Re-Forming Class: Identity, Wealth, and Cultural Transformation in South Africa

Abstract

This discussion about “Living with Class” in contemporary South Africa contains a less subtle correlative about the dismantling of its cultures and death of its diversity. These processes are irreversible. They are being steadily and systematically controlled by Western economic policies—between Wall Street and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange—which, while inscrutable to the vapidly poor and uneducated, are both mercilessly challenging the cultural viability of an African way of life and subsidizing the affluence of a narrow margin of politicians and entrepreneurs.