Mining capital, the state and unskilled white workers in South Africa, 1901-1913
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4604205 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Davies (0000-0002-7783-9782, University of Sussex, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1976 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-69 |
| Publication date | 1976-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057077608707962 |
| OpenAlex | W2061548601 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 27 |
| References cited | 11 |
The policy not to employ unskilled whites in general labouring jobs in the South African goldmining industry was one crucial element in the make up of that industry's characteristic pattern of social relations to production. The restriction of unskilled white employment to certain defined job categories had the effect of transforming the division of labour which had developed in the nineteenth century-basically a skilled-unskilled division with certain racist features-into a rigid comprehensive racial division, within which wage earners of equivalent skill were divided on racial lines into occupations with different functions, income and status. One result of this feature of the goldmining industry is well known. It united in struggle those wage earners whose skin pigmentation happened to be white, across skill differentials, and led to their advocating and practising racial discrimination against African workers in defence of their jobs within that structure. The policy, however, had important consequences outside the immediate confines of the goldmining industry. The fact that the increasing numbers of white proletarians were not employed in general unskilled work, even when mining capitalists were complaining of labour shortages, was in no small measure responsible for the concentrations of unemployed whites in the major urban areas of South Africa, which was a feature of the period before extensive secondary industralization. Such concentrations were an important threat to the overall stability of the social formation2 and resulted in the state intervening
Archaeology · Demographic economics · Development economics · Economics · Geography · Labour economics · Political science · African history and culture studies · Legal Issues in South Africa · South African History and Culture
Mining
The Recruiting of Chinese Indentured Labour for the South African Gold-Mines, 1903–1908
The Underground Route to Mining
A Separate Path
Angola and Mozambique, 1870–1905
East Africa 1870–1905
French Congo and Gabon 1886–1905
Africa on the Eve of Partition
Western Africa, 1870–1886
Privileged Precariat
Western Africa, 1886–1905
North Africa
Madagascar and France, 1870–1905
The European Partition of Africa
The European Scramble and Conquest in African History
King Leopold's Congo, 1886–1908
Landlord and tenant in a colonial economy
Poverty and Physical Well-being among the Coloured Population in South Africa
White Workers in the Late Apartheid Period
The Cambridge History of Africa
Loathing and Love
Labour Migration, Labour Shortage, and Employer Response in Swaziland, 1935–1945
White Death’ and ‘Africa Disease’
Marxism, feminism and South African studies
Revisiting the Origins of the Industrial Colour Bar in the Witwatersrand Gold Mining Industry, 1891-1899
Mining and imperialism
The burden of the present and its critics
Native labour in South Africa
Native Labour in South Africa
The Industrial Colour Bar in South Africa
The Economics of the Colour Bar
The Transvaal Labour Crisis, 1901—6
V. ‘Capitalist Influence’ and the Transvaal Government during the Crown Colony Period, 1900–1906
Political power and social classes
The Industrial Colour Bar in South Africa
On the economic identification of the new middle class
Capitalism and cheap labour-power in South Africa
| Unique citing works | 27 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,55 |
| Citation span | 1977 - 2021 (45) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 23 |