The Political Economy of South Africa Revisited: Tracking and Debating the Minerals-Energy and Financial Complex

ISBN: 9798888909201

Publication date: December 15, 2026

Contents
List of Figures and Tables

1 Locating the Minerals-Energy Complex
 1 Introduction
 2 The Post-Apartheid Conundrum
 3 Whither or Wither the MEC?
 4 Brief Overview

2 Total Factor Productivity vs. Realism: the South African Coal Mining Industry
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 Measuring Total Factor Productivity
 3 The Measurement of Output
 4 Competition in the Markets for Coal
 5 The Supply Side
 6 Coal and the State
 7 The Labour Market
 8 Concluding Remarks

3 “The Rise in African Wages: 1975–1985” – a Dissenting and Wide-Ranging Commentary
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 The Orthodoxy We Inherit
 3 Modelling Labour Markets?
 4 Does Segmented Labour Market Theory Offer an Alternative?
 5 Towards an Alternative
 6 Concluding Remarks
 Appendix

4 Debating the South African Minerals-Energy Complex
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 The MEC Core
 3 On Import-Substituting Industrialisation
 4 The MEC as a System of Accumulation
 5 Future Prospects
 Appendix

5 Engaging the MEC: or a Lot of My Views on a Lot of Things
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 The History of the ‘MEC’
 3 The Reception of the MEC
 4 Post-Apartheid Economy
 5 From History of “MEC” to History of MEC
 6 Concluding Remarks
 Appendix

6 Political Economy for the Rainbow Nation: Dividing the Spectrum?
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 Identifying Identity
 3 Is Neoliberalism Dead (Was It Ever Alive) – Long Live Neoliberalism?
 4 From Neoliberalism to the MEC
 5 Neoliberalism Changes Gear?

7 Amnesty International?: the Nature, Scale and Impact of Capital Flight from South Africa
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 Capital Flight and the Political Economy of South Africa
 3 Capital Flight and Economic Development
 4 Calculations for Capital Flight from South Africa
 5 Capital Controls, Wealth Repatriation and the Prevailing Policy Framework
 6 Conclusions
 Appendix 1
 Appendix 2

8 Neoliberalism, Varieties of Capitalism, and the Shifting Contours of South Africa’s Financial System
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 Varieties of Capitalism
 3 From EMH to IEMH
 4 From IEMH to Financialisation
 5 From Apartheid to Post-Apartheid Economy and Financial System
 6 The 1980s Onwards: Deregulation, Internationalisation and Renewed Concentration
 7 Conclusions

9 The Meaning of Marikana
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Some Underlying Determinants
 2 The Present Crisis

10 Across Developmental State and Social Compacting: the Peculiar Case of South Africa
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 The Developmental State Paradigm
 3 The DSP in the Age of Financialisation
 4 From Developmental State to Social Compacting
 5 South African DSP and SCP: ’Twixt a Rock and a Hard Place?
 6 Concluding Remarks

11 Vishnu Padayachee as Engaged Political Economist, a Personal Journey
 Postscript as Personal Preamble
 1 Introduction
 2 Neoliberalism Is as Neoliberalism Does
 3 From Mainstream to …
 4 … Heterodoxy
 5 The Post-Apartheid Context
 6 Post-Apartheid Economics: from Unravelling to Disempowered
 7 Locating Vishnu
References
Index