The Supply Of The Rural Public Goods And The Choice Of Farm Land System

This thesis investigates the choice of farm land system from the prospective of the supply of rural public goods. Different from other research which concentrated on rural modernization and individual rightsthe author concludes that present Chinese peasants have endured an obvious structural and requirement transformation. Compare to the peasants in a developed area, the ones in a common agricultural region have different claims to the land. The latter can also be further divided according to their internal dissimilarity. The author chooses the peasants of common agricultural region who regard the agricultural income as their major income as the representative typical peasants, and their claims as the requirements of China peasants. Different from previous related research, this thesis believes that the genuine requirement of the peasants lies in their request of the convenience of working, rather than abstract namely'rights'.Put specifically, when the rural public goods are concerned, especially the most important ones like irrigation project, there exists a tension between the request of individual rights and the request of convenience. A paradox is that when the peasants' individual rights are more emphasized, it will be more difficult for the collective to practice its rights on land; the more difficult for the cooperation among peasants, the more expensive for the public supply. It therefore needs to stress the collective ownership of the land in favor of the convenience. The author proposes that the collective should possess some land and should have the ability to'adjust' the usage of land. The collective should have the economic strength, so that it can provide the public goods. From the legal aspect, when the policies put emphasis on the contracted management rights, they should also stress the protection of collective ownership. The legislation should safeguard this aim. On the one hand, the subject of the ownership should be recognized as the collective; on the other hand, the law should restrict the nature of this ownership. The law should also confirm the object and content of the ownership, including possession, usufruct, right of remuneration and right of disposition. It will solve the problems of the supply of public goods in a low budget and high efficiency.Through the analysis of the structural divergence of the peasants, the importance of cooperation, and the problems of providing rural public goods, this thesis reaches to the following two conclusions:1. to the common peasants, the convenience of work is more important than abstract and literature rights; 2. it is better to strengthen rather than weaken the position and rights of the collective as the owner of the land.