Contradictions of Wealth and Capital in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha *

No, this is not a motivational blog about how to make money, keep it or even how to ‘scramble’ for it.  Instead it is about a basic understanding of two things.  The first being what we in Zimbabwe perceive as ‘wealth’ and secondly about what we also think is ‘capital’. 

“Wealth” in Zimbabwe generally tends to be observationally comparative.  It relates to where you stay, the lifestyle you lead, cars you drive or are driven in, where your children go to school and something as ridiculous as how many parties you hold for relatives and friends.  

It all comes off as normal Zimbabwean cultural behavior. Except that it has connotations of how we regard each other.  Including assumptions of either continuity of these demonstrations of wealth and sadly also those of when it will all end for those that hold this wealth.  Or when it will start for those that do not have it. 

On the face of it, it is not a class issue.  Though it is driven by middle class/ white collar job social and cultural material desires. Both in urban and rural areas. It’s a lifestyle and recognition of ‘success’ or wealth crisis. 

One that essentially remains materially ephemeral because in the final analysis, if the money runs out, the lifestyle also changes. Something that many of us are guilty of the misunderstanding that this invariably affects our immediate families, children and where we still have them, friends. 

At the risk of sounding slightly self-righteous, what we probably need to stop doing is ‘exhibitionism’. While the welfare of our children, families matter, we should embrace more of a material realism than a worry about what the next person thinks about the life you are living. 

I have mentioned ‘exhibitionism’ because it relates the issue of “Capital” in Zimbabwe.  The latter being something we rarely dig deep into.  While wealth can be exhibited as outlined above, the ownership of its almost perpetual physical component tends to be off our social and intellectual radars.   

Exhibiting wealth is very different from owning capital. And for most of us know primary capital as either owning land, house/urban properties, vehicles or cattle. All in what can be considered competitive isolation. It is capital to either be gazed at or flaunted while its owner is still alive. While at the same time not being part of either a system of a national ‘means of production’ that we deliberately understand or participate in. 

So there are at least two strands to the ownership of capital in Zimbabwe.   The one is the desire to quite literally acquire it through physical commodities for the purposes of exhibiting wealth or material well-being on the basis of either savings or benefits from employment and working the banking financial system to your benefit.

Then there is actual capital based on those that control the system of private property and its links to globalized financialised capital. These are the people that own (historically/colonially/ post-colonially) your mines, vast tracts of agricultural land, cities and the middle-men that run their transactions. They also own a majority of your national and international conglomerates that are listed on the local stock exchanges as they are also linked to regional and international ones (Muzarabani anyone?)

Some of this capital is inherited from colonialism.  Some of it is also handed over from the colonialists to post-colonial political and other more opportunistic entrepreneurial leaders. This has been outlined in the French economist Thomas Piketty’s epic book “Capital in the 21^st Century”.

What however remains important in the Zimbabwean context is our understanding of the contradictions of what we consider wealth and what we consider capital.

And I will try to keep it slightly simple.  Purchasing cars, buying houses, affording expensive schools and universities is not a sign of success.  It is a sign of not understanding the ephemerality of what you consider comparative wealth.  It is also a sign of material culture capture by a system that you have no control over if you do not understand it. 

With the oddity that it always presents many of us with a fear of going back to the ‘ghetto’ or if you are already there in the ghetto a fear of going back to your rural homes and as we jokingly say in Shona parlance ‘akadzokera kumusha’.  Even when in reality our rural political economy is the backbone of a majority of our Zimbabwean families. 

When you think about ‘wealth’ remember that even in your exhibiting it, it remains an expression of ‘capital’ that in almost all likelihood you do not control. Unless you own an actual ‘means of production’ inherited or otherwise. It will always be ephemeral. Until that day you seek economic equitability.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)