Re: NACLA on RCTV

[Walt Byars <wbyars@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is wrong on so many levels. When people talk about land reform, they
usually refer to policies which reduce the size of holdings and create a
more egalitarian distribution. Usually, the redistributed holdings are
still private property.

By 1952 this sort of land reform was completed in China. It was not
followed by starvation. Nor was the reorganization of agriculture into
much larger collective farms in 1955-56. Starvation was caused by the
reorganization of Chinese agriculture into massive communes starting in
1958.

In the USSR a famine followed the reorganization of agriculture into large
collective farms, so this isn't relevant. I will add that I think the
famine was caused by the rapidity of the famine as well as the rapidity
with which the government tried to increase production. I think this is
clearly a result of contingent factors affecting the USSR at the time and
not an ineitable consequence of collectivization.

I won't get into North Korea, but if you don't realize why it is an
extremely irrelevant example by now then I will elaborate.

The first paragraph about Zimbabwe you posted just says that food output
dropped, it doesn't say why. As I said in the post you quoted, just
because two things coincided doesn't mean one caused the other. Look at
all of the other bad economic policies of the Zimbabwe government
recently. The second one just quotes a government minister claiming that
land reform caused the food shortages. At best his association with the
government suggests that he isn't lying about this. It doesn't mean he is
right. I have not studied the land reforms in Zimbabwe this decade so I
have no idea whether they hurt the food situation or not. However, it is
proven that the land reforms of the 1980s increased agricultural
productivity. See Kinsey  "Land Reform, Growth and Equity: Emerging
Evidence from Zimbabwe?s Resettlement Programme" Journal of Southern
African Studies 25, no. 2, (1999): 169-192.

>
> Look. land collectivizations in Russia and China were followed by mass
> starvation.  Mass starvation is going on right now in North Korea.  Do you
> dispute these events?  If you do, nothing I say is going to convince you
> to the contrary.  Regarding Zimbabwe, I googled and pulled up the
> Wikipedia entry on "Land reform in Zimbabwe."  From Wikipedia:
>
> "The scale of the drop in farm output has produced widespread claims by
> aid agencies of starvation and famine. However Mugabe's expulsion of the
> international media has prevented full analysis of the scale of the famine
> and the resultant deaths. What is not in dispute is that a country once so
> rich in agricultural produce that it was dubbed the "bread basket" of
> Southern Africa, is now struggling to feed its own population. A
> staggering 45 percent of the population is considered malnourished."
>
> If you can't trust Wikipedia, google pulled up the following from a
> charity group called "Progressio":
>
> "A Zimbabwean government minister has admitted that farm seizures have led
> to repeated crop failures and severe food shortages.  . . . ."
> http://www.ciir.org/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=92214
>
> David Shemano
>