De-collectivisation of Agriculture in China, 1979-82 - A Long-Term Perspective

De-collectivisation of Agriculture in China, 1979-82 A Long-Term Perspective Peter Nolan It is in agriculture that the most far-reaching changes have occurred in China's political economy over the past three or four years. Fundamental institutional reform has taken place amounting to a 'de-collectivisation' of the peasantry comparable in importance to the 'collectivisation' in the mid- 1950s. A cornerstone of the 'Maoist model' of development was the rural collective structure. It appeared to many outside observers that China under Mao had been remarkably successful in evolving farm institutions that were capable of attaining rapid farm modernisation with a lower degree of inequality than existed in capitalist settings.