Income figures, 1918 and 1939 (national income and manufacturing share), source unspecified | national accounts macro | 1918-1939 | Establishes rapid growth and the rising manufacturing share of national income that the authors say needs explaining. |
| White trade union membership and strike counts, 1919-1929 (source unspecified) | official statistical series | 1919-1929 | Shows the demobilisation of white workers after the 1922 Rand Revolt (falling union membership and strike activity). |
| White wage rates in the mining industry, 1925-1932 vs pre-1922 (source unspecified) | official statistical series | pre-1922 to 1932 | Shows that white mine wages were cut after the 1922 Revolt. |
| Private industry employment by race and sex, 1915/16 to 1929/30 (source unspecified) | industrial mining census | 1915/16-1929/30 | Supports the claim of replacement of white male skilled labour by cheaper black and white female labour in manufacturing. |
| Jon Lewis, 'Trade Unions and Changes in the Labour Process in South Africa, 1925-30' (ICS Collected Seminar Papers vol. 9) | secondary literature compilation | 1925-1930 | Supplies the claim of de-skilling of white workers and the cases of joint white/black strike action. |
| Davies, Kaplan, Morris and O'Meara, 'Class Struggle and the Periodisation of the State in South Africa', ROAPE No. 7 | secondary literature compilation | 1910-1948 | The object of critique; its passages on the Pact period, the ICU, the Hertzog Bills and hegemony are quoted and contested. |
| ICU membership figure of 100,000 in 1926-27 (source unspecified) | union or movement records | 1926-27 | Illustrates the growth of the ICU as an African labour organisation. |
| Figure for the 1920 African mine workers strike (71,000 workers), source unspecified | other | 1920 | Evidence of the scale of African worker militancy after WWI. |
| Legislation: Industrial Conciliation Act 1924, Native Administration Act 1927, Riotous Assemblies (Amendment) Act 1930, Job Reservation Act 1926 | legislation gazette | 1924-1930 | Used as evidence of state strategies to divide the working class and repress black worker organisation. |
| Innes and Plaut, 'Class Struggle and Economic Development in South Africa: the Inter-war Years' (larger paper) | secondary literature compilation | Inter-war | The fuller paper from which these comments are drawn. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Theoretical and historiographical critique of Poulantzian state theory, followed by a brief schematic narrative of 1918-1932. The narrative interprets scattered figures and secondary work (chiefly Lewis) through a capital/labour class-struggle framework; there is no systematic data analysis.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Davies et al neglect the capital-labour contradiction and treat black workers only 'at a distance', so their account resembles pluralist or liberal history. (p. 54) | Close reading and quotation of Davies et al, ROAPE 7 (pp. 4-5, 13, 20, 29). | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Economic growth and the rise of manufacturing from 1918 to 1939 can only be explained through changing relations of exploitation and oppression. (p. 56) | Unsourced national income and manufacturing share figures plus theoretical assertion. | Partial data |
| Post-WWI labour shortages and African militancy forced capital and the state to restructure, using mechanisation and racial divisions to contain the working class. (p. 56) | Narrative reasoning citing strike, ICU and Communist Party events; no sourced series on wages or shortages. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| After the 1922 Rand Revolt white workers were defeated: union membership, strikes, employment and wages fell, and manufacturing saw de-skilling. (p. 57-58) | Union membership, strike counts, mining wage averages and employment-by-race growth rates (sources unnamed), plus Lewis's paper. | Partial data |
| The state under Pirow crushed the ICU, the ANC and the CPSA and the new industrial unions by 1932, breaking black workers' organised power and laying the basis for 1930s growth. (p. 59) | Narrative assertion with reference to the 1927 and 1930 Acts; no archival or police records cited. | Asserted |
| There was no class alliance between white workers and national capital in the 1920s; the Pact was an assault that neutralised white workers. (p. 60) | Re-reading of the Davies et al passage on poor-white employment, plus the Labour Party split of 1928. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
The authors call their analysis brief, schematic and incomplete, noting that agriculture and proletarianisation are not adequately dealt with, that the ICU's demise is not 'cut and dried', and that some propositions may need to be modified or discarded.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument that class struggle drove the 1920s-30s restructuring and later growth needs sourced series on African wages, strikes, labour supply and the manufacturing labour process. It also needs archival evidence on police repression and on state/Chamber of Mines decision-making (Department of Labour and Justice files, Chamber of Mines records, union records), most of which existed in the archives. The figures given have no cited provenance, and the state's intentions are inferred rather than documented.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.