Monday, December 19, 2005

Forcing the army to become peasants

LINK

In an attempt to rescue his failing programme of land redistribution, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is trying to involve the army in a "command agriculture" programme.

The Marxist falacy says it is good to force the army, student, rich people etc . to go to the farms to "help" in the harvest...

Five years after Mr Mugabe ordered the seizure of the white-owned commercial farms, agricultural production has halved.

Mr Mugabe has admitted that the people to whom he gave some 4,000 farms have some responsibility for the country's current problems.

"Mugabe is now saying that the people who are on the farms are opposition supporters and that they are sabotaging the country. He says the army must take over," the major said.

"This is an idea which Mugabe got from China, where the army is used in agriculture and industry"....


I asked the major whether he believed the idea would work.

"I don't think it will because soldiers are not trained for farm work," he says.

"They're trained to fight. They don't have the skills. It's out of desperation that he's doing this. It will not work."

Others I spoke to in Zimbabwe agree. John Robertson, the country's foremost economist, pointed out that "the idea has been tried out in China, North Korea and Stalin's Russia and look where it got them."


Yup...it got them massive starvation...of course, nowadays, China has changed their mind and encourages modern farming by the peasants themselves instead of Marxist farming...Of course, Muugabe could try importing these skilled farmers, provide hybrid high yield seed, fertilizer, tractors or hand plows, and build irrigation dams and ditches-- ...hell, he could even import some Chinese farmers to show him how to do it if he doesn't like the previous white farmers...but nah, it isn't Marxist...

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