
































From Production to Distribution: The Politics of Dependence and the 

Emerging Welfare State in Southern Africa 

Review by Vito Laterza

Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the new politics of distribution 

by James Ferguson

Duke University Press, 2015

James Ferguson’s latest book focuses on the rise of social welfare programmes in southern Africa, in

the  form of  grants  to  low income and  vulnerable  groups,  primarily  the  elderly,  women  and their

children, and the disabled. Post-apartheid South Africa has led the way. It has an extensive system

which administers grants to 30 percent of the population.  Other countries like Botswana, Namibia,

Lesotho,  Swaziland,  and  Mozambique  have  also  implemented  nationwide  programs,  while  pilot

programmes are being tried elsewhere in the region.

Ferguson’s goal is not to provide an extensive ethnographic treatment of these developments,

but rather to analyse their implications and the field of political possibilities they might open up. Half

comparative ethnography, half political pamphlet, Ferguson’s impressive narrative is a  tour de force

questioning,  deconstructing  and  reconstructing  classic  and  contemporary  notions  of  poverty,

development and the welfare state in the region and beyond. Through a focus on direct cash transfers,

the author brings together the anthropology of southern Africa, with the latest debates in development

practice and anti-poverty activism.

Written  in  a  highly  readable  style,  the  book is  structured around a  series  of  self-contained

chapters, originally given as the Lewis Henry Morgan lectures in 2009 at the University of Rochester.

One can easily read the chapters independently or as part of a larger whole.

Ferguson’s  starting  point  is  the  contradiction  between dominant  narratives  on the  relentless

expansion of the neoliberal state, and the substantial extension of state social provisions through grants.



The modest size of these social payments sets them apart from more comprehensive welfare measures

in  Nordic  countries,  yet  the  author  believes  that  this  phenomenon marks  the  rise  of  what  can  be

legitimately called “welfare states” in  southern Africa.  While  their  impact  might  be limited in  the

present form, the systems in place lay the foundations for more radical possibilities.

Breaking away from conventional welfare and poverty interventions, grants are not delivered

with the final goal of reproducing a healthy and productive workforce in the cities, or creating a class

of productive farmers in the rural areas. The eligibility criteria are simple – mostly age for pensions and

child  care  grants  –  and  do  not  include  conditions  like  searching  for  employment  or  investing  in

productive activities.

This hints at economic structures that affect the vast majority of southern Africans: the rural

areas are witnessing a constant decline in agricultural production, while the formal sector in urban

areas, even when experiencing high growth, simply fails to absorb most people who are in need of

employment. Far from being a temporary situation that can be rectified through economic policies, this

is a chronic feature of contemporary capitalism in southern Africa and increasingly in other parts of the

world, including Northern economies like the US and Europe.

The  author  points  out  that  production  remains  the  dominant  paradigm  in  economic

anthropology, development discourse and practice, and radical left thinking. He calls for a radical shift

away  from  “productionist”  tenets  towards  distribution.  His  wide-ranging  critique  builds  on  a  re-

elaboration of key themes in classic and contemporary southern African ethnography, from kinship-

based reciprocity across the rural-urban spectrum to a mix of moral and economic concerns at play in

sex, love and intimacy in times of precarious livelihoods.

The “distributive political economy” mapped by Ferguson is characterised by a myriad of acts

of  wealth  distribution,  entangled  in  multiple  and  complex  relations  of  dependence  influenced  by

configurations  of  gender,  kinship,  labour,  community,  ethnicity,  society  and  the  state.  Rather  than

producing more wealth, this “distributive labour” is primarily directed at dividing sources of wealth

into “smaller and smaller slivers as they work their way across social relations of kinship, clientage,

allegiance, and solidarity” (p.97). It is this kind of activity that sustains and reproduces society, more

than engagement in production as defined by macro-economic frameworks centred on the labour of

able-bodied men in the formal sector and the reproductive work of women as wives and mothers. One

powerful example of this reversal in South Africa is the shift from dependence of women, children and

rural relatives on remittances from men working in the mines in the heyday of the apartheid economy,

to the central distributive role played today by women and elderly people. The latter are the main

beneficiaries of state grants, and disenfranchised men at the margin of the productive economy have



increasingly come to rely on them.

Establishing and maintaining dependence on others who have access to wealth becomes a full-

time job for those who are excluded from the benefits of middle class life. Dependence, in Ferguson’s

treatment, has more to do with sharing than either gift or market exchange. Sharing and dependence

cannot be easily subsumed under the conventional opposition between equality and inequality. These

relations hint at a “new politics of distribution” beyond these two poles.

Within this framework, Ferguson convincingly reinterprets varied political movements calling

for redistribution in the region, from the populist socialism of new radical movements in South Africa

to  the  region-wide  basic  income  grant  campaign,  and  debates  around  land  reform  and  resource

nationalism.  Calls  for  redistribution  go  beyond  narrow  views  of  African  patrimonialism.  People

demand what Ferguson labels their “rightful share” in wealth that is owned collectively. Legitimate

participation in this process can be framed along citizenship lines at the state level, but there are other

levels of belonging too when local communities and traditional leaders are involved. These claims are

not exercised from a position of inferiority or supplication. People own collectively all the resources of

their community of belonging, hence they have a claim to a share of the wealth produced from these

resources.

By inserting the normative and political dimensions of these movements into a long history of

local idioms and practices, Ferguson provides a different angle on activist discussions around radical

measures like the basic income grant (BIG). BIG is argued from a variety of perspectives, ranging from

radical  Marxism  to  left-leaning  libertarianism  and  technocratic  social  democracy.  The  distinctive

feature of a basic income is that it should not be tied to any condition and everybody should be entitled

to it. The ideal world imagined by BIG activists is one where all human beings receive a basic income

that would afford them a decent livelihood, with no compulsion to work for a wage or generate income

through other activities. This is a radical break from existing welfare measures that tie unemployment

benefits to the reintegration of beneficiaries in the labour market. In line with other activist scholars,

Ferguson notes that these emerging state systems of cash distribution provide an essential infrastructure

for the possible establishment of BIG. At the same time, his anthropological analysis develops moral

and political  arguments  in  favour  of  BIG that  are  grounded in  local  discourses  and aspirations,  a

dimension often missed by global activist groups and regional campaigners.

Ferguson joins a growing number of anthropologists who subvert the conventional boundaries

between analysis and engagement. With his creative and flexible analysis, he provokes thinking for

action beyond narrow ideological  boundaries.  One could imagine enthusiastic  endorsements  of his

work  by  Marxist  campaigners,  World  Bank  technocrats  and  traditional  leaders  alike.  This  highly



original book is likely to leave a lasting mark not only on contemporary anthropological debates around

poverty and development, but also policy and activist thinking in southern Africa and beyond.

Vito Laterza is an anthropologist working on labour, development and environment in southern and

central Africa. He is a research fellow in the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, and

a research associate of the Human Economy Programme, University of Pretoria. He received his PhD

from the University of Cambridge.

Twitter account: @vitolaterza09

Website: www.thehumaneconomy.blogspot.com 

© 2015 Vito Laterza


