Blas Infante, in the second part of his book "el ideal andaluz" gives out concrete data and proposals according to the georgism discourse of his Era and his influences from the I.L.E and the regenerationists, It could be useful for this study on Land distribution and its effects, along with the illiteracy rates.
I'm reading it now (can't promise I'll finish soon though, since I'm reading lots of things).
One thing that caught my attention immediately is that he complains about the lack of an Andalusian middle class, but then proposes:
"El problema consiste en la creación de la clase media. En Andalucía ha de ser agricultora" (trans: "The problem lies in creating a middle class. In Andalusia, it must be an agricultural middle class")
He thought that the solution to Andalusia's problems did not lie in industrializing, but in increasing agricultural production while distributing land (and agricultural rents of course) more widely:
"In Andalusia, apart from the one hundred and thirty thousand hectares, soon to be occupied by the so-called marshes in the provinces of Huelva, Seville and Cadiz, there are countless pastures, hunting reserves, and lands registered in the land tax records as pure grazing land; lands to which, if the day laborers had free access, they would not be forced to migrate."
He wouldn't get much support nowadays for draining the Doñana marshes.
He did have an Al-Andalus Bias, where he mentioned the heights of specifically agrarian technology, so It is reasonable to think he didn't promote industrialization, but maybe afterwards he deals with It.
Andalusia is an example of why colonies must do a revolution and land reform or remain colonies forever. I can only imagine the thread of so many families transitioning from Roman servus (slave, later also applied to coloni, from which our "serf") to Andalusi fellah to Castilian (or "Spanish") bracero without ever owning a single acre of land. All that to this very day.
The tragedy of Andalusia... or Sicily... or Togo for that matter is immense.
I'm more a fan of land reform than revolution myself. Despite my skepticism regarding the effect of land equality on economic growth (and thus on the living standards of a society), I think that land reforms can be beneficial to a society if only because they can provide a cornerstone for their common identity, a common foundational myth if you will, by producing a level playing field for everyone.
You won't make a land reform without a revolution. How are you going to expropriate the oligarchs without that constituent period that we call "revolution"?
IDK. I know that Bolivia made an agrarian reform that was arguably what prevented Che from actually succeeding with his guerrilla plans, yet decades later they had a democratic revolution with Evo Morales because not everything was good enough.
In any case, in Spain, agrarian reform was talked of, promised, especially in the 2nd Republic, but never really implemented for lack of determination, radicalism and because they were suppossed to pay the lords compensation (what right did they even have to the land to begin with?) Famously falangista (fascist) leader Primo de Rivera (the other one, not the military dictator) made an issue of that, demanding accelerated land distribution. Of course, once the fascists took power they totally stopped any land reform and the issue became stagnated to this very day.
Blas Infante, in the second part of his book "el ideal andaluz" gives out concrete data and proposals according to the georgism discourse of his Era and his influences from the I.L.E and the regenerationists, It could be useful for this study on Land distribution and its effects, along with the illiteracy rates.
I'm reading it now (can't promise I'll finish soon though, since I'm reading lots of things).
One thing that caught my attention immediately is that he complains about the lack of an Andalusian middle class, but then proposes:
"El problema consiste en la creación de la clase media. En Andalucía ha de ser agricultora" (trans: "The problem lies in creating a middle class. In Andalusia, it must be an agricultural middle class")
He thought that the solution to Andalusia's problems did not lie in industrializing, but in increasing agricultural production while distributing land (and agricultural rents of course) more widely:
"In Andalusia, apart from the one hundred and thirty thousand hectares, soon to be occupied by the so-called marshes in the provinces of Huelva, Seville and Cadiz, there are countless pastures, hunting reserves, and lands registered in the land tax records as pure grazing land; lands to which, if the day laborers had free access, they would not be forced to migrate."
He wouldn't get much support nowadays for draining the Doñana marshes.
He did have an Al-Andalus Bias, where he mentioned the heights of specifically agrarian technology, so It is reasonable to think he didn't promote industrialization, but maybe afterwards he deals with It.
Andalusia is an example of why colonies must do a revolution and land reform or remain colonies forever. I can only imagine the thread of so many families transitioning from Roman servus (slave, later also applied to coloni, from which our "serf") to Andalusi fellah to Castilian (or "Spanish") bracero without ever owning a single acre of land. All that to this very day.
The tragedy of Andalusia... or Sicily... or Togo for that matter is immense.
I'm more a fan of land reform than revolution myself. Despite my skepticism regarding the effect of land equality on economic growth (and thus on the living standards of a society), I think that land reforms can be beneficial to a society if only because they can provide a cornerstone for their common identity, a common foundational myth if you will, by producing a level playing field for everyone.
You won't make a land reform without a revolution. How are you going to expropriate the oligarchs without that constituent period that we call "revolution"?
You can do it the way Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia and Taiwan did it I suppose. None of those required a revolution.
IDK. I know that Bolivia made an agrarian reform that was arguably what prevented Che from actually succeeding with his guerrilla plans, yet decades later they had a democratic revolution with Evo Morales because not everything was good enough.
In any case, in Spain, agrarian reform was talked of, promised, especially in the 2nd Republic, but never really implemented for lack of determination, radicalism and because they were suppossed to pay the lords compensation (what right did they even have to the land to begin with?) Famously falangista (fascist) leader Primo de Rivera (the other one, not the military dictator) made an issue of that, demanding accelerated land distribution. Of course, once the fascists took power they totally stopped any land reform and the issue became stagnated to this very day.