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Liberation and Redistribution: Social Grants, Commercial Insurance, and Religious Riches in South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2011

Erik Bähre
Erik Bähre*
Affiliation:
Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden
*
EBaehre@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
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Extract

South Africa's liberation, marked by the first democratic elections of 1994, ushered in an unprecedented expansion of large-scale redistributive arrangements. In the post-apartheid period, the collection of money into a central fund administered anonymously and bureaucratically has gained social and political importance, particularly for poor and lower-middle-class Africans. This is most evident in a rapid expansion of government social assistance—from 1997 to 2006 the number of beneficiaries of social grants increased from three to almost eleven million, and today at least a quarter of South African households receive welfare payments. Social assistance “has been the fastest-growing category of government expenditure since 2001, and now amounts to R70 billion [almost US$7 billion in 2006] a year, about 3.4 percent of gross domestic product.” The centrality of redistribution is clear in current debates over the establishment of a Basic Income Grant (BIG) for all South Africans. Political liberation has also brought an increase in redistribution through development projects such as the National Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) grants.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 371 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2011

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References

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20 The threat of violence makes survey work a daunting task. Fortunately, my research assistant Edith Moyikwa was robbed only once while carrying out the work. The survey was based on a random sample in both areas, and people were approached at their homes. To ensure that the employed were represented, most interviews were conducted in the evenings and on weekends. When adults were absent, the children, who were usually present, would help to set up a more suitable meeting time.

21 For a more elaborate account, see Bähre, Money and Violence.

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26 E. Bähre, “Changing Interdependencies and the State: How Financial Mutuals Have Changed in South Africa,” in de Swaan, A. and van der Linden, M., eds., Mutualist Microfinance: Informal Saving Funds in the Periphery and in the Core? (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2006), 31–65Google Scholar.

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31 Ibid., 23.

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37 Pauw and Mncube, “Impact of Growth,” 12.

38 Seekings and Nattrass, Race, Class, and Inequality, 340–75.

39 Pauw and Mncube, “Impact of Growth,” 13.

40 See the website of the Department of Social Development: www.dsd.gov.za. The values given were defined in October 2008.

41 On mental health and entitlement of grants, see also MacGregor, H.. “‘The Grant Is what I Eat’: The Politics of Social Security and Disability in the Post-Apartheid South African State,” Journal of Biosocial Science 38, 1 (2005): 43–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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49 Polanyi, Great Transformation.

50 Other policies were the provident fund (16 percent), education policies (8 percent), car insurances (8 percent), disability policies (5 percent), the insurance of loan installments on furniture (4 percent), and investment funds (4 percent).

51 Kendall's tau_b 0,503, correlation significant at the 0.01 level, N = 110.

52 FinScope of 2003 states that almost nobody earning below R1000 a month has a policy. Because the study on which the FinScope data is based is unavailable, even though the study was publicly funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the reason for this vast discrepancy remains unclear.

53 Porteous, “Access Frontier.” On marketing, see also Bähre, E., “Redes de inclusão e burocracias de exclusão: Riscos e seguros de responsabilidade civil entre os mais pobres na África do Sul,” Etnográfica 14, 3 (2010): 465–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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55 The relation was significant at the 0.05 level, with a Pearson correlation of -0,229.

56 See the press release of 11 Sept. 2007: http://www.safrican.co.za/content.html?navID=45&contentID=36.

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59 On the UCKG, see Van Wyk, “Profit Prophets.” On hierarchy in the Assemblies of God, see Helgesson, “Walking in the Spirit,” ch. 5.

60 At: http://www.assemblies.org.za/.

61 See also Van Wyk, “Profit Prophets.”

62 On the plurality of economic regimes, see Guyer, Marginal Gains; and Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience. On the role of churches in the plurality of economic regimes see Akin, D., “Cash and Shell Money in Kwaio, Solomon Islands,” in Akin, D. and Robbins, J., eds., Money and Modernity: State and Local Currencies in Melanesia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), 103–30Google Scholar.

63 Comaroff and Comaroff, “Occult Economies,” 288.

64 Ferguson, “Formalities of Poverty.”

65 See, among others, the canonical studies by Polanyi, Great Transformation; and Simmel, G., The Philosophy of Money (London and New York: Routledge, 1900)Google Scholar.

66 Quotation from Guyer, Marginal Gains, 30. See also Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience; and Akin, “Cash and Shell Money.” On spheres of exchange, see Bohannan, P., “Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv,” American Anthropologist 57, 1 (1955): 60–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.