African Activist Archive

Contents: INTRODUCTION • THE UNDERLYING STRUCTURE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ITS DOMINANT ROLE IN THE REGION • The minority-run machinery of state • Exclusion of blacks from control of rich resources • Concentrated ownership • Growing unemployment • Domination of the region • THE PROPOSED RESEARCH • Pressures have mounted inside South Africa and internationally for an end to the white minority rule. The shape of the post-liberation political economy will have implications, not only for South Africans, but also for southern Africans and the peoples of the developed countries. Aided by massive transnational corporate investment, South Africa is the most industrialized country in Africa and the economic center of the southern African region. In the 1950s, under the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), a coalition of South African citizen groups formulated the Freedom Charter. The United States has emerged as South Africa's second largest investor and its leading trading partner. U.S. manufacturing firms have located roughly three-fourths of their investments on the entire African continent in South Africa. In the 1980s, U.S. banks played a leading role in providing finance for South Africa's public and private sectors. The U.S. government provided a fourth of its aid to Africa to the southern African states. The so-called 'Constructive Engagement' policy has had a negative impact, not only on the struggle for liberation in South Africa, but also throughout the region. The paper proposed that ACAS conduct a review of the experiences of already-independent African states as well as other third world countries to contribute to greater definition of the options available for operationalizing the Freedom Charter. The research will focus on institutional structures in three primary areas: 1) government and the achievement of participatory political democracy; 2) access to the national resources to provide full employment and rising living standards; and 3) providing basic social necessities. The document mentions apartheid, land ownership, state intervention, tariffs, capital-intensive productive capacity, unemployment, a military-industrial complex, SWAPO (South West African People's Organization), townships, gold, diamonds, vermiculite, and uranium.

African Activist Archive

OPERATIONALIZING THE FREEDOM CHARTER

A Proposal for Research on Alternative Development Strategies for Southern Africa after the Liberation of South Africa

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