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Ten years ago Zimbabwe was known as the "breadbasket of Africa". Today the country lies in ruins, well past the verge of collapse. Inflation is immeasurable, and a cholera outbreak is sweeping the entire country. What brought this once proud country to the point of ruin? Why do countries like South Africa and the United States stand idly by while a dictator kills hundreds of innocent people, allows more to die of disease and starvation, and thumbs his nose at the Western world?

Even Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter has called for the removal of Zimbabwe President Mugabe by military force. Perhaps the wounds of Mogadishu are still fresh in the minds of an already unpopular American president. There’s no military threat by Zimbabwe to the rest of Africa, and piracy off the coast of Somalia poses a more imminent threat to the free world. But there are important and valuable lessons that we can learn from Zimbabwe - how to kill a democracy.

In 2000, over 70% of arable farmland was owned by a small minority of white farmers. The white farmers were citizens of Zimbabwe who legally purchased the land from the Mugabe regime. The farmland was mainly farmed by non-white Rhodesians (the original inhabitants of ZImbabwe). Under Mugabe’s land reform act, the land was supposed to be taken away from the white minority and redistributed entirely to the native Rhodesian workers.

At first, the white minority resisted Mugabe’s land reform. Those who resisted were killed, their homes were burned, their land was confiscated. Mugabe engaged the workers to turn against the land owners with the promise that the land would become theirs.

The land was never redistributed to the workers as originally promised, but instead awarded to Mugabe’s friends and political allies. Neither group was particularly skilled in farming or even interested in producing anything of value from the land. Instead, owning property was seen as a sign of wealth and status. The farmers were quickly evicted from the land that was once their home.

The production of food dramatically dropped. The minority land owners that were skilled at farm management were either dead or had fled ZImbabwe entirely. The elite regime that ruled had no interest in food production or in allowing the native Rhodesians to work the land. Under the old system, the workers lived on the land and produced the food they ate. Under the new system, the workers had no place to live anymore, and now, they also had no food to eat.

There are lessons America can learn from Zimbabwe. The redistribution of wealth by the government does not lead to happier lives for all people. Government corruption and mismanagement often leads to redistribution of wealth from the hands of the few to the even smaller number of the elite few. Under government management, there is no incentive or even benefit for the best and brightest to produce anything of value. When a government edict can instantly nullify years of hard work, what’s the point of trying to get ahead in life or even trying to succeed?

American politicans often use the term "fairness" as a substitute for the "redistribution of wealth." What is fair to one person or group of people may be unfair to another person. The Constitution only guarantees the equality of opportunity, not the equality of all outcomes. The "fairness doctrine" is bandied about equally by both political parties. The Republicans step on the backs of the little guy to bail out Wall Street, claiming that what’s good for Wall Street is good for Main Street. These are the same Republicans who passed bankruptcy reform laws making it harder for the little guy on Main Street to receive a fresh start, yet freely give away billions of taxpayer dollars to companies that are spending the money on year end bonuses. The Democrats are just as bad. While claiming they are for cutting taxes for the middle class, they actually raise taxes across the board on just about everything. Of course the Democratic definition of a middle class family is a family of four living in Iowa scraping by on $40,000 a year, while the definition of rich is a family of 4 living in New York on $100,000 a year. Clearly, the Democrats have never tried to survive in New York or buy a house on $100,000 a year after paying New York State income taxes and the ridiculous tolls and commuting costs among other things.

The ideologies of both the Republicans and Democrats are unfair to the American public. I have no affiliation with either political party. Both parties are self-serving, just like Mugabe’s regime. The laws and legislation championed by both parties only serves to line the pockets of the lobbyists, consulting firms, and corporate boards their wives, sons, daughters, and political allies sit on. While the redistribution of wealth in America is not as extreme as the land redistrubition in ZImbabwe, it still exists in America today.

Every great Empire eventually collapses. New Superpowers rise, old ones fall. Government regulations and policies are leading to the slow fall of our country from within. Unless we return to the innovation that made this country great and free ourselves of burdensome government intrusion into our lives we will slowly starve like the citizens of Zimbabwe.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 at 4:06 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.