An excellent and well researched paper from our estimeed member
The Idea of Privatizing Land in Ethiopia:
But Privatizing For Whose Benefit?
[First Draft]
April 05,2008
by Tesfaye Habisso
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
e-mail: habisso@yahoo. co.uk
Introduction
Land and the National Question have been, and still remain, the two most contentious and thorny issues in Ethiopia's history, especially for those ethnic groups and nationalities of the Southern, South-Western and South-Eastern regions of today's Ethiopia who were conquered through brutal military campaigns and incorporated into the Ethiopian empire by Emperor Menelik II toward the end of the 19th century, and who consequently bore the yoke of serfdom (the "netegna-gebbar" system) for more than eight decades under Abyssinian landlords and settlers from the North ("neftegnas" ) and the "balabats" (local chiefs)--the former's erstwhile collaborators and partners in the brigandage of the South.
Many generations of Ethiopians from these regions have struggled and died for the cause of liberating the land and the peoples from the clutches or pangs of feudal and vampire landlords, and repossessing the lands that they were once dispossessed by the conquerors. Later their struggles were supported by all progressive forces of the whole country that sought the demise of the archaic and backward feudal system which they believed was a roadblock to development and modernization.
"Land to the Tiller!" was the most cogent and palpable slogan that rallied many progressive forces around that cause during the imperial regime of Emperor Haile Sellassie I (1931-1974).
In the end, the imperial regime was unable to resolve the innumerable political, economic and social problems of the day, and, unable to bear its own weight against all the odds confronting it, it crumbled like a house of cards in 1974.
In the wake of the demise of the feudal order and the ignominious downfall of the imperial regime of Emperor Haile Sellassie I in 1974, the military junta that ousted the emperor and installed itself at the helm of political power by military force was however obliged to bend or submit to the demands of the progressive forces and the peasantry at large to abolish the long-standing tenant-landlord relations and the rapacious "negtegna" system once and for all.
To this end, Proclamation to Provide for the Public Ownership of Rural Lands, Procl. No. 31/1975, was promulgated and, consequently, distribution of land to the tiller in the aforementioned regions and provinces was effected, bringing to its consummation the age-long bitter struggles of the affected regions and peasant masses.
It was one of the most memorable events in the whole history of the country, particularly in the history of the victimized populations of the regions mentioned here above. It is only three decades since these regions and peoples were liberated from the clutches of feudal landlords and the brutal "neftegna" system.
The ugly past is still vividly fresh in the memories of these peoples. Any discussion towards altering the prevailing public ownership pattern of landholding into private ownership of land will be perceived by these peoples with intense suspicion, and fear of the past coming back again.
And yet, those who were in the past staunch supporters of the cause of the oppressed peoples and the peasant masses are now backsliding from their previous strong anti-feudal, anti-landlordism, and actively propagating the idea of privatizing land as a panacea for the ills faced by the peasantry and the agricultural sector in Ethiopia today.
In fact, the first President of the Ethiopian Economists Association and one of the top-notch economists that the country has produced in its modern history, Dr. Eshetu Chole (May his soul rest in peace), was, indeed, bewildered when he remarked, in 1993, thus: "Now, even those who were unequivocal in condemning the system of landownership in the imperial era are arguing for private ownership of land.
Thus, as the current debate on land policy testifies, we are still being haunted by a problem which we thought we had laid to rest in 1975."
I think it was Maynard Keynes who at one time said, " When facts change on the ground, I change my mind." But I ask ourselves, have facts changed on the ground to warrant such a dramatic change in our position on the vexing question of land?
Why are our economists and politicians in some political parties in the opposition bloc willing to short-change their previous position as well as their own recent research findings that the majority of the peasantry at large support the prevailing pattern of landownership, that is, public ownership, and that they are eager to support now the opposite choice of private ownership of land?
If democracy means government based on the will of the people, or "rule of the people, by the people, for the people", as Abraham Lincoln said, what form of government does these political parties in the opposition want to install in Ethiopia by going against the will of the Ethiopian people?
How can they expect the people to elect them when they in fact stand against the people's choice? Or, they are not sure or convinced of their own scientific research analysis at all?
This reminds me of what I once read in the Newsweek which says, "Economists are accused of three sins: One, they don't agree among themselves; two, they state the obvious; three, they give bad advice."
What I rather don't comprehend at all is why they are giving this bad advice to their own political parties. I prefer to leave the judgment to the Ethiopian people.
Be this as it may, it is not sufficient to appeal to abstract notions of morality or the evils of history or distributive justice alone. Moreover, merely declaring that This Land is Our Land evidently does not make it so!
We need to assess what impact land tenure will have on rural people and rural development, and on the environment, on non-human life and on the fate of future generations, etc.
We need to assess what we mean by rural development today and tomorrow, what challenges face rural people and areas, and in what respects land ownership and tenure hinder or prevent rural development from taking place. These are some of the subjects that call for in-depth studies and analysis.
The UN Land Policy Betrayed
By coincidence, the land policy of the United Nations was first officially articulated at the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, held in Vancouver, May 31- June 11, 1976, just one year or so later, after the Land Proclamation of the Derg went into effect, that is, March 1975. The Preamble of the UN land policy states:
" Land... cannot be treated as an ordinary asset controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes.
The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole. Public control of land use is therefore indispensable. .."
The Preamble is followed by nine pages of specific policy recommendations endorsed by the participating nations, including the United States.Following are some of those recommendations:
Recommendation A.1
(b) All countries should establish as a matter of urgency a national policy on human settlements, embodying the distribution of population-- -over the national territory.
(c) (V) Such a policy should be devised to facilitate population redistribution to accord with the availability of resources.
Recommendation D.1
(a) Public ownership or effective control of land in the public interest is the single most important means of--- achieving a more equitable distribution of the benefits of development whilst assuring that environmental impacts are considered.
(b) Land is a scarce resource whose management should be subject to public surveillance or control in the interest of the nation.
(d) Governments must maintain full jurisdiction and exercise complete sovereignty over such land with a view to freely planning development of human settlements- --
Recommendation D.2
(a) Agricultural land, particularly on the periphery of urban areas, is an important national resource; without public control land is prey to speculation and urban encroachment.
(b) Change in the use of land---should be subject to public control and regulation.
(c) Such control may be exercised through:
(i)Zoning and land-use planning as a basic instrument of land policy in general and control of land use changes in particular;
(ii)Direct intervention, e.g. the creation of land reserves and land banks, purchase, compensated expropriation and/or pre-emption, acquisition of development rights, conditioned leasing of public and communal land, formation of public and mixed development enterprises;
(iii) Legal controls, e.g. compulsory registration, changes in administrative boundaries, development building and local permits, assembly and re-plotting.
Recommendation D.3
(a) Excessive profits resulting from the increase in land value due to development and change in use are one of the principal causes of the concentration of wealth in private hands.
Taxation should not be seen only as a source of revenue for the community but also as a powerful tool to encourage development of desirable locations. And to exercise controlling effect on the land market and to redistribute to the public at large the benefits of the unearned increase in land values.
(b) The unearned increment resulting from the rise in land values resulting from change in use of land, from public investment or decision or due to the general growth of the community must be subject to appropriate recapture by public bodies.
Recommendation D.4
(a) Public ownership of land cannot be an end in itself; it is justified in so far as it is exercised in favour of the common good rather than to protect the interests of the already privileged.
(b) Public ownership should be used to secure and control areas of urban expansion and protection; and to implement urban and rural land reform processes, and supply serviced land at price levels that can secure socially acceptable patterns of development.
1. Recommendation D.5
(b) Past patterns of ownership rights should be transformed to match the changing needs of society and be collectively beneficial
(c) (v) Methods for the separation of land ownership rights from development rights, the latter to be entrusted to a "public authority". [The Christian Alert Network Inc., 3/14/05]
Unfortunately, most members of the international community, except those that belonged to the communist bloc, did not implement the UN policy on land, that is, public ownership of land, and that the consequences have been so unjust and lopsided for the vast majority of poor people where such land tenure prevails can be observed from the following findings. A recent United Nations study of 83 countries showed that:
§ Less than 5% of rural landowners control three quarters of the land.
§ We have the most concentrated pattern of land ownership in Western Europe with 57 percent of the land in private hands being owned by one hundredth of one percent of the population.[ 1]
§ Just 342 farm properties in Brazil cover 183,397 square miles--an area larger than California [2]
§ 86% of South Africa is still owned by the white minority population.
§ 60% of El Salvador is owned by the richest 2% of the population.
§ 80% of Pakistan is owned by the richest 3% of the population.
§ 74% of Great Britain is owned by the richest 2% of the population.
§ 84% of Scotland is owned by the richest 7% of the population.
§ At best, a generous interpretation could suggest that about 3% of the population owns 95% of the privately held land in the United States [3]
§ 568 companies control 22% of America's private land, a land mass the size of Spain. Those same companies’ land interests worldwide comprise a total area larger than that of Europe--almost 2 billion acres.
§ In Florida, 1% owns 77% of the land. Other states where the top 1% own over two-thirds of the land are Maine, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oregon [4]
§ Urban Land Institute calculations show that more than half of all corporate earnings are generated by real estate and real estate-related activities [5]
Let us just for a moment pause and ask ourselves a simple question: Is this what we want to happen in Ethiopia? A timeless maxim says that history always repeats itself, and those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.
Eli Siegel once said, "How the earth should be owned is the major economic question of this time; as it is the oldest--- The world should be owned by the people living in it." [6] Let us examine the American experience, where people believe that private property right over land is as sacred as life and liberty.
The American Reality: A Salutory Lesson?
By some estimates, one percent of the population owns at least 60% of the land value in Western countries. The value of all land in the United States in 1990 was $3.7 trillion. [7] By now that number is likely to be more than $6 trillion. The federal government no longer tracks land ownership and values. Apparently such numbers are too politically sensitive.
Let us take an example of how the average American family experiences the land problem. In smaller cities a typical $120,000 house will be on a $30,000 lot. In major population centers a house costs double, triple or even 10-times that price. In parts of California a comparable home would be $400,000; in parts of Washington, DC it would be $800,000. Labour and material prices for these homes are relatively equal.
The price difference is the cost of land functioning under the "law of rent" as described by classical economist David Ricardo. [8].
Under the current American economic system, the price of land is paid by the producers of wealth__to those who amass wealth from unearned income for which they do not labour.
Those who receive this unearned income from land price escalation are primarily (1) those who already own large amounts of land or land of high value; (2) those who are earning interest from real estate speculation; and (3) financial institutions via mortgage payments.
We must grasp the injustice at the core of the American economic system. We need to understand how far the Americans have strayed from reality and how they have been led into illusionary games of finance. Patricia Mische said, " The more we grow in awareness of our own sacred source, the more we discover that our own sacred source is the sacred source of each person and all that is in the universe." [9].
Near a large metro area, a farmer can sell land at a price of $20,000 to $ 60,000 per acre and in some cases even more. The farmer takes this cash and looks for another farm to buy farther from the city.
Using a 1031 (tax free) exchange he rolls the profits into another farm. Another group of agricultural land buyers are investors who conclude that agricultural land is a good investment after watching farmland prices go up. Farmers sitting on significant equity in land they already own also add to their current land base at higher prices when they perceive that land values are on the rise. [10] Farmland thus loses its utility value for agriculture and becomes a " good investment"- -a cash cow to be milked for all its worth.
For most farmers, the value of farmland comprises the majority of net worth. The recent land price boom has been driven primarily by low interest rates. Because of these low interest rates, a young couple living in a metropolitan area can now buy a $150,000 - 200,000 home. As a result of these new buyers, real estate developers are able to buy farmland at extremely high prices and develop entry-level to middle-income homes.
John Mohawk fully grasped the problem of our land tenure system. He said, "When land became a 'commodity' and lost its status as provider and sustainer of life, Western civilization began its history of subjugation and exploitation of the earth and earth based cultures. [11]
Today, this subjugation and exploitation is eroding middle class America as well. While the larger land parcels are bought with cash or very little debt, working people take on substantial amounts of debt to buy their small house plots. This further widens the wealth gap.
Americans are working longer and harder just to buy someplace, somewhere, to rest their weary bones at night. The United States is a super rich nation which spends a huge amount on health care and has multitudes of sick people. The Health Olympics tracks the correlation between illness, longevity and economic injustice as indicated by the wealth gap.
This indicator shows that the greatest health hazard in the United States is the economic gap between the rich and the poor.
With greater economic inequality comes worse health--lower life expectancy and higher mortality rates. The U.S. spends the most money on health care but ranks 26th in life expectancy on the Health Olympics 2003 chart. All of the countries that rank higher in the Health Olympics have a smaller gap in income distribution between their richest and poorest citizens.
Worldwide less than 300 multi-billionaires now have as much wealth as three billion people, which is half the six billion population of the planet. Just three people have as much wealth as the people of 48 countries. In the United States, the wealth gap has been steadily growing since the 1970s.
Currently, the top one percent of American population has accumulated more household wealth than the bottom 95 percent. The bottom 90% has only 29% of household wealth. The wealthiest 1% owns 49% of all stocks and mutual funds; the next 9% own 36% and the bottom 90% own 15%. [12]
Robert Reich said, " We now have more national income and national wealth concentrated in fewer hands than we've had since the gilded age of the late nineteenth century. This poses a fundamental threat to democracy."
One of the most disturbing aspects of life in this very wealthy country is the persistence of hunger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports, based on a national U.S. Census Bureau survey of households representative of the U.S. population, that in 2002 11.1 percent of all U.S. households were "food insecure" because of lack of resources.
Of the 12.1 million households that were food insecure, 3.8 million suffered from food insecurity that was so severe that USDA's measure classified them as "hungry." The report showed that food insecurity and hunger increased in the United States for the third consecutive year.
Since 1999, food insecurity has increased by 3.9 million individuals: 2.8 million adults and more than one million children. In 2002, 34.9 million people lived in households which were unable to purchase adequate food and thus experienced food insecurity, compared to 33.6 million in 2001 and 31 million in 1999. [13]
The U.S. Conference of Mayors in their Sodexho Survey 2003 also reported that hunger and homelessness continued to rise in major American cities over the last year. [14]
Twenty participating cities reported that unemployment and various employment-related problems were the leading causes of hunger. Other causes most likely contributing to hunger include low-paying jobs (13 cities) and high housing costs (11 cities). Participating cities were most likely to attribute homelessness to a lack of affordable housing (21 cities), mental illness and the lack of needed services (20 cities), substance abuse and the lack of needed services (19 cities), and low-paying jobs (17 cities).
The survey documents significant unmet need for shelter in the cities surveyed. Eighty-four percent of the cities reported that emergency shelters have turned away homeless families due to lack of resources.
To remedy this injustice Americans must understand the land problem. Thomas Berry said, "Humans in their totality are born of the earth. We are earthlings. The earth is our origin, our nourishment, our support, our guide---Thus the whole burden of modern earth studies is to narrate the story of the birth of humans from our Mother Earth."[15]
The millions who are hungry and homeless in America are unlikely to ever have sufficiently well-paying jobs or any jobs at all. Two million manufacturing jobs have evaporated since 2000. Manufacturers are either off-shoring jobs to China or automating as fast as they can. Information jobs are fast moving to India.
Today there are roughly 15 million Americans working in manufacturing jobs. Every year for the next 15 years, a million or so Americans will lose their manufacturing jobs. In 15 or 20 years, there will be zero people in America working in manufacturing jobs.
Those who still have jobs are less secure than they have ever been before. More than 40 million Americans have no health insurance and 140 million Americans are facing soaring health costs. Retirement savings are at an historic low.
The richest 10% of capital owners own 71% of America. If current trends continue they will own it all. They are now financing the robotic revolution. Robots are going to create completely automated factories in the very near future.
Automated retail systems like ATMs, kiosks and self-service checkout lines are just the beginning. These systems will proliferate and evolve until nearly every retail transaction will be handled in an automated way. By 2022 computers run at one trillion operations per second. Computers with the capacity of the human brain could cost as little as $500. [16]
What will become of democracy? What will become of "We the people?" What kind of life awaits American children and grandchildren if they have no jobs and no income to buy food or shelter?
Henry George had this insight more than a century ago: "Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice. In allowing one man to own the land on which and from which other men must live, we have made him a bondsman in a degree which increases as material progress goes on. It is this that turns the blessings of material progress into a curse." [17]
Either Americans will be in bondage, or they will build an economic democracy and be free to celebrate life on this amazing planet. They must find the way and quickly. The forces of concentration on wealth and power have nearly overpowered them. A poem in the Lord of the Rings mirrors the mythic times we are living: "One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them." We are bound and the cord is tightening. "Full of spectrum dominance" is the phrase the elite have coined to describe their intention to rule the world.
Americans are on the threshold of the second American Revolution. They need to proceed with the non-violent approach taught by Thoreau, Gandhi and King. They need to build an economic democracy based firmly on this basic principle--the earth belongs equally to everyone as a birthright. Thomas Jefferson gave Americans a first principle ethic when he said, "The earth is given as a common stock for men to labour and live on."
Abraham Lincoln told them, "The land, the earth God gave to man for his home, society, or unfriendly government, any more than the air or water, if as much. An individual, company, or enterprise should hold no more than is required for their home and sustenance.
All that is not used should be held for the free use of every family to make homesteads, and to hold them as long as they are so occupied."
Tom Paine gave Americans a policy approach to the problem of escalating land values when he said, "Men did not make the earth---It is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property--- Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds." Several early political economists had begun to grasp the problem and the solution. John Stuart Mill was aware that "Landlords grow richer in their sleep without working, risking, or economizing.
The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title." Henry George said, "do what we may, we can accomplish nothing real and lasting until we secure to all the first of those equal and inalienable right to the use and benefit of natural opportunities. [18]
Thus far we have looked at how the land problem is the root cause of the wealth gap. Sustainability people are well aware of the costs to the planet when wealth and power spiral into the hands of so few. Loss of species and topsoil, deteriorated air and water quality, global warming--the list of catastrophes and potential catastrophes grows each day. Those with clear vision frequently feel frustrated by lack of power and financing to remedy these problems.
Every war throughout all the ages has been fought over land and natural resources. During the past one hundred years, governments have been destabilized and wars have been fought over land and natural resources in Indonesia, Viet Nam, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and many other countries.
We have seen oil conflicts in the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea Basin, Nigeria, Angola, the Sudan, and the South China Sea and water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, Tigris-Euphrates and Indus River Basins.
Internal wars have been or are being fought over minerals and timber in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, and Bougainville/ Papaua New Guinea, and Borneo, Brazil and Indonesia. Hostilities over valuable gems, minerals and timber are under way in Angola, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Indonesia, Liberia and the Philippines.
Michael Klare astutely observes in his book Resource Wars: "What we are seeing is the emergence of a new geography of conflict--a global landscape in which competition over vital resources is becoming the governing principle behind the disposition and use of military power---the result is a new strategic geography in which resource concentrations rather than political boundaries are the major defining features." [19]
Ecological economists are attempting to cost the earth--to put a dollar amount on the services that the planet provides. The cost of earth services is as we might suspect, multi-trillions of dollars.
Geonomic economists are calculating resource rents--the market value of surface land and natural resources--and are finding that for the U.S. the amount could be as much as half of GDP. Visionary philosophers say these sums represent our common heritage and should profit the many, not the few. A prophet once said, as recorded in Ecclesiastics (5:9), "the profit of the earth is for all."
In 1996, the UNCHS--United Nations Center for Human Settlements- -issued a global agenda for ensuring access to land which weaves together person/planet concerns and states in part: "Access to land and legal security of tenure are strategic prerequisites for the provision of adequate shelter for all and for the development of sustainable human settlements affecting both urban and rural areas---
The failure to adopt, at all levels, appropriate rural and urban land policies---remains a primary cause of inequity and poverty. It is also the cause of increased living costs, the occupation of hazard-prone land, environmental degradation and the increased vulnerability of urban and rural habitats, affecting all people----"
The UNCHS document, adopted by consensus of all UN member states, recommends these policies among others:(d) Apply transparent, comprehensive and equitable fiscal incentive mechanisms, as appropriate, to stimulate the efficient, accessible and environmentally sound use of land---;(h) Consider the adoption of innovative instruments that capture gains in land value and recover public investments; and (k) Develop land codes and legal framework that define the nature of land and real property and the rights that are formally recognized;- --[20].
Decades earlier, another international conference produced a document which provided such a land code and framework that defined land rights. The International Declaration on Individual and Common Rights to Land declared that the earth is the common heritage of all and that all people have natural and equal rights to the land of the planet. By the term "land" is meant all natural resources. The Declaration continues:
Subject always to those natural and equal rights in land and to this common ownership, individuals can and should enjoy subsidiary rights in land. These rights properly enjoyed by individuals are:
2. The right to secure exclusive occupation of land.
3. The right to exclusive use of land occupied.
4. The right to the free transfer of land according to the laws of the country.
5. The right to transmit land by inheritance.
6. These individual rights do not include:
1. The right to use land in a manner contrary to the common good of all, e.g., in such a manner as to destroy or impair the common heritage.
2. The right to appropriate what economists call the Economic Rent of Land. The Economic Rent is the annual value attaching to the land alone apart from any improvements thereon created by labour. This value is created by the existence of and the functioning of the whole community wherein the individual lives and is in justice the property of the community.
To allow this value to be appropriated by individuals enables land to be used not only for the production of wealth but as an instrument of oppression of human by human leading to severe social consequences which are everywhere evident.
All humans have natural and equal rights in land. Those rights may be exercised in two ways:
1. By holding land as individuals and/ or
2. Sharing in the common use of the Economic Rent of Land.
The Economic Rent of land can be collected for the use of the community by methods similar to those by which real estate taxes are now collected. That is what is meant by the policy of Land Value Taxation. Were this community created land value collected, the many taxes which impede the production of wealth and limit purchasing power could be abolished.
The exercise of both common and individual rights in land is essential to a society based on justice: But the rights of individuals in natural resources are limited by the just rights of the community. Denying the existence of common rights in land creates a condition of society wherein the exercise of individual rights becomes impossible for the great mass of the people. [20]
Today, the American reality of the past is fast changing. Use of land, public and private, is now being controlled by the federal government.
Land which cannot be operated effectively under private ownership, will be held by the government as public forests, parks, game preserves, grazing ranges, recreation centers and the like.
Encouraged and funded by the federal government, governments at the state and local level are buying private property, conservation easements and development rights in every corner of the nation.
When the owners are not willing to sell, government is exercising its eminent domain power, forcing people off their land. This scheme is an example of the implementation of recommendation D3(1) of the U.N document adopted in 1976.[22]
The Current debate on the Land Question in Ethiopia:
The current debate on the land issue in Ethiopia has by and large divided the Ethiopian elite into two camps or groups: (1) those who advocate state or public ownership of land on the one hand, and (2) those who advocate private ownership, on the other hand. There are also some who support a mixed sort of system--private, collective or communal, and state ownership. But the dominant ones are those who advocate (1) state/public ownership and (2) private ownership.
State/public ownership of land has been strongly defended by the ruling party and some other politicians, economists, academicians and, of course, by the majority of the peasants as confirmed by the pre-1994 constitution drafting process and by the recently conducted survey analysis of the Ethiopian Economists Association.
Private ownership of land is favoured by most opposition political parties, Western economic advisors, international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, and some other scholars as well. The major problems raised by those who criticize the 1975 land reform and who advocate private ownership include, diminution and fragmentation of holdings, tenure insecurity, inefficient allocation of land, and inadequate land administration.
Some of the main arguments and counter-arguments regarding the two patterns of land ownership are as follows:
‘ Arguments for State/Public Ownership and Against Private Ownership
§ "Private ownership will lead to concentration of land in the hands of a few who have the ability to buy; to the eviction of the poor peasants; landlessness; and rural-urban migration of the same peasants who are left without any alternative means of livelihood."
§ "Privatization of land will create a massive eviction of peasants and the displacement of pastoralists. Landless and poor peasants, who comprise the overwhelming majority of the rural population, will be the first victims of the policy. Moreover, the pre-reform landlords, who battened on the meager 'surplus' produced by the peasants, mostly tenants, will now be replaced by 'capitalist' farmers who will alienate small peasants from their land."
§ "The victims of the onslaught of the penetration of capital were peasants and pastoralists from the oppressed nationalities. It gave rise to the exacerbation of the oppression and exploitation of peasants and pastoralists of those nationalities. Should the same thing be allowed to happen again because capital covets to swallow their plots of land?"
§ "Given the country's meager industrial base and limited opportunities for non-agricultural pursuits, land is the only productive asset available to the majority of the rural population and its equitable distribution among the population is of utmost importance. The commoditization of land would turn the clock back to the situation before the 1974 revolution. It would bring back the former landlords, open up the possibility of large-scale peasant evictions and thus create a massive influx of pauperized and destitute migrants into the towns."
‘ Arguments for Private Ownership of land and Against State/Public Ownership
§ "Since the 1975 land reform, Ethiopian peasants have become "tenants of the state"--- The reform has replaced the landlord with the state, providing the latter direct and unencumbered access to the peasantry."
§ "The Derg made itself the owner of the land transforming Ethiopia from a country of semi-ristholder [and semi-tenant] to a country of all tenants."
§ "The government needs to re-instate the principle of private ownership of land, and affirm the right of peasants to hold their plots as private property with clear title deeds. The only way peasant confidence will be restored, and insecurity of tenure abolished thus enabling the peasants to take their land as their assets and to work it with great effort, is if peasants are assured that no one can take their land from them"
§ "Freehold is the best means of ensuring absolute tenure security. Security of holding and pride of possession will restore peasant confidence which has been shattered by fifteen years of state ownership and socialist agrarian policies under the Derg. Freehold will provide strong incentives to peasants to invest on their land, and will make land transactions easier and more efficient."
§ " The economic impact of state ownership was making it difficult to the peasant to develop the productivity of the land and his labour as he has seen the land does not belong to him and that it can be taken away by the state whenever necessary."
§ " Only private ownership will ensure security of tenure and provide the peasant with the incentives necessary to make investments and long-term improvements on the land. One cannot move towards a market economy while keeping land--the most vital means of production in an agricultural economy--outside the operation of the market."
§ "The view that the state will prevent excessive concentration of land amongst the rich and prevent the dispossession of the poor by imposing restrictions on the ownership or transfer of land has been challenged-- -The equity concerns of governments could, if they are genuine, be met through appropriate policy instruments such as the specification of farm-size ceilings without inhibiting land market. Unnecessary restrictions may deny efficient farmer access to farmland and would contribute to underutilization of available land."
A Critique on the State versus Private
Ownership of Land Options for Ethiopia
Any discussion of the land tenure system in Ethiopia today, that is, the question of state versus private ownership of land cannot be discussed outside the context of the 1994 Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE), as the land tenure system itself is entrenched and embodied in the Constitution. Article 40 of the constitution states:
(1) Every Ethiopian citizen has the right to the ownership of private property. Unless prescribed otherwise by law on account of public interest, this right shall include the right to acquire, to use and, in a manner compatible with the rights of other citizens, to dispose of such property by sale or bequest or to transfer it otherwise
(2) "Private property", for the purpose of this Article, shall mean any tangible or intangible product which has value and is produced by the labour, creativity, enterprise or capital of an individual citizen, associations which enjoy juridical personality under the law, or in appropriate circumstances, by communities specifically empowered by law to own property in common.
(3) The right to ownership of rural and urban land, as well as of all natural resources, is exclusively vested in the state and in the peoples of Ethiopia. Land is a common property of the Nations, Nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia and shall not be subject to sale or to other means of exchange.
(4) Ethiopian peasants have the right to obtain land without payment and the protection against eviction from their possession. The implementation of this provision shall be specified by law.
(5) Ethiopian pastoralists have the right to free land for grazing and cultivation as well as the right not to be displaced from their own lands. The implementation shall be specified by law.
(6) Without prejudice to the right of Ethiopian Nations, Nationalities, and peoples to the ownership of land, government shall ensure the right of private investors to the use of land on the basis of payment arrangements established by law. Particulars shall be determined by law.
(7) Every Ethiopian shall have the full right to the immovable property he builds and to the permanent improvements he brings about on the land by his labour or capital. This right shall include the right to alienate, to bequeath, and, where the right of use expires, to remove his property, transfer his title, or claim compensation for it. Particulars shall be determined by law.
(8) Without prejudice to the right to private property, the government may expropriate private property for public purposes subject to payment in advance of compensation commensurate to the value of the property.
(9)
Thus, in Ethiopia there is no private ownership of land as it would definitely lead to the concentration of land in the hands of a few rich people and bring up landlordism again, as elaborated in this paper earlier.
In the Ethiopian legal system, as in many other legal systems in the world, you can only own rights to land, you can't directly own (that is, have complete claim to) the land itself.
Private ownership of land is simply a legal fiction. You can't even own all the rights since the state always retains the right of eminent domain. For example, what happens when you sell an easement to a power company so that they can run power lines across your land?
They then own the rights granted in that easement, you own most of the other rights, the state owns the right of eminent domain--but no single party owns "the land". In this way, you recognize that there will be many "owners", all of whom will have a claim on some aspect of the land.
The wonderful thing about this distinction is that it shifts the whole debate about land ownership away from the rigid state-versus- individual (private), all-or-nothing battle to the much more flexible question of who (including community groups, families, etc. as well as the state and the individual) should have which rights.
This shift could be as important as the major improvement in governance that came with the shift from monolithic power (as in a monarchy) to "division of power" (as exemplified in the U.S. Constitution with its semi-independent legislative, executive and judicial branches). [23]
For the vast majority of Ethiopians who suffered the landlord-tenant relations in the past, the true opposite of this relationship will be "owner" and “occupier” combined in the same person, or "occupying ownership," in order that all the evils of landlordism be avoided.
It must be secure and permanent; it must be transmissible to a person's children or heirs. The one thing to be aimed at is, that the occupier and cultivator of the land be also the virtual owner; that all the fruits of his /her labour shall be secure to him/her; that the increased value of the land given by permanent improvements shall be all his/her own.
To ensure this, sub-letting under any form or disguise must be prevented, or it is evident that many of the evils of landlordism will again spring up.
Mortgages or other encumbrances on the land (except to a limited proportion of its value and repayable by installments in a moderate term of years) must also be forbidden, because a farmer whose land is heavily encumbered, and who, on failure to pay the interest in a bad year, may have his/her land taken from him/her, has little more power or inducement to make permanent improvements or cultivate in the best manner than the mere tenant-at-will under a landlord.
Ethiopian rural people generally need both secure individual rights to farm plots and secure collective rights to common pool resources upon which whole villages depend.
These secure land rights need to be delivered locally, especially in the context of political and administrative decentralization. Effective services, clear, transparent rules and legitimate, accountable authority over land are all needed to ensure good rural government or political governance in Ethiopia.
As the aforementioned arguments and counter-arguments suggest, most people today are at best only aware of these two choices, these two patterns, for land ownership--private ownership (which we most often associate with the industrial West) and state or public ownership (as in the former Communist bloc).
However, both of these patterns are full of problems and paradoxes. Private ownership enhances personal freedom (for those who are owners), but frequently leads to vast concentrations of wealth, as discussed earlier in this paper, and the effective denial of freedom and power to those without great wealth. State ownership muffles differences in wealth and some of the abuses of individualistic ownership, but replaces them with the often worse abuses of bureaucratic control.
Both systems treat the land as an inert resource to be exploited as fully as possible, often with little thought for the future or respect for the needs of non-human life. Both assume that land ownership goes with a kind of exclusive national sovereignty that is intimately connected to the logic of war.
Neither state/public nor private ownership of land is a panacea to the political and socio-economic ills of any one country, including Ethiopia. But if social justice is our guiding policy and democracy our form of government our choice will be in favour of state/public ownership of land rather than private ownership for the reasons given above. And, when we talk about the state in Ethiopia we are talking about a democratized and effective developmental state that delivers what the people need—sufficient goods and services, a modicum of safety and security, and freedom-- and that is responsive to the genuine needs, demands and aspirations of the citizens. Otherwise, it will not work, and we will not be able to solve the ever-growing social, economic and political problems facing the country at present.
The argument that since the only property we have in Ethiopia is land and if land is not a marketable commodity then a free market economy cannot function due to this structural problem is simply speaking a non-starter. A market economy can only work efficiently when the purchasing power of the poor peasantry who make up the greatest majority of our population is raised or increased, and not because of "the commoditization of land", or due to the free exchange of land in the market. As of now, the vast majority of our people live their lives in rural areas, largely involved in subsistence economic activities.
This largest sector of our society does not feature prominently as buyers and consumers in the modern market economy. An axiom of modern economics is that the consumer demand and buying power of the majority of society members are the driving engine of the modern economy.
The Ethiopian consumer market is simply too small, and is, therefore, not a powerful magnet for foreign investments. Foreign investors are reluctant to start manufacturing firms which produce for the Ethiopian market.
The biggest challenge we face, then, is to develop the Ethiopian domestic market. We must begin where the majority of our people are, in rural areas. Help them to secure select seeds, fertilizers, credit finance, storage facilities and infrastructure; assist them to enter into the modern market place, link them up with the regional and international markets, improve their productivity on farms and encourage agribusiness in the country.
Focus on rural people, and on rural areas, benefits the urban economy, simply because the monies that go into the pockets of rural people are used by rural people to buy goods and services produced in urban areas. Therefore, such developments in rural areas, among rural people, become stimulants to the urban economy, and add dynamism to the entire economy. This contributes towards increasing the purchasing, or buying power, or consumer demand, of the masses of Ethiopian people.
The defeated, dispossessed, dependent, and impoverished masses have no money because their labour is far underpaid, and historically there has been no serious intent to let them have agricultural and industrial capital to produce their own wealth. Andre Gorz, in his book Paths to Paradise, explains why a market economy can only function when the purchasing power of the poor is increased:
This is what we have to understand-- growing Soya for our ---cows is more profitable for the big landowners of Brazil than growing black beans for the Brazilian masses. Because our cows’ purchasing power has risen above that of the Brazilian poor, Soya itself has got so expensive in Brazil that a third of the population can no longer afford to buy either its beans or oil.
This clearly shows that it is not enough to ensure the developing world gets 'a fair price' for its agricultural exports. The relatively high prices that we would guarantee might merely aggravate hunger in the developing world, by inciting the big landowners to evict their shareholders, buy agricultural machines, and produce for export only. Guaranteed high prices have positive effects only if they can be effectively used to raise the purchasing power of the poor. [24]
State Versus Private Ownership: The Way Forward
In short, both systems seem to be leading us towards disaster, yet what other options are there? Is it possible to blend the various interests over land --the interests of the immediate users, the local community, the state, the future generations, etc.--in a mutually supportive way, rather than seeing them locked in a power struggle? The answer, fortunately, is yes. Perhaps the best developed alternative legal form that does this is called a land trust.
Land Trusts [25]
A land trust is a non-governmental organization (frequently a non-profit corporation) that divides land rights between immediate users and their community. It is being used in a number of places around the world including India, Israel, Tanzania, and the United States. Of the many types of land trusts, we will focus here on three--conservation trusts, community trusts, and stewardship trusts.
In a conservation land trust, the purpose is generally to preserve some aspect of the natural environment. A conservation trust may do this by the full ownership of some piece of land that it then holds as wilderness, or it may simply own "development rights" to an undeveloped piece. What are development rights? When the original owner sells or grants development rights to the conservation trust they put an easement (a legal restriction) on the land that prevents them or any future owners from developing the land without the agreement of the conservation trust. They have let go of the right to "irreversibly change" as listed above. The conservation trust then holds these rights with the intention of preventing development.
A community land trust (CLT) has as its purpose removing land from the speculative market and making it available to those who will use it for the long term benefit of the community. A CLT generally owns full title to its lands and grants long-term (like 99 year) renewable leases to those who will actually use the land. Appropriate uses for the land are determined by the CLT in a process comparable to public planning or zoning. Lease fees vary from one CLT to another, but they are generally more than taxes and insurance, less than typical mortgage payments, and less than full rental cost.
The leaseholders have many of the use and security rights we normally associate with ownership. They own the buildings on the land and can take full benefit from improvements they make to the land. They cannot, however, sell the land nor can they usually rent or lease it without the consent of the trust.
The stewardship trust combines features of both the conservation trust and the CLT, and is being used now primarily by international communities and non-profit groups such as schools. The groups using the land (the stewards) generally pay less than in a normal CLT, but there are more definite expectations about the care and use they give to the land.
In each one of these types, the immediate users (non-human as well as human) have clear rights which satisfy all of their legitimate use needs. The needs of the local community are met through representation on the board of directors of the trust which can enforce general land use standards.
The larger community usually has some representation on the trust's board as well. Thus by dividing what we normally think of as ownership into "stewardship" (the users) and "trusteeship" (the trust organization) , land trusts are pioneering an approach that better meets all the legitimate interests.
The system is, of course, still limited by the integrity and the attitudes of the people involved. Nor are current land trust necessarily the model for "ownership" in a humane sustainable future. But they show what can be done and give us a place to build from.[26]
Finally, land is different from other resources in several important respects. One of these is that it is fixed in supply. Population on the other hand is increasing in leaps and bounds.
To meet this challenge, and given the country's very low industrial base and limited opportunities for non-agricultural employment pursuits, no sane government can leave the land issue to the mercy of market forces and implement private ownership of land instead of the prevailing public ownership.
The former pattern of ownership will undoubtedly lead to the concentration of land in the hands of a few rich people and to the eviction and landlessness of many thousands of poor peasants in rural areas. This is inherent in the very nature of private ownership, as bitter experience clearly shows, and therefore must be avoided at any cost.
REFERENCES
1. John M. Bryden, Land Tenure and Rural Development, Homeland by Dougie Maclean, 1996, p.6
2. Worldwatch, October 1998.
3. Peter Meyer, Land Rush__A Survey of America's Land__Who Owns It, Who controls It, How Much is Left, Harpers Magazine, Jan. 1979.
4. United States Senator Jesse Helms read these facts and figures into the Congressional Record in 1981 as his way of "proving" that there was no need for land reform in the U.S. as land is more concentrated in ownership in the U.S. than in Central America where the U.S. was waging wars against those seeking land reform.
5. Urban Land Institute, America's Real Estate, 1997, p.14
6. Eli Siegel, essay on Ownership: Some Moments in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to be Known, a periodical of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, 5/5/99.
7. J.W. Smith, Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle of the Twenty-First Century, 3rd edition, p.309.
8. Smith, ibid, pp 306 & 309.
9. Patricia Mische, Spirituality and World Order, published in Toward a Global Spirituality: The Whole Earth Papers # 16, Global Education Associates, 1982, p.7.
10 Richard Brock, Farmland Prices EXPLODE, The Corn and Soybean Digest, March 1,2004.
11. John Mohawk, The Problem of the Modern World, CREATION, May/ June, p.18.
12. Edward N. Wolff, Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership, 1983-98.
13. Economic Research Services, USDA, http://www.ers. usda.gov/ publications/ fanrr35/
14. For Berry and other Earth Ethics quotes see: http://www.eartheth ics.com/archive_ of_quotes. htm.
15. See Robotic Nation articles at: http://www.roboticn ation.blohspot. com/ or http://www.marshall brain.com
16. Henry George quote from Progress and Poverty, Chapter 26: The Call of Liberty.
17. Henry George, Social Problems, Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, p.202.
18. Michael T. Klare, Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, New York: Henry Holt, 2001,p.214.
19. For the UNCHS document go to United Nations website: www.uno.org or to www.earthrights. net
20. Originally composed and declared at a conference of the International Union for Land & Value Taxation held in 1949
21. For instance, books, papers and studies published by World watch Institute, Northwest Environment Watch, Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, Center for economic Studies, Institute for Land Policy, Land and labour Campaign, Land Reform Scotland, Earth Rights Institute, New economics Foundation. For others see Council of Georgist Organizations and International Union for Land Value Taxation websites.
22. Henry Lamb, U.S. backs U.N. plan to control land; United Nations Report, April 12,2004 p.1.
23. Alec MceWen, Land Reform in Developing countries: Legal and Institutional Aspect, University of Calgary, pp.1-2.
24 Robert Gilman, "The Idea of Owning Land," Living with the Land, 1997, p.5
25. André Gorz, Paths to Paradise: On the Liberation From Work (Boston: South End Press, 1985), pp. 94-95.
26. Robert Gilman, Ibid, p.6
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