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As reported in news.com.au, South Africa's Parliament have voted to "expropriate" land from white farmers with no compensation.
From TFA:
The motion was brought by Julius Malema, leader of the radical Marxist opposition party the Economic Freedom Fighters, and passed overwhelmingly by 241 votes to 83 against. The only parties who did not support the motion were the Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, Cope and the African Christian Democratic Party
...
"The time for reconciliation is over. Now is the time for justice," Mr Malema was quoted by News24 as telling parliament. "We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land."
...
Mr Malema has been leading calls for land confiscation, forcing the ANC to follow suit out of fear of losing the support of poorer black voters. In 2016, he told supporters he was "not calling for the slaughter of white people‚ at least for now"
This policy has been tried in other African countries before, most recently Zimbabwe, with disastrous results. The farms appropriated usually fail rapidly, leading to food shortages and economic destruction. Will South Africa be able to avoid repeating history, or is it about to slide into 3rd World status?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday February 28 2018, @03:16PM (7 children)
Perhaps that's something they should have considered while building empires atop stolen wealth. A land tax may gradually help with land inequality (or not - if you can't make that land turn a better-than-2% return on value, I'm sure one of your wealthier neighbors can), but it does nothing to deliver popular retribution against the criminals.
Of course there are probably plenty of middle-class and maybe even lower-class whites that will face backlash as well - even those whose families came some point after the bald-faced theft was over. That's unfortunate, but when there's already injustice everywhere you turn it's hard to muster a lot of resistance to a plan because "a different group of people will face injustice under the new plan".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 28 2018, @06:08PM
OTOH, we could a) put in a fixed deduction so those with low value land don't pay this tax, and b) simply not care about people who can't even pay a small tax on land after said deduction. Get them out and someone more productive in.
I get that there's all sorts of scams that can be played with property values (such as overvaluing someone's property by an order of magnitude and then selling that property for cents on the dollar to said rich people), but you fix that by having rule of law, not by committing economic suicide just because you have poor people.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday February 28 2018, @10:43PM (1 child)
Why would a wealthier neighbour be able to make it profitable if you can't. If they can use a limited resource better then you the why should you be allowed to abuse your monopoly?
My understanding of the "theft" was it was decades ago by previous generations. Will the US be returning land to native Americans? What about land confiscated in England by William I for his troops ?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 01 2018, @03:07PM
Same reason it's almost impossible to run a profitable farm in the U.S unless you have at least a few thousand acres and automated machinery: economies of scale.
Yes it was by previous generations, but current generations are still profiting from the situation, honest reparations were never made voluntarily, and now power is swinging back into the hands of the descendants still suffering the injustice.
And yes, perhaps we in the U.S., England, and elsewhere really should think about making honest reparations for the past wrongs we still profit from.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday March 01 2018, @02:05AM (1 child)
Since you seem to have all the answers, perhaps you can answer this relatively straightforward, real-world scenario (this is simple compared to many others):
The government wants to confiscate some white farmer's land. Some previous farmer bought it from its Zulu occupants about 150 years ago.
The Zulus had been on it since Shaka genocided its earlier Ndebele occupants about fifty years earlier.
The Ndebele were on there after pushing the Khoisan out.
(There may have been others between the Ndebele and Khoisan, land ownership in SA is almost impossible to unravel).
All of these groups are heavily armed, and all consider the land theirs.
Who do you give it to, and how do you prevent them from massacring each other over it?
Your move.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 01 2018, @02:55PM
I never claimed there were easy answers. But you build an empire upon stolen wealth, especially when those it was stolen from are gaining power, you're gambling on them not being willing or able to take it back, with interest. That land which was hypothetically acquired honestly is almost certainly in a vanishing minority - colonialists weren't big on buying things - you could do that back home. And like I said "the injustice will hit different people" isn't much of dissuasion when the injustice is ongoing.
As for those who bought it later - they new what they were getting into, if they did their due diligence. If I buy a car from you, and it turns out that you bought it from someone who stole it, I still don't get to keep the car, and almost certainly don't get my money back either. Doesn't matter how many legitimate transactions are in the cabin - the fact remains that it is stolen property.
And yeah, you can go as far down the rabbit hole as you like - it's all about what was stolen, who was wronged, and if they have enough power to make it "right". And if honest reparations were ever made. I mean, I see a lot of people recommending different, less extreme solutions that could (maybe) be considered reparations - but the bottom line is none of them were offered when power was firmly in the hands of those holding the stolen goods, if it had been, they might not be facing the backlash they are now. Perhaps it should be a lesson to those of us in the U.S. and elsewhere whose nations are built on land "bought" with genocide, while the remnants of the native population mostly live on the harsh edge of poverty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01 2018, @01:27PM (1 child)
The criminals are long dead. This is about punishing the descendants of the criminals. Should land-owning non-native americans have their farms confiscated and given to native americans, because of the injustices perpetrated in the 17th through early 20th centuries?
Regardless of what's just, though, the results will be disastrous. You can't expect non-farmers to suddenly farm as effectively as professional farmers.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 01 2018, @03:13PM
The descendants are still profiting from their ancestors crimes, so why not? Honest reparations could have been made at any time in the intervening generations, while those profiting from the theft held power. They chose not to, and so left a festering wound in society that has finally come back to bite them.
And yes, the rest are very good questions. We're all living on stolen land, perhaps we should consider how we could make it right by the descendants it was stolen from, especially when they are still being denied an equal place in society.