Land Disputes in Argentina

Some people in Argentina are not at ease about foreign ownership of land.  The Washington Post is running an interesting story about it:

“We believe this is a new way of trying to dominate the South American countries,” said Araceli Mendez, a congresswoman who represents this region and sponsored legislation last month that would expropriate Tompkins’s land. “It is dangerous for the defense of our national security to have the concentration of so much land in the hands of foreigners.”

You think its all talk?

…last month, Argentina’s undersecretary for land and social habitat declared war on such land purchases with one highly symbolic act: He marched onto Tompkins’s land, cut down a fence and called for the expropriation of the property.

You think its just one incident?

“We want to tell everyone: We’re going to continue cutting down fences,” said Luis D’Elia, the government secretary. “What is more important, the private property of a few, or the sovereignty of everyone?”

This foreign ownership vs. sovereignty debate is heating up across the world, not just in Argentina.  Here is what Hernando de Soto had to say about it in his interview with CIPE ten years ago:

The first thing then is to formalize the social contract at the grassroots level so that everybody can understand what property rights are about, and then to understand the distinction between sovereignty and property rights. Governments have to show that they are not giving up sovereignty, but only rights to companies to run enterprises and services privately in everyone’s best interest.

You would think governments would try to live up to Hernando’s expectations, yet, many are moving in the completely opposite direction – ensuring that they convince their citizens of the dangers (not benefits) of foreign ownership.  I am always puzzled with this nationalist backlash against foreign ownership of land — what will a foreign owner do with it?  Pick up the land and take it back to the home country?

The most fascinating thing in all this, is that the story profile plots of land that are ecologically run down when foreign investors buy them.  All the foreigners do with the land is ‘fix it up’ and then donate some of the plots as parks back to the government.  Sounds like a good deal to me, if I was Argentina.  But I am not.