The political excuse for inaction on land reform is subtle and pernicious. It suggests countries cannot control their own developmental destinies. However, while it may be difficult – and far more land reform attempts around the world have failed than have succeeded – they can. Meiji Japan instituted a first land reform without any external political direction or funding. In India, the state governments of Kerala and West Bengal pushed through land reforms in the 1960s and 1970s despite the rest of the nation’s failure to do so. Developing countries are not just little ships blown about on the developmental ocean by the winds of rich states. In agriculture they have a greater capacity to chart their own course than in any other sector of the economy because land policy is entirely a domestic affair. In this respect, land policy is the acid test of the government of a poor country. It measures the extent to which leaders are in touch with the bulk of their population – farmers – and the extent to which they are willing to shake up society to produce positive developmental outcomes. In short, land policy tells you how much the leaders know and care about their populations. On both counts, north-east Asian leaders scored far better than south-east Asian ones, and this goes a long way to explaining why their countries are richer.
In this passage, Studwell asserts that countries whom were able to commit towards land reforms, and increase their agriculture output effectively were the ones that had the most effective leaders. This is one of the key reasons that separate the North Asians countries, from those in South East Asia who tend to be more economically behind.
