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