Heribert Adam: CROSSFIRE
An unfortunate feature characterises the reasoning of Crossfire’s columnists about the role of the black bourgeoisie.
Legitimate questions around empowerment and Afro-pessimism are racialised. The colour of Afro-pessimism’s face should be as irrelevant as whether black fat cats emulate white fat cats. What matters is their common exploitation, their undeserved perks at public expense and their conspicuous consumption in the midst of extreme poverty.
Yet Pallo Jordan, ever the attractive utopian dreamer, demands a “higher morality than the size of its share portfolios from the black bourgeoisie”. Any first-year student of Marxism would know that Jordan expects a miracle in hoping that “the black bourgeoisie can pose an alternative vision of the future to that coming from the boardrooms at Anglo American and Gencor”. Anglo American and Gencor “unbundled” because they rightly expected black allies to share their vision in a deracialised capitalism.
Jeremy Cronin scores points in dismissing claims of patriotic bourgeoisie as “soul brotherly mumbo-jumbo”. Indeed white and black capitalists alike are concerned about maximising profits, not the morality of racial solidarity. Cyril Ramaphosa may pontificate about “building meaningful alliances with the worker’s movement”, but Johnnic management and its unions represent different interests.
A certain degree of black ownership is fostered to blunt union militancy and give “business as usual” a non-racial face. The conciliatory attitude of big business to the proposed equity Bill not only reflects the realisation that the South African talent pool must be enlarged, but also that it is politically suicidal to stay white with growing black purchasing power and a black government in office.
In this racialised competition for a greater share of the capitalist spoils among the elites, the excluded poor represent an asset to be claimed back by the black bourgeoisie. The more black empowerment can be made to look as if it were to benefit the poor, the more the enrichment of the few is concealed.
Rhetoric about racial solidarity and common oppression in the past helps to foster an illusion of unity. Black fat cats present themselves as role models, a status that every hard-working township youngster can allegedly achieve. The American mythology of rising from immigrant dishwasher to president triumphs in South Africa.
However, do the benefits of the emerged (no longer emerging) bourgeoisie trickle down? Is the alleged pride of the poor in the wealth of their new elite justified and sustainable? Will black empowerment go beyond share acquisitions and preferential tender consideration to create jobs or new career paths through innovative training of lesser-skilled workers? Do the unions’ asset managers of their 20-billion pension and provident funds practise a different vision of capitalism through the disclosure of information and return of their generous personal fixing fees?
One has not heard many examples of different behaviour by black controlled companies. Union cynics argue that, on the contrary, they encounter more hardline attitudes among black employers and managers because of the absence of guilt, that frequently softens white management.
At the start of apartheid, the Broederbond acted as an employment agency for under-represented Afrikaner professionals. Massive state patronage finally created an Afrikaner bourgeoisie equal to its English competitor. Does the historically disadvantaged black middle class need similar state favouritism to pull even with the established white corporate wealth?
In a short time, black economic advancement has achieved a 10% control of the companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange since transformation became the slogan a few years ago. This represents a much faster empowerment for a larger group than nationalist Afrikanerdom managed for a smaller number previously. With increased outsourcings of state services and privatisation of state corporations, the accumulation of black wealth is likely to accelerate.
A perceptive article in the new Institute for a Democracy in South Africa journal Siyaya comments: “We are likely to see increased opportunism by established corporations as they try to position themselves better for state-sponsored business. In other words, blackness will be emphasised at the expense of empowerment, with business often seeing black economic empowerment as another cost, much as they tolerated the additional cost or inefficiencies which apartheid brought into their realm.”
It would be a pity if South Africa were to follow the Malaysian example of window dressing with black tokens. Black professionals in all areas are needed, not professional blacks.
“Affimative procurement” means preferential treatment in state-sponsored contracts for those consortiums that demonstrate the correct “empowerment mix”. This fuzzy criterion is open to interpretations by tender boards. Discreet telephone calls by politicians are also known to sway board members. Wide discretion – rather than the lowest bid and effective delivery – facilitates patronage.
As noble as empowerment sounds, its danger lies in political favouritism. A crony capitalism develops when nepotism overrides judgments on expertise by bureaucrats who should hold no vested interest in the outcome of a decision. Already the mere perception that powerful personalities favour one bid over another can bias the process.
Empowerment should target the as yet unempowered. In reality, however, most empowerment deals reward the already empowered. Rather than further enriching the rich, tender procedures should favour the small emerging black entrepreneurs.
As all analysts agree, race and class still overlap to an extraordinary degree in South Africa. Therefore, class not race could be the criterion for affirmative action. If disadvantage in wealth, income and upbringing would decide whether or not preferential treatment is awarded, it would achieve racial levelling without the sting of racialised resentment.
The tension between non-racialism and the need to step on the toes of the racially advantaged would be eased in a more targeted effort to uplift the poor and empower workers of all races rather than add to the wealth of the white and black privileged who are now allied in joint ventures of multiracial rip-offs.