New deal or no deal in the Cotton South: The effect of the AAA on the agricultural labor structure

The Agricultural Adjustment Act has often been held responsible for the rapid reduction of share tenants and sharecroppers (laborers paid shares of the crop) during the 1930s. However, this conclusion has come with limited empirical backing. We shed new light on the consequences of this New Deal policy by empirically testing the role that the AAA cotton reduction program had on the displacement of share tenants and sharecroppers in the Cotton South. The results suggest that the AAA played a significant role in the displacement of black and white sharecroppers and black managing tenants even though it was a violation of AAA contracts for landlords to displace these workers.     

A Changing South: The 2008 Elections Illuminate Demographic and Economic Trends

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States opened a window for an examination of the most recent round of demographic, social and economic change in the American South. Using the 2008 election—in which the nation’s first black president won three states of the former Confederacy—as a launching pad for analysis, this paper presents a South that has become metropolitan-driven, more prosperous and economically diverse than ever in its history. The paper also depicts a South with inter-regional differences and with distinct inequalities, especially in income and educational attainment.     

Analysing legal mobilisation’s potential to secure equal access to socioeconomic justice in South Africa

ABSTRACT

From the moment South Africa became a liberal democracy, the Government promised to deliver on social security for the poor. However, South African NGOs have reported that several barriers prevent poor South Africans, and black women in particular, from accessing the country’s social assistance system. Government inaction has compelled NGOs to approach the Courts. As reflected in a series of court judgements, many problems faced by the system relate to the administration of payments by South African and multinational corporations. But is this the complete story?

Applying a critical, analytical lens of legal mobilisation to explain the potential of legal mobilisation to secure progressive structural change, this article will assess the extent to which civic-based, legal advocacy aimed at securing access to social grants, and challenging the manner in which these grants have been administered, has the potential to more strategically advance socioeconomic justice and inequality for South Africa’s poor.     

Hazardous waste management in South African mining – a CGE analysis of the economic impacts

There is no doubt that improved hazardous waste management in mining and mineral processing will reduce environmental and health risks in South Africa. However, sceptics fear that waste reduction, appropriate treatment and disposal are not affordable within the current economic circumstances of the country. In particular, it is argued that higher treatment and disposal costs would weaken the country's international competitiveness in important export markets on the one hand, and place heavy adjustment costs on black workers on the other. Thus, improvements in waste management are not enforceable, from either an economic or a social point of view. This article deals mainly with the first aspect and touches upon the second. It investigates the short-term and long-term sectoral impacts of an environmental tax on hazardous waste in South African mining, using an open-economy multisectoral computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The results bear out the expectation that the possibilities for shifting higher production costs are limited in an open economy. Moreover, the results also show that the brunt of the adjustment resulting from an isolated approach towards hazardous waste management will have to be borne by black workers.     

Surplus people and expendable children: The structure of apartheid and the mortality crisis in South Africa

South Africa’s apartheid scheme is considered as a paradigm case for the creation and maltreatment of a putatively surplus population. Both active and passive policies are identified that are utilized to contain the numbers of the black population of the nation. Of particular significance is a strategy of neglect that has led to exceptionally high infant and child mortality rates in the “homelands.” In addition, the South African authorities’ efforts to destabilize neighboring regimes in Angola and Mozambique has had similarly adverse repercussions on mortality rates there.     

Localisation barriers to trade: The case of South Africa’s renewable energy independent power program

South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Projects Procurement Program (REIPPPP) has been hailed as one of the most successful programmes of its kind, contracting 92 renewable energy projects totalling 6 328 MW and US$20.5 billion since its inception in 2011. Despite this success, the programme’s use of non-price factors such as local jobs, local black ownership, local content, and local community ownership in bid evaluation has generated criticism and controversy. Lessons learned in other countries about how and when to use policies like import substitution to promote sustainable economic development seem not to have been fully incorporated by the REIPPPP. We therefore offer a cautionary note that dramatic and impressive localisation results are not inevitable – especially considering the size of the South African market and accompanying investment uncertainties – and that there is bound to be a trade-off between price and non-price factors in these kinds of competitive procurement programmes.     

Black business ownership in the rural south

The relatively low business ownership rate among blacks nationwide (12.5 per 1,000 people) is even lower in the rural South (8.8 per 1,000). This study uses Census Bureau data to document the level of business ownership among blacks in the rural South and to explore a number of hypotheses regarding the low level of business ownership among rural blacks and the variation from state to state. The size of the black population in the rural areas of a state is negatively correlated with the rural black business ownership rate in the state, while the education level, income level and homeownership level of blacks in rural areas of a state is positively correlated with the rural black business ownership rate. However, it appears that statewide economic conditions may be more closely related to the level of rural black business ownership than are characteristics of rural blacks.     

Agricultural development through contract agents ‐ appropriate for smallholders?

Agriculture in developing areas of South Africa has undergone much experimentation as recommended by academics and administrators. Notwithstanding the latest moves towards a more representative government, which may usher in the rediscovery of individual initiative, present policies are largely responsible for the underdeveloped state of agriculture among the black community. The top‐down approach (whose existence is denied by policy‐makers) is evident even in quasi‐govemment and private agricultural management agencies. This and the wanton control of resources by these institutions has led to retreat by small‐scale farmers. Promotion of agriculture in the black community through highly centralised, administered projects has proved unappealing. The country's policy‐makers have not taken heed of the argument that ‘The poorer and more exposed one is, the more one becomes aware of sustainable survival techniques. If an outsider tells one how to survive, then that is the start of one's downfall.     

The structure of the South African labor market, 1970–83

The structure of the labor market in the Republic of South Africa over 1970–83 is strongly linked to the Natives Land Act of 1913, No. 27, which dispossessed blacks of their legal right to land ownership. One of the intended results of this act was to increase the supply of cheap black labor to South Africa’s predominantly white-owned industry. Thus, over the 1970–83 period, as before, blacks occupied the lowest ends of the educational, occupational, employment, and income distributions among all races in South Africa. On the other hand, the white minority lived at a standard equal to that of Americans and Scandanavians. However, even within these constraints, the demographics of South Africa are such that over the next decade or more, and even in the absence of major political upheaval, blacks may comprise an increasing percentage of the workforce and occupy positions which have been mainly occupied by whites to date.     

Lynchings,labour, and cotton in the US south: A reappraisal of Tolnay and Beck

I examine lynchings of African Americans in the US South from 1882 to 1930, more than twenty years after Tolnay and Beck’s (1995) seminal work. The authors claim that lynchings were due to economic competition between African American and white cotton workers. I confirm much of their original hypothesis with new data and techniques, and expand upon it, finding that another explanation, Williamson’s (1997) psychosexual one, might complement the economic one. I also discover that, in line with an economic competition framework, lynchings predict more black out-migration from 1920 to 1930, and higher state-level wages.     

Tourism and local economic development: The case of the Highlands Meander

Local economic development (LED) planning is of major policy importance in post-apartheid South Africa. Although issues surrounding LED have attracted considerable policy attention, one neglected theme has been the role of tourism as a lead sector for LED. The aim of this article is to examine the planning and workings of one tourism-led LED initiative in South Africa. The case study is that of the Highlands Meander in Mpumalanga province, where five towns are collaborating in their LED initiatives in order to promote the area's tourism products. A key finding is that this growing tourism initiative is currently not benefiting local black communities. Recommendations are offered for developing a pro-poor tourism initiative.     

More is More: Some Economics of Distinctively-Named White Kids

Using data covering every child born in California from 1961 to 2000, Fryer and Levitt (2004) find that in the 1960s, the differences in name choices by blacks and whites were relatively small, but that a profound shift began among blacks in the mid-1970s toward more distinctively black names, especially among blacks in racially isolated neighborhoods. As an extension of Fryer and Levitt (2004), this study uses data on the names of about 1,300 white children born over the four-year period from 1997 to 2000 and living in a segment of a Metropolitan Statistical Area in the Deep South, and finds that use of combination first names—largely based on combinations of single names included among the names of high-end white children from Fryer and Levitt (2004) and Levitt and Dubner (2005)—is significantly more prevalent among high-end white children than it is among low-end white children. Unlike the data described in Fryer and Levitt (2004), which support an Identity Model wherein distinctively black names result from the Black Power movement that encouraged blacks to “accentuate and affirm black culture and fight the claims of black inferiority,” the present study suggests that high-end parents may use the combination first name convention to increase the likelihood of the child’s future success in various partnership markets, such as dating, marriage and business-partnership markets.     

Strengthening institutional safety nets in South Africa: Sharing operation hunger's insights and experiences

Poverty and malnutrition are major problems in South Africa, especially among black people in rural areas. The poorest are heavily dependent on social pensions, remittances, low wages, piece jobs and, to a very small extent, household agriculture. Industrial safety nets are weak and do not necessarily help the vulnerable to overcome their poverty. This article draws on the experience of Operation Hunger, a South African NGO founded in 1980, to examine the impact of poverty‐alleviation programmes on the recipients. The article reviews the strategies employed by the government and NGOs to strengthen vulnerable households ‐food aid, public works and agricultural programmes ‐ drawing on Operation Hunger's experience in these areas. The article concludes that targeting, monitoring and evaluating, and piloting development programmes are crucial, and stresses the importance of NGOs in this regard.     

Struggling against apartheid: The use of economic sanctions on South Africa

Conclusion It is clear that the United States is in a dominant position in relation to South Africa’s economy, which has an economic climate working against its decision to be isolated from world opinion. The apartheid policies have produced an economy that is severely distorted by its having a restricted market for its industrial products, a critical shortage of skilled labor, a high level of structural unemployment, a high and increasing military budget, and by its support of an economically unviable Bantustan system. These distortions, combined with record balance of payments deficits and a net disinvestment of foreign funds, have resulted in currency outflows that were covered by the United States providing decisive support for a $1.1 billion loan from the IMF. Contrary to the impression that has been promoted by the South African government, S.A. mineral exports are not crucial to the United States. However, South Africa does depend upon the United States for its export market of these minerals, which are essential for providing the necessary funds for governmental expenditures and foreign exchange that are needed in order to support its high import content industries. The large percentage that exports have in S.A.’s gross national product increases this vulnerability. Thus, if we look at the evidence, it is clear that the United States has viable sanctions that it can implement against South Africa’s inhuman political and social policies. Although the United States has these leverages it refuses to utilize them, even though it would be in its interest to do so. It is vital that those persons who are genuinely concerned about human rights and the apartheid system apply whatever pressure is necessary to force the U.S. government to immediately utilize these leverages in the form of sanctions that would force the S.A. government to change its policies. The black community must take the responsibility for leading this effort.     

Black officeholding and political development in the rural south

Conclusion Black officeholders in local governments in the rural South have not had significant success in reordering the priorities of the bodies on which they serve and they have enjoyed only limited success in increasing the black community’s share of benefits and services within the constraints of present priorities. Given their acute minority status this may be understandable.     

Desegregation in Pietersburg after the repeal of the Group Areas Act

Since the Group Areas Act was repealed in 1991, black people have for the first time become legal home‐owners in previously whites‐only areas of South African cities. This survey is concerned with residential changes in Pietersburg between June 1991 and May 1993. The residential location of black people was monitored and mapped, and the first new black home‐owners were interviewed to determine their reasons for moving to Pietersburg. The survey shows that only blacks in the middle‐ and high‐income groups made the move, and that property values were not a deciding factor in the purchase of a home.     

Sectoral Growth and Poverty Alleviation: A Multiplier Decomposition Technique Applied to South Africa

How does an increase in a sector's output affect poverty alleviation? In this paper a multiplier decomposition for a socioeconomic system represented by a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is used to study this linkage. The decomposition applied to South Africa reveals that growth in agriculture, services and some manufacturing sectors can alleviate poverty for the black African population. For sectoral growth to be effective, however, the need for appropriate skill acquisition for the poor must be addressed directly. Only long-term policies geared towards improving both economic growth and the human capital stock of the poor can lead to significant poverty alleviation.     

Can sacred cows be culled? A historical review of land policy in South Africa,with some questions about the future

This paper reviews the history of the development of land policy in South Africa, highlighting episodes occurring during the last hundred years, such as the Glen Grey Act, the British take‐over of the Transvaal, Union, the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts, Betterment Planning, the Tomlinson Commission, and the unfolding of the homelands policy. While the Land Acts are seen to have had a disastrous effect upon agriculture in South Africa, it is argued that in present circumstances it would be safer to seek to repeal the Group Areas Act and to open up white areas to all races, than to repeal the Land Acts in tote. This would increase black mobility, whereas without this proviso, black people in rural areas might find themselves displaced by land reforms, such as might follow from the abolition of the Land Acts.     

Family structure, school attendance, and child labor in the American South in 1900 and 1910

Even in the early 20th century, black children were much more likely to be living apart from one or both parents than were white children. This paper examines the contribution of these racial differences in family structure to the racial differences in children’s experiences in the American South. Living apart from one or both parents was associated with lower school attendance and greater labor market participation, particularly for blacks. However, racial differences in adult literacy, household resources, and school characteristics were much more important for explaining the racial gaps in children’s activities than were racial differences in family structure.