Beyond the political economy of theft

Abstract

Abstract provided by author:

It was this sytem which was later inherited and 'perfected', in its distorted image by the racist settler regime of South Africa. The political and economic direction of the country over the last eight decades have almost entirely been determined by its colonial domination by apartheid South Africa

We have detailed how multinational interests have a free reign in the economic dilapidation of the country. The country's economy is almost totally controlled from without. As a result, the country's economic relations are today marked by two dominant characteristics. On the one hand, it has, over the last 70 years of South African misrule, totally been incorporated into the South African economic system. As a result - and thanks to a deliberate government policy - (or lack of it), Namibia has been turned into a protected market for South African manufacturers. At the same time, in close collaboration with South Africa, Western foreign capital has exploited the country's mineral resources and created a highly 'open' and export-dependent economy - thus leaving the country's economy internally fragmented and externally highly vulnerable

Within this economy, Namibians have only been drawn in as suppliers of inexpensive labour power in the exploitation of their country

It was the 1962-3 Odendaal Commission report which provided the basis for the creation of the legal framework - as if one was needed - for defining more precisely the Namibian's loss of control over their economic, social and political destinies. In the classical colonial tradition of 'divide and rule', the Commission argued that the creation of the bantustans was in the long term interests of the country. It was thus this report which laid the basis for the concentration of Namibians into so-called homelands

We have noted above how, since the advent of German colonialism, Namibian socio-political and economic institutions have been undermined, abrogated and destroyed. The crucial additional element provided by the Odendaal plan was a mechanism, through the instrumentality of the homeland system, for the strict regulation of labour needed for the white (capitalist) enclave of the economy

The 'homelands' - contrary to government claims - are, therefore, not traditional, primordial - cum tribal areas for specific cultural groups. Instead they are administratively determined outposts - for the most part on very marginal land - owned by the government and subject to official government regulation in terms of residential and land 'rights'. Their political role apart, the homelands are principally reservoirs of cheap labour. The survival and expansion of the capitalist sector depends on the continued supply of this inexpensive Namibian labour

We also showed how the country's economy is held to ransom by its colonial status. In this regard we argued, for example, that the absence of a manufacturing base is not - as is commonly claimed - a function of the economies of scale. We accept, only too readily that isolated by itself Namibia's domestic market is not a very large one. But national frontiers have never been inviolable in economic transaction and interaction. Even more telling is the fact that industries which could operate quite profitably within the constraints of this limited internal market have not been developed in spite of the fact that even a South African appointed enquiry had established the fact that there existed sufficient scope for starting a number of manufacturing industries

In this regard we were rather struck by a remarkable consensus about the imperative of continuity or what some refer to as pragmatism. Stress is laid on not alienating those interests - i. e. the settler property owners and the multinationals - who are the beneficiaries from the status quo. It is interesting especially to note, that even studies which purport to subscribe to the 'political economy of liberation' as enunciated in the Liberation Movement's programmes choose to tread the 'wise' and conservative course of pragmatism

Pragmatism - advocated under the slogans of stability and continuity - however, does not, in our view serve the cause of Namibian development. The protagonists of pragmatism are insensitive to the macabre history of repression and exploitation by successive colonial governments of the Namibian people under which the settlers and foreign interests always occupied highly privileged positions

Against this background no nationalist movement - indeed no credible democratic political organisation - can be expected to ignore the democratic articulation by the majority of Namibians for an abrogation of the status quo in order to do away with these historical anachronisms as necessary preconditions for releasing the creative potential of the Namibians as a whole - black and white. Only under such circumstances will it be possible - we argued - to lay an autonomous - of course, not autarkic - viable and integrated basis for further development. Needless to say, how rapidly Namibia will develop a national, integrated economy will, partly at least, depend on the degree and size of capital formation in the economy - i. e. not only the magnitude of surplus but also the rate of reinvestment in the economy. cc " '1