The Apartheid Project, 1948–1970¶
Deborah Posel (2011). The Apartheid Project, 1948–1970. The Cambridge History of South Africa, Volume 2: 1885–1994 (Chapter 7). Cambridge University Press.
| Type | book chapter |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | synthesis review |
| Period studied | 1948–1970 |
| Regions | South Africa, Western Cape, Reserves/Bantustans, Urban townships |
| Themes | origins segregation, politics ideology elections, business and state, bantustans removals influx, labour markets wages, agriculture land, inequality poverty unemployment, education human capital, demography urbanisation, manufacturing industrial policy |
| Citation key | posel2011 |
Argument¶
Posel argues that apartheid was not a single coherent, monolithic plan but an evolving, internally contradictory project of racial social and economic engineering, passing through a pragmatic 1950s phase and an aggressive 1960s 'grand apartheid' phase. Its foundational contradiction was that white prosperity depended on abundant cheap black labour concentrated in cities, while that urban concentration threatened white supremacy. The state, drawing on mid-century enthusiasm for planning and welfare statecraft, sought to manage this through labour bureaux, influx control, removals and homelands, but was constrained by weak bureaucratic capacity, local-authority resistance, employer and worker evasion, and the unintended consequences of its own policies (e.g. job reservation, Bantu education, township housing). The chapter is thematic, interpretive and selective, and stresses that durability coexisted with fragility, with the performance of state power mattering as much as its efficacy.
Evidence and method¶
Secondary literature and previously published work by the author (The Making of Apartheid; articles on race classification, civil service and statistics). Also parliamentary debates, Tomlinson Commission summary, Native Affairs Department reports, Seekings and Nattrass for urban population and growth statistics, and Platzky and Walker for removals. No new archival research is presented in this chapter.
Place in the debates¶
- Coherence of apartheid: monolithic master plan vs. fractious, improvised, contradictory project (see Origins, coherence and ideology of apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism). Rejects the monolithic reading; argues apartheid evolved through phases, was never implemented according to plan, and was marked by internal contradiction and 'radical provisionality'.
- Purist (total segregation) vs. pragmatic (labour-dependent) versions of apartheid (see Origins, coherence and ideology of apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism). Argues the pragmatic version, backed by powerful Afrikaner capitalist interests, prevailed after 1948, aiming at cheap black labour under tight state control; only a small minority favoured economic sacrifice.
- Did apartheid serve capitalist growth, or hinder it (liberal vs revisionist/racial capitalism) (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Mixed: sees deliberate racialised economic engineering within capitalism and cheap-labour dependence, but argues job reservation, Bantu education and truncated consumer markets produced skills shortages and growth-inhibiting contradictions; growth was unimpressive comparatively.
- State capacity and rationality: high modernism / state-planning interpretations (see Origins, coherence and ideology of apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism). Locates apartheid within global high-modernist planning and welfarist statecraft, but stresses a state ill-equipped for its ambitions ('dinosaur with a massive body and small brain').
Findings¶
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Apartheid rested on a foundational contradiction between urban black labour dependence and the threat that concentrated urban labour posed to white rule. (p. 5)
the suction of vast numbers of black workers into urban employment simultaneously created the conditions that most seriously threatened the future of white supremacy.
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Most Afrikaner nationalists wanted apartheid to secure cheap black labour under state control rather than withdraw black labour from the white economy. (p. 4)
Most looked to apartheid as a system that would guarantee their access to an abundance of cheap black labour, kept in check by rigorous and wide-ranging methods of state control.
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Farm mechanisation reduced demand for African farm labour and fed assaults on labour tenancy, swelling the reserves' populations. (p. 21)
The number of tractors in use on South African farms rocketed from around 20,000 in 1946 to almost 120,000 by 1960.
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The first-phase urban labour preference policy and labour bureaux failed, and urban African population growth continued despite controls. (p. 22)
The urban African population grew by 49.5 per cent between 1950 and 1960 (from 2,559,200 to 3,825,500),
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Second-phase removals were massive, aimed at excising 'surplus' Africans from white areas to Bantustans. (p. 24)
By the end of the 1960s, around 3.5 million people had been forcibly removed from ‘white’ areas of South Africa.
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Apartheid's population controls slowed but did not stop urban African growth. (p. 42)
The urban African population never ceased to grow; but the implementation of apartheid measures slowed its rate of growth.
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Job reservation and Bantu education produced a skills shortage that constrained growth, and racially pegged wages limited domestic consumer markets. (p. 43)
One of the shackles on economic growth – particularly during the 1960s, as rates of industrial mechanization rose – was a deepening shortage of skills.
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The state's own job reservation created its own labour shortage, forcing growing reliance on black civil servants. (p. 36)
intent on protecting privileged spheres of work for whites, the apartheid state created its own labour-shortage problem.
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Bantu education expanded schooling quantity while degrading quality, generating grievances that led to Soweto 1976. (p. 22)
This would turn out to be one of the more explosive contradictions of the apartheid project, leading directly to the 1976 Soweto uprisings
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The reserves were deliberately kept as dependent reservoirs of migrant labour, with the Tomlinson recommendations for large-scale development rejected. (p. 21)
the intention of apartheid’s planners was to sustain relations of economic dependency so as to reproduce reservoirs of migrant labour to service the needs of white employers.
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The apartheid state grew rapidly in size but suffered diminishing capacity due to Afrikanerisation and job reservation. (p. 36)
Paradoxically, the staff establishment of state bureaucracies continued to expand in the midst of worsening shortages of personnel, particularly at more senior levels.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tomlinson Commission Summary Report (UG 61/1955) | commission or official report | 1951 (report 1955) | Establishes the extreme poverty and income concentration in the reserves (13% of population earning 46% of income). |
| Population Registration Act, no. 30 of 1950 | legislation gazette | 1950 | Quoted for the legal definitions of white, native and coloured persons, illustrating the culturalist notion of race. |
| House of Assembly Debates, 17 March 1967 | parliamentary debates | 1967 | Minister of the Interior's statement that race classification rests on social judgement. |
| House of Assembly Debates, 1961, vol. 107 | parliamentary debates | 1961 | Verwoerd's statement that the homeland policy departed from original intentions. |
| Senate Debates, 7 June 1954 (Verwoerd on Bantu education), cited via Pampallis | parliamentary debates | 1954 | Verwoerd's rationale for Bantu education and the criticism of mission schooling. |
| Secretary for Native Affairs, Draft regulations for Native Labour Bureaux (1951) and Native Affairs Department Progress report for 1950 | state archives | 1950-1951 | Documents official recognition of urbanised Africans' residential rights, cited via Posel's earlier book. |
| Department of Bantu Affairs statistical enterprise (work-seeker permits, service contracts, occupational register) | official statistical series | 1960s | Used to illustrate the apartheid state's 'mania for measurement' and its disconnect from administrative practice. |
| Public service staffing figures (1950, 1967, 1970), via Posel 1999 | official statistical series | 1948-1970 | Documents the growth of state departments and personnel alongside staff shortages. |
| National Population Register / Race Classification Appeal Boards figures | official statistical series | 1950-1964 | Quantifies classifications and appeals to argue that most people accepted their classification. |
| Population census data (1946, 1951, 1960, 1970) on racial composition and urban African population | population census | 1946-1970 | Provides racial proportions and urban African population growth figures. |
| Seekings and Nattrass, Class, race and inequality in South Africa (data on urban African population and manufacturing growth) | secondary literature compilation | 1951-1970 | Source for urban African population totals and manufacturing, investment and surplus growth rates. |
| Platzky and Walker, The surplus people (forced removals) | secondary literature compilation | to 1970 | Source for the figure of 3.5 million people forcibly removed from white areas by 1970. |
| Election and referendum results 1948-1966 (as reported) | election returns | 1948-1966 | Used to trace the National Party's growing electoral base, including the 1960 referendum and 1961 election. |
| Newspapers and periodicals (Cape Argus 27 Sept 1955; Cape Times 21 Oct 1960; SABRA Newsletter Oct 1954) | newspapers periodicals | 1954-1960 | Quoted for Dutch Reformed Church views on African marriage, petty apartheid absurdities and planning language. |
| Posel's own prior research (Making of apartheid; 'Whiteness and power'; 'Race as common sense'; 'Marriage at the drop of a hat') | secondary literature compilation | 1948-1970 | Provides much archival-based evidence on labour bureaux, classification and housing, cited rather than newly presented. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Thematic, interpretive synthesis resting on secondary literature and the author's prior archival work, supported by selective official statistics and legislation, with analysis of statecraft and contradictions across the 1950s and 1960s phases.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Apartheid rested on a foundational contradiction between white prosperity reliant on cheap black labour and white supremacy threatened by black urbanisation. (p. 323) | Argued from census population proportions and the interpretive reading of policy and secondary literature. | Partial data |
| The urban labour preference policy and labour bureaux largely failed in the 1950s; urban African population grew 49.5 per cent between 1950 and 1960 despite controls. (p. 340) | Urban African population totals from census-derived figures plus qualitative accounts of bureau practice. | Partial data |
| Removals and tighter controls in the 1960s slowed but did not stop urban African growth (58 per cent in 1950s, 28 per cent in 1960s), with around 3.5 million removed. (p. 360) | Seekings and Nattrass population figures and Platzky and Walker removal estimate. | Partial data |
| The apartheid state grew rapidly in size but with diminishing capacity, owing to Afrikanerisation of the civil service and job reservation. (p. 354) | Public service staffing figures from Posel's earlier article; department counts. | Partial data |
| Reserves were impoverished and neglected: the Tomlinson recommendations were rejected and labour tenancy was assaulted, raising reserve populations. (p. 338) | Tomlinson Commission summary report; tractor numbers and secondary literature. | Partial data |
| Economic growth in the 1950s-60s was sustained but constrained by skill shortages, truncated consumer markets and low productivity, with deepening racial inequality. (p. 361) | Seekings and Nattrass growth rates, Moll's comparative argument, plus asserted mechanisms. | Asserted |
| The Department of Bantu Affairs' measurement apparatus was disconnected from operations, being more a symptom of modernist hubris than a governing tool. (p. 345) | Description of departmental statistical routines from Posel's earlier article. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
The author's caveats¶
Few explicit caveats; the author notes the chapter is thematic and highly selective, and that appeals data may reflect ignorance of the procedure. She notes only 'some evidence' of falling African fertility.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The chapter relies on secondary compilations and aggregate figures, with little systematic evidence on labour bureau operation, pass-law enforcement or removals by locality. Labour bureau records, Native Affairs Department files, municipal archives and census microdata exist and could test claims about the failure of influx control and the patterns of urban African growth. Direct employment, wage and skill series by race would better substantiate claims about skill shortages and productivity.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.