“The relationship between the national democratic state and private capital in general is one of “unity and struggle” cooperation and contestation. On the one hand, the democratic state has to create an environment conducive for private investments from which investors can make reasonable returns and through which employment and technological progress can be derived. On the one hand, through state owned enterprises, effective regulation, taxation and other means the state seeks to ensure redistribution of income to direct investments into areas which will help national development to play a central role in providing public goods and broadly to ensure social responsibility . The balance between “unity and struggle” will be dictated to by the strategic imperatives of the NDR” 2007 ANC STRATEGY AND TACTICS.
Over the past few weeks the progressive mass democratic movement through both the ANC as strategic centre of power and the leader of the National Democratic Revolution and the SACP as a vanguard party for socialism using the NDR as a direct route to socialism; has missed an opportunity to respond adequately to the aspirations of the needs of the natives of this land. The ANC’s NPC and the Party’s NC found themselves fixated on concepts and debated conceptualization of concepts instead of using these two opportunities to deal with concrete societal challenges. This is not to say it is not important to properly diagnose the problems we are confronted with, this task, however, I believe has long been executed albeit in a reformist manner. The media at least made us believe that the highlights of these gatherings were contestation on conceptualization.
The author here, wishes to argue the existence of white monopoly capital. In doing so one will limit oneself to the South African reality not being ignorant of the influence of globalization. We wish therefore to disclaim that this opinion will be narrow and intended as work in progress.
As a point of departure, we ought to appreciate our conceptualization of monopoly capital as a by-product of colonial social relations. The colonizer in all colonial social relations usually enjoys dominance over the colonized. This dominance in a capitalist society manifests itself through the ownership and control patterns of the economic base.
The basic definition of Monopoly Capital for purposes of this opinion piece can be described as “the exclusive ownership, control and possession of money, wealth which grows through circulation and ownership of the means of production or realizable assets. Capital in this instance can also refer to a social relation. Whereas capitalism is a system.
In South Africa, the country was colonized by two groups, in two forms:
a)The British colonized South Africa deliberately for economic reasons, the growth of their wealth. They came to the country with the sole intention of extracting wealth.
b)The Dutch colonized the country through an accident of history, they had no predetermined intention of settling in the country until their discovery of the richness of the land.
This manifests itself even in the ownership patterns of the commanding heights/ sites of the economy. The British own banks, assets (through neo-colonialism by multi nationals and international conglomerates), the Dutch (Afrikaners if you wish) on the other hand are dominant in manufacturing and cultural colonialism.
The bottom line, however, is that both groups are white, with the British and the West at the core, the Afrikaners at the semi-core and the few blacks who are capitalists at the periphery being served crumbs. Both the semi-core and the periphery do not sit at the round table.
South African systems and structures are white and male dominated. Therefore we will have to change these patterns if we are to realize the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution. White Monopoly Capital in our context, therefore, could even be viewed as a figure of speech to refer to the structures and systems. For an example when we say “the University of Stellenbosch is white” we do not mean that all the buildings in that institution are white or all students in that institution are white. What we mean is that their policies promote the culture of white dominance, academic and student populace is dominated by whites, their practices and all systems promote white dominance. Which is why we would argue above that Monopoly capital can refer to social relations.
It is our submission that therefore to concern ourselves with concepts and not confront the real elephant in the house will delay the national democratic revolution whose object is a creation of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society.
So long as the economy is largely dominated by white males and white international ownership with the black majority still living in squalor, abject poverty and deliberately created debt; we have clearly not tempered with the structures and systems and as such are very far from creating a prosperous society.
The idea of “cooperation and contestation” is a contradiction if not a fiction. I cannot imagine how one’s oppressor would allow the oppressed to be their equal, how one’s colonizer would allow the colonized to be their equal willingly.
We must decisively characterize the monopoly capital (in all its manifestations) in general as the strategic enemy of the revolution and white monopoly capital as the immediate threat to the national democratic revolution. By doing so we will be able to confront the effects of colonialism and take the battle to the “round table”.
Perhaps, after all, we will have to say “The land (South Africa) belongs to its natives”. We have not been honest with ourselves about the real threat to the revolution. Those who violently took what belongs to the natives are still at the core of the ownership patterns and unwilling to share.
White Monopoly Capital does exist and it intellectual mischief and dribbling rooted in factional political expediency to ignore that reality in South Africa. The movement must unite in correctly diagnosing the threat to the revolution in order to decisively dismantle White Monopoly Capital!
Lwando Majiza is a SASCO National Working Committee member, he writes in his personal capacity.
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Mijiza you are leadership Thank you very much.