Bob is soooo right!

While I am on the topic of Zimbabwe, I fear that Bob is absolutely right when he says that if he goes, all the land appropriated by the ZANUPF people during the last decade will be repossessed. I say this simply because, those with money have a stronger negotiating position than those that don't and who desperately need it. There will be an unequal bargaining position between the two sides and this will inevitably lead to the dispossession of poor Zimbabwean people of their newly acquired land.

All this goes to show is that the redistribution of land, Zimbabwe style, won't work in the long term and in fact, could well place the recipients of the appropriated land in a worse position than they were originally in. If the appropriation of land leads to the economic destruction of a country as seems to have been the case in Zimbabwe, it will simply leave the recipients of the land in a position where they aren't able to bargain from a position of equal power and are therefore open to exploitation.

While Bob is casting it in terms of white vs black, in reality it will be poor black Zimbabweans that will be at the mercy of white, indian, chinese and black people and corporations, basically anyone with money and few morals, ready to take advantage of their misery.

I think South Africa should take note of this before rushing to expropriate land to fulfill political goals however just they may be as there may be unintended consequences to the injudicious appropriation of land.