Surviving Capitalism (Not) : How the ANC's Faustian pact sold out South Africa's poorest

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

How the ANC's Faustian pact sold out South Africa's poorest

Click here to access article by Ronnie Kasrils from The Guardian.

The writer for the liberal publication only hints at the answer to how ANC's leadership "sold out", or more accurately, was co-opted by mining moguls in South Africa.

...by late 1993 big business strategies – hatched in 1991 at the mining mogul Harry Oppenheimer's Johannesburg residence – were crystallising in secret late-night discussions at the Development Bank of South Africa. Present were South Africa's mineral and energy leaders, the bosses of US and British companies with a presence in South Africa – and young ANC economists schooled in western economics. They [the latter] were reporting to Mandela, and were either outwitted or frightened into submission by hints of the dire consequences for South Africa should an ANC government prevail with what were considered ruinous economic policies. (my emphasis)

I don't think that they were "either outwitted or frightened into submission". I think that they likely saw that they personally could reap big benefits in terms of wealth and power by cooperating with the capitalists' agenda.