Julius Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) repeatedly promise that they will economically emancipate black people. This promise features in the EFF founding manifesto of July 2013, almost every EFF statement and their 2024 election manifesto. Anyone who is serious about voting for the EFF (or who wants to join it) must ultimately answer the question how the promised economic emancipation will happen. If we look beyond the symbolism of their red berets and overalls, plus thousands bused to EFF mass rallies and marches (‘rent a crowd strategy’), what is their vision for the economic emancipation of the labouring majority? Even though mainstream media bombard people with EFF symbols and popularity-seeking theatrics, informed voters cannot sweep under the carpet the inconsistencies in EFF political statements and deeds. After all, winning the battle for anti-capitalist principles, ideas and practices has always been integral to the self-emancipatory movements of oppressed and exploited masses.

Wage gap and job creation myths
Appealing to the electorate to vote for the EFF on the basis of 7 pillars spelled out in its manifesto, is central to the party’s intensifying election campaign. In line with this electoral appeal, making a cross next to the EFF on the ballot paper presupposes, as a minimum, some awareness of the content of each pillar. One manifesto pillar combines industrial development with closing or removing wage gaps (or inequalities). More specifically, the manifesto calls for: “Massive protected industrial development to create millions of sustainable jobs, including the introduction of minimum wages in order to close the wage gap between the rich and the poor, close the apartheid wage gap and promote rapid career paths for Africans in the workplace.” [EFF. (2023), 2024 Road to Victory…, p2]

This mishmash of sustainable jobs, wage gaps, industrial development and protectionism is telling of EFF political thinking and practice. Rather than striving to liquidate the system of wage-labour, the EFF merely wants to close wage gaps or cut wage inequalities. If the EFF wants equal pay for equal work, how does it move beyond the old trade union reformist call that workers who do the same job must earn the same wage. Instead of demanding or fighting for guaranteed full employment, the EFF is willing to settle for sustainable jobs. This is nothing but a fashionable catchphrase that fuel illusions of an elusive job.

The history of industrial protectionism is too long to recap here, in full. Centuries ago, merchant and industrial capitalists used protectionism to bar their competitors from gaining a foothold in a market or industry. Imperialist economies developed in this way, with constant threats of retaliatory policies from rivals, or violent annexation of disputed territories (colonies) or getting caught in protracted wars. In the 20th century, liberation movements copied variants of protectionism after the end of colonial or imperialist domination, with results far below yesteryear’s rosy promises.

Needless to say, neither a living minimum wage nor guaranteed work will automatically flow from industrial protection schemes. Worker exploitation for private profit accumulation can shift into a higher gear. Whatever gains the labouring majority can secure from protectionism depends on the fighting capacity and political consciousness of the working class, coupled with which social force controls the state. The EFF is silent on these fundamental questions.

Tribal-BEE land policy
The economic policy promises of the EFF also cover land expropriation and the nationalisation of strategic industries, ranked as the leading two pillars in its 2024 election manifesto. According to the EFF, all land will be expropriated without compensation and transferred to state ownership. The state will thus be the only landowner but not necessarily the exclusive land user. Instead, in the EFF solution to the land question, the state will handout land occupation and land use certificates as part of providing assistance to small farmers.

This state-driven land policy is not without question. What is the class nature of the state charged with expropriating and owning all the land? Will the state entrusted with solving the land question be under the control of the labouring majority or the capitalists? What underpins the EFF state-anchored land policy is the liberal delusion of a classless or neutral state. It is worth recalling that since the dawn of class societies, the state has always been a repressive force to impose the dictatorship of the dominant class in society. Despite all its commotion on land expropriation under an ill-defined state, insoluble contradictions characterise the EFF deceptive land policy.

In South Africa, the resolution of the land or agrarian question extends beyond liquidating capitalist control of land and the social inequalities that stem from it. Capitalism retained precapitalist modes of organising society in pursuit of profit and wealth accumulation. Tribalism, for example, was artificially kept alive to enforce peasant land dispossession and help police the exploitation of migrant labour. Destroying these vestiges, such as the abolition of traditional authorities and dismantling their unjust control over land, must therefore be central to the resolution of the land and agrarian problem. In which direction does the logic of this resolution to the land question point? Towards an agrarian social revolution which is interwoven with the struggle for democratic ecosocialism under the leadership of workers and peasants.

This revolutionary anti-capitalist solution to the land question is antagonistic to EFF propaganda. It collides with the EFF disgraceful and tireless support for traditional leaders. EFF praise for the late King Goodwill Zwelethini is no secret. Warmly welcoming into EFF ranks the likes of Mzwanele Manyi, a diehard tribalist, BEE-fanatic and ally of Jacob Zuma, epitomizes this mix of tribal and aspiring capitalist backwardness. [EFF, The Radical Voice, Vol 10, June 2023]. Moreover, the 2024 manifesto brags that “EFF led a significant march to advocate for the release of King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo from prison, which led to his release later.” [EFF.(2023), 2024 Road to Victory…, p6] Behind its pseudo-radical propaganda, the EFF glorifies anachronistic politics. EFF utterings on the economy and land ownership, in keeping with its ANC ideological roots, just blend BEE aspirations with tribal backwardness.