Beyond Tenderpreneurship

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies have
been a central pillar of attempts to overcome the economic legacy of
apartheid. Yet, more than two decades into democracy, economic exclusion
in South Africa still largely reflects the fault-lines of the apartheid
era.

Current discourse often conflates BEE with the so-called
‘tenderpreneurship’ referred to in the title, namely the reliance of
some emergent black capitalists on state patronage. Authors go beyond
this notion to understand BEE’s role from a unique perspective. They
trace the history of black entrepreneurship and how deliberate policies
under colonialism and its apartheid variant sought to suppress this
impulse. In the context of modern South Africa, authors interrogate the
complex dynamics of class formation, economic empowerment and redress
against the backdrop of broader macroeconomic policies. They examine
questions relating to whether B-BBEE policies are informed by strategies
to change the structure of the economy.

These issues are explored
against the backdrop of the experiences of other developing countries
and their journeys of industrialisation. The relevant black empowerment
experiences of countries such as the United States are also discussed.
The authors identify policy and programmatic interventions to forge the
non-racial future that the constitution enjoins South Africans to build.