Zimbabwe, suffering from the highest rate of inflation in the world, has decided to put up interest rates to stop inflation from rising.
Mugabe doesn’t believe in messing about with a quarter of a percent here and there though, it’s gone up 150% to 800%. The official rate of inflation is currently running at 6,600% per year but the real rate is nearer 11,000% meaning Zimbabweans simply can’t afford to buy even the most basic of goods produced in their own country, let alone imported.
The question is, why? Why has Mugabe destroyed the Zimbabwean economy and taken such steps as forcing shops to sell goods below cost price when the situation is clearly not sustainable? Mugabe is a Marxist (aka Communist) and, to me, it looks like he’s preparing the country for communism. By making businesses sell good at less than cost price they will eventually run out of cash and the state will take them over. This will, of course, be done to protect the economy and ensure the continuance of food supplies but it will be a classic Marxist move from private enterprise to state ownership for the good of the people, a fact that will be beaten into anyone who doesn’t see the benefits of the new system by Mugabe’s private army.
Maybe then the “international community” will do something about Zimbabwe. After all, America is only interested in bombing oil producers and commies.
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I hate to break it to you, but the country is subject to sanctions… so the “international community” is presumably sponsoring Mugabe, then?
By the way, Mugabe’s pretentions to Marxism were dropped decades ago — in the early nineties he accepted the rule of the IMF and Zimbabwe was touted as the route state socialist countries in Africa should travel after multipartyism was restored.
So, what I’m saying is — I think your analysis is wrong.
Charlie, I think I must have missed your point in your first sentence, sorry.
The Mugabe of old isn’t the Mugabe we see now. He may have publically dropped his Marxist leanings in the past but what’s to say he hasn’t rediscovered them or never dropped them in the first place?
Perhaps I’m crediting him with too much intelligence in assuming that it’s intentional but I can’t see what alternative outcome there is. Private enterprise will disappear in the very near future in Zimbabwe and the state will step in. What else could happen?
I don’t think it’s intentional. Mugabe is one man, one old man – I don’t think he has all the power, and from what I gather he isn’t surrounded by Marxists. His rhetorical backing of indigenous businesspeople over foreign capitalists might look radical but in South Africa an indigenous bourgeoisie has developed since the mid nineties, and I think this is what Zanu is aiming for — in other words, private enterprise!
“Charlie, I think I must have missed your point in your first sentence, sorry.”
My point is that Zimbabwe has been prevented from buying and selling because of the sanctions – making it hard to get oil, etc, and this along with the chaotic expropriation of land has severely disrupted the economy. This hasn’t been done to help Zanu or Zimbabweans — it’s punishment for the government telling the IMF to fuck off and for going ahead with land reform (which could upset the applecart in neighbouring South Africa – in fact, there they have become a bit tougher in land redistribution). So the “international community” is doing something…
On one hand he’s saying any business that isn’t at least 51% owned by a black Zimbabwean will be claimed by the state for “redistribution” and then with the other he’s signed a law that says businesses must sell goods below cost price because he’s buggered the economy up so badly that people can’t afford to buy anything.
I dunno, we’ll have to wait and see but everything just seems to be pointing to a move to communism to me.
Give a beggar a horse and he will ride himself to hell