Land reform

Philosophy subjacent with the land reforms

Philosophically, there are arguments to justify the land reform: to multiply the legal titles on the same ground is without utility; some of these documents of title can be obtained by flight; it is a question of ensuring the most wellbeing for more world, the right to dignity; justice requires the application of " ground with those which it cultivent". Nevertheless much of these arguments enter in conflict with the property rights of the majority of our modern societies, which implies that certain forms of land reform question the design that at a given company of the rights, role of government.

These questions include for example:

is the private property legitimates?
if so, more specifically, is the land ownership legitimates?
if so, the property rights " historiques" are they legitimate, in a state or a company in particular?
even if the property rights are legitimate, must protect in an absolute way against expropriation, where must they involve the obligation of total or partial compensation to the " propriétaire" ?

Comment the property rights measured are compared to the right of life and freedom?
How to arbitrate the litigations about the land ownership?
which level of government has the common grounds are had, managed?

Land reforms

Here briefly presented by continent and country, a panorama of reforms having had course.

Africa

South Africa: the land reform was one of the promises made by ANC when it came to the capacity in 1994. Initially the system was based on an equitable system of price, the ground was bought by the government and was redistributed. Nevertheless, very recently, the government announced that it will start to use the process of expropriation with compensation.

Namibia a land reform limited at the time of the mode of Sam Nujoma. legislation passed in 1994

Zimbabwe efforts very discussed of land reforms, passing from one compensation system to total expropriation; often it for the benefits of the close relations of the government seems T.

Latin America

Bolivia: the revolution of 1952 was followed by a law of land reform, but finally in the years 1970, only 45% of the families of peasants had received a title for the ground.

Brazil: in the years 1930, Getúlio Vargas disavows a promise of land reform. Currently strong countryside of the Movement of the without-ground since the years 1990. Note: important sectors of Brazilian agriculture are organized in large farms, are mechanized, use artificial fertilizers, largely export…

Chile: the attempts at land reform started under the government of Jorge Alessandri in 1960, and were constant under Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964 - 1970) to reach their apogee between 1970 - 1973 under the presidency of Salvador Allende. Farms of more than 80 hectares were expropriées. This process was stopped Net by the coup d'etat of 1973.

Colombia: Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934 - 1938) promulgated law 200 of 1936, which authorizes expropriations of private properties to promote the social interest. The later attempts decreased until the presidencies of Alberto Lleras Camargo (1958 - 1962) and Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966 - 1970) which created the Colombian Institut for the land reform (INCORA) and of the widened rights of the grounds. Only in 1968 and 1969, INCORA delivered more 60 000 documents of title to the farmers and workers. This process was stopped and the situation started to be reversed following the violent reactions of the narco traffickers, the paramilitaries and the guerilla, without forgetting the opportunist land great landowners. That reversed the process, contributed to a new concentration of the grounds and displacements of the land small holders. In the years 2000, the plans and attempts of the government to use the legally expropriées grounds of the trusts of the traffickers did not involve many improvements.

Costa Rica: years 1990 ( to supplement )

Cuba: the land reform was in the priority plans of the revolutionary platform of 1959. Almost all the great properties were seized by the INRA ( National institute for the land reform ), which establishes all the regulations; A ceiling of 67 hectares was established and to the tenants the full property rights were given.

Guatemala: land reform during the " 10 years of printemps" (1944-1954). In 1952, the Guatemalan Congress adopts it, or the Act of land reform which obliges the rich person landowners to pay taxes and which forces the United Fruit Company to yield an important part of its uncultivated lands (or unutilised) to the peasants.

Mexico: the first law of land reform was promulgated in 1915 into full Mexican Révolution, under the principal impulse of Emiliano Zapata. In 1917, the land reform is registered in the Mexican Constitution. It proposes the principle of restitution of the grounds at the Indian communities, despoiled during Spanish colonization and in a way even more massive under the Porfiriat. However, the small farming community without ground mongrel, majority, profits very little from this first law and the redistribution of the grounds remains moderate. The come to power of Lázaro Cárdenas del Río in 1934 will give a blow of accelerator to the process, with the new agrarian Code which fixes the principle of land equipment in addition to the restitution: one then gives grounds to all those which do not have any. This gift takes the name of Ejido, the ground remaining property of the nation and the peasants having only one right of Usufruit on it. The end of the land reform was proclaimed in 1992 within the framework of a new law which set up the bases of a privatization of the ejidos. More half of the national territory was given in the form of ejidos during the land reform, but in a very unequal way depending on the various states of the country. In 1994, the rising of EZLN to the Chiapas is partly an answer at the end of the land reform, which was applied particularly little in this State however mainly country and which counts a strong Indian population.

Nicaragua: under Somoza, the IAN, (" Instituto Agropecuario Nicaragüence") distributed batches of virgin land of the Atlantic area, without touching with the structure of the great properties, it is especially a measurement of appeasing of the social conflicts. In 1981 the State Sandinista proclaims the first law of land reform: the insufficiently exploited latifundia are confiscated, which are then managed by official companies or co-operatives of production

Peru: the land reform in the years 1950 largely eliminated a one century system of old Peon. In 1968, another reform is carried out after the coup d'etat of the left wing of the colonel Juan Velasco Alvarado. During the first years of the government of Alberto Fujimori (1988-1995), another land reform carried out by Hernando de Soto and the Institute for freedom and the democracy , in the efforts to counter the guerilla of the luminous Path.

Venezuela: Hugo Chávez issues the Plan Zamora to redistribute the grounds of the government and the private grounds unutilised with the peasants who need some.

North America

Canada: land reform included in the agreement of the Island-of-Prince-Edouard to join the Canadian confederation in the years 1870. The majority of the grounds belonging to the English aristocracy, absent from the country. Canada committed itself to repurchase the ground and giving it to the farmers.

Asia

China a series of land reforms:

1946, promoted by the Chinese Communist party three years before the foundation of the Popular republic of China gained with this party of the million partisans among the poor and fairly easy farming community. The ground of the great landowners was expropriée and redistributed so that each hearth in each rural village has a comparable possession. This agrarian revolution was made famous in the West for the book of William Hinton Fanshen .
in the middle of the year 1950, one second land reform obliged the owners isolated to join in collectives, which in their turn were gathered in popular communes, under centralized control of the property rights and levelling principle of redistribution. This regulation was overall a failure in terms of production. Obviously, the RPC started to reverse the process in the years 1960.
end of the year 1970: a third land reform is reintroduced with a contract on family basis, called the system of responsibility for property . This reform had an enormous success initially followed by one period of relative stagnation.

India: with the taxes and regulation of the British period of domination (British Raj), with independence, India inherited a semi-feudal agrarian system with a land ownership concentrated in the hands of few owners (system of Zamindars). With independence, there were voluntary, initiated reforms and controls by the government in several states of India. Most notable and the most succeeded of the state of the Western Bengal is the example. Holding its promise of reform after its accession with the capacity, the Indian Communist party began gradual reforms. The result was an equitable distribution of the ground among the peasants without ground. With the Kerala the reform had little success. In addition, it is advisable to mention the important movement of distribution and voluntary and non-violent arable land collectivization, initiated by Vinoba Bhave, a disciple of Gandhi. This movement arrived, between 1951 and the middle of the years 1970 to redistribute, in an not-authoritative way, the equivalent of the surface of France.

Japan: after the Second world war the occupation by the United States brought a land reform.

Filipino: Total programme of land reform voted in 1988

Taiwan: after the Second world war Tchang Kaï-chek directed one reformed agrarian under the insistence of HAVE. This reform was facilitated by the fact that many the landowners were of Japanese who had fled, and by the fact that the Kuomintang was largely originating in the continent and had few fasteners with the owners in the island.

/// has to supplement

Middle-East

Egypt: (1952, largely déconstruite since

Iran: a significant land reform belonged to called white Révolution of the Shah in 1963. Almost 90% of the Iranians working as sharecropper S became owners of their grounds.

Iraq (1970)

Syria: 1963, largely déconstruite since

Europe

Scotland the act of land reform ( Land Reform Act ) passed in 2003. It puts a term at the historical legitimacy of the feudal laws and creates a framework for the rights of the rural communities to buy the grounds of their vicinity.

Estonia and Latvia: in 1918-1919, during the establishment of their states, expropriation of the great fields of Baltic German owners.

Finland: in 1918, the civil war ended in a series of land reforms.

France: under the Directory, during the last phases of the French revolution place had broad and durable land reform.

Hungary: in 1945 any property larger than 142 acres was expropriée without compensation and was redistributed with the peasants. Into the years 1950, the collective ownership was introduced according to the Soviet model but after 1990, the co-operatives were dissolved and the ground redistributed with small farmers.

Ireland: after the Great famine, the land reform became the crucial subject in Ireland, where almost all the grounds were properties of the English aristocracy. The Irish Parliament made countryside in the indifference with the House of Commons (London). The reforms started about 1870 and lasted 50 years.

Poland: several occasions of land reform. Most important includes the reforms of the republic (1919, 1921,1923,1925 and 1928) and the land reform of 1944 during the popular republic of Poland.

Romania: after unfruitful tests of reforms by Mihail Kogalniceanu in the years which followed the Rumanian unification (1863), a significant land reform took place in 1921.

Russia

imperial Russia; reform Stolypin
Soviet Russia: decree of the ground

Sweden almost not violently, obtaining regulation of a minimum of term of 25 year old contracts for the owners tenants (date)

Additional questions

Problematic of the land reforms

to acquire a ground is the beginning of the process, it then acts to return it productive to live about it decently.

Standard of land reforms traditional August 1st

redistribution of the grounds with large scales
assentamentos (in Brazil): distribution of small holdings coming from disappropriated properties or on public grounds.
the land reforms seen according to the World Bank are “land reforms assisted by the market”, where the peasant must repurchase the ground with the owners. or a system of “joint venture”

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