Rejoice Ngwenya, the Zimbabwean founder of the Coalition for Liberal Market Solutions, has written an interesting and thought-provoking article in Business Day this week: Socialism: Think twice before plunging SA into a frenzy of state ownership

Here are some extracts from an article that is bound to be controversial.   But the views expressed therein need to be respected and taken seriously.

“My message to SA is that collective ownership, whether state-sponsored or co-operative, is a fallacy that promotes noncommittal behaviour, cronyism and corruption.   It’s like a village well or a public toilet.   No one is in charge, so no one cares, except vagrants”.

“DON’T get me wrong.   I hold no brief for capitalists, nor do I bear a hatred of socialists, for that would run against the grain of a true liberal democrat.   But it has to be admitted that capitalism is an amazing engine that creates wealth and jobs, adding more value to all aspects of human welfare as measured by the human development index.

I also have no problem with leftist dogma as long as it is confined to infantile student rebellions.

“But when political leaders who bask in the glory of capitalist gluttony start talking about nationalisation, I am tempted to portray socialism as an effigy of hell.   “They disguise plunder, cleverly concealing it from all eyes, even their own, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organisation and association”, as 19th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat described such leaders.

We Zimbabweans are the modern- day test tubes of socialist carnage.   I have first-hand experience of how leftist ideologues experiment with political doctrines that subvert human dignity.

Consider the destructive “land nationalisation” — a crude ideological brand that has left us licking our wounds in an inaccessible part of the food-security dungeon.   Thus, I have good reason to fear the state”.

“Where there is a lack of private property, innovation is suppressed because there is no personal reward associated with hard work and the legitimate accumulation of assets.   State intervention is largely driven by political or narrow business interests.   SA’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is nothing but vote- buying by the African National Congress (ANC) government.   If it is on the ANC’s election manifesto, it will ride on the emotions of the “peasants” to justify plundering the fiscus in the name of the ‘common good’”.

“When Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel refers to a “New Growth Path” that “does see a role for a strong and focused state, but we see the biggest job creation will come from sectors where the private sector has the key levers”, it is reassuring”.

“But SA is luckier than Zimbabwe because the Convention for a Democratic SA left a legacy of honest debate.   However, if it is true that the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the ANC Youth League, the South African Communist Party and all their leftist sympathisers determine who rules SA, SA may well experience another “refined” form of nationalisation”.