Open minds and closed systems: Comments on the functions and future of the ‘urban’ ‘English‐speaking’ university in South Africa

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Abstract
The paper is in two parts. The first part is a specific critique of Orkin, Nicolaysen and Price''s paper entitled ‘The Future of the Urban University in South Africa’ (Social Dyna‐mics 5(1)). In particular, the critique draws attention to Orkin et aVs failure to understand (1) the complexity of the relationship between poverty, fertility and urbanization, (2) the relationship between economic growth and developmentjunderdevelopment, and (3) the nature of the capitalist mode of production, and, more specifically, how this mode of production has developed within the S. African social formation. The first part of the paper also presents evidence to show how the overall economic condition of the Black working class in South Africa, contrary to widely held beliefs, has deteriorated during the second half of the 1970s. Part 2 of the paper questions many of the ‘liberal’ assumptions about the role and functions of the ‘urban’ ‘English‐speaking’ universities in SA. In particular, it shows that the University's constituency may be defined not only in terms of’ Whites’, ‘Blacks’, ‘Asians’, ‘Coloureds’, ‘rural’, ‘urban’ and other such categories, but also in terms of the fundamental contradiction between capital and labour. It is shown that these universities, while hiding behind the myth of political neutrality and claiming to be concerned for the ‘total community’, have tended, and are continuing, to serve the interests of only one section of the ‘total community’ ‐ namely capital. From this ‘alternative’ view of the University's constituency, the paper discusses the role of the University in effecting certain aspects of developmentjunderdevelopment and social change, particularly with regard to the current ‘reforms’ and the creation of what is commonly referred to as a Black middle class, and the implications of these processes and/or changes.

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