Self-Organisation in the Struggle for Economic Democracy in Colonial and Post-Colonial Lesotho, 1870s–2010s

Abstract

This article explores a history of self-organisation among the Basotho traders in Lesotho’s colonial and post-colonial commerce from the 1870s to the 2010s. Using historical sources, the article argues that Basotho’s forms of self-organisation – voluntary business associations and co-operatives – are indispensable in their persistent struggle for economic democracy. Under colonial (1870s–1966) and post-colonial (1966–2010s) conditions of poverty, exclusion and authoritarianism, their forms of self-organisation, outside state intervention, blends their economic and political aspirations to have a meaningful say and participation in the economic affairs of their country. Their associational life illuminates particularised normative forms of humanism embedded in the historic and social fabric of their society.