Featuring the author, Craig Richardson, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Salem College, with comments by
Roger Bate, Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, and moderated by Marian Tupy,
Assistant Director, Project on Global Economic Liberty, Cato Institute
Zimbabwe’s general election comes at a time of unprecedented political and economic crisis. With the opposition violently suppressed, it is very likely that the government of Robert Mugabe will once again rig the March 31 poll.
In the early years after its independence, Zimbabwe, with its vast wealth of minerals and rich farmland, seemed poised to be an African success story. Today it is one of the most rapidly deteriorating countries in Africa. How did that happen? According to Craig Richardson, President Robert Mugabe’s decision to seize commercial farmland in 2000 sent the country on a downward spiral, with foreign investors fleeing, unemployment skyrocketing, life expectancies dropping, and inflation reaching 500 percent. Please join us for a discussion of a book that Hernando de Soto called “crucially important… [in] letting us know how badly the ignorance of the role of property rights in development can hurt a nation.”