8/12/2019 539-489-1-PB

1/4

8/12/2019 539-489-1-PB

2/4

TRANSFORMATION FREUNDunmitigated disaster.'2)The rural development industry places a very one-sided emphasis onexpanding cash crop production for the market even in as unlikely a settingfor a Green Revolution as overpopulated, arid, windswept highlandLesotho.3)It is crucial in the development business to describe every so-called LD C(less developed country) in terms that are interchangeable with any other -Nepal, Paraguay or Trinidad and Tobago - as the case may be. Fergusonshows convincingly that virtually all aid assessments in L esotho a re ba sedon sociological and historical analyses that would sound ridiculous to anyundergraduate familiar with standard work of any ideo logy on the subject.Such assessments assume Lesotho to be a country of peasan ts with lim itedknowledge of the market, in need of roads and the like to bring civilisationcloser to them. If only agriculture defined as being in 'cri sis 'could be m ad emore attractive, migrant labour and 'dependence' would fade away. TherealLesotho is a country long in intensive contact w ith the market, in w hichable-bodied men virtually all migrate across the border to m ake a living andagricultural activity is rather marginal, producing roughly 6 of GN P.There is no prospect whatsoever that the Basotho will all turn back topeasant life as it was in fact lived at the turn of this century or that it couldprovide them with a comfortable standard of living.4)Rather like a dispirited football team , it is often assumed by developmentexperts that the Basotho only need a peppier attitude to succeed as m od em -izers. It is clearly true that Sotho values need to be explored in order toexplain Sotho social and economic structures but that is because we ne edto uncover their deeply-felt econom ic logic.5)Finally, the assumption invariably made is that development potentially'benefits' a country/people called, for instance, 'Les otho' rather than look -ing critically from the start at social forces, such a s the small greedy cliq uesthat may control the state, which are actually most relevant. It is thereforean ideology ofdelibevalcdepoliticisation. From this follows the dang erouscorollary that states are invariably effective and developm ent occurs large lyor entirely in response to governm ent plann ing. The fallacies in thes eassumptions are self-evident once pointed out by Ferguson.Ferguson looks in detail at the Thaba-Tseka Project which origina ted in 1975

as a livestock and 'range management' scheme. In its heyday around 1980, itbecame a very expensive and complex 'integrated rural development' projectaimed at services, infrastructure, agriculture and rural government as well. T iedto the project was the creation of a new tenth administrative district by theLesotho governm ent. It is very difficult to discover any mitigating c ircumstan-

105

8/12/2019 539-489-1-PB

3/4

FREUND TRANSFORMATION

ces that would allow any positive assessment of the project by the tim e i t wou nddown in the early 1980s. The grander schemes had alre ad y been liquid ate d tobe replaced by a conventional stress on agriculture, an abandonment of thepleasant discourse of popular partic ipa tion that had becom e fash ionable fo r afew years and a retreat from an earlier focus on adm inis tra tive decentra lisationthat had potentially threatened the wr it o f cen tral gove rnm en t.Ferguson brings to bear al l the fallacies that he has exposed w it h such w i t inearly chapters in explaining the characteristic fai lu re o f Thaba-Tseka, one o f thebigger amongst more than2 such development projects so far in Lesotho.The arrival of better roads in this area served to b ring consum er goods in to thedistrict more cheaply ralher than to encourage exports . Th is new pro speritydepended entirely on contemporary increases in South A fr ic a n m ine w ages. Th ewhole logic of the project was to encourage the commercialisation of cattletransactions. Ferguson argues that although m ale Basotho sel l cat tle , they do soout of despair in conditions of poverty. In general, they con tinu e t o resist usin gcattle as means of cash accumulation. The ownersh ip o f ca ttle has a d iffe rent ,non-capitalist economic logic invo lved w ith com m un ity security and prestige,often much resented by the own ers wive s w h o see the retention o f to o m an ybeasts, especially those in poor conditions, as a source of misery for their

families. Non-commercial attitudes towards stock-keep ing and an anti-m arke tethic where livestock are concerned are importan t parts of the local econo micsystem, rooted in the network of local power relations generated in a labourreserve economy (p 179). The lure of the market changed this ve ry l it tl e inThaba-Tseka.Economic innovation associated w ith the integrated phase o f the proje ct wasno more acceptable. Attempts to improve horse stocks, gra zin g la nd o r g ro wtrees for firewood met with disaster when they alienated som e peop le s access

to land. The Lesotho state was really interested in Thaba-Tseka as pa rt o f a neffort to extend its net more wid ely into the coun tryside. Th e last th ing it w o u ldwant would be successful capitalist rural development that w o u ld create mo de rnstructures in the countryside, destabilise die popula tion an d d rive the mass o frural dwellers to unemployment, despair and anti-social o r rad ical ac tiv ity intown.Indeed, identification of the project w ith Maseru po litic ian s was itself thecause of successful resistance to development activities on the part of thesupposed beneficiaries.In one sense, wh ich Ferguson considers to be the un inten ded and un w ritte n

real effect of development, the scheme did w ork . Develo pm ent, the an ti-p ol itic smachine which defines itself in such a way as to mask the p o lit ic a l, ac tua llycontained a deeply political end, the only end w hic h was in fac t achieved, thedeeper intrusion of the state into the countryside. Ferguson is impressed b y the

1 6

8/12/2019 539-489-1-PB

4/4

TRANSFORMATION FREUNDargument of Bob Shenton and Piotr Dutkiewicz that development is bestunderstood as a facet of this process which they call 'etatization '. Th is is theunspoken and real interest of the authorities in such projec ts. One thing that th egovernment w as able to d o was to scotch the decentralisation aspect of T haba-Tseka and use the project input to establish the new district administration m or efirmly.Th e 'etatization ' hypo thesis is fertile but remains somew hat unproven. Per-haps the least successful part of this book is an epilog ue in which Ferguson trie sto consider what those engaged in the problematic of development should bedoing. He suggests engagement (support for the NUM . support for sanc tionsagainst South Africa to force political change there) with what he ca lls coun ter-hegem onic forces but it seems to me that this is not en tirely clear or satisfying.How do you evaluate what is counter-hegemonic and what is useful? W h yshould a government such as that in Lesotho permit activity it sees as subversivein any way? Ferguson is strongest in illustrating how good research that ac tua llyexplores people's motives in depth and comes to grips with the real powerrelationships behind social structures at least illuminates the dilemma in whichso many Africans find themselves. With economy and clarity, he sums uppowerfully the most basic things we need to know abou t this exploited so ciety.

107