The Research Of Social Capital And Rural Industrial Transformation

At present, China is in an important period with social structure changing and transforming. With several decades of China's opening and reform, tremendous changes have taken place in rural areas, most farmers are out of absolute poverty, and their living standards have been improved substantially. However, judging from the overall level of our society, the majority of rural areas in our country still belong to a single agricultural production method, the level of agricultural industrialization and marketization is low, the problems and reality of agriculture's natural inferiority, and the overall backwardness, severely restrict the rapid development of rural economy, so it is still an arduous task for the vast rural areas to completely shake off poverty and achieve rapid economic development and common prosperity of the peasants. However, due to the complex situation of Chinese rural areas, there are different study views and suggestion on rural modernization as a profound social problem, of which the sociological researches based on the perspective of social capital theory are quite unique, showing the feature that economic activities are embedded in social structure. In China with an ethical society, social capital has a strong social base, which has the functions of source integration and collaboration in social interaction and social production, is an important strength in social change movements, and has a strong ability of explaining social transformation and development. But in previous studies, using social capital theory, especially placing social capital theory in the perspective of rural micro-economic organizations or individuals to study rural economic development and industrial transformation still has deficiencies, and is not paid enough attention. Moreover, the operation of micro social capital in rural market economy, namely the rational behaviors and processes of individual famers using relation sources is not yet fully investigated. Therefore, this study chooses to investigate some rural areas, especially the rural communities of Village J, in the north of Shanxi Province. Through the deep study on local farmers promoting rural economic development and farmers getting rich by social capital, the study further reveals the close relationship between social capital and the rural economic development.This paper has the background of rural development in the market economy, based on the modernization theory and communication theory, in the perspective of social capital theory, to further demonstrate the content and definition of social capital; studies the existing form, nature, affecting channels and other issues of social capital in rural areas, and uses the operation logic of micro individual social capital as the main line of investigation, systematically analyzes the social capital and its operation in different relation spheres of rural communities from the static and dynamic aspects; Meanwhile, through analyzing the effect of rural social capital to rural industries transition, organization and lifestyle changes, the paper reveals that the application of social capital can effectively solve the funding problem which restricts the development of rural development, integrate production and organizational resources, promote the transition of rural production and organization methods, and speed up rural industrial restructuring, to try practical ways and paths for solving current rural development issues.According to the investigation in the micro-level, it is found that due to regulation limitations, when farmers solve the problem of development resources, especially the funding problem, they more frequently shift to non-regulate space like social networks to look for alternative means --relation resources. Due to the differential structure of social relations, the composition of the rural social order is based on strong relation network rather than weak relation network. Strong relations are important sources and channels for farmers to access to social capital, and achieve goals of deeds. Meanwhile, with the development of rural market economy, expansion of social networks makes the structure of rural relations change. Weak relations are being strengthened, homogeneous strong relations are being weakened, and the weak ties have built more"relation bridges"between the behavior subjects, connecting more information and resources. In the course of the social capital operation, actors show a more instrumentally rational color, which reflects the increasing rationalization of rural relationships,"social relationship"is seen as a social resource, and used by rational farmers, to help them achieve the expected goals.The obtain of social capital and economic capital is the same, will integrates the allocation of resources deeply, forms economic integration through various forms of economic cooperation forms, speeds up the transition from traditional single agricultural economy to a market-oriented modern rural economy integrating agriculture, industry and commerce . Differences in possessing social capital deepen the differentiation and reconstruction in rural communities.Therefore, studying the relationship between social capital and rural development from the micro point of view, can comprehensively understand the important promotion function of social capital to rural economy and society, to provide practical reference and experience for rural areas with limited resources to gain necessary support for their development. Furthermore, based on this, this study can also be extended to broader areas of non-market behavior, to fully demonstrate the overall effectiveness of social capital, which will surely further deepen the study on transition and development of society and other issues.