The Interactive Construction Of The State-owned Farm’land Property Rights

Current researches on property right are approached with the perspective of Western Economics on property rights. Based on some theoretical hypotheses and backgrounds, the logic of this perspective is "the clearer property right is, the more efficient the resource distribution is". In the study of Chinese property right, many researchers attributed the low efficiency to the non-private factors of property right. However, this explanation is hard to deal with the question where the efficiency of the collective and township enterprises came from. The birth and practicability of the related Western theories has their own traditions and backgrounds. Since there are weaknesses for the economic perspectives, Chinese sociologists developed the social perspective, which focuses on the existence of the property involved in complicated social relations.This study made the interactions between different participants as the focus of the proposition "property right is a kind of relationships". Also, it tried to build the explanatory model combining the three dimensions of the participant interactions, among which the interactions and power comparison were the core of our analysis. My study used this model as the analytic framework, combing the topic of the distinction of the possession and use of the property right, which was rarely discussed in the social perspective. This study observed the case of the property right constructing process of the province-owned farm called Z in Hubei. In the country-owned farms, the country as the owner of land cannot directly have the possessions, but relied on the behalf of the managers. As a result, the property right construction depended on the interaction between the managers, farmers, the village members and other participants. In general, when all sides were in conflict, the property right construction was influenced by the powerful side; under certain circumstances, the reciprocity of different sides helped the construction of the social agreement.The basic conclusion of this study had several points. First, although the special institutional environment offered the farm managers much space of administration, their administration still relied on the foundation of social validity. In their interactions with both farmers and those with farmer-workers, the lack of social validity well explained the vulnerable position of the farm managers. Second, when the no-right litigants, such as farmers and farmer-workers, used violence to protect or maintain their rights, their efforts always worked. When the no-right litigants used less violent ways like complaints, their efforts worked less successfully than the violent ones. The distinction between violent and non-violent ways could be seen in the cases of effectiveness of farmers and that of negative resistance in the rent negotiation of farmer-workers. Apart from these two ways in interactions with the managers, farmer-workers could also use social resources like quoting the "whoever possesses who gets" as a principle of equity, which also required certain social foundations. Third, the two sides in a property right activity were not always in conflict. When they had shared interests, it was possible that they would have an agreement of both sides. But when the relative value of land became lower, the interactive may turns out to be a special type that the famer-workers choose leave, the managers had to repeatedly adjust the allocation rules to attract the participation of farmer-workers. Fourth, as for the stability of property right order, the lack or incompletion of the property right laws in the country-owned farms would cause the mangers to over-abuse their authorities, which threatened the order. When the social community lacked powerful conventions, clear and socially legit property right laws were needed.