Marx and the mirage of change: Notes from South Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 194277862110478
Author(s):  
Sagie Narsiah
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
The Past ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Spatial Content

There is little doubt that the understanding of the dynamics of capitalism has been enriched by Geography. Moreover, geographers utilizing Marxist/Marxian lenses have provided valuable insights into the spatial content of the system. Over the past two decades or so, geographers in no small way have contributed to the demystification of capitalism/capitalist development in its neoliberal incarnation – change as mirage. Furthermore, poverty, inequality, unemployment and related social ills are directly linked to the system. Indeed, they are produced by the system. In this paper, the geographical evolution of the capitalist system in South Africa is examined. Critical thinkers, among them Marxists, influenced the theorization of the relationship(s) between capitalism, apartheid, class and race. In this paper, I focus on the spatial aspects, which in my view have been neglected. I reflect on various historical periods – the apartheid era and the post-apartheid era, in particular. What is apparent is that neoliberalism in South Africa has entered a phase which I label “accumulation by corrupt means”. The class basis of this strategy is examined. Critical (Marxist) geographers are shaped by the direct experiences of material conditions. I describe my experiences in this regard.

scholarly journals PEREMPUAN SUNDA DAN PELACURAN DI ZAMAN KOLONIAL

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-220
Author(s):  
Gani Ahmad Jaelani
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
News Reporting ◽  
The Past ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The Relationship

This article aims to analyze the relationship between Sundanese women and prostitution practices in the colonial era. The emphasis on Sundanese women is derived from the abundance of news reporting that they resort to prostitution because of the inherent vice, such as laziness and fondness of luxury. This view, mostly through European eyes, puts women, especially Sundanese women, into such a predicament. Therefore, there are three main concerns to discuss in this article. First, it analyses European reports on Sundanese women and their relation with prostitution. Second, it shows the complexity of the practice of prostitution in a colonial country. Last, it discusses that prostitution is enabled by other material conditions such as urban development. It is important to note that the association with immorality on a certain ethnic group has always been rooted from the past. In addition, it reinforces that the assumption that prostitution is merely women’s issue can no longer be held onto.  

scholarly journals Explore changes in the aspects fundamental to the competitiveness of South Africa as a preferred tourist destination

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Engelina Du Plessis ◽  
Melville Saayman ◽  
Annari Van der Merwe
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Frequency Analysis ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Value For Money ◽  
Tourist Destination ◽  
The Past ◽  
Role Players ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

Background: Tourism is an evolving and changing industry, and keeping up with these changes requires an understanding of the forces and changes that shape this industry’s outcomes. Tourism managers struggle daily to stay ahead in the competition to attract more tourists to destinations. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the past could shed light on the advantages of the future.Aim: The aim of this study was to do a temporal analysis of the competitiveness of South Africa as a tourism destination.Setting: This research investigated the competitive position of South Africa as a tourism destination just after the 1994 elections and compared those results to the results of a similar study in 2014.Methods: In this article, a frequency analysis revealed South Africa’s strengths and weaknesses, after which t-tests indicated the relationship between the strengths and weaknesses of the destination and the factors that contribute to South Africa’s competitiveness.Results: South Africa’s strengths include the quality of the food and experience, scenery, variety of accommodation climate and geographical features. It is clear that respondents identified different attributes that contributed to the strengths of the destination in comparison with 2002, where the strengths were wildlife, scenery, cultural diversity, climate, value for money, variety of attractions and specific icons.Conclusion: This research is valuable for South Africa because it informs tourism role players about what respondents perceive to be South Africa’s strengths. Role players can then form strategies that incorporate the strengths to create competitive advantage. This article also indicates the areas in which the country has grown in the past decade as well as indicating which weaknesses remain a problem.

Governing Body of the Church in Wales

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-98
Author(s):  
Philip Morris
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Quality Education ◽  
Governing Body ◽  
Big Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
90Th Anniversary ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

2010 marked the 90th anniversary of disestablishment; and the Archbishop noted in his April Presidential Address to the Governing Body that though disestablishment had been forced on the Church and its result had been to deplete assets, congregations had twice raised sufficient money to secure the Church's territorial ministry. Though the Church now had fewer attenders, clergy and ordinands than hitherto, it had survived greater challenges in the past. In his September address, as well as looking outwards and comparing the relationship between Gaza and Israel with apartheid in South Africa, he warned that the ‘Big Society’ might merely make life harder for the most vulnerable and reminded the Government that everyone needed good quality education, health and other public services.

Policing During and After Apartheid

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonny Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
South African Police Service ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
State Coercion ◽  
South African Police ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter addresses the question of historical continuity and change within the South African Police Service after the end of apartheid. The prevalent interest in continuity between apartheid and post-apartheid policing risks blinding scholarship to what has changed. At the heart of this change lies the relationship between policing and political order, between politics and state coercion. Whereas during apartheid the police was primarily driven by the fight against insurgency, the police in democratic South Africa is primarily tasked with managing the conflicts of the ruling ANC. This chapter argues that instruments, institutions and mentalities from the past survive insofar as they are useful to agents in the present.

The antecedents of opportunity recognition in internationalized firms

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 175-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Urban ◽  
Candice Willard
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Organizational Learning ◽  
International Entrepreneurship ◽  
Opportunity Recognition ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship

The international entrepreneurship (IE) literature has proliferated over the past few decades, where researchers perceive internationalization as rapid and opportunity-driven. Despite the proliferation of research on IE, little is known about the extent of the relationship between the antecedents of opportunity recognition and IE. Hypotheses are formulated to test this relationship and a survey is administered to internationalized firms in South Africa. Following statistical analyses, results show that it is the antecedent of organizational learning which is positively related to opportunity recognition. These findings lead to recommendations in terms of how a combination of different learning and knowledge capabilities can be leveraged by entrepreneurs to increase opportunity recognition in internationalized firms.

Justice & Memory: South Africa's Constitutional Court

Daedalus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 143 (3) ◽  
pp. 168-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate O'Regan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
New Order ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Relationship

In a society such as South Africa in which the past has been deeply unjust, and in which the law and judges have been central to that injustice, establishing a shared conception of justice is particularly hard. There are four important strands of history and memory that affect the conception of justice in democratic, post-apartheid South Africa. Two of these, the role of law in the implementation of apartheid, and the grant of amnesty to perpetrators of gross human rights violations, are strands of memory that tend to undermine the establishment of a shared expectation of justice through law. Two others, the deeprooted cultural practice of justice in traditional southern African communities, and the use of law in the struggle against apartheid, support an expectation of justice in our new order. Lawyers and judges striving to establish a just new order must be mindful of these strands of memory that speak to the relationship between law and justice.

scholarly journals Mass killings and calculated measures: The impact of police massacres on police reform in South Africa

2018 ◽  
pp. 5-16
Author(s):  
Guy Lamb
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Mass Killings ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Over the past two centuries, the police have perpetrated massacres in response to protest action in numerous countries. Available scholarly literature has typically focused on the circumstances that contributed to such mass killings, but rarely has there been consideration of the impact that such massacres subsequently may have had on the police organisation. Hence, this article will explore the relationship between massacres perpetrated by the police and police reform, with a particular focus on South Africa. The article concludes that, in the context of public order policing, massacres perpetuated by the police can contribute towards relatively immediate police reforms, particularly in terms of police strategies and tactics. In some circumstances, massacres have even led to some restructuring of the police organisation. The nature of the government and the policing environment appeared to be key determinants of the types of police reforms, post-massacre.

Poor Acceptance of the Past is Related to Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults

GeroPsych ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 246-251
Author(s):  
Gozde Cetinkol ◽  
Gulbahar Bastug ◽  
E. Tugba Ozel Kizil
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Geriatric Depression ◽  
Ego Integrity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Depressed Group ◽  
Total Death ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. Depression in older adults can be explained by Erikson’s theory on the conflict of ego integrity versus hopelessness. The study investigated the relationship between past acceptance, hopelessness, death anxiety, and depressive symptoms in 100 older (≥50 years) adults. The total Beck Hopelessness (BHS), Geriatric Depression (GDS), and Accepting the Past (ACPAST) subscale scores of the depressed group were higher, while the total Death Anxiety (DAS) and Reminiscing the Past (REM) subscale scores of both groups were similar. A regression analysis revealed that the BHS, DAS, and ACPAST predicted the GDS. Past acceptance seems to be important for ego integrity in older adults.

Soziale Disziplinierung im flexiblen Kapitalismus

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (136) ◽  
pp. 339-356
Author(s):  
Tobias Wölfle ◽  
Oliver Schöller
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Municipal Level

Under the term “Hilfe zur Arbeit” (aid for work) the federal law of social welfare subsumes all kinds of labour disciplining instruments. First, the paper shows the historical connection of welfare and labour disciplining mechanisms in the context of different periods within capitalist development. In a second step, against the background of historical experiences, we will analyse the trends of “Hilfe zur Arbeit” during the past two decades. It will be shown that by the rise of unemployment, the impact of labour disciplining aspects of “Hilfe zur Arbeit” has increased both on the federal and on the municipal level. For this reason the leverage of the liberal paradigm would take place even in the core of social rights.

“Capital” as the key to solving modern economic problems (Offline addition to the discussion on the revival of a special seminar on Karl Marx’s “Capital”)

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-150
Author(s):  
Alexandеr V. Buzgalin
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Modern Economy ◽  
Modern Economic ◽  
The Relationship

In the article prepared in connection with the discussion on the use of the Marxist political economy heritage and the revival of a special seminar on Marx’s “Capital”, the author shows the dialectic of the relationship between the content and the transformed forms of the modern capitalist system; the potential of “Capital” to understand the content of the modern economy, and the potential of economics to understand its forms. On this basis, the author shows which questions of our time are answered by Marxist methodology and theory, and which are not, and concludes that Marxist political economy has significant methodological potential to become an important component of the scientific and educational process in current conditions.

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