A Stitch in Haste

As the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged approaches later this week, behold a real-world collapse from the looters.

Reports from Zimbabwe say bakeries have run out of flour and there will be no bread in the foreseeable future.
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Last week, Zimbabwe's main bread producer Lobels Bread said it had scaled back its operations by 80% and had only two days' supply of flour left.

The AP news agency says stores across Zimbabwe are now telling customers that bread will not be available until further notice.

Mass starvation will not be far behind -- as will well-meaning but misguided humanitarian relief efforts that at best will keep Robert Mugabe in power that much longer.

In the Twenty-First Century, in what could easily be a perfectly functioning economy and in the absence of any natural disaster, armed thugs can still hijack an entire nation and loot central plan it to the point of mass starvation. The mind reels.

More:

Speaking last Thursday at the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union national congress in Masvingo Minister Gumbo said: "I am disappointed that our new farmers have proved to be failures since the start of the land reform programme in 2000."

"In spite of all the support government has been pouring into the agricultural sector, productivity and under-utilisation of land remain issues of concern," he added.

Food may grow on trees, but entrepreneurship and managerial talent do not. Stated differently, "give a man a fish" is not the same as "give a man a fishery." Especially when it's someone else's fishery that government looters stole at the point of a gun.

In Atlas Shrugged the men of the mind left of their own accord. In Zimbabwe they were forcibly evicted (or worse).

Either way, the same result: Total collapse.

Who is surprised, and who is not -- and what underlies the difference between them?