Marx’s Ideas On İndividual Ownership and Chinese Farmers

Gaofeng Meng

ABSTRACT: The Household Responsibility System (HRS) has improved agricultural productivity and promoted economic growth and thus relieved poverty in the rural population of China. However, the prevailing assumptions about its nature are that it was the result of de-collectivization and privatization (or at least semi-privatization) of land and thus an adaptation of capitalism or semi-capitalism. Moreover, the property rights structure of the HRS in China is also often assumed to be ambiguous and insecure. Grasping the principal characteristics of the HRS requires historical analysis of its origin, development and eventual legislation and institutionalization. Marx’s theory of property is the key to understanding the institutional change from the Commune System to the HRS. It reveals that the HRS is one kind of “individual property” that Marx envisioned in post-capitalist society. Antony M. Honoré’s theoretical framework of ownership is usefully viewed as a development of Marx’s theory; within that framework, the HRS emerges as a kind of “split ownership” and its property rights structure can be judged to be well-defined.

KEYWORDS: Marx on property, Commune System, Household Responsibility System, Chinese agriculture, Honoré

INTRODUCTION THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA has seen three major changes to property rights in rural arable land under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The first was the extension of the “land to the tiller” program begun by the birth of the CCP in the early 1920s. It realized the change from feudal land ownership to peasant private property. The second was the abolition of peasant private property and the establishment of collective property. The consequence was the Commune System of 1956–1978 and the establishment of full collective ownership. The third change, in 1979, was de-collectivization and establishment of the Household Responsibility System (HRS), which returned a series of use rights to peasant households but preserved the collective possession of land and redistributive rights in the hands of the collective (Meng, 2018, chs. 4–6).

Since the mid-20th century, discourse on property has been dominated by the dichotomy of “private property” and “public property” (Ostrom, 2010). Furthermore, many writers assert that there can be only two alternatives: capitalism — private property and free markets — or socialism, with public property and central planning (Kornai, 1992; Demsetz, 2002).

In the context of the transformation of Chinese agriculture, collectivization under the leadership of Mao Zedong and de-collectivization in Deng Xiaoping’s era are often conceived of as two opposing processes (Xu, 2013). In this view, collectivization is the transition to socialism, and de-collectivization is correspondingly the transition to capitalism. Therefore, the Commune System is regarded as socialist while the HRS is considered capitalist. The transformation has “led to the restoration of capitalism, not a new form of market socialism” (Hart-Landsberg, 2011, 56). It is ironic that both the left and the right have come to a consensus on this transformation (Harvey, 2005; Huang, 2008).

From a western point of view, the HRS is simply a compromise between the push for privatization and the need to maintain social stability in rural areas. China is seen as neither capitalist nor socialist but in a half-way house between the true communism of Mao and a more humane and sensible acceptance of economic reality (Nolan, 1993, 71). Many neoliberals, like Prosterman and Hanstad (1990), applaud the achievements of the HRS (assumed as the result of semi-privatization) and criticize it at the same time as not being fully privatized. According to their assumption, only private property rights are well defined and thus promote economic growth (North, 1981). The HRS is widely criticized as “ambiguous” (Ho, 2001; Zhu and Jiang, 1993).

I contest these views. After a brief description of the recent institutional change in rural areas, I use Marx’s theory of property as it appears in his early manuscripts to analyze the nature of collectivization and de-collectivization. I show that collectivization and the Commune System had many features similar to the “crude” communism that Marx criticized in his early work. The HRS can be conceived of as one kind of “individual property” [individuelle Eigentum] that Marx envisioned in post-capitalist society in his later work. Then applying Honoré’s concept of ownership to re-examine the structure of property rights under the HRS, I demonstrate that the HRS is one kind of split ownership, and that its property rights structure is well-defined.

A further preliminary point: despite the huge achievement of the HRS such as promoting spectacular economic growth (Lin, 1992; Naughton, 2007) and leading to a dramatic reduction of poverty in the rural population (Chen and Ravallion, 2008), there are new, unsolved problems such as the huge gulf of inequality, ecological deterioration and increasing social conflict in Chinese society. These issues are undoubtedly worth investigating. However, in this paper, I will focus on the nature of the institutional change from the Commune System and the property rights structure of the HRS, rather than the complex dynamics of the HRS.

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