What if one of South Africa’s biggest economies has been sitting in plain sight, badly named and badly misunderstood?
In this episode of Both Sides, Randall Abrahams speaks to G.G. Alcock about the real scale of the kasi economy and why the phrase “informal economy” may be too weak, too lazy and too misleading for what is actually happening in townships and rural communities.
The conversation begins with Alcock’s unusual upbringing in a Zulu village and follows that thread into a bigger national question: what happens when formal South Africa keeps treating township enterprise as marginal, even while it stretches across almost every business sector?
Alcock argues that this is not a side hustle economy. It is an economy. He points to extraordinary figures, including a township fast-food sector worth around R90 billion a year, a spaza sector close to R200 billion, backroom rentals at roughly R30 billion, and a broader ecosystem he says may be worth around R1 trillion annually.
The episode also explores why these businesses survive and grow: they are rooted in community, responsive to local culture, and often more resilient than outsiders assume.
This is a conversation about money, yes, but also about history, misrecognition and the South African systems people built when the formal economy was never built for them.
