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Semi-private Landownership and Capitalist Agriculture in Contemporary China

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  • Burak Gürel

Abstract

Although the existing scholarship on the capitalist transformation of Chinese agriculture uses the concepts of the Marxist political economy to analyze class differentiation, it has not systematically analyzed the role of the Chinese state (as manifested in the current semi-private land system) in this transformation with reference to Marx’s theory of agricultural rent. Capitalist transformation of Chinese agriculture in the context of continuing strong government control over farmland provides a unique opportunity to assess the validity of Marx’s hypothesis that private landownership is a barrier to capitalist development in agriculture and that state ownership of land is a possible way to overcome it. Analysis highlights two advantages of the current system for the capitalist transformation of Chinese agriculture. First, by enabling local governments to transfer large and consolidated tracts of farmland to agribusiness companies and large farmers and relieving them from the burden of dealing with each and every private owner for land access, the semi-private landownership system minimizes the transaction costs incurred by agrarian capital. Second, farm workers are guaranteed access to small plots of land and this subsidizes agrarian capital by reducing the costs of the reproduction of labor power, thereby putting downward pressure on wages. JEL Classification: P32, P1

Suggested Citation

  • Burak Gürel, 2019. "Semi-private Landownership and Capitalist Agriculture in Contemporary China," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 51(4), pages 650-669, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:51:y:2019:i:4:p:650-669
    DOI: 10.1177/0486613419849683
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    China; capitalist agriculture; land privatization; state; peasant;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P32 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Collectives; Communes; Agricultural Institutions
    • P1 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies

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