FORMALIZING THE INFORMAL SECTOR IN A CHANGING SOUTH-AFRICA - SMALL-SCALE MANUFACTURING ON THE WITWATERSRAND

This paper examines a recent South African policy initiative aimed at assisting small, mainly informal, black traders and manufacturers by providing facilities, assistance and a comparatively deregulated work environment in desegregated industrial parks outside the black urban townships. The impact on these businesses has been generally positive thus far, with some dramatic improvements recorded. It is necessary, however, to understand these efforts to (semi-) formalize the informal sector within the broader South African context. During the 1980s, the state and major capitalist interests sought to modernize apartheid, not least by promoting the evolution of a sizable black middle class. This process is currently becoming even more crucial as the struggle to secure the continued dominance of capitalist relations of production in postapartheid South Africa intensifies.