INTRODUCTION
B. Holding Version of Corporate Organization
IV. CORPORATISM: PRAGMATIC OR IDEOLOGICAL?
over other instruments for achieving its purposes. This has been emphasized by speakers with regard to every major Cosatu campaign of the past decade. In particular, the tactics of ‘‘mass action’’ are viewed and used as instruments to strengthen the federation’s negotiation positions, rather than as actions which could be replaced by negotiation. In Schreiner’s (1991:37) words,
Cosatu should never allow itself to accept limitations on the right to mass action as a precondition for participating in the institution [NMC]. This is quite different from the case where, as part of a social contract negotiated through the institution, the trade union movement could conceivably agree to restrict strikes (on certain issues, for a certain period of time) provided the trade-offs were sufficiently attractive.
The major business organizations have supported Nedlac and its predeces- sors both formally and actively. But their support has always been ambivalent.
Moreover, their support does not imply support from the wider business sector.
From the right of the spectrum, influential shapers of business opinions such as Finance Week and the Financial Mail have been consistent opponents of corpo- ratism, even while the peak business associations have cautiously endorsed tripar- tite forums. One of the Financial Mail’s concerns is the possibility that corporatist processes in general, and social accords in particular, would undermine the free- dom of business to pursue profit. It has repeatedly expressed opinions to the effect that ‘‘wage and price decisions have no place in a collective forum. They should be taken on commercial criteria gleaned from competitive experience’’ (Finan- cial Mail 1996). Similar views are regularly publicized by Finance Week, whose editors see Nedlac as an instrument of Cosatu. Such expressions of free-market ideology are linked to a concern about the fate of democracy in the presence of corporatism and ‘‘Cosatu’s political strikes.’’
To the extent that business organizations do support institutionalized corpo- ratism, some are wont to express the view that it should be preceded by ‘‘a common economic vision between business and labour’’ (Mail & Guardian 1996;
SALB 1996:27–28). How the visionary chicken and the institutional egg could be so sequenced is not clear. Nevertheless, the view that Nedlac is an important instrument in building ‘‘an economic dimension of reconciliation and nation building’’ in South Africa and in ‘‘helping to build confidence and trust amongst leading players in the economy’’ has been a recurrent message from the executive director of the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob), Raymond Parsons (1997). However, Sacob economic policy director Ben van Rensburg’s response to the question whether macroeconomic policy should be discussed in Nedlac, is also revealing:
It is the ruling party’s responsibility to lay down macro-economic policy.
That cannot be negotiated. It can be negotiated between the parties who form
part of the ruling party. It’s the job of the ANC and its constituents to sort out any differences, that’s not for Nedlac (SALB 1996;27–28).
It may or may not be significant that he commented after the government announced its macroeconomic strategy for Growth, Employment and Redistribu- tion (Gear; see below). Gear was favorably received by business but roundly condemned by labor. Labor reiterated its support for the Reconstruction and De- velopment Plan (RDP).
Hard ideological divisions are not conducive to successful concertation. A number of theorists have suggested that there seems to be affinity between a broadly ‘‘Keynesian consensus’’ and effective corporatist interest intermediation (for example, Lehmbruch 1979:170–172). In South Africa ‘‘left-Keynesian thinking’’ is expressed in Cosatu’s economic plan, Social Equity and Job Cre- ation (Webster and Adler 1997:15). In contrast, business, speaking through the South Africa Foundation’s document Growth for All, supports mainstream neo- liberal policies. In its turn, the governing ANC has repeatedly affirmed commit- ment to its own plan for Gear. This plan is distinctly neoliberal (see Natrass 1996;
Le Roux 1997). However, the government claims that Gear is an instrument for the implementation of the RDP (Mbeki 1996); that it ‘‘seeks to be a macro- economic framework for and not against the RDP’’ (ANC 1997a:4). This means, in effect, that the ANC presents Gear as sharing the redistributive objectives of the RDP.1
The basic differences between the major interest groups are as follows:
Business supports capitalism. The ANC has largely dropped the label socialism from its lexicon, but pursues broadly redistributive goals which it claims to be achievable within the framework of a ‘‘mixed economy’’ (see ANC 1997). The ANC’s labor ally, Cosatu, remains explicitly socialist (Cosatu 1997). Business seeks economic growth through a free market, while labor seeks economic growth through socialist redistribution. Business and, to some extent, government see economic growth as a precondition for the reduction of social inequalities. Labor believes that the causal nexus lies in the opposite way.
Consistent with the doctrinal substance of socialist socioeconomic transfor- mation, union speakers have offered, as was indicated above, the procedural ideal of participatory democracy in justification for corporatism. In the words of Ned- lac’s executive director, himself formerly a leading figure in the union movement,
Participatory democracy in SA suggests a policy-making process which en- gages those affected by such policies more frequently than an election every five years. The Nedlac process deepens democracy by bringing the partners, on a continuing basis, into the policy-making process (Naidoo 1996).
This, like the views of the LMC (1996:198), echoes a position advocated by (amongst others) sociologist Eddie Webster, who has for long been closely involved in the union movement. Webster and his colleague Glen Adler have
also suggested—in apparent contradiction of many scholarly assertions that cor- poratism decreases the autonomy of trade unions—that corporatism, in conjunc- tion with modes of collective action, is a vehicle for enhancing union autonomy (Webster and Adler, 1997:3). The question that must follow is, What should the accompanying balance of power between the ‘‘social partners’’ be?
V. CORPORATISM: RESOLVING PROBLEMS OR