The Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Business and Apartheid: A Critical Evaluation

Literature › Works

Nicoli Nattrass (1999). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Business and Apartheid: A Critical Evaluation. African Affairs, Vol. 98, No. 392. Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society.

Type	journal article
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	policy analysis
Period studied	1960–1998
Regions	South Africa
Themes	business and state, politics ideology elections, transition post apartheid, mining migrant labour, sanctions divestment, comparative theory, unions strikes
Citation key	nattrass1999a

Argument

The South African TRC went beyond its brief on gross human rights violations to examine business. It adopted a radical, systemic reading of apartheid and capitalism, and recommended blanket restitutive taxation rather than graded accountability. Nattrass reviews the radical and liberal positions in the business submissions and sets out the TRC's three orders of business involvement (first: collaboration in designing apartheid; second: supplying repression; third: merely benefiting). She argues that the third-order logic, which equates profiting under apartheid with culpability, is analytically weak and morally blunt. It lets the most powerful actors, who could have acted more decisively, escape closer scrutiny. She explains the TRC's stance by the lack of clear cases of direct business involvement in gross abuses, the commissioners' own place in the liberal-radical debate, and the absence of legal powers over business.

Evidence and method

The TRC Report (vols 4 and 5); written submissions and testimony to the TRC business hearings (ANC, COSATU, SACP, Terreblanche, Anglo American, Old Mutual, SANLAM, Armscor, AHI, Bernstein, Simkins and others); the I. G. Farben trial literature (Borkin); secondary literature on the race-class debate and on democracy and growth. The author also draws on her own involvement in drafting the TRC's business chapter.

Place in the debates

• Liberal vs radical (race-class) debate on apartheid and capitalism (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Presents the divide as structuring both the business submissions and the TRC's conclusions. She does not endorse either side, but notes that both accept apartheid affected different sections of business differently, and criticises the TRC for taking the radical line wholesale.
• Business culpability: systemic benefit vs individual or intentional responsibility (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Argues that the TRC's third-order, benefit-based culpability implies guilt by association. She favours differentiating firms by power, knowledge and choices, as the I. G. Farben court did.
• Growth and democratization (modernization thesis) (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Notes that the TRC's blanket position implied growth contributed nothing to democracy, which is highly contestable given the literature (Lipset, Przeworski et al.), though she does not simply endorse Bernstein's pro-business version.

Findings

• The TRC's headline finding was that most businesses were implicated through benefit from the racial order. (p. 4)

  Most businesses benefited from operating in a racially structured context.

• Restitution was proposed for all business irrespective of degree of involvement, unlike the amnesty-for-disclosure treatment of individual perpetrators. (p. 4)

  the TRC proposed that all businesses (regardless of their different levels of involvement) should be liable for punitive taxation.

• The TRC's approach reflects the radical side of the race-class debate on how apartheid underpinned profitability. (p. 5)

  radicals argued that segregation and apartheid structured the process of class formation and underpinned corporate profitability by depressing black labour costs.

• The TRC made systemic rather than differentiated findings, unlike the I. G. Farben tribunal. (p. 6)

  By contrast, the TRC made systemic findings (apartheid was good for business, therefore all business should pay)

• Terreblanche's keynote gave the strongest statement of a symbiotic state-capital relationship keeping black labour costs low. (p. 8)

  the state was, over a period of more than 60 years, always prepared to promulgate legislation to keep black labour costs low and to suppress all kinds of black labour unrest with undue ferocity.

• Bernstein defended business with a modernization-style argument that business growth unintentionally fostered democratization. (p. 13)

  Business in South Africa accommodated itself to the apartheid system. In doing so, it provided jobs for millions of people, created infrastructure, unleashed democratizing pressures (unintentionally)

• The TRC held the mining industry responsible for using the state to shape the migrant labour system (first-order involvement). (p. 15)

  rather than relying simply on the forces of supply and demand, the mining industry harnessed the services of the state to shape labour conditions to their advantage.

• Nattrass identifies third-order involvement as the most problematic category because it implies guilt by association. (p. 18)

  Third-order involvement is the most problematic of all the levels of involvement because it proceeds beyond the bounds of intention and implies guilt by association.

• The TRC's blanket stance implied that apartheid's benefits exceeded its costs for all business and that growth did not aid democratization. (p. 18)

  the TRC made a judgement that the benefits of apartheid exceeded the costs for all businesses, and that economic growth itself made no contribution to social progress or democratization.

• Only full disinvestment would have escaped TRC condemnation, which Nattrass links to the sanctions and disinvestment position of the TRC's chair. (p. 18)

  The only way in which any business could have avoided condemnation by the TRC was to have disinvested entirely from the South African economy.

• Blanket recommendations deflected scrutiny from the most powerful business actors. (p. 19)

  The net effect was to take the heat off the powerful players and direct attention away from those whose involvement with the apartheid regime was of graver moral concern.

• No clear case of direct business involvement in gross human rights abuses existed, which helps explain the systemic turn. (p. 20)

  there were no clear examples of business being involved directly in gross human rights abuses.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
TRC Final Report, Vol. 4 (institutional hearing on business, chapter on business)	commission or official report	1960-1994 (report 1998)	The object of analysis: its findings on first-, second- and third-order business involvement and its culpability reasoning are quoted and critiqued.
TRC Final Report, Vol. 5, Ch. 8: Recommendations	commission or official report	1998	Source for the recommendations on wealth tax, once-off levy, 1 percent donation and odious debt, which the article criticises as blanket measures.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act no. 34 of 1995	legislation gazette	1995	Defines the TRC's mandate and the narrow definition of gross human rights violation, contrasted with the extended inquiry into business.
Submissions from business organizations to the TRC business hearings (AHI, COSAB, JCCI, SACOB, SEIFSA, Textile Federation)	employer association records	October 1997	Show the liberal-type argument that apartheid constrained business, that business protested apartheid and was not culpable; SACOB argued gradualism was reasonable, AHI admitted support for separate development.
Submissions from large corporations to the TRC (Anglo American, Old Mutual, SAB, Tongaat-Hulett, SANLAM, Armscor)	company records or reports	1997	Used to document corporate defences, apologies and admissions (e.g. Anglo's failure to provide married accommodation, Armscor's denial of knowing facilitation).
Submissions by corporate executives (A. Rosholt, A. Rupert, A. Bernstein) to the TRC	interviews oral history	October 1997	Rupert's correspondence with Verwoerd on the colour bar and Bernstein's argument that business had no moral role beyond growth illustrate business positions.
Left-wing/critical submissions to the TRC (ANC, COSATU, SACP, BMF, Anti-Apartheid Movement Archives Committee, Apartheid Debt Co-ordinating Committee)	union or movement records	October-November 1997	Document the radical argument that apartheid benefited capital and that business was complicit, including the claim of 'human rights violations by business'.
S. Terreblanche, Testimony before the TRC special hearing on business and fax to Dr Fazel Randera	interviews oral history	11 November 1997; 8 July 1998	Keynote testimony giving the strongest statement of the symbiotic state-capital thesis and the case for a wealth tax.
Charles Simkins, Business and Human Rights, 1960-1994, prepared for the TRC	commission or official report	1997	Used to show a typology of business reformers, standpatters and expedient adapters supporting the argument about gradations of behaviour.
Armscor Draft Submission to the TRC	company records or reports	October 1997	Illustrates second-order involvement and the difficulty of establishing knowledge of intended use.
Testimony of Major Craig Williamson to the TRC on covert credit cards	interviews oral history	c. 1997	Provides the evidence about banks supplying covert credit cards to the Civil Co-operation Bureau, used for the TRC's second-order finding on banks.
J. Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of I. G. Farben (including quoted trial judgment)	secondary literature compilation	1978 (post-WWII trials)	Provides the comparison of legal evidentiary standards in the I. G. Farben trial with TRC findings on business.
Przeworski et al., 'What makes democracy endure?'	secondary literature compilation	cross-national, to 1996	Cited statistical findings on income levels and democratic durability support the claim that growth is important for democracy.
TRC press release on business hearings (information from Simon Segal)	other	1997	Supports the claim that the business hearings were framed in non-threatening terms to encourage participation.

Inference

Quantification: None.

Qualitative critical reading and document analysis of the TRC's final report and the submissions to its business hearings, using the liberal-radical debate as an interpretive frame and an analogy with the I. G. Farben trial. The author, who helped draft the TRC business chapter, states her involvement openly.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
The TRC adopted a systemic, radical view that equated profiting under apartheid with culpability, and recommended blanket wealth taxation not proportional to involvement. (p. 375)	TRC Report vols. 4 and 5 recommendations, compared with the submissions.	Partial data
Submissions to the TRC split along liberal-radical lines: business stressed harm from apartheid and lack of power, critics stressed symbiosis with the state, collaboration and tolerance of discrimination. (p. 377-378)	Reading of business, corporate, executive and movement submissions.	Partial data
The TRC's third-order involvement finding implies guilt by association, treating a good employer as equally culpable as a racist firm. (p. 389)	TRC Report vol. 4 paragraphs 32-33 compared with its recommendations.	Illustrative or anecdotal
The blanket approach assumed benefits of apartheid exceeded costs for all businesses and that growth contributed nothing to democratization, both contestable. (p. 389)	Argued from the debate literature and Lipset/Przeworski findings.	Partial data
The TRC's evidentiary standard on second-order involvement (including banks' covert cards) shifted the burden of proof onto business and has moral rather than judicial force. (p. 388)	TRC Report quotations, Williamson testimony, and the I. G. Farben judgment comparison.	Illustrative or anecdotal
Blanket recommendations deflected attention from powerful players such as Anglo American, the Brenthurst group and Armscor who could have done more. (p. 390)	Comparison of TRC recommendations with its own statements on financial muscle.	Asserted
No clear examples of business directly involved in gross human rights abuses existed, and the systemic framing left the TRC little chance of gathering evidence for strong first- and second-order findings. (p. 391)	Author's judgement on TRC process and hearing structure.	Asserted

The author's caveats

The author discloses that she helped draft the TRC business chapter and was brought in late to sift a vast pile of submissions; she notes that the final chapter was edited by commissioners, with inaccuracies and altered economic terms, so the report does not fully represent her drafting.

Gaps in the evidence

The article does not assess empirically whether apartheid raised or lowered business profitability, so claims that benefits exceeded costs rest on the debate rather than data. Firm-level profit, wage and ownership data, or the full transcripts of hearings, would test the differential involvement claims; these existed then, and the TRC submissions and transcripts are archived. Most submissions are cited without being independently verified against company archives.

Replicability: Data described but not public.