Interview with Hein Marais, Author of "South Africa Pushed to the Limit: the Political Economy of Change"

 Hein Marais is a writer and journalist. He is the former deputy editor of Work in Progress magazine, South Africa, and former chief writer for the Joint UN Programme on AIDS. He spoke to Think Africa Press at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London, about his latest book, South Africa Pushed to the Limit: the Political Economy of Change.The book examines how strategic choices made in South Africa since 1994 have compounded ongoing poverty and inequality in a country where skin colour remains a determinant of destiny. Marais shows that the South African economy remains dominated by a handful of large conglomerates now entwined in the circuitry of the global economy. The government, meanwhile, has squandered its leverage over their decisions in a series of miscalculations and errors. Marais explains why those choices were made, where they went awry, and why South Africa's vaunted formations of the left failed to prevent or alter them. He also sheds light on a variety of South Africa's most pressing issues, including the real reasons behind President Jacob Zuma's rise and the purging of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, and the ongoing AIDS crisis.