Why is cooperative transformation the inherent pursuit of farmers?

There is a saying that co-operative transformation cannot be realized without mechanization, which is downright nonsense. How fragile and imperfect family farming in agriculture is, and how keen the need for the cause of co-operation is, this problem and need have existed since ancient times. In the policy debate among the intelligentsia in ancient China, both Confucianists and legalists had envisioned "repairing" the imperfections of family farming, but none of them succeeded. The key to success lies in the need to establish a "low-cost and high-execution" organization in rural society, without which nothing can be done.

Cooperation is the internal urgent pursuit of farmers

In early 2011, together with several scholars from the Literature Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, I went to Wudong Village in Raoyang County, which is an advanced example of cooperation led by Geng Changsuo, a famous labor model of the Mao era. The "Land Partnership Group" (equivalent to a primary cooperative) was established in 1943, and a large cooperative based on the public ownership of land was established in 1952. As the practice of Wukong Village was far ahead of the policy design in terms of time, the village twice encountered a "social cutting working group" sent by the Hebei Provincial CPC Committee, but they were strongly "pushed back" by the villagers.

During the period of land distribution, du Runsheng and others publicized for a while that "only mechanization can lead to cooperation." this propaganda contained a formulaic imagination that "the level of development of the productive forces absolutely determines the relations of production." According to this imagination, it is impossible before the realization of agricultural mechanization, and cooperative transformation only belongs to the future with a higher level of productivity that has not yet been achieved.

However, judging from the past history and the reality of agricultural production, cooperative transformation, as an institutional arrangement beyond family production units, is always urgently needed, and the urgency of this need is closely related to the imperfections of the family as a production unit. in other words, how imperfect the family as a production unit is, how urgent the demand for cooperation is. Judging from the experience of the poor villagers of Wukong Village, when they encounter natural disasters, their families are often separated and their families are broken up, and when they encounter unexpected losses, the basic simple reproduction cannot be maintained. Li Yutian, the middle farmer and the first member of the land partnership group set up by farmers in private in 1943, encountered difficult years after withdrawing from the group. as a result, he sold his land and his wife to tide over the difficulties. Geng Changsuo's brother was also sent to Kanto because he could not survive. This dilemma is the internal motivation of some villagers in Wukong Village to seek cooperation.

The feudal dynasty also tried to transform the family business, but did not have the ability to execute it.

Not only the farmers at the bottom want to overcome the fragility of family farming, but there is also such a strong demand at the top of ancient China. There is an old saying: if the foundation is not solid, the earth will shake. In the long history of agricultural society for thousands of years, the family has been the most basic production unit. Because of its inherent fragility and imperfection, it can not effectively guarantee the stable production and life of farmers. As a result, the survival situation of farmers (and the ruling class dependent on farmers) is extremely unstable, which often leads to very serious political instability and social costs under special circumstances. After the collapse of the original agricultural commune, the basic agricultural production system was not perfect, which became a structural institutional dilemma. In every dynasty, aspiring emperors and capable ministers often tried to "repair" this imperfect agricultural production system.

Various ideas of "mending the basic economic system of agriculture" finally converged into two kinds of policy propositions. In summing up the policy arguments among ancient scholars, Lu Simian gave a concise summary: the policy proposition of Confucianism was to restore the "well field system" and the Legalist idea was to "control capital". However, Wang Mang put these two ideas into practice and failed. Only then did scholars feel discouraged. On the one hand, they felt that the basic system was indeed imperfect, on the other hand, they saw that it was difficult to realize the "repair" of the system. As a result, it fell into ideological "negativity", resulting in the birth of metaphysics in the Wei and Jin dynasties. (see property in Chapter 5 of Lu's General History of China)

The well-field system is a system formed after the collapse of the original communist commune, under which the family has become a farming unit, but, grass-roots communities still have a great ability to interfere with the redistribution of the means of production, "changing land once every three years". At this time, although farmers no longer have cooperation in the production process, there is "land insurance" outside the production process. With this guarantee, the number of "displaced people who have lost their land" can be reduced to an acceptable low level, thus ensuring political stability at a macro level. The functional function of the well-field system is to ensure the political stability of the country by ensuring that farmers have land. This system is similar to the brigade and production brigade at the early stage of the division of land to household, and these two-level institutions were still able to redistribute cultivated land on a regular basis according to population, thus performing the function of "means of production insurance" for the agricultural population.

In fact, the Legalist idea of capital control is to intervene in farmers' market transactions and prevent farmers from going bankrupt as a result of various "trading behaviors". Li Gou once imagined a "constant closing" system similar to that of later generations. try to carry out "price protection" for agricultural products to prevent "cheap grain" from harming farmers. Wang Anshi's "Green Seedling Law" is also a representative design, hoping that the government will provide low-interest loans to farmers in difficult times, so as to prevent farmers from being plundered by strong counterparties when their negotiating status is lowest. The core of Legalist thought is to try to use the government to deeply intervene in the circulation links outside the production process, so as to avoid the rich depriving the poor by relying on the superior market position, so as to reduce the degree of intensification of social contradictions.

Both Confucian and Legalist policy propositions point very accurately to the fundamental aspect of "the fragility of the family as a production system". However, neither of the two propositions has been successful in practice, not because their ideas are "unpragmatic". But encountered insurmountable difficulties in terms of "execution". The Confucian idea of the well field system requires that there should be a strong redistribution structure among the communities, and if the Legalist idea is to be proudly implemented, it needs to rely on the establishment of an effective political organ in the middle of the rural society, and in the middle of the evolution of history, the original strong commune in rural society (which is very in line with the needs of Confucianism) weakens with the "making the world the family" (the family of farming units). When the compulsory state power came into disintegration (the Spring and Autumn and warring States period), the Confucianists were always hostile to the strengthening of the state apparatus, but the Confucian scholars were not able to build a new community authority, so, the well field system has always been a "critical imagination"-only used to compare the imperfections of the real system. On the other hand, when the political power sinks to the countryside, it is quickly restricted by high costs, and it has become the norm that imperial power does not go to the county; according to Liang Shuming, many things in history have been "forced" by the opposite side. The so-called "rest with the people" and "non-intervention" is essentially impossible to intervene, and "imperial power does not go to the county" is only a "negative peace situation", not out of "Huang-Lao learning" or some kind of ideological proposition. In other words, community power has never been rebuilt since its collapse, and the high cost of the administrative system prevents the regime from obtaining the necessary enforcement in the countryside.

In history, there has never been a shortage of "good ideas", but it has been a long-term lack of "good means" that has allowed an imperfect production system-- the "small-scale peasant economy"-- long live. Many people know that it is not easy to use, but there is nothing everyone can do about it. In this sense, if agriculture wants to be "socialist" (an effort to pursue a new system that transcends the limitations of the family in production or living units), the problem lies not in "economic needs" (which has always been needed). Rather, it lies in political (or administrative) feasibility-how to generate sufficient "execution" in rural society.

The key to the success or failure of cooperative transformation is not whether there are ideas, but whether they can be carried out or not.

From the practice of Wukong Village, compared with historical experience, we will find a very interesting phenomenon. Geng Changsuo and Geng Xiufeng happen to be representative. These two people both see the serious limitations of the family as a production unit and survival unit, and both hope to change this reality. Geng Xiufeng himself is an active advocate and thinker, but he just does not have the conditions to generate "execution" in the rural society.

When the people of Wukong Village recalled Geng Xiufeng today, they were still sure that he was a good man, had good ideas, and was very open-minded, but he lacked "leadership" or "charisma." he once volunteered to be the production captain of the first team, but he "couldn't play" and couldn't do it for a few days. After he returned to the village from illness from the provincial supply and marketing cooperative, one of his long-term work was to push into a trolley and build roads for everyone in the village. after dividing the fields to households, he also wrote three letters to Deng Xiaoping and other leaders, expressing his "different political views." as a result, comrades from the provincial public security bureau visited him, and he was unconvinced, and very forcefully stretched out his hands to let the other party "go to bed." Geng Xiufeng not only has a deep understanding of cooperative transformation and a firm mind of his own, but also has the will and spirit of service, and is also a rare "cultural man" among illiterate villages. According to him, this is a very suitable candidate for cadres, but he is finally not qualified for the post of captain, which shows from another aspect that the "execution" of rural society is not so easy to solve.

On the other hand, Geng Changsuo was uneducated, and because he was poor, he could not become an ideal initiator of the cooperative cause. The poor, as sponsors, would always be asked whether they wanted to take advantage of others, so they were dwarves. At the beginning of the establishment of the land partnership lease, he was not invited to participate, but in the second year when the partnership lease encountered difficulties and was on the verge of breaking up, people thought of inviting him to participate. It was also because of poverty that he had to work part-time in a sideline and go out for a part-time job. because there was not enough land to survive, he had to open up a "sideline" to become a rope-beater, and used to be the leader of "shorting". It is precisely because he was once "poor" that he has a profound obsession with cooperation to change the situation of the poor. Before the introduction of the "five guarantees" policy, Geng Changsuo had already begun to design a security system for villagers who lacked the ability to work. And brought this idea to the "eighth CPC National Congress" in 1956 to talk about.

As a poor man, he has a deep memory of the pain and dignity damage caused by poverty. Confucius said, "do not do to others what you do not want to do to others." Geng Changsuo always pays attention to the idea that the construction of the collective economy becomes the dependence of all people. villagers should not be left in a position where there is no way to ask for help. For this reason, he played an indomitable game with all forces contrary to this spirit. This is the basis of Geng Changsuo's firm understanding of collective distribution and market behavior. he firmly opposes the provincial party committee's idea of "distribution according to work" and never takes advantage of the opportunity to reap exorbitant profits in the market. to a certain extent, he also opposes the method of over-reliance on chemical fertilizer to increase production, and always pursues the way of increasing production by relying on labor-intensive input. When we interviewed the descendants of a landlord, he also spoke highly of Geng Changshuo's contribution, saying that the whole village had benefited from him. Obviously, this landlord descendant explained the achievements of co-operative transformation with Geng Changshuo himself. However, his evaluation is reasonable only from the understanding that the cost of peasant organization is generally unsolvable.

Geng Changsuo's understanding is too simple and ordinary, too common sense, lack of "theoretical height". Zhang Qi recalled that the Don was not tall and lacked the physical conditions to become a model worker and rural leader. Why did he succeed? The Don laughed and said that from his rope-beating career, he had drawn an irrefutable understanding that a few strands of hemp skin can only be "twisted" into a rope, and people must be organized to transcend the limitations of family production. On the other hand, it has become the norm in history for farmers to "fail to screw up", and this is also the case today.