The IMF, shock therapy and Apartheid
by Shuggy, 12 October 2007
Comment is premature, perhaps, because unlike Johann Hari, I haven’t read Naomi Klien’s “The Shock Doctrine” yet so I can’t tell whether this following paragraph from his review is an accurate reflection of what she has written or if it is his elaboration of a thesis he is in fundamental agreement with. Regardless of which, the analysis of the ’shock doctrine’ in relation to post-Apartheid South Africa was, well, pretty shocking:
“As the people of South Africa were fighting the last battles against Apartheid, the successor ANC was forced to haggle with the IMF and World Bank for their loans. The conditions? Ditch all the social protections included in your Freedom Charter, and leave the economic structures of Apartheid in place.”
It was this last expression that annoyed me because I think it’s intended to sound vaguely Marxist but it’s anything but, as far as one can tell from the analysis put forth here. For instance, by the ‘economic structures of Apartheid’ do Klein/Hari mean simply capitalism? If so, there’s two points here:
1) South Africa was certainly capitalist - and it also practiced Apartheid. But not only can the two not be fused together in this lazy-assed way, describing a basically capitalist system in this fashion ignores the manner in which Apartheid radically circumscribed two basic elements essential to the operation of any properly-functioning capitalist economy - trade and the free movement of labour. Any analysis of the collapse of apartheid should take surely take account of this? At least it should if it is an analysis that has any roots in Marxism.
2) A reading of the section of the Freedom Charter that deals with economics reveals an essentially Old Labourish, Clause Four sort of doctrine. The Soviet model, in other words. Post-apartheid it was obvious to anyone who had been paying attention that this was never going to serve as an economic model for the new South Africa. This, as anyone with any sense of economic history understands, was due to the (then very recent) collapse of the Soviet model.
It is certainly not my purpose to defend the IMF. The policy of ’shock therapy’ fails to take account of an elementary fact of economic history, which is that the Western powers, whilst able to withstand the pressures of international competition as matured industrial economies, enjoyed a period of protection whilst they were still developing. But if neither Klein or Hari can rise above this lazy stuff about how sinister the IMF is with this vague yet all-inclusive condemnation of ‘neo-liberalism’, I was left wondering if Chris Dillow might have a point when he argued that this is the state the left gets itself into when it abandons Marxism. No alternatives, no understanding of capitalism as a system that governs the lives of both workers and bosses and politicians - just a vague lament that the reason Bad Things happen is because Bad People are in charge.
Friday 12 October 2007 at 23:31
Hari is still allowed to review books?
Saturday 13 October 2007 at 1:16
Shuggy, Russia?
History won’t be kind.
I haven’t read Klein’s book, but “Disaster Capitalism” would pretty much sum it up. There was nothing benign about the West’s actions in the Yeltsin era.
South Africa, I know nothing about - too young, I suspect.
Saturday 13 October 2007 at 12:02
“Bad Things happen is because Bad People are in charge.”
Nope, bad things happen because power is taken from the polity, concentrated in the hands of monopolists and handed down to their offspring.
Meanwhile the poor bastards who fought apartheid are still dropping like flies before they reach middle age in their shanties whilst those who stole from them live it up in the same places they always did.
Fuck historical materialism, it needs dealing with now.
Saturday 13 October 2007 at 12:19
There was nothing benign about the West’s actions in the Yeltsin era.
Agreed. I’m not defending ’shock therapy’ but history won’t be kind to the centrally-planned economies either. History’s already been rather unkind. My point is Klein and fans don’t seem to factor in the Soviet model’s inability to harness technological innovation to the business of production into their denounciations of ‘neo-liberalism’.
Sunday 14 October 2007 at 4:27
Flying Rodent grumbled:
I haven’t read Klein’s book, but “Disaster Capitalism” would pretty much sum it up. There was nothing benign about the West’s actions in the Yeltsin era.
Are you complaining that many Russians had hope for one of the brief windows in their history when it’s happened?
Scratch wrote:
Nope, bad things happen because power is taken from the polity, concentrated in the hands of monopolists and handed down to their offspring.
I’m pretty anti-AT&T, but didn’t Zimbabwe under Mugabe and the Soviet Union did much more bad things?
Meanwhile the poor bastards who fought apartheid are still dropping like flies before they reach middle age in their shanties whilst those who stole from them live it up in the same places they always did.
…is it news to you that life is hard? And I’m failing to see how turfing the whites out of their possessions would be realistically likely to improve shanty life except in a very few cases. We’ve seen how well that improved life in Zimbabwe - it worked so well that there are tons of refugees going to the country you’re complaining about.
Sunday 14 October 2007 at 15:12
“I’m pretty anti-AT&T, but didn’t Zimbabwe under Mugabe and the Soviet Union did much more bad things?”
They did the same bad thing except without, I presume, the dynastic element.
“…is it news to you that life is hard?”
It needn’t be, there’s plenty of food, land and manufactured goods to go ’round.
“And I’m failing to see how turfing the whites out of their possessions would be realistically likely to improve shanty life except in a very few cases.”
We turfed the aristocracy out of their possessions between the end of WWII and the advent of Thatcherism and, in no time at all had cheap housing, cheap food, cash in our arse pockets, social mobility, no tramps and kitchens full of funky white goods.
There’s more than one way of skinning a parasite.
Sunday 14 October 2007 at 18:33
>> I’m pretty anti-AT&T, but didn’t Zimbabwe under Mugabe and the
>> Soviet Union did much more bad things?
> They did the same bad thing except without, I presume, the dynastic element.
Er, when did AT&T ever kill tens of millions? When did they create hundreds of thousands of refugees?
> We turfed the aristocracy out of their possessions between the end of
> WWII and the advent of Thatcherism and, in no time at all had cheap
> housing, cheap food, cash in our arse pockets, social mobility, no
> tramps and kitchens full of funky white goods.
Pretty good - amazingly little of that is true. The no tramps is basically true and a real improvement over here. The social mobility is true, but that was true before and after as well. Link to alleged turfing program? Or these other fine lies? Of course not. There was high income taxation, but that’s not going after existing possessions. There was some terrible, cheap housing, for SOME people. There was expensive, bad food. Income levels were lowish compared to the US.
Monday 15 October 2007 at 9:02
Shock Doctrine is yet another historically challenged attempt on Klein’s part to not have to think. Disaster Capitalism is the answer, now what is the question?
The left gets into this state when it holds to forms rather than content.