CHEAP LABOUR, PROFITS- ECONOMICS OF APARTHEID

International capitalism, and Britain in particular, have always had a parti. cular interest in the development of the South African economy as a source of gold, the basis of its monetary system, and of super - profits derived from the exploitation of unlimited supplies of African labour.

South African economic development began with the mineral discoveries of the 1870s and 1880s. From then until the present day it has been indissociably linked to the mining of gold, diamonds and other minerals which brings together the richest and most advanced organs of finance capital with the most exploited labour force in the The South African mining industry has always depended upon a supply of cheap African labour recruited on a temporary basis from the tribal areas in the country as well from neighbouring coun tries. The workers have been forced into the mines by the poverty of the land left them by the white settlers and by the need to find money to pay the poll tax and meet other payments.

There are now nearly 500,000 African mineworkers, paid the lowest possible wages, herded into compounds and working underground for 60 hours a week under conditions of enormous danger and hardship. The exploitation of these workers has been the basis of the wealth of the big mining companies. After a spell in the mines of perhaps 18 months the Africans return to the reserves and their places are constantly being taken by new layers of young To discipline this huge labour force, to harness it to the needs of capital on the most advantageous terms and to provide permanency in the operation of the mines, the mineowners also hire white workers, about 50,000 strong. These workers are highly paid and there is a rigid division between the white workers and the black, even though they may be doing similar work.

Wages and working conditions for the mineworkers were laid down by the powerful Chamber of Mines on a uniform basis-the minimum outlay necessary to produce the effort required. Movement of all African workers is controlled by Pass Laws, first introduced in the mining areas in 1857. They became a systematic means not only for controlling movement, but also for keeping down wages.

By a combination of measures of this kind the African tribesman was proletarianized in the most barbarous way to suit the insatiable needs of finance capital for profit.

As an official report put it in 1903: "The only pressing needs of a savage are those of food and sex, and the conditions of native life in Africa are such that these are, as a cule, easily supplied.' It was therefore necessary to ensure that even these basic needs could not be satisfied unless the Black African was forced to work for the mine-owners.

Another official commission in 1941 said:

"The goldmining industry of the Witwatersrand has indeed been fortunate in having secured, for its unskilled labour, native peasants who have been prepared to come to the Witwatersrand for periods of labour at comparatively low rates of pay. But for this fortunate circumstance, the industry could never have reached its present stage of development.

It was indeed 'fortunate that the white ruling class had a large supply of cheap African labour at its disposal, but it was a result of conscious design, not of chance. Only by forcing Africans into 'reserves' where the land was poor, preventing them from acquiring land in white areas and forcing them to pay money taxes were these 'fortunate circumstances' created.

The big employers and the labour aristocracy of white workers found a common interest in maintaining colour bar which was the forerunner of apartheid. Low wages suited the mine-owners and they were willing to return part of the surplus value extracted from the black workers to the whites in return for their support in maintaining the system of cheap African labour.

$25 A YEAR WORKER African young men were forced into the mines to earn money to keep their people from starvation. While they worked for a pittance the capitalists in the gold-mining industry made enormous profits. From 1911 to 1940 profits from gold mining in the money of the time amounted to £538m. The African worker averaged about £25 a year.

In the 1930s, when the rest of the capitalist world was depressed South Africa underwent a boom fuelled by the high price of gold.

Gold-mining is once again booming with the rise in the price of gold. Pre-tax profits of the big gold-mining companies amounted to nearly £300m last year.

Those millions made from gold-mining flowed and still flow into the coffers of a few giant concerns such as the Anglo-American Corporation, Kand Mines or Consolidated Goldfields which have close and intimate ties with the City of London and international finance.

The wages of African miners have virtually stood still for decades and in real terms they receive no more than their great grandfathers in the 1880s. Almost 20,000 have perished in mine accidents. Countless thousands have returned to the reserves to die slowly from silicosis. One of the advantages of migratory labour is that the mining companies have been able to avoid obligation to Africans whose lives have been ruined by work underground.

As Adam Raphael put it in 'The Guardian' (April 5):

It is, after all, a remarkable achievement even by South African standards in an industry making enormous profits and employing more than 500,000 workers, to prevent any real wage increases for 80 Some of the gold-mining magnates, notably Harry Oppenheimer of the £1,000m Anglo-American Corporation, now favour a more stable work force of married Africans who can acquire higher skills. This was rejected by Dr Verwoerd in 1952 on the grounds that the result would be the establishment of what he called "a series of native towns' contrary to the apartheid policy.

There has been no change in official policy on this score. Oppenheimer and others like him oppose the rigid apartheid policy because they view it as a barrier to the formation of a modern type of industrial proletariat equipped with higher skills and thus capable producing more surplus value.

The Afrikaaner Nationalists who legislated the full apartheid programme of racial segregation did so because they fear that greater equality and opportunity The black workers would raise wages on the farms, which depend on cheap labour, and threaten the position of the privileged white minority. Their racialism, alAbove: Squalid living conditions for black workers are part and parcel of the rule of apartheid upon which all economic relalionships in South Africa depend.

though imbued with a particular ideological fervour, has economic roots. • Gold-mining still plays a crucial role in the South African economy which supplies about 80 per cent of the newly-mined gold in the capitalist world. In recent decades, however, there has been considerable industrial development based on the creation of a black industrial proletariat at wage levels not very different to those paid in the mines.

In the wake of gold-mining came the development of transport and the expansion of the home market for manufactured goods. Gold and diamond-mining directly encouraged the foundation of industries producing explosives (South Africa has one of the largest explosive factories in the world, partly owned by ICI), mining equipment, cables, protective clothing and footwear.

Mining of other minerals was also encouraged, not only diamonds and platinum, but also industrial minerals such as iron-ore and coal. South Africa is now a big coal-producer and, moreover, thanks to cheap labour, is beginning compete the international market. A contract has recently been won to supply South African coal for Hamburg power station starting in 1975.

However, the development of manufacturing industry in South Africa has lagged behind gold-mining and it has always owed a good deal to government initiative. The home market was and remains restricted by the low purchasIntricaner inhabitanass of the higher incomes of the whites in the period before the last war tended to be spent on imported manufactured goods.

The state was anxious to develop manufacturing industry for a number of reasons. In the 1920s there was a

serious 'poc r white' problem of jobless people from the veldt farms for whom only employment seemed to offer a way of escape.

South African governments were also concerned about what might happen if the sup plies of gold and diamond: gave out or became too costly to extract at world prices. This Thursday 12,