But, despite some difficulties, the agrarian reform was a major success. With the reduction in class differences and the transferof ownershiprights to tenants,class conflicts were substantiallyreduced and political stability was achieved in the countryside.
The ruralsector released a steady supply of labour to the urban sector that made possible the rapid expansion of the labour-intensive industrialisationand underpinnedits export success. By the late s the urbanpopulationwas alreadyhalf of the country's total population and the ruralpopulation was even declining in absolute terms, alleviating the pressure on land.
Last, but not least, the agricultural sector released a majoreconomic surplusin the form of an abundantand cheap supply of food and raw materials to the urban sector. Until the early s the state extracteda surplusfrom peasantfarmersby fixing procurementprices of certain staple foods below the cost of production, and thereafterthey continued to be fixed below marketprices but allowed for a meagre profit Lee, Although foreign aid reduced the need to squeeze the peasantry, it did not prevent the squeeze, but amelioratedit.
For example, PL food aid turned the terms of tradeagainst agriculturefrom to The standard of living only gradually improved for the peasantry despite their sustained increases in pro- ductivity, thereby explaining the massive exodus of the rural population to the cities in search for better conditions.
Much of this increased efficiency was creamedoff by the state to finance the industrialisationprocess. The state played an active role in promotingthis higher efficiency but this was done in an authori- tarianmannerand without much economic supportfrom the state. Because of the disappearanceof the landlordsthe state filled the political vacuum and directly controlled the mass of the peasantry.
This was achieved by dispatching a large number of government officials into the countryside, by appointing village leaders, through political indoctrination and direct mobilisation of the rural population. The state also made peasants dependentby establishing a monopoly over key agriculturalinputs such as fertilisers, credit and irrigation.
Peasants were often forced to accept government directive and had to negotiate on an unequalbasis with local governmentofficials on the supply of inputs and sale of their output. Much coercion was appliedto thrusthigh-yielding-varietyseeds and technological packages on an often reluctantfarmingpopulation. Throughthese methods the dirigiste and authoritarianstate forced the pace of agricultural modernisationto the extent that South Korean farmers achieved exceptionally high yields at a very low financialcost to the state Wade, Governmentauthoritieshad hoped that landlordswould provide a majorsource of finance for industrialisationbut because of the limited compensationpayments this was only partially achieved.
Most of the funding for industrialisationcame from the economic surplus extracted by the state from the peasantry. Another important source was foreign aid and later foreign investment. Food aid in particularplayed an importantrole duringthe s, when the countryimported large quantitiesof cheap or free food from the USA.
The state could accomplish this as it owned many banks, intervened heavily in financial markets and controlled the foreign exchange allocations, besides fixing the interest and foreign exchange rates. In short,the state played a key role in the developmentprocess of South Korea.
The state was strong and had a high degree of autonomy from the domestic classes in deciding what specific forms of capital accumulation to promote. Throughthe land reform a relatively egalitarianfarming system was created but at the same time the state greatly increased its control over the countryside.
About half of the total farmland was transferredto the beneficiaries and two- thirds of all farm households received land under the land reform. Practicallyno landless peasants or agriculturalproletariatexists and socioeconomic differen- tiation is limited. However, the state subordinatedthe rural sector to the over- riding goal of industrialisation.
Thus rural-urbandisparitieswidened as the fruits of the country's spectacular economic growth were only shared to a limited extent with the peasantry Koo, It is thus not surprising to find that the peasantry voted with their feet by emigrating en masse to the urban sector, providingthe necessary cheap labourfor rapidlygrowing labour-intensive industries. It could be arguedthat South Korea's phenomenal economic success was achieved on the back of the peasantry.
Agrarian reformand developmentin Taiwan The agrarianreform in Taiwan was implemented against the background of a popular uprising in and the need for the Kuomintanggovernment to gain popular supportin the countryside, as well as impose its authorityon the local Taiwanese elite. The nationalistforces of the Kuomintang,who had to flee from mainlandChina after their defeat by the communist forces led by Mao, formed the Taiwanese government.
They were of a different ethnic background from the local Taiwanese and were thus keen to gain legitimacy among the local population. The land reform consisted of three stages. In the thirdand final stage the Land-to-the-TillerAct of was ordained, by which landlords were obliged to sell all tenanted land above three hectaresof paddy field or equivalent to the government,which then resold it to tenants.
Landlordsreceived a fair price and the payments by tenants for the land did not exceed the Among the factors which contributedto Taiwan's successful agrarianreform are the wide diffusion of improvedfarmingmethods, thanks to a well organized system of agriculturalextension, majorinvestmentsin irrigationand drainage,an effective credit system which helped to finance the use of modem inputs, and an expanding market for agriculturalproduce.
Sometimes the state-driveninnova- tion package was too aggressive, as force was used to compel peasants to adopt the new technologies by using some of the police as extension workers. Innovation in agriculturewas characterisedby increased use of fertilisers and agro-chemicals combined with greater use of new crop varieties. Furthermore, the expansion of irrigation facilitated the spread of the green revolution tech- nologies and allowed multiple cropping.
What is remarkableis that the shift to more intensive cultivation patternshad already startedin the mids when Taiwanwas a Japanesecolony Lee, The Japanesemade significantefforts to develop agriculture in their colony by reforming the tenancy system and promoting new techniques, new varieties of seeds and inputs, such as chemical fertilisers, and throughthe formationof a variety of farmers' associations which provided extension services to their members Ho, These non-mechanical innovations were well suited to Taiwan's small scale and labour-intensive farming, where the average farm size duringthe last centuryvaried between one and two hectares Koo, As a consequenceof the widespreadapplicationof these innovationsland and labourproductivityrose steadily.
In the postwar period the agricultural sector made a major contribution to industrialisationand the country's development. There was a major transferof agriculture's economic surplus to the rest of the economy.
While before the Second World War an importantinstrumentfor this transfer was the land tax, after the war the less visible terms of trade mechanism accounted for over half agriculture'scapital outflow and the remainderwas capturedby a variety of taxes and levies.
Farmers had to pay high prices for fertilisers and other chemical inputs, while they received low prices for theirproduce. For example, they had to deliver a certainquota of rice and sugar at low prices to the governmentprocure- ment agencies. Owners of paddy land were obliged to deliver to the state a quota of rice and to pay a substantialland tax in rice.
Furthermore,fertiliser was only available to rice farmersin exchange for rice. These deliveries to the state were valued at a rate below the marketrate. The extractionof various surplusesfrom agricultureundoubtedlymade a major contributionto the initial stage of industrialdevelopment. The provision of cheap rice kept industrialwages low, boosted industrialprofits and enhancedindustrial exports.
Taxes on agricultureprovidedthe state with domestic financialresources thatcould be used for investmentin industry. The manipulationof the terms of trade also ensured that agriculturallabour was willing to work for a lower wage in the industrialsector than would have been the case otherwise, as the returnsto agriculturallabourwere lower than they would have been without agriculture'sunfavourableterms of trade.
Taiwan's industrialisationdiffers from South Korea's in that large industrial conglomerates were less common and many industries were located in rural areas. This had the advantagethat rural industries could pay even lower wages than urbanindustries,as they could draw more easily on cheap labourwhich was willing to work at a lower wage rate, since some of the subsistence expenses were covered by the farm household where the worker continued to live. It also made it easier to hire and fire workers as well as employ them on a temporary basis, as they could always rely on the peasant household for their survival.
This is one of the reasons which made it more difficult to organise industrialworkers and is also a factor which helps to explain the low level of industrialmilitancy Ranis, Despite this squeeze farmerscontinuedto innovate as well as save their meagre surpluses, thereby helping to finance Taiwan's industrialisation.
According to Ishikawa and Karshenas these top-down improvements in agri- cultural productivity made it possible for agriculture to generate a major economic surpluswhich the governmenteffectively capturedand steered largely toward the industrial sector.
At a later stage, as farm household incomes graduallyimproved and voluntarysavings increased, it was no longer necessary for the state to use compulsory or hidden mechanisms to achieve the same objective. The state made majorefforts to promote voluntaryruralsavings in the countrysideby a variety of incentives and by establishing a series of savings and banking institutions in rural areas, to the extent that by the s rural house- holds were saving one-fifth of their incomes Ong et al, While many authorshighlight Taiwan'ssuccess, only a few emphasise the less pleasant aspect of this modernisationfrom above.
Among these few is Apthorpe , who argues that the distributivistland reform was but a facade behind which an authoritarianregime defended its own existence as well as ensuring a massive transferof resources out of agriculture. The former tenants had to pay new taxes to the state, pay higher prices for inputs and received lower prices for their productsthan before the land reform. The state had taken the place of land- lords in terms of power and surplusextraction.
Moreover,the fact that landlords had been expropriated removed the countryside's most influential force in agricultural policy making. The land reform was also designed as much to destroy the base of the emergentmiddle class, as it was to aid the tenants. It was the middle class that had producedthe leaders of revolts against the Japaneseand in against the Kuomintang. From a political point of view the land reform achieved its objective by reducingtenancy conflicts and by transferringpower in the countrysidefrom landlordsto statalor parastatalauthorities.
While in the past it was landlords who subjugatedthe peasantry,after the land reform it was the state. This also facilitated control of the state over the Farmers Association Wade, Peasant household farmersalso found it notoriously difficult to organisepolitically. Thus farmerswere in a weak position to resist the state's squeeze. Nevertheless, the massive squeeze of the peasantryshould be put in perspective, as the intersectoralcapital flow from agricultureto industry,the requisitioning of Japanese assets and the massive US aid were also important, contributingalmost a thirdof total capitalformationin the s.
But the industrialisation-inducedsqueeze only lasted for a few decades, as there was a shift from an urbanto a ruralbias during the s. Thanks to the country's successful industrialisationthe labour surplus graduallyvanished and real industrialwages began to rise Kuznets, Agriculturallabourcosts also increasedand agriculturewas unable to keep up its dynamism.
This promptedthe government to abolish the rice-fertiliser barter scheme in the early s Thorbecke, Within a few years the official rice purchase price almost doubled. Agriculturebecame increasinglyinefficient relative to world agriculture and requiredincreasingprotectionagainst imports. It also became a net recipient of subsidies from the state.
The shift from industrialto agriculturalbias was also made possible by the fact that industrywas now able to generateits own surplus for financing capital accumulation. While peasant farming was an initial advantageat higher levels of development,the limitationsof small-scale farming were becoming increasingly apparent Huang, There comes a stage in agriculture'sdevelopment process where land has to be consolidated and farm size has to increasein orderto take advantageof economies of scale.
Asiansuccessesand LatinAmericanfailings The spectacularand unexpected success of the Asian miracle countrieshas left a deep imprint on scholars and policy makers. In particular,it has irked Latin Americans. After all, Latin America had achieved independence a century or century-and-a-halfbefore countries like South Korea and Taiwan, although the latter had a much briefer colonial experience compared with Latin America. More significantly, by the time South Korea and Taiwan gained independence after the Second World War, many Latin American countries had far higher standard of living and level of industrialisation, urbanisation, education and health.
But in the space of a few decades the picturechangeddramatically. While the LatinAmericanNICs had achieved relativelyhigh rates of economic growthin the postwar period, this changed drastically with the debt crisis see below.
The vast foreign exchange surplusesof the oil-exportingcountries, thanks to the tripling of the oil price in , meant that borrowingbecame cheap and Latin American countries became heavily indebted. However, the fall in raw material prices in the late s and early s, at the same time as interest rates rose sharply,resulted in the debt crisis, as countries were unable to repay their debts.
This led to the so-called 'lost decade' of the s, as the Latin American economies failed to grow during this period. Africa was also much affected by the debt crisis but the East Asian NICS, and particularlySouth Korea and Taiwan, were able to ride the storm as they had judiciously relied on their own savings and foreign exchange resources rather than engaging in Latin America's 'dance of the millions'.
Furthermore,Latin America had squandered much of the millions or rather billions of dollars it had borrowed as a con- siderable sum went to finance the imports of consumer goods for the upper income groups. In this section I am seeking to account for the differentdevelopment trajectory and performance of the selected Asian cases and Latin America, particularly regarding the role of agriculture. I am less concerned with deriving policy conclusions from the comparative analysis as this is fraught with pitfalls, especially in view of the differenthistoricalcontext Legler, and as there is no single path to development Akytiz, In many ways South Korea and Taiwan are special cases and their success cannot easily be replicated Woo- Cumings, ; Jenkins, a.
But this does not mean that lessons cannot be learned and that these might not have policy relevance Evans, ; Taylor, My aim, however, is limited to accountingfor some key factors that might enlighten our understandingof this spectacularturnaround. There are three main issues that I considerparticularlyrelevantin explaining the differences and which merit furtherreflection within a comparativeperspective. First, the nature and policy-making capability of the state. Second, the agrarian land tenure, class configuration and agrarian policy pursued.
Third, the particular interactions between the agriculturaland industrialsectors in the process of development as well as the state's industrial strategy. I will analyse each of these three inter- relatedthemes in what follows.
State capacity and policy In South Korea and Taiwan the state played a far more pivotal role in trans- forming agriculture and developing the industrial sector compared with Latin America. While in several Latin American countries a developmentalist state emerged which promoted industrialisation, it had far less control over the industrialbourgeoisie, the financial sector and the economy in general compared with the South Korean and Taiwanese states.
Furthermore,the state in South Korea and Taiwan had a considerably strongergrip over the agriculturalsector than did the Latin American state. As Japanhad ruledboth countriesfor over half a century, the local indigenous population, except for the elite, had little if any influence upon the authoritariancolonial state.
After the Second World War, when both countries achieved independenceafter the defeat of the Japaneseby the Allied Forces, the new regime was also autocratic. Only in the past decade or so has there been a transition towards democratic forms of governance. The South Korean and Taiwanese states had substantial social, political and even culturalcontrol over the populationand were also able to mobilise their energies for hard work and productive purposes to an extent inconceivable in Latin America.
South Korea'sand Taiwan'sbureaucracywas also more disciplined and more committedto the ideology, goals and activities of state than was the case in LatinAmerica. These factors,which gave South Koreaand Taiwana greaterstate capacity, facilitated the implementation of the governments' developmentalist agenda.
This relative autonomyof the state was justified by the rulers as necessary for preventing a communist takeover of the country, as well as for reasons of nationaldevelopment.
This was not challengedby the US government,which not only accepted the authoritariangovernance but also provided major economic and military aid to South Korea and Taiwan as part of the power politics of the cold war era. This gave both countries a key geopolitical significance that the rulers cleverly exploited internallyas well as in their external relations, such as gaining special access to the markets of rich countries, to foreign aid, and to political-military support.
Another factor to consider in the success of South Korea and Taiwan is the superior competence of their state bureaucracy compared with that of many Latin American countries, which are hamperedby patronage,clientelism and inertia Evans, Before the world crisis of the s the Latin American state, with few exceptions, was of an oligarchicalkind, controlledby the landedoligarchy which ruled in coalition with merchantand mining interests.
It was only after the s when governments shifted from a primary-product and export-orientated economic policy to an inward-directed-industrialisationdevelopment strategy that power shifted towards the industrialbourgeoisie.
This tended to encourage democratic forms of governance as, with the growth of the industrialworking class and the middle sectors, the industrialbourgeoisie saw it in their interestto gain the supportof these new social actors. But landlordsstill exercised a major influence on the state and were able to block any attempts at reform in the countryside. While the Latin Americanstate duringthe ISI period from the s, and in the Central American context from the s onwards, was a develop- mentalist state promoting industrialisationseveral decades before South Korea and Taiwan, thus giving it a head start over them, it was also a populist and largely democraticstate, if not in all countries at least in a significantnumberof them.
This limited the room for manoeuvreof the Latin American governments as they were under twin pressures from the dominant classes and the lower classes who, althoughless powerful, formed the majorityof the electorate. It should be clear that I am not arguingthat the political system in South Korea and Taiwan was superior to Latin America's. Far from it, as there is little to commend in a system that fiercely repressed any attempt at autonomous organisationand contestationby the industrialworking class and the peasantry.
All I am saying is that the Latin American state had to handle a more complex and conflictual situation. The more repressive characterof the South Koreanand Taiwanese state does not mean that the state had less legitimacy than in Latin America. The regimes in South Koreaand Taiwanrealised thatto gain legitimacy they had to sharethe fruits of growth more widely than hithertoand thus adopted a more welfare-orientated and distributive policy through investments in education, housing and health, as well as promoting small and medium-sized enterprises.
Almost at the birth of the new state the regime had gained important legitimacy in the countrysidethroughthe land reform programme. An insightful comparativeanalysis for the reasons of the superiorperformanceof South Korea over Brazil during their authoritarianperiod is provided by Donnelly During the ISI era the populist state in Latin America embarked on similar welfare measures but at a more reduced scale.
Furthermore,it was unable to sustain these populist policies as growth faltered and many of the social welfare gains were sacrificed with the painful implementationof structuraladjustment programmes and the conversion to free market neoliberal policies during the s and early s. A crucial factor explaining the different development performance of South Korea and Taiwancomparedwith Latin America is what Chan refers to as 'statecraft' or the ability of the state to design and implement strategies and policies conducive to development.
Throughoutthis article I have emphasised various dimensions of this statecraftand some will be furtherdiscussed below. I have placed particular emphasis on the state's ability to transform the land tenure system and agrariansocial relations as well as on its ability to encourage entrepreneurshipand a positive interaction between agriculture and industry, making it able to respond in a flexible mannerto changing internaland external circumstances.
Latin America's deficient statecraftas comparedto South Korea's and Taiwan's is partly the result of its more polarised and entrenched class structureand paradoxicallyits superiornaturalresourceendowment. Since colonial times the naturalresource abundance had already created an exploitative and rentier mentality, at first with the extraction of gold and silver and later with agriculturalresources.
Such a rentiermentality and behaviouralso spreadlater to industryduringthe ISI period, when industrialistswere demanding ever increasing protectionismand subsidies from the state. Because of their far more limited naturalresourcebases South Korea and Taiwanhad to rely far more on their humanresources and on their statecraftto create factor endowments and comparativeadvantagesin world markets if they were to develop successfully.
While Latin America remainedlocked into a naturalresource 'vent for surplus', these East Asian economies first went into a labour-based'vent for surplus' by promoting labour-intensiveindustrialexports Ranis, but soon shifted to skill-intensive industrialexports Gereffi, and more generally to a value- added developmentstrategydrivenby technologicalprogress. In agricultureland was cultivated more intensively, such as by double cropping, and there was a shift to higher value added crops such as vegetables and fruits, while Latin America continued to rely more on land-intensive traditional crops.
As for industrialdevelopmentmore will be said below. South Korea and Taiwan had to rely on superiorstatecraftfor their develop- ment process if they were to overcome their natural resource constraint. Paradoxically,in the Latin American case, this naturalresource abundancecan be a disadvantage,as it creates wealth which is either appropriatedby foreigners or strengthens the power of the dominant class that controls these natural resources.
It might also lead to the development of a sizeable state apparatus financed from taxing the exploitation of the natural resources, as has been discussed in the case of Chile, but limit its statecraftas the dominantclasses use the resources of state for their own rentier interest rather than for the wider developmentalinterests of the majorityof the population.
The East Asian state was able to restrict the unproductiveuse of capital, while in Latin America the rentiermentalitythrivedon a staples exportbase and the state was unable to limit the unproductivesources of wealth accumulation Legler, Landlords,peasants and agrarian reformpolicy Although landlordsin South Korea and Taiwanwere more actively contributing to agriculture'smodemisation than in Latin America, they practically vanished after land reform, while they retained a significant presence in Latin America.
Agriculture'smodemisationin South Korea and Taiwanhad alreadystartedwith Japan'scolonial policy, which, with the supportof landlords,forcefully promoted new crops and modern technologies among the cultivators, thereby achieving considerableincreases in yields.
Landlordsused a significantproportionof their rental incomes for investment purposes and for expanding production. Thus fertilisers and chemical inputs were introduced on a wide scale almost half a century earlier in South Korea and Taiwan than in Latin America. More significantly, landlords in South Korea and Taiwan were not in a position to obstruct the massive land reform process for reasons mentioned earlier.
Mean- while in Latin America landlordswere able to resist land reformsuntil the s, except in Mexico and Bolivia which had already experienced substantialland reform by then. In some Latin American countries no significant land reforms have been implementedeven now, the most glaring case being Brazil. While the power of landlords was decisively broken in South Korea and Taiwan, this was not the case in Latin America, with the exception of Cuba. Despite the demise of landlordismin South Korea and Taiwan, landlords were successful, thanks to efforts by the state, in becoming capitalist entrepreneurs.
They ceased being landlords and used their compensation payments to make investmentsin industry,finance and commerce. Landlordswere thus successfully integratedinto the new development model, thereby blunting their resistance to agrarianreform. Some Latin American governments,notably in Peru and Chile, also tried to limit landlordresistanceto agrarianreformby trying to convert them into industrial or other types of entrepreneurs by using the compensation payments for their expropriatedland to invest in new ventures.
However, com- pensation funds were limited, lost much of their value through inflation and landlordswere profoundlydistrustfulof the governmentwhich had expropriated their estates. They thus remained hostile to the government and tried to under- mine it instead of joining it in a nationaldevelopmenteffort. Landlordscontinued to fiercely resist any agrarianreform, to obstructits implementationand even to seek its reversal.
Such a situationof hostility and conflict in the Latin American countrysidewas not conducive to investmentand modernisation. Conflicts between landlordsand peasants were more acute in Latin America. The history of the establishmentand expansion of the large landed estate in Latin America was based on the usurpationof indigenous lands by force and later by economic means, often of a fraudulentkind and where political intimidationwas sometimes also present.
There is also a much sharper ethnic divide in Latin America. Landlords were invariably the direct descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors or of foreign, largely European, immigrants. The peasantrywas mainly indigenous. Thus the land conflict often acquiredan ethnic dimension, giving a special edge to the class conflict between landlords and peasants in the countryside.
While Korea and Taiwan had experienced Japanese colonialism, this was more short-lived, half a century compared to Latin America's three centuries of colonialism, and most Japanese landlords returned to Japanafter the war. Thus ruralsociety in Korea and Taiwan was more homo- geneous ethnically and culturally,which greatly facilitatedthe implementationof land reform and the drive to modernisation. In comparison with Latin America the state in South Korea and Taiwan was also far more effective at organising and mobilising the peasantry for productive purposes, as well as controlling it politically, which facilitated the widespreadadoption of innovations and limited disruptions Aqua, ; Starvis, ; Ravenholt, This does not mean that land agitation, strikes and revolts have been absent in South Korea and Taiwan but it does indicate that the East Asian governmentswere far more able to deal with the conflicts and demands of the peasantryin a productive manner than was the case in Latin America Huizer, ; Moore, While agrarianreforms in Latin America achieved some successes, on the whole the record is poor and much of the business of agrarianreform has been left unfinished.
Meanwhile South Korea's and Taiwan's land reform can be hailed as a success. It resulted in proportionallymore land being expropriated and benefiting more peasants as compared with Latin America. One key reason for the success is South Korea's and Taiwan'sgreaterstate autonomyand capacity. Anotherreason can be found in the differentagrarianstructurebetween the two regions before land reform, which greatly influenced the post- land reform structureand performance.
There are, of course, exceptions to this generalisation. In this sense it is instructiveto examine the case of El Salvador, which is unique within the Latin American region in that its pre-reformdistri- bution of landholdings was relatively similar to Taiwan's but, because of the other factors mentioned above, the outcome of the land reform in Taiwan was still far more successful thanin El Salvador Pelupessy South Korea's and Taiwan's as also Japan's agrarian structure has been characterisedas unimodal,while LatinAmerica'sis bimodal,based on a dualistic size structureof farmunits.
According to Johnstonand Kilby , a unimodal pattern of agricultural development is far more advantageous for a country's developmentthan a bimodalpattern. Even before the land reformpeasantsowned a greaterproportionof the country'sagriculturalland in South Korea and Taiwan compared with Latin America and, after land reform, they became owners of almost all of it as tenants became landowners. In South Korea and Taiwan farming was also in the hands of the peasant households as landlordswere not directly involved in cultivation.
Tenantswere highly integratedinto the market thanksto the high level of commercialisation,especially afterthe transitionin the s from extensive to intensive farming.
After land reform tenants gained ownership but the operationalsize of holdings changed little. Thus the distribu- tion of lands by tenure status was transformed but not the distribution of operational holdings.
In South Korea and Taiwan peasants were in control of productionand had long experience as agriculturalists,contraryto Latin America where the process of 'depeasantisation'was well advanced.
By the time of the agrarianreformin Latin America tenancy was limited as landlords,throughtheir administrative staff, directly managed most of their estates' land, employing wage labour. The permanentwage labourersreceived a money wage as well as access to housing and a small land allotment on the estate as part of their remuneration.
But the land benefits were increasingly curtailedand the employ- ment of seasonal wage labour, which did not receive any productive fringe benefits, became more common. Thus large-scale farming dominated in Latin America and the rurallabourforce had a far higher proletariancharacterthan in South Korea and Taiwan. It is striking to note that, despite South Korea's and Taiwan's extreme high population density, landlessness was practically non- existent. While small-scale and peasant farming dominated before and after agrarian reform in South Korea and Taiwan,large-scale and landlordfarming dominated in Latin America.
After agrarian reform landlord farming began to lose its dominance in Latin America because of expropriation and as some landlords convertedto capitalistfarming. But large-scalefarmingprevailedas the new land reform enterpriseswere transformedinto co-operatives or state farms. Nevertheless, capitalist farming, though generally smaller in size than previous estate farming, dominates Latin Americanagriculturein terms of land, capital, marketsand technology. Thus, the old latifundist-dominateddualismhas become a new capitalistdualism as peasant farming, despite some gains resulting from land reform and parcellisation, continues to be marginalised and is losing ground to capitalist farming in the increasingly competitive and globalised world of agriculture.
Today's Latin American dualist agrarianstructureis more complex and heterogeneous than in the pre-landreformperiod but peasantfarmingis undergreaterstress than in the past.
Most of Latin America's shrinkingruralpopulationis today of a proletarian or semi-proletariannature Kay, In short, the unimodal type of agrarian structure and the highly egalitarian agrariansystem after land reform in South Korea and Taiwan greatly facilitated the diffusion of the benefits of land reform and agriculturalmodernisation to most of the farming community Griffin, Thus their rural economy and society are far more inclusive and egalitarianthanLatin America's and their rural developmentis broad-based,while Latin America's continues to be exclusionary.
While South Korea and Taiwanhave largely resolved their agrarianproblem this great task is still awaitingLatinAmerica. Developmentstrategy and agriculture-industryrelations As discussed earlier, most development specialists recognise that in the initial stages of industrialisationit is necessary to secure the transferof an agricultural surplusto industryto supportthe process of industrialcapital accumulation.
As I will argue below, achieving a successful process of industrialisation and economic development is not just a matter of transferringresources from agri- culture to industry: a judicious development strategy entails the pursuit of appropriate policies which generate a dynamic interaction between the two sectors Ishikawa, ; Tomich et al, While most authors had previously focused mainly on the more visible direct transfers, Schiff and Valdes found that indirect transfers were far more importantin accountingfor the transferof resourcesout of agriculture.
The direct transfers arise from agricultural sectoral policies such as agricultural price controls, export taxes or quotas and import subsidies or taxes. They directly affect the price level of agriculturalcommodities relative to the price level of non-agriculturalcommodities, ie the domestic terms of trade.
Meanwhile the indirect transfersare less visible as they arise from outside agriculture,such as macroeconomic policies and industrial protectionism.
These indirect policies have resulted in a real exchange rate overvaluation, thereby depressing agri- culture'sterms of trade. In the view of Valdes and Schiff this direct and indirect bias against agricultureconstitutes 'the plunderingof agriculture'. It is this dynamic interactionwhich I will explore in this section. Furthermore, neoliberal authors like Krueger et al fail to remind readers of the landlords'plunderingduringthe pre-IsIand agricultural-export-orientated period or of the generous subsidies they received even duringthe subsequentisi period.
However, after Peron took power in he imposed severe controls on food prices, as well as levying higher agriculturalexport taxes, thereby channelling major resources from agriculturein supportof a majorISI drive. His measureswere far too drastic and had a very negative impact on agriculturalproduction, which took almost two decades to recover Flichman, In Brazil the state relied heavily on taxation of agriculturalexports, such as coffee, which helped to finance Sao Paulo's industrial infrastructure.
While for Valdes and Schiff 'plunderingof agriculture'has a negative effect on economic growth, for Teranishi the key factor in accounting for a country's superior economic performancehas more to do with the net flow of resources into agriculture,especially in support of rural infrastructuresuch as transportand irrigation, as well as extension services.
According to Teranishi the data arisingfrom the WorldBank study,which Schiff and Valdeshave used extensively do not show any significant difference in the degree of transfer of resources from agricultureacross the regions. However, he finds that there are major cross-regionaldifferences in infrastructuralinvestment in agriculture,and that those countries which undertake larger investments of this kind have a superioreconomic performance.
In my view, all these analyses are limited as they fail to consider other signifi- cant factors such as the land tenuresystem, class relationsand the dynamic inter- action between these various factors.
In what follows I will analyse some elements of the interactionbetween agricultureand industrywhich in my assess- ment have an importantbearingon the superioreconomic performanceof South Koreaand Taiwancomparedwith thatof LatinAmerica. In the process of surplus creation, extraction and transferfrom agricultureto industrythe state played a pivotal role in South Koreaand Taiwan.
It both created the conditions for productivitygrowth in agricultureand secured the transferof much of this growth to the industrialsector via such mechanismsas taxationand manipulationof the terms of tradein favour of industry. The state, as by now is well known, played an even more importantrole in the process of industrial- isation itself.
The state had an absolute grip over the agricultural sector, especially as the landlord class had lost its land and political power. Although peasant farming was extended even further after land reform, the state had control over the peasantrythrougha variety of economic, political and institu- tional mechanisms. As land- lords no longer had political power, the South Korean and Taiwanese govern- ments could afford to ignore the demands of agriculturalists.
Urban labour did not fare much better under conditions of political repression which effectively limited any form of industrialprotest, although their economic conditions were betterthan those of the peasantry. Meanwhile in Latin America, even in the period of ISIwhen governmentswere most favourably inclined towards industrialisation, the state had to make economic concessions to landlords,providing them with generous subsidies and other economic benefits.
Thus the Latin American state was unable proportion- ally to extractsuch a high surplusfrom agricultureas in South Korea and Taiwan. Furthermore,the populist regimes in Latin America, while mainly favouring the industrialist,were unable to dictate industrialpolicy to them as in South Korea and Taiwan.
They thus gave in to their demandsfor increasingprotectionismand economic benefits. Create Alert Alert. Share This Paper. Background Citations. Methods Citations. Results Citations. Citation Type. Has PDF. Publication Type. More Filters. Abstract: Taking a historical and comparative view, we explore the long debated cause of the spectacular economic successes of East Asia using land reforms in China and Japan during the s. Abstract This paper critically examines the widespread belief that the early implementation of comprehensive land reforms prior to the industrialisation process, coupled with subsequent agrarian … Expand.
Mobilization Campaigns and Rural Development. This article expands and challenges that framework by showing … Expand. Extractive industries versus human development? Toward sustainable economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. Highly Influenced. View 7 excerpts, cites background. China in Latin America: a follow-up on the development of the relations. This paper examines five recently published books that deal with the issue of Chinese relations with the Americas between and The author shows that the books provide evidence of a steady … Expand.
View 2 excerpts, cites background. Since then China has followed a three-fold … Expand. View 1 excerpt, cites background. Aid and Uneven Development in East Asia.
This article discusses the divergent developmental outcomes among postwar South Korea, Taiwan, and South Vietnam. While U. Taiwan and the geopolitics of late development. Abstract Through a case study of Taiwan, this paper seeks to address recent debates surrounding the transformation of developmental states in East Asia.
Whilst a number of authors have cited the … Expand. View 1 excerpt.
0コメント