History can teach us the lie of the land

Iwould like to think it is possible for SA to debate land reform without resorting to a fixed script, with predetermined lines, first written under the fearful conditions of the early 1990s.

Like in many parts of the world, land reform must address itself to the past. It would be short-sighted to devise programmes that do not speak to the history of a society. Where that history involves violent dispossession, economic considerations must be embedded in the pursuit for social justice.

But we can at least attempt to take a fresh look, rather than rehashing the same old dichotomy: redress and transformation pitted against the need to provide certainty on property rights and agricultural productivity. I am not saying this is a false dichotomy. These are real tensions that have been articulated from the preparatory phase of SA’s democratic transition to this day.

There are other ways of framing debates on land reform. In October 2017, The Economist ran an article on land reform in Asia, peppered with examples of where land redistribution was accompanied by higher agricultural output (Japan, Taiwan, China before Mao’s collectivisation).

This follows the rise of scholarship that places land reform at the genesis of many east Asian developmental states.

From this perspective, agricultural productivity and food security are not caveats or conditions to land reform, but are integral to how it is conceived and implemented.

In Land Reform, Inequality, and Corruption: A Comparative Historical Study of Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines, published in The Korean Journal of International Studies, Prof Jong-sung You studies three countries with similar initial conditions but divergent economic trajectories: the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan. All three began with similar levels of economic development, experienced colonialism and had support from the US during the Cold War. Yet one is a crony capitalist, poor society, while the other two are developmental states.

You argues that this can be traced to the different ways in which land reform played out in these countries.

In South Korea and Taiwan, it reduced inequality and, in doing so, inoculated these countries against state capture (his words) and patronage politics. It didn’t hurt that land reform in these countries enjoyed US support.

Some scholars have argued that this was to fend off communism but later accounts, such as by Inham Kim (see Land Reform in South Korea under the US Military Occupation in the Journal of Cold War Studies) argue that the Truman administration, wary of economic concentration, saw land reform as integral to sustaining democracy.

Whereas the current fear is that land reform will “scare off investors”, SA should remind the world of instances where progressive, internationally backed initiatives paved the way for economic success. This will only work if accompanied by a credible plan.

If the east Asian experience seems to belong to a different geopolitical era, we can look at the reforms under way in Scotland. One insight from the report of the high-level panel led by former president Kgalema Motlanthe is that SA does not have a coherent framework in place to guide the three legs of land reform.

Following public consultations, Scotland issued what is believed to be the world’s first land-rights and responsibilities statement to guide its programme. Early indications are that this was a useful exercise in building a broadly shared vision for the principles of land reform.

SA needs to remedy the real inadequacies of the past two decades of land reform, drawing inspiration from a diverse repertoire of international experience.