talk to Laurence [Harris] and people like that, but in Zambia I would be the one they would discuss with. You could see Chris’s view. He was not verbose, he was very reflective but he would raise some clear issues, and he was the only one in my view that came across very strongly on the issue of redistribution. Chris Hani was very clear; even Slovo did not raise it as sharply as Chris Hani raised the issue of redistribution and inequality as opposed to just poverty. And for Chris Hani this was one of the key areas that needed to be addressed, because none of the others raised the issue. And I think for many of us who came from the townships, that was a key issue, because we could see what was driving the problems in the townships on the ground, and all indicators that came through were showing that levels of inequality, levels of poverty, education, all those strikes and things, were about inequality (Josie interview, 30 January 2015).
Gail Gerhart and Clive Glaser sum up the Freedom Charter debate and the broad economic stance in the 1980s, on the eve of the many ‘meet the ANC’ gatherings across Africa and Europe, as follows: ‘Had numbers and high position counted, the communists in the NEC [National Executive Committee], who made up at least three-quarters of its members after Kabwe, might have been expected to swing their weight to ensure that the ANC’s vision of a future South Africa conformed to socialist principles. But this did not occur; instead, the ANC’s blueprints emerged with a clear social democratic stamp’ (2010: 150).
In January 1986, a report appeared in the Star newspaper that the South African Nafcoc had held informal discussions with the ANC after it had drafted a business charter of social, economic and political rights and an accompanying action programme. While reluctant to disclose which members of the ANC they met, the Star report notes that Nafcoc had held prior discussions with various members of the Cabinet, including the minister of constitutional planning, Chris Heunis (Star, 22 January 1986). We know that David Willers, the London director of the South Africa Foundation, sent the Federated Chamber of Industries charter to the ANC’s Solly Smith. The ANC in Lusaka received the charter on 6 February 1986. Key aspects of the charter included the following: ‘South Africa must publicly remain committed to market-related policies in an essentially open economy’, and there is a need to ‘implement an integrated programme for growth-oriented adjustment based on supply-side economic considerations’ (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 126, Folder 60).
It is interesting to note that a major purpose of the Economics Unit was to ensure that the movement had trained economists thinking about the future economic emancipation of a democratic South Africa. ‘Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a real way bound up with economic emancipation. Preparations for the attainment of genuine economic independence cannot be postponed until freedom day’ (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 24, Folder 5).
Sadly, there is no evidence that this noble objective was met, and after 1990 the ANC scrambled to develop such a policy-making capacity.
The Department of Economic Planning
Following its second National Consultative Conference in Kabwe in 1985, the ANC decided to upgrade the Economics Unit by establishing the Department of Economic Planning (DEP). This was done in June 1987. Among those joining the DEP at this time were Bheki Langa, who had just completed his PhD in the Soviet Union. Max Sisulu was appointed the head.
The objectives of the DEP were to develop economic strategy and policy options for an ‘independent South Africa’ based on the ‘aspirations of our people as expressed in the Freedom Charter’ (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 24, Folder 4). Research on policy and strategy is added for the first time to the rather less ambitious goals set for the Economics Unit. Areas added at this stage were the macroeconomy, energy and power, public finance, the role of women in development, wildlife and tourism, as well as income distribution – all policy areas absent from the list of responsibilities developed for the Economic Unit (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 24, Folder 4).
The Research Unit of the Department of Information and the DEP had extensive contacts and formal relations with a number of organisations in both the non-governmental organisation and academic sectors in many parts of the world. These included the Economic Commission for Africa (members attended the 14th session in Niamey, Niger, in April 1988), the United Nations Environment Programme (members attended the 1st session of its Governing Council in Nairobi in March 1988) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (two delegates attended the 35th session on debt and development in Geneva in September 1988). Soon it developed a productive relationship with the Department of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, through its contacts with Laurence Harris, who had long been involved in intelligence work for the movement along the Botswana border (Keable 2012). Harris, with later support from Ben Fine and Peter Robbins, established EROSA, which worked closely with the movement in London and Lusaka (see chapter 4). It also worked closely with the Transnational Institute in Holland (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 24, Folder 4).
From early on in its existence, the DEP was tasked with gathering relevant material from and contacting (sympathetic) progressive economists working within South Africa. The proposal for the DEP’s establishment makes the point that ‘it is important to note that information written inside South Africa will be obtained as much research and economic analysis is going on there which is extremely useful’ (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 84, Folder 9).
Another of the DEP’s tasks was to build up its internal library in Lusaka, with newspapers ‘from home’ and journals. Among the 20 journals identified for purchase were the South African Journal of Economics, Zimbabwe Journal of Economics, Journal of Southern African Studies, Third World Quarterly, Review of African Political Economy, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Development Economics, Farmer’s Weekly and the Financial Mail. The South African Labour Bulletin (the Economist Intelligence Unit’s journal), Monthly Review (New York), Work in Progress, Codesria’s African Development and the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics were also ordered. All in all, if these were received and subscriptions maintained, a reasonable balance of progressive and mainstream journals were available to the ANC’s researchers in Lusaka (ANC Lusaka Mission Archives, Box 84, Folder 9).
Though our archival research reveals little about the day-to-day work of the DEP in Lusaka, we do learn that the department organised some seminars on the economy in Lusaka and other parts of the world.
In Amsterdam in December 1986, a conference entitled ‘Research Priorities for Socio-Economic Planning in Post-Apartheid South Africa’ was held. At that conference a paper on ‘Income Distribution and Poverty’ was presented by Francis Wilson and Mamphela Ramphele, both senior researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT). Another paper on South African industrialisation was presented by UCT’s Anthony Black. It is of interest to note that the distinguished proponent of dependency theory, Andre Gunder Frank, was in the audience. In responding to these papers, Frank argued that the ‘South African economic crisis was a direct result of the world economic crisis with internal factors playing a very minor role’. He also argued that ‘redistributive pressures would make a future South Africa less able to compete in the capitalist world market’ (Oliver Tambo Papers, Box 040, Folder 357).
At another one of these workshops, between 14–17 August 1989, at the First In-House Seminar of ANC Economists in Lusaka, a paper by Laurence Harris (1989) entitled ‘The Mixed Economy of a Democratic South Africa’, read by Helena Dolny in his absence, appears to have been much discussed. Harris set out alternative visions of the mix of the private and public sector and suggested that one that leans towards socialism would be most appropriate in South African conditions. He favoured some degree of nationalisation, especially in certain sectors, such as those that are fundamental inputs for industrial development. But he also warned that nationalisation comes with costs. In the end, he argued that the ‘roles of the market, regulation and planning are much more
