THEAPARTHEIDERA
no evidence that any single one of the assumptions underlying South Af-
rica's racial legislation is jusrified.t'"? Furthermore, the "Native Represen-
tatives" who sat in Parliament until that form of representation
was abol-
ished in 1960 and Helen Suzman, the only Progressive party member of
Parliament
from 1961 to 197~, vigorously opposed every racially op-
pressive bill. 4 8
Nevertheless, before the late 1970S no powerful economic interest was
fundamentally
opposed to apartheid. White industrial workers
ben~fited
from an economic system that gave them a virtual monopoly not only of
skilled jobs and high wages but also of workers' legal participation
in the
industrial bargaining process. White bureaucrats
depended on a system
that provided them with sheltered employment. Farmers, too, had reason
to be satisfied with a government that gave them generous subsidies and
ensured their supply of cheap black labor, and then helped them to dispose
of it when there was a surplus.
The relation between mining and industrial capitalism and apartheid is
a highly controversial subject. Some have argued that capitalism was inex-
orably opposed to apartheid
and that economic growth was bound to
erode and destroy it; others have charged capitalists with being the real