Dissertation Government's Grain Management Agency: The Role Of The State In Allocating Grain Resources (1953-1985)

The paper takes grain management agency as a research breakthrough point, and theory of modern state construction as analysis tools. The question that this paper is set to reply is: Was there grain management agency in history? What was the function of this agency? Aside from that, we will pay attention to the impact on grain farmers' daily life in the aim- at-resources-drawing policy. The paper consists of three parts, that is introduction, main body and conclusion. The introduction mainly introduces the concrete issue of this research, objective basis as well as significance of the selected topic, the combing of related research results and research technique. Among these, the characteristic of this research is the role that grain management agency has played in the process of modern state constructing.There are there chapters in main body.The first chapter "From ancient Storehouse to Modern Government's Grain Management Agency: State Monopoly of Grain Resources". Through inspecting the history of grain management agency, the paper claims that ancient storehouse and modern grain management agency had different national background and different concrete function, though they were established for the sake of national need. The function of grain management agency was to monopoly grain resources for the state, and this materialized power was grasped by the state, the state made grains the essence of power by way of infiltrating state consciousness into it.Chapter Two "From Free to State Monopoly for Purchasing and Marketing System: the Function Transition of Grain Management Agency".The paper deems that grains were endowed state consciousness because of compulsive involvement of state power during the period of state monopoly for purchasing and marketing system, correspondingly, grain management agency, as the grains administration center ,became the symbol of state. This strongly controlling economic mode was derived from improvement of purchasing and marketing system, which cut the connection between farmers and the market totally. The farmers, who had lost control of their labor products, had to resort to food supply of grain management agency to sustain life, and from then on, the grain farmers and grain management agency were connected intensely. So, we think that there are two basic functions of grain management agency, one is to realize state monopoly of grains resources by assignment of purchasing and marketing system, the other is to infiltrating state consciousness into farmers by planned supply system.The third chapter "The Response of Grain Farmers: Inspecting Transition of State Power in View of Grain Management Agency Transformation".The paper insists that farmers were weak in face of developing state power. In this mode, the way that farmers expressed their power was not the parade or so on, they expressed themselves more by concealing the output, reducing labor productivity, expanding the country fair trade secretly, bribing the official and so on. This consciousness of power has immense impact on rural society. After the Reform, grain management agency has to sign fixed purchase contract with farmers equally. Though there is still assignment purchasing to some extent, farmers have much more freedom to dispose their products. In this context, the power that state governs rural country is not grain products anymore, in the new times the first step for rural governance is to acknowledge sovereignty status of farmers. The state needs to explore democratic rural governance pattern,and self-administration of villagers nowadays is a good evidence for governance transition.The conclusion part of this article summarized the main understanding of the research.Based on the inspection and analysis of the case, this paper outlines how the country has realized the conformity of trillion dispersed peasant households by the means of the grain resources control from three parts:the establishment reasons for the grain management agency,the specific functions that the agency undertakes and the responses of the peasants. Firstly, the purpose for the establishment of the grain management agency is the noationalization of the grain products. The grain resource monopoly of the state promotes the power to centralize highly to the state,which has established the absolute dominance of the state over the rural governance. The grain sets up a tight connecton between the relationship of the state and the peasants. Secondly, State Monopoly for Purchasing and Marketing is a kind of system guarantee by which the grain management agency has relized the State Monopoly of grain resources. Under the arrangement of the purchase and sale system, the grain management agency has relized the power penetration from the state to local Community.Finally, from the logic of the whole actions of the peasants, the sovereignty will resist spontaneously and inevitably when he loses its benefit .They will take actions,such as Engaging in speculation, Under-reports output embezzles,grain product bribery and so on, to express their interests. The peasants identifying for their own power forces the state to improve the relationship between itself and the peasants through reform.