Land Reform - Arguments For and Against Land Reform

Arguments For and Against Land Reform

See also: Property redistribution

Land reform is a deeply political process and therefore many arguments for and against it have emerged. These arguments vary tremendously over time and place. For example, in the twentieth century, many land reforms emerged from a particular political ideology, such as communism or socialism. Or, as can be seen in the 19th century in colonized states, a colonial government may have changed the laws dictating land ownership to better consolidate political power or to support its colonial economy. In more recent times, electoral mobilization and the use of land as a patronage resource have been proposed as possible motivations for land reform efforts, such as the extensive redistributive land reforms of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Read more about this topic:  Land Reform

Famous quotes containing the words arguments, land and/or reform:

    The second [of Zeno’s arguments about motion] is the one called “Achilles.” This is to the effect that the slowest as it runs will never be caught by the quickest. For the pursuer must first reach the point from which the pursued departed, so that the slower must always be some distance in front.
    Zeno Of Elea (c. 490–430 B.C.)

    Oh, it’s home again, and home again, America for me!
    I want a ship that’s westward bound to plow the rolling sea,
    To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
    Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.
    Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933)

    The prostitute is the scapegoat for everyone’s sins, and few people care whether she is justly treated or not. Good people have spent thousands of pounds in efforts to reform her, poets have written about her, essayists and orators have made her the subject of some of their most striking rhetoric; perhaps no class of people has been so much abused, and alternatively sentimentalized over as prostitutes have been but one thing they have never yet had, and that is simple legal justice.
    —Alison Neilans. “Justice for the Prostitute—Lady Astor’s Bill,” Equal Rights (September 19, 1925)