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South Africa Turmoil in Steinhof and Naspers exposes crisis of the big capitalis

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the simultaneous corruption scandals engulfing Steinhoff and Naspers are not isolated cases of executive misconduct but the inevitable expression of monopoly capitalism in its South African form. The central thesis is that these crises expose the lie that South Africa possesses a "world-class" private sector distinct from the corruption-ridden state sector. Instead, the scandals reveal the fusion of monopoly capital with the bourgeois state, the parasitic nature of the capitalist class, and the systemic fraud inherent in a system driven by the relentless pursuit of profit. The article insists that the working class cannot look to these capitalists for competent social management and must instead demand the expropriation of the monopolies under democratic workers' control.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the classical Marxist understanding of the capitalist state as expressed in the Communist Manifesto — the executive as a committee for managing the affairs of the ruling class. The article draws on Lenin's theory of monopoly capitalism and finance capital, showing how Steinhoff and Naspers have outgrown the South African domestic market, dominated the African continent, and integrated themselves into global circuits of accumulation. The concept of fictitious capital is implicit in the description of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange bubble inflated by fraudulent accounting and share-swap schemes. The analysis also deploys the Marxist understanding of workers' pensions as deferred wages, showing how the PIC's exposure to Steinhoff represents the gambling away of workers' savings by capitalist fund managers. The argument sits firmly within the Trotskyist tradition's insistence on the impossibility of reforming capitalism and the necessity of revolutionary expropriation.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is written in December 2017, a moment of deep political and economic crisis in South Africa. The Zuma presidency was in its final, most corrupt phase, with the "Gupta Leaks" having exposed state capture at the highest levels. The article connects the Steinhoff and Naspers scandals directly to this conjuncture, showing that the private sector is no cleaner than the state. The specific data is striking: Steinhoff's share price fell 61 percent in three hours, wiping out over 13 billion dollars; the PIC, managing the pensions of 1.3 million public sector workers, lost an estimated 12 billion rand. The article names Christo Wiese, Markus Jooste, and Koos Bekker as representatives of the Stellenbosch bourgeoisie, showing how the traditional Afrikaner capitalist elite is implicated. The Naspers scandal involving Multichoice's bribery of the SABC and the removal of Minister Yunus Carrim demonstrates the direct political power of monopoly capital. The conjuncture is one where the ruling class is in open disarray, yet the article insists this does not open a reformist path but rather demonstrates the need for a revolutionary working-class alternative.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is part of a sustained body of analysis by the Revolutionary Communist International on the South African conjuncture. The argument continues in subsequent IDOM articles tracking the Steinhoff collapse, the broader crisis of South African capitalism, and the political response of the trade union movement. The article's call for the nationalisation of the PIC's assets and the expropriation of the monopolies without compensation is developed in other IDOM pieces on the nationalisation debate in South Africa. The broader theoretical framework — the impossibility of reforming monopoly capitalism, the fusion of state and capital, and the necessity of workers' control — is elaborated in the RCI's programmatic documents and in Against the Stream episodes on the South African crisis. Readers should also consult the RCI's analysis of the "Gupta Leaks" and the broader state capture scandal to see how the private sector corruption exposed here fits into the overall decay of the post-apartheid settlement.

Connections

This article should be read alongside Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism for the theoretical framework on monopoly capital and finance capital. Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto provides the foundational statement on the state as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. For the South African conjuncture specifically, the article connects to the broader Marxist literature on the South African transition, particularly the critique of the ANC's neoliberal turn and the failure of the post-1994 settlement to break the power of monopoly capital. The analysis of workers' pensions as deferred wages connects to Marxist debates on social reproduction and the financialisation of workers' savings. Within the IDOM corpus, this article is part of a series on the crisis of South African capitalism that includes analyses of the Eskom crisis, the land question, and the political trajectory of the ANC and the trade union movement.

Key Quotes

  1. "This is what happens when the hard-earned pensions of workers, which are only deferred wages, are managed by capitalist fund managers and gambled away on the stock market."

  2. "Through a thousand strings, they are directly connected to the South African state. This is what Marx and Engels meant when they explained that the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the affairs of the ruling class."

  3. "These scandals are the inevitable results of the workings of the capitalist system. Fraud, corruption, lies, cover-ups and the manipulation of financial figures to hide the swindle is in the DNA of a system based on greed and the relentless pursuit of profits."

  4. "If anything these scandals expose the lie purported by the capitalists, and the South African one in particular, that it is somehow more suited to run society and the economy, when it is clearly nothing but an incompetent class capable of building nothing."

  5. "The solution is not to 'break-up' these monopolies but put the wealth which is created by the workers, under the ownership and control of the workers themselves."

  6. "Together with two other capitalists [Christo Wiese] owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the country's population."