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| Title: | Post-War Profitability in South Africa: A Critique of Regulation Analysis in South Africa |
| Author: | Nattrass, Nicoli J. |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Periodical: | Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa |
| Issue: | 9 |
| Pages: | 66-80 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | apartheid capitalism economic recession Law, Human Rights and Violence Development and Technology Economics and Trade Ethnic and Race Relations |
| External link: | http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/html/itemdetail.cfm?recordID=433 |
| Abstract: | In the 1980s, there have been important attempts to develop a radical understanding of South Africa's transition from rapid economic growth to socioeconomic crisis. The sustained slump and political instability of the 1980s has posed a challenge to radical political economists to go beyond the early radical formulations of the apartheid/capitalism relation. This article presents an empirical critique of one such attempt at reformulating the radical project by S. Gelb (In: Transformation, no. 5 (1987), p. 33-50), who applies a 'Regulation/Social Structure of Accumulation' (SSA) approach to South Africa. The author argues that, given the fact that Regulation/SSA theory abroad has relied heavily on empirical analysis, Gelb's empirical work is inadequate, and that there are severe problems with the way Regulation concepts have been applied in South Africa. First, according to Regulation/SSA theory, the rate of profit is a key economic indicator in any such analysis. Secondly, Gelb's preliminary analysis of profitability is incorrect and the downward trend in South Africa's manufacturing profit rate indicates that analysing South Africa in terms of a stable Regulation is inappropriate. The article draws on a paper presented to the Southern African History and Politics Seminar, Oxford University, January 1989. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |