ABSTRACT
Domestic economic activity came to consist almost entirely of low-productivity agriculture and service and commerce activities that focused not on national markets but on the exchange of cash for goods imported from South African urban centers. The picture that can be drawn of the economy in 1966 is largely a qualitative one, with what quantitative indicators that can be given highly uncertain and unreliable. However, there is no dispute that at independence Lesotho had an extreme labor reserve economy. The resource base was extremely limited. The only known minerals of economic value were diamonds, then exploited by individual licensed Basotho diggers using hand methods. Climatic and topographic conditions inevitably imply that arable agriculture in Lesotho will be relatively low yield and risky. However, agriculture was performing in the 1960s—and continues to perform well below its potential because of additional problems largely traceable to socioeconomic structures.
