Dividing the spoils? Mining and tourism in South Africa

Abstract

This article looks at the mining and tourism sectors through the prisms of a society still attempting to redress the evils of the apartheid past. In so doing, it provides a typology of the dominant characteristics active in both sectors to upack the structural factors which oppress the precariats in these sectors. Precariats are the employees in a precarious situation in these sectors trying to eke out a living under extermely difficult working conditions. From the analysis, the common denominator in the two sectors is the low ‘slavery’ wages. The poor has not benefited materially from economic growth such that unemployment, poverty and inequality still remain as the country’s major challenges. The Black Economic Empowerment policy has been found wanting in empowering previously disadvantaged groups due partly to the co-option of black elites by white capital resulting in the maintenance of the pre-1994 concentration patterns. This article advocates a paradigm shift towards a system in which redistributive justice should be instituted, including a balanced distribution of power/control, resources, knowledge, capacities and benefits in these sectors for the benefit of all.