A Research On New Enclosure Movement

Large scale occupation of farmers' land is constantly emerging in China's economic development since the mid-1980s, and there have been three climaxes. This phenomenon is called new enclosure movement, which is different from land expropriation for public welfare in general meaning. It is business behavior cooperated between officials and businessmen which is "to make a fortune by land". It leads to a series of social problems and needs to do comprehensive research from theory to practice.Many European countries experienced enclosure movements in history. Compared with UK's enclosure movement, although they have different historical backgrounds, institutional environments and promoting ways, new enclosure movement embodies the common law, namely, the need for primitive accumulation of capital and industrialization. In China, collective-owned land can not be sold, but can be expropriated by the government. As there is difference between land compensation fees and market price, the great benefit space appears. Local governments and developers have advantages of power and capital to obtain the large part of land increment income. Farmers only get a small amount of compensation for the loss of their land. This paper affirms the rationality of land expropriation due to the economic construction and public utilities, but denies crazy enclosure movement established on the deprivation of farmers.The unclear property of collective-owned land and its structural asymmetry are one reason causing enclosure movements. But the more fundamental roots are institutional defect and benefit drive caused by the combination of centralization system and market economy. The essence of new enclosure movement is land capitalization. It is the use right of state-owned land that is capitalized. By using land "price scissors", governments have achieved deprivation of farmers once again. In order to allow farmers to obtain the benefit of land value increment and share the results of industrialization, the capitalization of their land should be established. Therefore, it should first start from the property rights reform. Land ownership should be defined to the level of villagers'groups. The integration of other property rights should be identified to farmers. To ensure farmers obtaining land development benefit, land development rights should be introduced. Other supporting systems such as land circulation, cultivated land protection, and land reserve system should be reformed simultaneously.