Review: R H Davies, Capital, state and white labour in South Africa 1900-1960
Revolutionary Communist Papers1980Charles LongfordRead these pages in the scan (PDF) →
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Robert H Davies, Capital, state and white labour in South Africa 1900-1960, Humanities Press, New Jersey, 1979, pp414, hardback, £16.00.
This book is the product of impressive research. Davies provides some interesting information on the white working class in South Africa. The study tries to make a historical materialist analysis of class relations in South Africa. Davies aims to challenge the widespread bourgeois view that capitalism in South Africa could develop without apartheid. Davies fails to realise his objective. He confuses political disputes within the capitalist class with the basic contradictions of South African social relations. As a result he urges the masses to : 'contradictions' that may arise out take advantage of any of the 'racial hierarchical' division of labour (p365). Speculations about the elimination of 'all job colour bars' indicate Davies' failure to understand that racial oppression is not an optional extra for South African capitalism.
Charles Longford