Such demands for land have (with the exception of the much-�discussed
case of Zimbabwe) generally yielded little in the way of concrete results,6
even as the position of or�ga�nized labor has mostly deteriorated across the
region (Pitcher 2007; for South Africa, see Barchiesi 2011). At the same
time, though, a more rewarding field of distributive struggle has emerged
around what is called “serÂ�vice delivery”—Â�a phrase that today evokes a
broad package of goods and ser�vices the provision of which (often on
highly subsidized terms) is increasingly understood as a state responsibility
to a deserving citizenry. These include such things as housing,
electricity, sanitation, water, and social assistance. Claims to these
ser�vices tend to be based not on labor but on such things as citizenship,
residence, identity, and po�liti�cal loyalty. Indeed, in discussions of this
kind, jobs themselves sometimes seem to be conceived as simply another
kind of good that the state ought to “deliver.”