What have you got to say on land foreignization? Has any of the heavyweights said anything on it?
Land foreignization is a pejorative term used by some people in Latin America to refer to the purchases of national land by foreign investors. A lot of people says this is bad because we are losing sovereignity, and even self-declared liberals promote governmental intervention to stop this tendency and even expropriate already acquired lands. Here in Uruguay it was approved some time ago a law that forces the seller to sell 15% of the property to the government, in the terms stated by the government (of course)
I have been told there are laws against land foreignization in the USA. Is that true?
In Argentina most of the people is against the private parks held by USAmericans and Europeans, but here in Uruguay the issue is mostly against the soy and corn Argentinian farmers who buy more than 1000 square km and the Brazilians who buy cattle ranches and the big companies who bought mills and meat packers.
Pity the theory which sets itself up in opposition to the mind!
Carl Von Clausewitz
The important question is, how do these companies acquire this territory, and how did the state do so in cases where it is involved? Why do existing property holders have title in the first place? If all acquisitions are legitimate, the most that can be said is that this is mere atavistic whining, and that any government interference ought to be ignored as much as possible, and crushed where feasible. If, on the other hand, it involves a state like China forcing peasants off land it originally confiscated from them, then selling it to various MNCs, this is clearly wrong and here the state ought to return what it has stolen. That said, misguided nationalism needs to be discarded into the trashbin of history. If individuals want to segregate, they must be willing to bear the costs of their own volition. As for the vast swathes of land under the government's control that it never homesteaded, well it does not own them really, and they're open to whomever homesteads them. Again, the government ought to be subverted where it tries to hinder this.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Government owns land, but it mostly goes to "no-land" farmers through the Colonization Institute or to make the ranch of some politician. Land was confiscated, but it happened during the revolution 200 years ago. Now it would be impossible to find the legitimate owners, who were given the land by the spanish crown anyway, and before that it belonged to nobody, as the indians were nomads who didn't really own the land.
The problem isn't with individuals segregating, but with the public opinion demanding the government to seize the land of foreigners.
In the rice milling business all the big companies had a collusion agreement to protect the prices, and were protected from imports by the government. So inefficiencies and big prices were masked by protectionism. The case of meat packers was the same.
Sounds like sheer irrationality and populism to me then.
Every land owner should be free to sell land to whomever he pleases. Many countries, however, restrict land ownership. Throughout most of Asia, land can be owned only by a citizen of that country. Even in Australia and New Zealand, I believe, foreigners need government consent to acquire land.The soaring prices of hard commodities has increased the value of mines and has increasingly tempted governments to confiscate them, or at least to increase mineral royalties. Foreigners are welcome while they are employing local workers to make mines productive, but less welcome once the mine is productive. Now that soft commodities are chasing hard commodities into the stratosphere, we can expect a similar increase in the appropriation of agricultural land worldwide.In the long run, these acts of legalized theft are counter-productive. Like all cycles, the commodity cycle will come to an end, and then those countries with the most nefarious governments will suffer the most, because foreigners will be reluctant to put a floor beneath tumbling mine and land prices. Once bitten, twice shy.Even in the short run, the new owner of stolen mines and land is almost always less competent than his predecessors. The very fact that he is not prepared to pay the full market price in free exchange suggests that he will run them less productively.
Jon Irenicus: Sounds like sheer irrationality and populism to me then. -Jon
No reason to be redundant. As for the question, I don't see anything wrong with this so long as the government isn't taking anyone else's land to sell it to foreigners.
shazam:No reason to be redundant. As for the question, I don't see anything wrong with this
You mean with forbidding landlords to sell to foreigners?
gussosa: shazam:No reason to be redundant. As for the question, I don't see anything wrong with this You mean with forbidding landlords to sell to foreigners?
What I meant to say was, "I don't see anything wrong with [landlords selling to foreigners]."
Jon Irenicus: The important question is, how do these companies acquire this territory, and how did the state do so in cases where it is involved? Why do existing property holders have title in the first place? If all acquisitions are legitimate, the most that can be said is that this is mere atavistic whining, and that any government interference ought to be ignored as much as possible, and crushed where feasible. If, on the other hand, it involves a state like China forcing peasants off land it originally confiscated from them, then selling it to various MNCs, this is clearly wrong and here the state ought to return what it has stolen. That said, misguided nationalism needs to be discarded into the trashbin of history. If individuals want to segregate, they must be willing to bear the costs of their own volition. As for the vast swathes of land under the government's control that it never homesteaded, well it does not own them really, and they're open to whomever homesteads them. Again, the government ought to be subverted where it tries to hinder this. -Jon
Very nicely put.