Making a virtue out of a necessity: Promoting access to antiretroviral treatment by valorizing fair markets and consumer rights in post-apartheid South Africa
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2015
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Critical African Studies
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Taylor & Francis
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
This paper explores the limits of framing low-wage workers as the subjects of social rights claims. In the case I examine here, HIV/AIDS activists in South Africa successfully pressured Boehringer Ingelheim and GlaxoSmithKlein into lowering antiretroviral (ARV) prices. They did so by emphasizing the economic and political importance of ensuring low- wage workers’ access to ARVs. This significantly improved access to ARVs in the private sector, and eventually contributed to the establishment of a public sector treatment programme. However, framing workers at the centre of this rights claim, and emphasizing the importance of competitive markets and workers’ health for sustaining economic growth and reducing the social wage, risks reifying two deeply problematic notions (both of which are embraced by the post-apartheid state): firstly, that workers should take personal responsibility in ensuring their own welfare and that of their dependents; and secondly, that markets can be used to facilitate the fair distribution of essential goods and services. Both notions are deeply problematic in states where vast numbers of citizens are unlikely to ever find ‘decent’ wage-work. I argue that this case illustrates the difficulties of promoting the social dimension of citizenship by strategically embracing pro-market institutions, or by emphasizing the economic value of social rights claimants.
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Paremoer, L. (2015). Making a virtue out of a necessity: Promoting access to antiretroviral treatment by valorizing fair markets and consumer rights in post-apartheid South Africa. Critical African Studies, 7(1), 66-88.