Anomie And Reconstruction

Town-village relationship in this thesis can be also described as relationship between administrative town and administrative village in China, which refers to a kind of relationship between administrative town at a lowest level of government and village as a self-government organization, which is the traditional usage by the academia with a remarkable difference from the word "countryside". Administrative town refers to a kind of governmental authority to carry out state power at the lowest level in Chinese administrative system, and administrative village is represented by the villagers' council to carry out its autonomy. The relationship between town and village reveals the relationship between town administration and village autonomy, which in essence is the relationship between state and society, government and farmers. In the administrative system in the lowest administrative level, the relationship between town government representing the state to carry out administration and the villagers' council representing the villagers to carry out autonomy is the crucial factor to achieve town-village administration. The two organizations at town and village levels are the joint points to achieve state will and protect the farmers' interest The town-village relationship is the weatherglass exposing the relationship between state and farmers.The author selects anomie of town-village relationship in the context of villagers' autonomy as his research objects with reference to other corresponding research together combined his own field investigation. The town-village relationship here is limited within the towns and villages majoring in agriculture. Towns and villages as such a kind consist of the main part in whole China. And the complexity between town and village, as well as too much of their contradictions are the difficulty to realize political modernization in villages.There are many factors involved in the anomie of town-village relationship which could not be necessary to make a full description and analysis. The author reveals town-village relationship in the process of Chinese macro institutional and economic reform and development, describes this relationship in the context of villages' self-governance from a legislative perspective, and considers this anomie in the interaction between society and state.This thesis consists of three parts, introduction, conclusion and the main body. The main body consists of 5 chapters. The first chapter is "town-village relationship under state legal order". In this chapter, the author first proposes the problem by analyzing a case on forcing farmers "to be rich" and inducing the female farmer's death, introducing the three aspects on the anomie of the relationship between town and village, the administration orientation of the town-village relationship, the violation on the farmers' rights from the government at the lowest level, and the farmer's burden. Then the author reviews that there are about three periods for Chinese government organization at the basic level since 1949, town as a local government (1949-1958), people's community (1958-1983), and town as a local government and village a self-governance organization (1983-now).In first period, the state established a basic structure for town-village relationship, which is a development on co-regulation between town and village authority. The system applied in people's community helped realize state control on social political lives and all other fields. The farmers lost their economic autonomy and adhered themselves to agricultural collective organizations which furthermore adhered to the state and ensured state's exploitation in countryside. Until now, people's community system still influences us a lot The new mode on town-village relationship is town as a local government and village a self-governance organization. Town is the state's local authority, while the villagers' committee is formed in accordance with law for villages under the governance of town. 1982 Constitution confirms that village committee is the self-governance organization for villagers at the basic level, and Suffrage Law of Villagers' Committee (temporal) approved in 1987 stipulates clearly that villagers' committee carries out its work under the guidance of town government without any administrative subjection Therefore the law divides the border between the two. The villagers' committee is formed by election, which cares their public affairs and public interest business in accordance with the principles of "Suffrage, determination, regulation and surveillance in democracy" beyond any intervention from any organization and government The villagers' self governance is promoted via the confirmation and support from state law; anyway it could not reach the expectation Anomie in town-village relationship reveals that the state law is faced with a dilemma of "legal impossibility".The second part consist of chapterâ…¡,â…¢, andâ…£, in which the author makes a further interpretation in anomie of town-village relationship by focusing on political factor (administration orientation in town-village relationship), economic factor ( landowner rights), and institutional reform factor (tax-fee reform). Chapter II reveals the typical representation and its reasons on "administration orientation in town-village relationship". Administration orientation forms the basic structure on town-village relationship, which is the key representation for the anomie in town-village relationship. The town government controls the personnel and finance by intervening election directly and managing villages' finance; the interests of the villagers' committee and the town government are combined together by setting various goals and tasks, carrying out various examination and reviews for villagers' committee and personnel, and sending cadres to the villages. It's hard for villagers' committee to achieve self-governance, the same for villagers' democratic supervision. Therefore, stipulation on the town-village relationship in villagers' committee organic law is destroyed, which weakens the newly established guidance relationship, strengthens traditional leadership, and goes against the basic spirit for villagers' self governance. The administration orientation on town-village relationship is the result for state "pressure system", in which the upper government always wants to turn the pressure to the lower government and town government inevitably plays the role of fulfilling the task assigned by the upper government For imbalance on Chinese development policy between urban and suburban areas, the state develops industry at the cost of agriculture which serves as the suppliers of cheap agricultural products and raw materials for cities and the modernization in the whole country. As a tool to exploiting resources from villages, town government has to fulfill state tasks, meet its own financial needs to solve financial difficulties, and maintain its own interest grew in itself, which fosters the severe control on villagers' committee and the fanners.Chapterâ…¢is named as "Landowners' rights between the state and farmers", in which the author mainly discusses relationship between the state and farmers via landowners' rights. Land expropriation extremely distorts town-village relationship, and the problems exposed have already gone beyond the limitation of town-village relationship. It is stipulated in our standing laws that all lands in our country are owned by the public, lands in cities being state-owned, lands in countryside and suburbs being owned by the farmers collectively otherwise stipulated by laws, and cartilage and preserved lands and hills being owned by farmers collectively. The farmers have a close relationship with the lands, but they can not possess lands. Land tenancy institution and Land Tenancy Law only endow farmers with limited rights in utilization, while leaving the disposing rights to land management branches. This separation in possession rights, utilization rights and disposing rights reinforces the state's superiority and decreases farmers' land rights, and they can only passively accept expropriation without effective composition stipulated by law. At the same time, it helps to impose taxes at various names from institution. It does not stop at that; the collective ownership for lands in villages can not solve the problem who is the owner. It is stipulated by corresponding laws and revealed by practice that four bodies (village collective economic organization, villagers' committee, town collective economic organization, and villagers' group) could enjoy the land ownership, and the same four bodies could give out a contract with land. In a word, it's not good for protecting the farmers' interests with too many bodies.The state law imposes strict limitation on any acts disposing land by landowner, contractors and land users, while no limitation is imposed on state land expropriation. Land Law stipulates the state may impose expropriation on collectively-owned lands for public interest. The present legislation on expropriation of collectively-owned lands has the obvious national compulsion characteristic. Expropriation on collectively-owned land is completely imposed in accordance with state will unilaterally, the farmers' collective has no right or capability to negotiate with the state, and the law does not leave any leeway for them. What is the public interest, the country, for which public interests can take over the land? These basic problems have not been solved. The current law regarding land expropriation's compensation, is only is restricted to land compensation, placement subsidy, ground attachment and shoots' expenses as well as the security expenses to arrange farmers involved, while the core right in the ownership is not compensated. This is obviously unreasonable. We can find conflicts of nation's multiple statuses in land expropriation: regular decision maker (legislator) and performer (executor), a transaction side body, dispute's referee, department benefit chaser and all above cause the country taking over lands without any restriction. Not to mention some government behavior beyond the limitation set by law, only as far as existing laws are concerned, the state overwhelming superiority status is strong enough to put the farmers' land rights at a weak point with weak protection. Then, the land became the interests everybody wants to obtain, the country, all levels of the government and the villagers' committee want to fish for the advantage, therefore in the farmers' eyes land selling is more and more serious, which violates the farmers' land rights at a further hard stage. It is fully revealed that power without restriction will swallow the space for right. The core to protect the farmers' right is land issue. The land ownership without safeguard can not change the anomie in town-village relationship.Chapter IV named as "town-village relationship after taxation reform" describes the financial crisis in town and village after taxation reform and discusses institutional reasons for the farmers' heavy burden. In a traditional society, tax collection is know-how for social, governance. Many of the ancient tax reform or political reform and even the modern state power construction, relates to tax collection. The people's commune system satisfied the country's need to levy taxes and fees successfully on farmers, and accumulated the original capital for the national economic development. Till now, the government at town level still inherits this function. The key reason for the difficulty faced by the village self-governance is that the government at town level is to sustain the dominant control relationship between town and village, whose only purse is to regard villages as its subordinate administrative organizations to be relied for collecting taxes, carrying out its own intention, and finishing various directive tasks. The villager self-administration formalization occurs at roughly the same time as the farmers' burden problem, and there is inner structural connection between the two. They both are revelations to sustain the subordinate town-village relationship based on the need to levy taxes to fanners.To reduce the farmers' burdens and stabilize the legitimacy of the government, the Central government began tax reforms since 2000, and further cancelled the agricultural tax since 2006; therefore town-village relationship entered "Post taxes time". However, this kind of reform is not a permanent cure without other corresponding reforms. We have to learn from "law of Hung Zongxi" which could not be overcome in historical tax reforms. The tax reform reduces the farmers' burden, and increases the financial crisis for town and village, while the crisis provides conditions for the fundamental transaction of town-village relationship. At the same time, the pressure for town government to levy taxes on farmers, the town and village regulation turns from control to service, which provides new historical opportunity for reform and development on town-village relationship. The taxes and fees reform while hardworking and enterprising spirits, intensified the township, the village two level of financial crisis, the crisis has provided the condition for village relations fundamental reforming. Single progressive tax reform may cause the loss of regulating resources when it does not totally solve the farmers' burden problem without corresponding institutions building.As an organic part, these three chapters apply empirical approach, explaining the anomie on town-village relationship by a series of instances, data and the solemn articles of law. The analysis on land owners' rights and tax collection further enriches the understanding and application on anomie. There are legal and illegal anomies at the same time. Anomie does not mean violating established norms completely, nor does it mean following no laws and regulations; more serious anomie is carried out under established norms, while these norms are legal. Although the state, the government at basic level and the farmers may have anomies, the former two bodies act on the basis of state law and state force, while the latter can not counter play with the formers except their lightness, their rights can not be expressed and secured. The evaluation on anomie could not be carried out only in accordance with state law, but in accordance with fairness and justice. The anomie from the state (revealing by the anomies from the town government prominently) becomes the main part of this contradiction, and anomie from the fanners is the passive reaction under the pressure of state power. The anomie in town-village relationship reveals the institutional pressure on farmers' rights from the state, and the unreasonable state system has become the major objects of reform in this transformational period, which the basic thought in the whole thesis.Chapter V is the third part of this thesis named as "Reconstruction of Legal Order". The premise to solve anomie on town-village relationship is the existence of norms to follow. The order rebuilding should follow some universal values, such as equality, justice and human rights. Thus, the organizational reform is on the way, only organizational reform could solve the town-village relationship difficulty, and then solve three problems on agriculture in transformational period. Rule of law under good system safeguard could achieve "rule of good law". Organizational reforms in three aspects respectively take the equality, freedom, and right as the goal: this demolishes the institutional barriers on "city and countryside partitioning, a country two plan" to realize the equality between city and countryside, whose primary coverage is to cancel the discrimination on farmers to achieve the equality on employment system, the educational system and the social security systems between city and countryside. At the same time, reforms on the town-village public administration system should be carried out to set free fanners from national attachment. To achieve this, we have to abolish the town government, establish the farmers' association, and return the freedom for farmers to arrange production and operation. In addition, we have to promotes the land system reform, return land ownership to farmers. For property rights being basis for other rights, we should take property rights as core, further protect farmers' rights in every aspect, and achieve farmers' comprehensive and liberal development, which is the constitutional significance for land ownership and a new beginning for reconstruction of legal order in rural areas. .The real relationship between the sate and farmers is in essence the relationship between power and right. The anomie of relationship between town and village is the exterior performance on state power violating farmers' rights. Restricting government and protecting civil rights are basic ideas to solve farmers' problem, and inner requirement for rule of law. Only a government ruled by law can solve farmers' problems. To realize these purposes, we should establish a new legal order which takes equality, freedom, and rights protection as its ends and its orientation. This natural evolution and self-conscious process is also a course to rebuild a country ruled by law.