Although it has widespread appeal, equality can be seen as a rather arbitrary ideal. From a humanitarian point of view, to relieve suffering or to uplift people living in absolute deprivation are immediately comprehensible goals. The same is not true of equality: why should an equal distribution of resources be considered as good in itself? Concerns... Continue Reading →
Some Propositions on the Black Elite: A response to James Ngculu
My point of departure is the following: Does the national question have the same content after the coming to political power of the African National Congress (ANC) as before ? The ANC tradition Apartheid deliberately obstructed the emergence of a black elite and even a black middle class. This was part of the system... Continue Reading →
African Nationalism in the ANC
The “national question” fifty years ago In May 1954, a symposium was staged in Cape Town on the national question. In attendance were, among others, Lionel Foreman, Thomas Ngwenya and Jack Simons. The purpose of the symposium was explained as being: “To encourage and develop a unity of ideas in the movement, especially on the... Continue Reading →
From Afro-Centrism to Decolonial Humanism: A Response to Simphiwe Sesanti
One by one, nations across the African continent won formal political independence in the second half of the 20th century. Some decades since the formal end of colonial rule, the continent continues to be plagued by significant residues of a bygone era. Neo-colonialism is a concept designed specifically to capture several, now implicit, economic,... Continue Reading →
SA, the Global South and the Future of Capitalism: An Interview with Prof Vivek Chibber
Zunaid Moolla, New Agenda Deputy Editor spoke to Vivek Chibber while he was on a speaking tour of South Africa. He is a Professor of Sociology at New York University ZM: You have been to South African several times now. Do you see or hear anything different with this visit? VC: No. I have... Continue Reading →
Ideas and Power: Academic Economists and the Making of Policy
From the struggle years of the mid-1980s to the gearshift of the mid-1990s, progressive academic economists played a tangled role in the development of South Africa’s post-apartheid economic policy. Vishnu Padayachee is distinguished professor and Derek Schrier and Cecily Cameron Chair in Development Economics, School of Economics and Business Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand. For the progressive... Continue Reading →
Black Solidarity and the Quest of a Non-Racial Humanity: Biko’s Enduring Political Dilemma
Dr M John Lamola writes that, Steve Biko’s philosophy of Black Consciousness argued that a racially defined black solidarity could bring about a nonracial future in South Africa. This apparent paradox calls for an examination of the dialectical thinking upon which it was built. Black solidarity, “the realisation by blacks of the need to rally around... Continue Reading →
