The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a relic of another revolution – a misfiring taxi stuck on the shoulder of history, engine sputtering, slogans blaring, but going nowhere. Once a powerful vehicle in the liberation convoy, the SACP now clings to the driver’s seat with no valid route map and no fuel for modern realities.
Let’s be clear: the SACP is not dying because capitalism has triumphed or socialism has lost its soul. It’s dying because it has become ideologically lazy, politically irrelevant and culturally detached.
Its diagnosis of South Africa’s economic ills remains trapped in a tired 20th-century binary – capitalist vs communist, bourgeois vs proletariat – as if those are the only lenses through which to understand African life.
But Africa, like its roads, has always been messier – and more ingenious – than imported ideologies suggest.
Still quoting Marx at the rank?
In 2025, when the taxi stalls due to rising petrol prices, potholes and corrupt traffic cops, quoting Das Kapital won’t get it moving.
To be fair, Karl Marx wasn’t wrong about everything. His critique of exploitation and alienation still resonates. And yes, Marxist thought shaped many anti-colonial movements, even adapting locally through leaders like Amílcar Cabral and Thomas Sankara.
But Marx was not African. His revolutions were built around steel factories and class struggle – not tribal consensus or ubuntu. His economic model never accounted for stokvels, spaza shops or the informal hustle that sustains millions today.
Trying to fix a township taxi with a Soviet-era manual – that’s what the SACP is doing. It sounds technical, even noble. But it won’t get us up the hill.
Chief Luthuli saw this breakdown coming
Chief Albert Luthuli, in Let My People Go, called communism “a mixture of a false theory of society linked on to a false ‘religion’”.
Luthuli wasn’t hostile to justice, equality or the common good – but he rejected blind dogma. Any system that overrides moral conscience in the name of purity belongs in the scrapyard, not on the highway to our future.
Even the mechanics are jumping out
The SACP’s engine isn’t just outdated – it’s losing its own mechanics.
Just this week, ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe was quietly removed from the SACP Central Committee for failing to attend meetings – no apology, no excuse. According to party leadership, Mantashe’s focus is elsewhere: governing in a fragile Government of National Unity and navigating a deeply fractured ANC.
But the deeper truth? The taxi’s core crew is bailing out – not because they don’t care, but because the route no longer makes sense.
Even Solly Mapaila, the SACP’s general secretary, recently admitted the party lacks funding to contest elections independently, yet insists on doing so – out of principle, not practicality.
The SACP has broken with the ANC, denounced the DA’s role in the GNU and staked its future on community campaigns – all while admitting it doesn’t have the wheels, fuel or GPS to get there.
It’s not just that the SACP is quoting Marx at the taxi rank. It’s that the taxi has no wheels – and no one left to steer it.
The ghost of Chris Hani still rides this taxi
Not as a ghost of ideology – but of integrity.
Chris Hani gave his life believing that the poor deserve dignity, not just slogans; representation, not red regalia. He was magnetic, fearless, sacrificial – committed to truth and people, not theoretical purity.
Today, the SACP he died for is quoting doctrine at every stop, even as it loses its passengers. If Hani was a revolutionary driver, today’s party is a distracted backseat navigator arguing over which way Marx would have turned in 1848.
You can still feel Hani’s presence – but no one in the front seat is listening.
Confessions from the taxi lane
“I swear all taxi drivers were born and raised by the same mother,” my Uncle Billy muttered as a rattling yellow Nissan E20 flew past us on a narrow gravel road in Maphumulo, KwaZulu-Natal.
Seconds later, the taxi swerved to dodge a sugarcane truck and then slammed on its brakes just metres in front of us. My brother Bongumusa had to veer into oncoming traffic to avoid a collision. We survived – barely.
That moment stuck. And years later, it feels like a metaphor for our economy.
Taxis are chaotic. They ignore signs. They overload. They break rules. But despite it all – they move. They serve. They adapt. Like millions of South Africans who live without policy protection, without formal jobs, without pensions – but keep going.
Public vs private vs taxi
Nelson Mandela once said “we don’t care whether the cat is black or white, as long as it can catch mice”.
But in today’s economy, the mice of poverty, crime and inequality are outrunning all the cats – red, blue or neoliberal beige.
Communism is like public transport – centrally planned, theoretically fair, but in South Africa, often broken, looted or mismanaged by people who never ride it.
Capitalism is like private transport – sleek, aspirational, but only for those who can afford petrol, tyres and insurance.
And then there’s the taxi – our hybrid economic engine. Loud. Informal. Hustling. Often unregulated. But real. Moving. Not perfect – but local and alive.
The taxi economy: Built for this road
As a chartered accountant, I’ve seen both sides: boardrooms obsessed with business models, and taxi drivers who make a plan without one. I’ve worked in spaces where economic theory matters – and lived in ones where it doesn’t.
That’s why I believe South Africa needs what I call the “Taxi Economy” – an economic model built for local realities.
A Taxi Economy is:
- Blended – combining formal policy with informal ingenuity, from backyard daycares to township mechanics;
- Flexible – like a taxi driver rerouting to avoid potholes, it adapts to shocks, not rigid five-year plans;
- Community-centred – recognising that gogos running feeding schemes and single mothers selling vetkoek keep more people alive than any government grant;
- Moral, not ideological – guided by ubuntu, not dogma. It shares because it knows hunger, not because a party platform demands it; and
- Redistributive, but not centralised – it sees economic dignity as a shared task, not a state monopoly.
And this is no fringe idea. South Africa’s informal economy contributes more than 6% of GDP and supports roughly one in six workers, according to Stats SA. Estimates based on Codera Analytics (drawing on Stats SA data) suggest there are about three million non-agricultural informal sector workers. This is not a sideshow – it’s how millions survive. It is the taxi economy – dented, dusty but indispensable.
Don’t tell me about China – show me Africa
Before someone shouts “But China!”, let’s be honest. China is not communist in practice. It is state-driven capitalism with red branding.
Billionaires? Check.
Stock markets? Check.
Tech monopolies and entrepreneurs? Definitely.
What it lacks is ideological consistency or democratic voice. To call China a “proof of communism” is like calling a taxi safe and reliable just because it has a number plate and a sticker that says “God Is in Control”.
Instead, look at Africa. Rwanda’s state-guided capitalism and Kenya’s mobile money revolution (like M-Pesa, now used by more than 50 million people across east Africa) are reshaping their economies without pretending Marx knew about SIM cards. They design for context – and win by doing so.
It’s not the taxi – it’s the driver
The SACP blames capitalism for greed. But Cain didn’t kill Abel for profit. Judas didn’t betray Jesus for market share.
Greed is not a system problem – it’s a soul problem.
Communism doesn’t eliminate greed – it just centralises it. Capitalism doesn’t cause greed – it reveals it.
That’s why no ideology alone will save us. We need a moral compass. One rooted in ubuntu, in memory, in humility, in the knowledge that our ancestors shared what they had, not because it was efficient – but because it was right.
Conclusion: Time to hand over the keys
The SACP isn’t dying because people don’t care about justice. It’s dying because people no longer believe the SACP understands how to get us there.
South Africans want movement, not manifestos. We want dignity, not dogma. We want a taxi that runs – not a bus that breaks down in theory.
Marx warned us about capital. Our ancestors taught us to share it.
Mandela reminded us that it’s not the colour of the taxi, but whether it moves.
Luthuli warned us not to hand over the keys to ideology.
And Chris Hani gave his life for a future that serves people – not theories.
The economy is not a bus to nationalise – or a limo to privatise.
It’s a taxi – dented, defiant and driven by necessity.
It must move.
It must serve.
It must adapt.
The question is: who will drive it – and will we all fit inside?
Let’s get in. DM