"The way things are, we do not look for a topic. The topic itself finds us" - Soviet poet Robert Rozhdestvensky

Many of our political analysts are correct, in a specific Marxist sense, to characterise the ANC Youth League (ANCYL)'s call for nationalisation of mines and expropriation of land without compensation as "demagoguery", or "infantile disorder", or "political opportunism".

This is because Karl Marx did not envisage social revolutions emanating from the youth. For him the driving force for social revolution lay somewhere else. The following is stated in the Preface to Karl Marx's 'A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy':

"At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society enter into contradiction with the existing relations of production, or - what is but a legal expression of the same thing - with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces, these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution".

It is no wonder that the call for nationalisation of key industries and expropriation of land in South Africa did not at first originate from within trade unions, or other formations of the working class, such as the SACP. The call is not a symptom, nor is it an expression of, an irresoluble contradiction between production relations and means of production, as these currently exist in SA.

But what many seem not to adequately appreciate, if not to sufficiently credit, is that the ANCYL's nationalisation call represents what others may describe as society's 'advanced consciousness', which, occasionally in history, leaps ahead of developing and still maturing contradictions between the production relations and means of production, in a classical Marxist sense.

It is at this point that the ANCYL, in making this call, can itself in turn look towards Marxism for guidance. In his Preface to Karl Marx's classic, "Poverty of Philosopphy", Frederick Engels wrote the following:

"If mass moral consciousness declares an economic fact to be unjust, as it did at one time in the case of slavery and statute labour, that is proof that the fact itself has outlived its day, that other economic facts have made their appearance due to which the form has become unbearable and untenable. Therefore, a very true economic content may be concealed behind the formal economic incorrectness."

In our present-day SA economy, the "mass moral consciousness" being articulated and directed by the ANCYL on economic issues is reflective of a deep-going irresoluble contradiction of a special SA kind, which could mid-wife our next social explosion, or to use a more muted Marxist terminology, a "social revolution", if left unchecked and unattended by our collective national political and economic leadership.

This is really our constitutional democratic age's irresoluble contradiction:

The Kempton Park CODESA Talks gave all South Africans a democracy, including universal franchise; the post-1994 Constituent Assembly, ably led by ANC stalwart Cyril Ramaphosa, gifted South Africa with our advanced 1996 Constitution, including our Bill of Rights; and finally the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), very ably led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, dealt with very difficult issues to do with our national soul, and made us confront the horrible ghosts of our recent Apartheid past.

But there is one matter that still remains unaddressed to this day, i.e. an inclusive, equitable and sustainable economic framework for our new democratic country.

The result is that our post-1994 dispensation, what Archbishop Tutu describes as "our rainbow nation", is basically standing on the shaky economic relations inherited from Apartheid, having undergone only minor and half-hearted superficial tweaking and window-dressing in the last eighteen years. It is little wonder South Africa cannot get its economic house in order.

Our progressive democratic, constitutional and spiritual superstructure post-1994 is founded on an apartheid-era economic base, where, economically speaking, a white minority still dominates over a black majority. Or as former President Thabo Mbeki once put it, South Africa is made up of two nations - one white and predominately rich, and the other black and mainly poor. Or to again borrow the words of Frederick Engels: "We are merely saying that this economic fact is in contradiction to our sense of morality." (Ibid)

The ANCYL's call for nationalisation of mines and land expropriation without compensation reflects - at a much deeper and substantive economic level - neither 'demagoguery' nor for that matter 'infantile disorder'. If anything, the ANCYL's call points to the most enduring, and at the same time the most dangerous, fault line of post-apartheid South Africa, i.e. the absence of our shared, all-inclusive national economic vision and consensus for our common future.

By way of a metaphor, South Africa today is like a high-performing car driving not on four, but three advanced wheels - CODESA Settlement, 1996 Constitution, and the TRC Report. What is lacking is an advanced economic wheel to compliment the other three others. Because a car running on three advanced wheels, and propping itself up with an apartheid-era prosthetic and artificial fourth economic wheel, is bound to crash and tumble badly, gravely injuring or fatally wounding most, if not all, of its occupants.

To the ad hominem attacks that are daily directed at the ANCYL leaders, by way of discrediting their radical economic agenda, Frederick Engels would have had a ready answer: "A King usually looks quite different from the monarchy he represents" (Ibid). That has largely been so throughout history. However, my personal view is that there is simply no way the ANCYL will ever win the debate about nationalisation of mines and land expropriation without compensation, even in the event that it succeeds to get its nationalisation platform adopted by the 2012 Mangaung ANC elective conference.

This is because the ancient Greek philosopher Plato advised that the first precondition for triumph over a ruling class is to engender internal divisions within the ruling class. If big white capital is viewed by the ANCYL as the dominant and hegemonic economic class in SA it confronts and wants to do battle with it to attain nationalisation, then it has failed miserably to engender disunity and divisions within that economically dominant class. The opposite is true.

Secondly, the ANCYL has failed dismally to unite the broad church that is the ANC and Tripartite Alliance behind its radical economic agenda. If anything, its nationalisation call has sown deep divisions within our country's broad democratic church.

Thirdly, given that close to 50% of SA's economic activity is linked to our international trade links, and in light of the hostile international environment and opinion to what is generally considered an anachronistic concepts, implementation of the ANCYL radical economic agenda will lead to massive national economic dislocation that will be given rise to by our ensuing international economic isolation by the still economically powerful Western countries.

Such international isolation will almost immediately be coupled with and worsened by ensuing domestic instability and civil strife, as those from whom mines, farms and key industries will be taken will not respond with salted bread and flowers for the ANCYL Warriors of Economic Freedom in our Lifetime.

Yet the ANCYL's call for nationalisation and land grabs remains the most powerful political force of our national politics today, capable of reconfiguring beyond recognition our country's political landscape by the end of this year, and possibly subverting much of what currently passes for apartheid-era "economic incorrectness" in our country, i.e. our current inequitable economic status quo.

Nevertheless, the internal ANC and the broader national democratic movement's divisions around nationalisation and land expropriation, as well as the united front against the call for nationalisation presented by big white capital specifically, and the economically powerful and hegemonic white community in general, and the hostile international environment pitted against the ANCYL's signature radical economic agenda, are so reminiscent of similar dire and dangerous political environment that prevailed in Zaire, just before and after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, and the triumph of the Zaire Army's Mobuto Sese Seko's coup in the early 1960s.

In fact, it is a graver and more dangerous environment the ANCYL faces today. At least Patrice Lumumba could count on, and exploit, the Cold War-era divisions that existed then between two competing Superpowers, i.e. the USA and USSR. He could also count, and rely, on an independent-minded and pro-developing world United Nations (UN) Secretary General, the Swedish Dag Hammarskjold. And Lumumba had at least unanimous backing of his own Congolese political party.

Yet Patrice Lumumba's Revolution in the early 1960s was still drowned in blood and defeated by the forces of imperialism and their lackeys in Zaire. None of the advantages Lumumba enjoyed prevail today for the ANCYL. The contrary is true on all accounts.

In this sense, by continuing to push ahead with its radical economic agenda, without seeking to divide the economically dominant white monopoly capital, without seeking to build a united front for its platform within the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance, and without rallying international opinion behind its arguments for a radical economic agenda in South Africa, the ANCYL opens itself up to charges of "opportunism", "demagoguery", "left-wing infantile disorder", "delusional grand political pretensions".

And what maybe at stake for the opponents of the ANCYL is a desire to once and for all bury the ANCYL historical and well-deserved fearsome reputation as the ANC's King-maker.

Isaac Mpho Mogotsi is Executive Director of the Centre of Economic Diplomacy In Africa (CEDIA). He is also a businessman and a former diplomat. This is the first in a two part series of articles.

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter