Abolishing the agricultural household registration: these eight points must be clearly understood

Land cannot be privatized; without it, China's rural problems cannot be solved. We must also strive for equal legal treatment of the agricultural population after they move to the cities.

First, abolishing peasant status is the starting point for other subsequent reforms. Without the legally defined differences in national identity, equality of other national rights can be fought for. In a civilized country, the law cannot a priori prescribe different identities and rights for different people. Rawls emphasized again and again in A Theory of Justice that this kind of discrimination is the greatest injustice. Therefore, abolishing differences in status is correct.

Second, there are many issues to discuss afterward. Regarding the long-standing problem of the price scissors between industrial and agricultural products, it is an old historical debt. Many of the farmers who made sacrifices back then have already passed away, and now there are also descendants of farmers working in cities. Therefore, this bad debt can only be made up for by increasing investment in agriculture, in rural areas, and in farmers' education and medical security. Per-capita compensation is an impossible operation. Even if forced through, each person would not get much money.

⟦NL> Third, the main problem in agriculture now is that farmers do not have private property rights to the land. Mr. Zhang Peigang taught me when I was in university: land cannot be privatized; without it, China's rural problems cannot be solved. Why? Because fragmented small-scale agricultural production simply does not conform to the characteristics of modern agriculture: refinement, mechanization and industrialization. The agricultural profit per unit of land is very low; without large-scale production, modern agriculture is impossible. Therefore, I support land privatization. But according to current law, ownership of rural land is collective; farmers do not have ownership, what farmers have is the right to cultivate. Therefore, before land privatization, what we must strive for is the transfer of contracted management rights. That is to say, there must be a market allowing farmers to transfer out the land contracted under their names and obtain certain returns. At the same time, they also gain freedom of employment, freed from the constraints of low-return small-unit self-cultivation.

Fourth, we must also strive for equal legal treatment of the agricultural population after they move to the cities. Once farmers can transfer out the land contracting rights in their hands, they can then seek employment in the cities. Among other things, the legally discriminatory provisions between urban residents and migrant workers should be abolished. Shanghai has already abolished the Regulations on Social Security for Non-local Populations, and all employed people pay the same most basic social security contributions without exception. In this way, non-local populations, especially farmers in Shanghai, have initially achieved equality in work, retirement and medical insurance. For example, if either spouse has paid social security continuously for three years, their child can attend a Shanghai public school.

Fifth, the issue of farmers' homestead land involves the question of whether it can be bought and sold. Inheritance is permitted, but current regulations say it cannot be sold to non-local populations, especially urban populations. One concern is that wealthy people in the cities will recklessly buy rural homestead land and build the deep courtyards and grand mansions of old. But as fewer and fewer people are willing to live in villages, the value of homestead land will also become lower and lower. In rural areas now, even when children marry, they like to buy houses in the towns, and the decline of villages will be an inevitable trend.

Sixth, regarding the proceeds from changing the use nature of agricultural land, this must certainly be changed. At present, the government acquires and stockpiles land from villages at low prices, then compensates the village-level unit, which then distributes it to households according to mu. The first problem is that the acquisition and stockpiling price is too low, and local governments obtain huge price differences; this price difference should be given to farmers. The government must no longer compete with the people for profit; it must store wealth among the people. The second problem is how to guarantee the future employment and security of the population in villages that lose their land. This should be resolved through negotiation; there is no farmers' association now, so only village-level organizations can determine with developers the priority employment rights of the village population. The third problem is that funds should be set aside to provide skills training for the population of villages that lose their land. This point is extremely important.

Seventh, China currently has no choice but to face the problem of de-capacity, so from an overall perspective, the demand for newly added industrial land is not great. Therefore, in most regions, rural land has no more opportunity to become industrial land. Existing industrial parks are already far more than enough to meet the needs of current industrial production. Therefore, it is unlikely that the majority of village populations can change their fate by changing land use nature. After all, urban villages are extremely few.

Eighth, village populations should turn to the service sector and industries with skill requirements. Retraining village populations into blue-collar workers and service employees is work the government must undertake. This can both promote the process of urbanization and change the fate of village populations. Today, to talk about how that bit of land can guarantee this or that for farmers is both ignorance of the profits from agricultural output and demagogic nonsense. Can a Chinese farmer with an average of less than 2.25 mu of land expect to get rich from the returns on land?