South Africa: Time for Business to Widen Its View

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Johannesburg — IN A moment of clarifying honesty during the labour minister's National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) round-table discussion -- held last week to consider current labour legislation -- a representative of business announced that as far as he was concerned, South African labour and workers clearly lived on a different planet from South African business. In so saying, the sveltely besuited gentleman illustrated the huge divide in SA better than any statistical evidence could. It was reassuring that his glib comment caused a distressed silence to descend on the normal chatter that accompanies occasions of social dialogue.

Government's use of the "two economies" metaphor has received a fair amount of criticism from those who insist that the country has a single economy, which includes both informal and formalised activities and arrangements, and that furthermore, in certain instances, the dynamics that drive the production and accumulation of surplus can at the same time be the very dynamics that inform the dynamics of exclusion and impoverishment.

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