What If No-One Owned Land?

When I accepted Jakartass’ kind invitation to think outside the box with regard to land ownership I envisaged a fairly simple discussion on the philosophy of private property, comparing the ideas of Proudhon (“Property is theft!” to misquote him) as opposed to those of Hume, Locke and Smith. (Is it just a coincidence or do all the very sensible political thinkers come from the British Isles while the harebrained crackpots almost invariably emanate from France, or Germany?).

However whilst browsing in a bookshop the other day I came across an interesting tome. It looks just like a big glossy coffee table book designed for tourists but it’s actually more than that. Indonesia in the Suharto Years, Issues, Incidents and Images [1] tells the major stories of the rule of the late president Suharto, by means of photo images from the time but also, much more pertinently, by short essays about the relevant events written by actual participants.

What caught my attention was the article written by one of the perpetrators of the mass murder of Communists and suspected Communists following the 1965 coup attempt. This man, a devout Muslim, explained that his motivation to kill the Communists was reactionary in the literal sense of the word. The Communists had been seizing land in his village, land in particular which belonged to Islamic institutions, and kyai (Muslim scholars) had been abducted by Communists.

Eh? Land seizures? In Indonesia? How come we’ve never heard about this before? We’ve always been assured that the massacres of the Communists were purely inspired by the army, but if the PKI had been stealing people’s land and property, well it would certainly put a very different light on the whole affair and might go some way to explaining the willingness of so many of the population to rise up against the “Reds”.

Wishing to find out more about these land seizures I got my hands on a copy of Rex Morton’s Indonesian Communism Under Suharto [2] and sure enough, there it was: Chapter 7, ‘Class War in the Countryside’. In 1963/4 the Communist cadres, emplaced in the rural kampongs by the PKI Jakarta leadership, began takeovers of land belonging to ‘landlords’, traders and those involved in money lending. According to the Communists, a landlord was defined as anyone with a land holding above a maximum of between five and fifteen hectares (depending on population density), Morton confirms that lands owned by prominent Muslims, Islamic institutions and Haji villagers were particularly targeted for takeover.

Of course the Communists did not get it all their own way and met with considerable resistance at a local level from villagers not very keen on having their land expropriated by Communist apparatchiks. This resistance grew throughout 1965; it took very little for the army to unleash the popular anger against the Communists by the end of 1965 and the start of 1966. It’s worth mentioning that the ‘actions’, or aksi as the land confiscations were called, mostly occurred in three very specific places in the Indonesian archipelago: East Java, Central Java and the island of Bali. The massacres of the Communists largely occurred in three very specific areas in Indonesia: East Java, Central Java and the island of Bali.

Now I’m not saying that the abolition of land ownership automatically leads to genocide; I merely point out that on the major occasions when it has been attempted - Stalin’s Ukraine, Mao’s China and Pol Pot’s Kampuchea - horrific genocides were the ultimate result.

So what's my point? Simply this, allow the right to private property and enforce those rights in free and fair tribunals and, worse case scenario, you end up with boring societies like Singapore and New Zealand. Attempt to abolish the right to private property and more specifically the ownership of land and you get to live in interesting times as our Chinese friends would say - Stalin’s Five Year Plan, Pol Pot’s Year Zero and the Year of Living Dangerously.

No, in Indonesia as with the rest of the world, when it comes to land ownership, it is always best to keep your thinking absolutely within the box.

However this is hardly what our host is looking for, so in the spirit of celebrating the virtues of land ownership let me put forward a modest proposal for Jakarta slightly outside of the box.

Along the litter strewn banks of the canals and rivers of our fair city are gathered the flimsy shacks put up by squatters; these homes are an eyesore, a health hazard and undoubtedly contribute to the squalor surrounding them. What to do? Evict them? Demolish their homes? That’s been tried and failed.

So here’s an idea, offer the inhabitants the chance to own the leasehold of this land on the basis of ‘working their passage’. Tell them that if within five years they have brought their homes up to a certain minimum standard of safety and hygiene then they can remain (perhaps insist on more improvements every further five years) but on the condition that they clean and maintain nominated sections of waterway; they will be responsible for removing all trash and garbage from the water and keeping the banks to an acceptable standard. To this end they can nominate or elect their own RT’s (community leaders) to liaise with city inspectors. All children would have to be registered with the local health and education boards and they would be prohibited from begging on the streets.

Turn squatters with no stake in society into property holders with a responsible role and just watch the miraculous transition from squalor to at least minimal levels of decency. I predict that given the hope of some sort of future these people would beg, borrow and, yes, steal the tools, materials and provisions to build themselves a better life.

Of course to create this situation one would require the Jakarta city administration to employ fair, incorruptible, humane, efficient and dedicated staff, ah, but now I really am thinking outside the box!

Sources:
----1. Indonesia in the Suharto Years, Issues, Incidents and Images, eds. John H McGlynn et al., The Lontar Foundation, Jakarta, 2005, 2007.
----2. Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno, Ideology and Politics, 1959-1965, Rex Mortimer, Equinox, Jakarta, 1974, 2006.
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Miko is a 40 year old Irishman living in Jakarta, he is the proud father of two Indonesian boys and husband of an Indonesian woman with exquisite taste in all things except her choice of husband.