A Study On Rural Land System Reforms In China From Marx’s Theory Of Land Property Rights

"Problems facing agriculture, rural development and farmers" are among the top priorities and challenging issues of the Chinese Government. In today’s China, the "problems facing agriculture, rural development and farmers" are in nature the problems concerning China’s rural land system, because that land is a factor of production that directly links with farmers’ interests and the land system has a direct link with relations of production in rural areas. With the increasing development of China’s industrialization and urbanization, problems of the current rural land system are increasingly evident, bringing huge challenges to China’s agriculture development, especially to China’s food security. Therefore, how to safeguard farmers’legitimate rights and interests under the current rural land system is an essential issue worthy of theoretical discussion. Combing Marx’s theory of land property with China’s practice of rural land system reforms in recent years, this dissertation offers a systematic study in order to find out the historical laws of China’s rural land system reforms, based on which the direction and ways of the reforms can be explored in coherence with China’s level of productivity.This dissertation has seven chapters with about 200,000 words in total.The introduction is about the significance of the study, summarizing previous studies available on China’s rural land system and the mainstream academic views related with this topic. A brief introduction of the method, structure and content of the study is also offered.Chapter one discusses Marx’s theory of land property and its contemporary values. Marx’s theory of land property includes powers and functions theory, unity and separation theory, commercialization theory, marketization of resource allocation theory and land rent theory. Marx’s unity and separation of land property theory offers a thinking pattern for China’s land system reforms, while commercialization theory and marketization of resource allocation theory offer a marketization orientation for transfer of land property.Chapter two discusses the rural land system reforms in The Decision on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms (The Decision), which was adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The Decision clearly points out the principles and law foundation of China’s rural land system reforms, confirming that the reforms should be agriculture-oriented and develop in a marketized, integrated and systematic way without reaching the bottom line of the rule by law; the highlights of the rural land property reforms lie in forming a construction-land market that unifies urban and rural areas, accelerating the building of new agricultural-operation system and giving farmers more property rights.Chapter three discusses the issues concerning the system reforms of collective construction-land use rights. This chapter criticizes the current collective land use rights legislation and reflects on the main problems in the legislation, and also analyzes the basis and principles of the reforms on transferring the rural, collectively owned buildable commercial land. It is suggested that China’s collective land property system in effect should be improved; an unified legal system for the market of the construction-land use rights should be established; the government’s role in transferring the rural, collectively owned buildable commercial land should be shifted; the system for allocating profits gained from transferring the rural, collectively owned buildable commercial land should be improved.Chapter four discusses the issues concerning the system reforms on the rural land-contracting rights. The main problems existing in China’s system of rural land-contracting rights are reflected on, with systematic analysis of the transfer and the demutualization of rural land-contracting rights. To solve these problems, this chapter suggests that, the land property rights system should be made clear; more means of transferring rural land-contracting rights should be developed and improved; an unified registration system for rural land-contracting rights should be established; an integrated social security network in rural areas should be established; rural land-contracting rights should be organized into a shareholding system in the form of limited liability companies; the sharehoiding system of rural land-contracting rights should be improved; preferred stock should be adopted to solve the unbalance of interests between farmer shareholders and non-farmer shareholders.Chapter five discusses the issues concerning the reforms of the homestead system. China’s laws in effect forbid transfer of the usufruct rights of homestead, which is a flaw. Therefore, China should allow the transfer of the usufruct rights of homestead on the foundation of improving the laws related. The reforms of the homestead system should be conducted sticking to the principles of the rule by law, equality, strict regulation over usage and admittance.Chapter six discusses the reforms of rural land expropriation system. This chapter explores the theoretical basis of the rural land expropriation system reforms, and reflects on the system’s main flaws. Accordingly, it is suggested that, in the reforms of China’s rural land expropriation system, the purposes of the expropriation should be made clear; the compensation procures should be regulated; the compensation system should be improved, and so on.