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AFTER studying 26 societies, the authors of The Peasant Betrayed come to the somber conclusion that land reform programs whether sponsored by regimes of the Left or the Right have "harmed the peasant more than helped him." More importantly the authors discovered that only when the peasants drew on their own strength were their gains likely to be permanent. Land reform in the main, they say, has been granted by a benevolent government or been achieved through the power of the peasants. Only land reforms negotiated from peasant strength have survived.

Powelson says he had not expected this finding, which is contrary to much of the literature. He favours land reform as a "prerequisite for equitable economic growth -- without it a whole generation of landless poor will live short and nasty lives with little dignity and less security."

But land reform is not implemented to give the peasant a place in society, he contends. The pattern in most Third World countries is to centralize power and then transfer the agricultural surplus to the State through its monopoly power and price controls.

Powelson states that the result "almost without exception is that output decreases and the peasants are impoverished. The most harm is caused by interfering with the peasant. The most is to be gained by granting them freedom to do what they have done so well for so many years."

WHERE farming is left to farmers, output increases and the welfare of peasants greatly improves. This laissez faire approach is rarely used, Powelson says. He details the ways governments pressure the peasants to give up the surplus and to reshape their lives along the lines of new government edicts.

In most cases, the record shows, the land is taken from oligarchs and transferred to the State. Incentives are reduced. The State in Lesser Developed Countries is not a defender of the national interest, nor of the poor, he says, "except when the poor have the leverage to demand it." The governments in LDCs tend to be less accountable to the poor and often have little respect for the key role they play.

Land is worth the capitalized value of its revenues (e.g. crops). If bureaucrats skim these revenues away, leaving the farmer with no more than he could earn as a landless laborer, his newly acquired land is worth zero. If the same happens in a government cooperative, his membership is worth zero.

A 20 year review of 26 nations demonstrates that except in two, the peasants are worse off than before. Only in Taiwan and South Korea, where the peasants had more political leverage, were conditions different. Even here though, the authors believe that the benefits would have been greater if the government had not interfered in the market.

"All peasant societies have their own systems of credit, supply, markets, savings and investments and communications of technology." Yet the State often supplants rather than supports these indigenous institutions and thereby disrupts village life.

The governing elite also favour the urban residents over the rural ones. They usually pay the peasant poorly for his product while charging him monopoly prices for inputs such as fertilizer and seed. Power is centralized even in the most benevolent States. Powelson emphasizes that "the economy is often much more complicated than the imagination of the government". He says "peasants can cope with economic life in ways incomprehensible to the State. The reality of land reform can only match the rhetoric when peasant power is developed from below."

This is a very readable book with an extensive bibliography which I commend to students of development and land reform. Its widespread coverage and succinct presentation suggest it as an important tool for evaluating new proposals for aiding the landless poor who make up so much of the Third World. A few of these case studies are summarized below.

IN THE 1960s many people looked to the Tanzanian experiment under Julius Nyerere. Despite his love for his people and his hopes for creating a new society, the results were disastrous. The African traditions were destroyed. Cooperation gave way to orders and interference from government "strangers." Little or no respect was paid to differing tribal traditions and many people were forcibly moved by government edict. Farms were often burned to prevent peasant farmers from returning home. The predictable result of substituting Nyerere's vision for that of the peasant was a ruined economy.

SOUTH KOREA is different because:

(1) the reform did not lead to new government institutions in the countryside;
(2) the rural elite which had collaborated with the Japanese during its occupation and annexation of Korea was destroyed without creating a new class; and
(3) the value in agriculture increased 4% per year for eight years without government interference, enhancing the peasant political power.

After WWII the large landholders (as in Taiwan) were discredited and thus were politically impotent. The government also did not control the input markets until much later than other countries. Resistance to the Japanese increased the power of the peasants who emerged even stronger when their electoral support was needed in the American sponsored elections. They were educated (50% literate). They diversified their output from crops (60% rice, 8% barley) and increased vegetables and livestock such as pigs, rabbits and chickens.

Later as population grew in urban areas, grain imports skyrocketed from 490.000 metric tons in 1956-60 to 2.560,000 tons in 1961-75. The government encouraged internal growth by increasing the price for agricultural goods above the market price and subsidizing the consumer. The record of success is clear. In 1945 there were 13.8% farm households and in 1964 there were 71.6% farm households. One-half of the land had been redistributed to two-thirds of the rural population.

TAIWAN is often cited as the most successful model of land reform in the post World War II period for its equitable distribution of income. Studies by the Overseas Development Council indicate that the gap between the top 25% in society and the bottom 25% closed to 4.5% after the reform. Population growth rates and infant mortality rates dropped significantly. Taiwan's success story is described in three parts:

(1) Rent reduction in 1949. The landlord's share was reduced from two-thirds of the production to one-third and the tenant's share increased to two-thirds;
(2) sale of public lands in 1952; and
(3) "Land to the Tiller" in 1953. Above a certain limit lands were confiscated and sold to the tenant farmers at set rates. Public land sales and rent reduction had both served to lower the land costs.

In 1949 the Nationalists defeated by Mao came to the island. They needed rural stability and food for 1,000,000 troops and officials. They decided the key was the land reform which they had neglected on the mainland. Despite its enormous success, the authors report that the government did skim 50% of the marketable rice for its civil servants and army. Il also bought rice al lower than the market price while charging more than the market price for inputs.

The authors .give grudging respect to the Taiwan experiment which was "by ordinary standards, a great success," but fail to balance their criticisms with the enormous success of Taiwan as reflected in its high standard of income, the enormous jump in trade and the number of successful farm family entrepreneurs. As one of the "tigers" of Asia, it deserved a more comprehensive examination.

IN 1934 Somoza owned no land. In 1937 he was President. By 1946 the Somoza family had monopolies of coffee and beef exports and domestic milk production; by 1970 they owned 46 coffee farms, 7 sugar plantations. 51 cattle farms, 400 tobacco farms, and 60% of all meat packing, fish and cigar industries. In 1979 Somoza was overthrown. The Powelson study "shows":

(1) The Sandinista government is centralized and authoritative;
(2) agricultural decision making, pricing, production and techniques arc tightly controlled; and
(3) cooperative committees although freely elected by tenants do not make basic decisions; the government does.

They say that "We see in Sandinista Nicaragua a replication of problems in Egypt, Tanzania, the Philippines, Mexico and other countries we have studied," and respond to Food First authors' Joseph Collins and Frances Moore Lappe who wrote What Difference would a Revolution Make? after an extended visit to Nicaragua.

Collins and Lappe contend that the Sandinista government did not promote "Land to Tiller" programs on purpose in order to sustain the production level (which often falls after such programs) and to prevent possible inequities in parceling out land. Powelson says that the experience was the opposite of what was intended. "Production and output dropped substantially on state farms" -- unlike the private farms in Bolivia and Paraguay after land reform.

Most peasants want individual ownership despite what Collins and the Sandinista say. Powelson says the Food First authors could "provide a great service" by "confin(ing) themselves to promoting the priority of food first for less developed countries."

This book, Peasant Betrayed, in fact demonstrates, as Collins and Lappe contend, that governments in LDCs and international agencies discriminate against agriculture -- even in land reform programs. "Many LDCs could feed their poor if they devoted greater resources to agriculture," Powelson says.

But he also argues that Lappe's bias -- that food should be produced for local consumption first rather than planting plantation crops -- may be in Nicaragua "a formula for poverty." He responds, "In a classic case of comparative advantage, countries adept at plantation agriculture -- exporters of sugar, coffee, tea cotton etc. -- can feed their poor better if they export these crops and buy basic food stuffs with the proceeds. The key is not which crops to grow -- exports or food consumption -- but one of increasing the income of the poor." (emphasis added)

HE CONCLUDES by asking the question: "So then, who advocates for the peasants?"

Neither Marxists nor capitalists; neither the USA nor the USSR; not even most non-govermental agencies such as Oxfam. Only the American Friends Service Committee is cited for enhancing the power of the peasants without getting into politics. Marxists have the better rhetoric but neither Left nor Right are concerned about peasant empowerment.

"Power to the masses" to the authors means "freedom for the masses to structure their own societies, to select private, state or cooperative farming" as they like. Despite the Marxist rhetoric, "peasants have never selected a state farm except under coercion."

The authors conclude "that no foreign government or international agency qualifies as an advocate for the peasant -- i.e. promotes the peasant's control over his own structures and freedom in his decision making."

There is ample opportunity to test these theories again in an era where we see formidable changes in two Marxist nations -- China (where the government is giving incentives to the peasants) and the USSR (where "perestroika" may allow more private farms) and even in the USA where thoughtful concern about the inequitable distribution of wealth and access to land may lead to change.

This book is a wonderful addition to the library of those who want to first identify and then slay the dragons of land reform.