Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A686-W425
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A686-W425
Release
Date: Jan. 28, 2012
发布日：2012年1月28日
Topic:
The Way Out for China (Part LI): China's Agricultural and Land Ownership Issues
-- Wei Jingsheng
标题：《中国的出路》之五十一：中国的农业及土地公有制问题 -- 魏京生
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The
Way Out for China (Part LI): China's Agricultural and Land Ownership Issues
--
Wei Jingsheng
In
speaking of China's rural economic stagnation and widespread poverty among
peasants, there will be some people who make excuses again. They will say that it is due to small
production; low quality of the people, and shortage of land, etc. These excuses are all nonsense using
truth to deceive. The favorite
counter-example by these people is the United States: open fields, advanced
technology including farmers with Ph.D.'s, etc. Indeed, these elements are all true.
But
China also has broad land, and once the United States also depended on
small-scale farming. Why doesn't
China have large-scale operations?
It is due to the land policy.
The Chinese Communist Party has always insisted on its public ownership
of land from its early days. Some
people think that this insistence is due to ideological reasons. But why can almost all other things be
privatized, except land? If we pay
attention on the Princelings who got rich by granting land and doing
demolition, we have the answers.
That
people hate these "Princelings" so much is not due to ideology, but
due to all kinds of unreasonable profits and atrocities incurred. The adult Chinese with more experience
know that the Chinese people's traditional concepts are still influential, thus
they would go with the concept that "the hero's sons are heroes", and
the emperor's son shall be an emperor. So usually, the Chinese people have more tolerant attitudes
toward the official's children becoming the new officials. However, when people's vital interests
and security are violated, it is another matter.
Since
the recent occurrence of the "my dad is Li Gang, the high local
officer!" incident, people would beat these "sons"
indiscriminately if someone made trouble yet yelled some thing like "my
dad is so and so". This new
mentality is the accumulation of numerous bullying cases that people suffered
from these Princelings. From their
daily lives, the second generation of Communist officials has realized that the
government riches are their own private property. Thus, it is difficult for them not to be arrogant: "our
parents usurped others' land and property, and we are only beating people on
the streets and making other kinds of little troubles." To be treated by people violently makes
them feel wronged, that they are being made the scapegoats for their parents.
The
fact that China's land ownership is unclear has created the opportunity for
corruptive officials to make quick profits from it. The side effect is that annexation of land are blocked and
is always in small scale. There is
very little income from the land.
The young peasants naturally tend to give up farming and migrate to the
cities to be workers. The
probability to realize advanced technology on a small piece of land is also
greatly reduced. Coupled with
authoritarian corruption, the space for rural economic development is reduced,
thus producing rural poverty.
So,
to solve the bottleneck problem of rural economic development in China, the
first thing that needs to be solved is the communist dictatorship at the
grassroots level. Not only must we
tackle corruption, more importantly we must liberate the peasants, and give
them back the freedom they traditional had. The second important issue is to privatize land. Land privatization is not only
conducive to the annexation of land for development of large-scale agriculture;
in fact, even on small pieces of land, modern agriculture can be
developed. The agriculture in
Japan, Taiwan and Europe is carried out on small parcels of land with great
efficiency.
However,
regardless whether large-scale agriculture or small-scale agriculture with
advanced technology is present, people's subjective attitude is vital, even the
decisive factor. Whether in the
United States or Europe and Japan, the reason for their good land management is
that there are landowners.
Some
people have a deep misunderstanding about large farms in the United States and
think that it was due to land acquisition. It was not.
Indeed, some farms and ranches are very large, at least large in their
early pioneering days. However, as
in ancient China, with the division during inheritance and sale, land parcels
have been getting smaller. Except for some farmers who have the capacity of
merging smaller plots, many farmers lease their land or hire people to farm
it. This reconfiguration is
similar to the ancient land system in China.
For
example, my own land was vacant, so I leased it to my neighbor. My neighbor makes most of his income by
working outside as clerk. He
combined his land with his neighbors' land including mine and got other farmers
to cultivate it. It's like the
ancient Chinese landlords. The
farmer who cultivates the parcels does not have very much land, but makes his
income by cultivating this collectively larger parcel of land. In my eyes, my neighbor is kind of
poor, while that farmer my neighbor hired seems much more wealthy, with a
confident look.
In
this way comes the formation of a modern large-scale agriculture, with its
efficiency far surpassing farming on small plots. The grains they harvested were sold cheap and often cannot get
a good price, yet they have to ask others to buy their grains, or have to
fallow. In the United States, we
often see large tracts of farmland in long-term fallow. Land lies fallow in the U.S. because it
is hard to sell the grain at a good price, while land lies fallow in China
because its land ownership is unclear, even though there is not enough food for
people's consumption.
The
main reason for poor land management in China is due to land ownership being
unclear. Nominally, it is state
owned land, yet all levels of bureaucracy have some control over it. Especially the rural tyrants have the
right to adjust the use of the land in any way at any time. Naturally, peasants do not have any
incentive to invest in land. My
land lease contract has written details about how to use and to maintain soil
fertility, etc. That is because
the land is my property, and landowners are used to being very careful to
protect their property, which becomes a habit. Yet that seems a little odd for people from China.
Chinese
peasants will not protect the land so much, because it is not their
property. There is not much need
to care if it does not belong to them. This is human nature. Meanwhile, the instability of land
rights becomes an important source of authority for rural cadres -- adjusting
the land rights now and then becomes their major source of income. In contrast, because of this
instability, peasants' investment in the land will likely be only making benefit
for others. Thus there is a
general decline in soil fertility, and a lowering production. Land, this important property, is
depreciated because of an unreasonable law of the Communist government about
land ownership.
Nowadays
in China, much large agricultural machinery has already implemented the same
system as the United States. This
illustrates that the Chinese farmers could manage modern agriculture well
without others having to "improve their quality". This success is because the property
ownership of the machinery is relatively clear, while land does not have a
clearly defined ownership. All the
other advances are not enough to change China's agricultural backwardness
completely. Only when the land is
privatized, then modern agriculture could take root in China. Otherwise it is merely a variant of the
collective farms of the former Soviet Union.
History
has proved that the public ownership of agricultural land is a backward step to
the feudal era. It had brought
massive famine to both the Soviet Union and China. Even with the means of using modern technology this outcome
cannot be avoided. Although we
have known this lesson clearly for many decades, why has the reform stalled
after a half step forward 30 years ago?
The greedy nature of the bureaucratic capitalists and the demand for
cheap labor by international capital are the root causes that lead to the slow
rural economic development in China.
To
hear Mr. Wei Jingsheng's related commentary, please visit:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2011/WeiJS110923ChinaWayOut51landownership.mp3
(Written
on September 22 and recorded on September 23, 2011. Broadcasted by Radio Free Asia.)
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中文版
Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A686-W425
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A686-W425
Release
Date: Jan. 28, 2012
发布日：2012年1月28日
Topic:
The Way Out for China (Part LI): China's Agricultural and Land Ownership Issues
-- Wei Jingsheng
标题：《中国的出路》之五十一：中国的农业及土地公有制问题 -- 魏京生
Original
Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)
此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）
如有中文乱码问题，请与我们联系或访问:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2012/report2012-01/WeiJS120128ChinaWayOut51landownershipA686-W425.htm
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《中国的出路》之五十一：中国的农业及土地公有制问题
-- 魏京生
说起中国农村经济的停滞不前，农民普遍贫穷，肯定又有人会出来辩解。他们会说什么：小生产呀；素质低呀；土地少呀等等。这都是用真话骗人的一派胡言。这些人最喜欢举的例子是美国：土地宽阔，技术先进，包括什么农民博士啦，规模效应啦等等。这些的确都对。
可是中国也土地宽阔，美国也曾经是小农经营，为什么中国就不能大规模经营呢？这是土地政策所致。中共一直坚持它早期所定的土地公有制。有些人以为这是什么意识形态原因。可为什么其它几乎所有的东西都可以私有化，只有土地不能够呢？看看现在靠批土地拆迁暴富的太子党们，就有了答案。
太子党这个词儿那么招人恨，也不是因为意识形态，而是种种不合理的暴利和暴行招致的。涉世较深的成年人都知道，中国人的传统观念还是比较重，因此“将门出虎子”，皇帝的儿子当皇帝的观念还是比较重。平时，他们对那些当官的儿子接着当官持有比较宽容的态度。但是当人们的切身利益和安全受到侵犯时，就另当别论了。
自从发生了“我爸是李刚”的事件后，老百姓但凡是听到肇事后大喊“我爸是谁谁谁”的，不问青红皂白就是一顿痛扁。这种民情，就是无数件仗势欺人的案子积累而成的。这些官二代、富二代们从日常生活中已经体会到政府是他们家私人的政府，让他们不骄横已经很难了：老子们强夺了别人的土地财产，小子们不过在街上打了个人。他们还觉得冤枉呢。这真正是在替老子们作替罪羊。
中国的土地权属不清，给贪官污吏们制造了获取暴利的机会。它的副作用就是土地兼并受阻，永远是那么小的规模。土地上的收入很少，年轻的农民自然会倾向于放弃务农，进城打工。在小块土地上实现先进科技的可能性也大大降低了。再加上专制腐败，农村经济发展的空间大大的缩小。农村的贫困就是这样炼成的。
所以说，解决农村经济发展瓶颈的问题，首要的就是解决共产党基层专制政权的问题。不仅要解决腐败，更要解放农民，还给农民传统的自由。第二个重要的问题就是土地私有化。土地私有化不仅仅是有利于土地兼并，发展大农业。其实，就是在小块土地上，也可以发展现代化农业。日本、台湾和欧洲的农业就是在小块土地上发展起来的。
但是，无论在大规模农业还是小规模先进技术农业中，人的主观态度都是至关重要的，甚至决定性的因素。无论美国还是欧洲、日本，他们的土地经营良好的前提是土地有主人。
有些人对美国的大农场有很深的误会，以为那是土地兼并的结果。其实不然。有些农场和牧场确实非常大，至少在早期开发荒地的时候非常大。但也和中国古代一样，
随着继承分割和出售，地块也是变得越来越小。除了一部分有能力的农民兼并了小地块，大部分农民采取了出租和雇人种地的方式，这也和中国古代的土地制度相似。
例如我本人的农场就因无人耕种租给了我的邻居。我的邻居主要靠在外打工获得收入。他的土地加上我的和其他邻居的土地合在一起，请了其他的农民来耕种。这就像中国古代的地主。而替他耕种的农民自己的土地也不大，主要靠帮别人耕种赚取工钱。我的邻居怎么看都是个穷人，倒是那个帮工的看上去比他富裕得多，信心十足的样子。
就这样形成了现代化的大农业，效率远远高于小块土地耕种。所以他们的粮食卖得那么便宜，还经常卖不出去，要求别人买他们的粮食，否则就得休耕。在美国经常看到大片的农田在长期休耕。美国的休耕是因为粮食卖不出去，中国的休耕却是因为土地权属不清，粮食反而不够吃。
中国的土地经营不善的主要原因，是土地权属不清。名义上是土地国有，但是各级官僚又都有一定的支配权。特别是农用土地，乡村土皇帝们有随时调整的权利。农民自然就没有了向土地投资的积极性。我的土地租赁合同上关于如何使用和保持地力的条款写得非常详细。那是因为土地是别人的财产，主人们都非常小心地保护着自己的财产，已经都习惯成自然了。倒是中国来的人，才会看着奇怪。
中国的农民才不会这么爱护土地呢，因为那不是他们的财产。不是自己的东西没必要那么爱护，这是人之常情。而且地权的不稳定性成了农村干部的重要权威来源；时不时地调整地权成了他们的重要财源。而农民向土地的投资因为不稳定，很可能成了为他人作嫁衣裳，所以普遍的地力下降，产量也下降。这个重要的财产就因为不合理的一纸法律而贬值了。
现在中国很多大型农用机械已经实行了和美国一样的制度。这说明中国的农民不需要别人提高素质，也会很好地经营现代农业。但那是因为机械的财产权属比较清楚，而土地这个最重要的财产却权属不清。其它的进步都不足以彻底改变农业落后的局面。只有在土地私有化之后，现代农业才能在中国生根发芽。否则也不过是苏联的集体农庄的变种而已。
历史已经证明，这种农业土地公有制是倒退回了封建时代。它给苏联和中国都带来了大规模的饥荒，即使用现代化的科技手段也无法挽回这种结局。为什么明知道这种教训，三十年前改革了半步就停滞不前了呢？官僚资产阶级的贪婪本性和国际资本对廉价劳动力的需求，是导致中国农村经济发展缓慢的根本原因。
聆听魏京生先生的相关录音，请访问：
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2011/WeiJS110923ChinaWayOut51landownership.mp3
（撰写于2011年9月22日，录音于2011年9月23日。自由亚洲电台播出。）
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