Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the critical engagement of South African labour scholars with Northern theory in the cases of 'labour aristocracy debate', 'democracy and oligarchy in trade unions', and 'institutionalisation of conflict'.

Paper long abstract:

Is Southern theory formation a process of engagement, critique and transformation of western theory from a southern perspective, or a process of alternative and autonomous theory formation? (von Holdt, 2012). This paper attempts to deal with this question by analysing the South African engagement with Northern theory in three examples from labour studies. The first engagement is explored in the 'labour aristocracy debate'. By considering the works of Davies (1973) and Johnstone (1994), this part underlines how the definition of labour aristocracy in South Africa could be different from the European ones, and how a local/authentic aspect, 'race relations', could be integrated into the debate based on 'class relations'. The second example is Maree's (1982) engagement with the 'democracy and oligarchy in trade unions' in his study on the independent trade unions in the 1970s. By considering Michels's (1962) 'iron law of oligarchy', this part highlights Maree's argument that instead of democratic organisations inevitably becoming oligarchic as Michels would predict, there was a contrary trend of oligarchic organisations becoming more democratic. The third engagement is analysed in the use of the concept 'institutionalisation of conflict' (Dahrendorf, 1959) by South African scholars in their investigation of 'industrial conciliation' as embodied in the Industrial Conciliation Acts of 1924 and 1979. The paper argues that different from the two previous cases the use of this concept is not critical in the sense that it would be false when applied to South Africa, but the case in point itself is criticised as being detrimental.