South Africa’s failure to reform – and save the country, and especially its immiserated poor, from joblessness, stalling growth and widespread governance failure – can be pinned on the ruling party’s ‘unwavering determination’ to pursue the socialist-inspired National Democratic Revolution (NDR).

In this way, the ANC seeks to ‘take the country by incremental steps from capitalism to socialism’.

This is the core theme of a new book, COUNTDOWN TO SOCIALISM – The National Democratic Revolution in South Africa since 1994 (Jonathan Ball Publishers), by the head of policy research at the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), Dr Anthea Jeffery.

Her new book reveals the scale and reach of NDR precepts in South African policy-making since 1994. By way of example, NDR interventions have already made millions of people unemployable and the mining sector largely ‘uninvestable’. These policies now aim at land expropriation without compensation (EWC) and the effective nationalisation of private healthcare and pensions.

Jeffery, who holds law degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cambridge and has a PhD in law from London University, has written 11 books, including BEE: Helping or Hurting? and People’s War: New Light on the Struggle for South Africa. She has also written extensively on property rights, land reform, the mining sector, the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system, and a growth-focused and non-racial alternative to BEE.

This is a recording of the inaugural book launch hosted at Exclusive Books in Cape Town on 19 July 2023.