On Institutional Justice Concerning Provision Of Rural Public Goods In China

Public goods are common external conditions, which are essential for production or life of urban and rural residents. Public goods supply is considered an important market failure, because of their externalities of different levels, thus to supply public goods effectively becomes one of the basic economic functions of governments. Due to economic, social and historical factors, etc., the urban-rural division system and sub-system of public goods supply arrangements, that is, "one goods, two systems", has no fundamental changes, since the founding of People’s Republic of China. These institutional arrangements has led to unsustainable supply of public goods in rural areas, resulting in the rural tax and fee burden, weakening the grass-root public governance and the imbalance economic and social development between urban and rural areas.This paper aims at the current state of public goods supply in rural area in China, which has problems concerning quantity, quality and structure, and attempts to reconstruct institutional justice to lay a foundation for sustainable supply of public goods in rural area by analyzing causes and essence of such problems. The basic idea of this paper is as follows: China is currently in the course of "large-scale institutional transition", the period that institutional innovation in many areas are the real crux and solution breakthrough. So far, the "one goods, two systems" supply system has not only caused the dual economic and social structure but the huge gap between urban and rural areas. What’s more, it has made the roles of urban and rural residents distorted, and the chain of social capital and links between rural and urban areas cracked and fractured internally and externally. Therefore, the two-way interaction of resources, energy and information between urban and rural areas are severely disrupted or even becomes impossible. How to adjust the existing interest structure and break through the inertia of existing systems and institutional arrangements for mutual embedding innovation, reshaping the of institutional justice of public goods supply in rural area to maintain their sustainable supply, has become an urgent issue to be solved.This paper starts logically from the contractual characteristics of states (governments). By analyzing the legal existence of states (governments), this paper illustrates the contractual characteristic of public goods supply and its requirement for institutional justice as well.This paper has expanded the non-exclusive and non-competitive attributes of public goods in their consumption and use. Starting from their contractual link and the institutional justice it requires, this paper analyzes the coordination function of public goods as cooperation order to expand the existing theoretical research on public goods in rural area. Their connotation and definition are extended, taking into account of the planning of urban and rural development as a whole from China’s request for urbanization, industrialization. This paper particularly emphasizes institutional public goods and their status and role currently.This paper focuses on institutional justice of public goods supply in rural area, and extends the analyzing framework of "Prisoner’s Dilemma", "Clever Pig Game" by stating clearly the implicit factors to make effective government supply, market supply, and personal supply of public goods and their application in China. By considering institutional embedding and analyzing historically, economically and socially the institution of "one goods, two systems" and the will-expressing and exit possibility, this paper discusses about obstacles faced to reconstruct the institutional justice.Problems concerning institutional justice of rural public goods supply in China are associated with gradual distortion of opportunities, rights and capacity of countryside, farmers and agriculture. By syncretizing multi-polarization analysis of rules and situations, and combining intermediate variables of a wide range with regard to opportunity, rights and capacity with the framework of institutional justice, this article discusses as well the path of reconstructing institutional justice of rural public goods supply in China.This article is divided into 8 chapters:Chapter 1 is the logical starting point for research, concerning relevant literature at home and abroad, which is to put forward our perspective critically. Chapter 2 is a theoretical statement about our perspective. Chapter 3 is an absorption of rural public goods supply since the founding of People’s Republic of China to look through the institutional justice during the course. Chapter 4 analyzes the status quo of rural public goods caused by lack of institutional justice. Chapters 5-7 analyze the several barriers to achieve institutional justice and their root causes. Chapter 8 is about the reconstruction way of institutional justice concerning rural public goods supply in China.Through analysis, some preliminary conclusions are educed as follows: Public goods are coordinating measures offered by states (governments) to ensure interpersonal smooth transactions. Expectation of how to share the "joint income" in such transactions demands equal opportunities, rights and capacities of all parties, and insurance of institutions concerned.Public goods’characteristics of non-competitivity and non-exclusivity are static physical ones on specific space-time point, which are insufficient to include the contractual relationship between people carried by public goods. Analysis about public goods should pay much more attention to their functions to coordinate individual objectives, and thus to justice. The traditional efficiency-oriented analysis ignores the essential attributes of states and their functions, and thus those of public goods provided by governments.The connotation and extension of rural public goods should be defined by taking into account the planning of developing urban and rural areas as a whole and the transferring of rural surplus labor to urban area.In the current transition period, we should take into account in particular public goods arising from interaction between urban and rural people. In this paper, public goods are divided into four categories with all these considered. They are material ones, servicing ones, relationship ones and institutional ones.Consumption and use of public goods vary from person to person for their different roles which are accompanied with opportunities, rights and capacity to be influenced by institutional justice. Equal status of farmers requires equal opportunities, rights and capacity which should be protected by institutional justice. There exist problems of quantity, structure and quality at the same time in the supply of rural public goods in China, which are caused by lack of institutions and their operation simultaneously. The reconstruction of institutional justice in the supply of rural public goods involves untying the structure of the existing system of institutions and innovation based on it.