A Study On Formation Mechanism Of Family Farms With Chinese Characteristics Under The Perspective Of Historical Materialism

Productive forces and productive relations are two important impact factors in economic development laws. The dialectical relationship between the two lays the cornerstone of Marxism historical materialism, which determines the direction of historical development and specific characteristics of times nested in it. In agricultural production and operation activities, the organic combination and unity of productive forces and production relations constitutes production mode of agricultural production and operation activities. Land ownership that plays an important role in agricultural production and operation activities is an important carrier of production relationship and its nature is determined by social productivity development level and nature of agricultural production relationship that occupies a principal position in the final analysis.Centering on constructions of rural land system, the party and state have carried out a series of reforms: in agrarian revolution at the beginning of establishing China, all land was distributed to peasants and owned by them, the peasants' private land ownership was established; in the period of socialist transformation, according to Marx's theory on socialist public ownership, Chinese agriculture began to walk the road of co-operation,land owned by peasants have changed to be owned by co-operative group to eliminate narrowness of small-scale production; in the period of the People's Commune and the Great Cultural Revolution, operation and use rights of land were fully in the hands of People's Commune that integrated the government and enterprises to achieve a comprehensive public ownership; since 1978, China has carried out “household contract responsibility system” that is characterized by adjusting ownership of agricultural means of production. This institutional transition of agriculture has changed incentive structure in agriculture in the period of collectivization of agriculture, mobilized enthusiasm and creativity of peasants and released Chinese agricultural productivity vastly.However, duo to dual drive of continuous development of economy and agricultural productivity, the current household contract responsibility system in China exposes some disadvantages which threaten China's food security badly, including serious land scale fragmentation, strong smallholder consciousness, slow growth of agricultural income,gradual decreasing of rural labor force engaged in agricultural production, loss and abandonment of a large number of land, etc. These problems reflected that “system dividend” of transformation of agricultural production system has been already gradually released to the end, hence, it is required objectively to adjust agricultural productive relations again. However, this adjustment and the last one are in the opposite direction,which is from “separate” to “unity”, or from “fragmentation” to “scale operation”. As comrade Deng Xiaoping said, developing moderate scale operation is the second leap of agricultural reform. In a word, moderate scale operation of agriculture that takes land circulation and concentration as the core is the basic direction of China's future agricultural reform and also a necessary way of completing agricultural modernization.The most basic problem of Chinese agriculture is that population of Chinese peasants doesn't match with land resources and this problem seriously affect the peasants' incomes.In the Marx land rent theory, “residual claim” of land output shows different efficiency with this game process, the resulting different incentive effects between the government and peasants have become the intrinsic motivation of rural land system reform. In recent years, people in some regions of China have done some related explorations about new modes of agricultural production and operation which are characterized by scale operation,based on basic situation, productive forces level and agricultural production characteristics of China, Chinese agricultural development can neither insist on peasant economy system that peasants privately own land at the beginning of founding China, nor copy development model of large capitalist farms in United States and other developed countries. Family farms with Chinese characteristics which are labor intensive(family members business is the main), moderate scale intensive, industrialization operation(high income as the main source of a family) become a desirable choice of future agricultural production and operation mode in China. This agricultural production and operation mode not only effectively alleviate “three rural issues” which accumulate too much malpractice,but also can effectively guarantee grain safety in China. However, family farms, this new type of agricultural operation main body, develop relatively slowly in China which is a developing country in transformation of both system and structure now, so it still needs further research. Based on the concern and analysis on practical problems, in this thesis,under the guidance of framework of historical materialism and from the Marx andEngels' s research perspective about peasant economy, capitalist land ownership and large farm, the author try to clarify connotation, reform basis, dynamic factors, obstructive factors and boundary of moderate scale, especially its formation mechanism, etc.Theory and practice go hand in hand. In this project, combined with literature collected, field survey method was used to investigate and analyze basic situation of farmers in Jiangxia District of Wuhan and development effect of family farm etc. And on this basis, “minimum necessary scale” of family farm with Chinese characteristics was calculated through calculation model construction and survey data analysis. At last,according to actual investigation and combined with basic viewpoints of historical materialism and development experience of family farms at home and abroad, some relevant countermeasures were put forward for further development of family farms with Chinese characteristics from three different latitudes that include rural land circulation,government support and social system construction to provide some valuable conclusions and policy recommendations for further development of Chinese family farms and increasing farmers' production and operation income.