Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: The second phase – tragedy or farce?
- PART 1 Party, Power and Class
- Introduction: Party, power and class
- Chapter 1 The power elite in democratic South Africa: Race and class in a fractured society
- Chapter 2 The ANC circa 2012-13: Colossus in decline?
- Chapter 3 Fragile multi-class alliances compared: Some unlikely parallels between the National Party and the African National Congress
- Chapter 4 Predicaments of post-apartheid social movement politics: The Anti-Privatisation Forum in Johannesburg
- PART 2 Ecology, Economy and Labour
- PART THREE Public Policy and Social Practice
- PART 4 South Africa at Large
- Contributors
- Index
Chapter 3 - Fragile multi-class alliances compared: Some unlikely parallels between the National Party and the African National Congress
from PART 1 - Party, Power and Class
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: The second phase – tragedy or farce?
- PART 1 Party, Power and Class
- Introduction: Party, power and class
- Chapter 1 The power elite in democratic South Africa: Race and class in a fractured society
- Chapter 2 The ANC circa 2012-13: Colossus in decline?
- Chapter 3 Fragile multi-class alliances compared: Some unlikely parallels between the National Party and the African National Congress
- Chapter 4 Predicaments of post-apartheid social movement politics: The Anti-Privatisation Forum in Johannesburg
- PART 2 Ecology, Economy and Labour
- PART THREE Public Policy and Social Practice
- PART 4 South Africa at Large
- Contributors
- Index
Summary
In an interview in 2000, the eminent South African historian Martin Legassick argued that ‘ … the whole issue of class is completely relevant. The main issues in South Africa at the moment are being fought over within the Tripartite Alliance’ (2002: 124). He went on to bemoan the growing marginalisation of class analysis in South African historiography. It is well known that there has been a shift away from what can be loosely called the ‘political economy tradition’ in historical writing – a glance through the contents pages of South African Historical Journal volumes over the past few years reveals hardly any articles at all written in that tradition. The reasons for this shift have often been stated. As Geoff Eley has put it: ‘“Materialist” explanations based primarily on the economy and social structure now seemed to oversimplify the complexities of human action. Previously attractive structuralisms now seemed “reductionist” or “reductive” in their logic and effects’ (2008: 316-17).
The purpose of this chapter is not to decry the fresh lines of inquiry opened up in the past two decades such as gender, popular culture, belief systems, memory, and representations of the past but, rather, to lament the seemingly overhasty sidelining of the political economy tradition. It is possible to utilise class analysis without being reductionist, determinist or essentialist. I share Daryl Glaser's view that:
For materialist class analysis to work it must be reasonable to suppose the following: that economic-material interests show up in, or influence, a range of behaviours, that they will on occasion do so unconsciously and will not necessarily engender class consciousness, that they can help explain the existence and persistence of non-class collectivities, and that collectivities formed on the basis of material interests will challenge the formation and maintenance of other kinds of collectivity (2001: 128).
Materialist analysis, it can be argued, has a particular salience in these times when corporate power is greater than ever in much of the world, given the growing corporate control over the mainstream media and the capacity of corporations to influence electoral politics through the funding of political parties and candidates.
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- Information
- New South African Review 3The second phase - Tragedy or Farce?, pp. 61 - 75Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2013