Title:

Friend or foe of the social economy? New capitalist expansion and its impact on worker conditions in a changing South African agricultural setting

Abstract:

This proposal results from ongoing case study research in the agricultural community of Simondium, which is situated in the centre of the well-known wine industry of the Western Cape between the towns of Paarl, Franschhoek and Stellenbosch. Forming part, in turn, of a larger initiative to develop a research agenda on the social economy – more specifically on agencies or actors that are and could be the vehicles of particular social economic practices and outcomes – the envisaged paper’s essential aim will likewise be to relate the results of the case study research to the larger thematic interest of the social economy. More specifically, in this endeavour the authors will elaborate upon their focus in the case study on the socio-economic conditions of farm workers in the Simondium area and their findings on how the new capitalist expansion in the area in recent years through big business and entrepreneurial investment has led to a drastically changed landscape also for the workers. This elaboration will thereupon bring the authors to the point of critically engaging their findings with existing literature on the social economy as well as those from a broader social science corpus that have persisted with theories of paternalism and social exclusion as far as the conditions of farm workers in the Western Cape agricultural region and wine industry are concerned. In response, however, and as outcome of this mutual engagement the authors envisage to put forward a theoretical position that does not merely uphold the current perspective on paternalism and exclusion or the juxtaposition in many writings between mainstream capitalist economic activity and the social economy. By contrast, what will be argued for is a more accommodating and cooperative position whereby the new capitalist economy’s potential to contribute to objectives of the social economy is indeed recognised; that is, however, not at the cost of a twofold critical perspective that recognises the shortcomings of the mainstream capitalist sector to integrate the values of the social economy as part of its own value system as well as this sector’s sustained inability to address the legacies of paternalism and social exclusion in the Simondium region on a large scale and in a profound way.

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Interviews:

Seventeen interviews with different stake-holders in Simondium conducted by I. Swart and E. Orsmond in the period 15 November 2008 to 15 January 2009.