I’m midway through my stay in South Africa, currently in East London.  The country has serious electricity problems and rolls outages daily; about 40 percent under capacity.  Shanty towns pirate power directly from the grid using bare wire and 3-inch poles to hold it up just above eye level.

            These shacks all have a satellite dish.  TV is far more important than food.  According to all the people attending my seminars, the country is in free-fall.  Railroads no longer run and people scavenge steel by hand and sell it for scrap.

            I’ve been to many countries around the world and never had entry this easy.  The customs agent didn’t ask my name, what I was doing here, where I was going, how long I was staying—NOTHING.  That’s never happened before.  I thought perhaps they were just friendly.  Come to find out this is not about being friendly; it’s about a lackadaisical attitude toward law and order.  Government agents don’t care about anything except bribes and corruption.

            The biggest takeaway so far is the theft problem.  Every discussion ends up dealing with how you do something in the context of theft.  I tell them about electric fence chargers—people come and steal them.  Raising sheep—that’s all but disappeared because they’re easy to steel.  How do you have chickens out on pasture when two-legged predators routinely steal them

            This evening I had dinner with a guy who said syndicates routinely steal cattle.  Thieves  are normally armed so farmers dare not confront them.  If you hire a security person to patrol at njght, you have to make sure you pay him more than he could get bribed by one of these syndicates.

            Two bills have just been introduced in the national congress regarding property.  One says that if you do not use your property, the government can confiscate it without compensation.  What does “use it” mean? This includes intellectual property, personal property, real estate, anything.  If the government decides you’re not using it, the state can take it away at any time.

            The second one is about property control.  If you don’t control your property, you have no right to it.  In other words, if a squatter sets up a chair on your property, you’re not controlling your property and you can’t do anything to remove the squatter.

            Everyone of any substance employs security guards, making business hard, investment hard, and simply planning anything hard.  It’s a country of wonderful resources.  I’m staying at a permaculture farm, subtropical, with Lady Finger bananas growing outside my room and all I want to eat on the table.  Picked an orange yesterday—my what a burst of taste.  It never frosts and rainfall comes dependably at 30 inches a year.  What’s not to love?

            I’ve especially enjoyed studying two water-based sewage systems that don’t use septic fields.  Very cool.  When things get bad like this, innovation sure takes hold.  The roads are nearly impassible, so people go out on their own with hand tools and fix the potholes, holding up a cup for donations as cars pass. 

            If the U.S. follows suit, perhaps we’ll see a revival of self-reliance and creativity.  Is it worth having the wheels fall off to spur a renewed sense of community and individual innovation?