Japan

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Dec, 2000 by Yoshisaburo Yamasaki, Robert V. Andelson

After the war, the need for stronger measures had become clearly evident. Accordingly, the Agricultural Land Reform Bill was drawn up on its own initiative by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and enacted by the Diet in December, 1945, as an amendment to the Agricultural Land Adjustment Law. It provided for a number of regulations designed to improve the status of independent farmers, to democratize local agricultural administration, etc. [10]

However, between the preparation and the passage of this bill, the Headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander of the Occupation Forces, had addressed to the government a "Memorandum for Rural Land Reform," calling for more sweeping legislation. Inasmuch as the Occupation Headquarters did not consider the act an adequate response to this memorandum, the government postponed enforcement of most of it, and promulgated the "Second Agricultural Land Reform" on October 21, 1946 (the 21st year of Showa). This actually consisted of two statutes--the Independent Farmer Establishment Special Measures Law (Jisakuno Sosetsu Tokubetsu Sochi Ho), and the second amendment to the Agricultural Land Adjustment Law. [11]

The Second Agricultural Land Reform broke up the huge agricultural estates, virtually obliterated absentee landholding, created a large and politically potent class of independent smallholders, and greatly improved the position of farm tenants. All cultivated land leased out by absentee owners, as well as any cultivated land exceeding one chobu (about one hectare), or, in the northern island of Hokkaido, four chobu, was subject to compulsory sale to the government. Almost all the land thus purchased by the government was then sold on easy terms to the tenants. Thus, by mid-1950, a total of 1,742,000 hectares of cultivated land had been transferred to 4,478,000 tenant or tenant-and-independent farm households. Eighty percent of the former tenant farms became the property of their cultivators, and in the remaining ones the wellbeing of the tenants was powerfully improved by the strengthening of cultivation rights and the lowering of rents. [12]

Afterward, in 1952 (the 27th year of Showa), the Agricultural Land Law Nochi Ho) was enacted to maintain the results of the Agricultural Land Reform. [13]

Although the postwar land reform brought tremendous changes to the national structure of landownership, and gave new vitality to agricultural growth, it had two very significant shortcomings: First, it applied only to cultivated acreage, and had no bearing upon either urban or forest property. Second, even in the agrarian sphere, it failed to provide for the social capture of the unearned increment of land, the truly fundamental basis for a just and efficient economic order. Again, Harrison's comments are worth quoting:

The postwar reform sought to eliminate the despised landlords by increasing the number of owner-occupiers (a policy orientation that can be traced back to the Hirota Cabinet of 1936). But in merely transforming tenants into owners, the 'reform' succeeded in consolidating the system of land monopoly, with the privileges enjoyed by an enlarged class. There is no such thing as a society free of landlordism when the benefits of publicly-created land values are privately appropriated. When the fiscal system permits monopolists [regardless of how numerous] to exploit the land market to their advantage, society becomes the tenant of the owner-occupiers. [14]