Chapter 69 Chapter 12 The Third World 3

3 But the growth, whether controlled by the government or not, is of no great benefit to the vast majority of homegrown people in the Third World.Because even in some colonies or countries that rely on one or two major exports as the main source of income (such as coffee, bananas, cocoa, etc.), these cash crops are often concentrated in a few limited areas.Therefore, in sub-Saharan Africa, most of South Asia and Southeast Asia, including China, the majority of the population still lives on agriculture.Only in the Western Hemisphere, and in the countryside of the Islamic West, did the dramatic transformation from agrarian society into the world's metropolis take place within a few decades (see Chapter 10).In fact, as long as the land is fertile and the population is not overcrowded—such as in black Africa—generally speaking, ordinary people can be self-sufficient and do not need to ask for anything.Most of the residents of these lands do not need the help of the government at all, because the local government is mostly too weak to be effective.But if the power of the government becomes too harassing, the ordinary people can either leave it alone, or simply fall back and adopt the old method of self-reliance.Looking around, there are few other places that have such a good advantage as Black Africa, which can easily enter the era of independence-unfortunately, this great condition was ruined in a short while.Compared with Africa, the lives of farmers in Asia and the Islamic world are often much poorer, at least in terms of food and nutrition-the poverty is unspeakable, and their situation has never improved since ancient times, such as India. , the pressure of survival is naturally far greater than in Africa.However, for many peasants, the solution is as high as the sky and far away from the emperor, and the less contact with those who advocate economic reform and enrichment, the better.Over time, their ancestors, and themselves, have learned the lesson that "no good comes from outside."Generation after generation of silent thinking, they have realized a fact: rather than seeking more profits, it is better to reduce risks, which is the best policy.However, these ordinary people do not become "outcasts" in the global economic revolution, because this wave of revolution spreads everywhere, no matter how far or near, even the most remote and isolated areas cannot escape its wave attack-plastic bottles, Gasoline cans, antique trucks—of course, government offices, whose function is to produce official documents.But the emergence of this office office world, at best, divides the population into two completely different groups: one is a government that survives and acts in it, and the other is the small people who have nothing to do with it.Therefore, in the vast majority of the third world, the biggest division is the difference between "coastal" and "inland" (or urban and border areas).

The trouble is happening right here.Modernization often comes hand in hand with the government, so the "inland" is governed by the "coastal" and the border areas are governed by cities. Naturally, illiterate people are governed only by literate people.In the beginning, there was "Tao", and "Tao" was "writing".Of the 104 members of Ghana's parliament, formed shortly before independence, 68 had some level of post-primary education.Among the 106 legislators in the Telangana region of South India, 97 have above-secondary education and 50 are university graduates.However, most of the residents in these two places were illiterate and illiterate (Hodgkin, 1961, p. 29 Gray, 1970 p. 135).What's more, anyone who wants to get ahead in the "national" government of the third world is not enough to know only the local language, but also needs to know one of several international languages ​​(English, French, Spanish, Arabic, etc.) , or Chinese), at least you must understand the "national language" that the new government mixes local dialects—such as Swahili (Swahili, the language of East Africa, Congo and other places), Indonesian Mandarin (Bahasa), foreign Pidgin, etc. - The only exception is that in Latin America, the official written script belongs to the same language (Portuguese or Spanish) as the common language of the people.Just look at India. In the 1967 public office election held in Hyderabad (Hyderabad), only 3 of the 34 candidates did not know English (Bernstorff, 1970p. 146).

Even the most backward and remotest people are gradually feeling the advantages of good education.They themselves may not be able to share this advantage-especially when they cannot enjoy this condition, they will feel the difference even more.Knowledge is power, not only symbolically, but in fact.In some countries, the so-called government, the so-called country, is nothing more than a huge machine to its people, whose purpose is to extract their resources, blood and sweat, for the enjoyment of the employees employed by the state.Therefore, the significance of knowledge as power is becoming more and more obvious in these countries.With education, it often means that it is possible to get a job in the government, and sometimes it is even guaranteed to get a job. If you are lucky, you can even become a permanent job. For private use, privately share posts with family and friends.A small village—let's say, in Central Africa—invests in a young man in the village, educates him, and the whole village's hope from then on rests on the guaranteed return on that investment in education, which is Income from public office and protection of public status.If a public service career is managed successfully, the income is extremely considerable, and it is the best-paid occupation in a country.In Uganda in the 1960s, the salary of a civil servant (referring to its legal and legitimate income) was as high as 112 times the average income of its people (the ratio in the UK was 10:1), and the significance can be imagined ( UN World Social Situation, 1970, p. 66).

Wherever the rural poor (or their descendants) are likely to benefit from education, there is a general desire to learn (like Latin America, the third world region closest to modernity and closest to colonial times) distant). "Everybody wants to learn something." A Chilean communist who was active among the Mapuche Indians told me in 1962: "But I myself am not knowledgeable." Since the 1950s, the thirst for knowledge has been a major reason for the mass migration of South American residents from the countryside to the cities.As a result of the astonishing migration, the countryside has been emptied.Various surveys have shown that a large part of the attractiveness of urban life is that it can provide better opportunities for children's education and training.In town, they "can be different".Among the many new opportunities, school education naturally provides the best prospect for the future, but it is the second best. Even a simple technology such as driving a car can become an important reason for improving life in backward rural areas.Driving is the key to success. This is what a countryman from a Quechua village in the Andes learned. It is also what he taught his cousins ​​and nephews who followed in his footsteps and entered the city to conquer the world in the modern world. first lesson.Didn't he see that his own job as an ambulance driver was the cornerstone of a large family's success (Julca, 1992)?

As for agricultural populations outside of Latin America, perhaps it was not until the 1960s or even later that they began to gradually and systematically realize that modern civilization represented a hope, not a threat.But among modernization policies for economic development, leaders may have placed high hopes on one thing in particular that would appeal to farmers because it directly affects more than three-fifths of the population whose livelihood depends on agriculture: land reform.This general political slogan is all-encompassing in agricultural countries, from the liberation of large-scale land ownership concentration and redistribution to peasants and landless laborers, all the way to the abolition of feudal land and tenant system, the reduction of land rent, the rent The improvement of the farming system, and the revolutionary nationalization and collectivization of land, etc.

This type of activity surged in the 10 years after the end of World War II, and it was the 10 years with the most intense and compact pace, because actions in this direction can be seen on the political spectrum regardless of the left or right and the magnitude.Between 1945 and 1950, countries where half of the world's population lived were carrying out some degree of land reform—in Eastern Europe, and China after 1949, it was a communist land reform; In former India, reforms were initiated due to colonial liberation; in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, it was the result of Japan's defeat in the war, or it may be regarded as the result of the US occupation policy. The revolution broke out in Egypt in 1952, and the wind of land reform began to blow into the Islamic world in the West: Iraq, Syria, and Algeria followed Cairo's footsteps one after another. In 1952, a revolution broke out in Bolivia, and South America has since embarked on the road of land reform.However, Mexico can still be counted as a pioneer country. Since the revolution of 1910, or more precisely, since the resurgence of the revolution in Mexico in the 1930s, agrarismo has been vigorously advocated.However, although there are many political voices and academic statistical research, there are not enough revolutionary examples in Latin America. In addition, the colonial period is far away and the experience of defeat is scarce, so it is difficult for real land reform to arise.It was not until Castro launched a revolution in Cuba (bringing land reform to Cuba) that brought land reform into the political process of Central and South America, and the situation changed.

For those who advocate modernization, the benefits of land reform are more than one: the political significance goes without saying (whether it is a revolutionary regime, or the opposite counter-revolutionary regime, both sides can use this to win the support of the peasants); (Slogans such as "Return the land to the working people"); sometimes even some real economic goals can be achieved - although the vast majority of revolutionaries or reformers are not convinced that the means of merely redistributing land to the poor It has caused some improvement, but I didn't hold much expectation.In fact, after land redistribution in Bolivia in 1952 and Iraq in 1958, total agricultural output fell sharply.However, for the sake of fairness, we also have to point out that in other places where agricultural technology and productivity are already extremely high, farmers who previously had doubts about the sincerity of land reform quickly realized their high production potential once they obtained their own land.Egypt, Japan, and Taiwan are the best examples, and Taiwan's achievements are the most astonishing (Land Reform, 1968, pp. 570-575).The motivation for maintaining a large group of peasants has nothing to do with economics, as it did in the past and it does now.Because the history of the evolution of the modern world proves that a large increase in agricultural production is exactly inversely proportional to the decrease in agricultural population; since World War II, this phenomenon of reverse increase and decrease has been particularly serious.However, the significance of land reform should not be dismissed because it also proves that under the system of self-cultivating farmers, especially large-scale farms that manage crops with modern means, its efficiency can definitely be compared with that of the traditional system of large landlords and tenants, or large-scale imperialist farms. The operation is comparable, and it has more room for flexibility.Compared to some other semi-industrial concentration methods, such as Soviet-style giant state farms after 1945, and the British production of peanuts in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) No less.In the past, crops like coffee, and even rubber and sugar, were considered to be grown only on large-scale farms.Although this method still has a very obvious advantage over some small farmers who lack technology, it is by no means a necessary mode of operation.But in the final analysis, since the end of the Great War, the Third World has made great progress in agriculture. The so-called "green revolution" based on scientific selection was, after all, started by farmers with entrepreneurial minds. Punjab on the border between India and Pakistan is an example .

Nevertheless, the economic motivation of land reform was not from the improvement of productivity, but from the consideration of equality.In the long run and overall, the economic cost tends to initially widen the inequality of national income distribution, but eventually it must reduce the distance between them.At the end of the golden age, people in developed western countries have achieved a level of equality in economic life that is higher than that of the third world, which can be seen as a sign of its authenticity-but in recent years due to economic recession and some people's almost religious theology towards free markets Superstitions and income inequality have reappeared in some areas.Latin America has the highest inequality, followed by Africa, but in some Asian countries, the gap between rich and poor is quite close.These areas, with the assistance or direct management of the U.S. occupation forces, have carried out an extremely drastic land reform, including Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (however, the degree of equality of these three places is naturally not as good as the implementation of social land reform. socialist Eastern European countries; not as good as Australia at the time) (Kakwani, 1980).There is less inequality between the rich and the poor, which has its own social and economic benefits, and is often regarded by observers as a major driving force for the success of industrialization in these countries.Observers also believe that the development of Brazil's economy is hot and cold intermittently, making several strides but then falling, often trying to reach the economic throne of the "Southern Hemisphere America" ​​but failing.The serious inequality between the rich and the poor of the Brazilian people should bear some of the responsibility for their failure to advance. The inequality of the rich and the poor inevitably limits the market that can accommodate the growth of domestic industry.It is hard to say that there is no relationship between the serious social inequality in Latin America and the lack of large-scale organized land reform in various countries.

Land reform, of course, was welcomed by the small peasant class in the Third World, at least until the means of land reform were transformed into collective or cooperative farms—a transformation that was common practice in communist countries.However, despite the welcome, the expectations for land reform were completely different between the individual small farmers and the urban reformers advocating modernization.The former has no interest in the problems faced by the overall economy. It is different from the perspective of national politics. The demand for land is not based on general principles, but has its own specific propositions.In 1969, the government of Peruvian reformist generals launched a drastic land reform in an attempt to destroy the haciendas of the country's large landowners.It turns out that the herdsmen in the Indian highlands of Peru have always provided labor for the large farms in the Andes. Although the coexistence relationship between the two sides is not stable, the significance of reform to these herdsmen only means returning to their ancestral "homeland" Existing ranch segregated by large landowners.For centuries they have kept in mind the boundaries of their ancestral homeland, a loss they will never forget (Hobsbawm, 1974).They have no intention of maintaining the old way of production before the reformation - in fact it is now under the ownership of cooperative communities (comunidades) and the original employees; experiments with post-reformation cooperatives, or any other novel agricultural system , are not interested.What they are eager to maintain is the traditional means of mutual assistance that existed in the traditional life circle (although unequal) in the past.Therefore, after the reform was carried out, they turned back to "invade" the common land under the cooperative system (in fact, they all have the status of joint operators now), as if between Datianzhuang and its clan communities (and between various communities), the land Conflicts and disputes remain, nothing has changed (Gomez Rodriguez, P. 242-255).For the herdsmen in these border areas, reform or not, there is actually no real change.After careful discussion, the real land reform that is closest to the ideal of small farmers is probably the attempt of Mexico in the 1930s. This reform gave the right to communal land to each village, and it was completely left to the farmers to organize land co-ownership (ejidos) according to their own wishes. The idea is to assume that small farmers are engaged in subsistence production farming.This measure achieved great success in terms of political effects, but economically it has nothing to do with Mexico's future agricultural development.