In 2018, the South African economy slipped into a technical recession. The official statistics service, StatsSA, recently reported that 69,000 jobs were shed between March and June alone. Recent research indicates that inequality remains startlingly high; currently 10% of the population own at least 90-95% of the country’s wealth. These statistics put the fleeting optimism generated by the so-called “New Dawn” into its proper perspective and can be understood within a longer trajectory of a struggling economy.

Since the transition to democracy, South Africa’s economy has been characterized by premature de-industrialization, rising inequality, increasing financialization, high unemployment and unsustainable levels of poverty. A recent report penned by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED), and the SARChl Chair in Industrial Development, underscores the failure of the democratic era to realize “inclusive development” and to transform the economy in the interests of the poor. Continuities from apartheid persist: our economy remains highly concentrated and based on capital-intensive, resource-based industries. South Africa is now, in the words of the report, at “a critical inflection point.”