The extension of the radius of division of labor and the transformation of small-scale peasant economy

The household contract responsibility system effectively stimulated farmers' enthusiasm for production, and then quickly solved the problem of farmers' food. With the deepening of marketization, farmers' production and consumption are involved in the whole market system, and monetary expenditure has become the main pressure on farmers. The reason why farmers "have enough to eat but lack money" in the modern market system is mainly because they are unable or unable to participate in the division of labor in high-profit industries outside agriculture. In addition, there is no in-depth division of labor and cooperation within agricultural production, so it is impossible to achieve the appropriate scale and specialization of production. Every agricultural family produces for the sake of self-sufficiency, so the mutual demand among farmers will be very weak, and the farmers' desire for cooperation will not be too high; and in order to achieve self-sufficiency, production will inevitably be fragmented and compartmentalized, and this mode of production will definitely not have much productivity. Adam Smith said long ago that "division of labor is the source of national wealth." Deepening the internal division of labor in agriculture and expanding farmers' participation in the division of labor and cooperation in agriculture-related high-profit industries and even non-agricultural fields is an important way to achieve rural development.

The division of labor mode of small-scale peasant economy: "everyone sweeps the snow in front of his own door"

With regard to the division of labor, the Concise Social Science Dictionary explains that division of labor is the division of social labor into different and interrelated jobs or departments. There are natural division of labor formed according to gender and age, social division of labor formed according to social production, and individual division of labor among different types of work formed within the enterprise. Division of labor is not only the result of the development of social productive forces, but also the condition to promote the development of social productive forces. From this definition, we can see that the division of labor at least has the characteristics of specialization of labor, interdependence of different labor and so on. As Marx pointed out: "so far, the basic form of production is the division of labor." From the perspective of the overall social system, agriculture is the division of labor of farmers in the social industrial system. Within agriculture, it is divided into different industrial categories, such as forestry, fishery, animal husbandry and so on. In specific industrial categories, it is subdivided into different types of work, and people cooperate with each other to complete agricultural production.

At the beginning of the founding of New China, in order to reflect the superiority of socialist large-scale production, the government implemented collectivized agricultural production through planned means. the collectivized mode of production and the allocation of agricultural products in the whole society have brought farmers into the whole division of labor system of the society. However, the collectivized mode of production can not solve the labor incentive problem of the Chinese people. The mass labor "dawdles", the enthusiasm is not high, the agricultural production faces a series of difficulties.

In order to improve the labor enthusiasm of farmers, the household contract responsibility system is implemented in rural areas. The connotation of the household contract responsibility system is that collective economic organizations own the ownership of land and are responsible for the adjustment and distribution of land, the construction and management of public facilities, and farmers have the independent management right of the contracted land. In this way, the rural areas have formed a "unified and divided, unified and separate two-tier management system". Under the arrangement of this system, farmers "pay enough for the state, leave enough for the collective, and the rest are their own", which has greatly stimulated farmers' enthusiasm for production. Soon, the farmers developed the family economy and solved the problem of food. As the enthusiasm of farmers is all concentrated on their own "one mu and three mu of land", they pay little attention to collective construction. While the "household economy" has been well developed, the collective economy continues to decline. It makes the rural economy fall back into the substantial mode of small-scale peasant economy.

Marx has already had a profound exposition on the small-scale peasant economy. "their mode of production is not to make them interact with each other, but to isolate them from each other," he pointed out. " There is naturally little cooperation among small farmers who are "isolated from each other" outside the family. The labor production is arranged by the family, and the division of labor and cooperation between them mainly takes place within the family. The division of labor within the family is a typical natural division of labor. Referring to the lower stages of barbarism, Engels said that at that time, "the division of labor is purely natural; it exists only between the sexes." Judging from the current production situation in the rural areas of our country, there is basically a lack of socialized division of labor beyond the family, and the space for farmers' production is to carry out a natural division of labor within the family according to the differences between the sexes around their own acres of contracted land. It is arranged according to age and sex: adults farm, children herd sheep; men carry the load, women hold the hoe. Each family relies on its own labor force to complete all the farm work from planting to harvest, producing all kinds of consumer goods that the whole family needs. This high degree of unity of production and consumption and the high degree of self-employment of the labor force maintain the self-sufficiency of household production. Because they are self-sufficient, small farmers lack the incentive to participate in the external division of labor within the family. They use as many people as they have and divide the labor within the family according to the specific production situation. In order to achieve self-sufficiency, every family must produce every kind of living materials needed for daily life, and the production and planting structure of small farmers is isomorphic, which leads to the lack of differences in agricultural products. the complementarity and dependence between small farmers will be very weak, and exchange among them will be very difficult. Lack of mutual dependence and exchange needs, cooperation is not necessary, beyond the family division of labor is very difficult to occur. Generally speaking, the division of labor mode of the small-scale peasant economy is "everyone sweeps the snow in front of the door", and the small farmers are enclosed in their respective families and cooperate with each other to achieve self-sufficiency.

Although the mode of division of labor in smallholder production is internalized in the family, in the process of marketization, smallholder in the pure sense obviously no longer exists. Some scholars put forward the concept of "socialized smallholder", thinking that "they have entered or been involved in an open, mobile and socialized system of division of labor more and more deeply, gradually distancing themselves from the traditional closed smallholder economy and entering the stage of socialized smallholder". The reason why smallholder farmers are so "socialized" is that marketization and commercialization are forced, which provides an important opportunity for the transformation of smallholder economy. Huang Zongzhi divides peasant's commercialization behavior into three kinds: one is commercialization promoted by exploitation, the other is commercialization promoted by survival, and the third is commercialization promoted by profit. Although the commercialization rate of farmers 'production and life is relatively high now, more of them are commercialized by exploitation and survival. Such commercialization is still fundamentally for the small-scale peasant economy, which limits the essential change of the marketization process to the small-scale peasant economy. That is to say, the commercialization of peasants is not for the purpose of profit, but for the need of survival, and such commercialization still does not jump out of the barriers of small-scale peasant economy. The immediate consequence of commercialization, then, is to increase the expropriation of the peasants. The improvement of commercialization does not necessarily realize the modernization of smallholder economy. The key to transforming traditional smallholder economy lies in promoting the transformation of smallholder's internal production mode.

Division Radius: An Exploratory Path Exploration

To realize the transformation of the internal production mode of small farmers, it is necessary to let farmers jump out of the family and participate in the division of labor and cooperation in a wider range; or to realize the scale, specialization and vertical integration of agricultural production and deepen the division of labor and cooperation among farmers within agriculture. This, in turn, must be based on improving farmers 'ability to cooperate.

Scholars always argue about whether it is difficult or easy for farmers to cooperate. Professor Cao Jinqing, through his investigation of rural areas in "China by the Yellow River", believes that Chinese peasants have always been "good at division but not at cooperation". Even when there is an urgent need for greater or renewed cooperation beyond the traditional scope, their cooperation is mostly carried out according to the "family principle" or "clan organization form". Although Professor Cao Jinqing also believes that Chinese farmers are "good at division but not good at cooperation", his observation shows that Chinese farmers are not completely uncooperative. "When there is an urgent need for greater or renewed cooperation beyond the traditional scope," they can always come together to help each other, regardless of the mode of cooperation they adopt.

In fact, people tend to cooperate. "Please give me what I need. At the same time, you can also get what you need." In other words, cooperation can bring what both parties want. This tells us that people will determine the scope of cooperation with others according to their own needs. The more things they want, the greater the scope of cooperation. When a person can achieve self-sufficiency within the family, he does not have much to ask for cooperation with others. They only need to complete the division of labor within the family. When the production of family members alone cannot satisfy all their needs, and when other institutional conditions for cooperation are met, division of labor beyond the family scope arises. Smallholders would divide their work within the new organization, or flow into cities to participate in the division of urban industry. The scope of the division of labour of the smallholder is enlarged in this case.

From this point of view, it is not that there is no division of labor and cooperation in the production of small farmers, but that their division of labor is mainly limited to the scope of the family, and there is little division of labor and cooperation beyond the outside of the family. That is to say, the division of labor of peasants starts from within the family. With the development of production or the needs of life, peasants will extend their division of labor and cooperation according to blood relationship, geography, industry and other relations. Within a certain range of division, we call it the division radius. Under the smallholder economy mode, the division radius takes the family as the core, and the length is determined according to the difficulty of the farmer's need to solve the problem and the composition and number of personnel determined for solving the problem. Thus, the radius of division of labor for smallholders has the following characteristics: