3.6. THE LABYRINTH OF SOUTH AFRICA‟S MIDDLE CLASS
3.6.1. South Africa‟s Black Middle Class –An historical account
Literature on South Africa‟s black middle class during the apartheid era is fairly limited, and when it is traceable, it is essentially presented as a tool for political liberation. In otherwords, neo-Marxist tradition appears to dominate debates on the middle class, although neo- Weberian approaches –which focus on modernization and growth-, are somewhat traceable.
This is expected, considering the multi-disciplinary efforts –including development economics- all of which sought to explain the necessary breakdown of the apartheid regime from their respective theoretical positions. Roger Southall, who seems to hold Neo-Marxist perspective, has been especially consistent in deconstructing black middle class within the country‟s political milieu.
Rivero, Du Toit and Kotze (2003) trace some of the early emergence of a black middle class to the 19th century. South Africa‟s legislative efforts aimed at limiting the expansion of a black middle class existed as far back as 1887 (Rivero, Du Toit and Kotze, 2003). Moeletsi Mbeki traces the history of a black middle class earlier than Rivero, Du Toit and Kotze, locating its origins in the 1830s. Mbeki observes that between 1835-1837, after the British had discovered that the most effective way to colonise Africans was through forging alliances with them (2009). From this premise, argues Mbeki, the British formed military based alliances with three groups, namely, the Amamfengu, sections of the Xhosa tribe and a section of the Khoi tribe (2009). While the British offered military support to the above tribes
77 against their enemies, in return [the British] acquired land and cattle, and along the way, the British influenced their African allies to their way of life, transforming them into peasant farmers, converted them into Christianity, taught them how to read and write, they introduced them to western dress codes as well as democratic governance (Ibid). This transformation of African allies led to the emergence of “South Africa‟s African middle class –Christian, Missionary educated, Anglophile, liberal, pro-capitalist, and attuned to parliamentary democracy” (Mbeki, 2009:56).
According to Mbeki (2009:57) although the black middle class lost much political gains and economic grounds overtime, they proliferated from among non-government organizations, self-employment, churches, and “...remained the torch bearer for democracy for 100 years”.
Mbeki seems to suggest that the religious fraternity played a significant role in maintaining and expanding the black middle class, especially on noting an emergence of a powerful black elite post 1994, who controlled critical institutions such as the South African Council of Churches, Catholic Bishops conference, Congress for South African Trade Union as well as the national Congress of Trade Unions (Nactu) (Ibid). The only difference between the new black elite and the African Elite who had existed for a century was that the black elite controlled these institutions but lacked economic power (Mbeki, 2009). This of course appears contradictory, given that Mbeki seems to suggest the possibility of middle class without economic power. Mbeki however provides an important insight into the early traces of black middle class.
Complementing Mbeki, in his work on political change and the black middle class in democractic South Africa, Southall (2007) prefers to focus on more recent history of the black middle class, assessing its development from the second half of the 20th century. In his analysis, Southall (2007) situates black middle class debates in both the neo-Marxist and neo- Weberian theoretical positions. Neo-Marxists, for Southall (2007) concerned themselves with the political orientation of the black middle class, and the possibilities held by this orientation in undermining apartheid. Neo Weberian theorists were more interested in understanding how the black middle class related to modernization, economic growth (Southall, 2007) as well as economic development. A third theoretical school, neo-liberals, was also involved in this debate, if less vigorous than Neo-Weberian and Neo Marxist. While the liberal position argued that racial discrimination was independent of economic growth, and that economic growth and racial segregation were fundamentally disconnected, Neo-Marxists and Neo-
78 Weberian positions argued that racialism and economic growth were functionally compatible and structurally interdependent (Adam; 1971).
The rise of Odendaal‟s „political class‟ (1984), or what Neo-Weberians saw as a „middle economic class‟ was not dependent on the thriving debates. In the 1960s, employers started to promote African workers, to replace white artisans (Southall, 2007). Neo-Marxists argued that power relations between white capitalism and black petty bourgeoisies had not changed, considering that African workers were paid lesser wages than white artisans (Ibid). Neo- liberals interpreted these trends as a movement towards the right direction, arguing that colour lines were blurring, if slowly (Ibid). Thus, debates in the 1960s considered the existence of the new black political class as given. The essential question was around the functioning and potential impact of this class on politics and economics of the apartheid state and the South African society as a whole.
According to Bonner, the membership of the South African Native National Council was mainly educated black population although denied from accessing skilled work (1982), a group who Southall (2007) labels them as colonized petty bourgeoisies. In augmenting the notion of black petty bourgeoisies, Nzimande (1990) argues that black African elite during the apartheid episode was a distinct class, separate from white elites. Nzimande goes on to point out that the black African petty bourgeoisies were interested in capitalism and that the Apartheid State saw this class as leaning towards reformation rather than revolution.
In Nzimande‟s view (1990), four categories of black middle class were visible during the apartheid period. The first was the bureaucratic petty bourgeoisies consisting of rural Bantustans on one hand, on the other, urban townships. While the rural Bantustan based bourgeoisie had stronger links with the state, with rural black elite easily co-opted into the apartheid state, urban township bourgeoisie were highly antagonistic against the Apartheid State. The second category was the Trading Petty African Bourgeoisie which consisted of four groups. Group one was made of traders in the rural areas, which was closely linked with rural bureaucratic bourgeoisie, group two consisted on urban traders who were strongly linked with the urban bureaucratic bourgeoisie, the third group was mainly autonomous, pro- capitalist but apparently anti-apartheid. This third group according to Nzimande (1990) towered within the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (NAFCOC). The third category of black middle class was composed of civil petty bourgeoisie, that is, state
79 employees (both the Apartheid State as well as Bantustan employees). These were in the main, teachers, nurses and clerks, who were poorly paid, and worked in poor conditions and therefore allied strongly with the working class. The last category in Nzimande‟s lenses (1990) was the corporate petty bourgeoisie, which upsurged in the 1970s. This category supported de-racialised capitalism.
Mbeki (2009) seems to consent to Nzimande‟s third category which consisted of civil petty bourgeoisie, although he considers the term liberalism as more representative. Liberalism according to Mbeki (2009) reflects the conversion of African elites by the British society into Christians, consumers of the British manufactured goods, and assimilation into the British liberal lifestyle. By liberalism, Mbeki here means promotion of property rights, freedom of speech and electoral governance (2009). It follows naturally that, these assimilated Africans were co-opted into state institutions, forming Nzimande‟s civil petty Bourgeoisie. Mbeki (2009) differentiates the civil petty bourgeoisie with African nationalists, who he contends that they were largely located in the private sector. Mbeki‟s African nationalists might relate to Nzimande‟s cooperate petty bourgeoisie, except that while Nzimande posits that this group supported deracialised capitalism, Mbeki quotes Macah Kunene, an African Bourgeoisie to illustrate the point that this group preferred to keep their alliances with the British. So in 1903, when asked about his views about the British returning home, Macah Kunene responded as follows:
“If the white people and the King of England were to desert us now and leave us here, there is a great section of us who have approximated to a great extent to the white man‟s way of living and to the white man‟s way of doing things; and there is a large number of us who haven‟t advanced at all, who have remained as they were practically in former days. I am afraid that those who have remained in their former state would kill us all, particularly civilised natives, because we have bought lands, they do not approve of the ownership of land. They know too that whenever there have been a war against natives like ourselves, we have always been in the colonial government and gone out to assist them in those wars. Therefore, we feel that we are better under our colonial government, and are far better than if we were deserted and left to the mercies of our people” (Cited in Mbeki, 2009:59)
80 It is difficult to detect African nationalism in the above view, a challenge which Mbeki does not make efforts to clarify. While Mbeki and Nzimande might refer to the same group, they narrate the character of this class during two fundamentally different time periods and situations. The character differentiation between the two narratives needs to be understood under the chronology rubric.
Southall is not alone in focusing on the second half of the twentieth century, in the efforts to narrate the black middle class. Others such as Wolpe (1972) as well as Simkins and Hindson (1979) follow suit, and detect a significant increase between 1960 and 1970. Wolpe (1972) estimates the black middle class at 1 315 800 in 1974, while Nolutshungu (1983) places this number at 121, 948 four years earlier (1970). These disparities were of course a function of the varying definitions of middle class (Crankshaw, 1996). Using occupational approach as their definition of the middle class, Rivero, Du Toit and Kotze (2003) note a significant growth of black Africans, as a percentage of the (multi-racial) national middle class from 29% in 1994 to 49% in 2000. Using a clearly defective definition (see argument above), the African Development bank estimates South Africa‟s middle class at 43.2%, or roughly 22.5 million, as at 2011 (Ncube, Lufumpa and Kayizzi-Mugerwa; 2011).