According to Meredith, governmental mismanagement and widespread corruption within the ZANU–PF order led to Mugabe and others enriching themselves considerably at the expense of the country as a whole. In Meredith's view, the average Zimbabwean was worse off in 2000 than he had been in 1980: "average wages were lower, unemployment had trebled, public services were crumbling, and life expectancy was falling". Opposition to ZANU–PF grew, particularly in the towns and cities. In 2000, hoping to win support from rural blacks, Mugabe introduced a fast-track land reform programme under which groups of ZANU–PF activists, officially referred to as "war veterans", were sent to take over white-owned farms so the land could be split up, without compensation, and redistributed to black peasant farmers. White farmers and their black employees were violently forced out, food production plummeted, and the economy collapsed to half the size it had been in 1980.