Peter Vale, University
of Johannesburg, South Africa
Abstract
Marxism was central to the understanding of South Africa’s
struggle for freedom. This article provides a critical analysis of Marxist
literature on South Africa since the 1970s, drawing out its relevance for
contemporary analyses of the post-apartheid state and for radical politics
today. It suggests that while the literature offered important insights into
the character of the apartheid state, it failed to provide a critical appraisal
of the state per se. Moreover, the capturing of state power by the liberation
movement was not grounded in an understanding of the oppressive character of
the state-form. The undermining of mainstream Marxism under neo-liberalizing
conditions in post-apartheid South Africa has opened up the prospects for
anti-statist radical libertarian thinking (including autonomist Marxism), and
this thinking is consistent with the practices of certain autonomist popular
politics currently emerging. Social theorizing on South Africa has had a
complex relationship with Marxism. This article is interested in drawing on
this experience in an effort to understand its implications for the ‘new’ South
Africa where, 20 years after apartheid’s formal ending, social transformation
remains caught in the logic not of Marxism but neo-liberalizing capitalism.
