A History of Inequality in South Africa, 1652-2002

Abstract

A History of Inequality in South Africa, 1652-2002. By Sampie Terreblanche. Pietermaritzburg: University of Durban Press, 2002. Pp. xvi, 527. $43.95 paper. Sampie Terreblanche is a distinguished professor emeritus of economics at the University of Stellenbosch who obtained degrees at Stellenbosch and Harvard returning to teach at his alma mater from 1968 to 2002. The author of eight books and numerous other publications, Terreblanche was an economic advisor to the old apartheid regime and a twenty-one year member of the Afrikaner Broederbond. More recently, however, he has become a champion of the poor and a harsh critic of the current government's economic policies. His new study of inequality, which took eight years to complete, has stirred intense discussion and controversy since its publication in 2002. In his work, Terreblanche argues that power structures were a central feature of colonial South African society, beginning with the arrival of the Dutch in 1652, and that these relationships continued and even hardened during the segregation and apartheid periods from 1910 to 1994 when whites monopolized political and economic power. Very few would argue with him on these points. It is his conclusions about South African society since 1994, however, that have been the center of a most contentious debate. He believes that unequal power relations and socio-economic outcomes have remained defining characteristics of the post-apartheid period. Despite our transition to an inclusive democracy, old forms of inequality have been perpetuated, and some entrenched more deeply than ever before (p. xv). Terreblanche spends the first four chapters setting out his analysis and criticisms of economic policy and developments since 1990. He begins with a broad overview of previous studies and theories that have sought to explain power relationships and unfree labor patterns in South African history and the various ways that power and authority have been manifested in six successive systemic periods since 1652. Terreblanche then looks at the recent transitional period from white to majority rule, 1990 to 2002, and discusses the legacy of apartheid and the legislation created to build a new nonracial South Africa, which, he concedes, has greatly improved political and legal rights for all South Africans. The economic structure put in place after 1994, however, draws harsh, sometimes scathing, criticism from Terreblanche. …