THE GREAT REVERSAL The Privatization of China, 1978-1989 ...

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The rejection of the above propositions may sound like total repudiation for cooperativeagriculture, like a platform for return to the traditional desperate go-it-alone peasant tillage ofthe past. The advocates of the "responsibility system" deny it. They see the new system associalist in form, a system that gives individual initiative a chance to develop inside acollective framework. This framework includes public (state) ownership of the main means ofproduction, the land, which cannot be bought, sold, rented out, or rented in. It also includes acollective support network, the peasant-owned supply and marketing cooperatives that withbacking from the state deliver all critical supplies and market most if not all the commoditiesproduced. The macrosystem, the innovators say, is collective. Within it, at a micro-level, thepeasants plan, invest, and labor individually because agricultural production demandspersonal attention to every detail. This, so the argument runs, is socialism tailored to China'sunique rural situation.Without getting into a debate over whether the system qualifies as socialist or not, one cangrant that it is working reasonably well and quite fairly in Fengyang after four years, but onecan also foresee that the dynamic individualism unleashed by family contracts may rise tochallenge and eventually overthrow the collective integument that now supports andcontains it. Many long-range questions remain unanswered.From the social point of view the main question is that of polarization. One of the primaryarguments in favor of collectivization when it was launched in the 1950s was that it wouldforestall social differentiation, block the break-up of rural society into exploiting and exploitedclasses. The peasants, so the cooperators argued, would all rise together. In practicecollectivization did forestall polarization, but in too many cases no significant rise occurred.All remained poor together, eating out of one pot that wasn't anywhere near big enough and,worst of all, wasn't growing.Reacting to this deplorable state of affairs, advocates of the "responsibility system" nowboldly advocate the idea that "some must get rich first." Such a principle obviously favorsthe young, the strong, thepage 67healthy, the smart, and the aggressive. I asked what measures could prevent a handful ofambitious peasants on the rise from taking possession of the best means of production otherthan land -- draft animals, carts, tractors, pumps, threshing machinery -- and using these toexploit their less fortunate neighbors. In the lower stage coops of the 1950s a peasant withtwo animals could live without working. Could not a peasant with several tractors do sotoday? And if the tractors were passed on to the next generation would not the familyperpetuate its privileged class position?Deputy County Chairman Wang did not see this as a serious issue. In the past, he said,there were 27,000 needy families in the county, some 30 percent of the total. (He defined"needy" as families with less than 700 catties of grain per capita per year and less than 50yuan per capita cash income.) Now, he said, there are only 1,021 such families in the whole
county and the government gives them ten different kinds of special aid designed to keepthem from sinking. The aid is as follows:(1) Each state and local cadre takes personal responsibility for one needy family; studies itssituation, and gives advice.(2) Needy families pay no taxes.(3) The county sets aside 50,000 yuan to help the needy buy fertilizer, chemicals, improvedseeds, and other necessities.(4) The county allocates 30,000 yuan for low-interest production loans to the needy, settingthe interest rate at 1 percent instead of the 4.8 percent charged by the bank.(5) Communes and brigades allocate an additional 30,000 yuan for similar production loans.(6) Schools collect no fees from needy scholars.(7) Needy families have the right to buy animal feed at reduced prices and to sell their grainto the state at any time, even when the State Grain Company, due to local oversupply, stopsbuying from the public.(8) Needy families pay no doctors' fees (they still pay for medicine).(9) The supply coop guarantees all necessary fertilizer to the needy. Others have to buyfertilizer where they can find it.(10) Livestock specialists give needy families free help and waive fees for breedingservices, the sterilization of young pigs, etc.Wang said senior citizens without descendants also received special help:page 68"We give each one 700 catties of per capita grain, 6 catties of vegetable oil, a ton of grass,straw, and stalks for fuel, 30 yuan for clothes, 30 yuan for medical care, and 40 yuan forspending money. This amounts to 300 yuan of aid each year and with this aid the seniorcitizens can take care of themselves.""One of the motives behind such aid," he added, "is to strengthen the birth controlcampaign. When young people see that old folks without descendants can survive they feelless pressure to have children and especially the sons who will support them in their oldage."To illustrate local policy toward needy families Wang took us to see Chen Defang, a widowwith four children who was farming 17 mou (almost 3 acres) of land. She owned five sectionsof new housing, complete with some good furniture, shared a water buffalo with a neighbor,
Page 1 and 2: THE GREATREVERSALThe Privatization
Page 3 and 4: This essence was known to many in C
Page 5 and 6: Introduction:China'sRuralReformsThe
Page 7 and 8: concern was, of course, the country
Page 9 and 10: I looked down in growing disbelief
Page 11 and 12: edefining what the word meant. Cert
Page 13 and 14: themselves, communists had, perforc
Page 16 and 17: It is against the background of Chi
Page 18 and 19: eformers. Throughout the whole cour
Page 20 and 21: in China. It emphasizes above all t
Page 22 and 23: Is Red," that solemn hymn to Mao Ze
Page 24 and 25: Hard work to transform the land was
Page 26 and 27: If meeting nonrelated young people
Page 28 and 29: and three times elevated to top pos
Page 30: can supply the raw material for lin
Page 34 and 35: Construction Bureau who wanted to n
Page 36 and 37: had already found wives and several
Page 38 and 39: the peasants first gave support to
Page 40 and 41: Zhanglaozhuang brigade, Ershihying
Page 42 and 43: see Gaojen commune. There 7,300 abl
Page 44 and 45: in 1978), (3) they planted large ar
Page 46 and 47: can do so will others not denounce
Page 48 and 49: destroyed all economies of scale an
Page 52 and 53: and was raising two pigs that she e
Page 54 and 55: page 71in some of the new industrie
Page 56 and 57: page 74Reformin Stride:Rural Change
Page 58 and 59: authorities is that it automaticall
Page 60 and 61: most promising things in the collec
Page 62 and 63: than it contributes itself, it is a
Page 64 and 65: mechanization plan could have done
Page 66 and 67: page 86units, taking a mature sheep
Page 68 and 69: measures are necessary.Since these
Page 70 and 71: tremely hard to carry out. Most mea
Page 72 and 73: 60,000 mou. This would make seasona
Page 74 and 75: lock the gates at Qinghua and other
Page 76 and 77: programs that discourage production
Page 78 and 79: 19781979198019811982198319841985467
Page 80 and 81: Peasants who opt for transport on t
Page 82 and 83: policy. Yet they are much touted by
Page 84 and 85: millions of mu of badly eroded slop
Page 86 and 87: page 111culture must also be modern
Page 88 and 89: The Problem of UnemploymentThe most
Page 90 and 91: mechanization of the more advanced
Page 92 and 93: tractor and/or implement tire that
Page 94 and 95: difficult form of cooperation. Betw
Page 96 and 97: In order to mechanize agriculture s
Page 98 and 99: Today's reports credit reform at Da
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were deducted from net income befor
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trees that appear to be, if not aba
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denounced by the central government
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spirit of Dazhai's citizens and to
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Ironic Lessons, Past and PresentIn
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Mao'sRuralPoliciesRevisitedA questi
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point frequently raised by the refo
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page 145Furthermore, the state help
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mechanisms rather than government d
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tractors who leased collective ente
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All this alarmed certain forces in
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terthrusts over the years. All of t
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exercises." Just as happened during
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every region.In the fourth place, b
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preserve a strong collective core.
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Finally, China's independent nation
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The World Bank strategy of opening
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people. They want to transform the
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The reformers hoped and planned tha
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TiananmenMassacre:June 1989It's imp
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left, and then there would be a new
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the beginning of it. Once the army
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and I asked him why on earth he wen
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have been doing this work for many
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going to sweep everybody out, so th
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affront, as turmoil, as chaos, and
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THE GREAT REVERSAL The Privatization of China, 1978-1989 ...

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