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268 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

Figure 18.1 The northern compromise
Form of state Work restructuring Social development
The First Great Democratic Hegemonic – high wages, Social citizenship*
Transformation welfare state high employment
The Second Great Democratic, Hegemonic despotism – Erosion of the
Transformation ‘hollowed-out’ state flexible firm welfare state
* Social citizenship is the right to income security and other forms of welfare such as education and health, a right to share
to the full one’s social heritage and the right to a safe, healthy and peaceful environment.

Fourth World. However, countries of the During the First Great Transformations,
South have followed a historical trajectory rapid accumulation in South Africa was
that differed markedly from the First Great based on cheap non-free labor, benefiting
Transformation of northern industrialized specific sectors of white settler society as
nations. The history of the South is marked well as Northern capital. These economic
by the colonial experience of political and ends were secured by the formation of a state
economic subordination to the needs of the based on the white settler population, which
northern capitalist economies. As Barchiesi was able to ensure the domination and sup-
(2006) argues, at the core of the welfare state pression of the colonized black population.
of advanced capitalist society was a link In contrast to the counter-movement in the
between wage labor and social citizenship. North through which society was able suc-
The ‘social question’ was solved and work- cessfully to challenge the destructive tenden-
ers’ demands were met by the introduction cies of the market by constructing the
of the welfare state that began a process of welfare state, South Africa saw the forging of
redistribution through state transfers. a despotic racial order based on migrant
However, in the South, he suggests, colonial- labor and the brutalities of racial segregation,
ism could not deal with the ‘social question’. and the ruthless suppression of political dis-
These countries lacked the preconditions for sent. Counter-movement took the form of a
a successful resolution of the social question, national liberation movement which first
a political coalition made of strong unions, became powerful in the 1950s and was only
well-organized employers and a government able to achieve a political breakthrough with
that considers industrial citizens its core negotiated transition in the early 1990s –
constituency (Moene and Wallerstein, 2002). ironically (as the last apartheid President so
In Polanyian terms, they skipped a stage. astutely observed) at the same time as the
These societies never secured a welfare state, forceful reassertion of market forces tri-
high-waged employment and social citizen- umphed over communism.
ship as their own democratic transition Thus, in contrast to the North, countries of
occurred at the very moment of the Second the South such as South Africa have never
Great Transformation. Political liberation experienced the successful construction of a
was secured within the global environment welfare state through the counter-movement
of market-driven politics and restructuring of of society in response to the market forces of
work and society. the First Great Transformation. The task facing
To understand the growing informalization society is not the defense or strengthening of
of work and the attendant social crisis in the society and the public domain, but rather to
South, it is necessary to locate the Second form a counter-movement for the construction
Great Transformation in the context of the of an integrated society and of a public domain
colonial legacy of social underdevelopment. against the market for the first time – and in
Let us illustrate our argument through one the face of the even more powerful market
southern country, South Africa. forces of the Second Great Transformation.