Work in Progress no.8 - Total War

What is apartheid/separate development - the policy followed by the National Party government and enforced through the state apparatuses since 1948? It is a specific option adopted by capitalism to structure production and reproduction in South Africa, Why was this option taken? Because it reflected certain political and economic power relationships during the mid 1940's, namely an alliance between an aspirant Afrikaner bourgeoisie, a privileged white working class, and an agricultural sector moving from semi-feudal relations to capitalist production. But this alliance and its actions in shaping the future of South Africa was in turn acting within an historical reality of dependent development within an international capitalist context, reliance on mining and agriculture for economic strength, racial division of the working class (in economic, political and ideological terms), geographical division of races, etc. What are the main characteristics of the apartheid option? The most important point to make is that it is capitalist - despite all the cries of "creeping socialism"; state "interference"; free market foundations and the Sunday Times business editor* Apartheid is an intense form of labour allocation, control and repression of the working class, It relies primarily on directly regressive measures to ensure the reproduction and maintenance of the capitalist way of producing. The apartheid option has institutionalised divisions in a range of areas — divisions which are once more essential for the reproduction and maintenance of society in its present form. These divisive tactics manipulate existing antagonisms and create new ones in the society - anatgonisms which revolve around ethnicity, nationalism, class conflict, urban-rural divisions, etc. While this process of reproducing the society in its present form has been (and remains) a largely repressive process, it is now taking on an increasingly ideological form. To repeat: the point is that apartheid is not antagonistic to capitalism; it is not, fundamentally, antagonistic to the demands of foreign capital investment and of modern imperialism, despite soms political disagreements, And the latest moves in the fields of industrial relations , living conditions and commercial opportunities for blacks have made the policy more easy to sell to those who want to believe in the moral correctness of exploitation of the working class in South Africa