7A F R O M THE FICTION OF C O N S P I R A C Y TO THE FICTION OF T E C H N I C I S M A Rejoinder MARK SWILLING
A conspiracy exists w h e n two or more parties with a c o m m o n interest agree to conspire against those whose interest they oppose. Bernstein and Nell have failed to prove their assertion that I used a conspirationat analysis. All I pointed to was a conceptual convergence in the stated policy intentions of some o f - to use their words - 'the institutions and interests in establishment South Africa'. This is a perfectly legitimate and methodologically acceptable exercise. The fact that 'totally different organisations' articulated these positions is irrelevant for the argument. It is possible for two completely different organisations with totally different interests to arrive at the same policy or conceptual assumption for different reasons. By arguing that the Urban Foundation (UF) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa arrived at the same policy assumptions is not to imply in any w a y that they conspired to do so. Yes indeed, it's enough. Urban policy is a serious business. This is w h y the research c o m m u n i t y and social movements have cause to celebrate the Urban Foundation's 1990 theme of 'Urban Debate 2010'. No one can honestly d e n y the enormous and creative contributions to this debate that the UF has m a d e over the years, and the personal roles played by Bernstein and Nell in this process. Unfortunately, they have marred this record by responding to m y article with emotional assertions and a technicist elitism that borders on condescension. I am perfectly willing to admit m y 'factual errors' and 'wrong analysis' if these are demonstrated. However, to try to u n d e r m i n e my argument by depicting it as irrational, naive, conspiratorial, farcical and Utopian runs contrary to the ethics of constructive debate - especially if these assertions are unproven. To make matters worse, m y approach is contrasted in a highly technicist w a y with 'the real world" which is, we are told, 'a tough place" w h e r e 'our practical experience has led the UF to appreciate certain hard realities'. It is claims of this nature that stifle debate because one side is depicted as experienced, in possession of real expertise, and familiar with all the relevant knowledge needed to resolve our urban problems, whereas the rest of us are
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seen as idealistic outsiders splashing around in the baby pool of ideological misapprehensions and small-scale experiments. As far as the accusation that I have denied my readers 'some critical information' is concerned, I would like to question the UF's commitment to community participation. Two examples will suffice. Firstly, let me refer to the UF's urban policy package and recent public documents. These are backed up by long lists of research papers. If the UF was truly committed to community participation, it would have ensured that its policy formulation process provided the communities with an opportunity to help formulate this policy. Instead, researchers were used to suck information out of the communities and into research reports that were then kept under lock and key for years on the grounds that the UF had 'bought" the information and hence owned the copyright. Those of us who have worked with civics and unions over the past five years will know that policy that accords with community interests cannot be formulated in this technocratic fashion. This is not to suggest that the UF should have been accountable as some us were to the community and workplace organisations. The UF is accountable to big business, who, in turn, pays the bill. All I am suggesting is that the UF cannot be committed to the participation of interests in the formulation of policies that are designed to serve a different set of interests. The UF served the interests of big business well by holding copyright on the largest quantity of the best urban research we have ever seen (or not seen). If knowledge is produced on your own terms, your questions will be answered first. The UF should simply admit this and let others claim to be committed to community participation. Secondly, the UF's Oakrnore Development Plan that proposed ways of developing the Tembisa region recommended a state-business-community alliance that excluded the most widely supported and legitimate civic in the region. Mistakes like this are inevitable when using technocratic methods that impose solutions from the outside. What the UF still needs to learn in practice is that the communities do not want solutions, they want to be involved in the formulation of solutions on terms that their organisations have some control over. On the question of the UF's commitment to non-racial local government, this is subsumed into my overall argument that the UF is committed to total deracialisation - if this excluded local government, I would have said so. The technicism in the UF's world view is further highlightedby the remarkable statement that 'South Africans can start to tackle the tough issues of managing our cities'. Who is being referred to here? Surely it is not the countless grassroots organisations and local communities that have, over the decades, struggled valiantly to 'tackle the tough issues' in their own wav? They started long ago. Or does this refer to those who will have the power to manage our cities? Once again, at the moment this is the white state and, indirectly, urban business. Civics do not 'manage' our cities. Nor is this likely to change fundamentally when we have a majoritarian state. Instead, we should be
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talking about a democratic framework that will facilitate struggles and bargaining over competing interests in an institutionalised m a n n e r - some will manage, others will protest. The question is what will the relationship between the managers and protesters be? This will not be answered by intellectuals in boardrooms drawing up models that 'try and delineate carefully and fully the role we think the central and local state should play, the role of the business sector, financial institutions, trade unions, community organisations, individuals and households' (emphasis added). Who is 'we'? In answer to the question, 'Who will decide who decides?', the answer will be, 'No single interest'. Rules will be assigned to actors engaged in the ever changing conflictive process of social change. These actors have a right to conceptualise these roles to suit their interests. But when this is challenged, they should admit the social specificity of their constructs rather than insisting that these constructs are socially and technically derived. The argument that capital has the ability to buy the images of the urban world has got nothing to do with 'false consciousness', and hence even less to do with a vanguardist politics - presumably what Bernstein and Nell 'are fearful' about. All historical actors have a right to conceptualise the world and then pursue strategies to bring about that world. Our social historians from Van Onselen and Bozzoli onwards have clearly discussed the nature of the power that lies in the hands of those who conceptualise and popularise a specific view of the world and how social relations should be constructed. This ability is, after all, the genius of today's green movement. The same applies to the urban world. The nuclear family is not a natural God-given unit. It is socially constructed in a way that reflects the outcome of conflicts between specific interests: between genders, between races, between generations, and between classes. As we move into a new urban order, financial capital is promoting home-loan institutions with images that conceptualise and popularise urban society in specific ways. Home-ownership, two (smiling, well-fed) children, women as housewives, men as executives, cottage homes in separate fenced-off gardens, and, of course, the friendly building society manager. All this has enormous social implications. It is a set of images that some interests can afford to propagate. To say this is fanciful is to deny the realities of power. After all, where is the television advertisement publicising a civic's latest views? I could not agree more with the UF's insistence on the need for a balance between 'democracy and delivery'. All I suggested is that delivery may be compromised in the long run if the investment required is not brought increasingly under democratic control. By arguing that capitalists 'would far rather take their chances on the stock exchange, traditional property development, antiques and art works' confirms my point exactly. Why should we accept the fact that a small group of people have the power to decide on whether to put their money into houses as opposed to antiques? Why should this power go unchallenged as we move into the 'new South Africa'? Yes,
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admittedly, it is Utopian to ask this without suggesting a workable alternative (which excludes commandism). This is exactly what I attempted in the last section of the paper. In m y view this is probably the toughest of all the issues that need to be 'tackled'. Even if Bernstein and Nell are correct w h e n they say that 'one of the central development challenges is how to attract investment into low-income housing', surely they should be more tolerant of those w h o want to contest the terms of this investment role? It will not be very comforting to the civics in Kwa Thema and Soshanguve w h o have members w h o live in badly cracked newly built houses, that 'the only thing worse than being exploited by capital is not being exploited by it'. Does the UF honestly suggest that we say to these civics, 'Forget it, comrades, thank your lucky stars that capital invested in these houses in the first place'? The strategic consequences of the UF's adoption of Barbara Ward's unimaginative views will be totally unacceptable to the civics and unions whose members have to bear the consequences. Finally, to the vexed question of race and its place in South Africa's social structure. Bernstein and Nell state forcefully at the outset that I have 'an incorrect assessment and understanding of the role that race discrimination, formal and informal, plays as a barrier to opportunity and development'. I did agree fully that race is a barrier to development. All I added was that it was not the only barrier. Bernstein and Nell never really substantiate their criticism, but where they try they argue that 'it is urgently necessary to remove legislative and policy race discrimination.., so that South Africans can start to tackle the tough issues'. In other words, remove race and what's left is a deracialised set of issues we can n o w all 'tackle'. This makes very little sense for two reasons. Firstly, as Alan Mabin has convincingly argued, legislative racism was not the only barrier faced by the urban poor in their struggles for urban goods. Secondly, race is not only secured legislatively or by policy. Race is n o w structured by economic relations: the poor are black and the rich are (mostly) white. The removal of racial legislation and policy will have to be accompanied by strategies that will challenge the relations of economic power that will continue to disadvantage the black urban poor. My only point was that simple deracialisation will not achieve this. It is significant - but unsurprising - that nowhere in their article do Bernstein and Nell suggest that the centralisation and concentration of economic power is a 'tough issue' that needs to be 'tackled'. The only consolation they offer is Barbara Ward's w i s d o m on the matter. H o w this squares with their support for a mixed economy baffles me. After all, the mixed economy is intended to provide a mix of exploiters, nonexploiters and exploited. Hopefully, the UF will change its mind w h e n it is demonstrated that it may just be better rather than worse not to be exploited by capital. The n e w houses that will be built in Kwa Thema and Soshanguve will not crack and, of course, the price of antiques will drop.
