Land policy is so massively important. In Britain it sneaks into public discourse through mansion taxes, HS2 and Heathrow's third runway, but the issue is much bigger than any of these. Just one post with some implications; Daniel Knowles likes to write about this, and Matt Yglesias wrote his first book on zoning (which I will read at some point). It is easy to look disullusioned at Britain's political establishment as nothing more than a front to preserve the rents of south-eastern homeowners.
(Surely it is much more important that MPs are given allowances to purchase houses in London specifically, than that they claimed too much on expenses. Such a large problem skirted so easily in 2009, though of course London-based journalists are hardly disinterested.)
But our problems are so minor compared with India's. Here is background on new laws changes to land acquisition in India. Of course, this has always been the case.
Joe Studwell's book, How Asia Works, which stresses the importance of land ownership, has left me this deep impression. (Kulaks - independent peasant proprietors - are everywhere much more productive than landowning estates, and every successful industrialisation has required land reform to create this class. For that matter land ownership has always determined politics, war and revolutionary changes; in C20 Asia this is clearly defined, but a post for another day.)
How has China got this right? Studwell notes that Deng was the son of a landlord, that in the late 70s, Deng broke up communes and leased land to individuals. Local Chinese government then tries to extort land back from farmers for developement, made slightly harder by the extension of leases under Hu Jintao. But Studwell also notes how once the productivity growth has been accomplished, and agriculture has provided enough of a surplus for investment in industrial capital, the extortion does not really matter to the path of development.
Well this year seems to be showing that if China has passed that point India hasn't.
Or China is just better at masking the figures.
(Surely it is much more important that MPs are given allowances to purchase houses in London specifically, than that they claimed too much on expenses. Such a large problem skirted so easily in 2009, though of course London-based journalists are hardly disinterested.)
But our problems are so minor compared with India's. Here is background on new laws changes to land acquisition in India. Of course, this has always been the case.
Joe Studwell's book, How Asia Works, which stresses the importance of land ownership, has left me this deep impression. (Kulaks - independent peasant proprietors - are everywhere much more productive than landowning estates, and every successful industrialisation has required land reform to create this class. For that matter land ownership has always determined politics, war and revolutionary changes; in C20 Asia this is clearly defined, but a post for another day.)
How has China got this right? Studwell notes that Deng was the son of a landlord, that in the late 70s, Deng broke up communes and leased land to individuals. Local Chinese government then tries to extort land back from farmers for developement, made slightly harder by the extension of leases under Hu Jintao. But Studwell also notes how once the productivity growth has been accomplished, and agriculture has provided enough of a surplus for investment in industrial capital, the extortion does not really matter to the path of development.
Well this year seems to be showing that if China has passed that point India hasn't.
Or China is just better at masking the figures.
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