Publication date: December 11, 2026
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
1 Locating the Minerals-Energy Complex
1 Introduction
2 The Post-Apartheid Conundrum
3 Whither or Wither the MEC?
4 Brief Overview
2 Total Factor Productivity vs. Realism: the South African Coal Mining Industry
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 Measuring Total Factor Productivity
3 The Measurement of Output
4 Competition in the Markets for Coal
5 The Supply Side
6 Coal and the State
7 The Labour Market
8 Concluding Remarks
3 “The Rise in African Wages: 1975–1985” – a Dissenting and Wide-Ranging Commentary
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 The Orthodoxy We Inherit
3 Modelling Labour Markets?
4 Does Segmented Labour Market Theory Offer an Alternative?
5 Towards an Alternative
6 Concluding Remarks
Appendix
4 Debating the South African Minerals-Energy Complex
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 The MEC Core
3 On Import-Substituting Industrialisation
4 The MEC as a System of Accumulation
5 Future Prospects
Appendix
5 Engaging the MEC: or a Lot of My Views on a Lot of Things
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 The History of the ‘MEC’
3 The Reception of the MEC
4 Post-Apartheid Economy
5 From History of “MEC” to History of MEC
6 Concluding Remarks
Appendix
6 Political Economy for the Rainbow Nation: Dividing the Spectrum?
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 Identifying Identity
3 Is Neoliberalism Dead (Was It Ever Alive) – Long Live Neoliberalism?
4 From Neoliberalism to the MEC
5 Neoliberalism Changes Gear?
7 Amnesty International?: the Nature, Scale and Impact of Capital Flight from South Africa
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 Capital Flight and the Political Economy of South Africa
3 Capital Flight and Economic Development
4 Calculations for Capital Flight from South Africa
5 Capital Controls, Wealth Repatriation and the Prevailing Policy Framework
6 Conclusions
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
8 Neoliberalism, Varieties of Capitalism, and the Shifting Contours of South Africa’s Financial System
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 Varieties of Capitalism
3 From EMH to IEMH
4 From IEMH to Financialisation
5 From Apartheid to Post-Apartheid Economy and Financial System
6 The 1980s Onwards: Deregulation, Internationalisation and Renewed Concentration
7 Conclusions
9 The Meaning of Marikana
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Some Underlying Determinants
2 The Present Crisis
10 Across Developmental State and Social Compacting: the Peculiar Case of South Africa
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 The Developmental State Paradigm
3 The DSP in the Age of Financialisation
4 From Developmental State to Social Compacting
5 South African DSP and SCP: ’Twixt a Rock and a Hard Place?
6 Concluding Remarks
11 Vishnu Padayachee as Engaged Political Economist, a Personal Journey
Postscript as Personal Preamble
1 Introduction
2 Neoliberalism Is as Neoliberalism Does
3 From Mainstream to …
4 … Heterodoxy
5 The Post-Apartheid Context
6 Post-Apartheid Economics: from Unravelling to Disempowered
7 Locating Vishnu
References
Index