Reflecting Basuto cultural values, socialism occurs voluntarily in the economic system of Lesotho. Unlike in the many states where socialism was imposed by external forces and eventually collapsed, the socialist concepts in this mountain kingdom of southern Africa originate from within the culture, and have survived in strength today, enforced only by cultural custom and not by political or military intervention. This has contributed to a unique small business sector, as the culture encourages entrepreneurship in as much as it values the accumulation of wealth; however, the same culture hinders some aspects of entrepreneurial activity through its perceptions of property.

Reflecting Basuto cultural values, socialism occurs voluntarily in the economic system of Lesotho. A distinction is made between assets for personal use (which are transferable), and property with social value which, although maintained privately, cannot be freely sold. Unlike in the many states where socialism was imposed by external forces and eventually collapsed, the socialist concepts in this mountain kingdom of southern Africa originate from within the culture, and have survived in strength today, enforced only by cultural custom and not by political or military intervention. This has contributed to a unique small business sector, as the culture encourages entrepreneurship in as much as it values the accumulation of wealth; however, the same culture hinders some aspects of entrepreneurial activity through its perceptions of property.

Methodology

This essay is the result of ethnography conducted by the author in Lesotho. Field research included interviews with a wide range of persons, including government representatives, local entrepreneurs, foreign investors, and international observers. The author travelled across the nation by motor vehicle where possible and on horseback in areas where there were no roads.

Background

Lesotho is the land of Sotho peoples. During the tribal wars of the nineteenth century, the strategy of one village chief was to grant land and cattle to refugees from neighboring villages in exchange for protecting his domain. During this period, the Sotho people, numbering 40,000 in 1840, grew to over 150,000 by 1870. This village chief became known as King Moshoeshoe the Great; his people, the Basuto nation; and his land, Basutoland.

In response to increasing conflicts with the expanding Boers, King Moshoeshoe called on the British in 1868 for assistance. Sixteen years later, the British took direct control of the Basutoland protectorate and soon began taxing its people. Martin gives an account:

The revenue is comfortable and is chiefly derived from the hut tax. This is a tax levied on each wife in reality, though it is nominally on the hut. It used to be 10 shillings for each hut, but has now been raised to 1 each. A man having two wives pays 22, though he may have three or more huts, and so on (1903, p. 68).1

The first democratic elections in Basutoland took place in 1960, and the victorious Basutoland Congress Party demanded full independence from Britain. On October 4,1966, the Kingdom of Lesotho became independent. Chief Leabua Jonathan served as prime minister while King Moshoeshoe II (great-greatgrandson of Moshoeshoe the Great) replaced Queen Elizabeth II as sovereign. A mere four years later, however, the prime minister suspended the democratic constitution.

In 1986, Major-General Justin Lekhanya deposed Prime Minister Jonathan and imposed military rule. In October 1990, the king refused to be reduced to a constitutional monarch; the military council responded hy terminating his power. Regent-Queen Mamahato served as caretaker monarch, while her husband was exiled to London. In November 1990, their 27-year-old son was coronated King Letsie III.

During much of the 20th century, Lesotho's chief source of income was the remittances of Basuto migrant laborers who worked in the gold mines of the Republic of South Africa (R.S.A.). Lesotho benefited from sanctions against apartheid, as its manufacturers had preferred access to markets from which the R.S.A. was banned. However, in 1994 the white government of South Africa relinquished to black rule, and sanctions were removed. This presented strong competition for Lesotho. Furthermore, the African National Congress had promised jobs for its own people and had no obligations to continue the employment of Lesotho citizens. By 1996, there was great concern about the economic situation in Lesotho.

Current Circumstances

With a surface area of only 30,355 square km., or 11,721 square miles, the Kingdom of Lesotho is one of the world's smallest countries. Its population of almost two million people has been growing at an annual rate of 2.6 percent. As recently as 1965, only 6 percent of the population was living in urban areas. Most of the 100,000 people living in Maseru (the capital city) arrived during the 1970s. Unpublished government sources suggest that today at least twothirds of Lesotho's population is economically active in agriculture, a sector which contributes 23 percent of the G.D.P. Wool comprises more than 50 percent of the nation's exports. Major trading partners include Germany, Israel, and the Republic of South Africa.

Cultural Regulation of Property

In every society there exists some restriction on economic exchange. As discussed by Kopytoff ( 1986), Western democracies have imposed a cultural ban blocking the commoditization of people. Western laws typically prohibit slavery. prostitution, baby-selling, and the trade of fetal tissue or human organs.

During the early twentieth century, Dutton observed that in Basutoland, "slowly the old ways and old customs are passing" (1923, p. 15). Interestingly, cultural regulation of property exchange in Lesotho society has not changed. According to Basuto cultural values, not all commodities can be bought or sold for cash. This is because that which is considered to be a commodity in Western society is not necessarily so in Lesotho. For this reason, it is essential to differentiate between types of property in Lesotho, specifically property for personal consumption and property with social value.

This distinction is necessary because, according to the Basuto culture, there is a lack of convertibility between these categories of property. According to custom, assets for personal consumption (including chickens and pigs) are commodities which may be exchanged for property with social value (for instance, a cow); yet, cultural values have created a oneway barrier inhibiting a Basuto from giving up property with social value in return for cash or for personal consumption property. Something with social value, however, can be traded for other property in the same category. Thus, cattle may be and often are exchanged for a bride.

Most current assets fall under the category of property for personal consumption. Grains, milk, cheese, chicken, and pigs belong to this category. The owner of a chicken, for instance, may consume it or sell it at market value. Such assets are therefore transferable, and as such one's wealth in personal property may be converted into cash or used to acquire other goods.

In contrast, grazing animals in Lesotho are considered to be property with social value, and as such may not be disposed of freely. This type of property is not to be sold for cash, nor traded for personal goods or services. Furthermore, culture in Lesotho dictates that property with social value should not be consumed because such assets have longer-term uses and confer prestige. Grazing animals are an example because:

Such animals provide transport. Vehicles are few and roads are poor, making these animals ideal for otherwise very limited transportation. They are used to plow fields. This is important as the people try to become self-sufficient in food production. Mechanized farm machinery is scarce, as is the fuel to operate it. Dung is a valuable resource. Due to the shortage of trees, there is a shortage of wood. Therefore, animal manure is an essential fuel for cooking and heating, especially during the subfreezing winters.

Cattle are the primary means by which a groom makes bride payments. A wife has a very high social value because of the children she will yield. The more children a man has, the greater is his security.

Cattle serve as key symbols of cultural identity and prestige among Basutos. They are associated with important tribal ceremonies, especially among the Vundle, an ethnic minority native to the Mjanyano Valley, in the south of the country.

Every owner of cattle is expected to lend his herd to other members of the community in order to help plough their fields. By doing so, the proprietor is praised and receives much prestige for his selfless contribution to the village. Conversely, if an individual were to sell an ox for personal gain, members of the society would interpret this action as a hostility against them. Similarly, Basuto culture considers real estate to have social value. Lesotho being an agricultural country, land is a means of production. Land, like grazing animals, is useful and confers prestige.

This view of social goods has become part of the law in Lesotho. According to the law, title to all rural land is vested in the Sovereign on behalf of the people. Therefore, fields cannot be bought or sold, and the same is true of homes built on Crown soil. While the pastoral land is communal, rights to fields are acquired through allocation, inheritance, or bribery, as are rights to homes.

It is possible for a wageworker (usually a migrant worker in South African mines) to build a fancy home on land to which he has rights. If he loses his job, however, he may become poor in terms of property for consumption. He might not have money for food. Yet culture prevents him from selling his house, which falls under the category of property with social value.

Thus, due to the lack of convertibility between types of property, it is possible to be wealthy in one type of property while poor in the other. Many families with considerable wealth in numbers of grazing animals are in fact very poor in terms of living standards even to the point of starving. Thus in Lesotho, in contrast to Western societies, it is important to distinguish between types of property, because it is possible to be very poor and wealthy simultaneously.

Small Business as a Means to Voluntary Socialism

In the valleys between the Maluti Mountains of Lesotho, entrepreneurial spirit is exemplified by Basuto herders, each generation serving as mentors to the next. In a region where one's typical address is "over the river," industrialization and/or mechanization are hardly considerations. Instead, men are more concerned with making the bride-payments involved in purchasing a wife. The obvious means to success in life is livestock herding. An abundance in livestock allows an individual to be a prominent participant in the voluntary socialist public realm, which translates into social prestige and provides the means to upgrade One's status through the ability to purchase a wife fil a prominent family.

Entrepreneurs from the Basuto people have been raising cows, goats, and sheep in these alpine valleys since the 1800s. A herd may sometimes consist of several hundred animals, and it is common for an owner to hire employees to perform such tasks as counting the animals every morning, looking for those missing, watching the herd grazing all day: and milking the sheep and cows. This creates jobs for the workforce, which often includes children, who perceive youth of Lesotho, school is viewed as possibly leading to some unknown reward in the working for a herder provides on-the-job training for a meaningful and lucrative career in the present. Such work has a culturally designed bonus system, whereby salary is usually paid in sheep. A young lad earns six sheep per year, whereas an older employee receives twelve sheep annually. This is extremely rewarding, as it allows the employee to own his own factors of production and thus the ability to becomes an emtrepreneur within a rel! atively short time frame.

A shepherd may be alone with a herd for up to a month at a time. Aspirations for such workers are usually to become the proprietor of a couple of hundred animals, and thus be able to afford not only a wife, but to be able to eventually hire one or more employees who in turn will assume the care of the livestock, shelter the sheep, and prepare the mohair and wool for export. Much social value is given to such an operation.

Herders are not involoved in direct exporting, Mohair and wool are sold via a state body which advanees a first payment to the entrepreneur and forwards the balance when the produce is actually sold to a third party. Until 1990, prices were satisfactory and supply met demand. The Gulf War disrupted ship ping that year, and China, which had previously been an important buyer, pulled out of the market. This resulted in market instability and un ertaintv for the Basuto. Nevertheless, prices picked up in subsequent years, and confidence was restored.

Expenses of a lito family tend to he low. Diet consists primarily of a porridge made from maize, milk, and on occasion eland meat. In other societies, sheep provide bothe wool and meat, but in Lesotho utilizing such animals to satisfy personal needs is considered immoral. Hence, the offspring of a herd are not be sold for subsistence, and herds grow continuously. Except for wool and milk, the purpose of the herd in Lesotho is not economic as it has no monetary value: it simply enables its owner to participate more visibly in voluntary socialism. Such involvement is considerably different from that found elsewhere in Africa, where socialism is generally imposed by the government.

Agriculture as a Social Activity

At the time when Martin remarked that Basutoland soil was "so rich ... that the grain sown came up splendidly, and... heavy crops were yielded" (1903, p. 32), the population was sparse and harvests were plentiful: yet there were already more cows than men. Today, the land no longer provides enough for the expanding population of both man and beast. The continuous degradation of Lesotho's grasslands has become a major problem resulting from the cultural value system. The rise in numbers of people and animals has put much pressure on the land, thereby reducing the terrain suitable for grazing and food production. Overgrazing is on the rise as more cattle are born and are not being sold or slaughtered for personal consumption. Contributing also to the land deterioration is the use of dung for fuel rather than returning it to the increasingly depleted soil, causing soil infertility in much of the land base. As a resuly, agricultural production has not been raised above subsiste! nce levels. The situation is worsening as such values are reinforced. Although the nation exported grain during the 19th century, Lesotho now imports much of its food, particularly from the Republic of South Africa. Only in the production of beer is Lesotho self-sufficient. Given the limited capacity of the agricultural sector to absorb the growing population, the official policy of the Lesotho government has been to move away from an agricultural hase and to pursue aggressive industrial progress through private enterprise, most of which has been financed via foreign direct investment.

Voluntarily Socialist Culture in the Future

Cultural values among the Basuto are allowing traditional socialist concepts to survive into the twenty-first century, without political or military intenention. Triclition dictates that during the winter a shepherd may graze his herd in communal pastures near his village. As soon as the snow melts, in August or September, it is expected that animals be escorted to communal pastures in the mountains. The rationale is that pastures are too valuable to be treated as personal propeity, and therefore are commonly-held. In order for pastures near villages to be in a good state during harsh winters, these are off-limits during summer months; when snow makes the mountains inaccessible then all the herds graze in the communal land near the villages.

Although fields are not technically communal, but allocated, they are also considered too valuable to be treated as private property. According to cultural regulation, such property may not be traded at will. Yet other means of production, such as factories, machinery, tractors and trucks, are not held in common, because these have not traditionally been perceived by the community as social goods. While traditional socialist practices (such as sharing cattle or horses) are surviving, new factors of production are not being added to the list. Might this be the beginning of the end of culturallyinduced socialistic practices in Lesotho, or does this mean that a more capitalist form of entreprenurship is on its way? Probably not, because of the fact that Basutos tend to refrain from formal entrepreneurship such as manufacturing. Generally, industry in Lesotho has been very dependent on foreigners, not only for capital and management skills, but also for markets and even inputs.! Garment production, for instance, depends on imported fabrics. Perhaps the time has arrived for vertical integration, so that spinning, weaving, and dying processes could also be done in Lesotho. However, Lesotho has neglected to develop indigenous entrepreneurship, and the termination of apartheid has made the new Republic of South Africa more attractive to foreign entrepreneurs than is Lesotho, Western investors are not longer rushing into Lesotho, and Basuto workers have been less welcome in the republic. With the exception of shepherds in the highlands, local entrepreneurs in Lesotho are few. Authorities are concerned. Landlocked by the Republic of South Africa, some leaders are wondering whether the kingdom would be better off to become politically as well as econmically integrated with the republic.