Economic Growth Is the Result of Many Social Institutions Working Together

Economic Growth is the Result of Many Social Institutions Working Together

Property rights promotes economic growth and benefits the citizens within a country. In Zimbabwe, the agricultural division is important because it is the second main source of income and the livelihood of the people due to the country’s heavy rural population. There is more than one social issue that contributed to Zimbabwe’s economic downtrend, but I am only focusing on the Property Right’s issue.

In Zimbabwe, agriculture contributed 14.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2000 and 15.7 in 1980, 23 percent of export earnings in 1980 and 38 percent in 2000, and 10 percent of employment in 1980 and 60 percent in 2000. (UN data - A World of Information) The downtrend of Zimbabwe economic growth also coincided with the Zimbabwe’s government’s newly instituted law called the “Land Reform and Resettlement Program” which legally took away white Zimbabwean farmer’s land. As mentioned in the Dark Star Safari book, “One day he came to my father and said, This is my farm. Just claimed it as his own. The government was against us. What could we do?” (Theroux, Page 359.)

Zimbabwe’s Land Reform and Resettlement Program made it practically easy as eating a piece of pie for a Black Zimbabwe under the guise of being an ex-soldier to steal a white farmer’s land. Because the program was sanctioned by the government, the trespassers often committed other crimes against the farmers. For instance, the trespassers were known to squat on the white farmer’s land prior to full occupancy and ownership of the land, torment the farmers, physically harm the farmers and their family members, destroy property and land, and pilfer food and other items from the farmer’s land and homes. Also, the white farmer were forced to allow their black employees to steal from them and were still expected to pay them a salary. Because a lot of the Black Zimbabweans were politically connected and the farmers...