Land Is Still Power—But For How Long? Michael Albertus Dissects This Oldest Instrument Of Control

Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies. Michael Albertus. Basic Books. Pages 310. Rs 501.

There is something deliciously subversive about a book that takes our most pedestrian assumptions and turns them into intellectual kindling.

Michael Albertus's Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies does precisely that—it turns the terrain we walk on into an analytical scalpel for dissecting human society.

Much like Niall Ferguson’s portrayal of finance as history’s undercurrent, Albertus insists that more than industry or technology, land is the fundamental determinant of power and its discontents.

Albertus begins with the obvious — land was once abundant, then it wasn’t. The moment agriculture took hold, land became a means of control. The few who owned it ruled; the many who worked on it obeyed.

History has refined the instruments of domination—financial markets, corporate monopolies, military-industrial complexes—but the underlying logic remains. Land Power is, in this sense, a refreshingly unromantic book.

His argument builds toward what he calls the "Great Reshuffle"—the last two centuries in which land ownership patterns gave rise to what Albertus dubs the "Four Horsemen of modern social maladies" — racial hierarchy, gender inequity, underdevelopment, and environmental degradation.

This is the book’s most persuasive section, a whirlwind tour of how land policy determined the fates of societies. The British landlord-tenant system in Ireland, which exacerbated famine and fueled rebellion, mirrors Bengal’s Permanent Settlement. The US government’s refusal to grant freed slaves their promised “Forty Acres and a Mule” was not an oversight but a strategic decision to preserve an economic and racial order.

For an Indian reader, this is not academic theory. We have lived the consequences of colonial land grabs, post-independence botched-up land reforms under Nehru, and the Green Revolution. Albertus’s case studies—from Prussia’s Junkers to Peru’s haciendas—mirror Punjab’s kulaks (so to say) and Tamil Nadu’s mirasdars.

But Land Power is not a eulogy, it is a prescription. Albertus profiles societies that have managed to rewrite their futures through land reform:

- South Africa’s Greater Tenbosch restitution, where Black communities formed revenue-sharing partnerships with companies like RCL, leasing back land for sugarcane farming while participating in management;

- Colombia’s land title program for widows of conflict, reminiscent of Vidarbha’s women reclaiming their husbands’ fields;

The takeaway? Redistribution works, but only under the right conditions. It requires sustained support, market integration, and, above all, political will.

Here, Albertus is lucid but sometimes overcommitted to his thesis. His belief that land redistribution can "unwind inequality" is compelling but incomplete. He examines Mexico, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe in detail, noting how cynical politics wrecked their reform efforts.

Yet, his argument at times verges on determinism, as if land reform is doomed whenever politics interferes—when in reality, all policy is subject to political trade-offs. A more robust engagement with why some states have managed these tensions better than others would have strengthened his case.

Albertus ends on an urgent note: Land’s link to power is ironclad—for now. He warns that societies must be ready for the next inevitable land reshuffle, ensuring it is done right this time.

He sees a continuum between radical activists demanding reparations and the bureaucrats tinkering with land policy, both unknowingly striving toward the same goal. But is this faith in the land’s enduring role justified? Here, the book’s argument runs into trouble.

The primary limitation of Land Power is its application to modern power structures. Land remains crucial, yes, but is it still the primary axis of power? Financial markets, technological dominance, and supply chain control are at least as pivotal in shaping contemporary hierarchies.

For example, companies like FAANG, Nvidia, and TSMC wield power through capital, data, and supply chain dominance—forces that often bypass land ownership.

The increasing ability of an individual—armed with capital, AI, and remote infrastructure—to generate outsized economic influence calls into question whether land still holds the primacy Albertus assigns to it. The future of work, in which talent operates independently of geography, further weakens his thesis.

If power is increasingly about access to algorithms rather than acreage, then Land Power risks being a book about yesterday’s battles rather than tomorrow’s frontiers.

Still, these are quibbles in a book that is, for the most part, sharp and unsparing. Albertus writes with clarity and precision, making an argument that is as readable as it is provocative. The book will affirm those already inclined toward its thesis and challenge skeptics to articulate a better one. It is not perfect, but it is necessary.

The question is not whether another land reshuffle will come, but who will be ready to dictate its terms when it does. In a world where a single individual, armed with machine learning models and globalized capital, seems poised to build billion-dollar enterprises from a rented desk (I agree with Sam Altman’s point about the one-person unicorn), the age-old calculus of land power is shifting.

If land still rules, it does so in uneasy coexistence with an economic order increasingly indifferent to geography.