Civil Society and Political Economy in South and Southern Africa

Abstract

For a worker living in ‘deep’ Soweto, the sprawling township outside Johannesburg, the world economy of today has many parallels with the apartheid system which was in place until April 1994. Indeed, South Africa is in many ways a microcosm of the world (Makhijani, 1992). Besides issues of race, language, power, urbanization, and politics, the income gap between the races is similar to that in the world as a whole, and creates similar dangers. While the blacks toiled to keep the wheels of this economy moving, the whites enjoyed the fruits. The adoption of a neo-liberal economic strategy by the first multi-racial government of Nelson Mandela is unlikely to help eradicate the dualistic structure of South African society and the region for the foreseeable future. If anything, neo-liberalism as a development strategy is likely to result in a decisive change in the productive powers and balance of social forces within South Africa, the region, and in the relationship of Southern Africa with the major powers in the world economy (Gill, 1991a).