Conflicts of property rights of land in Brazil: the moral economy of carioca tenancies. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2015. (original) (raw)
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There is a Brazilian saying that when God closes a door, he always opens a window. To continue this metaphor, we could say that in Brazil, the process of the transfer of public resources to private control has always managed to 'open windows' even as it 'closed doors'. Given this state of affairs, I propose to examine the strategies employed by individuals to 'open windows' and/or not submitting themselves to imposed norms: of control, of payment and of productivity of the lands they are squatting. In other words, I propose to study the ways in which the State did not succeed in imposing mechanisms of land occupation and appropriation in ways envisaged by the law.
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Brazilian land issues have become complex in the last fifteen years due to conflicts over property rights resulting from friction among squatter peasants, multi-interest organizations and government. Conflicts in this unstable institutional environment impacted on agricultural activity with public and private land invasion, land-ownership disputes and indigenous and natural reserve lands expropriation. Based on the Property Right Theory and New Institutional Economics, the Brazilian Institutional Agrarian setting and its possible economic effects on agricultural activity are analyzed. A historical review of the Brazilian agrarian legislation based on the coded law is followed by a mapping of interests from governmental agencies that bring uncertainties due to undefined property rights arising out of controversial legislation with ambiguous interpretations and unexpected judicial results. A case study illustrates a land conflict started in 1998 between the FUNAI (National Indian Foundation) and a growers' guild from Sao Paulo Coastal Atlantic Forest. A legal dispute ended in the area's expropriation in 2005. Also implicated in this conflict were: INCRA (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), Federal Revenue Service and State Government. Data obtained and analysis results revealed significant losses in private investments.
The Social Function of Property Rights in Brazil
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The increased interest in the study of Law & Economics in Brazil only very recently has opened an important opportunity to discuss with scientific methodology rather than solely using the philosophical traditional legal dialect the effects of abstract concepts which are endlessly debated and have been the cause of legal uncertainty detrimental to development. In this scenario, this paper discusses the effects of the concept "social function" of property rights born in the Brazilian Constitution of 1988. The variation of interpretations of "Social Function of property rights" that has created effects detrimental to the performance of the country's national economy is explored in the text. The paper also discusses the relationship between the social movements (guided by MST) and land owners marked by confrontation as a result of the uncertainty, lack of association of decisions to its effects and the ambiguity of law. Overall, the main objective of the paper is to analyze the different channels through which the three powers view the concept and how this has effected the behavior of economic agents and, indirectly, economic development. The paper also provides a greater analysis of the problems resulting from the current understanding of "productivity". It concludes offering recommendations towards the importance of a more efficient system of property rights in Brazil able to provide order, peace and certainty in the social and economic realms resulting in efficient incentives for the best use of the property.
Brazil and Latifundios: The awful (and unlawful) truth
Capstone for the Master in Public Policy and Administration (Social Change Leadership) at Adler University, 2020
In the course of more than 500 years of history, the structure of land ownership in Brazil has undergone little change. As economic activity in Brazil, agriculture has always been in the hands of a political and economic elite that excludes the people who have an intrinsic connection with the land. Currently, according to the latest geographical census (IBGE, 2018), 45 percent of Brazil's rural land is held by less than one percent of the country's landowners. The economic and social impact of this persistent political hegemony is momentous-and this raises the question that this paper explores: Why is the profound reform of land distribution necessary and urgent for Brazilian society? One of the reasons is that the struggle of landless people is ultimately about food. Those who are fighting for land democratization also struggle for growing healthy food. Their struggle is for the country's food sovereignty as well, and for crops that respect and coexist with Brazil's rich biodiversity. The second reason is that the lack of equitable land distribution, according to several researchers (Deininger & Olinto, 2000; Frankema 2005; Vollrath & Erickson, 2007), inhibits economic growth and contributes to the persistence of socioeconomic inequality in a country. Third, it is a matter of historical reparation. Brazil's racial and social minorities, especially in the country's backlands and inner cities, have been systematically and historically expropriated or excluded from the right to own land. Ultimately, democratic land access is, in Brazil, a mere matter of complying with the country's constitution. By offering a literature-based study of the history of land distribution policies in Brazil, this paper aims to contribute to the literature on this topic. A further purpose of this paper is to strengthen the arguments of those who defend land reform in Brazil as a way to reduce social and economic inequalities, which are two of the goals that the Federative Republic of Brazil established in its 1988 Magna Carta.
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* An early draft of this chapter was presented at the workshop on ''Fundamental Rights in the Balance: New Ideas on the Rights to Land, Housing and Property,''October 16–18, 2003, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Brighton, UK. The paper owes much to discussions with Eugênio Facchini Neto, Jacques Távora Alfonsin, Ipojucan Vecchi, Avelino Strozake, Claudio Pavao, Luıs Cristiano, and Adrián Gurza Lavalle. The editors, Boaventura de Sousa Santos and César A.
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Resumo Este trabalho examina a evolução da ocupação da fronteira agrícola no Brasil no século 19 através de um arcabouço teórico que analisa a interação entre a ocupação de terra e a emergência de direitos de propriedade de facto antes do estabelecimento e garantia de direitos de proprieade de jure pelo governo. Neste arcabouço as rendas (rents) associadas com maior exclusividade inicialmente geram uma demanda por arranjos de propriedade comum, porém normas informais e política também determinam que formas organizacionais surgirão. Em algum momento escassez irá gerar uma demanda por exclusividade maior do que pode ser sustentado por arranjos informais de propriedade comum, e os ocupantes irão demandar direitos de propriedade de jure, ou seja, títulos formais. Conflitos serão reduzidos quando o governo alocar os direitos de propriedade àqueles que ocuparam a terra primeiro. No entanto, esta alocação e a decisão de realmente policiar os direitos de propriedade de jure depende da existência de interesses políticos neste sentido. Palavras-chave: Direitos de propriedade, fronteira, terra, propriedade comum.