by SAM ASHMAN, BEN FINE, and SUSAN NEWMAN
South Africa is now, ‘officially’, the most unequal society in the world – though there seems to be a macabre rivalry with Brazil for this status. The poorest 20 per cent of South Africans receive 1.6 per cent of total income while the richest 20 per cent benefit from 70 per cent according to the South African Government’s Development Indicators 2009. In the most recent United Nation’s Human Development Index of ‘wellbeing’, South Africa fell one place to 129th out of 182. Before the global economic crisis, South Africa had one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. It now officially stands at 35.4 per cent or one third of the workforce. The continuing relevance of Marx’s notion that capital generates and draws upon a reserve army of labour is surely demonstrated by South Africa, though Marx could not have foreseen its members would struggle to survive in the context of the highest levels of HIV infection in the world. This helps explain why, according to the UN, average life expectancy for South Africans is just 51.5 years, even though South Africa is classified as a middle income economy.
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