ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that attempts were made in the early post-apartheid period to forge a more social-democratic and coordinated form of capitalism in South Africa but that this floundered as the government adopted neoliberal macroeconomic policies. Black economic empowerment (BEE) policies subsequently undermined an already racially fraught business sector and opened the door to growing patrimonialism and corruption. Organised labour achieved gains in the post-apartheid period in terms of improved labour standards and the extension of industrial-level wage bargaining, but this came at the cost of growing policy inconsistency. Notably, trade liberalisation in the presence of strong labour-market protection and rising real wages exacerbated South Africa's unemployment crisis.
