Rethabile Mathealira-Molapo
In Lesotho, we speak of poverty, unemployment, and “lack of opportunities” as if inequality were an unfortunate by-product of personal failure or simple hard luck, something to be mitigated through development programs or temporary relief, without views of sustainable systemic transformation. Because we do not ever say the word: Class.
What does class mean in a country with harrowing poverty rates?
Formally, by Marxist standards, class is defined by the relationship to the means of production – that is, by who owns income-generating assets (that multiply profits exponentially) and who must sell their labour to earn a living.
For our purposes, we require a slight redefinition of class to fit in line with our unique circumstances and practical experiences and the manner in which it plays itself out in our particular context.
Class is not determined by ownership of the means of production per se. Rather, it is a relational concept that combines control, income, and structural power to shape social advantage. While ownership of productive assets can confer relative economic freedom, the scale and capacity of that ownership determine the degree of structural advantage. Similarly, access to stable income, institutional positions, or networks can create immense privilege even in the absence of ownership.
Class favours both those who have acquired their status through merit, within the logic of a country’s given political-economic system and those who acquire it through illegitimate means. The latter, leading to predictable levels of unpredictability, which can cause despair and helplessness among those who believe in seeking opportunities through fair means, as they come to learn that “hard work” does not necessarily or always pay as they were raised to believe.
Class, therefore, exists in the relationship between those who hold these advantages and those who do not, shaping life chances, influence, and the ability to participate fully in social, economic, and political life.
Class is not about lifestyle, aspiration, or taste; it is about predictable advantages and disadvantages built into society. It shapes who survives, who thrives, whose voice is heard, and whose suffering is ignored.
This article seeks to examine class through the lens of unfair advantages created by how opportunities are accessed in Lesotho.
To name class as injustice is to confront a truth that most of us prefer to evade. It is uncomfortable because those of us in positions to speak, professionals, academics, policymakers, civil servants, and development workers, are often beneficiaries of the very system this article calls us to critique.
But it is also the case that even among professionals, civil servants, and other seemingly privileged groups, class exerts power: some enjoy advantages, while others occupy positions on the disadvantaged side, constrained in what they can say, do, or demand. Class controls not only material resources but also social authority and influence; it is also power over voice and action; it dictates who can speak, whose grievances will be acknowledged, and whose will be silenced. In this sense, class is both a structure of opportunity and a mechanism of censorship and oppression, shaping lives across the full spectrum of society.
Colonial Roots of Structured Inequality
The origins of class injustice in Lesotho are neither accidental nor natural. They lie in the deliberate social engineering of British colonial administration. The colonial state did not rule merely through coercion; it relied on differentiation. A small Basotho elite; teachers, clerks, interpreters, and local officials, was trained and granted access to education, wages, authority, and institutional legitimacy that the majority population was denied.
These advantages were neither incidental nor earned purely through merit. They were strategically conferred to facilitate governance and control. Over time, the advantages granted to this group solidified into durable class positions. Descendants inherited not just material wealth, but social networks, cultural fluency, and these advantages paved their way to emigrate to greener pastures elsewhere on the continent and abroad, as well as to ascend to positions of leadership and influence.
Class as structured inequality in this case is predetermined, patterned, and reinforced across generations.
Post-Independence Reproduction of Class
Independence did not dismantle colonial hierarchies; it repurposed them. Political affiliation became the new gatekeepers of opportunity. Scholarships, employment, public contracts, and social protection were increasingly distributed through political loyalty, party affiliation, and proximity to those in power.
Today, this continues through the expanded pathways of networks, connections, and the individualised “luck” of knowing the right people in any sector, including private and development.
In such a system, access to opportunity is never neutral. Advantage predictably accrues to those already near power, reproducing class hierarchies in ways that are deeply unjust. Merit and effort are no longer the primary determinants of mobility. Opportunity is a privilege for some and is shut off to others.
Life Chances as Moral Evidence
Class injustice is not theoretical. It is most visible in its effects on life chances. Access to healthcare, quality education, secure homes, nutrition, and social protection is structured by class. These are not markers of comfort; they are conditions for survival and dignity.
When a child’s life expectancy, vulnerability to illness, and access to education are dictated by class rather than collective societal obligation, inequality becomes moral and political injustice. Avoidable suffering, preventable disadvantage, and blocked opportunity are structured outcomes, not misfortune. Class as injustice is evident not only in material deprivation but in the predictable patterns of exclusion. Those outside networks of privilege face barriers at every turn, while those within networks inherit advantage almost by default. This is not about lifestyle choices; it is about life chances.
Cultural and Ideological Concealment
Class persists partly because it is concealed. Lesotho’s narrative of homogeneity; shared language, shared history, “collective struggles” obscures hierarchy. We speak of poverty, unemployment, and “lack of opportunity” as technical problems, depoliticised and neutral, rather than as products of structural design.
Culture and aspiration also obscure reality. Privilege is widely desired; elite lifestyles, Westernised norms of civility, education, and consumption are admired. These markers signal class, but they do not create it. Privilege in this case is moralised as merit, while exclusion is reframed as personal failure. Structural inequality becomes disguised as individual choice.
Individualisation and the Illusion of Mobility
Despite the acknowledgement of unprecedented unemployment rates, political party patronage, connections to access jobs, looting of public funds and a myriad other reasons, we sometimes point to individual upward mobility as proof of fairness. Exceptional cases of success are celebrated, but they obscure the structural reality. Individual achievements do not dismantle systemic exclusion, they often depend on existing class advantage, either from having personal resources to pursue said opportunities through legitimate channels or processes, extraordinary access to networks or political proximity.
Class is systemic, patterned, and reproduced. One person’s mobility is not evidence of justice; it is an exception within an unjust system. Structural inequality persists because society rewards those who maintain its invisibility.
Complicity of the Privileged and the Limits of Equality Discourse
Those most able to articulate class critique often benefit from the system. Interventions frequently focus on mitigation rather than transformation, aiming to integrate a few into existing structures rather than dismantle the hierarchies themselves. True transformation demands courage about the need for structural change: redistribution of power and resources, institutional transparency, and mechanisms that challenge advantage rather than merely reward compliance.
Equality discourse that ignores structural privilege risks reproducing injustice. Inclusion without transformation is not justice; it is the preservation of hierarchy under the guise of progressive development.
Naming Class as the First Step to Justice
Naming class as injustice is a call to action. It asks that we, as a society, recognise who benefits and who is burdened, interrogate the networks that perpetuate inequality, and redistribute access, opportunity, and resources to ensure life chances are not predetermined by birth or connections.
Accountability is not abstract, it is collective, material, and actionable. Until we name class, confront the privileges that sustain it, and act to dismantle it, inequality will remain misrepresented as misfortune, moralised as failure, and protected by those who have the most to lose from truth.
To speak honestly requires a willingness to risk privilege, comfort, and the social and material advantages that silence protects. Naming class as injustice doesn’t just demand moral courage, but action towards dismantling systems of inequality and pursuing equality in solid, tangible ways. So, let’s talk about class!
Summary
- For our purposes, we require a slight redefinition of class to fit in line with our unique circumstances and practical experiences and the manner in which it plays itself out in our particular context.
- In this sense, class is both a structure of opportunity and a mechanism of censorship and oppression, shaping lives across the full spectrum of society.
- Descendants inherited not just material wealth, but social networks, cultural fluency, and these advantages paved their way to emigrate to greener pastures elsewhere on the continent and abroad, as well as to ascend to positions of leadership and influence.
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