Discourse On Collective Land Ownership

As an object, land is always the main social and economic resources for human beings, and is the most important property for peasants. Because Chinese present rural collective land ownership system has deadly flaws, it severely sets obstacles to social development. This essay is formed on the basis of Chinese practice, and adopts legal, economical, historical and comparative approaches to analyze problems existing in Chinese collective land ownership. The writer holds that to replace collective land ownership with private land ownership is a rational and scientific choice.This essay has five chapters:Chapter one summarizes profound experience and lessons on the basis of reviewing the history of collective land ownership. Argument on collective land ownership from the perspective of positivism is only a kind of temporary systematic design, however, to privately own land is the historical necessity.Chapter two holds that in feudalistic society where state power is severely centralized, regulations on land ownership are made according to the interest of the dominator, are the result of contradiction between power and rights, and are the summarization of practice. In socialistic China where the people are the masters, regulations on land ownership should not be made like before. Privately owning land has solid historical basis in China and collective land ownership does not suit Chinese historical traditions.Chapter three summarizes land ownership system of western countries and its historical development, discusses the value tropism and development tendency of land ownership system, and illustrates that the system of collective land ownership does not accord with the basic spirit of modern civil law.Chapter four analyzes the flaws of collective land ownership from legal prospective, and indicates those deadly flaws including character mistiness, subject vacancy and right flaws, holding that it is not a rational and scientific legal system design.Chapter five analyzes the present several collective land reformation schemes, holding that although nationalization scheme is not complex, it is actually unpractical, that amendment scheme means gradually owning land privately, which is not practical due to its transfiguration character, and that the scheme of owning land privately is the only solution.