Institutional And Technological Change:research On Wuhan’ S Urban Handicraft Industry(1949-1965)

Since the trading port opened in 1861,Hankou gradually blended in with the international market system.Besides,during the period of Zhang Zhi dong as Huguang Viceroy,a series of modern industrial enterprises were established.Because of the pushing of the double strengths of marketization and industrialization, traditional handcraft industrial structure changed. A part of handcraft industries gradually declined.In the same time,some handcraft substitute industries sprang up.During this process,a number of handcraft workshop turned into factories owing to innovation of operators.However,most of handcraft industries were still in difficult transition period,combined with turbulent political scene,which resulted in instable development process.After the establishment of New China in 1949, the strong support from national policies especially processing orders promoted the recover and development of Wuhan handcraft industry.Also handcraft cooperatives have been applied in China.In this process,new political power of the Chinese Communist Party gradually transformed apprenticeship system and paternalistic management of Wuhan handcraft industry.Through socialistic reform,dispersed individual handicraft industry brought into handcraft cooperatives management system.However,from a wider range,this not meant the termination of socialist transformation of the handicraft. Handcraft cooperatives organizational pattern should be adjusted with collective ownership,in which handcraft cooperatives owned more autonomy in management.Economic benefits of handcraft cooperatives ’were linked to cooperative members’ interest,which could keep their motivated and handcraft cooperatives moving forward.Nonetheless,in order to achieve maximum economic benefits ,handcraft cooperatives would adopt "speculative excess,price gouging"and so on.In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party,all of this was expression of capitalism.In order to deal with this problem,Chinese Communist Party further made the handcraft transition from collective ownership to ownership by the whole people,from cooperatives to state-run factories. Through this method,cooperatives assets were transformed into state-owned property,and cooperative members were turned into ordinary workers which received fixed salary.The state attempted to eliminate the profit-oriented motive of cooperative members in this way.Adopting this practice eliminated so-called "spontaneous tendencies towards capitalism",but resulted in serious contusion on motivation of handicraft workers and economic benefits of handicraft undertaking.Instead,state-owned handicraft undertaking was the burden of the state.In order to solve this problem,the state introduced relevant policies named "handicraft industry article 35". According to the new regulations,upgraded state-owned handicraft factories had to return to collectively owned cooperatives.Self-financing mode motivated cooperative members again,and solved the problem of economic profits decline.However,cooperatives only pursued the economic efficiency,and ignored political benefits,which resulted in so called"spontaneous tendencies towards capitalism".Muhan handicraft industry administration bureau attempted to suppress the Autonomy of handicraft cooperatives,which led to members quitting from cooperatives.However,in the view of administrative authority,ever-increasing individual households were threat to collective economy.In consideration of the difficulty of solving this problem through economic means,administrative authority had to compel the self-employed to join handicraft cooperatives through administrative means.In the Cultural Revolution,Wuhan handicraft industry once again underwent large-scale adjustment.Collectively-owned enterprises upgraded to enterprises owned by the whole people.Besides,self-sustaining economic model turned into governmental product units, whose profits and expenditures, purchases and sales, gains and losses are centralized by the government.The profit of handcraft factories could not be guaranteed at all.Until 1980s,the state finally confirmed a series of system design and arrangement such as operate independently, self-financing,distribution according to work, democratic management.If the study period is confined from 1949 to 1956,socialist transformation of the handicraft in Wuhan is successful,and the total benefit of the handicraft industry is increasing.However,if we expand the research time from 1956 to 1965,a series of transformation measures about handcraft not only achieve the desired affect,but also have a serious influence on the development of handcraft.We can even to say,from a large range,socialist transformation of the handicraft especially institutional reform in Wuhan is unsuccessful.Different from the unsuccess of handcraft system reform,in the aspect of technology,Wuhan handcraft realized mechanization and standardization step by step.DuLiang heng handcraft cooperative was the first handcraft cooperative in Wuhan after 1949,which experienced from individual handicrafts to modern machine factory,and became an important component of local industry.