Class battle lies at heart of service-delivery protests
Wave after wave of community protests have been taking place in SA. People are angry that after more than 20 years of so-called freedom they are still living in shacks, having to defecate in communal plastic toilets and having essential services terminated when they can’t afford to pay.
What fuels this anger further is that on the other side of cities and towns, in the former whites-only suburbs, the elite and middle classes flaunt their wealth. Here, people live with manicured gardens, swimming pools, maid’s quarters and luxury cars.
Under such circumstances, it is not hard to see why SA is ranked as one of the world’s most unequal societies.
Yet the ruling class — white and now black capitalists, top state officials and politicians — have waged an incessant war against the working class, particularly the black section, to deepen inequality. They have done so to increase their wealth. This class war lies at the root of the recent wave of protests.
Many of those involved in the protests, or their parents, had hoped for a better life after apartheid. Under it, the black working class was subjected to harsh racial oppression and exploitation. Cheap labour, in the form of the black working class, generated large profits for corporations owned by foreign and local white capitalists.
To ensure the lowest costs of the reproduction of this exploited class, the apartheid state forced people to live in homelands and townships in which the most threadbare services were provided. The black working class was deliberately mired in poverty. When it rose, it faced the apartheid state’s guns.
Nowadays, the reality of the black working class is scarcely believable. Materially, it is as at least as bad as under apartheid and in some cases, worse.
Since 1994, the GDP portion spent on wages has declined. In real terms, the wages of the black working class have, therefore, been in decline since apartheid’s fall.
Unemployment has exploded as capitalists have reduced their labour force, mechanised and implemented flexible labour to boost profit.
The post-apartheid state has been central to the war on the black working class. It has actively redirected wealth towards the ruling class by, for example, spending large amounts of money on infrastructure for corporations and introducing laws that allow labour flexibility and tax breaks for companies.
Since 1994, company tax rates have decreased from 49% to 28%. This is money that could have been used to improve the lives of the poor through providing decent services and housing.
Value-added tax that targets the working class has contributed a larger and larger part of the state’s revenue. The government has been actively and increasingly shifting wealth from the working class to the ruling class. While assisting the rich, the state has also been actively attacking the poor. In real terms, (inflation adjusted) spending on services for the working class, and the black working class in particular, has remained largely stagnant and in some cases, has even declined since 1994.
On average, the ANC government has allocated less than 2% of the budget to housing for the working class. Services such as water, electricity, housing, sanitation, healthcare and education for black working-class areas including Eldorado Park, Ennerdale and Orange Farm in Gauteng — are, therefore, a shambles.
The government under the stewardship of the ANC has reduced the amount of money it transfers to local governments to deliver services such as sanitation and refuse removal drastically. It has been done to please international capitalists in the form of speculators. Speculators tend to target buying the bonds of states with low debt levels. To keep national debt as low as possible, the government slashed transfers to local governments. Municipalities, therefore, have less in real terms for service delivery.
To try generating income, local governments across SA have aggressively adopted cost recovery for services to the working class such as electricity, water, sanitation and refuse removal. Consequently, people who can’t afford to pay, don’t get the services. Prepaid meters have been installed in working-class areas across the country, cutting people off from the basics of life, such as water, if they can’t pay. This is a form of systemic violence that degrades the lives of people.
Most municipalities have been spending funds derived from their cost-recovery schemes on building and maintaining infrastructure for companies. In cities such as Cape Town, central business districts are kept plush while townships remain in a state of degradation. Local governments also continue to allocate far more resources per household to former white suburbs than townships. The City of Joburg spends more per household in Sandton than it does in Soweto.
Making matters worse, municipalities have followed rabid outsourcing of basic services. For a connected local elite, usually linked to the ANC or in some areas the DA, it has been a godsend.
This has resulted in contracts for housing and service delivery handed out to those who have political connections. Nepotism, corruption and patronage have become rife.
The consequence of these neoliberal policies at a local level is that service delivery is abysmal.
The government does this, at a local and national level, because it is an instrument of the ruling class. States only exist to enforce the rule of a minority elite over a majority. Even in a parliamentary democracy, it is the elite that indirectly and directly control the state, which it uses to increase its wealth and bolster and solidify its power.
In SA, politicians also use the state directly for self-enrichment.
Of course, governments do provide some services to the poor. These are and were concessions that have been forced on the ruling class by the working class through the history of struggle. The black working class in SA receives some support from the state — although meagre — only because of the country’s history of struggle.
Under neoliberalism, these concessions are being rolled back and it is this that is once again fuelling protests.
The role the government plays in protecting the ruling class can be seen in how the police have reacted to protests. Most people involved in protests usually try to follow the state’s prescribed procedures to air their grievances — for example, engaging in integrated development plans and petitioning local councillors. They only go on protests once these prove to be dead-ends, which they inevitably do as politicians do not care about the plight of people, except during elections.
When people protest, the police react violently, firing rubber bullets, tear gas, stungrenades and even live bullets at protesters — who are merely asking to receive the basics.
The working class has proved it won’t lie down under the fire from the ruling class. This is where hope lies. The struggles witnessed countrywide need to link, based on self-organisation and direct democracy. There are many challenges including toxic party politics, but if society is to change, it will have to be done.