The crises of multiculturalism: racism in a neoliberal age

The paper offers an interpretation of the African National Congress's conception of democracy. The interpretation is framed by three questions. Who are the people? How should the people govern? How should capital, capitalists and civil society be governed? Attention is given to the party's views on participatory democracy, its vanguardist claims and its views on aspects of state-capital and state-civil society relations. It is proposed that the party's tendency to discount diversity of interests, to persist with claims to superior understanding of complex issues and to preach hegemony as a virtue might signify government over the people rather than government by the people.