Laundering racial capitalism in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This article employs the theoretical concept of racial capitalism as an intellectual framework with which to theorise and explain racialised inequality in South Africa. Historical evidence shows that the accumulation of Whiteness in South Africa has historically been inseparable from the accumulation of capital. This work illustrates that the African National Congress (ANC) used the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to launder and legitimise racial capitalism in post-apartheid South Africa. It identifies Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) as one of the ANC government’s economic laundering schemes that it employs to legitimise racial capitalism in post-apartheid South Africa. I use the insight of scholars such as Marzia Milazzo to conclude that, as a full-blown laundered discourse, racial capitalism allows a White middle class to continue to own and manage the means of production and intergenerational wealth, while a Black middle class continues to endure intergenerational poverty and dispossession.