The Rich Govern Rural China——The Practice Of Power In Wu Town In The Middle Of Zhejiang Province (1996-2011)

After the rural taxation reform,'govern by the rich' gradually becomes primary governance model, this change of power structure is caused by complicated economic, social and policy factors. On the one hand, rural grass-roots politics start preliminary democratization as the task of tax collecting is cancelled, on the other hand, sharp social stratification in rural community appears while the rapid economic growth, and considerable resources are allocated to countryside by the state as a response. With the input to the construction of infrastructure and the land exploitation by the government, substantial land rent emerges at the surroundings of town areas. Against this new background, successfully undertake the project, complete the land development and lead villagers to forune turn into essential mission of the grass-roots work, the 'two leading' policy in rurul organization work come into vogue, the rich stratum in rural China becomes the principal support of the local government which lack in infra-structure power.However, after the emergence of enormous interests space, village committee election is dominated by capital and bribery has entered in a gray area which is widespread and thus difficult to supervise. What's more, The public character in village politics deteriorates and the majority classes in rural community are excluded, the democracy in decision, administration and supervision are impossible to fulfill, so the social institutions in order to regulate the division of earning are uncapable to be executed. As a result, the power structure in rural community tends to oligarchy in fierce competition.The charity behavior due to kindness emotion by wealthy person as individual cannot explain the political intention of the whole rich class whose investments are under the 'survival of the fittest' logic given the precondition that they are the winner themselves. Objectively it could gain resource for some part of the region, but not the vhole, afterall, the total resources are limited. Most importantly, the oligarchy of power-interests network lies across the state and society which magnifies the 'structure hole' effect in rural arena has led to giant resource leakage while flowing into countryside, so, involution of rural governance arise because of the deeper siphon with higher flow rate. This is exactly the same as the involution of state power before the rual taxation reform, unless the flow direction of resource has been reversed. Therefore, if the benefit game among the power cannot be replaced by deliberative democracy based on the organization of the rural community, the power-market union will defeat the strategic purpose of the state in resource refluence, and take the socioeconomic life into 'transition trap',staling and festering.