The SACP thanks the FCA for this opportunity. It is important that the SACP shares its perspectives with a wide range of forces in society.
1. The context of our challenges
The question of challenges facing the SACP is not to be considered separately from challenges facing the country. The SACP is part of the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance. The SACP therefore takes responsibility for contributing to the fundamental transformation of our country.
The ANC alliance won the 1999 election on a manifesto and platform of accelerating change. Therefore, in many ways communists are in the forefront in dealing with difficult and complicated struggles around governance and transformation.
Our starting point is that ours is a struggle for socialism. It is a struggle against poverty, it is a struggle for human freedom, it is a struggle for economic justice, it is a struggle for the eradication of the apartheid legacy, and most importantly a struggle against the subjection of basic social needs to the logic of the private market. Our struggle is also a struggle against the economic and social brutality of capitalist globalisation and imperialism, and a struggle for a just, humane and caring world. Our starting point is that as long as the bulk of the wealth of our country remains in the hands of the few, our goal of liberation, freedom and social justice will be postponed for a long time. This is based on the realities of the 20th century that there can be no sustainable political democracy in the context of such massive economic injustices and inequalities.
South Africa is a society characterised by deep racial and gender inequalities.
Features of the inherited apartheid legacy include:
Poverty and inequality in our country derive from:
Levels of poverty and inequality in South Africa are extremely high in comparison with other "middle income" countries and even many poorer countries. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that approximately 45,7% of South Africa's total population, and 57,2% of the African population, live in some form of poverty. Most significantly, 95% of the poor in our country are African.
The UNDP ranked South Africa 33 places lower on its Human Development Index for 1992 (which measures a range of economic and social variables) than it would have been on the basis of its GDP per capita. Its HDI ranking at number 93 out of a total of 173 countries placed it below such countries as Albania, Paraguay, Botswana and Cuba (which was ranked 89th - 21 places higher than its ranking on the basis of GDP per capita). More recent work has broken down HDI measurement by provinces. This has found that the HDI for poorer provinces, like the Northern Province, is lower than that for such countries as Congo-Brazzaville.
Legacy of gender oppression
Women under apartheid faced multiple oppression as black women workers. Racism, poverty and the current job losses have mostly affected women. Women occupy the most vulnerable jobs, and therefore the first victims of retrenchments. In fact most of casual labour in this country is made up of women. Women’s unemployment is approximately 50% higher than that of men. The clothing, textile, leather and footwear industries, which have been hard hit, alone account for 37,2% of all women employed in manufacturing. But, thirdly, racism and unemployment puts more pressure on women as they are the ones who perform what is called reproductive labour. This is work that includes childcare, home health-care, informal education, household production, looking after the sick and the elderly. This is generally unpaid work, which increases the more workers are thrown out of jobs in a society that does not have a social security network and poor social services. Therefore a struggle to transform our country is also for gender equality!
Extreme concentration of ownership of economic means of production
Apartheid created a system in which ownership of the means of production was overwhelmingly in the hands of a white minority. Black people were prevented by law from owning land (outside of so-called "reserve" areas), mineral rights or operating businesses in central business districts. But apartheid capitalism also came to be characterised by an exceptionally high degree of concentration and centralisation within white capital.
The above are just some of the difficulties we inherit from the legacy of apartheid in our country. These still define the context of life for the majority of our people. Also, the above analysis emphasises the inter-connection between race, gender and class in South African society today. One cannot deal with racism without at the same time addressing gender and class inequalities.
2. What progress have we made?
Real achievements
Looking over these past 5-and-a-half years, there has been very significant progress in
a number of critical areas. Without going into substantial detail we would highlight,
notably:
It is important for us to recognise the immense progress that we have made as a country over the last five and half years. Despite the hostile global environment and the tyranny of the capitalist market our government, buttressed by mass participation, has managed to connect clean water to millions of our people; millions of telephone connections, houses, electricity connections, and classrooms. These are important advances and foundations upon which to build. Most importantly, these social delivery achievements were on the basis of an interventionist, aggressive and strong state.
But there are also serious threats to progress made
One of the most serious threats to our democracy is the continuation of poverty, and evidence of growing inequalities between the rich and the poor. Evidence points to the fact that the biggest beneficiaries of our transition are the top 10% of the better off in our country, whilst 40% of the poorest have become poorer.
As the SACP we have also consistently pointed out the dangers of two-tierism developing in our country. For instance, whilst South Africa has passed one of the most progressive labour laws in the world, the continuing job losses have made hundreds of thousands of workers not to enjoy these benefits as a result of massive job losses. Also, whilst the doors of learning have been significantly opened, but the poorest of the poor are finding it difficult to make access to education, and higher education in particular.
Stemming job losses and job creation remain the key challenges facing South Africa today. This is simply because of the reality that the overwhelming majority of the population depends on jobs in order to escape poverty. The loss of a job for the overwhelming majority of our people means the loss of the only means of livelihood.
Unless the working class and the country as a whole mobilises to defend jobs and fight against poverty, there is a very real danger that our democracy will be enjoyed only by a few at the expense of the overwhelming majority.
Both the SACP and COSATU have stated their concerns and have opposed the contractionary macro-economic policy of GEAR since it was introduced in 1996. The reason for this has been that a contractionary, as opposed to an expansionary, macro-economic policy might actually undermine the massive effort of reconstruction and development in the light of massive inequalities inherited from the apartheid regime. Given the failure to attain the GEAR targets has served to confirm our concerns about its appropriateness in the light of the legacy we have inherited.
In the final analysis, we are justly proud of our achievements as a national liberation movement in government. However, the reality is that we have inherited a deeply entrenched legacy of deep racial, gender and class inequalities. South Africa still remains one of the most unequal societies in the world, coming marginally after Brazil and Guatemala according to the Gini co-efficient measurement. Almost half of South Africans, 95% of them black live in poverty.
3. Globalisation
These threats and realities are related and reinforced by the global realities within which we have to locate and struggle for fundamental transformation of our country. The reality is that the current globalised imperialist period is characterised by widening economic and social inequalities within all societies, in particular those between developed and developing countries. A brief assessment of the levels of poverty in the world today starkly reveals the extent to which capitalist globalisation is worsening rather than reducing economic and social inequalities. Only yesterday was it reported that about half of the world’s population does not have access to clean, drinking water on a sustainable basis. In fact, as has always been the case with imperialism, its reproduction as a system has been premised on the exploitation and marginalisation of the poor, particularly in developing countries.
According to a joint survey recently conducted by UNICEF and the UNDP on social spending in Africa reveals that only three countries in Africa are allocating more than 20% of budget funds for use on basic health care, education and nutrition – a target set by the 1995 UN Social Summit in Copenhagen. According to Kofi Annan, the Secretary general of the UN, 44% of all Africans – and 51% of these in Sub-Saharan Africa live in absolute poverty. Amongst other things, this leads to a situation where millions of children are being deprived of their right to education, health care and nutrition, thus reducing them to perpetual poverty.
At the same time Africa’s debt stock has increased from $344 billion to $350 billion dollars in 1998, and is equivalent to more than 300% of exports of goods and services from Africa. The average African household today consumes 20% less than it did 25 years ago. Economic growth rates in the African continent continue to decline, as well as development assistance, which has dropped from $23 billion in 1992 to $18,7 billion in 1997. Yet, the three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 48 least developed countries.
On the health side the picture is even bleaker. For instance, at the end of 1997 nearly 31 million people were living with HIV, up from 22,3 million the year before. With 16 000 new infections a day – 90% percent in developing countries – it is now estimated that 40 million people will be living with HIV in 2000.
The impact on women of the current globalisation phase of imperialism has been particularly harsh. Amongst other things, women have been forced to become shock absorbers of the rolling back of the gains won in the post-1945 period. Structural adjustment, the rolling back of the welfare states and the “shock therapy” in Eastern Europe have thrown millions of women back into the invisible realm of “private”, unpaid, reproductive labour – to care for the young, the unemployed, the aged and the sick.
We are raising these realities precisely in order to appreciate the extent of the crisis in the world today and the damage wrought by a system based on private greed and profit.
In these circumstances, advancing alternatives to the global capitalist system is not a political game, not some kind of point-scoring past time – it is a necessity for the survival of human civilisation.
Perhaps the point we want to underline as well is that the prescriptions of structural adjustment – privatisation, deregulation, liberalisation and cutting back on social services pursued by the IMF and World Bank – has made the situation worse than improving the conditions of humanity in the developing world. These prescriptions are being imposed on developing countries whilst the developed countries themselves are daily imposing new tariffs to protect their vulnerable industries from competition (eg. the US and EU).
It is for this reason that we can confidently say, without fear of contradiction whatsoever, that an unbridled market system has failed not only the peoples of the developing world, but the entire humanity. In other words, capitalism has not addressed the basic needs of the overwhelming majority of the world’s population, but has worsened the situation. This is a reality that the media in the world today has served to obscure rather than expose. And this indeed does pose a serious challenge to people like yourselves, and how you report about South Africa in the current period.
4. The key challenges of socio-economic transformation and the role of the SACP
The SACP strongly believes that it is only an ANC-led Alliance that is best placed to lead the overall programme of transformation, deepening of democracy and tackling the legacy of apartheid in the current period. It is for this reason that, as the SACP, we have sought to work with the ANC-led government and through the Tripartite Alliance, to propagate and struggle for the following:
a. Strengthening the role of the state in the economy
One of the most important lessons of the first five years of democratic government in our country is that the enormous progress made in the socio-economic upliftment of our people has been as a result of an aggressive state-led programme of social delivery and development. The provision of water, electricity, phone connections, houses, clinics and educational facilities for millions of our people has not been as a result of any ideologically driven privatisation process. The resources harnessed from the private sector have made a larger impact on the social conditions of our people, where these have been closely guided and led by an active state. These achievements have been butressed by participation of communities through hundreds of local development committees and forums.
The above has served to reinforce our belief, through concrete experience, that it is only an active, developmentally oriented state, acting in concert with the mass of our people, that is key to the implementation of the RDP. Contrary to the myth of “free-market” ideologues, reconstruction of many countries after years or decades of devastation have been led by an interventionist state-led development programmes, whether it was the aftermath of the Great Depression or post-Nazi Europe. We are not as naive as to believe that the conditions today are the same as those prevailing at the time. But what is incontestible, is the centrality of the state is economic and social reconstruction, particularly after the massive destruction of apartheid in South Africa.
It is for the above reasons that the SACP rejects the notion of less government and downsizing as the priority principle in the restructuring of the public service. Restructuring of the public service should be guided by the priorities of reconstruction and development, and not by some ideologically driven notions of downsizing and cutting back the public service.
b. Seeking to direct the role of private capital towards productive and job-creating investment
The above observations specifically point to the fact that privatisation can therefore not be the primary instrument through which a developmental state seeks to achieve its goals. Rather the priority should be meeting basic needs and the development of an appropriate partnership with private capital to realise this objective in a manner that does not subject the meeting of basic needs to the dictates of the market. Such public-private partnerships, where necessary, should aim to build the capacity of the state in the short to medium term rather than the other way round.
As the SACP we have been carefully assessing and debating the role of private capital in the current period. Our starting point is that we are not seeking to reconcile what is clearly irreconcilable, the eradication of poverty and the strengthening of the role of private capital in social provision. Our approach has been that the state should seek, at all times to direct private capital towards productive investment. It is for this reason that as the SACP we have not been particularly attracted to the notion of equating a patriotic bourgeoisie to colour. Whilst it is inevitable that in the current period there will be a growth in the black sections of the capitalist class, but to equate these sections with patriotic capitalism is very short-sighted and naive. Rather our approach should be to equate patriotism with investment in productive sectors of the economy that are creating wealth. It should be an attempt to break away from the clutches of the casino economy of finance capital.
It is also for the above reasons that whilst we accept the need to attract foreign direct investment, this should be driven by an expanded state-driven infrastructural investment programmes. To seek to manipulate macro-economic indicators as a primary strategy for attracting FDI has been proved to be a flawed economic strategy throughout the developing world. It is for this reason that despite the developing world being forced into such measures through structural adjustment programmes over the last 20 years, Africa for instance has only attracted a maximum of 2% of total global FDI.
Critical in our approach to the role of the private sector in the current period is the fact that as a country we should seek to roll back the capitalist market in the provision of basic social services to our people. It is for this reason that the SACP has consistently argued for the identification of key strategic sectors of the economy where the state should play a preponderant and leading role. In line with this it is our belief that key parastatals like in the areas of energy provision, development finance and transport should remain in the hands of the state as they are crucial in infrastructural development and meeting the basic needs of our people.
It is for this reason that we are pleased that the Minister of Public Enterprises, despite distortions in the media, has consistently pointed out that government is not embarking on wholesale privatisation of state enterprises, and that restructuring of state assets does not mean privatisation.
c. Upward and not downward labour market flexibility
As the SACP we have consistently stated the position that there is no correlation between erosion of worker rights, as called for by capital under the guise of labour market flexibility, and job creation. Instead the erosion of worker rights has almost always led to massive retrenchments and job losses. We are therefore pleased that the Minister of Labour in South Africa has consistently maintained the position that government is not going to erode the floor of the basic labour rights achieved during the first five years of democratic rule.
As the SACP we agree that labour laws have to be reviewed, but in order to stem retrenchments by forcing employers to negotiate. In addition we need upward labour market flexibility providing for training and upgrading the skills of workers so that there is flexibility in their employment as the production processes rapidly change. This is an even important priority for a country like South Africa.
d. An active industrial strategy
The SACP has consistently sought the development of an active industrial strategy aiming at protecting, even subsidisation of those industries crucial to the eradication of poverty, and promoting those central to job creation and productive investment. In line with this it has been our view that our macro-economic policies should be actively aligned to a job-creating industrial strategy, and not the other way round.
5. The relevance of socialism today
For the SACP, the eradication of poverty and meeting of basic needs on a sustainable basis constitutes the core of an alternative system to that based on private greed. It is for this reason that our perspectives on socialism and its relevance today is directly linked to our current struggles to eradicate poverty and the legacy of national oppression in our country. The challenge of the media today is to expose the truth that capitalism has failed and continues to fail right in front of us.
I thank you
Blade Nzimande General Secretary SACP