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Inside Collection (Course): Economic and Management Sciences Grade 7
1931
In 1931, twenty-one years after the founding, or the coming of age of the Union of South Africa in 1910, things looked rather gloomy.
On the economical front things were not going well:
Jan Smuts wrote:
“The country’s economy had never been put to a test of this nature.”
Three crises in particular were identified:
1. white Afrikaners and the English speaking community were not united; the gold-mines had a limited lifespan the manufacturing sector was struggling.
(Problems on the economical front)
2. Farmers were dealing with serious agricultural challenges. The country was caught in a race against time to produce enough food for a fast-growing population.
(Problems on the agricultural front)
3. The black population was growing rapidly. This gave rise to white fears that numbers would eventually play a decisive role. What if the blacks took revenge? Would the blacks not one day bring harm to the whites who subjected them to their power?
(Problems on the racial front)
2006
1. Today white unity is not the issue any more; it is national unity that counts. A recent opinion poll showed that a rift is developing between black and Indians on the one hand, and white and Coloured people on the other. The first group (60%) believe that relations between the two groups in question are improving, while the second group (40%) are disillusioned, especially as a result of:
2. Over the past seventy years the following happened on the economic front:
3. One fear has become a reality, namely that a fast-growing black population would eventually undermine white authority. This happened in the 1990s.
(This information comes from an article by Hermann Giliomee in Die Burger of 10 August 2006.)
Market-oriented Capitalism
An economic system where most of the assets (money and land) are in privately owned hands. In a communist country it would be owned by the state.
Chinese competitorship
Because China has such a large population, human labour is extremely cheap. Items such as clothing in particular, is manufactured at very low costs. These cheap articles are sold across the world at very low prices. Local manufacturers cannot compete with these prices – hence the loss of business and eventually they have to close down their factories. People lose their jobs and in the process unemployment figures soar.
Make a tick next to the correct meaning of the word Depression:
A tip
• When the value of money decreases, we speak of the depreciation of a money unit.
• When we say someone suffers from depression, it means that a person is constantly feeling miserable, or not in good spirits. The person’s mood is very low. In that case someone is said to suffer from depression.
Therefore we can say that the economy is “depressed” of “down” when there is a depression.
In some cases South Africa produces enough food, to the effect that the country can also export some of it.
Tick the foodstuffs that are being imported or exported:
| Product | Export | Import |
| Deciduous fruit | ||
| Grapes | ||
| Wine | ||
| Wheat | ||
| Mealies | ||
| Sugar | ||
| Meat | ||
| Dairy products | ||
| Learning Outcomes(LOs) |
| LO 2 |
| SUSTAINABLE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENTThe learner will be able to demonstrate an understanding of sustainable growth, reconstruction and development, and to reflect critically on related processes. |
| Assessment Standards(ASs) |
| We know this when the learner: |
| 2.1 collects information on the influence of apartheid economic policies on ownership, poverty, wealth and quality. |
| 2.2 identifies steps required to redress socio- economic imbalances and poverty. |
This learning unit offers guidelines to the learners which will enable them to attempt projects and tasks on some of the following:
Activity 1
The learners can do a group task on the Great Depression of 1929 and what the consequences were for the people of this country. Personal contributions of older members of the family would be invaluable.
Activity 2
The trade balance might also require imports or exports to or from certain countries. Sometimes products are imported at lower prices than what local farmers can produce. At the present moment dairy products are more expensive than the imported products.
Farmers who produce deciduous fruit, on the other hand, get higher prices for their products on the overseas market because of the favourable exchange rate at the present moment.
It can therefore be said that the products in the table are sometimes exported, and sometimes imported.
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Last edited by Siyavula Uploaders on May 7, 2009 10:56 am -0500.