Chinese Power Company evicts villagers. Apparently

[devilchicken]

Bloody China riot caught on film
By Daniel Griffiths
BBC News, Beijing

Dramatic footage has emerged of a riot in a Chinese village at the weekend in which six people are reported to have been killed.

The pictures show local farmers fighting a pitched battle with dozens of unknown men wearing camouflage gear and construction helmets.

Hunting rifles and clubs were used in the bloody clashes in the northern village of Shenyou.

It was filmed by a resident and then given to the Washington Post newspaper.

Chinese state media said that the residents had been resisting the takeover of their property by an electricity company which wants to build a power plant there.

Violent disputes like this one are common in China, where competition for useable land is fierce.

The eviction of local people to make way for new developments is becoming one of the country's sharpest social issues.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4097950.stm

[PsychicWarVeteran]

"...the residents had been resisting the takeover of their property by an electricity company which wants to build a power plant there."

I've always thought this idea of governments having eminent domain over every inch of land in their country was utter crap.

I know you've now made the US your home, devilchicken, and I hate to put a wet blanket over that, but our current president played a major role in doing the exact same thing to an entire neighborhood in Texas to make room for a Texas Rangers stadium!

1991
April: The Rangers shepherd through the Texas legislature a bill that creates the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority (ASFDA), a quasi-governmental entity that is given the power of eminent domain. Shortly after the bill is signed... 13 acres of private property are seized for the Rangers' new ballpark, later prompting two lawsuits.

You gotta admire the Chinese civilians for physically fighting back since they haven't the luxuries of litigation we enjoy here in the states.

[devilchicken]

I don't doubt that at all.

[PsychicWarVeteran]

Hmm. TheAdlerian has a very good point. The first plank of the Communist Manifesto is "The Abolition of Property and Land and the Application of All Rents in Land to Public Purposes".

Feeling kinda dumb right now.

It seems this is going to require some research...

[devilchicken]

Actually there's a good explanation for that in 1984 (which I just finished reading). Destroying the individuals right to own property perpetuates social inequality, but at the same time presents it as 'promoting' freedom.

Collectivism in that sense means that the party owns everything (although by the same rationale it doesn't). The individual is 'expected' to accept whatever the party does with the land because its supposed to be for the good of the party (and what's good for the party is 'good' for all). Of course - the reality of it is that its not good for the people who have lived on the land for generations, and have absolutely no rights over it.

It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called 'abolition of private property' which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of the Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the products as it thinks fit. In the years following the Revolution it was able to step into this commanding position almost unopposed, because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization. It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport -- everything had been taken away from them: and since these things were no longer private property, it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.

Out of curiosity I wonder 'which' power company this was - was it a foreign investor perhaps?

Remember this is a week after it was announced that Microsoft's deal with the chinese government included censorship of certain words used in internet searches and in individual weblogs.

[Jules]

Which most people don't have, no matter what government they live under. Not sure about the US but most private properties in UK are leasehold (meaning someone else owns the land they stand on).

Not even sure to what degree it's a good or bad thing - there's a slippery slope down where you start of worrying about the rights of those who have lived somewhere for generations, and end up talking about immigrants stealing jobs, and the gypsies.