The context of struggle: racial capitalism and political praxis in South Africa

The South African critique of racial capitalism was developed during the struggle against apartheid, as Black South Africans engaged in urgent debates about how to understand the system they were fighting and how to win liberation for all. Rather than arguing that capitalism has always been racial, South African radicals developed a conjunctural analysis of racial capitalism with attention to time and space. In this article, we focus on the work of Neville Alexander to develop two arguments about the conjunctural critique of racial capitalism. First, we argue that the conjunctural analysis was closely tied to political praxis. The critique emerged as a theoretical framework that could inform political strategy in a context of struggle. Second, we demonstrate that the conjunctural analysis was always global, situating South Africa within a world historical moment and engaged in dialogue with radical intellectuals and anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist movements around the world.