Posted on 11/24/2018 5:43:07 AM PST by reaganaut1
Global economic jitters make this an especially bad time for developing economies to embark on bad policy experiments, yet that’s what South Africa did this month in advancing a sweeping plan to expropriate private land. The only saving grace is that voters will have a chance to weigh in before this scheme becomes law.
A parliamentary committee on Nov. 15 recommended a constitutional amendment that would allow the government to expropriate land without compensation. The idea has been a fixation in South Africa for years, in the belief that bouts of poor economic growth arise because colonial rule left whites with a majority of the country’s farmland.
But anyone seeking the roots of South Africa’s recent malaise should look elsewhere. Agriculture accounts for less than 3% of gross domestic product, and the number of acres owned by nonwhites or the government nearly doubled between 1994 and 2016 under the “willing buyer, willing seller” land policy adopted by Nelson Mandela.
Weak rule of law and bad policies during the nine-year left-wing administration of former President Jacob Zuma are better explanations for the country’s woes. Land expropriation will make matters worse by deterring investors worried about property rights, especially if such a policy is written into the country’s constitution as the current proposal envisions.
President Cyril Ramaphosa entered office this year promising a turnaround from a shrinking economy with 27% unemployment. As a businessman, perhaps he understands the economic stakes in the expropriation fight. But he is bowing to political pressure from the left of the ruling African National Congress party and is supporting the land grab.
No one should believe his bromides that this is a pro-business policy undertaken “so that we can have more stability.” The experience of Zimbabwe says otherwise.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
As they used to say in Brooklyn. Forgetaboutit. Time for the white South African farmers to take up Putin’s offer. Move to Russia and farm fallow, fertile Russian land. They have no real future in Africa.
Only way to remedy S. Africa is to lock-up/eliminate the tyrant racists in power....
Organize, arm and fight
There was nothing in the article that matched the headline, so I guess it was a question more than a statement. Leaving it to the voters who can not see anything but hate is not the answer. Not saying that Afrikaners are "lily white" in all this but destroying property rights is NOT the answer.
Their thinking is no different from the thinking of America’s Left. They start with a highly flawed racist, collectivist, marxist ideological thesis and move towards a completely destructive praxis.
South African farms are large, because the climate and land is not ideal and they need huge investments in equipment and technology to be productive. Its very easy to predict that once government steals these farms to pass to its cronies, their production will stop.
Whites should set up an armed indepedence and homeland movement. Take a part of the country as their “homeland” just like the other tribes there.
They’ll starve and the whites will be blamed. The leftist ANC will kill millions as leftists always have.
Uh-huh. Remember, this is South Africa. It shouldn't really qualify as a nation anymore. If the vote fails, I'm sure the SA courts will declare it law.
No kidding! Given the chance, they will vote to take other people’s stuff.
Long story short...today in South Africa one can find very substantial wealth.For example,the suburb of Johannesburg that we stayed in was very wealthy.In fact,there was a Rolls Royce and a Ferrari dealership about a 2 minute walk from our hotel.
OTOH,there are slums and township only about 10 minutes from the center of Johannesburg that rival anything I've seen in/near Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam.Breathtaking poverty...not the fat slob Obamaphone "poverty" we see here.
This breathtaking disparity convinces me that South Africa will eventually become another Zimbabwe.It probably won't happen overnight....but it *will* happen.
If I were an Afrikaner, I’d much sooner go to Australia than Russia.
“Whites should set up an armed indepedence and homeland movement. “
Thousands of Boers with 7mm Mausers.
I'd agree but I am getting on in years and have seen too much. Australia is just one election away from progressive foolishness. Russia is a kleptocracy but I doubt they really want to beat up on productive farmers anymore.
Reading a history of classical Greece is strangely calming. Things are good, then they get bad, then they get better, etc.
Nothing is going to stop this. Much of the world is cheering South Africa for killing Whites and taking their land.
I was right when I said that the left wants to eliminate Whites, after taking all their money.
Land grabs are not about improving the economy, they’re about hurting whitey.
Unemployment at 27% or 90%; it doesn’t as long as they get to make a white farmer poor.
My paternal grandmother was an Afrikaner. Born in South Africa.
“This breathtaking disparity convinces me that South Africa will eventually become another Zimbabwe”
it’s not the breathtaking wealth disparity that’s the problem: we have exactly that same disparity in the U.S. too ... it’s the breathtaking government corruption and breathtaking ignorance of the vast bulk of the population that’s the real problem ... pretty much the same issue for all african countries in southern africa ...
They have no real future in Africa.
They have no worthwhile PAST in Africa.
Give me the Sub Saharan equivalents of:
Hanging Gardens
Appian Way
Parthenon
Coliseum
Code of Hammurabi
Great Wall of China
Hieroglyphics/ writing
Written history
Nope,that's where you're wrong...*very* wrong.Yes,there is huge,huge,*huge* corruption to be found in Africa,Asia and South America.But African poverty is something that must be seen to be understood.The affluence I spoke of having seen in South Africa reminds me most of the affluence I've seen in parts of Fairfield County,CT and Orange County,CA.
The more familiar you are with *South African* affluence and *South African* poverty the more inclined you'd be to agree with my assessment/prediction.
Not that I'm an expert on the history of South Africa's Boers but what I've seen suggests otherwise.
I've traveled rather extensively through a good portion of eastern and southern Africa.If you have a second click on my profile and you'll get an idea of where I've been.South Africa is *by far* the most advanced nation that I've seen in Africa.And if someone who's familiar with central Africa or West Africa wants to tell me of Western style affluence and modernity they've seen there I'm willing to listen...but I strongly doubt that any such modernity exists in those regions.
It seems to me that the Boers of South Africa have no less right to be there than we "Europeans" have to be in North America and Australia.
Just sayin'...
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