Zimbabwe: How land policy in Zim led to ruin

Zimbabwe Independent ^ | 2006-07-21 | Craig Richardson

[Clive]

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[Onelifetogive]

and then redistributing it to political cronies in the Zanu PF party, rather than to poor rural farmers.

You mean to say that a politician who says he's doing something "for the poor" may actually be enrighing his friends??? Stunned, I tell you, stunned!

[KarlInOhio]

The UN, World Bank and other international organizations will study Zimbabwe carefully and learn an important lesson from it.

That lesson is black dictator good, white farmer bad! < and I wish that was sarcasm>

[I still care]

Excellent article. I bet a high school class would learn more from studying it than many volumes of what pass for economic textbooks.

[BigFinn]

Very interesting and in depth look at the demise of Zimbabwe. Thanks for posting it.

[karnage]

"That’s why we may need the skills of Zimbabwe to help us."

Sounds like something from Scrappleface. It would be sad for SA to go the way of Zim.

[DB]

Venezuela is starting down the same road. Stuck on stupid...

[Nateman]

Here's an article on how one country did it right: http://www.cato.org/friedman/

[Billthedrill]

An outstanding article. Thanks for posting.

Unfortunately, the rebuilding of an economy after property rights have been revoked is likely to be contentious and slow...

The author seems hesitant to reach the conclusion here that the rest of his piece screams out - it is not difficult, it is impossible to run a market economy in the absence of property rights. Impossible. If there is a single thing that Mugabe has done that has destroyed Zimbabwe, it is the removal of this singular foundation to its or any other economy.

There is, in addition, the weird overlay of classic Marxist economics on a society that was decidedly not industrial, and hence not ready for the notion that redistribution of material goods would put the latter in the hands of the more productive. Rather the opposite, as the falling productivity of the farms shows. Much is made of the fact that 4500 white families owned the most productive land; little remembered is the fact that they were farmed by both black and white, and that the expropriation of those lands dispossessed the successful farmers, both black and white, and placed them in the hands of Mugabe's toadies and camp followers who were successful thugs and politicians, not farmers.

In the absence of property rights there is no way for those who came into possession of the stolen lands to work them - no equity, nothing to secure seed capital, nothing to guarantee that a crop grown would not be a crop stolen by the government. Even had its new occupiers learned farming skills they did not have they still would have failed.

And more than just farming, in such a kleptocracy anyone in any business who produces a surplus is assured that it will be declared exploitative and confiscated, hence no one produces a surplus. The result is a sudden crash in production with no concomitant reduction in demand. Instant inflation. And if the government is stupid enough to print money to ease it, hyperinflation. And that is precisely what has happened.

[PeteB570]

Thank you for the post.

Loved reading it.

[DustyMoment]

Zimbabwe: How land policy in Zim led to ruin

Zimbabwe: How nutjob Robert Mugabe's policies led to ruin

NOW, it's an accurate headline!!!

[bert]

......Just as De Soto’s work has shown how developing countries can harvest wealth by titling land and using that property as collateral for bank loans....

I think DeSoto worked in Peru to allow individuals to hold title to land and the result was economic growth..... exactly the opposite in Zim.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Unfortunately, the rebuilding of an economy after property rights have been revoked is likely to be contentious and slow, akin to rebuilding trust in a relationship after a serious betrayal.

The author seems hesitant to reach the conclusion here that the rest of his piece screams out - it is not difficult, it is impossible to run a market economy in the absence of property rights.

I read it not as a shrinking from his conclusion but a cautious understatement of it which the most obstinate Democrat might have difficulty attacking.

Of course it is not impossible to have a good economy in Zimbabwe again. The process may be contentious - up to and including an excruciating civil war or two, and/or foreign military intervention. And it may be slow - measured in generations.

But certainly not impossible. It's just impossible while kleptocrats remain in power.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Zimbabwe: How land policy in Zim led to ruin

Atlas Shrugged.

[happygrl]

You stated on this forum that Zimbabwe would become a case study for the destruction of an economy.

Here it is.

[happygrl]

Zimbabwe now vies for a number of depressing world records: most orphans per capita, highest number of Aids cases per capita, and lowest life span, at 38 years. It was recently rated by the World Economic Forum as the world’s worst place to do business out of 117 countries surveyed.

My daughter recently returned from a mission trip to Zimbabwe.

Village after village composed of grannies and young children.

[Nailbiter]

ping for later read

[Clive]

I expect that Richardson's book will be the first of many.

Zim makes such a graphic and compelling case study in the destruction of a viable economy and the destruction of a viable society.

I don't see the book in the Toronto Public Library or Chapters/Indigo catalogues yet but I will keep checking for it.

[NonValueAdded]

And let us not miss the brain fart of this nimrod:

South Africa Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka agrees that the pace of land reform should be accelerated. "There needs to be a bit of oomph," she said in a 2005 interview. "That’s why we may need the skills of Zimbabwe to help us."