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Paper short abstract:

Using a case study on Black traders in apartheid-era Namibia, I argue that capitalism often provides the means for individual ascent while simultaneously precluding more radical change. While new groups can find new niches, they rarely have a chance to radically transform production processes.

Paper long abstract:

One of the defining features of capitalism is capital owners' ability to structure social and economic relations by organizing the process of production. When asking “whether Black capitalism is a track for the economic emancipation of the African masses”, a good place to start is to ask if Black-owned capital can re-organize processes of production. I take up this question using the case of Black traders in apartheid-era Northern Namibia. Under the conditions of ‘separate development’ since roughly 1950, a substantial group of Black men and women were able to establish themselves as successful traders. Many shops were successful enough to provide traders with the means to build up capital, branch out into different enterprises and form extensive patronage networks. After independence in 1990, however, trade liberalization caused many of these enterprises to crumble. Only in rare cases were successful traders able to transfer their earlier success into other sectors. Far from lastingly transforming production processes, they suffered from changes in capitalist organization over which they had no control. I use this case study to address the panel’s central questions. I argue that, while capital is not per se anti-Black, the long history of capitalist organization of productive relations typically channels the economic success of new groups into niches that rather depend on existing structures than establishing new ones. Capitalist economy as it has historically been institutionalized often provides the means for individual emancipation, but it severely limits possibilities of collective emancipation from existing structures of a racialized economy.