by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
“Idle property” — “idle land”: the expression is bandied about by land reformists as though it meant “odious property” — “odious land.” In fact, the word idle conjures up the image of land lazily kept useless by selfish owners, while in the surrounding areas, populations languish in poverty; if only they could work that land, they would escape their undeserved misery.
As I mentioned in my previous article (Folha de S. Paulo, November 5, 1986), in countries other than Brazil, such a situation may indeed occur on unused land in overcrowded regions. But that is not the case here. In Brazil, the problem could be addressed by distributing public lands to the needy population — not, incidentally, through the purely egalitarian approach that many agrarian reform advocates favor, but through a distribution that acknowledges the natural coexistence of large, medium, and small properties. In fact:
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In Brazil, the effective use of unused or underused land along the rural frontier or beyond mainly relies on the efforts of pioneers. It was through them that Brazil’s cultivated lands grew to their current size. And it is through them that our current agricultural frontiers will gradually expand until they reach the country’s borders.
Now, a pioneer is to an ordinary farmer as a hero is to a simple, honest, and hardworking citizen.
Being a pioneer demands exceptional personal qualities and full dedication to achieving meaningful results. From one perspective, a pioneer is a gift from Providence. The great navigators of Portugal’s fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were trailblazers across the seas. Our heroic Bandeirantes were also pioneers, and in their own way, so are—and still are—the missionaries, who venture deep into the forests to seek the priceless treasures of Jesus Christ: the souls of the forest dwellers, whom they bring to the Catholic faith.
In all these forms of exploration, man dreams of priceless treasures to be obtained. This legitimate desire to acquire wealth that will make them great — as well as their children and grandchildren — is what motivates these brave individuals to venture out in search of the ‘Wild West’ around the world.
If the law offers them only the uninspiring mediocrity of a meager settlement, as the Agrarian Reform program does, these key figures in the country’s rural development will turn to all sorts of other activities and flee from land clearing as if from a human prison.
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It is therefore natural for the pioneer to want to reserve a much larger area for himself than just the plot he could cultivate during the first few decades of his pioneering effort. He reserves this extra land to ensure the future of his children and grandchildren.
Now, in modern land reform vocabulary, the unused parts of these large estates — initially and justly acquired — are called “idle lands.” Could there be a greater injustice than labeling this surplus, the hard-earned reward of those giants and pioneers who opened these regions, as “idle”?
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The “idle” properties left in already developed regions, like the south-central part of the country, are often heavily subdivided remnants of large original estates established when these areas were being cleared.
Therefore, the argument supporting pioneers’ rights also applies to “idle” land in densely populated areas.
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However, one cannot dismiss the possibility that there are also properties—with plots of unused land—that have been reconfigured after prior subdivision. And this is justified.
Therefore, if a landowner with ample resources wants to mechanize and increase agricultural production in a specific area, he should consider buying several small properties and merging them with his existing land. This way, he will have expanded to form a large estate.
Now, it often happens that, to give the large estate he’s creating an appropriate layout, the landowner may buy parcels he cannot yet cultivate immediately. But it is in his own interest to bring them under cultivation as soon as his profits permit him to do so.
Calling such lands “idle” and threatening to expropriate them through socialist and confiscatory means is clearly unjust.
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Finally, the Land Statute and the PNRA [National Land Reform Plan] fail to clearly distinguish between unused land on the edge of the rural frontier or beyond, and unused land that has been lazily or speculatively left fallow in fully cultivated areas.
“Speculatively.” Such speculation is invariably cast in an unfavorable light by both moderate and radical land‑reformists, for the simple reason that the profits it yields do not arise directly and exclusively from the owner’s personal labor.
Socialists and communists follow their own flawed logic when they take this stance. However, those who claim to oppose socialism and communism cannot, without contradiction, accept Marx’s antagonistic view of the relationship between capital and labor.
Indeed, with far greater insight than the leftists, Leo XIII taught that capital is not the opposite of labor, but rather labor itself transformed into wealth — the fruit of a worker’s diligence and prudent saving — and usually passed down to his descendants through legitimate hereditary succession.
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Similarly, the increase in wealth resulting from a worker’s ability to invest his savings—whether in purchasing land likely to appreciate as urban suburbs grow, or in shares of corporations whose potential he has carefully recognized—represents profit stemming from a particular insight into favorable opportunities that Providence has granted him. And the reward of this natural discernment belongs to him. None of this can be considered “speculation” in the negative sense of the term.