Debating Economic Policy for South Africa’s Post-apartheid Transition: From Scholarship and Ideology to Policy in Practice : Critical Reconstructions of Political Economy, Volume 8 / Benjamin Fine.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fine, Benjamin, author.

Series:

Social Sciences E-Books Online, Collection 2026.

Studies in Critical Social Sciences ; 344.

Social Sciences E-Books Online, Collection 2026

Studies in Critical Social Sciences ; 344

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Studies.

Critical Social Sciences.

Economics & Political Science.

Social sciences.

Sociology & Anthropology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (329 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Critical Reconstructions of Political Economy, Volume 8

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2026.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The reasons for South Africa’s full and rapid post-apartheid embrace of neoliberal economic policy remain controversial. Drawing on the author’s own participation in policy debates, this volume establishes there were alternatives available that were either dismissed or not even considered. Explanations for policy failings have to be sought in determinants such as globalisation, financialisation, capital flight, corporate restructuring and Black Economic Empowerment. The text offers extensive surveys of relevant literature including the developmental state, industrial and social policy, privatisation, trade policy, the Harvard School, comparative experience and the deficiencies in the country’s National Development Plan and New Growth Path.

Contents:

Contents

Preface

List of Figures, Tables and Boxes

1 South Africa’s Policy Conundrums

1 The Policies and Policymaking that Never Were

2 The Policies that Could Have Been?

2 Post-Apartheid Economic Transition as Enigma: the Fate of MERG

Postscript as Personal Preamble

1 Introduction

2 Demystifying MERG

3 How Much Did Policy and Policy Making Change?

4 Reflecting on the Transition

3 Revisiting Apartheid Political Economy

2 From Disjuncture to Integration but Always Heterogeneity

3 Industrial Policy Is as Industrial Policy Does

4 The Role and Influence of the IMF on Economic Policy in South Africa’s Transition to Democracy: the 1993 CCFF Revisited

The Loan not Taken – The IMF, Innocent as Accused

5 Context and Contest in South African Education Policy: Comment on Curtin

2 Universal Education in South Africa

3 Masterplans and Social Actors

4 User Charges and Education Policy in Transition

5 Human Capital Theory

Appendix

6 “Politics and Economics in ANC Economic Policy”: an Alternative Assessment

1 Apologetics, Polemics and Scholarship

2 Methodological Considerations

3 Theoretical Doubts

4 Interpretation and Missing Evidence

5 Future Prospects

7 Flexible Production and Flexible Theory: the Case of South Africa

2 A Few Theoretical Reconsiderations

3 The South African Economy and the Minerals-Energy Complex

4 Flec-Spec’s Intellectual Origins

5 Concluding Remarks

8 A Sustainable Macroeconomic Growth Path for South Africa?

2 The Economy on the Eve of Democratic Elections

3 The Economic Policy of the GNU

4 The Economy between Elections

5 Time for a Re-Think?

6 A Framework for an Alternative Macroeconomic Policy

7 Conclusion

9 Submission to the COSATU Panel of Economists on “The Final Recommendations of the International Panel on Growth” (the Harvard Panel)

1 Introductory Remarks

2 Policy Initiatives

10 Rejoinder to “A Response to Fine’s ‘Harvard Group Shores Up Shoddy Governance’”

2 Overlooking Industrial Policy

3 Underplaying Finance, Investment, Employment and Growth

4 Closing Remark

11 Assessing South Africa’s New Growth Path: Framework for Change?

1 Foreword

2 New Growth Path for Old?

3 From Tradeoffs to Capital Flight

4 Financialisation Meets the MEC

5 Lessons from China …

6 … To Developmental State

7 Twixt Politics and Policies

8 Concluding Remarks

12 Chronicle of a Developmental Transformation Foretold: South Africa’s National Development Plan in Hindsight

2 From the Camel’s Back to the Elephant in the Room

3 Twenty Years of Insolitude

4 From the Goose to the Monkey, via the Dragon

5 The MEC: from Albatross to Dead Duck

6 Resurrecting the Dodo Scenario?

13 The Political Economy of Restructuring South Africa: from MERG to PERSA

1 Parading the Problem of Inequality …

2 Government: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?

3 Critical Alternatives – Framing the Problems Correctly

4 A Brief Look at Some South African Peculiarities

5 Finance Is Not Delivering …

6 … Nor Are the Minerals-Energy Complex and New Black Elite Delivering

7 Financialisation on a Global Scale …

8 South Africa’s Financial Elephant in the Room …

9 … And Illegal Capital Flight

10 Macroeconomic Success?

11 And the Specificities of South Africa – the MEC

12 The Rise of a New Elite

13 Towards Alternatives

14 From the ‘Economic’ to the ‘Social’

References

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-74657-9

OCLC:

1551395225

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004746572 DOI