South Africa’s democracy is in trouble. The present situation is, in objective terms, a house divided; a house that is tottering on rotten foundations. Despite the more general advances that have been made under the ANC’s rule since 1994, power has not only remained in the hands of a small minority but has increasingly been exercised in service to capital. The ANC has become the key political vehicle – in party and state form as well as application – of corporate capital: domestic and international, black and white, local and national, and constitutive of a range of different fractions. As a result, ‘transformation’ has largely taken the form of acceptance of, combined with incorporation into, the capitalist ‘house’, now minus its formal apartheid frame.

What has happened in South Africa over the last 22 years is the corporatisation of liberation, the political and economic commodification of the ANC and societal development. Those in positions of leadership and power within the ANC have allowed themselves to be lured by the siren calls of power and money, to be sucked in by the prize of ‘capturing’ institutional sites of power, to be seduced by the egoism and lifestyles of the capitalist elite.

This book tells that ‘story’ by offering a critical, fact-based and actively informed holistic analysis of the ANC in power, as a means to: better explain and understand the ANC and its politics as well as South Africa’s post-1994 trajectory; contribute to renewed discussion and debate about power and democracy; and help identify possible sign-posts to reclaim revolutionary, universalist and humanist values as part of the individual and collective struggle for the systemic change South Africa’s democracy needs.

Canadian political publisher Fernwood will be publishing Dale McKinley’s South Africa’s Corporatised Liberation later this year. ‘In an era when the restructuring of capitalism seems to be threatening to erase many of the gains that have been made by the oppressed in society, we think that our books have a part to play in bucking the trend.’ – Errol Sharpe, Fernwood Publishing.

About the author

Dale T McKinley is an independent writer, researcher and lecturer based in Johannesburg, with a PhD in International Political Economy/African Studies. He is a long-time political activist and has been involved in social movement, community and liberation organisations and struggles for over three decades, and has written widely on various aspects of South African and international political, social and economic issues and struggles. Dale occasionally lectures at university level, is a regular speaker at various civil society and academic social and political conferences and events and is a contributor in print media and a commentator on radio and television.

South Africa’s Corporatised Liberation – A critical analysis of the ANC in power is published by Jacana Media