Another of the DEP’s tasks was to build up its internal library in Lusaka, with newspapers ‘from home’ and journals. Among the 20 journals identified for purchase were the South African Journal of Economics, Zimbabwe Journal of Economics, Journal of Southern African Studies, Third World Quarterly, Review of African Political Economy, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Development Economics, Farmer’s Weekly and the Financial Mail. The South African Labour Bulletin (the Economist Intelligence Unit’s journal), Monthly Review (New York), Work in Progress, Codesria’s African Development and the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics were also ordered. All in all, if these were received and subscriptions maintained, a reasonable balance of progressive and mainstream journals were available to the ANC’s researchers in Lusaka (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 84, Folder 9).
Though our archival research reveals little about the day-to-day work of the DEP in Lusaka, we do learn that the department organised some seminars on the economy in Lusaka and other parts of the world.
In Amsterdam in December 1986, a conference entitled ‘Research Priorities for Socio-Economic Planning in Post-Apartheid South Africa’ was held. At that conference a paper on ‘Income Distribution and Poverty’ was presented by Francis Wilson and Mamphela Ramphele, both senior researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT). Another paper on South African industrialisation was presented by UCT’s Anthony Black. It is of interest to note that the distinguished proponent of dependency theory, Andre Gunder Frank, was in the audience. In responding to these papers, Frank argued that the ‘South African economic crisis was a direct result of the world economic crisis with internal factors playing a very minor role’. He also argued that ‘redistributive pressures would make a future South Africa less able to compete in the capitalist world market’ (Oliver Tambo Papers, Box 040, Folder 357).
At another one of these workshops, between 14–17 August 1989, at the First In-House Seminar of ANC Economists in Lusaka, a paper by Laurence Harris (1989) entitled ‘The Mixed Economy of a Democratic South Africa’, read by Helena Dolny in his absence, appears to have been much discussed. Harris set out alternative visions of the mix of the private and public sector and suggested that one that leans towards socialism would be most appropriate in South African conditions. He favoured some degree of nationalisation, especially in certain sectors, such as those that are fundamental inputs for industrial development. But he also warned that nationalisation comes with costs. In the end, he argued that the ‘roles of the market, regulation and planning are much more important than the degree of state ownership’ (Harris 1989).
A paper in response to Harris by Vella Pillay, dated 9 October 1989 and penned in London, also addresses these issues. Pillay’s paper distinguishes between the long-term goals of the Freedom Charter and short-term interventions that appear to be left social democratic in nature. The latter include ‘enough food, shelter, social security, medical facilities, unemployment benefits, free and equal education and an improvement in the working conditions and power of workers’. He favoured anti-monopoly and anti-trust policies in respect of the powerful local conglomerates, being fully cognisant of the power of the conglomerates to undermine a democratic state. At the Lusaka in-house seminar, Rob Davies’ paper set out an economic vision of a mixed economy in which there will be a ‘considerable role for private capital’; he also set out a list of immediate goals, such as meeting basic needs and improvements in the conditions of working people (Oliver Tambo Papers, Box 039, Folder 0354). Though these are not policies but ideas put forwarded by qualified and trusted comrades, they do represent core aspects of a left social democratic programme rather than either African nationalism or Soviet-type socialism.
Phineas Malinga informs us that despite some scepticism the ‘question of economic policy had [indeed] received the attention of the broad liberation movement’ (1990: 21). He reminds us that the ANC’s Constitutional Guidelines commissioned by Tambo and approved by the NEC in August 1988 contained a section on the economy. It argued for a state that would ensure ‘that the entire economy serves the interests and well-being of all sections of the population … the economy shall be a mixed one … co-operative forms of economic enterprise, village industries and small-scale family activities shall be supported by the state …’ (Malinga 1990: 22). Yet, Malinga concedes that the Guidelines are ‘more cautious than the Charter about the role of the state in the economy’ (1990: 22), given the very changed economic circumstances all over the world, including in the management of the Soviet economy.
Gerhart and Glaser express this same position, as follows: ‘Without repudiating anything in the 1955 Freedom Charter, the [Constitutional] Guidelines positioned the ANC as a social democratic party strongly protective of individual rights while also committed to “corrective action which guarantees a rapid and irreversible redistribution of wealth and opening up of facilities to all”’ (2010: 181).
It is worth remembering this in the context of the discussion that we have had in chapter 2 over AB Xuma and Albert Luthuli, both ANC presidents, and in what follows in chapter 4, especially the position articulated by Alan Hirsch to explain shifts and changes in the 1990s. Clearly, there were many positions in the spectrum between Soviet-style socialism and petty bourgeois African nationalism that were held by leadership figures in the Congress Alliance over the period of our study. To focus on any one view as representative of that of the ANC as a whole would be a serious mistake, in our judgement.
In July 1989, 115 representatives of the Five Freedoms Forum4 travelled to Lusaka to meet and hold talks with senior ANC leaders. A conference was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka from 29 June to 2 July 1989, where a number of important exchanges about the post-apartheid economy took place. The issue of nationalisation and the meaning of a ‘mixed economy’ were among the matters under discussion. There was agreement across the floor about the need for a mixed economy with private-sector and public-sector ownership and control (see chapter 5 on the role of business for more on this). While holding the Freedom Charter line on nationalisation, ANC delegates accepted that under some conditions ‘a premature nationalisation can result in impeding social control by the destruction or downgrading of industry’. The case of Mozambique was cited by the ANC as an example of such ‘premature nationalisation’. Towards the end of the conference, a South African business person, Ronnie Bethlehem, asked if the ANC had a policy position on the floating of the rand and whether the rand would be linked to gold or any specific international currency. It is hard to say if he was being serious or just trying to embarrass the ANC. The ANC responded that it was not able to answer this question because it had to be recognised that ‘a struggle for liberation did not necessarily guarantee experience in issues such as economics’ (Louw 1989: 86). This speaks to the issue of experience, which we raise at various times in this book.
The leadership of the Economics Unit and the DEP in Lusaka may have been involved in many important events and exchanges over policy and strategy during the 1980s, but they were also drawn into some totally mundane and bureaucratic issues that may well have detracted from their core work. Some of the things that senior ANC and DEP members had to deal with were nothing short of mind-boggling. Jordan speaks of these matters as ‘absurd bureaucratic controls’ (Jordan interview, 4 August 2017). Here is one of many examples we unearthed at the University of Fort Hare archives. Late in 1989, a DEP staffer wrote to Henry Makgothi, assistant secretary general of the ANC, requesting leave and support to travel to Harare to marry his fiancée. He was asked by Makgothi to get a written recommendation from his head, Max Sisulu. Sisulu then wrote (somewhat tongue in cheek) to Makgothi as follows:
Since Cde Mandla Tshabalala is an adult he does not need the permission of the Department to get married, but our department, however, wishes to vouch for his