From The Production Standard To The Consumption Standard

This paper aims to elucidate the generation mechanism of peasants’ burden in theirproduction and living since the founding of People’s Republic of China (PRC) and itschanges experienced.The existing researches on peasants’ burden usually focus on theproductive burden which aims at their country only, but neglect that the consumptiveburden, namly another kind of burden which is more effective on the socialdifferentiation, have been becoming ever-stiffer when peasants’ productive burdenblurred gradually. This paper translates the questions on peasants’ burden into thequestions on the institutional arrangements of peasants’production and consumption. Thegeneration mechanisms on three levels, peasants’ burdens aimed at their country, theircommunity (cun), and their family, have been viewed. Accordingly, the logic of changefrom collectivism period to the period of Tax-for-Fee reform and the period after theagricultural tax has been abolished, also have been discussed respectively on three levelsabove. Therefore, this paper expands the intension and levels on burden while eachlevel has been brought into the analysis on the historical process from the productionstandard to the consumption standard.Starting from the generation mechanism of burden, this paper will cover the essence ofburden all boils down to the concept, the beyond. There is a causal link between thebeyond and the peasants’ burden, and the peasants’ burdens in different historicalperiods are caused by the beyond in different performance.This paper tries to understand the relationship between country and peasants with theview of peasants’daily consumption living, while paying attention to trace the changes ofnational policies, in order to observe the mutual echo between peasants’daily life and theinstitutional arrangements of the country. After all, the eventually suffers of burden is thereal peasants in the villages. Only giving priority to the peasants’ life can be morecomprehensively and more deeply to explore the inner logic of the change of burden.This paper suggests that there shouldn’t be a unified development direction which leadsto urbanization. Instead, controllable consumptive burden is needed so that rural area canfunction as a impounding reservoir regulating the modernization of the state. Meanwhile,the characteristics of low consumption and high welfare with life happiness in rural lifeshould be preserved, and approach to ontology standard.