Abstract
The political problems associated with financing agricultural development are probably more difficult to resolve than those associated with any other sector. It is a commonplace that ‘agriculture is special’. We mean something more specific: namely, that fundamental changes are needed in the economic and social power structure of the agricultural sector as a precondition of real economic and social improvement in most of the countries of the region. For this reason, it is necessary to define which groups should be benefited with what kinds of agricultural development programmes. Furthermore, the means used for mobilising financial resources for agricultural development are important elements of the agricultural development programme itself. It is quite possible to use the tax system either to complement or to frustrate the aims of the development programmes. In any case, it is essential that the two seemingly distinct policy and programme areas be considered in conjunction. Unfortunately this is seldom done.
The views expressed in this chapter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the United Nations or the Organisation of American States. The authors are indebted to Solon Barraclough, John Strasma and Jacobo Schatan for helpful comments.
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Notes
R. L. Heilbroner, ‘Counterrevolutionary America’, in Commentary (April 1967), 32.
For a discussion of the problems of employing typologies of this sort, see Phillipe Smitter, ‘New Strategies for the Comparative Analysis of Latin American Politics’, in Latin American Research Review, iv, 2 (summer 1969), 83–110.
I. L. Horowitz, ‘Electoral Politics, Urbanization and Social Development in Latin America’, in I. L. Horowitz, J. de Castro and J. Gerassi (eds), Latin American Radicalism (Random House, New York, 1969), pp. 140–77;
Gino Germani, ‘Estrategia para estimular la movilidad social’, in J. P. Kohl (ed.), La Industrialization en America Latina (Fondo de Cultura Economica, Mexico, 1965), pp. 294–5;
Jacques Lambert, Latin America: Social Structure and Political Institutions (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1967), pp. 21–48.
See particularly S. L. Barraclough and A. L. Domike, ‘Agrarian Structure in Seven Latin American Countries’, in Land Economics (Nov 1966), 391–424, and the specific studies for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru published by the Inter-American Committee for Agricultural Development (CIDA), each under the title: Land Tenure Conditions and Socio-Economic Development of the Agricultural Sector (1965 and 1966).
For Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico and the Central American countries preliminary reports have also been issued by CIDA. An extensive bibliography of studies of agrarian structure has been prepared by the director of the latter studies, Thomas F. Carroll, in Land Tenure and Land Reform in Latin America (Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, D.C.), 1965.
Folke Dovring, ‘Underdevelopment in Traditional Agriculture’, in Economic Development and Cultural Change, XV, 2 (Jan 1967), 163–73.
Study of this issue has been limited, but see G. Carrasco, J. Kozub, J. Strasma and A. L. Domike, Movilizacidn de Recursos Econ6micos y Financieros para la Reforma Agraria Peruana (Washington, D.C., 1969).
See R. M. Bird and O. Oldman, ‘Tax Research and Tax Reform in Latin America. A Survey and a Commentary’, in Latin American Research Review, iii, 3 (summer 1968), 5–23.
The bibliography on land taxes for developing countries is large and growing. The basic work is Haskell Wald, Taxation of Agricultural Land in Underdeveloped Economics (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1959).
See H. H. Hinrichs, A General Theory of Tax Structure Change during Economic Development (Harvard Law School, Cambridge, 1966), p. 65.
A comparison of the tax burden of each Latin American country with fifty-three other countries, considering differences in per capita incomes and in the degree of openness of the economy, is made by J. R. Lotz and E. R. Morss, ‘Measuring Tax Effort in Developing Countries’, in I.M.F. Staff Papers (Nov 1967), 478–99.
See John Strasma, ‘Property Taxation in Chile’, in Arthur Becker (ed.), Land and Building Taxes, their Effect on Economic Development (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1969), pp. 187–200.
See A. L. Domike, ‘Tax Policy and Land Tenure in Argentina’, in Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives (F.A.O., Rome, 1964)
V. E. Tokman, ‘Land Tenure and Socio-Economic Development of the Agricultural Sector in Argentina in the Post-War Period’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1969, mimeographed), pp. 263–310.
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© 1971 Keith Griffin, Lester C. Thurow, Jorge Arrate, Lucio Geller, Laurence Whitehead, Arthur L. Domike, Victor E. Tokman, Timothy King, Rosemary Thorp
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Domike, A.L., Tokman, V.E. (1971). The Role of Agricultural Taxation in Financing Agricultural Development in Latin America. In: Griffin, K. (eds) Financing Development in Latin America. Problems in Focus Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00609-0_5
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