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The Carnegie Commission and the Backlash against Welfare State-Building in South Africa, 1931–1937

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 34; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057070802259688

1465-3893

Jeremy Seekings,

Social Policy and Reform Studies

Abstract By the late 1930s, South Africa had developed a welfare state that was remarkable in terms of both the range of risks against which it provided and its coverage of the poor – although only for poor white and coloured people. The Carnegie Commission of Inquiry into the Poor White Problem in South Africa is often credited with the major role in prompting this welfare state-building. This is, at most, only partly true. Firstly, key aspects of the welfare state, most notably old-age pensions, predated the Commission. Secondly, as I show in this article, the Commission's recommendations with regard to most areas of social policy (excepting education) were hostile to programmatic state-building and sought to return discretionary power to the church through indoor (and perhaps also outdoor) poor relief. Some members of the Commission might have employed 'modern' social science research methods, and some may have favoured the expansion of professional social work, but its reports generally gave expression to a backlash against the prior, nascent growth of South Africa's welfare state. In general, the Commission's recommendations entailed a reversal to the kind of 'scientific charity' that characterised the United States in the late nineteenth century, not the more professional social work of the United States in the 1920s and certainly not the social policies of the New Deal. The Commission gave rise to a period of struggle over the appropriate roles of church, state and professional social workers. Although the church-centric ambitions of most of the Carnegie commissioners were ultimately frustrated, their efforts contributed to the making of a somewhat bifurcated welfare state in which the expansion of welfare programmes was retarded. Notes 1 Union of South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare for the Financial Years 1937–1939 (U.G. 15 of 1940), pp. 10–11. 2 J.L. Gray, 'The Comparative Sociology of South Africa', South African Journal of Economics, 5 (1937), p. 270. 3 On Britain, see, for example, P. Thane, Foundations of the Welfare State 2nd edn (Harlow, Pearson Longman, 1996). 4 R. Davies, Capital, State, and White Labour in South Africa: 1900–1960; An Historical Materialist Analysis of Class Formation and Class Relations (Brighton, Harvester, 1979); D. O'Meara, Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital, and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934–1948 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983); D. Yudelman, The Emergence of Modern South Africa: State, Capital, and the Incorporation of Organized Labor on the South African Gold Fields, 1902–1939 (Westport, CT, Greenwood, 1983). 5 J. Iliffe, The African Poor: A History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 116–21. 6 J. Tayler, '"Our Poor": The Politicisation of the Poor White Problem, 1932–1942', Kleio, XXIV (1992), pp. 40–65. 7 D. Duncan, 'The Origins of the "Welfare State" in Pre-Apartheid South Africa' (unpublished seminar paper, 1993). 8 B.D. Fleisch, 'Social Scientists as Policy-Makers: E.G. Malherbe and the National Bureau for Educational and Social Research, 1929–1943', Journal of Southern African Studies [hereafter JSAS] 21, 3 (September 1995), p. 357. 9 M. Du Toit, '"Co-workers of State and Church"? Female Afrikaner Nationalists and Gender Conflict in the Making of Social Welfare Policy, 1928–1939' (Africa seminar paper, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, 1996). 10 G. Davie, Poverty Knowledge in South Africa: The Everyday Life of Social Science Expertise in the Twentieth Century (Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2005), p. 42. 11 C.J. Groenewald, 'The Methodology of Poverty Research in South Africa: The Case of the First Carnegie Investigation, 1929–1932', Social Dynamics, 13, 2 (December 1987); Fleisch, 'Social Scientists as Policy-Makers'; S. Dubow, 'Scientism, Social Research and the Limits of "South Africanism": The Case of Ernst Gideon Malherbe', South African Historical Journal, 44 (May 2001); D. Posel, 'A Mania for Measurement: Statistics and Statecraft in the Transition To Apartheid', in S. Dubow (ed.), Science and Society in Southern Africa (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000). 12 Davie, Poverty Knowledge, pp. 75–6. Davie rightly corrects the emphasis in previous studies on the statistical work of the Commission, and has pointed out to me (personal communication) that the Commission did not define or conduct a poverty line. 13 D. Posel, 'The Case for a Welfare State: Poverty and the Politics of the Urban African Family in the 1930s and 1940s', in S. Dubow and A. Jeeves (eds), Worlds of Possibility: South Africa in the 1940s (Cape Town, Double Storey, 2005), p. 65. 14 T.R.H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History (3rd edn, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1987), p. 319; T.R.H. Davenport and C. Saunders, South Africa: A Modern History (5th edn, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2000), p. 655. 15 This historical inconvenience has not stopped scholars from absurdities such as this: 'The introduction of the first old-age pension in 1928 followed the Carnegie Commission of Inquiry into the "poor white" problem'. J. Triegaardt, 'The Child Support Grant in South Africa: A Social Policy for Poverty Alleviation?', International Journal of Social Welfare, 14 (2005), p. 250. 16 J. Bottomley, Public Policy and White Rural Poverty in South Africa, 1881–1924 (Ph.D. thesis, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, 1990); D.L. Berger, White Poverty and Government Policy in South Africa, 1892–1934 (Ph.D. thesis, Temple University, Philadelphia, 1983); J. Seekings, '"Not a Single White Person Should be Allowed to Go Under": Swartgevaar and the Origins of South Africa's Welfare State, 1924–1929', Journal of African History, 48, 3 (November 2007). 17 Union of South Africa, First Report of the Commission on Old Age Pensions and National Insurance (U.G. 21 of 1927). 18 Seekings, 'Not a Single White Person'. 19 Union of South Africa, Second Report of the Commission on Old Age Pensions and National Insurance (U.G. 50 of 1928); Union of South Africa, Third Report of the Commission on Old Age Pensions and National Insurance (U.G. 26 of 1929). 20 Union of South Africa, Report of the Economic and Wage Commission (1925) (U.G. 14 of 1926), p. 105. 21 Union of South Africa, Report of the Economic and Wage Commission (1925), pp. 105–20. 22 Union of South Africa, Report of the Economic and Wage Commission (1925), pp. 334–50. 23 South Africa, First Report of the Commission on Old Age Pensions and National Insurance. 24 South Africa, Third Report of the Commission on Old Age Pensions and National Insurance, pp. 27–8. 25 See further Seekings, 'Not a Single White Person'. 26 Act no. 22 of 1928. 27 Carnegie Commission, The Poor White Problem in South Africa: Report of the Carnegie Commission: Joint Findings and Recommendations (Stellenbosch, Ecclesia, 1932), para 22–5, 49. 28 It is therefore puzzling that the Carnegie Commission was assessed so favourably, 50 years later, by Wilson and Ramphele – who had no time for cultural or psychological explanations in their study of poverty under apartheid, i.e. the second Carnegie inquiry (F. Wilson and M. Ramphele, Uprooting Poverty: The South African Challenge (Cape Town, David Philip, 1989). Groenewald ('The Methodology of Poverty Research') analyses the 'methodology' of the investigation in terms of social pathology theory, missing the roots of the Commission's ideas in distinctly nineteenth-century thought. 30 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations: para 52. This may have been a retort to the arguments made by W.M. Macmillan, who described poor whites as 'demoralised beyond redemption' in his lectures on the Agrarian Problem, para 53. 29 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 52. This may have been a retort to the arguments made by W.M. Macmillan, who described poor whites as 'demoralised beyond redemption' in his lectures on the Agrarian Problem. 31 J.R. Albertyn, with A.D. Luckhoff, T.F. Cronje and M.E. Rothmann, Sociological Report: (a) The Poor White and Society, Part V (a) of The Poor White Problem in South Africa: Report of the Carnegie Commission (Stellenbosch, Ecclesia, 1932), p. 21. 32 Fleisch, 'Social Scientists as Policy-Makers', p. 358; H. Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 2003), p. 348; see also the references in Tayler, 'Our Poor', p. 46. 33 Klausen's study of the politics of birth control reveals the complexity of these issues. Was the Carnegie Commission reacting to the eugenicists, who had formed the Race Welfare Society in Johannesburg in 1930, arguing that 'poor whites' were mentally defective and should be sterilised or, if sufficiently responsible, taught to use contraceptives? Carnegie Commissioners Malherbe, Rothmann and Murray all supported birth control, but perhaps for environmental rather than eugenicist reasons – see S. Klausen, Race, Maternity and the Politics of Birth Control in South Africa, 1910–39 (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 34 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 85–7. 35 R.W. Wilcocks, Psychological Report: The Poor White, Part II of The Poor White Problem in South Africa: Report of the Carnegie Commission (Stellenbosch, Ecclesia, 1932), Chapter 12; E.G. Malherbe, Educational Report: Education and the Poor White, Part III of The Poor White Problem in South Africa: Report of the Carnegie Commission (Stellenbosch, Ecclesia, 1932), Chapter 8. 39 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 110, emphasis in the original. 36 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 101–3. 37 Berger, White Poverty. 38 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 68. 40 Seekings, 'Not a Single White Person'. 41 Wilcocks, Psychological Report, p. 95. 42 Wilcocks, Psychological Report, p. 171. 43 Malherbe, Educational Report, p. 259. 44 Malherbe, Educational Report, p. 99. 45 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, pp. 75–6. 46 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, p. 141. 47 Wilcocks, Psychological Report, p. 96. 48 Wilcocks, Psychological Report, p. 97. 49 Albertyn, Sociological Report, pp. 97–8. 50 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, p. 80. 51 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, p. 80. 52 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, p. 81. 53 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 115, emphasis in the original. 54 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 116. 55 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 123. 56 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, pp. 107–9. 58 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 37. 57 Albertyn et al, Sociological Report, pp. 68–71. 59 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, pp. 141–42. 60 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, p. 141. 61 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, foreword. 62 R.B. Miller, 'Science and Society in the Early Career of H.F. Verwoerd', JSAS, 19, 4 (December 1993), p. 642. 63 See the website of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which grew out of the Agricultural College: www.umass.edu/pastchancellors/butterfield.html 64 K.L. Butterfield, The Country Church and the Rural Problem (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1911). This raises the question of why the Carnegie Commission sent the retired Butterfield, rather than one of the younger and mostly female advocates of professional social work. Bell reports that the Carnegie Corporation sent a sociologist because of Albertyn's lack of academic expertise, and they were asked not to send an English scholar (Beveridge had been approached but was unavailable); but she does not explain why they chose Butterfield in particular. M. Bell, 'American Philanthropy, the Carnegie Commission and Poverty in South Africa', JSAS, 26, 3 (2000). 65 Scholars that emphasise the scientific, 'fact-finding' approach of the Commission (such as Groenewald, 'Methodology of Poverty Research'; Fleisch, 'Social Scientists as Policy-makers'; Posel, 'Mania for Measurement') tend to focus on Malherbe's research on education, and pay little attention to the relationship between 'facts' and recommendations in the Reports as a whole. The 'fact' most often cited – including by Malherbe himself – was the figure of 300,000 'poor whites' (Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 9): this was one of the most questionable findings made by Malherbe and the Commission, based as it was on an extrapolation of estimates provided by school teachers as to the family incomes of school-children. Malherbe and many others had good reason to use the positivist discourse of 'facts' rather more than was warranted by their actual methodology. 66 Carnegie Commission, Joint Findings and Recommendations, para 37, 114. 67 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, p. 119. 68 Albertyn et al., Sociological Report, 117–18; Miller, 'Science and Society', p. 643. 69 M.E. Rothmann, Sociological Report: (b) The Mother and Daughter in the Poor Family, Part V (b) of The Poor White Problem in South Africa: Report of the Carnegie Commission (Stellenbosch, Ecclesia, 1932). 70 Rothmann's report does not have references nor a bibliography. It does not reveal whether she was familiar, by 1932, with work such as Richmond's Social Diagnosis or the 1921 Shepperd-Towner Act (i.e. the Infancy and Maternity Act) which introduced mothers' pensions in the United States. It is possible that she was influenced after completing her investigation by her colleague in the ACVV, Erika Theron, and Theron's mentor, Hendrik Verwoerd. 71 Malherbe, Educational Report, p. 48. 72 E.G. Malherbe, Handbook on Education and Social Work in South Africa (Pretoria, New Education Fellowship, 1934). 73 Davie, Poverty Knowledge, pp. 72–5. 74 J. Ehrenreich, The Altruistic Imagination: A History of Social Work and Social Policy in the United States (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 61; M. Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York, Basic Books, 1996), Chapter 3; W. Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State (6th edn, New York, the Free Press, 1989), Chapters 4 and 5. 75 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, pp. 39–40; Du Toit, 'Co-Workers of State and Church', p. 19. 76 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, pp. 40–2. 77 Du Toit, 'Co-Workers of State and Church', p. 14. 78 Rothmann, The Mother and Daughter. 79 By way of comparison, the first school of social work in the USA was founded in 1898, and all five major American cities had schools by 1910. The first journals dedicated to social work had already been started; the first professional journal (Social Casework) started in 1920 (see Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State, Chapter 11). 80 Quoted in Du Toit, 'Co-Workers of State and Church', p. 20. 83 Giliomee, The Afrikaners, p. 351. Miller, 'Science and Society', in her otherwise detailed analysis of Verwoerd's academic career, does not discuss his attitude to the church, and limits her analysis of his attitude to the state to a summary of his view that social workers should be employed by local councils (i.e. the ACVV position). 81 Miller, 'Science and Society', p. 637. 82 Quoted in Giliomee, The Afrikaners, p. 351. 84 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, p. 23. 85 Tayler, 'Our Poor', pp. 52–61; Miller, 'Science and Society'. 86 Du Toit, 'Co-Workers of State and Church', pp. 21–34; Miller, 'Science and Society', p. 656. 87 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, pp. 24–32. Comparison with the United States again reveals the infancy of social work in South Africa. In the USA there were as many as 30,000 social workers by 1930 (Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State, p. 296). 88 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, p. 42. 89 Act no. 34 of 1931. 90 Hansard, House of Assembly, 26 March 1931, col. 4,307–13. 91 Hansard, House of Assembly, 26 May 1931, col. 4,307–45 and 27th May 1931, col. 4,367–88; also, col. 4,491–516. 92 Figures are based on data in successive volumes of the Yearbook of the Union of South Africa. 93 Hansard, House of Assembly, 8 June 1933, c543–44 (Fick and Rood); 27 February 1934, c851, 853 (Verster and Naudé); 27 March 1935 (Grobler, Naudé, van Rensburg, Pretorius, Steytler). 94 Hansard, House of Assembly, 8 June 1933, c543-44 (Fick and Rood); 27 February 1934, c851, 853 (Verster and Naude); 27 March 1935 (Grobler, Naude, van Rensburg, Pretorius, Steytler), 27 March 1935, col. 3,910 (Derbyshire). 95 Act no. 34 of 1937. 97 Hansard, House of Assembly, 26 March 1936, col. 2,056. 96 Act no. 11 of 1936. 98 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, pp. 98–105. 99 Given the detail in the ensuing Bill, it seems that the Committee must have been familiar with the 1921 American legislation, and was thus both way ahead of, and in stark contrast to, the Carnegie Commission. 101 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, p. 53. 100 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare. 102 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, p. 60. 103 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, pp. 81, 8, 11–12, 31, 12. 104 Gray, 'Comparative Sociology', pp. 278–80. 105 Quoted in South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, p. 8. 106 Quoted in South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, p. 8. 107 Quoted in South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, pp. 10–11. 108 Union of South Africa, Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Poor Relief and Charitable Organisations (U.G. 61 of 1937). 109 Union of South Africa, Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the Invalidity Scheme, Pulmonary Tuberculosis Cases and the So-called 'Burnt-out' War Veterans (1940). 110 Hansard, House of Assembly, 14th August 1929, col. 892. 111 Union Yearbook volume 19 (1938); see also Hansard, House of Assembly, 15th February 1935, col. 1,647. 112 Hansard, House of Assembly, 22 January 1935, col. 417. 113 South Africa, Report of the Department of Social Welfare, p. 3. 114 The Depression was the cause of the transformation of the American welfare state through the New Deal, between 1933 and 1937. See Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State; Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse. 115 Klausen, Race, Maternity and the Politics of Birth Control, p. 23. 116 Hansard, House of Assembly, 18 April 1935, col. 5,225. 117 Hansard, House of Assembly, 26 March 1936, col. 2,057 (Le Roux) and 2,058 (Alexander); see also 18 April 1935, col. 5,225 (van der Merwe); also Yudelman, Emergence, p. 252. 118 South Africa, Parliamentary Register, 1910–1961 (Cape Town, House of Assembly, 1970). 119 O'Meara, Volkskapitalisme; Tayler, 'Our Poor'; Giliomee, The Afrikaners. 120 Posel, 'A Mania for Measurement'; also Fleisch, 'Social Scientists as Policy-Makers'. 121 Fleisch, 'Social Scientists as Policy-Makers'. 122 Posel, 'The Case for a Welfare State'. 123 J. Seekings, 'The Origins of Social Citizenship in South Africa', South African Journal of Philosophy, 19, 4 (2000); J. Seekings, '"Visions and Hopes and Views about the Future": The Radical Moment of South African Welfare Reform', in S. Dubow and A. Jeeves (eds), Worlds of Possibility: South Africa in the 1940s (Cape Town, Double Storey, 2005).