Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Pushed to the limit -- 1 The making of a polarised society -- The mould is cast -- The rise of the working classes -- Illusions of strength -- The rise of African nationalism -- Afrikaner nationalism's triumph -- Iron fist 'development' -- The post-war growth path -- The minerals-energy complex -- Fight-back -- The turn to armed struggle -- Into the doldrums -- Apartheid's harvest -- Cracks in the system -- Endnotes -- 2 Saving the system -- A new wave of resistance -- The party's over -- Recasting the divide -- Seizing opportunities -- 'Total strategy' -- Panic attack: from resistance to 'revolution' -- 'Workerists' and 'populists' -- 'Everything is political' -- The state shifts course -- Costs of insurrectionism -- Taking stock -- Stalemate -- At the crossroads -- Leap into the unknown -- Government-in-waiting -- Deadlock -- Endnotes -- 3 Contours of the transition -- Big stakes, high risks -- Taking the plunge -- Breaking the rules -- Terms of the deal -- Hidden hazards -- Tectonic shifts -- Change and continuity -- Bypassed -- Salvaging the economic system -- South Africa in the global economy -- Shifting the terms of incorporation -- The triumph of orthodoxy -- Endnotes -- 4 Sticking to the rules: the evolution of post-apartheid economic policy -- Catching up -- Back to school -- Drawing pictures -- Converted: ANC economic policy in the early 1990s -- 'No alternative' -- The quiet death of the MERG report -- Marching with history -- The myth of the weak state -- Rude awakenings -- The GEAR plan -- Putting the best foot forward -- Report cards -- Defending GEAR -- Endnotes -- 5 All dressed up: the economy in the twenty-first century -- Rewind: South Africa's economic makeover -- Post-apartheid investment patterns -- Nip and tuck: the conglomerates restructure.

Figure 5.1: Industry, value added, South Africa and various other middle-income countries, 1990-2008 -- Melting into the air: the financialisation of the economy -- Figure 5.2: Gross fixed capital formation as percentages of GDP (2009 prices), South Africa, 1946-2008 -- Recap: a familiar story -- The meanings of neoliberalism -- Variations on a theme -- 'Muddling along'? -- Stuck in the middle -- Back from repairs: black economic empowerment in the 2000s -- The functions of BEE -- State of denial -- Figure 5.3: Annual GDP growth (%), South Africa, upper-middle-income and lower-income countries, 1990-2007 -- Figure 5.4: Annual percentage changes in GDP and GDP per capita, South Africa -- Responding to the recession -- Reviving South Africa's industrial drive -- Breaking the mould -- The ecological frailty of South Africa's development path -- Burning down the house -- Hoodwinked -- Shifting the blame -- Untenable growth -- New approaches to growth -- Endnotes -- 6 The world of work -- Not hiring -- Figure 6.1: Official unemployment rates, South Africa, September 2000 to March 2010 -- Recession -- Explaining the 'jobs bloodbath' -- Working poor -- The myth of the magic portal -- Holding the line -- The state of the trade union movement -- Shifts underfoot -- Public works - or does it? -- Money well spent? -- The big picture -- Double vision: the 'two economies' -- Endnotes -- 7 Poverty and inequality in the post-apartheid years -- Is poverty decreasing? -- Figure 7.1: Average annual income and expenditure of South African households by population group of household head, 2005/06 -- Measuring poverty -- Less poor, more unequal -- Figure 7.2: Distribution of household income across deciles, South Africa, 2005/06 -- Figure 7.3: Distribution of South African households by expenditure quintiles and population group of household head.

Figure 7.4: Distribution of South African households by income quintile and population of group of household head, 2006 -- The social wage debate -- Defining the social wage -- Tracking improvements in the social wage -- Figure 7.5: Social wage provision in South Africa, 2002-08 -- Slow harvest: land reform -- That hollow feeling: food and hunger -- A sickly society -- The fetish of coping -- Microfinance: small change -- Microfinance under the microscope -- Crime, violence and justice -- Woe to the women -- Cycles of violence -- Wedged apart -- Endnotes -- 8 The social protection system -- Social expenditure in South Africa -- The main social grants -- Origins of the system -- Hit and miss: means-testing and targeting -- The impact of social protection on labour supply -- Grants, poverty reduction and development -- The universal income debate -- 'It's not the money, it's the idea' -- The radical potential of a universal income -- Dependency and shame -- Lineages of a taboo -- Social rights, the state and the market -- Endnotes -- 9 AIDS and TB: like 'waiting for a tidal wave to hit' -- An overview -- Double blow: tuberculosis and AIDS -- Entanglements of risk -- A political economy of AIDS in South Africa -- A disease of poverty? -- The uneven distribution of HIV in South Africa -- History's template -- Lives turned upside down -- Sexual networking -- Aiding and abetting: government's AIDS response -- The impact of a hyper-epidemic -- History lessons -- Keeping perspective -- Home is where the hurt is -- An unhealthy system -- Learning to cope? -- AIDS on the bottom line -- An unequal epidemic in a polarised society -- Turning the tide -- Fragmentation, introversion, erasure -- Endnotes -- 10 False starts: the health and education systems -- Rebuilding the health system -- Skewed spending.

Figure 10.1: How South Africans pay for their healthcare needs -- The private health system -- A national health insurance scheme -- Sick system -- Diagnosing the problems -- Intensive care -- Worlds apart: the new education system -- The doors of learning open -- The best education money can buy -- Engines of inequality -- A bridge too far: the folly of outcomes-based education -- Recasting higher education -- Repair work -- Endnotes -- 11 A South African developmental state? -- In search of models -- The Asian 'blueprints' -- Civil society and developmental states -- Developmental states in the twenty-first century -- Closer to the ground: subnational 'developmental states' -- A South African developmental state? -- Things we learn when the lights go out -- Beneath the hood -- Decorative development -- Endnotes -- 12 Last man standing: the Mbeki-Zuma battle -- The arms deal -- Face-off: Zuma versus Mbeki -- Take no prisoners (on the road to Polokwane) -- Everybody hates Thabo -- Made to order: the Zuma challenge -- What was the Mbeki-Zuma duel really about? -- Invincible? -- Salvage operation -- That special 'something' -- Endnotes -- 13 Power, consent and the ANC -- Rewind: the road travelled -- Hegemonic struggles -- Power, state and society -- Work in progress -- Reform from above -- Prospects for hegemony -- Circling the wagons -- Damage control -- Nationalism and the boundaries of belonging -- Pandora's box -- Reinventing authority, rebuilding power -- Endnotes -- 14 Left behind: challenge and protest -- The gravity field of national liberation -- Give and take -- COSATU and the SACP take a shortcut -- Popular activism beyond the Alliance -- Dazed and confused -- Taking the gap -- 'With us, or against us' -- 'Movement beyond movements' -- Keeping perspective -- Endnotes -- Acronyms -- Bibliography -- Index.