The great German land lottery
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This episode includes some swearing once in english, but some in the german dialect called franconian. This is planet money from npr. Toy's the day that frigid, noisy has been waiting for for the past ten years. Good morning. How to do?

Good morning. Have a good night.

Yes, yeah. Ah, yeah.

yes. We're meeting himenes family in rural germany in the middle of miles .

and miles of farm fields .

are very nice to meet you.

A from america.

amErica from america. Reja loves a joke and is relentless ly positive, he says tall, lanky potato farmer in his sixties.

For the last ten years, fredrik has planted, harvested and cared for nine specific plots of land here in germany, specifically in this area called the old sing. The option is collectively owned by a group of a hundred hundred forty one farmers.

But after today, the plot he's farmed and careful will no longer be his. He'll trade him in for new plot through a lottery, a land lottery.

every ten years for the last five hundred years. So since of the fifteen hundred ds, the people in this community hold a lottery where farmers, Randy, get assigned plots of land they will farm for the next ten years of their lives. It's like farming and musical chairs.

So at today's lottery, the map of all this land is going to be wiped clean fredrick. And all the farmers here, their economic fates will be decided by pulling names out of a bag.

The lottery is about to kick off soon. IT takes place on hundreds of acres of grain, corn, title fields, fields that will be up for grabbed today, the opening ceremony arts. Inside a big tent, we settle in at the table with free drink.

I hope for tony. I is good to me.

Redick is talking about fortuna. The roman got A A porches, and he hopes today SHE helps him out.

He says, the first thing you want is at least two pieces of good land.

Good as fate there does he to get a come my head as a sunday, her ground light.

He says he wants Sandy soil because that's what's best for growing potato.

I hope so.

And the second thing, he once not too much bad land.

fredrick has nine plots of land, which means you will get nine new plots of plant. But not every plot is suited for potatoes. Some land is really bad for growing potatoes. It's too swampy or the soil is too dense. And every plot that's not right for potatoes we'll cost them.

I think it's beginning. Yeah, the master of ceremonies steps to the microphone for the start of the using fellow song that translate tes to the awesome land. Littery.

yeah, they're awesome. Because because he .

says the ocean land, Larry, great. You dear.

guess are you trick is starting to look kind of nervous.

You just attention .

is there? Yeah, I see you. Everybody looks a little happy, but also a little .

nervous right now to py .

jerk says his, a journal is going up, up, up. As he says this, his hand goes up like a roller coaster climbing. I raise my microphone as if i'm making a toast. Alright, let there be good land.

a good land.

Hello and welcome to planet money amErica barriers.

And I am appeasing in many ways, economics is about the best way a society can allocate their scarce resources. Hundreds of years ago, a community and germany came up with their own unique solution to that question.

Today on the show, we follow along as every farmer has a shot perfect piece of land, or the absolute worst piece of land. And we see what we can learn from this living medieval tradition that tries to baLance fairness, efficiency.

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So why does oh have this unusual lottery system? Well, we asked a bunch of people, and they all said we need to talk to George root PH.

But he had mottos been around with farmer.

George tells us he was a farmer, but today his main gig is being the oc historian. And the history of this land lottery all starts with what else? A classic german fairy tale.

The story begins a thousand .

years ago.

Was on a hunting trip here in this area.

He got back then. This land .

was all forest, and there were four villages at the edge of the forest to the north, south, east and west.

So amer kun wa was lost in the woods, and SHE couldn't find her way out.

I was until he heard bells from .

the churches coming from the communities at the corners of the.

this is the I said in the dish. Ted SHE found her way out.

And SHE was so grateful SHE gifted the forest land to the people of these bar villages and that forest land became the all sing IT became the oh farmland.

Okay, so parts of this far tale are probably not true, like these churches do not have bells a thousand years ago, but everyone agrees. Tempus gave them the land. And while giving them the land was nice, IT also created a problem, a problem that would eventually lead to the option lotty.

because the four villages had to share that farmland. Now, communal farmland. IT was not such a novel idea, especially around this time in europe, lots of places, community farming land, but with the people of the using did next was kind of novel.

Do you say, feel like clubs and s on a fighter?

So had some, some, I have some trouble with with each other because they said, okay, you get Better farm land than than we and so on.

This is mark s. hoffman. He's an interpreter who helped us out. He's from this area, and he knows this story well.

And he says, you see, the people here fought over the lands with the Better soil. They fought over how much land they were getting.

IT was not a war. IT was just a fight, a verbal fight. They don't kill each other.

So was yeah and maybe punch .

each other. But I was not IT was not that was for.

okay, so punching but not a war all over who got Better than some parts were hilly hard to get to some soil was Better because I was full, and you could grow almost anything on IT. The worst soil was rocky and full of pebbles.

So this is why in the fifteen hundreds, the villages came up with a novel system to distribute the land. Elsewhere in europe, communities were returning community and the plots people owned individually here in the auction, though they came up with their own version of land ownership.

Is that okay? We have to do IT in a fair way for all, all the, the people from all four villages.

So the villages created the land lottery. Basically, the all thing would be divided among the people of the four villages. The farmers would randomly be assigned place, the good ones, the bad ones.

Now some people would be luckier than others. That happens. So there is another part of the lottery. You only got to keep your land for ten years.

So after ten years, the names went back in the bag and there was a new drawing IT meant no one would be stuck with a bad plot forever. Another lottery, another chance.

And this is the reason why we have the rougher every ten year. So in one year, you are lucky, you get Better line. Or in the next summer, you are not so lucky, you get more worse. The other thing doesn't belong to anybody.

IT actually belongs to everybody.

And while we don't do a lot of things today, the way we did in the fifty hundreds, for good reason, this lane lottery has not changed at all. Every ten years in a year, that is, in four, right after the harvest, the people here have held a lottery, no matter what. In thousand and eighty four, the year rain the day. The lottery and the field body, they did the lottery. Even in one thousand forty four, during world war two, when bombers flew overhead, they still did the lottery.

And today in twenty twenty four, it's Sunny, a little windy, and people are milling around, mostly dressed in genes and hiking boots. But there's also man dressed in later housing and a woman in a red belt dress with puppy sleeves in a crown. Is that the airport.

when one day is coming, when the lottery begins.

hundreds of people spill out of the tent and onto a gravel path.

All the people that are .

moving at the same traffic.

The first .

thing to know about this littery is that IT involves a lot of walking. They really walk in a place.

I guess we should walk .

a little faster and they .

will start until we all get there.

yeah.

Fredrick, the potato farmer is moving. He is real dad at the airport energy, he's walking with a purpose, and we initially lose him in the ground.

Although is hello again.

hello again.

we are going to walk, plot to plot and watch as they randomly draw winners at each one. In total, the group will walk to about six hundred plus. I hope I were the right choice.

One we get to our first plot with fredrick and his son bite was taking over. The farm fight has all the stakes with their name. They have nine stakes for nine plots of land. Some farmers have dozens of stakes, others just a few.

The master ceremonies stands in the middle of the crowd with a bag that has the names of all the farmers in IT. Fredrick has a blank map of the outing ready to be filled in if they call his name.

We check out this first plot.

How is this land? This is good or this bad?

No, is everything. In a good land here would be good? Yeah, it's good.

What is so good about this land here?

Now, IT is the same ground is, is Sandy were no stone, the small stone?

Some of the best plots are at the beginning of the lottery. This first lot would be good for any crop, but to be especially good for potatoes. So fredrick really wants his name to be called .

a kid from the community, reaches their hand into the bag, pulls out a slip of paper, the name of the winner trigger through the crowd.

The name .

they .

call is tony. Tony gets this plot. There's some celebration as the new land owner makes their way to the center of the crowd and hammers a stake in the ground.

And then we start moving into the next plot.

Each plot is a little different bearing sizes, different soil quality, and that a different land fredrick felt earlier. It's stronger because the land at the beginning of the lottery m of the best is vert workable. He really wants his name to get called here. real. Here's another one. See what .

happens now, again.

again, after an hour.

two miles of walking and a dos one called .

you again.

My me free drink .

has watched as a lot of his neighbors get good lab.

My, no. My name? No, no. Fortuna is not good to me. Fortuna is sleeping.

What's going on? Are you sure your name is in the back? Is to see. And the league.

This is redick fourth lottery. When his son was little, he was one of the children who pulled the names out of the bag. Kids love to do IT because the farmers whose name's day, paul, tip them today, his eight year old neighbor, O, B, is one of those kids getting handful of eos.

Do you again? Now, I have .

ninety. You have nine. You.

after two hours, the lottery is starting to get stressful because the good fields get doled out of beginning. Redis miss him out and he's worried the'd run out of .

the good land. As the day stretches on, we start to notice all the ways that IT feels like we are not. In the year twenty twenty four, this whole lottery seems really an efficient for people.

They walk, plot to plot, and they measure all the parts by hand using a tool that predates the metric system. The tool is called a girt. It's basically a giant wooden ruler with an incremental measured called a shoe that german for true, and it's based on an actual person's suicide. The people .

here though say .

all this ceremony is because .

of fair reject says the most important .

thing it's fairness and markets says that's why the lottery has stuck around.

It's still the main reason why we we do this lottery stuff. If we do IT only from the commercial point of view, i'm pretty sure they would stop IT and would say, okay, one time we sell all the land and who have the most money, he can, he can buy the best areas. But the main purpose of the lottery's fairness for everybody.

And this is key to what makes this system work that people believe it's fair. The things were seeing, like measuring the land by hand using an ancient tool, walking plot to plot, and watching each name drawing out of a bag. These are symbols of the systems fairness. And because people believe this is all fair, they're willing to accept the outcome of volta y the ritualizes helps people accept their fate.

And if any of that were to change, you might lose what makes this so special. They're willing to give up some efficiency for more fairness. But still people are getting impatient, like a euro goby who is waiting to pull names from the back.

I do IT, but everyone can go on, go on, go on, like all the like, like three minutes, we going the hand and the back. Try, pick down, open you. And can we.

can you read the names .

sort three hours in.

and a few dozen plates have new owners. But fredrick is still waiting for his turn, waiting for his name to be called.

Now there are only about ten good plots left. If his name isn't called soon, he'll be stuck with bad land. Redick, though, is still holding out hope and .

then noise.

That you, that my name.

free drink and a sun start hammering in the stake with their name on IT. Fredrick has a full smile. This is a good one.

Yeah.

yes. This is your queen.

yes.

Pull out his map of the o sing and write down his name.

So we're looking at a map of all of, oh, and you're gonna ite what you just got. It's so gloriously analogue.

Today is a good feeling.

Today is a .

good feeling. good.

And then another few minutes later, his name is called, again.

fight. noisy.

Yeah.

this yes, is perfect into in franco ion.

right? This is perfect.

This, yeah.

His bag is two stakes lighter. Fredrick is happy. After a bit more walking, he gets a few more. Okay, plts, but it's now our six. We've walked about hand miles, and at this point we start crossing over into the bad land.

So we're walking down a hill and thinking, like, maybe these are scratchy plants.

They definitely feel like scratchy .

scratch of something. Do have ticks in germany.

What is ticks? second? Yes, yes. It's a yes.

very, very fit. Yes.

yes, yes.

Untune IT feels .

like things are changing. The sun is bearing down on us and the soil these pants is noticeably worse. This is not the kind of land fredrick ones, but he still has three stakes left. Preter is worried about getting one of these .

really bad plus. And after a few draws, his name does get called .

fredrickson vite cameras. They are sticking. And when he finishes, he leaned over and mother something to market.

Just before he had walked away is that you can tell it's a clump.

Slum is franconian and will let markets explain .

what IT means. Lump is franconian slang for a city.

This land has terrible rocky soil. It's nowhere near his house or even his other plots.

Mp, slum jump.

Yeah, he was sunset slum and walked away. So that seems like he did like this land too much.

Yeah, this is a lum of my paring. This is, this is an a way this I need so hope in the.

he says it's a bit slum fee, but not worthless, still land though redick, the eternal optimist, knows that all hope is not last free .

dick has gotten nine plots through the lottery. Two are really good if you are medium, and two are slumphs. But these might not be the pattern the day with because in all the rules of this landlord y, there's another move that can .

be made nice if I buy .

project says it's not over yet.

You no hope .

dies last. They're still a possibility after the break, the losing pilsen allows fredrick one more shot at getting those good plastic oil.

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After fifteen miles of walking and more than six hundred names being done, the map of the using has been rewritten. And looking at the new map, it's kind of a mess. Farmers have plants that are all disconnected from each other. And weed farmers have soil that's good for potatoes. Potato farmers have soil that's Better for corn.

Like free dick, he got a few pieces of land he doesn't want because they're far from his other plot and they're not great for growing potatoes. And that's bad for free dick. That would mean half as many crops in a year on those plots. But that's also bad for the economy because this land would be great for farming corn or weed. And so fredrick getting this land kind of a waste.

This is partly why pretty much everyone else on the planet behind and sales lain, if frija k could just buy the land he wants, he could make sure he got exactly the land he needs for potato farming. But because he's in the lottery, he has to leave IT chance.

So the lotteries fair, but maybe not efficient. That's why the people of the other thing have a second part to the ocean, vero zone. The celebratory tent has turned into a trading pit. Farmers like redit can go to another farmer and outside trade for a Better plot. There are more than six hundred and other parts, hundreds of potential deals.

And this is maybe the coolest part of the day. Farmers are spraying out across tables. They're pouring over their maps of the oing. They are constantly writing and racing as they go back and forth on offers.

A secondary market has emerged because even though the lottery is designed and executed to be orderly, completely random, after the plots are signed, the new lander wners can all trade with each other. Essentially, Marcus says. It's like this game. We all kind of .

a little like monopoly.

啊哈 you if you .

know that the game monopoly yeah farmers are trying .

to trade their plants like monopoly property， hoping to get a bunch of them together.

If you have already a good starting point and it's easier, but if your areas are distributed everywhere in the using, then you need to negotiate more and you have to trade more often.

The goal of trade is to maximize what lots we get in life. And that is precisely what everyone here in the old thing is doing. Farmers can trade a plot for a plot, but they can also add money to a deal.

Are there rules for trading?

Not really human rules. Don't punch each other into the face.

yeah. Jack and the sun start trying to make some trades. They wanna get rid .

of their bad lumpy. They approach one .

farmer who seems open theyll scrutiny, their respective maps.

老公 在哪里 呀？ OK 有没有 再爱你？ But then .

the other farmer, abrupt, he walks away.

Did a deal .

happen a little bit?

What is that? me?

A little bit, a little bit means that the farmer is open. He's willing to trade, but only a fredrick. And his son convinced the farmer with the plot on the other side of them to trade to. So you'll have to wait and see on .

that one next freezin. The son try making a deal with one of the big farmers, the ones with lots of plants. A lot of the big farmers have set up makeshift headquarters on the beds of their pickup trucks. Smaller farmers like fredrick and the sun seek them out.

hoping to make a deal. His son walks up to one of the big farmers and proposes a trade. He tells them about one of his slumkey flots. But before he, he would gets to the specifics, the group laughs him off.

IT is no fun.

so free dick finds the next farmer and they huddled over his map of the owing. Over the course of the day, it's become covered with much names and phone numbers and all .

kinds of notes with the 空 one。 Farmers says he might .

make a deal with them, but free exploit is next to an organic farmers that might be a hassle, might affect how you can farm. So he's gonna IT and see who else will make an offer.

All around us, these strategic trades are happening, and the farmers have different strategies. One of the farmers has a new book with a list of fifteen deals he needs to make to get all of his land together. Marcus taxes through an exchange between the two farmers.

I O is okay.

but I think of .

something, something.

So he said, you said to high, okay, reserve IT for you. I, I keep that for you, but we cannot close the deal because I have to do something in at once. And hygd reply, no, no, no, no. That's not an affair deal I wanted for sure, and I wanted here.

So the people .

here spent .

three or four hours negotiating. You can picture the map of the using, being drawn and arrest, drawn and erased hundreds of .

times throughout the night. And with each trade, the land itself gets closer to its most efficient use. In theory, trading means the land can end up with the farmer who will make the most of IT help yield its highest value. And after all the trading is over, the farmers in the land will be Better off. Then we see some of this happening right in front of us.

hand .

shake that big 了。

And we notice, yes, each farmer is looking out for their own interests. But there's also this sense of community. People are making deals and saying that will figure out the money later.

Because the people here are all neighbors. They're sing in the community required together. Their kids will go to school together. And then i'll see each other at the one restaurant .

in town SAT out to the gas house.

Gooden, abm, and of course, i'm onna, do this whole thing again in ten years.

The crowd in the tent starts to, then we check back in with free jerk and a sun. They've had dozens of conversations and the prospects of a few three way trades, but no handshakes. They decide to pause their trading for the night.

Black conf canadians and fredrick .

tells us, yes, this whole system is confusing, but IT is what they have. They can't change IT beautiful .

and beautiful.

whether it's beautiful or not.

OK the sun waite says.

yeah, this is out of date. A hundred years ago there was okay, but twenty.

twenty four.

They get ready to leave. Frederick feels confident he'll get some trades done in the next couple weeks before all the plants have to be locked in until twenty thirty four.

What can use? It's enough. It's very enough.

Just doing this everything years. And so another chapter in this thousand year old fairy tale is coming to an .

end way back when the lottery was a solution to all kinds of quality problems. And at different points in history, the people of the option could have abandon the lottery if they did.

Maybe one village or one family. We've ve gotten all the good plots. I massed a lot of wealth, maybe become the noble families of the area.

But instead, the hosting holds the lottery every ten years, every decade, the pots all get mixed up. And rea sign till everyone get a chance at getting the good layer. And if not, they can see what trades they can make.

A few weeks after the lottery, we spoke with fredrick. In the end, he made seven trades and got all the land he wanted, and he's gonna to farming happily ever after, or at least for the next ten years.

Today's was produced by meat and openly IT was edited by gesturing, reporting help from Sophia shu can IT was fast checked by kara what is IT was engineered by nail roush out gold mark is our executive producer.

Thank you to clean a tall adam berry kin. Carol and Caroline dries provided interpretation help. And thank you to mary clare pee for the first telling us about this lab lottery a couple years ago.

AmErica barrs and I am apply. This is nbr. Thanks for listening.

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