The Sunday Mail
Teddie Bepete
We can only attain unquestionable economic freedom if we begin to produce more. We can only produce more through hard work, not aid. Period.
We have to pay attention to the wisdom of revolutionaries like Ernesto Guevara who said: “The revolution is not an apple that falls when ripe. You have to make it fall.”
The journey from poverty to affluence is never an easy one. The road to progress traverses a terrain of impediments.
It is a journey in which the prospects of reaching the destination seem remote and unattainable; something that demands us to be ever watchful and be in a perennial state of struggle.
Remain alert to the reality that because our Independence was borne from the barrel of the gun, economic stability and prosperity are never going to come on a silver platter.
These will never be handed to us by a foreign hand, but from our own labour and resources. Economic freedom means managing our economy and employing home-grown initiatives.
A country may never boost its economy if resources are not evenly distributed downwards amongst its people. A country cannot be completely free without total control of its economic foundations.
“The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom,” said Ludwig von Mises.
Zimbabwe’s irreversible Land Reform Programme was a major step ahead towards the achievement of total freedom.
And there is need to deploy pragmatic approaches like Command Agriculture to ensure our land is productive.
We can only attain unquestionable economic freedom if we begin to produce more. We can only produce more through hard work, not aid. Period.
Aneurin Bevan taught us that, “Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.”
Dependency is the acid that gnaws at our well-being, leaving us empty and stunted. Slavery comes with the hand that feeds you.
The “free market” has never been good for our nascent economies.
It allows the already rich to use their capital to undermine our growth and secure the continuity of a capitalism that favours them, it never allows for equitable redistribution of resources among the poor.
Aid is a goblin that sucks our national silos dry.
Many ask how we can ameliorate our economic woes. The answer is simple: it starts with you and me.
We need to have faith in ourselves and admit that the future is in our custody therefore it is the duty of every Zimbabwean to strive for national economic prosperity.
There is need to stop the evil of corruption before we start on anything else. It is our duty as Zimbabweans to start working for transformation.
A revolution can never be successful without perseverance, sacrifice and loyalty.
Real transformers can never be given to materialism but to the needs of the people. We do not wish for cannibalistic economies that feed on our sweat and blood.
There are no foreign prescriptions that can solve our issues.
In the same way that we wear different shoe sizes, our feet need shoes that are sufficiently comfortable for the situation, last the journey and are fit for purpose.
No one should force us into the wrong size.
As Government implements groundbreaking policies like Command Agriculture and the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme, the people must be informed about the utility of such policy designs and see that these are the kinds of shoes that fit our feet.
The history of developed economies informs us that at one time in the history of their evolution, some kind of command was certainly used.
Things did not just happen of their own accord.
The modern economies of America and Britain are not the result of bambazonke.
Someone sat down and came up with a shoe that fit those nations best.
There is central planning and a deliberate thrust to inform the trajectory that industry, manufacturing, transport, infrastructure, mining, agriculture and tourism must take.
Let’s get the shoe that best fits.
