The Political Economy of South Africa Revisited: Tracking and Debating the Minerals-Energy and Financial Complex

Critical Reconstructions of Political Economy, Volume 9

Series: 

Author:
Ben Fine
South Africa’s political economy is commonly understood as a Minerals-Energy (and Financial) Complex, ME(F)C. But the MEC has been misunderstood. Specifying the MEFC as a system of accumulation and drawing upon extensive research and engaging in critical debates, the originator of the term, traces the MEFC from apartheid origins, through the ANC’s failure to adopt coherent and coordinated policies, ultimately leading to degeneration into state capture and beyond. Emphasis is placed upon the interaction between South African specificities and globalisation, neoliberalisation and financialisation, anchoring economic and social reproduction in “five lows” across investment, productivity, wages, employment and social provision.
Copyright Year:
2026
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978-90-04-74833-0
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01 Dec 2025
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978-90-04-74832-3
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10 Dec 2025
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Ben Fine, Ph.D. (1974), London School of Economics, is Emeritus Professor of Economics at SOAS University of London and Visiting Professor at Wits School of Governance, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. His most recent books include Material Cultures of Financialisation, co-edited with Kate Bayliss and Mary Robertson (Routledge, 2018); Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State, co-edited with John Reynolds and Robert van Niekerk (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2019); and A Guide to the Systems of Provision Approach: Who Gets What, How and Why, with Kate Bayliss (Palgrave, 2021). His Marx’s ‘Capital’ (Pluto, 2016) is now in its sixth edition (with co-author Alfredo Saad-Filho). He was founding Chair of the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (iippe.org) until June 2023.
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
This book will be of interest to those who engage with development economics and studies, (South) African scholarship, and economic and social policy.
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