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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <7800684@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Nov-85 10:01:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800684
Posted: Fri Nov 15 10:01:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Nov-85 21:56:21 EST
References: <796@whuxl.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:whuxl:-79600:inmet:7800684:000:2584
Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 15 10:01:00 1985


[ tim sevener whuxn!orb]
>> Land reforms *can* feed people.  ... But in places
>> like China, Cuba, and Nicaragua, there are overriding factors.
>> For in these  countries,  the  real  *power  over  food-producing
>> resourses*  is  in  the hands of the central government and so is
>> less distributed than ever.

>I totally agree land reforms *can* feed people.  But your second 
>point is a questionable thesis.  I am not about to defend large-scale
>collective agriculture.  But those in the collective do have some
>power in determining how the collective's quota will be met. 

No, the point I was making (but too briefly) is different. It  is
*not*  that  agriculture is run by collectives and the quotas for
these set by the government. I would say the same  if  the  plots
were *individual* - provided that the country is totalitarian.

Remember, we were talking of a more even distribution  of  "power
over  food-producibg  resourses".  If political power of the cen-
tral leadership is *absolute* - then *all* the land,  the  imple-
ments,  the cattle and the *people* on that land BELONG TO THEM -
to the Politbureau or an equivalent group. *Appearences* may be
different,  and  policies  may be lenient, but that's the reality
behind them.

After  the  Bolshevik  and  the  Maoist  revolutions,  farmers
*thought* the land was now theirs. Forced collectivization proved
to them who was the boss.

Relations of property (individual or collective) and control have
a different meaning in these societies.

For a quite different example, consider Thyssen, the  German  in-
dustrialist  who financed Hitler's rise to power in 1933. As soon
as 1935, having disagreed with the new bosses, he was expropriat-
ed and in exile.  He did not realize that, under the new rules of
the game he had  helped  to  establish,  property  rights  didn't
matter. Peasant or tycoon, it's the same story.

Communist agrarian revolutions have a clear pattern:

(1) Land-hungry farmers support the revolutionaries;
together, they dislodge the landlords, or whoever
controls the land.

(2) The revolutionaries consolidate control. The farmers
have the land; their taxes are growing, their prices limited,
but in exchange they get schools and medicines;

(3) The (former) revolutionaries expropriate the farmers,
under the guise of collectivization.  They need capital
for their other goals; also, they see any economic
independence as a challenge. And the farmers, not having any
political influence in the new system, cannot defend
themselves. They are now worse off than ever.

		Jan Wasilewsky