Nationalisation: the politician’s route to money and power
I remember the sinking feeling I had when the details of the US bail-out plans dribbled out. Although the N-word wasn’t used, the bailout effectively resulted in the nationalisation of key companies in the US and later in the UK and other countries. Now I, perhaps naively, understood this was a caretaker holding, and the shares would be returned to the market when the company could once again stand on its own feet. But I also knew this would give the leftists of the world huge ammo to pursue nationalisation in their own countries.
And so it has been. The talk, from Caracas to Cape Town, has been that capitalism has failed and that big doses of socialism, “as practised” by the US and UK, are required. That fact that it was the failure of the interventionist mixed-economy and not of free enterprise matters not a jot to your wild-eyed socialist. Anything not entirely in state hands is “capitalism”. Ironically, the current recession comes after the spectacular recovery of the previous socialist countries, released from the thrall of communism. But time has dimmed those bitter memories.
In South Africa, the cry is now to nationalise the mining industry, South Africa’s largest industry. This is hardly surprising seeing that a left wing cabal of communists and radical trade unionists now runs the country. The ruling party itself is slightly reticent, presumably having been informed what a devastating effect it would have on the economy.
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