INVESTIGADORES
STAROSTA Guido
artículos
Título:
The Limits of Studies in Comparative Development of East Asia and Latin America: the case of land reform and agrarian policies
Autor/es:
NICOLAS GINBERG & GUIDO STAROSTA
Revista:
Third World Quarterly
Editorial:
Routledge - Taylor and Francis
Referencias:
Año: 2009 vol. 30 p. 761 - 777
Resumen:
This paper critically examines the widespread belief that the early
implementation of comprehensive land reforms prior to the industrialisation
process, coupled with subsequent agrarian state policies channelling the
intersectoral transfer of resources, has been a central determinant of East
Asias (mainly Taiwans and South Koreas) outperformance of Latin America.
We argue that, although those agrarian policies should certainly be part of any
comparative investigation of the course of capitalist development in each of
these two regions, they cannot explain their divergence. The paper contends that
the respective scope and timing of agrarian policies has been an expression of
the specific contradictions of the early industrialisation process in each region,
rather than an autonomous determinant of the course of the latter. Based on
insights derived from the Marxian critique of political economy, the paper
shows that each regions respective agrarian policies have expressed the
differential resolution of the opposition between the rate of profit (industrial
capital) and ground-rent (landed property) in the import substituting
industrialisation process. In so doing, the paper takes issue with the claim
that timely land reforms in Taiwan and Korea have facilitated the subsequent
successful turn to an export-oriented industrialisation strategy. An alternative
account of the different developmental paths in East Asia and Latin America
based on the unfolding of the Marxian law of value on a world scale is also
provided.