In rhetoric reminiscent of the Russian Revolution, the South Africa Communist Party headed its Red October Campaign ‘Land, Food and Work’.
And in rhetoric that is all of a piece with what we’ve heard for years, Secretary General of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Solly Phetoe, told a rally last week:
‘For the people of South Africa, for you to eat, you need a land. For you to work you need a land. For you to work, you need food. Now these are the challenges that we are facing in our country, comrade GS [General Secretary]. For us to have shelter, for us to have clothes you need a land. It is on that basis as Cosatu, we came here and say we are supporting the Communist Party on the theme around food, land and work. The unemployment rate that we are facing in this country if we are not going to take up the issue of the land seriously, we will not be able to create jobs. If we are not taking the issue of the land, we will not be able to bring food for the people of South Africa. The cost of living is very high in this country. On that note, Comrade, we really want to thank the Communist Party to identify these three critical struggles that are interrelated in relation to the dealing with the level of challenges that we are facing in this country. These are the primary struggles that we are expected to take forward.’
(That’s a direct transcription of Phetoe’s remarks as he delivered them. A more scripted version can be found here.)
Well, at least we can say that the ‘land question’ remains on the agenda, rather like it’s Russia in 1917. In fact, the slogan of the Russian Revolutionaries was Peace, Land, Bread. Given the stance taken by South Africa’s homegrown communists on recent events in Ukraine, peace might not be a politic demand.
For better or worse, South Africa in 2022 is actually a very different place. The ‘work’ part of the Communist Party’s ‘Land, Food, Work’ themes is a respectable one, and in a modern economy, that’s the chief benefit for most of us. Economic progress will be measured in the ability of the economy to provide employment and the incomes and – crucially – the mobility that goes with it.
Land, by contrast, is a factor of production and a factor in it: a place to do business – ‘premises’ – and one of a suite of assets that might be leveraged for finance. It is uniquely important for agriculture, given that it is essential for growing crops or raising livestock.
New blood
A land reform programme holds some benefits for the country. It’s important to bring new blood into the farming economy as the current cohort of farmers grow older. Small-scale commercial farming could be a viable opportunity for some people. For urbanites, land is an important factor for housing and settlement – and no easy one to deal with.
Yet land redistribution is not a solution to lethargic GDP growth and investment prospects, nor to an unemployment rate of 33.9%. With a population that is two thirds urbanised, the idea that ‘the land’ (‘a land’) is a foundation – that it is the key foundation – for the economic future is delusional.
Stats SA puts agriculture’s contribution to GDP at well below 3%. Whatever economic gains are to be had here are limited.
Getting land reform right – at least in its agrarian sense – offers modest returns, and land comes with a lifestyle that is not particularly in line with the aspirations of South Africa’s people. The most desirable goal is a wage-based or salaried position that opens up opportunities for oneself and one’s children, something very much identified with towns and cities. Perhaps this is why land has never been recognised as a major priority for the South African public. The Human Sciences Research Council, for example, referred to ‘symbolic’ support for land reform. While the idea has widespread support in principle, few identify it as something from which they hope to benefit, or a programme on which the government should place emphasis.
Getting land reform wrong, by contrast, could involve significant costs. Most directly, it stands to destabilise agriculture and the industries it underwrites. The farming economy may be relatively small, but in a stressed economy, its contribution remains valuable and cannot lightly be dispensed with. It is also a foundational part of the broader economy. The contribution of the agricultural economy to broader economic value chains has been estimated at as much as 12% of GDP; export earnings are significant too. The importance of the foodstuffs it provides to the country cannot be overestimated, something that the disruption of supply chains during the Covid pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine have only underlined.
Chilling signal
Equally importantly, mishandled land reform sends a chilling signal about the whole country as a destination for investment. The World Bank – which I’m quoting because this is true (even though the Bank is viewed as the Great Satan by the far-left) – had this to say: ‘Although redistributive policies have the potential to benefit the poor both directly and indirectly, they will do so only if redistribution does not jeopardise investment – this may be one explanation for the observation that, in the past, redistributive policies such as land reform have often failed to help the poor.’
Precisely. This is what has been borne out by history, not least that of the Soviet Union, whose birth the Red October campaign pays homage to. And this is exactly the message we’ve heard again and again from businesspeople – mostly not involved in agriculture – as the ruling alliance punted the idea of Expropriation without Compensation.
And as far as the SACP’s plans go, it’s fair to say that EWC remains the method of choice. In their Red October documentation, they explicitly refer to the Expropriation Bill, currently awaiting the Presidential signature, as a mechanism that stands to expand the latitude of the state to take property at no (or at very discounted) costs.
The SACP adds that it seeks ‘democratic control of land and ending speculative activities’. This sounds a lot like code for state ownership and control – or the custodianship that we have warned about. When Phetoe says that ‘you need a land’, understand that the conditions on which ‘you’ might get land do not necessarily include ownership. Within the ideological worldview of the SACP, it most definitely does not. Rather, it implies being a tenant of the state, and given the nature of that state, this is unlikely to end well.
One positive feature
One positive feature of the SACP’s programme is that it recognises the importance of infrastructure, veterinary services and so on that would support farming. It also calls for the ‘adequate allocation of resources to underdeveloped rural areas to undo underdevelopment and advance rural development and economic transformation’. Sensible words, though only possible if those resources are available in the first place. What the SACP and its friends in Cosatu have in mind will rule out this possibility.
But then, would one expect anything more from an event honouring the Russian Revolution?
[Image: https://picryl.com/media/da-zdravstvuet-pyataya-godovshina-velikoj-proletarskoj-revolyucii-plakat-3b2de2]
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