By Sheldon Subeb
In Namibia a peculiar market has emerged. Volkswagen car owners have been reporting a steady disappearance of their iconic VW badge, not once but repeatedly. These badges are often snatched cleanly from the front grills of parked cars, they are not stolen for fun, they are resold.
Often to those that have fallen victim, creating a cycle of theft and resale, revealing something deeper, how markets are built on everyday struggles, how people find ways to make money from what is missing, and how scarcity isn’t always natural but sometimes created on purpose.
At its core, this is a system of value creation through dispossession. The theft creates a gap: a missing badge that spoils the identity of the car. This problem, in turn creates a demand. Enter the same or related actors who now provide the solution, a replacement badge, strategically priced below the dealership price.
A self-sustaining informal economy thriving on the flow of need and supply, coordinated outside the bounds of legality and justice, while within the scope of economic logic. It’s easy to reject this as a mere opportunistic crime. But such ignorance would overlook the structural realities in which this micro-economy has emerged, that of high youth unemployment, inequality, limited job opportunities, and the normalization of hustle culture.
It begins when scarcity is deliberately introduced, the intentional removal of the badges, that then sparks a demand because people prefer to drive their car with the sign they paid for. And soon enough, someone offers a solution, often the same people that created the problem, selling the very thing that was taken, but now for some money. All unfolding outside of the formal system, no official oversight, no state intervention and very limited protection through usual channels. All informal yet functioning like a well-oiled machine.
In a way it’s a micro scale version of what often happens in the global economy all the time. For instance, tech companies that make apps intentionally addictive, and then sell you the option to limit your screen time. Or pharmaceutical giants that delay access to cures just to keep the profit rolling in. It is the same logic: create or intensify the problem, then sell the fix.
This isn’t about finding a loophole to take advantage of, but the preoccupation with profit, the engineering of scarcity and the sidelining of public systems, normalized to a point playing out in acts of everyday survival.
The VW badge is not just a piece of metal, it’s a symbol of status, identity and belonging in a world shaped by consumerism. Even though the buyer suspects that the badge was stolen, they still purchase it because the symbol matters. A car without its emblem feels incomplete, and so the cycle continues, a strange blend of aspiration and systemic economic inequality playing out in this small but telling transaction.
This hyperlocal example reminds us of the that markets don’t just emerge, they are often constructed through unmet needs and manufactured problems, not just supply and demand. The patterns of profit making found in global economies show up even in the informal street level economies. And symbols like a car badge remind us that pride, visibility and dignity are never divorced from economic realities.
As Namibia and the broader African continent aims for a just and inclusive future, these everyday moments offer powerful insight into how people adapt, resist, and navigate systems that often exclude them, and how a stolen badge can speak volumes about the world we live in.
*Sheldon Subeb is an MPhil in Inclusive Innovation candidate; exploring systemic approaches to development and social equity. His research focuses on understanding the complex dynamics of economic systems, sustainability, and community transformation. Sheldon writes in his personal capacity, offering insights drawn from his academic work and practical experience to critically engage with the social and economic issues shaping contemporary society.
