The economic viability of land redistribution

Spain in the European Interwar context (1932-1936).

Resumo

This chapter analyzes the failure of the agrarian reform of the Spanish Second Republic (1932-1936) from a comparative European perspective. Challenging traditional explanations that attribute the collapse solely to political opposition or a lack of government will, this study argues that the reform failed due to structural and environmental limitations. Unlike Eastern Europe, Spain lacked the exogenous shocks”such as war or revolution”that facilitated massive expropriation elsewhere, forcing the Republic to attempt a costly redistribution within a strict legal framework. Furthermore, the state lacked the administrative capacity to execute the ambitious Law of 1932. Fundamentally, dryland farming conditions limited agricultural intensification, meaning that the political goal of maximizing the number of settlers resulted in economically unviable plots. Although the land invasions of 1936 offered a bottom-up alternative, they ultimately redistributed poverty by displacing existing tenants. In conclusion, the Spanish reform attempted to replicate a model ill-suited to its economic reality, demonstrating the limits of redistribution in the absence of market-driven modernization or a exogenous shock.