South Africa’s Corporatised Liberation: A critical analysis of the ANC in power

Despite the more general social, political and economic advances that have been made under the ANC’s rule since 1994, power has not only remained in the hands of a small minority but has increasingly been exercised in service to capital. This has seen the ANC become the key political vehicle, in party and state form as well as application, of corporate capital; both domestic and international, black and white, local and national and constitutive of a range of different fractions. As a result, ‘transformation’ has largely taken the form of macro-acceptance of, combined with micro-incorporation into, the capitalist system, now minus its specific and formal apartheid frame. What has happened in South Africa over the last 22 years is the corporatisation of liberation; the generalised political and economic commodification of society and its development; with all the attendant impacts on governance, the exercise of power, the understanding and practice of democracy as well as political, economic and social relations. This book tells that ‘story’ by offering a critical, fact-based and actively informed holistic analysis of the ANC in power, as a means to: Better explain and understand the ANC and its politics, the specific role and character of the ANC in power as well as the objective realities that frame the ANC’s exercise of power. Explore the key reasons as to why things have so far turned out the way they have in post-1994 South Africa. Contribute to renewed society-wide discussion and debate about power and democracy in a capitalist society that can move beyond the contemporary dominance of the corporatist frame and accom panying politics. Help identify possible sign-posts that can assist to reclaim basic (revolutionary) universalist and humanist values as part of the individual and collective struggle for change.