Abstract
M.A. (Historical Studies)
The analysis of South Africa’s state-run enterprises, also known as the parastatals, has typically focused on the relationship between capital and labour, with especial attention to the ways in which the country’s racial segregation and capitalism created and entrenched a system of racial capitalism. These analyses have been influenced by Neo-Marxist trends in South African historiography, which intended to critique the overarching racial social engineering of apartheid through case studies of the systems and organisations that were created to foster the growth of industry and a “modern” South African state. Central to the establishment of secondary industries was the development of a national electrical grid that could provide the cheap electricity to drive industrial growth. Far from being a simple process of building and connecting a series of power stations, the Electricity Supply Commission had to engage and compete with existing suppliers, including municipalities and private companies, in order to construct a nation-wide, interconnected electrical grid. This research examines the process of building Escom’s National Grid from a ‘systems building’ perspective, which takes a non-deterministic view of how social factors and technology influence each other to construct a large, complex technological system. By introducing the systems building theoretical and methodological framework, this dissertation seeks to determine what factors, aside from the relationship between capital and labour, shaped the formation of the National Grid.