Abstract:
During the last two decades, industrial decentralisation and growth
centre policies have been widely applied throughout the world. In this paper
the authors describe a rather distinct application of those policies, namely
that directed to facilitating the control of labour in South Africa. We
also assess the extent to which the policies have "succeeded" and can
succeed. Success cannot be judged in terms of criteria that may be used
when evaluating decentralisation policies elsewhere in the world. In South
Africa, such policies have been explicitly designed to further the system of
apartheid and thereby the control of labour. Their success or failure lies
in the extent to which they are able to do that. We have stressed how the
recent emphasis on industrial decentralisation reflects the current and lasting crisis in Bantustan policy (2).
