“The Conflict over Takings and Property Rights in China and Its Parallels with that in the United States”
In this article, the author compares the legal condition of “eminent domain and property rights” in the US and China. Since Kelo v. City of New London, many small business and real estate owners have been advocating against its decision and seeking for reform. Compared to the situation in China, the lower-class peasants and the poor have been suffered from no legal ownership documents and illegal expropriation from their local governments due to “economic development”. Although independent scholars and private owners call for less constraint on property and land seizures, while many Chinese officials favor less constraints since they can improve their performance and gain revenue by selling expropriated land and attracting new investments.
My Personal Reflection:
In China, the concept of “owning a land or property” is largely differently from it in the US. Nobody except the state can truly own a land and the ultimate right of owning any property is reserved by the state. If someone discovers a gold mine in his back yard, it belongs to the state even though the man bought his land and build his house on the land. Local government can reallocate farmer’s lands in a forceful way. In urban area, some people are forced to accept little compensations from the government for taking their property away, even they fight to refuse the offers. What is happening in China is ironic because 70 years ago Mao forced the rich to hand over their lands to the poor while now the poor has to hand over their property to their governments, who have deals with the rich developers.
Bringing Back to the Readings:
To Locke and Rousseau, the concept of property is so important that civil society is impossible without property. In Locke’ writing, he regarded right of owning property is people’s nature rights and the way to enact their freedom of doing more things. In Rousseau’s writing he even states that the “first man” who claimed his property is “the true founder of civil society”. To him, the right to own something make both the rich that want to seek for protection for their property and the poor that want to seek for equality, and thus leads to the agreement of creating government.
However, is the right of owing property not to be violating really critical all the time to us? Some authoritarian societies, such as the Nazi Germany and Japan in WWII, had created the most abundant commonwealths within a short period of time as the government has the power to step in private property and reallocate them. That’s said, individual should sacrifice their rights of owning rights and tolerate what the government do to their property for the sake of the whole society. Therefore the conflict here is, who should has the ultimate right of owning a property, the individual or his/her government? It seems like there is no a satisfying solution even in the most developed country in the world.
William,
ReplyDeleteThis is a good question though I would like to see what you think about it. The way that you pose it is abundance vs. freedom? But wouldn't many capitalists (Locke certainly included) reject that question and instead argue that long term private property brings both freedom and abundance?
Note: Rousseau would say that property does not bring freedom but instead slavery.
It is true that property would bring abundance and freedom since people always want more and usually the only way is working harder. I don't challenge that.
DeleteHere, I am posing the question that should a government has the right to control private properties and maximize its potential utility for the public if necessary? For example, people in a small town are living a good life by just farming. If the township government believes that more candy factories will make the town better off, the government should be able to take private land to build candy factories and everyone can share the profit, even the people do not agree on the plan. In this case though people do not agree that the government has the right to take away their lands and does things it believes are good, the government should still do it because it makes everyone wealthier.
I personally do not support this because if the government makes a bad decision for the people, it will be a disaster. What happened in China is a great example. Because the central government wanted to catch up the industrialized countries like the US and the Britain in 4 years, it asked everyone to make steel by using their own lands and tools and made their houses workshops. The policy killed thousands of thousands of people because the Chinese government made a mistake that had cost everyone's every penny. Later as Deng brought up the economics reform, because authoritarian government was be able to take control of economic in both large and small scale, the Chinese made a great progress on their economy.
Here, I am asking everyone to find out, how much the power of acquiring private property the government should have, in order to maximize the utility of the resources within its border and also not displease its people.
Even in the U.S., having a house on a goldmine does not guarantee you the gold. Despite the fact that the U.S. historically and currently places a high value on freedom and individual prosperity, the U.S. is not a truly capitalist, free market economy.
ReplyDeleteHaha I see.
DeleteIt is true that it is not guaranteed. I did not check about that. However I am sure that the American people in the states can do more things on their own properties than the Chinese people do in China.
If this conflict can be narrowed down to assurance vs. freedom, and the result of having less freedom (meaning to owe what is found on property to government) in turn for a greater safety net provided by the authorities is definitely worth it. I personally don't find this particularly unreasonable, especially in a state that already has adopted free market practices.
ReplyDeleteTrue, and that's might be why countries in the North Europe seem to favor socialism more. They have a high tax system on everything and therefore have social welfare plans like free healthcare, etc.
DeleteIf a Danish finds a gold mine in his/her house, the government may take most of them and give them to people who need gold.
I like the way how you compare the current situation with 70 years ago when Mao was in charge. It is a very good point. Plus, Locke's point is actually against the Chinese policy,true. But since he argues that land is given to human by God, in such case, I think he would argue it is God that has the ultimate right over property... However, I would myself argue property in a less "ultimate" condition. Even the conflict between government and people seems so intense, I personally found it surprising that there are still a lot of people in China have not realize that there is such conflict. I think only with fully awareness, government and people can virtually start a fair negotiation.
ReplyDeleteYes exactly, the government needs to communicate more with the people and be more practical on issues like this in China.
DeleteThe typical situation is: no matter how the government compensates a property owner, the owner would still ask for more by existed or make-up reason. It would eventually be stuck in a situation that no progress can be made in most cases. Thus I think in this area there must be a clear and acceptable law that will be enforced fairly to everyone.
I like the way how you compare the current situation with 70 years ago when Mao was in charge. It is a very good point. Plus, Locke's point is actually against the Chinese policy,true. But since he argues that land is given to human by God, in such case, I think he would argue it is God that has the ultimate right over property... However, I would myself argue property in a less "ultimate" condition. Even the conflict between government and people seems so intense, I personally found it surprising that there are still a lot of people in China have not realize that there is such conflict. I think only with fully awareness, government and people can virtually start a fair negotiation.
ReplyDelete