Zanzibar Loses Some of Its Spice (failure of Socialism in the LA Times?)

LA Times ^ | November 24, 2005 | By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer

[Simmy2.5]

PEMBA, Tanzania — It's springtime on this green, hilly island, and the pungent, sweet smell of cloves spices the air.

Zaharan Salim's father, who crossed the turquoise water from Oman to settle here nearly 100 years ago, taught him as a boy that the annual bouquet signaled harvest time. His father planted a small grove of clove trees to support the family, and Salim expanded the plantation into one of Pemba's largest, with more than 2,000 of the tall evergreens sprouting from the fertile soil.

But it's unclear whether the family business will last into a third generation. The groves are thinning from neglect. None of his children is interested in taking over. And even Salim, 75, is turning his attention to more lucrative crops. "There's more profit in coconuts," the graying patriarch said.

Production of cloves, the last viable spice of the renowned "Spice Island," is slowly declining on the archipelago that once dominated the world trade.

[Simmy2.5]

-snip- Zanzibar's clove industry has been crippled by a fast-moving global market, international competition and a hangover from Tanzania's failed experiment with socialism in the 1960s and '70s, when the government controlled clove prices and exports. -snip-

Is the LA Times saying that, the reason why the Cloves industry in Zanzibar isn't doing well is because...socialism doesn't work?! Gasp!

[sinanju]

Same old, same old. Thomas Sowell has written eloquently about how govt. price controls have caused disaster from Roman times to the present. I recall the chapter devoted to Tanzania in P.J. O'Rourke's Eat the Rich. Most illuminating. Now if we could only get the state socialism out of american agriculture. Those struggling family farmers everyone loves to wring their hands over just might surprise all of us.

[PAR35]

I'm pinging you to another MSM story which supports my theory about what you can read on major holidays. This one is from the LATimes and contains some comments pointing out the problems from socialism.

[Pharmboy]

"This system has been very exploitive of farmers," said Seif Sharif Hamad, leader of the opposition party Civic United Front. "We have to revive the clove industry. It's a symbol of Zanzibar."

Very interesting...socialism "exploitive"...hmmm. Could it be??