Getting away with slavery: capitalist farmers, foreigners and forced labour in the Transvaal, c. 1920 - 1950 (original) (raw)

Was 1948 a turning point in the relation between agrarian capital and the state? Indeed-according to the notoriously impermanent maps that many historians have drawn. But stop, look back, look left, and look back again-and the crossroads of apartheid may disappear. Consider the usual story. From the 1920s, there was a growing farm labour shortage. But the Native Affairs Department (NAO) adhered to its ethic of paternalistic protection, and argued that a solution was 'above all dependent on farmers' preparedness to offer higher wages'. It would not aid agriculturists 'if this entailed artificially cheapening the price of labour'. 1 During the urban booms of the 1930s and 1940s, labour tenants fled in droves to towns. Among the farmers worst affected were those in the Transvaal, where labour tenancy was 'the only form' of acquiring workers in the early 1930s. 2 Landlords not only demanded tighter influx control and labour bureaux: in 1945 the South African Agricultural Union (SAAU) also urged a permanent separation of urban and rural workforces, preventing full time farm workers from moving to town. But the state reflected the interests of mining and manufacturing capital, and the proposals fell on deaf ears. Indeed, the NAD continued to advise improved working conditions, and to divert black labour to industry. Due partly to the state's 'reluctance' to become 'the pivot of forced labour measures', Transvaal agriculturists deserted the United Party (UP) in the May 1948 elections. 3 Almost immediately, the repressive apartheid regime began supporting capitalist landlords. In 1949 legislation was amended to 'permit groups of farmers to recruit' labour; a crucial bill establishing labour bureaux was drafted in consultation with the SAAU, which was afforded a 'privileged hearing' in the NAD. 4 Influx control was not only tightened: from 1954 'petty offenders' were also hijacked to farms. 5 The apartheid state 'sought primarily to secure a stable labour supply for agriculture' by implementing the SAAU's proposals-and by the late 1950s, apartheid had succeeded. Hence the 'coming to power of the Nationalist party...marked a turning point in the class struggle in the countryside.' 7 Although this story chimes agreeably with opposition to the apartheid state, it is also economical with the truth. Some dates are dubious; numerous facts are fantasies; many premises are perverse. But the silences are as disturbing as the sophisms. By focusing on the Transvaal, this account attempts to address some of the problems of too much politics chasing too little data. First, a regional economic system shaped the consciousness of farmers and the contours of state intervention. Subcontinental labour mobilization was 'perhaps the single most important feature of the early industrialization of South Africa', and landlords were all too aware that when 'the Native... is exploiting the farmer', 'the only way to counteract this is to import labour.' 8 Cries of 'labour shortage' in the 1930s culminated not in requests for influx control-debt was far more potent than passes in tying workers to farms-but in demands for apparatchiks' aid in procuring black immigrants. 9 State