ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief review of South African race relations as seen from a split labour market perspective. It discusses the political implications of the analysis. In split labour market theory, the key to understanding the race question is found in discrepancies in the price of labour. Split labour market theory suggests that there are a variety of ways in which ‘high priced’ labour can react to the threat of displacement by cheap labour. Split labour market theory suggests that there is a coincidence of interests between the capitalist class and the African population, in opposition to the white working class. One political implication of split labour market theory, devastating to classic Marxist theory, is that, far from being the vanguard of socialist revolution, the white working class, at least in colonial settings or in settings such as Britain with its Commonwealth immigrants, which are the product of colonialism, is probably the greatest obstacle to revolution.
