An impossible policy that would erode property rights
With property rights diluted and land subject to seizure, it is difficult to imagine that banks would retain an appetite for the risk
Otto Von Bismarck – the Prussian statesman who presided over the formation of a united Germany – once famously said: "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best." The dictates of reality, he suggested, made certain courses of action imprudent, even impossible. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s comments in the state of the nation address on land expropriation call this admonition to mind. Ramaphosa has promised that the expropriation of land without compensation will be a tool for land reform. This, he said, would be done so as to increase (not just safeguard) agricultural production and enhance food security. His statements match those made previously, such as his claim on a visit to the Zulu king that this policy would turn SA into a Garden of Eden. The earthbound realities of South African agriculture make this proposition doubtful in the extreme. The country’s commercial agricultural sector is dependent on large volumes of credit – to the tune of R16...
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