The ANC & black capitalism in South Africa

The emphasis initially laid by the African National Congress (ANC) on national reconciliation after 1994 meant that its ideas about Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) were non-threatening to white interests. However, the government's recent strategy is more assertive, having the aim of creating a black capitalist class, which is both ‘patriotic’ and productive, as laid down in the ANC's guiding theory of the ‘National Democratic Revolution’. Corporate capital is responding with recognition of the inevitability and potential advantages of BEE. However, given the centrality of the state to the deliberate task of creating black capitalism, there are considerable dangers of the latter's lapse into Asian-style cronyism. The ‘patriotic’ nature of black capitalism is therefore in sharp contestation with its ‘parasitism’.