The politics of the shareholding collective economy in China's rural villages

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, the collective economy, assets or property rights have gone through shareholding reform in an increasing number of China's rural villages. There are two main types of the shareholding economy. One type is the Cooperative of Shareholding Economy (CSE) that quantifies the total value of the village's collective assets and turns them into stocks to be distributed among all the villagers. Another type is the Shareholding Land Cooperative (SLC), which peasants spontaneously organized in some regions and voluntarily joined with their land-use contracts. Both types aim to turn ordinary villagers into the shareholders and thereby the genuine owners of the collective economy or assets. The SLC serves another purpose, which is to achieve economies of scale for agricultural production through reconcentration of village land. While the effects of the shareholding reform in empowering peasants are varied and limited, it does have the potential to make village governance more democratic.