Owner146;s envy

Another grist to the mill of India-China comparison: China is coming round to legally sanctifying private property; the earlier inclusion of the right in the oft-rewritten Chinese Constitution didn8217;t have any real enforcement impact. India-inclined commentary will say India has always had private property rights and therefore enjoys the social and economic externalities that follow. China, on the other hand, will now have to contend with the fallouts of imposing formal property rights on an economic system used to dodgy deal-making that comes from informal recognition of this code.

Look again 8212; at India. Right to property is not fundamental here. Young Indians, and may be some young parliamentarians, will be surprised perhaps. In a country where entrepreneurship is arguably the most inspirational of current narratives, where politics is roiled by debates over acquisition of private land, how can the right to property not be fundamental? This right is in fact only statutory, Article 300 A says property can8217;t be taken away except under authority of law. Its fundamentalness was excised in 1977. The 44th amendment removed from the Constitution the fundamental right to acquire, hold and dispose of property. It is wrong, absolutely wrong, to say this socialist subversion doesn8217;t matter. First, there is the matter of principle: are we a full-fledged liberal democracy or not? Second, the statutory nature of the right to property allows for greater state control than would have been possible had property ownership continued to be a fundamental right. Take the industry/land acquisition debate: the ideal solution lies in creating a wide and deep land market where industry can directly purchase plots from farmers. If right to property was properly understood by politicians, agitations may have been about creating a proper market.

So will Chinese farmers get to sell their land, instead of seeing them taken away, under the proposed new law? No. A typically Chinese communist-capitalist definition of right to property will ensure that farm land can still be just grabbed, that tillers won8217;t be even allowed to use land as a collateral for a loan. One-party China has to change its political-economic DNA and try and swallow many possibly hugely disruptive agitations before it ushers in right to property. India has just to take a short corrective step, and policymakers just need to apply their brains on the land question. India8217;s failure is therefore in a way more damning.