Inclusion and exclusion are core features of South African path dependence. But inclusion in post-1994 South Africa is more complicated than it might seem because there are important distinctions within the included. The conflict these distinctions ensure is a significant feature of post-1994 politics – indeed, it may well be its most important feature. Since the excluded remain unheard, politics is always insider politics, and conflicts which seem to be waged between those who have been absorbed into the economy and those who have not are really battles between insider groups.

There are important economic distinctions within the insider group. Anyone who earns a weekly or monthly wage or salary is an insider because many who aspire to a regular income from employment are denied it. But the factory worker or street sweeper does not enjoy the power and privileges of the chief executive. This has consequences. For example, one reason for the declining effectiveness of trade unions is the tendency for union leadership to become a route into the middle class, often at the expense of members who are wage-earning insiders but do not enjoy the leaders’ opportunities. This does not reduce worker militancy, since many remain on the wrong end of the economic divisions within the insider group. The economic divisions are, therefore, a key reason for strikes.

It has also been argued that demonstrations in townships and shack settlements are a ‘rebellion of the poor’. Whether this is so is the subject of a complicated debate, but one that does not belong in a discussion of insider politics, because the ‘rebellion’ participants are almost all outsiders. The divisions between insiders trigger conflicts over policy: even the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), an ally of the ANC regarded as far less committed to economic change than its rival the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), is likely to take a very different view on policy from that of business. Equally importantly, insider divisions ensure conflict within unions. ‘Social distance’ between leaders and members, a reality because leaders enjoy a lifestyle which is barred to members, causes tension within unions: ‘Workers are losing faith in some trade unions. They regard some union leaders as unreliable, unaccountable, selfish and greedy individuals who seek to use them.’