Development,
Part 9
Mineral-Energy
Complex
South Africa’s largest centres of material production are in
minerals and energy, and these two “sectors” are highly interdependent. For
example the mineral, coal, is the mainstay of the electricity-generating
industry of the country, while electric energy is in turn indispensable to the
gold, platinum and other mines.
No question of “development”, in the material sense, in
South Africa can be properly addressed without reference to the mineral-energy
complex.
The SACP’s discussion document “Expanding Democratic Public
Control over the Mining Sector” (linked below)
therefore has implications beyond the mining sector, and beyond the energy
sector. This document is a window on the way that development - the dynamic
dialectical unity-and-struggle-of-opposites otherwise called the class struggle,
and its relationship with the state, are playing out before our eyes.
It is a remarkable document. Not only is it a theoretical
masterpiece, helping us to see clearly what is what and who is who, but it also
stands comparison with the best of journalism, because it illuminates the South
African situation so well, as a narrative.
One of the quotations given in the document is from
Frederick Engels, on nationalisation, as follows:
“the transformation…into state property, does not do
away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces… The more it [the
bourgeois state] proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more
does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it
exploit. The workers remain wage-workers – proletarians. The capitalist
relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head.” (Engels, “Socialism: Utopian
and Scientific”, 1880).
The workers in nationalised industries, including teachers,
remain proletarians. They sell their labour-power for cash and they have
constantly to renegotiate their pay and conditions with an employer who can be
as ruthless as any other capitalist.
This is the second last week of the “Development” series. In
the remainder of this part we will look at the South African National Planning
Commission’s draft National Development Plan.
- The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Expanding
Democratic Public Control over the Mining Sector.
- To download any of the CU courses in PDF files please click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment