Philosophical Reflection and In-Depth Analysis of Farmers' Land Tenure Rights

Land tenure rights are the structural relational rights through which farmers, as market economy subjects in economic and social operation, lawfully accept, use and benefit from, and exercise limited disposal and transfer of collectively owned land for a certain period through certain means. They have multiple functions of clear boundary demarcation, incentive and constraint, and optimization of resource allocation. The establishment of farmers' land tenure rights means that the boundaries of rights, responsibilities and interests of subjects and non-subjects are clearly defined, and the qualification of market subjects is obtained, so that the subject of land tenure rights——farmers——generate the internal motivation to use their rights to pursue their own interests, forming a constraint mechanism in which interest distribution and risk responsibility are internalized, thereby laying the foundation for the production of diverse land products and the exchange of diverse commodities, and also making farmers' land tenure rights themselves, under certain rules, become the object of certain exchange.

The Composition System of Farmers' Land Tenure Rights

The structure of farmers' land tenure rights refers to the sum of all elements of the external composition system and internal power structure of land tenure rights. The powers of farmers' land tenure rights are not the power structure of a single ownership at the level of static property attribution under simple commodity economy conditions, that is, the structure of the possession power, use power, income power and disposal power of the traditional property right's dominance over things; nor are they the subordinate power of administrative power under planned economy conditions——the structure of product rights. They are a composite rights relationship structure at the level of economic operation under modern market economy conditions. From the external structure, farmers' land tenure rights take the community farmers' collective land ownership as the foundation, take the transfer for a certain period and ultimate retention of the community farmers' collective land ownership as the premise, take the power to lawfully accept and utilize the collective land ownership as the carrier, take the income distribution power as the economic goal, take the transfer power as the means, and take the internal autonomy power as the guarantee. They are a new type of structural property rights relationship system. The farmers' collective land retention right is the highest right that the community farmers' collective permanently enjoys over the land. It is not lost because of the separation and transfer of the possession power, use power, income power and limited transfer power of its ownership, and it enjoys the ultimate power of control and recovery, the power to share in income, and the power to recover and revert upon the expiration of the statutory period. The highest right at the level of ultimate retention still has the characteristic of the highest exclusivity. The authority, exclusivity, income nature and control-and-recovery nature of the farmers' collective land retention right determine that the income-sharing right of its owner no longer directly bears the primary distribution of land products, but instead, through the state's collection on its behalf of land rent, product tax, income tax, value-added tax, turnover tax, inheritance tax, etc., and through the state's transfer payments on its behalf, serves as the direct bearer of the redistribution of national income as the form of realization. This is conducive to the unified, standardized and orderly management of the shared income from land products; it avoids inconsistency in the rules of shared income, and prevents and corrects harm to farmers' interests caused by collection through multiple channels and multiple links.

I. The Internal Power Structure of Farmers' Land Tenure Rights

From the perspective of the internal power structure of farmers' land tenure rights, it includes the power to lawfully accept, the power to hold and utilize, the power of income distribution, the power of transfer, and the power of internal autonomy. It is a bundle of tenure rights arising from lawful acceptance based on the partial transfer of farmers' collective land ownership. The completeness of these four powers is the mark by which to measure whether the structure of this right is complete and whether its functions are sound. Only when farmers enter the market as independent market subjects in accordance with certain rules, obtain longer-term land tenure rights on the basis of lawfully accepting collective land ownership and the land use rights of state-owned land used by the collective, and fully exercise the powers of holding (controlling) and utilizing, income distribution, limited transfer and internal autonomy in the name of an independent market subject rather than according to the will of a natural person (a small-scale farmer or contracted operator), can they adapt to the rapidly changing competition of the market, fully use the land assets for a certain period to survive and develop in the face of the harsh law of survival of the fittest, and can they promote the improvement of land productivity, labor productivity and investment return rate, promote the preservation and appreciation of land capital, and realize the minimization of respective costs and risks and the maximization of shared income for land owners and land tenure-utilizing users.

Its four basic powers are manifested as follows:

(1) From the perspective of the power to lawfully accept, hold and utilize, it is the leading and carrier power for the inheritance and succession, lawful acquisition, and holding and utilization of farmers' collectively owned land. It takes the separation and transfer of the possession and utilization power of farmers' collectively owned land for a certain period from the farmers' collective land retention right as the premise, takes the lawful acquisition of the possession and utilization power of specific land as the necessary effective condition, and takes the time-effect characteristic of a certain period as the external manifestation of the scope of effectiveness of this bundle of rights.

(2) From the perspective of the power of land income distribution, this is the economic goal pursued by farmers' land tenure rights (control rights). The income distribution power of farmers' land tenure rights has the functions of “incentive—constraint,” the function of apportioning “cost—income,” and the function of “externality—internalization.” Its income—distribution power is in essence a kind of shared income from land products and related returns among the state, the land owner (attributor) and the farmer.

(3) From the perspective of the transfer power, farmers' land tenure rights have relatively exclusive independence from the farmers' collective land retention right within a certain period, and are not subject to uncompensated deprivation or requisition without a statutory period and statutory cause. This relative exclusivity provides the premise and foundation for the transactional transfer of farmers' land tenure rights.

(4) From the perspective of the internal autonomy power, it is a right derived from the transfer for a certain period of part of the powers of farmers' collective land ownership and from farmers' lawful acceptance, holding and utilization. It is an internal governance power organically connected with farmers' land tenure rights, also known as the “regulator” and “safety gate” for the operation of the land tenure rights structure.

Farmers' anticipatory analysis of the costs of production, investment, exchange, distribution and consumption generally contains predictions of uncertain variables in various aspects such as natural risk, transaction risk and investment risk, and relies on their own or others' established experience, knowledge, technology and capabilities to reduce the costs of production, investment, exchange, distribution and consumption, avoid risks, and maximize expected returns as far as possible. In terms of eliminating excessive disturbance from external administrative power, and in terms of the regulation and influence of factors such as the sudden “forced expropriation” of land tenure rights for “public welfare purposes” or “other purposes,” arbitrary fees, and arbitrary apportionment repeatedly rebounding without restraint, the “cost—income” expressed by the internal autonomy power itself has the dual effect of self-supervision and heteronomous restraint against or in avoidance of interference. Only under the coercion of state public power rules is the marginal effect of this “heteronomous constraint” diminishing.

In summary, the external structure of farmers' land tenure rights is premised on separation and transfer based on the farmers' collective land retention right, and is constituted by the four-level powers of farmers' lawful acceptance of the holding and utilization right, income distribution right, transfer right and internal autonomy right. This structural system of farmers' land tenure rights, based on the transfer for a certain period of farmers' collective land ownership and characterized by the separation and unity of farmers' lawful acceptance of the holding and utilization right, income distribution right, transfer right and internal autonomy right over collectively owned land, has the characteristics of the scientific nature and checks-and-balances nature of modern land rights allocation. This kind of land capital, established on the basis of the socialist mode of production and premised on the public ownership of land and other means of production, here directly assumes the form of farmers' holding and utilization, and is separated from farmers' collective land ownership within a certain period in accordance with certain rules. This is, within the scope of the socialist mode of production itself, an active sublation of the traditional utilization mode of land resources or land capital, or of low allocation efficiency; it is a dialectical sublation that both overcomes the “drawbacks” and retains the “essence” of land utilization modes under the premise of innovation in the forms of realization of public land ownership and public legal rights; it is a new exploration created by internalizing the “externality” of the traditional land property rights system through the farmers' land utilization——tenure rights system under the conditions of fierce competition in both domestic and international markets facing agricultural development. Its nature is an innovation in the forms of realization of public ownership of land means of production and its public property rights within the scope of the socialist mode of production with Chinese characteristics, and it is a new method and new approach for the optimal allocation of land resources.