Give Me Back Your Land

The idea of capitalism as practiced by many industrial nations today is in no way pure supply and demand market economics. It is a system of pseudo-meritocracy based on who has the resources to advance themselves and their loved ones. Likewise since Europe's lustful conquest of all black, brown and yellow parts of the world the natural order of ownership has been seriously altered to say the least. Today we see Bolivia and its president Evo Morales undertaking some of the same efforts of land reform thought about or engaged in by leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe.

Between Mandela, Chavez and Mugabe only one is looked at on the world stage (read the west) as a noble figure. That being Mandela. Even with that Mandela is regarded in progressive circles as not having accomplished all he may have wanted to or should have for the apartheid-free South Africans. The other two leaders are looked on by the west as fierce rivals of private ownership. What is also painted in that narrative is the idea that the ownership is legitimate so these leaders are "unjustly" taking land. What doesn't get mentioned in that story all the time is the long term perspective these leaders are bringing to their position of land reform.

Mugabe, Chavez and even Morales of Bolivia are not just seizing land but are seeking to claim land that has vital natural resource that can be of use to all people of the nation particularly poor and indigenous people. With Mugabe, he presided over the breadbasket of the world. A place where the land and climate would allow the terrain to grow almost any crop imaginable. He thought it made no sense that a few privileged families (who gained their privilege from the imperial conquest of Africa) should be the only ones who benefit from the fruit of the land. With all the food that the land produced, Mugabe felt land reform would be great in righting the wrongs of imperial Europe while feeding his people.For this he was demonized. He was made to look like a man with no regard for the individual property of a citizen.

Hugo Chavez has suffered the same fate. As the head of an oil rich nation he seized lands known to have an abundance of oil. He did this in efforts to return some of the profits of the oil rich land to the original and oppressed people of Venezuela. He too has been cast in a light as a man who doesn't care about property rights or individual ownership. The progressive Bolivian President Evo Morales has been making news recently for his government's quest to seize land. His government cites the vast oil reserves beneath some of the lands. Oil reserves that can turn massive profit that would fund many of the social programs his government wants to put in place to ensure the welfare of the Bolivian people.

Sadly those who claim these leaders trample on an individual's property rights seem to ignore the often murky and in some cases blatantly ill-gotten means used by individuals to acquire these lands. Each of the aforementioned leaders represent nations that have been bastardized by the west. In efforts to address the prejudicial economic and social policies, the leaders of these nations are made to look like dictators who have no respect for law. In fact, in many cases they are from the underprivileged oppressed class. Rather than these leaders who having no respect for the law, they have immense respect for history, culture, justice, equality and fairness. Apparently these are things their critics know nothing about.