Thinking Of New Institutional Economics Of Farming Culture In The Chengdu Plain

As we all know the Chengdu plain was very prosperous and famousas the land of abundance in the ancientry. Though the society andeconomy of the Chengdu plain mushroomed at the present age, it is stillmore laggard than the coastal regions, such as the deltas of the PearlRiver and the Yangtze River. Furthermore, there has great disequilibriumamong cities in the plain. So, what is the reasons for the backwardness ofthe Chengdu plain today? Just for capital or other reasons? As far as Iknow, the real and basic reason is the backward and unsuitable institutionin the Chengdu plain, especially the informal institution, i.e., thetraditional agricultural civilization. Just as the famous Americanneo-institutional economist Douglass·C·North pointed the root cause ofpoverty and wealth among areas. He said that due to the lack of the accessto legalization and institution society, the economy of developingcountries is at a standstill for a long time, and because of "pathdependence", the backward institution would develop on its old path allalong, and then the society and economy would be "locked" in abackward environment at last. Moreover, the famous economistJean·Ensminger put clearly that the matching between formal constraintsand informal constraints is the key to the development of economy. Theaim that I write this thesis is to analyze the essential reason of thebackwardness in the Chengdu plain according to the basic views of theneo-institutional economics and some views of regional economics.Through a relative all-sided analysis of the society and economicdevelopment and the historical changes of the agricultural civilization ofthe Chengdu plain, I hade drawn a same conclusion that the coincidencebetween formal institution and informal institution is the key to thedevelopment of the society and economy of the Chengdu plain. 1 I discussed by four parts the meaning, characters, historical changes,conflicts with the present society and economy, and the coincident patternwith the formal institution of the traditional agricultural civilization of theChengdu plain. In the first part, I introduced the agricultural civilization from thestatus and functions of informal institution discussed by institutionaleconomists. Then I explained the meaning of the agricultural civilizationin two sides, narrowly and broadly, and pointed out the essential of theagricultural civilization is the people's ideology and values, according towhich I concluded five characters of the agricultural civilization, such asidleness, simpleness, feudalism, egoism and compatibility. Then, Idetailedly analyzed the process of historical changes of every character ofthe traditional agricultural civilization and found that it was anoutstanding one among the cultures in the agricultural society of Chinaand contributed greatly to the development of the Chengdu plain in thehistory. First, in the Warring States Period (256 BC), the simple idea,centering round the five elements of negative and positive was theacademic foundation of the success of Dujiangyan irrigation works.Meanwhile, the Taoism's thought was an idealistic guarantee to thedevelopment of edbiz of the Chengdu plain in the Song dynasty. Second,the egoistical idea caused the first successful coincidence between theinformal and formal institutions of the Chengdu plain in the Ch'in dynasty.After the unification of China, large scale people immigrated into theChengdu plain from the north, which resulted in a rapid decrease ininfield of the aboriginals. In order to protect their infield, they inventedland private ownership. At last, it was affirmed by the central governmentand generalized throughout the country in the way of law. However, thisegoistical idea brought a great destruction to the development of thesociety and economy of the Chengdu plain between the end of Mingdynasty and the beginning of the Qing dynasty. Because of the inbreak ofgood and cheap foreign merchandise, the egoistical farmers began toplant opium largely so as to exchange foreign goods, which destroyedbadly the agricultural...