Precariousness and push-back: capital circuits, labour markets and working-class politics in South Africa

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world. This chapter outlines the shape of these structural divergences, with particular attention to the effects on the labour market and working class movements. It seeks to understand the significance of these changes within the labour market and economy and to working-class life and politics. It focuses on three conjunctures. First, it reviews changes to the economy through the financialisation of capital. The chapter examines recent trends toward financialisation and the effects on labour. Second, it outlines how state policy continues to direct neoliberal solutions despite increased pressure to deliver broad based economic and ‘developmentalist’ outcomes to South Africa’s majority. Finally, it explores the shifting terrain of working class politics (broadly understood) over the past ten years. A fragmentation within working-class politics maps the contradictions of financialisation, state commitment to neoliberal frameworks and deepening austerity, and global-local articulations of social relations of survival.