South Africa between Neoliberalism and Social Democracy?: Respecting Balance while Sharpening Differences

Abstract

The diverse, rich writings of Bill Freund are celebrated, justly, for insight, critical distance and engagement with society's most profound problems. That engagement, however, is open-ended, honest and provocative, hence inviting further debate. This paper considers Freund's perspectives on socialism and post-colonial class orientation; South African liberation winners and losers; the nature of the post-apartheid urban experience; international and regional processes; the role of the left intelligentsia; and the emerging community-based alternative to the ruling party and its alliance with workers and communities. In all of these areas, Freund's recent writing unveils creative tensions, often requiring rejoinders and rebuttals, as he charts a course of analysis that hovers between critique and endorsement, i.e. between an awareness of neoliberal problems and a desire for genuine social democratic solutions. From analysis to agency, Freund's reading of South Africa allows us to sharpen differences with his viewpoint and evidence, while also respecting his extraordinary balance.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Glaser brothers—Clive and Daryl—for their very constructive feedback on an earlier version of this article, and to David Moore who suggested the challenge.

Notes

1. Freund's critique of Shivji included ‘his too uncritical endorsement of “underdevelopment theory”, his structuralist formulations and his overemphasis on sectors of the petty bourgeoisie espousing a “proletarian ideology” as an advanced vanguard. However, he provided the first real key to a comprehension of Tanzanian developments rather than taking the state ideology at its face value and, in this sense, we are very much in his debt.’

2. One reason Freund assumed it might not be possible to generate an elite deal was the inability and indeed lack of desire by business forces to accept change in their own interests, not an uncommon mid-1980s perspective. In 1987, he observed, uncharacteristically, ‘that business is frightened of a fundamental shift in the nature of the state. The likelihood that black majority rule or ANC rule would bring to bear forces that are overtly anti-capitalist and a leadership with little taste or capacity for the running of a capitalist society is much greater than the shift that 1948 brought’ (Freund, 1987, p. 94).

3. In its last important role, Nedlac united the government, labour and business in search of international corporatism, namely, the ‘Social Clause’ campaign of 1999, led by the clothing workers' union. That was a strategic disaster on several fronts, as it split then trade minister Alec Erwin from the Third World he had hoped to lasso at the World Trade Organisation in Seattle late that year (ending in fury for Erwin, when Africa broke consensus and crashed the summit). It also distinguished COSATU trade unionists from more radical WTO opponents who took to the streets to disrupt the summit's opening day; Erwin then invited SA labour and business representatives inside the infamous ‘Green Room’. For more on why this strategy was and remains counterproductive compared to heightened labour internationalism, see Bond (2003, chaps 9, 10).

4. See e.g. Desai (2002); and articles/reports posted at http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs. To be fair, though they don't inform his Durban work, some are cited in Freund's 2005 State of the Nation chapter.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patrick Bond

* Centre for Civil Society, School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa. Email: [email protected]