To whom Is Botswana’s capital beholden?
Lewanika Timothy | Thursday August 14, 2025 10:30
In a world where capital is either the servant of the wealthy or the master of the poor, who really benefits from Botswana’s capital? TIMOTHY LEWANIKA writes
Capital is a highly contested ideology, dating back to the conflicting theorems posited by Karl Marx and Adam Smith. The two sides of the capital ideology coin have shaped how countries forge developmental paths. For one side of the aisle, the means of production should be controlled by the State for equal distribution while the antagonists believe private capital should control the means of production and profit should be a reward to labour and effort.
The 6th president of Botswana, Duma Boko, seems to be fond of the idea that Botswana’s capital should be controlled by the State for the benefit of the masses. But in a country where state enterprises have been a dark hole for the swindling and abuse of cash by the political elite, how practical are his views?
Positing his theorem, the first citizen said that finance was a taxing master that did not have the ability to self-regulate or self-correct as the famous neoliberal theorem suggest. Speaking to heads of parastatals recently, Boko said that there was a need to micro-manage finance or the means of capital. “Finance is a terrible master, left to its own devices. Finance, for its own sake, can actually be very destructive, very exploitative, very predatory”. “And so we need to deal with finance understanding that finance must be mobilised in the service of flesh and blood individuals and people, institutions, countries, to facilitate development. Not just for its own sake. So these are some of the issues with which we must sometimes honestly deal,” he said.
This is antagonistic to neoliberal economics theory which favours private enterprise and seeks to transfer the control of economic factors from the government to the private sector.
For context, Botswana’s capital outline is shaped by a bloated government that has a chain of monopolies in water, electricity and major infrastructure sectors such as rail transport. Government also muscles out the private sector through offering subsidised services that make it difficult for the private sector to compete.
All of this for what? Have the creatures of flesh and blood gotten better off from sectors heavily controlled from government? Is rail experience better for the mere man? Has water access in the deepest parts of Botswana become available with the same quality.
International institutions like the IMF and World Bank have long raised this red flag against government’s heavy involvement in capital. These bodies, guided by principles rooted in the so-called Washington Consensus, have consistently recommended downsizing government, liberalising state-owned sectors, and enhancing private-sector participation.
Boko, however, rejects these recommendations as misguided and even dangerous. He dismisses neoliberal economics and its faith in deregulation and minimal state intervention as “ideological nonsense”.
“So all the conventional theories you have read from books of neoliberal economics; forget that nonsense, it doesn’t work,” he declared before the accounting officers. “The Washington Consensus is absolute nonsense. It doesn’t work. It has never worked. I don’t care what economic school of thought you learnt from.”
Neoliberalism, with its emphasis on free trade, privatisation, and limited government, stands in stark contrast to Boko’s political philosophy. As leader of the Botswana National Front (BNF), a party rooted in socialist ideals, Boko favours a model where the State plays an active role in redistributing wealth and mitigating the inequalities spawned by capitalism. His proposals, such as increased support for pensioners, tertiary students, and a broader array of welfare programmes, align with social democratic traditions seen in parts of Europe.
But while social democracy has worked in high-income countries with large tax bases, Botswana may lack the fiscal capacity to sustain such an approach. Unlike the Nordic countries, which can afford generous social spending through high levels of taxation and productivity, Botswana’s welfare policies often amount to spending without the necessary income generation to match.
Welfare in Botswana has increasingly become a bottomless pit, with little to no strategy on how the government will replenish what it spends. And as the fiscal strain deepens, social policies risk becoming politically convenient band-aids rather than economically sound investments.
Here lies the paradox. On one hand, reducing government’s size and scaling back welfare spending may curb the budget deficit but could also trigger social unrest and increase inequality.
Botswana’s capital yields zero return for both sides of the aisle, prompting deeper questions on the ideological way forward.