Botswana's diamond mining industry is exactly one company: Debswana, a 50/50 joint venture between the government of Botswana and De Beers.

Which means, when you think about it, that half of one subsidiary of De Beers is effectively producing ~one third of Botswana's GDP. Really puts into perspective how exploitative De Beers is.

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missedthecue 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is a difficult conclusion to draw given that the implied counterfactual is the assumption that Botswana could have had similar results sans De Beers. I don't think that's at all obvious. If my problem was that I had raw diamonds a few hundred meters underground and wanted to turn them into dollars, I'd probably call the preeminent experts on mining, refining, and marketing diamonds as well.

The venture began in 1969 and as difficult as the economic situation there is now, subsaharan africa was an even worse place then. So I think your counterfactual needs put into perspective. Additionally in 2013, the state created the 100% owned Okavango Diamond Company to export diamonds using the institutional knowledge they'd gathered over the decades.

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bastawhiz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> The venture began in 1969 and as difficult as the economic situation there is now, subsaharan africa was an even worse place then.

False. The sixties were one of the better decades (economically) in sub Saharan Africa. The region was richer than much of Asia, with the exception of a few places like Congo and Ghana.

> the assumption that Botswana could have had similar results sans De Beers.

De Beers was created by Cecil Rhodes, who essentially guided the British to establish the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The British economically ravaged the area and left it one of the poorest places on the planet. It's wild to say they wouldn't have done it without De Beers when they were essentially guaranteed they couldn't do it without De Beers by the guy who founded De Beers, literally less than a century before Debswana was created.

Anything in the 21st century doesn't change the fact that one private entity has extracted more value from a desperate country than they deserve for decades. Had the British, I don't know, left Botswana with such luxuries as "paved roads" maybe they would have had more economic leverage in 1969.

	▲	missedthecue 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What exactly is false? You're asserting that 1960s Botswana was more industrialized than it is now?

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lostlogin an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Really puts into perspective how exploitative De Beers is.

Another reading is that Botswana has a small economy.

It has been growing fast for a while, but has a heavy reliance on mining gemstones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botswana

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BurningFrog 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would describe it at showing how poor/unproductive the rest of Botswana's economy is.

Or is the theory here that De Beers somehow keeps the part of the Botswanian economy they don't participate in poor/unproductive?

	▲	bastawhiz 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		De Beers was founded by the guy whose colonial governance helped make the region as economically depressed as it was. When Debswana was founded, De Beers was taking something like 85% of the profits from Botswana's natural resources. That's like if I burned your house and farm down, then a few later I discovered oil on your land and offered to help you drill for it in exchange for a little over an eighth of the profit. What choice do you have?
	▲	2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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