Publication

This paper examines how a new social compact among stakeholders in the South African mining industry could be crafted to ensure that, rather than reproducing historical patterns of economic exclusion, the industry could serve as a transmission belt out of poverty and into inclusive development. Using a theoretical framework established by the economic historians Douglass North, John Wallis and Barry Weingast, the author argues that although carving out a new social compact remains difficult in the prevailing context, there are ways in which South Africa’s mineral wealth can be harnessed to produce economic growth which benefits the poor.