ABSTRACT

South Africa has experienced slow growth and growing unemployment in recent years. This article argues that the slow growth outcome is in significant part a result of the form of the compromise achieved between government, business and labour at the time of the political settlement in the 1990s. A commitment to open markets for goods, services and capital and a tightly structured labour market resulted in an arrangement where firm owners, government and organised labour are in the words of Sandeep Mahajan, ‘locked in a continual, rambunctious public tussle over the distribution of the rents generated under the system’. A further outcome has been the internationalisation of business and a growing gap between business and the state. The ‘political settlement’ will need to be reconstituted if South Africa is to embark on a growth-oriented employment generating growth path.

摘要

近年来，南非经历了缓慢的增长和不断增长的失业率。本文认为，缓慢的增长结果很大程度上是由于1990年代政治解决之时政府，企业和劳工之间达成妥协的形式所致。对商品，服务和资本开放市场的承诺以及结构严密的劳动力市场导致了一种安排，用桑迪普·马哈詹的话来说，企业所有者，政府和有组织的劳动力“在持续的，不公正的公共争端中陷入了困境。系统产生的租金”。商业的国际化和商业与国家之间的鸿沟越来越大，是进一步的结果。