Urban-rural integration is not the freedom of capital to go to the countryside

At present, there is a universal understanding that the integration of urban and rural areas is to allow farmers to go to cities freely and capital to go to the countryside freely. Only by doing so can we truly realize the principle of market economy, let the market play a decisive role in the allocation of resources, allocate resources most effectively, liberate productive forces, and develop China's economy.

There is a serious misunderstanding in this view.

The current urban-rural relationship in China can be said to be the continuation of the urban-rural dual structure formed in the period of planned economy. After the reform and opening up, the state is providing more and more guarantees for farmers to enter the city freely, and the farmers who go to the city begin to get the rights that are closer and closer to the urban population.

On the other hand, the state is increasingly withdrawing from the various privileges of the urban population and leaving it to the market to solve. While farmers in cities begin to get the same rights as urban citizens, the gold content of urban citizens' rights is also declining.

Because of this, whether the farmers who come to the city can live in a decent way in the city mainly depends on whether they can obtain stable employment and higher income through the market, but not from the security provided for them by the state. What the State can provide is only a minimum basic guarantee, but it is not possible to provide a high level of security for the majority of people to live a decent life.

The advantage of China is that farmers go to the cities freely, and if they are lucky, the whole family will go to the cities and live respectfully in the cities. If they are not lucky enough, they can choose to return home. The right of farmers to return to their hometown is their most basic human right. Retaining the right of farmers to return to their hometown will give them a way out after failure and hope in their lives. It is precisely because of the failure to enter the city that farmers can return to their hometown, which relieves the pressure and conflicts within the city, so that the city can maintain social order and political stability.

The reason why farmers are free to return to their hometown after failing to enter the city is that they have the right to contracted management of land, homestead and housing in rural areas. If they do not have the right to contracted management of land, homestead and housing, they will not be able to come back to the countryside. Therefore, farmers' land contractual management rights, homestead and housing constitute their basic security and social insurance, which is the bottom line of their survival.

At present, the policy advocates the integration of urban and rural areas. some people understand that capital can go to the countryside freely, while others think that farmers' land contractual management rights, homestead and housing are farmers' property and the key for farmers to obtain property income. it should be mortgaged and guaranteed, and some people even think that it can be traded, so that farmers can get realized economic income.

According to these people's understanding, it is good for farmers to obtain their first bucket of gold for decent living in cities through the realization of land contractual management rights, homestead and housing. Both sides of the transaction think it is good for them, so it will happen to improve the efficiency of resource allocation. This is a typical argument of some economists.

However, capital goes to the countryside freely, and they go to the countryside to obtain the right to contracted management of land, homestead and farmers' housing, at most, to enable excess urban capital to maintain and increase its value, and to allow urban citizens to buy houses in rural areas for one more leisure place. however, farmers who have lost the right to contracted management of land, homestead and housing will no longer be able to return to their hometown even if they fail to enter the city. So they lost the way out of life where they could finally settle down.

The core of this is that the right to contracted management of land, homestead and housing are the basic security and social insurance for farmers. Can the basic security be traded freely?

At present, there is a huge amount of excess capital in the city. once the capital can go to the countryside freely, farmers' land contractual management rights, homestead use rights and housing may be included in the free transaction. The farmers who won the first bucket of gold rushed to the cities, and the lucky ones among them will live honorably in the cities, while some of them will fail, and there will be no way out after failure, and they will fall into hopeless urban slums, which will become a serious social problem.

We should guard against the current words packaged by the concepts of farmers' land property rights and the free flow of market elements, and prevent capital from encroaching on the final survival bottom line of farmers.

Only when farmers have a way out can China have a way out.