Money, Violence and Power: Towards Understanding the South African Minibus Taxi Industry

The article seeks to add to the understanding of the South African minibus taxi industry, where violence plays a central role in enabling accumulation and regulating order. Qualitative interviews, reviews of documents and participant observations show how different parts of the minibus taxi industry benefit from, or are disadvantaged by, their respective positions within the industry and their relationship with the broader motor vehicle sector and state. It focuses on how little impact state policies and interventions have had over the forty years of the existence of the minibus taxi industry. Instead of becoming a blueprint for black middle-class formation, relatively few individuals – called taxi bosses – who resemble the mafia within the taxi industry and parts of the formal private sector and the state have benefited from the development of a particular set of extra-legal, social, economic and political relations. In contrast, the majority of taxi drivers and owners of taxi vehicles continue to be marginalised from achieving decent livelihoods and accumulating wealth, while commuters are not provided with safe and affordable public transport.