SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article contributes to the debate regarding the origin of the Household Responsibility System (HRS) in rural China. We argue that the HRS is a social and political construction which is not merely a response to underlying economic forces. Its evolution shows the significant role of politics in shaping economic performance through defining and enforcing economic rules. The establishment of HRS is neither topdown nor bottom-up. In contrast, it is an interaction between peasants, local officials, and central authorities. This article investigates the political process of the institutionalization of the HRS from its inception—the experiment of Xiaogang village in 1978—which solved the competing interests of the state, local authorities and peasants. The origin of the development of HRS property rights can be traced to a group of Chinese peasants who sought to improve their lives and manage the rules and regulations to which they were bound. The local authorities and later central government were convinced to support this radical change from the Commune System because of its positive economic and social effects, promoting spectacular economic growth and a massive reduction in rural poverty. This research, modelling China’s polities in the evolution of the HRS is an attempt to contribute to the new political economy (institutional economics applied to politics) that has been largely focused on the United States. A better understanding of the reform process in China and its varied consequences may be useful for the analysis and critique of reform efforts in developing countries that are in earlier or similar stages of rural transformation.