Farmers and the Market (China's Grassroots Government and Village Enterprises)

Author: Pan Wei
Publisher:
Publishing Time: Not available
Features: Classic works in political science have long argued for the causal relationship between the rise of the market economy and the outbreak of peasant revolutions and workers' movements. However, until the mid-1990s, marketization in rural China did not trigger widespread peasant protests but instead gave rise to China's unique "rural industry." Moreover, the emerging rural industry did not give birth to early European and American-style workers' movements. Instead, the small farmers of the marketization era made significant contributions to China's prosperity and stability. Why? Pan Wei examines contemporary rural China through the lens of marketization, with the rise and fall of rural industry as the main thread. He points out that during the marketization process, the grassroots governments in China took on responsibilities that the central state could not, building a delicate bridge for Chinese peasants to enter the market and acting as intermediaries. Guided by the grassroots governments, hundreds of millions of rural people, organized into small rural collectives, ventured into the industrial market, ensuring their own safety, earning the respect of global market competitors, and in return, achieving civilization and progress in their local communities, as well as stability and prosperity for the entire country. Whether a grassroots government can act as an intermediary between peasants and the market determines the fate of the peasants in the market. The different fates of peasants in the market, in turn, shape the current state of Chinese society. Pan Wei argues that the ability of grassroots governments to fulfill this mediating role depends on the organizational forms of grassroots governments inherited from the pre-family farming era, the spirit of collectivism, the cohesion of rural communities, and the dominant ideology in China.
Regarding rural issues in China, academia has two distinct approaches. One is the mainstream approach, which views grassroots governments as the cause of peasant poverty and advocates for measures such as "reform," "direct elections," and "replacing fees with taxes" to weaken grassroots governments. The other approach, expressed in this book, sees grassroots governments as the backbone of rural society, believing that peasants, rural communities, and grassroots governments are an inseparable trinity. Therefore, it calls for trust, strengthening, and improving grassroots governments. Pan Wei warns that if the backbone of grassroots governments is removed, peasants will revert to being scattered sand, becoming countless worms that accumulate poverty; rural society will degenerate, and even become fertile ground for instability. Inheriting the tradition of organization under the leadership of the Communist Party, and organizing farmers under the leadership of grassroots governments, means that farmers are countless dragons—the engine of China's modernization train.