If you have an interest in law and politics, South Africa’s political economy and the processes of policy-making in a parliamentary context, this is an essential read.

The advancement of black South Africans in ownership and management in the private sector is growing steadily. This growth is aided by government scorecard that penalise corporations that fail to include black people in senior positions and management. Some claim that this process will lead to a more fair, less racially biased economy. But will this transform the basic structure of the economy to benefit the people as a whole? Changing The Colour Of Capital unpacks the fundamental character of the South African economy and examines the relationship between the political system and the economy.

Contributors include Trevor Manuel, Rob Davies, Jeremy Cronin, Ben Turok, Philisiwe Buthelezi, Adekeye Adebajo, Enver Daniels, Cassius Lubisi and Richard Levin.

This title looks at the present structure of the South African economy and asks what needs to be done to meet the challenges of deep poverty, high unemployment and growing inequality that still mark the country after fifteen years of democracy. The contributors consider the role that a developmental state could play in effecting change. South Africa is a resource-rich country - according to Citicorp, the richest in the world. But the country and its people do not benefit proportionally from the use of these resources, and the reason for this lies in the realm of public decision-making. We are, moreover, far too risk-averse and engaged in bean-counting rather than in promoting a new expansionary vision for the economy and our people.

In tracing the economic debates in the ANC from the Freedom Charter and Morogoro to the RDP and the present, this analytical overview shows that the shift to macro-economic stabilisation in the transition to democracy in 1994 was due to international pressure, and examines how it changed the trajectory of ANC policies. The government became frozen in the pursuit of cautious economic policies in the interests of fiscal prudence. The commitment to development lost momentum, compensated partially by the provision of modest social services and social grants. The revolt against economic orthodoxy at the ANC Polokwane conference which was pressed forward at the Tripartite Economic Summit in 2008 is traced, and the economic challenges that will face the new government in 2009 are analysed with original insights into what should be done to address the economic crisis. A framework for alternative development programmes based on a change of mindset about the centrality of development planning in a pro-people developmental state is set out. The analysis is based on 15 years’ work in parliament and in economic committees of the ANC, which provided unequalled access to vast documentation and discussions with the top policy-makers of the ANC and government. Included are an extensive examination of the international conditions during the transition in 1994, the creation of the RDP, the switch to GEAR, the distortions of BEE, the dual economy, the lessons from Africa, and the reasons why the productive sectors of the economy have stalled. In conclusion, the decisions of the Tripartite Economic Summit and the proposed changes to government policies are assessed.

No matter how strongly the IMF and World Bank advise that a country's salvation lies in economic growth, experience in developing countries is that wealth does not trickle down. When growth comes from the developed sector of the economy, it benefits the rich and simply does not reach the poor majority. Conditions in South Africa show the same outcome. Fourteen years after the ANC came to power; the South African unemployment rate of 24 percent is more than twice that of the next country on the list compiled by the Economist. Poverty is so prevalent that welfare grants are a desperate remedy in this "budget surplus" economy. No One denies that inequality is rising. All of this flies in the face of the Freedom Charter's declaration that sharing would be the guiding principle for a democratic South Africa. This title is the result of a high level seminar convened to draw together the threads of a vigorous national debate on the role of the State in socio-economic development. Hosted by the Minister of Provincial and Local Government, it was attended by top leaders and officials of the State, Parastatal Development Organizations and Academic Institutions. Although the prominence of the "developmental state" idea at the ANC policy and national conferences of 2007 has been met with concern in business circles as a "victory of the left", the papers here make a case that rests fat more.

These two volumes, which are meant as companion volumes to the book The Historical Roots of the ANC (published by Jacana in November 2010), provide a selection of important documents and texts that have influenced the political and policy thinking of the ANC during the course of its history. Included are historic accounts and statements by the ANC and its leading figures and by other influential African and international thinkers and statesmen like Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon and Julius Nyerere.

‘There is no room for sentimentality in politics and I am in no mood to put a rosy gloss on where we are now.’ – Ben Turok

With My Head above the Parapet is a record of Ben Turok’s experience as a participant in the political life of this country since 1994. It is also an insightful account of the ANC’s decline and current malaise, told by an insider intent on holding his party to its historical mission of liberating South Africa from poverty, inequality and discrimination.

These two volumes, which are meant as companion volumes to the book The Historical Roots of the ANC (published by Jacana in November 2010), provide a selection of important documents and texts that have influenced the political and policy thinking of the ANC during the course of its history. Included are historic accounts and statements by the ANC and its leading figures and by other influential African and international thinkers and statesmen like Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon and Julius Nyerere.

Written by leading thinkers within the African National Congress (ANC), this compilation sets out to provide short yet informative introductions to the party's history, politics, and policy. Based on a series of lectures given at Parliament to ANC members, this record looks at the principles and processes that led to the organization's founding in 1912 and examines how they have influenced policy and practice for almost a century. Intended for ANC supporters and the wider public alike, this account argues that the diversity of influences on the ANC is indicative of a living and growing movement that has been sensitive to both the national and international environment in which it has found itself.

This title begins from the standpoint that new thinking is needed if South Africa is to generate sustainable economic growth, provide employment and decent work and promote rural development. As comparisons with other developing economies, particularly South Korea and Brazil, show, it is possible for the so-called developmental state to direct and plan economic activity and achieve developmental objectives. At the same time the title warns about the perverse impacts of black economic empowerment, particularly the growth of a rentier class of well-connected entrepreneurs.

If we are to talk of a `new' intellectual movement, the question is begged: what happened to the `old' intellectual movement? What happened to the thinkers who inspired and led our struggle against colonialism, apartheid and exploitation? What has happened to the thinkers who gave substance and guidance and, in many cases, practical leadership to our attempts to undo the past and forge a new future? In pursuit of answers to these questions, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), in partnership with the Liliesleaf Trust, hosted a roundtable in March 2015 on the theme `The Role of Intellectuals in the State-Society Nexus'. The roundtable received inputs from a range of thinkers, including Ibbo Mandaza, Ben Turok, Ari Sitas, Ayanda Ntsaluba, Xolela Mangcu, Joel Netshitenzhe, Tshilidzi Marwala and Nomboniso Gasa, as well as provocative and piercing inputs from the attendees. This publication aims to put the contributions and debates at the roundtable further into the public domain and records the input of the main speakers, the respondents, as well as the discussion from the floor. The rigorous debate at the roundtable spilt out of the boundaries of the event itself and encouraged a number of thinkers to provide additional material for this publication: Z. Pallo Jordan, David Moore (with Tshilidzi Marwala) and Desiree Lewis. The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), which was publicly launched as a think tank in March 2011, was founded by a group of South Africans with experience in research, academia, policy-making and governance, who saw the need to create a platform for engagement around strategic issues facing South Africa. The Institute combines research and academic development, strategic reflections and intellectual discourse and applies itself to issues such as economics, sociology, governance, history, arts and culture, and the logics of the natural sciences.

This title was first published in the late 1960s at a time when the ANC was forced by events to confront major ideological and policy issues. Many of these debates are still not resolved and many have great relevance for the present. The issues are: What was distinctive about the armed struggle? Why was a transfer of state power necessary? Why is African nationalist sentiment important? What is the relation between revolution and democracy? What are the prospects for socialism in South Africa? A leading thinker in the ANC discusses these questions and presents ways of approaching them.