Written By: Ian Campbell-Gillies
Ubuntu and capitalism do not, on the face of it, appear to be compatible.
The reasonable response to “What is ubuntu?” invariably reprises Rainbow Nation homilies on post-apartheid hopes. Little else is forthcoming, as if ubuntu were irrelevant.
Some white South Africans, divorced from black South African realities, say it does not exist, pointing to the government’s failure to lead South Africa into economic and political security. For many black South Africans, it exists as “black tax”. Friends and family battling ANC economic disaster simply must be cared for.
I suggest ubuntu is more than that.
A chance meeting with Mfuniselwa John Bhengu on 13 February 2019 led to my reading his and Jordan K. Ngubane’s writings on ubuntu. An IFP member of Parliament for many years, Bhengu stood on the conservative side of South African politics, pursuing the natural connections between African and Western humanism.
In 2019, I was working with the then-chairman of the Umbilo Business Forum, Sikho Msomi, on the causes of unemployment in Durban’s Umbilo. Chatting over coffee, Bhengu challenged us on whether capitalism and ubuntu had anything in common.
Seven years later, I firmly believe the answer is “Absolutely”.
I hold the view that every operating South African business is a working example of the synthesis between African and Western humanism.
Ubuntu in practice
Steve Thusi is a community leader from Dalton Hostel. We were introduced in 2017 when UBA member Jeremy Williams took me on an eye-opening tour of Dalton Hostel to attend a Zulu dance festival. Steve was a long-time UBA member when I joined, and we quickly became mates.
When his employer reduced staff, we started vegetable farming with help from a then-functional Parks and Gardens department. Light was bad and skills too limited, so we switched to recycling in 2018. At one stage, there were ten employees, but drugs and alcohol reduced that to three members in 2022, and that is how it has stayed.
A reconditioned Hyundai still collects cardboard, and the little enterprise has formed a solid base for Steve to pursue a career in politics as a PR councillor for the IFP.
It is never plain sailing.
We assisted the family behind Mzobe’s Restaurant in starting a new eatery on Gale Place in 2024. Our focus was clearing administrative hassles with eThekwini while they sourced funding.
Soon, a smart facility stood on manicured lawns previously occupied by vagrants. But the sewer line was never connected. The facility is kept clean, but jobs for Dalton remain suspended, as does repayment of the loan. Enterprise itself is frustrated by municipal stonewalling and apparent disinterest in the free market as a source of jobs.
I could have said to Bhengu that capitalism and ubuntu make excellent partners, but Marxist state-centric thinking is a crucial problem for community development and job creation.
The economic divide in Umbilo
One must delve deeper into Durban’s Umbilo to research the causes of this socioeconomic discontent.
Umbilo is a fascinating microcosm of South Africa. Sydney Road runs through the precinct, from near the political centre of City Hall to Victoria Mxenge Hospital. Along its length are elements of our economically segregated society.
Large numbers of homeless people camp in King Dinizulu Park, where destitution, drug abuse and the consequences of social collapse are painfully visible.
More recently, documented foreign nationals camped outside the Home Affairs offices for months, creating considerable difficulties for surrounding businesses. Anti-immigrant demonstrations have also brought violence and intimidation to the area, with foreign-owned businesses threatened or attacked.
On 22 October 2026, a foreign national was beaten to death during a march through central Durban. The killing is a tragic illustration of the breakdown in law, order and respect for human dignity.
Shifting up a class is the ANC-controlled eastern side of Sydney Road. About 500 residents live in the condemned Beerhall building. Since a fire swept through part of that historic place, Dalton Road itself has been commandeered with a large tent to accommodate around 300 newly homeless people.
On the western side is IFP-controlled Dalton Hostel, with around 3,000 people somewhat better accommodated. An estimated 70% are unemployed, although figures are not reliable.
Despite official joblessness, a vast range of informal businesses exists in Dalton, helping keep body and soul together.
The aforementioned Mzobe’s Restaurant sells boiled tripe, satisfying hundreds of customers daily. Thusi Junior sells cattle-head meals and enjoys similar success.
Alcoholism is rife. An early childhood school established by Montessori and our UBA has found that its R300 monthly fee is beyond the means of some parents, with substance abuse compounding the problem for some families. Children consequently miss out on schooling.
Yet this heavily subsidised school is a working bridge between the formal and informal sectors. It exists precisely because of the ubuntu initiative to draw the two economies together.
On Khuzimpi Shezi Road, alongside Sydney Road, pavement traders operate amid piles of rubbish. Among them are the muti sellers, holding a mixture of priceless traditional wisdom and more questionable claims in trust for willing buyers.
The UBA has presented investment plans to the municipality to rebuild the Beerhall as a market mall, with present occupants becoming registered shareholders in a collective enterprise that lifts this industry from the gutter.
We receive no response from the eThekwini Business Development Unit.
Dalton Hostel dwellers pay little rent but remain dependent on municipal structures that, in my view, encourage political patronage rather than genuine economic independence.
Handing title to these long-term residents would create a vibrant market overnight. The idea, of course, is rejected.
ANC National Democratic Revolution principles explain why revolutionaries are so bad at economics, so bad at human rights, and so bad at ubuntu.
An economy waiting to be liberated
The apex informal business is the ironically named “Skin Traders”, who repurpose abattoir skins into Zulu cultural attire.
These de facto holders of much Zulu history should be a focal point of tourism. Their market should be worldwide, but it isn’t.
They have endured decades of apartheid and subsequent ANC service delivery failure. Yet not once has the Business Development Unit consulted the UBA on how best to address the extreme poverty and homelessness affecting Dalton.
The immense economic potential of Dalton is being suppressed by the present municipality. If the MK Party wins the forthcoming elections, I expect things to get worse.
If I spoke to Bhengu today, I would argue that the post-apartheid socialist legacy has made Dalton something resembling a gulag, where person-centredness has been replaced with a cattle pen. Sewerage systems mostly do not work, crime is king, and alcohol numbs the shocked ubuntu soul.
The Fanonian illusion has suppressed an educated warrior spirit capable of competing with the world, of putting Zulu history at the centre of a tourism tidal wave.
Sydney Road, south of Dalton, hosts a plethora of companies and corporates, many of which are UBA members alongside the Dalton community.
UBA policy ten years ago to deal with crime and policing failures was obvious: link the formal and informal sectors, promote jobs through the innate power of capitalism, and overlay the new economy with ubuntu humanism.
In fulfilment of this policy, around the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we handed out masks and sanitiser to Dalton residents bearing the UBA logo. National television picked up on the operation, and shortly thereafter the EFF did the same thing.
The benefit of imitation is a marvellous thing.
During Covid, formal-sector donations ensured a steady stream of food parcels, keeping hunger out of Dalton.
An ANC ward councillor, noticeably absent until we provided food to the Beerhall, accused us of trying to buy voters from the ANC. Rather than welcoming assistance to a struggling community, political competition took precedence.
Rediscovering our shared humanism
I would say to John today that while much has been achieved, it is only foundational. The work of rebuilding our hollowed-out identity is a massive task, but ubuntu is the answer to our recovery, in sync with the best traditions of an enlightened Western value system.
I might well reflect back to John the principles I learned from him and suggest their amplification as a remedy for the burying of ubuntu by ruthless black elite entitlement and decades of anti-Western disinformation.
These principles deserve renewed attention:
The phrase Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (“A person is a person through other people”) is a highly evolved expression of democracy.
The phrase Nkosi yinkosi ngabantu (“A king is a king because of the people”) encapsulates the constitutional restraints of Western separation of powers.
Both expressions are held in context by the law, the rich oral tradition of influential aphorisms carrying the collective approval of the people, not merely the state.
This person-centred network does not accord with the state-centrism of coercive Eastern and Western traditions of Marxism, dictatorship, religious theocracy or totalitarianism.
This network has much more in common with Western traditions of humanism, born out of the Judeo-Christian tradition that gave rise to the ideals of a human-rights-centred society.
I would conclude to Bhengu that African and Western humanism are interlocking values, with the clear ability to revive both our potent economy and our shared identity, following the legendary global success of Springbok rugby partnerships.
The cooperative power of Western and African humanism is well capable of resisting the rising coercive threat to humanism itself and delivering to South Africans the means of living their best lives.
Ian Campbell-Gillies is the author of two books, Hopetown and Black Light. He works in Durban's Umbilo and is the policy director of the Umbilo Business Association.
