Victim of its own success? The platinum mining industry and the apartheid mineral property system in South Africa's political transition

Abstract

The South African platinum industry has grown phenomenally since the mid 1990s to become the single largest component of the national mining sector in employment and sales-value terms. In line with Fine's (1992) contribution to a general theory of mining, this article presents an initial political economy of that industry by considering the critical role that the apartheid mineral property system played in its dominant strategy of competitive accumulation in the years leading to the current platinum boom. Emphasis is placed on the different forms of minerals ownership that mediated the access of platinum capital to mineral resources in the Bophuthatswana and Lebowa Bantustans, where the bulk of South Africa's vast platinum reserves were geopolitically located under apartheid and how the reproduction of these strategic mineral property relations was secured during the political transition to the benefit of the white platinum corporations. It concludes that the industry's very success in maintaining its proprietary control over the world's largest platinum endowment would combine with an unprecedented surge in global platinum demand to simultaneously position it as the most dynamic element of the post-apartheid mining economy and as the primary target of the new ANC government's minerals reform policy. [Victime de son propre succès? L'industrie minière de platine et le système apartheid de propriété minérale dans la transition politique en Afrique du Sud]. L'industrie du platine sud-africain a connu une croissance phénoménale depuis le milieu des années 1990 pour devenir la composante principale du secteur minier national en termes d'emploi et des ventes des valeurs actualisées. En ligne avec la contribution de Fine (1992) à une théorie générale de l'exploitation minière, cet article présente une économie politique initiale de cette industrie en considérant le rôle crucial que le système apartheid de propriété minérale a joué dans sa stratégie dominante d'accumulation compétitive dans les années qui avaient conduit à l'actuel boom économique de platine. L'accent est mis sur les différentes formes de propriétés minières qui ont servi de médiateur à l'accès du capital de platine pour les ressources minérales dans les bantoustans Bophuthatswana et Lebowa, les endroits géopolitiques de la majeure partie des vastes réserves de l'Afrique du Sud en platine sous l'apartheid, et comment la reproduction de ces rapports des propriétés minières stratégiques a été obtenues lors de la transition politique au profit des sociétés de platine caucasiennes. Il conclut que le succès même du secteur dans le maintien de son contrôle exclusif sur les rèserves mondiales de platine se combineraient avec une augmentation sans précédent de la demande mondiale de platine en le positionnant simultanément comme l'élément le plus dynamique de l'économie minière post apartheid et comme la cible principale du nouveau gouvernement de l'ANC en matière de politique de réforme minière. Mots-clés: exploitations minières de platine droits miniers Afrique du Sud propriété foncière Boputhatswana Lebowa

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