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Inequality and Insurgency in Vietnam: A Re-analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Jeffery M. Paige
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Extract

Although the Department of State continues to attribute the war in Vietnam to “aggression from the North,” there has always been a suspicion among more enlightened public officials and most academic critics of the war that economic discontent rooted in the inequitable tenure arrangements of the Vietnamese countryside might have some connection with the vigorous opposition of the Viet Cong to numerous Saigon governments. Thus it is surprising to learn that, on the contrary, support for the Saigon regime is most pronounced in provinces in which few peasants farm their own land, large estates were formerly owned by French or Vietnamese landlords, tenancy is widespread, and the distribution of land is unequal. This finding is particularly striking since it is contrary to data from the rest of Southeast Asia. In Burma, for example dacoity and other forms of social disorder were most frequent in the deltaic area of lower Burma, a region of extensive tenancy, unstable tenure, massive agricultural debt, and large-scale absentee ownership by Indian financial houses. In Thailand most social tension is concentrated in the northeast, a region of poor soil and shifting subsistence agriculture, and in the Menam delta immediately adjacent to Bangkok, where absentee holdings are farmed by tenants. Most commercial agricultural land in Thailand is cultivated by owner-proprietors and it is this fact that explains much of the country's political stability. In the Philippines the Hukbalahap movement was concentrated in central Luzon, again a region of extensive tenancy.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , October 1970 , pp. 24 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1970

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References

1 U.S. Department of State, “A Threat to Peace: North Viet-Nam's Effort to Conquer South Viet-Nam” (Washington 1961Google Scholar).

2 Mitchell, Edward J., “Inequality and Insurgency: A Statistical Study of South Vietnam,” World Politics, xx (April 1968), 421CrossRefGoogle Scholar–38.

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5 Ibid., 214.

6 For a summary of tenure arrangements in the English Revolution see Moore, Barrington, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Maying of the Modern World (Boston 1966), 3–39Google Scholar; or Tawney, R. H., The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (London 1912Google Scholar), passim.

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10 Actually, Tilly calls the process “urbanization,” but his use of the terms refers more directly to the extension of the market than it does to the growth of population aggregates.

11 R. W. Lindholm, “An Economic Development Oriented Land Reform Program for Vietnam,” in Froelich, 180–91, or Jacoby, 158.

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18 U.S.O.M., 76.

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21 Northern coastal zone: Quang Tri, Thua Thien, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, and Phu Yen provinces. Southern coastal zone: Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan. Southern plateau: Tay Ninh, Binh Duong, Bien Hoa, Long Khan, Phouc Tuy. Delta: An Giang, An Xuyen, Ba Xuyen, Dinh Tuong, Kien Giang, Kien Hoa, Kien Phong, Kien Tuong, Long An, Phong Dinh, Vinh Binh, Vinh Long.

22 U.S.O.M., for rice area, 71; rubber, 76; population, 5.

23 Henry for export figures, 332–33; communal land 144–45 (Annam), 154–81 (Cochin China).

24 Mitchell, 427.

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