[Market Economy Guide] Property Rights and the Desert

“North Africa’s deserts were fertile farmland in Roman times…

After the Arab conquest, they were devastated when private property rights were abolished”

Property Rights That Made the Desert Cultivable

North Africa, home to Libya, Ethiopia, and Egypt, is a representative desert region. Sand-laden winds blow several times a day, and it is a barren land where grass and trees cannot properly grow and simply wither away. Yet surprisingly, this now bone-dry region is said to have been fertile farmland in Roman times. Where did the thick vegetation and rich soil go, and how did only a desert of drifting sand and dust remain?

Desertification is generally understood to result from climate change. But according to recent research, the view is gaining ground that North Africa’s desertification was a tragic consequence produced by flawed institutions. The reason goes back to the period when Rome ruled North Africa.

Rome and the Ottoman Empire

The Romans cultivated the land more diligently than anyone else, building irrigation facilities and bringing in water from afar. The Roman-era irrigation works that still remain in the region are so solidly built that they can be fully restored even today, more than 1,000 years later. Behind the Romans’ painstaking efforts to make the land fertile was the recognition of private property rights. Rome recognized private property rights, and that enabled Romans to exercise property rights over the land. It also allowed them to invest in and manage it generously.

But the situation changed after Arabs and the Ottoman Turks took control of North Africa after Rome. That was because the rulers of the Arab and Ottoman Turkish empires did not recognize private property rights. Emphasizing absolute loyalty to the ruler, they nationalized all land. As a result, the land began to deteriorate rapidly. No one worked the land diligently or tried to build irrigation facilities and bring in water. Not a single person was willing to devote wholehearted effort to the ruler’s land when it was not their own.

Moreover, people who could not own land inevitably chose nomadic life rather than agriculture. As most people raised goats, the land deteriorated even faster, because goats with voracious appetites ate even the smallest grasses. Once the waterways were cut off and not even a single blade of grass remained, it was only natural for the land to turn into desert. In the end, the deserts of North Africa today can be seen as a tragedy caused by an unrealistic assignment of property rights.

Property Gives Rise to Diligence and Responsibility

When the concept of ownership—that is, property rights—is clear, people make voluntary efforts to protect their property. That is because any disadvantage resulting from a failure to protect one’s own property ultimately becomes one’s own responsibility.

Recognition of property also serves to inspire a sense of ownership and cultivate morality. People become attached to what they own—their work, their possessions, and other things that belong to them. So even without being told, they naturally take interest in their own property, devote care to it, and feel responsible for it. In short, they develop a sense of ownership. But if private property is not recognized, that sense of ownership cannot emerge, and responsibility and diligence disappear as well.

A clear definition of ownership can serve as a standard for assigning responsibility in property-rights disputes and resolving them. Private property rights are the legal rights to own property and freely pursue economic benefits from it, and they form the foundation that drives the market economy. Only in a society where private property is recognized and protected will members actively participate in economic activity for their own benefit. If people think something is not theirs, if they have nothing of their own, then what exactly would they seek to protect?

■ Please remember

Recognition of property also serves to inspire a sense of ownership and cultivate morality. People become attached to what they own—their work, their possessions, and other things that belong to them. So even without being told, they naturally take interest in their own property, devote care to it, and feel responsible for it.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

---

Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 사유재산권과 사막

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2020-02-10

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=10&idx=22366