The Study On The Change Of Chinese Rural Public Goods Supply System

In recent years, the problems about agriculture, countryside and peasants have gradually become the difficulty and priority that has restricted our country's economy and social development and the building of well-off society. To resolve the problems about agriculture, countryside and peasants, the Central Committee of CCP has explicitly put forward the historical task to build a new socialist countryside, which pointed out the right direction for us to solve the problems about agriculture, countryside and peasants in current and future. The specific measures of building a new socialist countryside include promoting modern agriculture, promoting the sustained increase of the farmers, strengthening the building of rural infrastructure, accelerating the development of rural social undertakings, strengthening the building of rural democratic politics, and so on. An important aspect of these measures is that the government should increase its financial support to agriculture and rural areas to increase the supply of rural public goods. Therefore we can say that increasing the supply of rural public goods is the key to build a new socialist countryside.Rural public goods are some products and services opposite to the rural private goods, which are necessary for agriculture, countryside and peasants with certain non-rivalness and non-excludability, such as rural roads, water supply, agriculture irrigation projects, rural compulsory education, rural public health, agricultural science and technology promotion etc, all belong to the area of rural public goods. In the supply of public goods during a long time, our nation formed a dualist structure between urban and rural areas, the government shouldered most cost of city public goods supply through government's revenue, while the supply of rural public goods mainly depended on supply outside of the system, that is the government generally shouldered only a part of its cost, the main cost is from peasants.Although rural areas' basic operating system changed many times after 1949, the rural public goods supply system characterized by supply outside of the system didn't change really. For a long time, the government's financial policy tilted to the city and the provision of financial resources to rural areas are extremely limited. The low-input of government's financial resources to rural areas and agriculture caused serious shortage of rural public goods supply, such as the aging and serious disrepair of irrigation facilities, the lagging of the rural infrastructure construction, the slow development of rural social undertakings, etc. The shortage of rural public goods supply not only hampered the increase of peasants' living standards and the development of agricultural production, but also hampered rural economy and society progress, became an important factor that leaded to a widening gap between the urban and rural areas. Why formed the urban-rural dualist public goods supply structure after the founding after 1949? Why formed a supply system of rural public goods characterized by supply outside of the system? Why the transformation of rural basic operating system didn't cause the change of the supply outside of the system? What are the factors that restricted the formation and the change of rural public goods supply system? How to set up a new supply system? This study is mainly about these issues.The formation of rural public goods supply system characterized by supply outside of the system is accompanied by the development of Agriculture Cooperative Movement. With the development of Agricultural Cooperation Movement, rural cooperative organizations gradually became the main supply subject of rural public goods, and the supply outside of the system of rural public goods, as a national system arrangement is determined in the "Model Statute about Senior Agricultural Production Cooperatives". The objective reason of the formation of this system is that, in the early days of the PRC, the productivity was backward, so peasants must cooperate to solve the supply of public goods, and to meet the needs of production and life. From subjective point of view, the main reason for the formation of this system lies in the heavy industry priority development strategy. In order to guarantee the development of city and industry, our nation established a dualist structure in public goods supply with the policy is different between city and countryside.In the period of People's Commune, the rural public goods supply system continued the system arrangement just formed in Agriculture Cooperative Movement, which is mainly depended on supply outside of the system, peasants are still the main shoulder subjects of the cost. In People's Commune period, rural public goods supply had made some achievements, demonstrated mainly in the construction of farm and water, the development of social undertakings in rural areas and agricultural science and technology promotion, and so on. The farm and water construction has laid a good foundation for future agriculture development, and the development of some social undertakings such as countryside elementary education and cooperative medical treatment are still unforgettable until now. In the circumstances of widespread poverty in rural areas, the effective supply of rural public goods is an important factor to social stability. The reason of why the rural public goods supply in people's commune period could achieve some success is that, peasants achieved self-supply of public goods although the government could not provide adequate public goods for countryside. The reason of why peasants could achieve self-supply, the key is that peasants which organized compulsorily resolved the problem of public goods supply that individual peasant is reluctant and unable to solve relied on collective economy.The rural household contract system progressively implemented after 1978. Although the implementation of the household contract system greatly promoted the development of agricultural production, in the aspect of rural public goods supply, the household contract system did not reflect institutional advantages. After the carrying out of the rural household contract system, the supply level of rural public goods declined. In addition to the decline of government's investment in agriculture, the more important of the decline is the collapse of the rural collective economy.In the period of the household contract system, the supply of rural public goods still mainly depends on supply outside of the system, which formed the path—dependence in the change of rural public goods supply system. To the path-dependence, the influence of traditional development strategy is the direct reason, the vested interest is the fundamental reason and the tax system reform exacerbated the formation of the path—dependence. Compared with People's Commune period, in the period of household contract system, the specific financing ways of supply outside of the system have changed from the extraction of provident fund, community fund from collective economy into withdraw funds directly from peasants by the way of collecting the overall plan, gathering the capital, allocating and so on. During this period, the concrete manifestations of supply outside of the system are the expansion of township finance outside of the system and the increase of peasants' burden. The heavy burden of peasants not only led directly to the sharp conflicts between peasants and rural governments, but also restricted the increase of peasants' income, caused the expanding income gap between urban and countryside. Under this background, central government began the reform of rural taxes and fees since 2000, and in January 1, 2006, the agricultural tax completely abolished in national wide. The abolition of agricultural tax not only alleviated the peasants' burden, but also changed the relationship between the state and peasants fundamentally, from then on, peasants have no the obligations to pay tax to government. But at the same time, the abolition of agricultural tax also has a negative impact on the supply of rural public goods. Due to the abolition of agricultural tax, the majority of township governments reduced revenue, most rural collective organizations lost income resources, thus after the abolition of agricultural tax, the problems of rural public goods supply become more prominent. These problems show that we should carry on institutional innovation and reconstruct the supply system of rural public goods.The essence of reconstructing the supply system of rural public goods is to analyze the supply system of rural public goods how to change in the next step. The change objective should achieve the change from mainly depend on supply outside the system to mainly depend on supply inside the system, and build a unified structure between urban and rural areas. According to historical research on the change process of rural public goods supply system, beside the objective factor of productivity development level, the more important factors restricted the change of rural public goods supply system is our nation's economy development strategy. From the point of objective economy development level, our country has had the ability of industry feedback agriculture and city support countryside at present, but in the supply of public goods, some governments didn't balance the development of the urban and rural areas, countryside has not get the treatment equal to city. That shows, at present, the traditional development strategy still has a great impact on our country's public goods supply. Therefore, to construct new rural public goods supply system, the most fundamental measure is to balance the development of urban and rural areas, completely change traditional development strategy, which is characterized by "emphasize industry neglect agriculture", "emphasize city neglect countryside", and promote agriculture through industry, promote countryside through city, so as to construct the unified form of public goods supply of both urban and rural areas. To realize that, the critical point is to perfect the public finance system. To perfect the public finance system, the government not only should increase financial resources for rural and agricultural, but also should reasonably define the responsibility between the central government and local governments establish intergovernmental responsibility - sharing mechanism. At the same time, should perfect payment transfer system to establish a "bottom-up" decision-making mechanism. The essence of perfecting public finance system is to make the government play an essential role in rural public goods supply.For different regions and different types of rural public goods, the feasibility of market-oriented reform of rural public goods supply should be analyzed concretely. The market-oriented reform of rural public goods supply should focus on the playing of the government's role and the improvement of supply efficiency. Government should not take market-oriented reform as a reason to shirk its responsibility. At the same time, market-oriented reform should not increase the burden of peasants again.To raise the level of peasants' organization, is not only the need of protecting peasants interest in the supply of rural public goods, but also can promote rural public goods supply directly. At present, the level of peasant organizations of our country is low, most peasant organizations are not normative, and the social environment also restricts the development of the peasant organizations. The focus of raising the level of peasants' organization is to restore its original functions of villagers' self-government organizations, establish the peasants' council and so on, to make the peasants' organization become peasants' own organization. Through the analysis of the changed process of rural public goods supply system, we can draw, the essence of the rural public goods supply system's change, is an integrated process of the interest between city and countryside, industry and agriculture, particularly the interest between the state and peasants. At present, our country should re-adjust the interest between city and countryside, industry and agriculture, state and peasants, establish city and countryside unified, fair and efficient, new rural public goods supply system, to realize the interests of the peasants and our country.