A recent wave of strikes in the South African mining industry (with
associated violent repression) reminds us of the continuing intensity and
vitality of struggles around the division of the production pie between
capital and labor. Yet while such spectacular clashes over distribution
at the point of production command massive media attention, the prospects
for such actions bringing about a comprehensive sharing of “the
country’s wealth” with “the people” seem quite limited. Where higher
wages have in fact been obtained, employers have tended to respond by
employing fewer workers, limiting the overall distributive effect. And
with the share of the population in a position to make such distributive
claims shrinking, higher wages for or�ga�nized, formal-�sector workers can
at best allow only a sharply limited (and, in relation to the masses of unand
underemployed “poor,” better off) subset of “the people” to “share in
the country’s wealth” (Seekings and Nattrass 2005).