Margaret Legum, who died unexpectedly in Cape Town last week as a result of complications following an operation, was a woman of many accomplishments. She was best known in South Africa for her columns on economics.
Born Margaret Roberts in Pretoria 74 years ago to a well-to-do family (her father was the founder of a major engineering and construction company, later absorbed by Anglo American), she first came to prominence as a student at Rhodes University in the 1950s. She was among those who fostered close connections with nearby Fort Hare, many of whose students (and several of their leaders) remained lifelong friends. Elected to the executive of the National Union of South African Students in 1953, she played an active role as its director of student welfare, while writing against apartheid education.
She was a superb public speaker, able to hold an audience of any size as much through her mastery of subject matter as by her easy wit and resort to pithy anecdote. At the time (like her mother, Peggy) a devotee of the South African Labour Party, Margaret was able to work easily with cautiously liberal Nusas leaders, members of the Liberal Party and those further to the left. All of these attributes were developed in Cambridge, where she came under the influence of one of the leading development economists, Joan Robinson. On her return to South Africa she wrote an important study on farm labour.
Returning to settle in England in the early 1960s, she married Colin Legum, also a South African Labour Party stalwart and journalist at London’s Observer newspaper. Together they were active in the Africa bureau, where they worked closely with Michael Scott and Mary Benson on matters relating to South Africa and came to know many of the future leaders of independent African states.
It was at this time that Margaret started working with the Fabian Society, of which she was later to become assistant general secretary — a position that put her in touch with many of the prominent Labour MPs who were later to hold high office in the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. Margaret’s joint authorship with her husband of a book advocating sanctions against South Africa got them banned from the country. Margaret served on the steering committee of a conference on sanctions held in London in 1964.
Her activism broadened into other areas involving developing countries and issues concerning discrimination. She was instrumental in setting up the International Refugee Committee of Zambia shortly after that country became independent. While serving on the staff of the British aid agency, Voluntary Service Overseas, she developed expertise in training personnel in matters of gender and race. This was continued when she and Colin returned to live in Cape Town in 1990. During South Africa’s transition to democracy, both played an active role. Margaret, in particular, aligned herself with the ANC (many of whose leaders they had come to know in London and elsewhere).
A committed Christian, she worked closely with the Archbishop of Cape Town. An enthusiast for physical activity (squash in London; tennis, swimming and walking in South Africa), she wrote a book on South African economics and two books of poetry, the second of which was released in London the month before she died. Margaret Legum died on November 1. She leaves three daughters and six grandchildren. — Neville Rubin
Margaret Legum: born Pretoria, 1933; died Cape Town 2007
Legum’s new economics
Margaret Legum was an indefatigable fighter for social justice: first as a campaigner against apartheid and more recently as a fighter for a new type of people-centred economics. She was instrumental in launching the South African New Economics Network.
The obsolete 19th-century idea of economics as the ‘grey science†and the ‘invisible hand†which governments and people had very little choice but to obey was always in Legum’s sights . Through her writings she demystified the obscure and indulgent theories so rife among free marketeers.
For her, in a world where globalisation has become the mantra of the markets, new technology is increasingly replacing labour. People’s earnings, as a means of buying goods, had actually reduced the consumer market, causing economic stagnation, she argued. Globalisation was an attempt to change all this by speaking to expanding international markets. But far from globalisation being a benign force, Legum saw it as the rise of the unrestrained movement of capital around the world out of all proportion to savings and the actual value of the goods produced. The new global order, for Legum, was unsustainable.
The force of globalisation was leading to massive inequalities and the domination of what she called ‘old economics†over human freedom of choice and imagination.
She saw these forces prevalent in the decision by the ANC government to adopt the growth, employment and redistribution policy in 1996. Legum outlined strategic alternatives:
- She called for government intervention to increase the purchasing power of ordinary people. She argued that by making it possible for millions of people to buy goods and services, they would be stimulating the production because the market would expand.
- She called for a change in the tax system. VAT should be abolished, while green taxes — taxing pollution and land degradation — should be set very high to encourage sustainability.
- She called for government intervention to bring the monied classes back into investing in production rather than speculation on stock markets.
Her ideas cannot be wished away. Robust engagement with her novel ways of thinking will be a lasting tribute to her. — Lennie Gentle, director of the International Labour Research Group