the cause of the mess in Zimbabwe

I was born in Zimbabwe. Patrick Bond's view that sanctions did not seem to hurt the Rhodesian economy are largely correct. The dollar was stronger than the British Pound during the time of sanctions. My understanding is that Zimbabwe is very much capable of sustaining itself independently, due to its rich farmland and minerals sector. (However, it cannot yet sustain all of its population at the same economic level .) Furthermore, the sanctions currently being directed at the Mugabe regime are far from economic, according to my
understanding. They involve travel restrictions on certain government ministers and the freezing of their personal Swiss accounts. So, they should not affect Zimbabwe per se.

From what I can gauge, neoliberalism did have a negative effect on the Zim
economy because of the inability of the govt to pay back money to the IMF
and Worldbank. It seems that the growth of the economy had not been well
planned but was too reliant upon outside aid, in order to see it through.
This approach was to have negative (and possibly, in theory, foreseeable)
consequences. I see an overly optimistic style of management on the part of
Mugabe's regime, that was insufficiently rooted in a real world experience
of the global politics of playing economics. Mugabe should have approached
the whole IMF/Worldbank proposition with more cynicism (something his wily
predecessor, Ian Smith, wasn't short of.)

However the demise of the farming sector seems to have been the greatest
economical blow sustained by Zimbabwe. Land redistribution, in the fashion
that it took place, was supposed to have been a policy of appeasement of
those peasants who had not noticed any significant change to their status
post colonialism. It was a purely political gesture by Mugabe, rather than
having any grounding in a theory of economics. Apart from its mining
sector, Zimbabwe was largely built on an agricultural economy.

The land issue -- that matter which over which the second chimurenga had
been fought -- seems to have been unresolved by Mugabe's government, largely
because it is very difficult to move from a peasant style economy of
traditional subsistence farming (capable of sustaining a fraction of the
present, overburdgeoning population size) to a properly industrial economy
style overnight. It is only the latter style of economy that can sustain
the size of the population that Zimbabwe has today. Yet, most societies
take a century or two to industrialise fully. (Russia did it quicker than
most, under the authoritarian pressures of Stalinism.) It is unrealistic to
expect Zimbabwe to sustain itself on the basis of subsistence farming --
however, this is precisely what ZANU-PF are ideologically committed to,
since the land issue had been the basis for the war of liberation. So the
problem is that the practical issue of taking Zimbabwe economically towards
the 21st century, and the ideological issues that Mugabe and his ilk are
committed to, are at odds.

---

UPDATED

My own feeling and perceptions are that Zimbabwe need not be dependent on this aid in order to sustain itself, however, it probably needs those resources in order to flourish. But, those are two different things.What you have also suggested is that the economic resources of Zimbabwe are in the hands of the few. By denying the elite access to their private bank accounts, the trickle down economics effect is denied. I see that there could be some truth to this, although that kind of economic elitism sounds rather dysfunctional, in terms of what would serve the majority. Zimbabwe needs political reform, and not just economic reform, but it has a long way to go to achieve this. I think that part of Zimbabwe's problem is that its regime has tried to achieve reform overnight. The other part of Zimbabwe's problem is political cronyism.