Farmers Will Become a Profession Rather Than an Identity in the Future, Taking the Path of Large-Scale Development
Li Yining said that in the future a farmer will no longer be an identity, but a profession. In the future, China's agricultural practitioners will be farm owners, farmer cooperatives, agricultural enterprises and so on who truly understand agricultural technology, and agricultural planting and production will take the path of large-scale development.
On the 8th, famous economist Li Yining delivered a speech titled “The Reform and Development of China's Economy” at Saint Petersburg State University of Economics in Russia, analyzing issues such as the middle-income trap, China's income distribution problem, rural rights confirmation, the merger of the two household registration systems, prospects for rural China, and reform of state-owned enterprises, giving the hundreds of students, teachers and other audience members present a deeper understanding of China's current national conditions and the direction of reform.
When answering a reporter's question about the relationship between abolishing the farmer household registration and the land farmers previously owned, Li Yining said, “Based on what I have learned from investigations and inspections in Zhejiang and some other provinces, I think rights confirmation should come first, and the abolition of household registration differences should come later. The abolition of household registration differences should be advanced together with the progress of urbanization.”
Li Yining said, “Confirming farmers' rights is the most important thing. First, clarify the certificates for the right to use homestead land, the right to operate contracted land, and the ownership of houses on homestead land, and then, as urbanization advances, the household registration system will gradually be merged into one.”
Li Yining believes that after rights confirmation, farmers will have more sources of income. Farmers' land can be used for planting and breeding, or the land can be rented out, houses can be rented out, and working away from home can all become sources of income. He gave the example of Jiaxing City in Zhejiang Province, where before and after rights confirmation the urban-to-rural income ratio changed from 3.1 to 1 to 1.9 to 1.
Li Yining said that in the future a farmer will no longer be an identity, but a profession. In the future, China's agricultural practitioners will be farm owners, farmer cooperatives, agricultural enterprises and so on who truly understand agricultural technology, and agricultural planting and production will take the path of large-scale development.
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Depriving farmers of land property rights is the deepest discrimination against farmers
On August 22, a discussion on the land issue between Hua Sheng and Qin Hui hosted by the “Zhiyouhui” organized by Phoenix Net
Sheng Hong: I have been concerned about the land issue for many years and have done a lot of research. I have also published some articles, including articles that very severely criticize the current land legal system. One article is called “Critique of the Land Administration Law and Its Draft Amendment”; just from the name, it is basically negative.
In the past two years I did a study called “The Principles and Framework of the Land Legal System.” What does this mean? It is still my basic attitude: I basically hold a negative attitude toward the existing land legal system, especially toward the Land Administration Law. I even say it is a “bad law.” Our attitude is that we simply do not want to propose amendments to the Land Administration Law. I once made an analogy: if you have a very clumsy painting and ask some masters to revise it, it is too difficult; it would be better to paint a new one.
Sheng Hong: In fact, some constitutional provisions that everyone sees say rural land belongs to rural collectives, but this is only a form. You should know that the source of rights is not conferred by a piece of paper; in reality it has far-reaching sources. The source of rights in China is that everyone first reclaimed wasteland, and later purchased land through transactions, thus forming basic land property rights. I basically agree with what Qin Hui just said.
What was the situation during land reform? During land reform, it was indeed the Communist Party leading farmers to divide the landlords' land. But land reform was basically carried out with the village as the unit, and in fact it was redistribution among relatives, without going outside the village at all. And a very important point is that the land property rights were originally in the village; it was only that relatives were changing them among themselves. I very much agree with what Qin Hui just said: no one gave the farmers their land at all; the land was originally the farmers' own, so they originally had this right.
Also, some people say this is farmers' security, but in fact this is a way of belittling farmers' right to own land. The core point is that farmers' land rights are the most important. If they have property rights, property rights can be used to do all kinds of things: they can help them survive, help them become wealthy and develop, and can also serve as security. If it is only security, then this is actually a huge mistake, and it demeans the meaning of land property rights.
If there is free trading, some people say there will be no security. This view is greatly mistaken. This kind of statement uses concern for farmers as a reason to deprive them of rights: once there is free trading, if the land is traded away, then there is no land, and without land there is no security. Do not forget that when land is traded away there is an exchange of equivalent value; it can be turned into money, and money can be used for transactions. Some farmers may make failed transactions, and some may make successful transactions. Farmers are the same as urban people: urban people have houses they can sell, and farmers have land they can sell. This failure does not mean that farmers as a whole will lose security. There are individual failures, and for society this failure can be remedied through arrangements in other areas, such as insurance. In this sense, one cannot say that for the sake of security trading must not be allowed and rights must be deprived.
What is the biggest flaw in this argument? It assumes that farmers are irrational. I let you trade, and you sell the land to buy alcohol, and then there is no security. Why would farmers do such a thing? Why not also restrict urban people from selling their houses? Here there is the deepest discrimination against farmers, namely that farmers are irrational. What we advocate is that farmers restore their own property rights to land. Once we talk about property rights, property rights are a complete concept, including the rights to own, use, dispose of and benefit from. If you have this right but are not allowed to sell, then this property right is incomplete. Now if you buy a house and are not allowed to sell it, you should know that the price of a house that may be sold and one that may not be sold is different. Why? Because the concept of property rights is incomplete. Now farmers are not allowed to freely dispose of their land, which in fact infringes on farmers' property rights; the rights to dispose of and benefit from are absent. In this sense, if we truly think of farmers' interests, we should restore farmers' ownership of land property rights.
Sheng Hong: The 1.8 billion mu red line is actually a huge joke, though now no one mentions 1.8 billion mu anymore. Two years ago the Ministry of Land and Resources did an aerial survey, and in the end found that the actual cultivated land area was about 2.2 billion mu, but the published figure was 2 billion mu.
Sheng Hong: There is a very large gap. Originally the Ministry of Land and Resources came up with an indicator in the office, saying that now there were only 1.826 billion mu and we must hold to it. Why was this so? Because the history of interaction between such a state and farmers is a result of the state being irresponsible and failing to honor its promises. After 1949, from land reform to public canteens where people ate freely until full, the ones who bore the losses after real grain production fell were the farmers. In the end, tens of millions of people starved to death, and they would no longer tell the government the truth. Everyone knows a very important fact, namely that the number of mu of land farmers reported to the government was lower than the actual figure. As a result, 1.8 billion mu is a joke.
I have a slight difference of view from Qin Hui: the 1.8 billion mu red line was used to coerce the central government. Everyone can look at Zhou Qiren's “Urban and Rural China.” In 1998 the Ministry of Land and Resources said that cultivated land had declined sharply in the previous two years, so 1.8 billion mu should be taken as the red line. The large reduction in cultivated land was not caused by the reduction of cultivated land brought by urbanization at that time, but by the return of farmland to forest at that time. They falsely claimed that the cultivated land reduced by returning farmland to forest was a reduction in cultivated land brought by urbanization, and only thus led to the result of this policy. And this policy result was not only a policy result; it became a legal result, so that in 1998 a revision was made to the Land Administration Law. Originally, houses could be built on rural land and it could be rented to urban people; after the 1998 revision this provision was removed, strengthening control over rural land property rights, that is, prohibiting farmers from doing this or prohibiting farmers from doing that.
There is a causal relationship between the 1.8 billion mu red line and this. Because there was less cultivated land, farmers were restricted, and it became this logic. After farmers were restricted, everyone found that land expropriation by local governments did not decrease, because China was undergoing urbanization. Local government land expropriation now faces a weak opponent. Farmers were already politically very weak, and in addition the Land Administration Law had already provided that if farmers' land was to become urban land it must first be expropriated as state-owned land, and first of all farmers had no right to freely buy and sell land or bargain.
What is another provision of the Land Administration Law? If land is expropriated, how much compensation is given? It is 6 to 10 times the average output value of the land in the previous three years.
In other words, what does this mean? Even calculated according to agricultural output, it is still very low, equivalent to taking 100 yuan from you but returning only 20 to 40 yuan. Why call it a bad law? Such a law, no one knows where it came from, tells you that I take 100 yuan from you and return 20 to 40 yuan. Under these circumstances land is expropriated from farmers at a low price. Everyone should know a very important point: in a market economy, if something is expensive, fewer people buy it; if it is cheap, more people buy it. Land is the same.
Now farmers' right to bargain has been deprived, and farmers' right to build residences and structures on their own land has been deprived. At this point the relationship between the government and farmers has become: I expect to seize land from your hands and give you 20% to 40% compensation, or even lower. The example I have seen with even lower compensation is zero yuan: I first take land from you, then after attracting investment I will return it to you, but no investment was attracted, and no compensation was given to the farmers either.
What we mean is that the policy effect of your so-called 1.8 billion mu red line is exactly the opposite. Precisely because under the banner of the 1.8 billion mu red line farmers' rights to land property are deprived, they cannot confront those who plunder land, nor can they force the government to expropriate land at a higher price. The government expropriates more land for so-called urbanization, and the result is more occupation of cultivated land. That is exactly the result.
Sheng Hong: I will also say a little about history, though not as much as Qin Hui knows about history. I have also been studying history recently, but basically I am only making some supplements.
Because of research by many people, one is an economist named Zhao Gang, who is in Taiwan, China and once taught in the United States. He said that land rights distribution during the Republic of China period was relatively equal. He gave many reasons. In fact, in China's political structure after the Tang and Song dynasties, because the establishment and development of the imperial examination system made political resources relatively evenly distributed, it was impossible for there to be especially great concentration through market transactions.
Another factor is China's inheritance system. The inheritance system was one in which several sons divided the land equally. The land a person worked hard to buy over a lifetime would be split into several pieces once he died.
There are also several important factors to emphasize. One is the permanent tenancy system developed in China after the Ming and Qing dynasties. The permanent tenancy system meant permanent tenancy. Not only permanent tenancy, but also possession of certain land property rights. The so-called permanent tenancy right was called surface right in many places. Surface right was bought and sold independently, and this was a kind of property right. It was equivalent to a piece of land having surface right and subsoil right. To put it more simply, the land was divided into two layers for sale, and both layers were in fact rights. It is the same as stocks: a stock is an enterprise dividing its assets into many shares.
Zhao Gang said that in the past, general land property rights distribution was estimated and calculated only according to subsoil right. If surface right were also counted as property rights, land property rights distribution would be more equal. In fact, if many tenant farmers had surface rights and permanent tenancy rights, their incomes were very high, even higher than those of landlords who held subsoil rights.
There is also another aspect, namely the claim that landlords cruelly exploited farmers. In recent years there has been a historian named Gao Wangling, who wrote a book called “New Discussion of Tenancy Relations.” He said that in fact land rent declined from the Ming and Qing dynasties to the Republic of China period, including the actual collection rate, which also declined. For example, if a contract stipulated 40% or 50% land rent, in fact only 70% to 80% of what should be paid was paid, so it was even lower. He said that about 30% could be regarded as the actual land rent, which was not very high. There is a great deal of evidence proving that in this so-called landlord-tenant farmer land system, land rent was not as high as people imagined; it was not very high.
There is also a story about views on land concentration. When Mao Zedong was young, probably at Jinggangshan or before, he conducted a rural investigation. There is a report called “Xunwu Investigation.” In the report he said that landlord and rich peasant land accounted for 70% to 80% of all land. In recent years many historians have reexamined these conclusions. A historian named Guo Dehong studied the “Xunwu Investigation” and said that Mao Zedong's investigation contained some errors. One error was placing public land into the share of land occupied by landlords and rich peasants. There may be no concept of public land now; it was clan land, plus other land, such as school land and charitable land.
This public land accounted for about 40% in Mao Zedong's report, a very high figure. Mao Zedong very simply placed this public land on the side of landlords and rich peasants, so it appeared very high. This article was probably written in 1989.