On the contrary, “the chronic symptoms of the South African reality” were “part of a systemic whole, directly related to South Africa’s historic positioning as a semi-periphery within a global imperialist system as a primary commodity exporter based on “cheap” labour”.Īccording to Cronin “the concept of ‘imperialism’ had disappeared from official ANC documents after 1994.” Mbeki had gone so far as to hail the outcome of the 2002 G8 Summit as “the end of the epoch of colonialism and neo-colonialism.”įor Cronin, however, there was no doubt that the “profit maximising agenda” of monopoly capital and imperialism were at the root of all South Africa’s problems. In effect, after 1994 the ANC had lost its revolutionary mojo - resulting in a situation of “a luta dis-continua”.Ĭronin also took issue with Netshitenzhe’s view that apartheid was “exceptional”. “Cde Netshitenzhe’s intervention exposes the underlying ideological assumptions that succeeded in being hegemonic within the ANC and ANC-led government from the mid-1990s and for the better part of a decade.” These assumptions had resulted in “a costly loss of progressive momentum following the historic 1994 democratic breakthrough”. In his response - stung by what he referred to as “sarcastic little barbs” - Cronin reminded Netshitenzhe of his close association with the discredited Mbeki presidency. He called for the conclusion of pacts between different social and economic role-players in line with the NDP. He characterised as “disingenuous in the extreme” the SACP’s thesis that South Africa should effect a “de-linking of our society from the global dominant imperialist economy” and delink “poor communities from the depredations of the capitalist labour market”. He asked why the SACP document was not more critical of state corruption, of the gross mismanagement of SOEs, and the diversion of “scores of millions from projects aimed at improving the lives of the poor” to the Nkandla upgrades. ![]() ![]() ![]() He criticised the SACP’s (neo-Luddite?) rejection of economic growth - referred to by the SACP as the “GDP myth.” (GEAR, which was anathema to the SACP/COSATU, was discarded after the 2007 Polokwane coup.) He reminded the SACP that the ANC’s GEAR policy had achieved high (5%) economic growth before 2008 and had significantly reduced unemployment.
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