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Property, people, and prosperity: address to the Houston World Affairs Council.

Article Excerpt
I. BUILDING NATIONS



II. PROPERTY, ACQUAINTANCE, AND DESCRIPTION III. VALUE THROUGH LAW IV. DEMOCRACY V. REMEMBER NOT TO FORGET A. What Makes a Successful Nation? B. Do Not Get Distracted

I. BUILDING NATIONS

One of the problems that I always have when traveling is trying to connect world events to the realities that I face when visiting a particular country. One frequent topic of conversation that I encounter is the increased U.S. involvement in nation-building. Many people believe that the United States should become more proficient in nation-building. While an assertive U.S. nation-building policy may seem new, it is a policy that the United States has previously implemented with great success. As it is so often in life, lessons from the past may be used in future challenges.

Japan's history of nation-building is of particular interest to my home country, Peru. Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (1) is the son of two Japanese immigrants who moved to Peru in the 1930s. Both Peru and Brazil welcomed Japanese immigrants, and the Fujimoris were only one of about one million Japanese families who migrated to the two South American countries. (2) The mass migration itself is not extraordinary. What is extraordinary is the reason the Fujimoris moved to Peru--why the Yushiamas moved to Brazil--and why the Toledos and Lulas did not move to Japan. The reason is the gross domestic products per capita of Peru and Brazil in the 1930s and 1940s were each twice that of Japan. Even though Japan had an army the size of Saddam Hussein's and a concentration of wealth rivaling the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, Japan was not a wealthy country. Japan's economic status has changed in large part because of successful U.S. nation-building efforts.

When the United States went to war with Japan, General MacArthur formed a team to prepare for the post-war reformation in Honolulu. It was led by Wolf Ladejinsky. (3) Ladejinsky planned Japan's reformation for three years, and concluded that many of Japan's expansion problems involved property issues. In Japan, the aristocracy held feudal title to the land, not commercial title. This system ignited over 100 farmer rebellions between the end of the Meiji Restoration and the Second World War. (4) The objective of this feudal class was to hoard land and property throughout Asia. The United States sought to reform Japan's property laws allowing property to be placed in the hands of all Japanese citizens, rather than concentrated in the hands of the wealthy. This would allow the United States to incorporate the rule of law.

Other regional events hastened the United States to implement Japanese property law reform. At that same time, Mao Tse-tung--once cornered by Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang in Manchuria--was now defeating Chiang's troops and sweeping through Asia. (5) Mao Tse-tung's fortune had turned when he recognized the power of property rights. He found that by granting communal title, as opposed to private title, he put the law closer to common people through their most cherished assets. (6) As a result, the ranks of his army swelled and became a reckoning force.

General MacArthur and Ladejinsky feared further Chinese dominance as well as a Communist takeover of Japan. By convincing Japanese authorities to embrace widespread property law reforms and Western-style legal institutions of distributed power, the United States launched what has become Asia's largest capitalist nation. These reforms also spread to two former Japanese colonies: Formosa and South Korea. (7) By 1978, both colonies gained such strength that the Chinese Labor leader, Deng Xiaoping, decided that the two empowered colonies were undefeatable. As a result, China pursued a more market-oriented economic approach rather than promoting a communist, centrally planned economy. (8)

The Japanese transformation was one of history's most brilliantly executed policy decisions, allowing the United States successfully to introduce Western institutions to Asia. This eventually led to the sharing of both wealth and power. The Japanese nation-building policy helped establish the United States as the world's wealthiest, most powerful nation. U.S. nation-building policies like these have been successful in the past, and similar strategies should be considered applicable today.

While other often-promoted strategies may be available, the Canadians and the Europeans would be well-served to remember their own nation-building lessons of the past. Until 1945, the Europeans were a very warring people. Between 1914 and 1945, many more people died in Europe than in any Latin American revolution or in the Middle East recently. In the 1950s, Europe began sharing ideas on property ownership after the creation of the European Economic Community. (9) The execution of these ownership ideas ultimately changed the European approach to foreign policy. The first European agreements arising out of the EEC involved ownership of coal, iron, and steel. (10) Gradually, poor European countries--like Spain--grew. In 1978, Spain had the same per capita GDP as Argentina. A quarter century later, Spain's per capita GDP had nearly quadrupled. (11) This economic growth was made possible...

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