Workshop on Community Perspectives on Land and Agrarian Reform (CPLAR) in South Africa

ing issues from the overall programme and perspective, there appear to be significant moments of c~!_l.se~l!_S between_ the ANC and_ Wo.rld_Bank particularly with regard to the scale, scope and general direction of the land reform process in South Africa. There are, however, three main disagreements between the ANC and the World Bank. The first centres on th~motivation for land reform. Whilst the World Bank is driven by the transnational interests of global capitalism, the ANC is directed by the national interest. These interests rarely converge. In practice, however, as the experiences of Asian, Latin American and African countries over the past half century show, sufficient international pressure can be brought to bear to force national governments to acquiesce or redefine their interests to fit in with the demands and expectations of global capitalism. In this process national governments are transformed from being buffers against the global capitalist system into becoming its agent. Directly related is the difference in emphasis on who should benefit from land reform. Whilst the ANC wishes to cast its net as broadly as possible in order to address multiple class interests in the countryside, the World Bank focuses its land reform programme on a new farming class, which the Urban Foundation and DBSA agree with, albeit from a narrower and more limited understanding of the reform process. The third disagreement is about the social institution which should lead the reform. Whereas the ANC stresses the important proactive role of the state, the World Bank is committed to what it terms "market lead reform". These different emphases are consistent with their different motivations for reform and who should benefit. The market is a mechanism which stimulates capitalist class formation. In this it operates proactively for the owning class and regressively for workers, petty commodity producers, the unemployed, the land-and propertyless. These interests can only be assisted by state action and directedness. At the heart of the dispute over market or state lead land reform is the cardinal question who will benefit? The Urban Foundation and DBSA hovers midwa between the state and the World Bank, oth in terms o its gener approach and in terms o the way it addresses particular issues. It is drawn to the conservative certainties of the present establishment and, at the same time, realises that these are unsustainable even in the short term.