Agrarian Reform is the forced redistribution of land from the landowners to the peasants. It is a popular economic policy in many third world countries in Asia and I think in Latin America.
The problem: Western Colonial rule of Third world countries violently expropriated land(thousands of hectares) from peasants and gave them to favored families. A feudal system wherein the peasants work in the fields their ancestors died for but owned by illegitimate landowners is created. Today, the western colonialists are gone but the land is still owned by the mixed race descendants of the westerners or mestizos. These rich landowners' families fill the ranks of the political class in the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries.
The solution by leftist intellectuals and political movement: Everybody who has more than five hectares of agricultural land will be expropriated by the state and land must be redistributed to peasants working in them. Landlord is expropriated regardless of legitimacy of ownership.
The result: Landlords transformed agricultural land into industrial and residential land. Agri-entrepreneurs do not build warehouses or mills or trucks for fear of their business being expropriated.
Questions: What do you think of this? What is your solution to this if it is very difficult to trace legitimacy of ownership? Are there any libertarian analysis of the issue?
* I live in an economically fascist Southeast Asian country where the masses are crying for socialism and ignorantly praise Obama for bringing change to the country that freed us from the brutal rule of imperialist Japan.
LP Radical Caucus 10 Points:
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10. Land Reform - Because of past land theft and original claims not based on homesteading, many landholdings inAmerica are illegitimate. The Libertarian Party in cases of theft (for example, from the Native Americans and chicanos)should support restoration to the victims or their heirs and in cases of invalid claims should advocate reopening the land forhomesteading.
BTW, there is a good text on this in the Land Theft chapter in Ethics of Liberty if you want more theory.
Marko:10. Land Reform - Because of past land theft and original claims not based on homesteading, many landholdings inAmerica are illegitimate. The Libertarian Party in cases of theft (for example, from the Native Americans and chicanos)should support restoration to the victims or their heirs and in cases of invalid claims should advocate reopening the land forhomesteading.
Man, that would win so many votes! Why aren't people concentrating on the social benefits of Libertarianism to win over some half-hearted and misguided lefties? Appealing to people's sense of fairness is an extremely powerful political tool.
What about the legitimate owners who more or less comprise majority of landowners that will be robbed of their land?
I live in a country in which a full third of the population has moved to the suburbs of the capital in 1990, seizing the then-communal arable land. After the communist regime was done away with, the original holders of these lands claimed them back. Now, I know what Rothbard said on the issue but Rothbard had never seen land-hungry people: it is entirely unfeasible to uproot 500’000 people now, send them back to their god-forsaken towns where most will have to chose between subsistence and emigration, to free the land for 50 families who happened to be well-connected enough them for the King to give them extensive estates back in the ’30.
My own position is that, with the exception on the land theft that happened in the near past, all land ownership titles should be recognized as they are (or become within a month) the moment a libertarian-minded movement succeeds sin overthrowing the state.
Its just plain impossible to revert lands to whichever owner they could have belonged to a century ago (not to speak of not knowing how he got that land). Of course, the moment a free market is established land will begin to be distributed, by market processes, to the best users. As time goes by, the effects of the initial misallocation, brought about by statist intervention, becomes minimal. But redistributing land again once having the opportunity to, would only add to the maze of property titles. Trust me, this confusion is setting Albanian back a decade in development.
So, in two words: do not interfere and let ‘society’ decide what to do: if large landowners manage to keep their estates in the immediate aftermath of a libertarian revolution, then we should assume them to be legal owners from then on; if a flood of peasants manages to wrestle control form landowners, than it is the peasants who shall enjoy the land as rightful owners.
If there is no state, land reform is not possible. It's out of reach.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Yeah I'm sure Rothbard didn't give it as much thought as you have.
Merlin:I live in a country in which a full third of the population has moved to the suburbs of the capital in 1990, seizing the then-communal arable land. After the communist regime was done away with, the original holders of these lands claimed them back. Now, I know what Rothbard said on the issue but Rothbard had never seen land-hungry people: it is entirely unfeasible to uproot 500’000 people now, send them back to their god-forsaken towns where most will have to chose between subsistence and emigration, to free the land for 50 families who happened to be well-connected enough them for the King to give them extensive estates back in the ’30.
Well like all things it's better to analyze this from the perspective of a free society. Suppose there is no state, and 500,000 people manage to squat the private farms or empty lots of some individuals. Now obviously with so many people living on it, the original property has been completely destroyed and replaced with something else, so there is no way to return the farm or empty lot to its owner. However, because the original owner had his farm taken from him, he does have the right to be compensated for his loss based on a contract with an insurer of property. The insurer will pay him back and then, if in any way possible, attempt to recover something from the people who squatted the land.
Marko: 10. Land Reform - Because of past land theft and original claims not based on homesteading, many landholdings inAmerica are illegitimate. The Libertarian Party in cases of theft (for example, from the Native Americans and chicanos)should support restoration to the victims or their heirs and in cases of invalid claims should advocate reopening the land forhomesteading.
What a great way to ensure a civil war.
Stranger:Now obviously with so many people living on it, the original property has been completely destroyed and replaced with something else, so there is no way to return the farm or empty lot to its owner. However, because the original owner had his farm taken from him, he does have the right to be compensated for his loss based on a contract with an insurer of property. The insurer will pay him back and then, if in any way possible, attempt to recover something from the people who squatted the land.
Interesting concept, I like it, but could the insurer forcibly eject the squatters?
Jackson LaRose: Stranger:Now obviously with so many people living on it, the original property has been completely destroyed and replaced with something else, so there is no way to return the farm or empty lot to its owner. However, because the original owner had his farm taken from him, he does have the right to be compensated for his loss based on a contract with an insurer of property. The insurer will pay him back and then, if in any way possible, attempt to recover something from the people who squatted the land. Interesting concept, I like it, but could the insurer forcibly eject the squatters?
Eject them for what? The land is destroyed anyway. You're not getting it back.
Stranger:Eject them for what? The land is destroyed anyway. You're not getting it back.
So you're saying since the squatters have (presumably) modified the land, you cannot get it back the way you had it, right? The best an insurance company can hope for is to ask for some financial compensation from the new owners to recoup the loss they incurred from paying out to you. Could they frcibly extract that payment?
well that all depends. Every case in every country is special just like any individual.
I spoke to a Paraguayan guy (from Paraguay) and he told me know 80% of the nation's wealth is distributed among the top 5 families. All resources, land, industries and governement are heavely influenced by the 5 families.
What do you do in case like this??? I dont know but I do know the present situation is unacceptable.
Corporatism is using state means to enhance market share and profitability of a few favored firms, at the expense of the citizen.
Jackson LaRose:Could they frcibly extract that payment?
That depends on their business practices. Trying to extract money from the extremely poor by force may not yield any benefit.
Stranger:That depends on their business practices. Trying to extract money from the extremely poor by force may not yield any benefit.
Yeah, that's true.
As a brazilian, I can tell that we never had a big land reform, and that was great!
Instead of goverment making some folks feeling entitled to some land just because, we had market forces doing the job of land distribution, and the result is that we have the best agriculture in the world, extremely productive and that doesn't rely on subsides.
The land reform movements are a bunch of communist terrorists that have no respect for privaty property. They invade farms and instead of planting a single bean, they just destroy crops and equipment.
I'm happy to hear how market forces successfully 'redistributed' land in Brazil. Can you show me links on this? I can relate with you about the land reform movement. The political party that combines maoist and stalinist doctrines in the Philippines wants to brainwash the otherwise docile peasants and rouse them to support Land Reform. What Byzantine said is very true. The wealthiest landowners in the Philippines hire mercenaries to exterminate the opposition.
Stranger: Well like all things it's better to analyze this from the perspective of a free society. Suppose there is no state, and 500,000 people manage to squat the private farms or empty lots of some individuals. Now obviously with so many people living on it, the original property has been completely destroyed and replaced with something else, so there is no way to return the farm or empty lot to its owner. However, because the original owner had his farm taken from him, he does have the right to be compensated for his loss based on a contract with an insurer of property. The insurer will pay him back and then, if in any way possible, attempt to recover something from the people who squatted the land.
This situation would never happen in a free market. Again to take a leaf form my own country, when in the ’30 a big wave of would-be land reformers asked the King to redistribute land form the wealthiest families (which, in toto, owned less than 10% of arable land), he just gave them the finger and left the market to sort that out. The result was that by the time the communists took over in 1945 land was very neatly distributed and there where almost no land-less peasants.
But the problem I was talking about applied to the transition between a state and anarchy, in which the solution you put forward is not applicable (there would hardly be nay such insurance product). If after the fall of the communist regime people had just opted for anarchy, the land problem would still have remained unsolved. And that’s why I believe that, only when we destroy the state and let anarchy prevail, only then, we should recognize as just whichever title emerges within a month. Its the only way out of, like sicsempertiranys said, civil war.
Marko: Yeah I'm sure Rothbard didn't give it as much thought as you have.
I’d really like to see Rothbard as an advisor to the post-communist government in Albania in 1991. It would have been interesting to see just how much thought he really gave to the issue.
Merlin: I’d really like to see Rothbard as an advisor to the post-communist government in Albania in 1991. It would have been interesting to see just how much thought he really gave to the issue.
No comment.
Kenneth: What about the legitimate owners who more or less comprise majority of landowners that will be robbed of their land?
Obviously enough a libertarian land reform would be far different from a hit-and-miss socialist land reform. Legitimate owners have nothing to fear. Also have nothing to fear are many of the current owners who are basically 'illegitimate' (in some moral sense), but who are the least illegitimate of all possible candidates induvidually (and therefore legitimate as per libertarian ethics).
sicsempertyrannis: Marko: 10. Land Reform - Because of past land theft and original claims not based on homesteading, many landholdings inAmerica are illegitimate. The Libertarian Party in cases of theft (for example, from the Native Americans and chicanos)should support restoration to the victims or their heirs and in cases of invalid claims should advocate reopening the land forhomesteading. What a great way to ensure a civil war.
8. Rights Are Primary - The central commitment of the Libertarian Party will have to reflect the higher costs of doingbusiness there and the must be to individual liberty on the basis of rights and moral principle, and not on the basis ofeconomic cost-benefit estimates.
There is no picking and choosing. What is right is right. Or have you turned a utilitarian on us?
Byzantine: Historically, land reform means taking land from productive people with technical expertise to clueless, unproductive people with a chip on their shoulder. I don't think it's worked out very well wherever it's been tried. And by tried, I mean forced at gunpoint/hacked to death by machete/etc.
Historically, land reform means taking land from productive people with technical expertise to clueless, unproductive people with a chip on their shoulder. I don't think it's worked out very well wherever it's been tried. And by tried, I mean forced at gunpoint/hacked to death by machete/etc.
Not true. Abolition of serfdom worked out very well in 1789-1918 Europe.
Byzantine: Marko: Not true. Abolition of serfdom worked out very well in 1789-1918 Europe. I don't recall that involving the forcible redistribution of landholdings. I don't think the French Revolution or World War I turned out very well either.
Marko: Not true. Abolition of serfdom worked out very well in 1789-1918 Europe.
I don't recall that involving the forcible redistribution of landholdings.
I don't think the French Revolution or World War I turned out very well either.
Oh, so the aristocracy relinquished their hold voluntarily?
Byzantine: Who decides 'legitimacy?' And more importantly, who enforces it?
Who decides 'legitimacy?' And more importantly, who enforces it?
What, you're saying there is a legitimate function of the state that can not be performed by the market?
Marko: Oh, so the aristocracy relinquished their hold voluntarily?
During the industrial revolution in England it was common for the aristocrats to go broke and sell their land off to the rising capitalist class. The reason was that the capitalists were attracting labor to the cities and it became impossible to conduct agrarian business the old way.
The point to remember is that serfdom only works by controlling capital. Once the capital owners can freely compete with each other, there is nothing that can keep serfdom in place.
Marko: Byzantine: Marko: Not true. Abolition of serfdom worked out very well in 1789-1918 Europe. I don't recall that involving the forcible redistribution of landholdings. I don't think the French Revolution or World War I turned out very well either. Oh, so the aristocracy relinquished their hold voluntarily?
At least in the Habsburg empire, abolition of serfdom was not a land reform. Abolition of serfdom meant that the aristocrats didn't have a say in personal life of the former serfs anymore. Like who the serfs could marry or if whether they could leave the village.There was an option for the serfs to buy the land they were working on from the aristocrat, but there was no forced redistribution of property.
Even after the abolition, the former serfs were still obliged to perform "robota" - to work on the aristocrat's land for free for certain amount of time evver week. Alternatively they could pay money, it was up to the aristocrat. Serfdom was abolished in 1781, "robota" was abolished in 1848, first serious land reforms took place after World War I.
Kenneth: I'm happy to hear how market forces successfully 'redistributed' land in Brazil. Can you show me links on this? I can relate with you about the land reform movement. The political party that combines maoist and stalinist doctrines in the Philippines wants to brainwash the otherwise docile peasants and rouse them to support Land Reform. What Byzantine said is very true. The wealthiest landowners in the Philippines hire mercenaries to exterminate the opposition.
Here the agrobusiness is quite dinamic, the typical "land owner" was replaced by business men. Brazil is the world largest producer of soy, orange, sugar, coffee, ethanol (from cane, subsideless and very profitable), cattle for beef, chicken.
The land reform movements are quite lost when it comes to anything agritucultural, nowdays they got more people from cities that has zero experiencie with agriculture. The big problem we have here is that the state doesn't respect the right to an owner defend his property, if a bunch of rufians start to invade and wreck your farm, you cant shoot them. (and it's nearly impossible to obtain guns legally here)
Here are some videos of the land reform folks doing what they do best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyQKO7B85C0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXxNllZAsJU
Cortex: At least in the Habsburg empire, abolition of serfdom was not a land reform. Abolition of serfdom meant that the aristocrats didn't have a say in personal life of the former serfs anymore. Like who the serfs could marry or if whether they could leave the village.There was an option for the serfs to buy the land they were working on from the aristocrat, but there was no forced redistribution of property. Even after the abolition, the former serfs were still obliged to perform "robota" - to work on the aristocrat's land for free for certain amount of time evver week. Alternatively they could pay money, it was up to the aristocrat. Serfdom was abolished in 1781, "robota" was abolished in 1848, first serious land reforms took place after World War I.
Serfdom was finally abolished in Austria in 1848. It was accompanied by land reform with monetary compensation for nobility. The compensation was 2/3 of the value of the land. 1/3 of that was paid by the state, 1/3 by the peasant.
It was a land reform not a market transaction. The noble could not decide that he was not going to accept the compensation and not relinquish his hold on the land. It was not "buying".
More globalization is the answer.
Not offices and bureaucrats, but big business deserves credit for the fact that most of the families in the United States own a motorcar and a radio set. - Ludwig von Mises
I agree that it is ideal for illegitimately owned land to be returned to the descendants of the legitimate owners. But would you really trust the state with it's hit and miss land reform policy? When the proponents of land reform are communists who don't give shit about private property? When it's virtually impossible to trace legitimate ownership except for those obviously illegitimate landowners owning thousands of hectares? When land reform would lead to bloodshed in the countryside?
For all the elegance of Rothbardian ethics, you must remember that the question is set in the context of a statist world.
I am not sure what that changes? Because we live in the confines of a statist world do you therefore propose we come out against the police going after thieves? That we speak up for decriminalization of theft because it is inevitable the police are going to frame some people for theft?
We are consistently in favour of property rights. There is no other position. The context plays no role in it. We are in favour of police defending property rights of victims of theft and we are against the police jailing innocents accused of theft. We are in favour of expropriation of thieves and we are against expropriation of rightful owners.
MarketFundamentalist: More globalization is the answer.
If you don't elaborate, I'm going to assume you're an idiot. Agrarian reform and/or localism are completely at odds with globalism. Explain?
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
I understand. But you would still have to consider if there are more legitimate landowners to be expropriated than illegitimate landowners. So in relation to what you said about utilitarianism, cost-benefit is a factor.
"I understand. But you would still have to consider if there are more legitimate landowners to be expropriated than illegitimate landowners. So in relation to what you said about utilitarianism, cost-benefit is a factor."
I take this back by the way. The reason land reform is so difficult to make a stand on is that almost all the land reform policies in underdeveloped countries are hit-and-miss. Common policy expropriates both legitimate and illegitimate landowners. We are not trying to create a land reform policy here, just deciding if we should support current land reform policies. So are you willing to expropriate landowners regardless of legitimacy of ownership or not? Or maybe you take a cost-benefit stance depending on the legitimacy of the majority to be expropriated?
Kenneth:Questions: What do you think of this? What is your solution to this if it is very difficult to trace legitimacy of ownership?
That at least 5% of the population stop paying/obeying the government until it goes broke and disappears, then the market can take care of property distribution.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.