IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v139y2024ics0264837724000152.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How rent facilitates capital accumulation: A case study of rural land capitalization in Suzhou, China

Author

Listed:
  • Hu, Xiaoliang
  • Li, Hongbo
  • Zhang, Xiaolin
  • Yuan, Yuan
  • Jia, Kaiyang

Abstract

Rural land capitalization is crucial in China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization processes. However, as an essential tool for comprehending the process of land capitalization, Marxist rent theory has not received sufficient attention from scholars. In contrast to Marx’s perspective, which regards rent as a vestige of feudal power, and Harvey’s viewpoint, which considers land as virtual capital, China’s land capitalization process, the resulting increase in rent significantly facilitates primitive accumulation and capital accumulation, especially the accumulation of real industrial capital. This study provides a comprehensive review of relevant research, expands the concept of rural land capitalization by considering both its productive and unproductive aspects, and proposes an analytical framework based on Marxist rent theory to deepen our understanding of rural land capitalization in China. Using Suzhou City as a case study, this study categorized the city’s economic and social development into three stages: township enterprises, industrial park economies, and beautiful villages. It elucidates the process and mechanism of rural land capitalization at each stage, highlights the pivotal role of collective land ownership, and summarizes the salient features of rural land capitalization in Suzhou. Finally, against the current economic and social background, this study discusses the direction of adjustment of China’s rural land system, especially in economically developed areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Hu, Xiaoliang & Li, Hongbo & Zhang, Xiaolin & Yuan, Yuan & Jia, Kaiyang, 2024. "How rent facilitates capital accumulation: A case study of rural land capitalization in Suzhou, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:139:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724000152
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107063
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837724000152
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107063?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eliza Darling, 2005. "The City in the Country: Wilderness Gentrification and the Rent Gap," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(6), pages 1015-1032, June.
    2. Wu, Yuzhe & Mo, Zhibin & Peng, Yi & Skitmore, Martin, 2018. "Market-driven land nationalization in China: A new system for the capitalization of rural homesteads," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 559-569.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Kunqiu & Long, Hualou & Liao, Liuwen & Tu, Shuangshuang & Li, Tingting, 2020. "Land use transitions and urban-rural integrated development: Theoretical framework and China’s evidence," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    2. Hillary Angelo & David Wachsmuth, 2015. "Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 16-27, January.
    3. Zhihan Xu & Jianchun Xu & Xiaofang Chai & Ning Zhang & Rong Ye & Fei Xu, 2022. "Rural Revitalization and Land Institution Reform: Achievement, Conflict and Potential Risk," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-15, November.
    4. Tao Xia & Elias G. Carayannis & Stavros Sindakis & Saloome Showkat & Nikos Kanellos, 2024. "Technology transfer for sustainable rural development: evidence from homestead withdrawal with compensation in Chengdu–Chongqing," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 303-333, February.
    5. Zhou, Yang & Li, Xunhuan & Liu, Yansui, 2020. "Rural land system reforms in China: History, issues, measures and prospects," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    6. Kai Li & Zhili Ma & Jinjin Liu, 2019. "A New Trend in the Space–Time Distribution of Cultivated Land Occupation for Construction in China and the Impact of Population Urbanization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-23, September.
    7. Pallarès-Blanch Marta & Prados Velasco Maria-José & Tulla Pujol Antoni Francesc, 2014. "Naturbanization and Urban – Rural Dynamics in Spain: Case Study of New Rural Landscapes in Andalusia and Catalonia," European Countryside, Sciendo, vol. 6(2), pages 118-160, June.
    8. Jinkun Yang & Eddie C. M. Hui & Wei Lang & Xun Li, 2018. "Land Ownership, Rent-Seeking, and Rural Gentrification: Reconstructing Villages for Sustainable Urbanization in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-17, June.
    9. Yichi Zhang & Kai Xue & Huimin Cao & Yingen Hu, 2023. "The Non-Linear Relationship between the Number of Permanent Residents and the Willingness of Rural Residential Land Transfer: The Threshold Effect of per Capita Net Income," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-23, August.
    10. Song Lu & Xiaofang Rao & Pengxiao Duan, 2022. "The Rural Gentrification and Its Impacts in Traditional Villages―A Case Study of Xixinan Village, in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-19, August.
    11. Yongchao Zhang & André Torre & Marianne Ehrlich, 2021. "Governance Structure of Rural Homestead Transfer in China: Government and/or Market?," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, July.
    12. Seth Gustafson, 2015. "The making of a landslide: legibility and expertise in exurban southern Appalachia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(7), pages 1404-1421, July.
    13. Hanna Elisabet Åberg & Simona Tondelli, 2021. "Escape to the Country: A Reaction-Driven Rural Renaissance on a Swedish Island Post COVID-19," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-16, November.
    14. Liu, Runqiu & Jiang, Jian & Yu, Chao & Rodenbiker, Jesse & Jiang, Yongmu, 2021. "The endowment effect accompanying villagers' withdrawal from rural homesteads: Field evidence from Chengdu, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    15. Wentao Si & Chen Jiang & Lin Meng, 2022. "Leaving the Homestead: Examining the Role of Relative Deprivation, Social Trust, and Urban Integration among Rural Farmers in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-28, October.
    16. Li, Jing & Lo, Kevin & Zhang, Pingyu & Guo, Meng, 2021. "Reclaiming small to fill large: A novel approach to rural residential land consolidation in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    17. Zhao, Qianyu & Bao, Helen X.H. & Zhang, Zhanlu, 2021. "Off-farm employment and agricultural land use efficiency in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    18. Hamish Kallin & Tom Slater, 2014. "Activating Territorial Stigma: Gentrifying Marginality on Edinburgh's Periphery," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(6), pages 1351-1368, June.
    19. Wu, Changyan & Huang, Xianjin & Chen, Bowen, 2020. "Telecoupling mechanism of urban land expansion based on transportation accessibility: A case study of transitional Yangtze River economic Belt, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    20. Lingling Li & Qianyu Dong & Changjian Li, 2023. "Research on Realization Mechanism of Land Value-Added Benefit Distribution Justice in Rural Homestead Disputes in China—Based on the Perspective of Judicial Governance," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-28, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:139:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724000152. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.