In the shadow of historic nationwide unrest fueled by the country’s growing levels of extreme poverty, hunger and persistent income inequality, President Cyril Ramaphosa on 25 July announced the reinstatement of the R350 Special Relief of Distress Grant (SRDG) for the unemployed. In his Mandela Day memorial lecture earlier in the week, he also stated that such action “will validate our people and show them that we are giving serious consideration to their lives”.
This was a clear response to the widespread criticism that the neoliberal policies of the ANC government bear the main responsibility for the desperation and alienation of the poor that exploded into food rioting, and looting of malls, retail shops and warehouses weeks ago. In addition, he appears to have embraced the opportunity to introduce SRD grants with the aim of silencing his great rivals in and outside the ANC, united under the bandwagon of Radical Economic Transformation (RET). RET forces have jumped on every opportunity to hammer a message that Ramaphosa is a lackey of “white monopoly capital” who is indifferent to the plight of the poor majority that is predominantly black. This was especially visible in the faction exaggerating the pro-Zuma nature of the food riots – as if the RET has any real base of support among the struggling and starving masses.
The reinstatement of the R350 special relief grant echoes calls from many progressive organisations and activists, and comes amidst growing calls for a Basic Income Grant (BIG). It also represents a retreat in the face of mass revolting against hunger. Though the SRD grant will undoubtedly bring limited relief to many who are trapped in hunger and starvation without possibilities of making ends meet in the ongoing series of lockdowns, we should be clear that the pitiful amount of R350 will do nothing to end the misery of life under capitalism for many.
R350 will not abolish hunger and poverty, which is broadly agreed across the workers movement and the Left. For this reason, and in the context of the current momentum created by the latest concession and unrest that forced it, there are now widespread efforts in building campaigns to force the amount to be increased and to make it permanent. Discussions have opened on key questions of strategy to win a BIG, and as WASP we wish to make our contribution to this vital debate on the fundamental questions of the character of a BIG itself, the amount, and how to ultimately win it.
Basic Income Grant
The idea of a BIG has recently been gaining momentum in South Africa and internationally. In South Africa in the 2000s the country had a sustained economic boom, without a strong growth in jobs. For many this shattered the illusion that capitalism can overcome its enduring crisis of mass unemployment.
As Marxists, we long argued that capitalism is incapable of solving the deepening crisis of unemployment due to overaccumulation of capital. This is reflected in the twin crises of overcapacity and overproduction across the world economy. As growth started to lose steam, the capitalist class responded with brutal restructuring of industry to replace costly labour with cheap machinery and the latest technology.
By throwing many workers out of jobs, unemployment increased from 22,4% in 2008 to 32,6% in the first quarter of 2021. If we include those who have given up seeking employment, unemployment is even higher at a rate of 43,2% (10,3 million people). But even the expanded definition of unemployment does not begin to unravel this problem, as an extra 14,1 million people are economically inactive. In this statistic a large proportion are young women who cannot seek employment due to their household responsibilities. Factoring the unemployed, the discouraged job seekers and other economically inactive people, the estimated number of people trapped in hunger is over 24 million. This represents a catastrophic increase of economically marginalised people compared to 13 years ago.
As the ruling classes internationally were reckoning with the implications of advances in technology (the Fourth Industrial Revolution), they began to experiment with the idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) – a state-guaranteed cash transfer to every citizen regardless of their income level or personal circumstances. Although the idea has not found resonance with the ruling class here, it has gained traction with progressive sections of society in reaction to catastrophic levels of unemployment and loss of faith in the ANC government.
Genuine as these concerns may be, there are grave dangers with the idea of a UBI as proposed by sections of the ruling class. These sections include its libertarian right-wing faction, who see in a UBI the possibility of replacing current public services and welfare programmes won over the past century by the working class. For arch-neoliberals that mirror Milton Friedman, a UBI offers alternatives to public education, healthcare, social welfare programmes like disability, elderly and child grants, and makes redundant public servants who deliver these services.
A UBI can take either a pro-worker or anti-worker character in its implementation; we can neither reject nor support it as a matter of principle. It will be the dominant forces in the ongoing class struggle that determine whether it benefits the bosses or the working class. The Left should be under no illusion that the neoliberal, austerity-driven ANC would implement a pro-working class UBI without the pressure of an immense organised working class movement. However, a struggle with the ability to force a pro-worker UBI could have the potential to leap much farther forward, such as seizing the commanding heights of the economy under democratic worker control. At the same time, the idea of a UBI could force the question of surplus value (profits) and the redistribution of wealth in society, to the forefront of workers’ consciousness. This should be an ongoing discussion, but we will limit our scope here to a BIG.
Currently, WASP, along with big sections of the labour movement, PayTheGrants Campaign, etc, support and call for a BIG, which is an extension of social grants to all those who are unemployed and disqualified from existing social grants owing to age and ability to work. For years now we have been calling and campaigning for this grant in recognition of the cruel reality of unemployment as an inherent, and permanent feature of capitalism, and not policy failure and temporary disequilibrium in the labour markets, as bourgeois ideologues argue. Our conclusions flow from the Marxist understanding of unemployment as functional in the political economy of capitalism. It serves as a source of reserve labour to discipline workers from demanding higher wages, and as a tool to regulate inflation, even during periods of economic growth.
Basic Income to end hunger and poverty
In its thoroughly researched report, the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) has amply demonstrated how affordable a BIG would be. According to the report, a BIG at the Food Poverty Level of R585 per month proposed by Black Sash and others in the Budget Justice Coalition, for 22,4 million people between 19 and 59 yrs of age and Not in Formal Employment (NFE), will only cost government R157 billion. If the amount is set at the Upper-bound poverty line of R1 268, as supported by the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), it will still cost only R341 billion. This would increase the current consolidated expenditure by only 16%. Although 16% might seem a significant increase, it represents redistribution of only 7% of the country’s over R5 trillion annual GDP. It is also dwarfed by Germany and Japan’s increased spending of 33% and 24% of their countries GDPs in 2020 in response to the pandemic.
By demonstrating how much could be raised from modest increases in taxation and clawing back tax rebates and cuts for the rich to finance BIGs at various levels, the report graphically displays the cruel logic of the capitalist ANC government. Its fanatical commitment to neoliberalism has needlessly imposed brutal austerity and starvation on the working class and the poor.
In our programme, WASP proposes the amount of R8 000 as BIG for all categories of those not on wages or NFE, to use the language of the report. This amount is based on the cost of living for an average family in South Africa, as calculated by Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group and confirmed by many other similar studies.
We also put forward this amount because the BIG must address gender inequality. Women have far fewer economic opportunities than men – due to both sexist expectations in society that women are the “homemakers” and “nurturers/carers” of the elderly, children and sick, as well as facing sexist discrimination and harassment in the work force. Almost 42% of households are headed by women who are the sole providers, with many turning to the informal sector to scrape an income together. The burden of unpaid care work also falls largely on women. A BIG has the potential to narrow the gap of gender inequality through ensuring that women forced out of the labour market due to care work, household responsibilities, and lack of job opportunities have some form of financial security. This can also go a long way in ensuring women are not financially trapped in abusive domestic situations.
The amount of R8000 for us is not cast in stone but a serious proposition we make. We put this amount forward for discussions necessary to forge a unifying amount needed for maximum unity in action and to build a mass campaign in the coming weeks and months to force the government to make the relief grant permanent and increase the amount substantially. WASP welcomes the lively discussions taking place in the movement – in SAFTU, PayTheGrants Campaign (which we critically endorse), and others. Based on proposals for increases in other social grants, which would take household income as a whole closer to the cost of living, we are open to an argument for a lower amount around which we can build a broader unity and campaign.
Ultimately, the only real BIG is that amount which can be decided in the course of class struggle itself. It must be a realistic demand fixed by those willing to take up the fight, in the furnace of struggle and debates. As revolutionaries, however, we have a duty to raise the sights of the class, and bolster the confidence of the masses in the power of unity, organisation and struggle, to end the horrendous conditions imposed by the ruling class.
The proposals we put forward should provide prospects of bringing a meaningful improvement in the quality of life to approximately 55,5% (30.3 million people) of the population that were recorded to live below the poverty line in Feb 2020, and the millions more who joined since the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the proposals being discussed in the movement fall short of this because they are predicated on the utopian attempt to avoid the need for struggle. Instead they appeal to the cause of the capitalist class.
Mass campaigning can win a decent BIG
As we argued above, the BIG is reasonably affordable. However, any introduction of the grant on the amount and scope necessary to make a significant difference in the lives of 22,4 million people entails a redistribution of wealth on a scale that cannot be achieved without a major conflict between classes and a sustained, mass campaign on the part of the working class. Unfortunately, the most common denominators in the current proposals are illusions in possibilities of appealing to the moral conscience of the ruling class, or current fears of recurrence in mass looting. This is accompanied by a profound lack of confidence in the capacity for the organised working class to rise in struggle.
The unspoken pessimism and despair of many on the Left reflect a lack of revolutionary perspectives and understanding of the factors behind the apparent paralysis of the heavy battalions of the working class, in the face of the ongoing capitalist onslaught. Many cannot see beyond an admittedly weakened, fragmented organised working class and its treacherous leadership. The reality, however, is that the anger of the masses has reached a boiling point, as reflected by the explosive developments in the past weeks. We also see pressure from the rank and file on their trade union leaderships to reject wage freezes in many sectors of the economy, including the biggest Cosatu-affiliate, NEHAWU in the public sector.
We need to mobilise this raw anger into organised and disciplined mass campaigns as an alternative to the chaos and destruction of unorganised rioting, looting, and vigilantism which have cost 337 working class lives, thousands of jobs, and billions of rands in public infrastructure.
A reckoning between classes rapidly approaching
More than being clear on the forces, organisation and struggles it will take to win BIG, it is important we convince the working class not to be appeased by the feeble R350 a month concession. There should be no illusions that this concession will signify a Damascus moment for the ANC government. The ruling party is hellbent on continuing on the same neoliberal trajectory and its savage austerity programme which has impoverished workers, condemned whole generations of young people to permanent unemployment and continues to lay waste to poor communities across the country.
This concession is inadequate and temporary. It is pure maneuvering in the cold calculations of the ruling class that has been caught off-guard by unexpected food riots. It is not just the history, the outlook and logic of the untenable political position of this government, but clear indications of the political strategy in the scheduling of the relief until only a month after local government elections and a sudden increase in military and police spending by R900 million, that reveals the ruthless class intentions of the ANC government for intensified repression and bloody reckoning, if a need arises, to settle accounts with the working class decisively in the coming months.
It is therefore more urgent than ever that the working class take concrete steps to build a mass workers party on a socialist programme to unite its ranks, and defend its hard-won democratic rights against the ruling class. We urge SAFTU and the WCS Steering Committee to convene an Assembly for Working Class Unity and Action, along with the Coalitions of forces that called a People’s Assembly including AMCU, Abahlali baseMjondolo, C19PC, PayTheGrants Campaign, MACUA, WAMUA, MEJCON and Gauteng Housing Crisis Committee to mention a few. This should allow for democratic debate on the best way forward, including discussion on concrete tactics to ensure we build confidence amongst the working class, such as a National Day of Action and working towards a serious General Strike.
As we illustrated above, the struggles of the unemployed are intricately linked with the struggles of workers. The increasing pool of unemployed is used as a method to keep wages low and even cut benefits, while those still in work take on more dependents. We are one working class, and any campaign for a BIG must link the struggles of organised and unorganised labour, the unemployed and underemployed, women providing essential unpaid labour, and the youth robbed of a future.
We argue to build a mass campaign based on demands for:
- A Decent Basic Income Grant for the Unemployed of R8000, linked to increases in other social grants. Pay for this through increasing taxes on the wealthiest 1% and corporations. No tax cuts for the bosses!
- R12,500 minimum wage in all sectors, TERS and UIF benefits for all workers,
- A Moratorium on job losses, cuts and attacks on the conditions of employment.
- A Massive public workers programme to build clinics, hospitals, schools and houses, and as part of just transition, to combat climate change and create jobs for the unemployed.
- A Campaign for a Mass Workers Party based on a socialist programme
