Venezuela's Agrarian Land Reform: More like Lincoln than Lenin

[Say_What]

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• Land Reform is the traditional third rail of left-of-center governments and social reform movements.

• President Hugo Chavez’s plan is fundamentally different from other Latin American attempts at land reform. The proper historical parallel is President Lincoln’s Homestead Act.

• Chavez’s opponents, who see him as “another Castro,” wrongly view his agrarian reform program as a total assault on private property.

• Land Reform is one of the most progressive aspects of Chavez’s “Bolivarian Revolution” as it seeks to alter the fundamental power structure of the landed versus the landless, reduce Venezuela’s dependence on foodstuff imports, and redress the country’s disastrous experience with the “Dutch Disease.”

• The government should concentrate more on shoring up the agricultural base of the public lands it already has distributed to peasant cooperatives, rather than draw a premature bead on private lands.

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http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1384