How to treat urbanization in China from the perspective of three rural issues

[ Abstract] The problem of agriculture, countryside and farmers is not a brand-new problem, but it has not been fundamentally solved. The problem of "agriculture, countryside and farmers" is not only the problem of farmers, agriculture and rural areas, but also involves the whole economic structure, social structure, the fundamental road of economic development and other major issues. In the long run, the fundamental way to solve the problems of agriculture, countryside and farmers is to take the road of urbanization.

[ key words] urbanization of "agriculture, countryside and farmers"

The core of "agriculture, countryside and farmers" is that there are too many farmers, who are too bitter and too poor. China's rural population is nearly 8 million, accounting for 64% of the total population, of which agricultural population accounts for 5% of the total population. The situation of agriculture is that the labor productivity is still not high, the ability of agriculture to resist risks is still very poor, the level of agricultural science and technology is still relatively low, most areas are still traditional agriculture, the agricultural science and technology team is relatively weak, and the agricultural capital construction has been greatly weakened in recent years. The countryside is still not completely out of poverty and backwardness. This is especially true in rural areas in the western region. Rural cultural life, education, medical and health construction, traffic conditions, post and telecommunications are still far from the requirements of modern civilization.

this situation of farmers, agriculture and rural areas will inevitably have a huge negative impact on our economic and social development: first, it will affect the coordinated development of the entire national economy. Industry and agriculture are two important production sectors of the national economy. If agriculture lags behind the development of industry for a long time, it will be impossible for the whole national economy to develop in a coordinated way, and it will be impossible for a strong industry to be built on a poor and weak agricultural foundation. Second, it affects the development speed of the national economy and the economic development level of the whole country. If the development speed of agriculture does not go up, the rural areas are poor and farmers suffer, it will be impossible to form a strong social demand. If the consumption of rural residents can reach the level of urban consumption or only half that of urban consumption, then our market capacity will be greatly expanded and the economic development speed of our country will be greatly improved. Third, it may cause various social problems and affect the stability of the whole society. The long-term accumulation of "three rural issues" results from both historical problems and our mistakes.

1. the origin and development of the problems concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers

1. historical reasons

China is a big agricultural country in history. under the feudal land ownership, the landlord economy and farmers' small land ownership coexist. Small-scale peasant economy takes one household as a unit and maintains simple reproduction. This small-scale economy is difficult to resist natural disasters, and it is also difficult to resist the oppression of the feudal landlord economy. Therefore, most farmers have never really been rich.

since modern times, the invasion of foreign capitalist forces has impacted the small-scale peasant economy. Under the impact of commodity economy, the traditional agricultural economy gradually disintegrated. However, until the eve of liberation, the vast rural areas of China were still in the Wang Yang sea of small-scale peasant economy, thus forming a dual structure of feudal economy and capitalist economy, traditional agriculture and modern industry, and traditional rural areas and a few prosperous industrial and commercial cities. In this dual structure, the relationship between urban and rural areas is essentially the relationship between exploitation and exploitation, the relationship between oppression and oppression, and the exchange between urban and rural areas is unequal. With the widening scissors gap, a large amount of wealth created by farmers has been transferred to urban capitalists and foreign big capitalists. The increasing population has formed a sharp contradiction with the limited cultivated land, and wars and natural disasters have occurred constantly, which has withered the rural economy and caused a large number of farmers to go bankrupt and go out to make a living. The rural economy is basically at a standstill. Because farmers account for the vast majority of China's population, it is impossible to fundamentally solve any problems in China if the China Revolution does not solve the problems of farmers. However, it is impossible for farmers in China to fundamentally change their status without revolution.

2. Policy mistakes

After the establishment of the new regime, the important issue is economic development, that is, how to get rid of the poverty and weakness of old China in the shortest possible time and get rid of the economic backwardness that has humiliated China for nearly a hundred years. Take the road of industrialization and give priority to the development of heavy industry, which is the conclusion we have drawn from summing up the history of being beaten behind for nearly a hundred years and the rapid and powerful experience of the Soviet Union.

if we take such a road, we will first encounter the problem of capital accumulation. Under the blockade of capitalist countries, the funds needed for our industrialization, except for the part that the Soviet Union and eastern European countries were able to help at that time, could only rely on internal accumulation, which could only be provided by agriculture. This accumulation is provided mainly through the scissors difference of industrial and agricultural products. This road to industrialization is destined to be constantly demanded from agriculture, rural areas and farmers for a long time. It should be said that taking the road of giving priority to the development of heavy industry has enabled us to build an industrial system and a national economic system that has begun to take shape and complete categories in a relatively short period of time, and has achieved remarkable results, laying a good industrial foundation for our future development. But it is undeniable that this road is at the expense of the development of agriculture. It squeezes out funds for agriculture, compresses people's consumption, especially farmers' consumption, prevents farmers from transferring to industrial fields, and causes a large number of hidden unemployment in rural areas, making the characteristics of China's dual economic structure increasingly obvious. That is, advanced cities and backward rural areas; Advanced industry, backward agriculture.

this dual structure is more prominent and fixed because of some of our policy mistakes. The most obvious ones here are the household registration management system, the supply system of daily necessities, the education and employment system and the social security system.

first of all, the household registration management system that divides urban and rural areas. This management system divides people into agricultural population and non-agricultural population, and there is a strict boundary between them. There are almost no other channels for agricultural population to become non-agricultural population except through urban recruitment, further education and joining the army to change jobs. Farmers have become hereditary, and urban people have become hereditary. Inside and outside the city have become two different countries. This divided household registration management system has artificially created many "cowherd and weaver girl" separated from each other, which has affected the efficiency of work and wasted the state's funds. Although this household registration system plays an important role in maintaining the stability of urban and rural order and maintaining social order, it hinders the flow of labor, artificially divides urban and rural areas into two different worlds, and fixes the dual structure of urban and rural areas and workers and peasants, which fundamentally hinders the development of marketization and economic development.

Secondly, the supply system of daily necessities separated between urban and rural areas. People strive to turn agricultural registered permanent residence into an urban hukou, mainly because our hukou is not only a proof of a place of residence, but a certificate of many benefits, which is a passport to many benefits that farmers can't enjoy. With urban hukou, you can get a guaranteed supply of food and non-staple food, which is not paid attention to by people today, but it is necessary to maintain people's lives in the era of shortage economy with scarce materials. Farmers, on the other hand, must solve this necessary supply of life by themselves.

Thirdly, the system of further education and employment divided between urban and rural areas. With a city hukou, you can study and get a job in the city. There are many schools in cities with high teaching quality, so there are more opportunities to enter a higher level school and even study abroad. There are more employment opportunities in the city, and the working conditions are better and the treatment is superior. In order to maintain this difference, even the admission criteria for further studies are different in urban and rural areas. The admission criteria for urban areas are lower, while the admission criteria for rural areas are higher, which keeps many outstanding rural youths out of the school. This will certainly bury many outstanding talents.

finally, the social security system that separates urban and rural areas. Of course, the standard and scope of urban and rural social security should be determined according to a country's economic strength, but no matter how low and small the standard is, some people can't have it, and some people have almost none. Our social security system is actually only for city people. Once you become a city dweller, especially a public official in the city, you basically don't have to worry about anything for a lifetime, and almost all the illness and death are covered by the state. But farmers are not so lucky. Everything is almost on their own. Therefore, farmers dare not get sick, but they can resist minor illnesses and serious illnesses, which may be the beginning of this family falling into poverty.

In a word, historical reasons and our later mistakes in development path and policies have not changed this pattern of urban-rural duality, and it has developed in some aspects. Therefore, the problems of agriculture, countryside and farmers have accumulated more and more seriously.

second, the "three rural issues" and China's urbanization road

1. The fundamental way out of the "three rural issues" lies in accelerating the pace of urbanization in China

The core of the "three rural issues" is the problem of farmers, which is that there are too many farmers and rural population. As a result, agricultural labor productivity is low, and agricultural surplus labor force exists in large quantities. In order to increase farmers' income, improve their living standards and change the backwardness of rural areas, we must reduce the number of farmers, liberate many farmers from limited land, and transform rural population into urban population, that is, take the road of rural urbanization. At the same time, vigorously improve the level of agricultural labor productivity and realize agricultural modernization. This is the fundamental way for us to solve the difference between urban and rural areas. If hundreds of millions of farmers transfer to the secondary and tertiary industries, enter cities and towns, become new residents of cities and towns, and hand over the land originally contracted, not only can agricultural scale management be widely implemented, labor productivity be improved, agricultural modernization be gradually realized, and the backward appearance of rural areas in China can be fundamentally changed, but also the overall production capacity and modernization level of the country can be greatly improved.

The problems of farmers, agriculture and rural areas have been encountered in the development history of every country. Of course, some are more serious and some are not so prominent. However, developing agriculture, developing rural economy, gradually reducing rural population, gradually integrating urban and rural areas, gradually transforming rural population into urban population, and implementing large-scale agricultural management are the same roads that almost all developed countries have taken.

before 184, the urban population in the United States accounted for less than 1% of the total population, reaching 16.1% in 186. After 1865, a large number of immigrants and industrial laborers gathered in several central cities, reaching 22.7% in 188. By 193, the urban population in the United States had accounted for 49.1% of the total population. In 1998, the agricultural population in the United States only accounted for 2.36% of the total population.

China's urbanization process has lagged behind the industrialization process for a long time. In 1949, due to the low level of industrialization and urbanization at that time, it was close: the industrialization rate was 12.57%, and the urbanization rate was 1.64% (industrialization rate refers to the proportion of industrial sectors in national income, and urbanization rate refers to the proportion of urban population in total population), and it has been increasing year by year since then. By 1992, our industrialization rate had reached 5.6%, but the urbanization rate was only 27.68%, which was only nearly 18 percentage points higher than when the People's Republic was founded. In 1992, the urban population in more than 7 countries and regions accounted for more than half of the total population, and the urbanization level in high-income countries reached 78%, in middle-income countries 62% and in low-income countries 27%. In 1998, China's urbanization level was 18%, and with the non-agricultural population in the towns, the urbanization rate was close to 3%, and in 2 it was 36.9%. It can be seen that the urbanization rate we are talking about still includes the non-agricultural population in the established towns, and if we only calculate the population in the cities, our urbanization level is much lower, while in general, urbanization is faster than industrialization.

artificially controlling the development of cities makes the urbanization rate lower than the industrialization rate for a long time, resulting in the long-term inability of rural population to transfer to cities, a large number of population backlog in rural areas, and serious hidden unemployment in agriculture. Farmers can only run township enterprises in rural areas. Since the 198s, township enterprises have absorbed nearly 1 million rural surplus laborers, that is, the so-called "staying away from their homes and entering factories and cities", forming a rural industrial system, but the structure is basically the same as that of urban industries. This rural industrial system has artificially separated the internal relationship between urbanization and industrialization, resulting in the limitations of the development of township enterprises. With the deepening of the reform of urban enterprises, the competitiveness is constantly strengthened. Due to the isomorphism between township enterprises and urban enterprises, they are at a disadvantage in the competition. In order to strengthen their position in the competition, some township enterprises have embarked on the road of capital-intensive development prematurely, and the scale of absorbing surplus labor by township enterprises has gradually shrunk. Therefore, it is impossible to fundamentally solve the "three rural issues" only by relying on the road of "staying away from home, entering factories and not entering cities", and the two must be combined. That is, there are both those who have left their homes and those who have left their homes; There are both those who enter the factory and do not enter the city, and those who enter the factory and enter the city. Moreover, from our current stage, leaving the land and leaving the country, entering the factory and entering the city should be the main road. We are far from the so-called over-developed and over-urbanized developed countries. The so-called "reverse urbanization" in some developed countries is the integration of urban and rural areas at a higher level. In that case, the rural industry is a higher level rural industry, which is complementary to urban industry rather than isomorphic. We should pay attention to the so-called excessive problems in the process of urbanization in some developing countries, such as over-concentration of population and insufficient public facilities, that is, the so-called big city disease. However, these problems can only be solved gradually in the process of urbanization. If the process of urbanization is artificially delayed for fear of these so-called problems, a large number of problems will accumulate in the countryside, which will affect the cities sooner or later.

Urbanization is the inevitable result of industrialization and marketization, and cities are the main carriers of industry. If urbanization always lags behind industrialization, it will seriously restrict the coordinated development of urban and rural economy. Lagging urbanization hinders industrial modernization and the improvement of economic benefits. Moreover, without the development of cities, the tertiary industry will not develop, the service facilities will be backward, teaching, science, literature, health and social security will not develop, the quality of the population will not be improved, the development of primary and secondary industries will also be affected, and the employment capacity will be affected. The rural population will not be transferred out, and the "three rural issues" will not be truly solved. In the past, we often wanted to solve the "three rural issues" through the development of rural areas and agriculture itself. We can't say that this is not a road, but historical development has proved that this is not a way to fundamentally solve the problem. It is impossible to solve the "agriculture, countryside and farmers" in terms of "agriculture, countryside and farmers". We must solve the problems of agriculture, countryside and farmers through the road of rural urbanization and agricultural industrialization.

2. Adjust agricultural structure and transfer rural surplus labor force

(1) Continue to develop township enterprises. Developing rural industries is an important way to transfer rural surplus labor. Through decades of development, township enterprises have become an important part of the national economy. In 1998, the added value of township enterprises reached 2,218.6 billion yuan, accounting for 27.9% of GDP, and the national tax paid reached 158.3 billion yuan, accounting for 2.4% of the total national tax revenue. The output of products produced by township enterprises has increased year by year, accounting for a considerable proportion of the country. The development of township enterprises has promoted the process of rural industrialization and urbanization in China. Driven by the development of township enterprises, a large number of small towns rose rapidly. In 1998, there were only 19, towns in China, 5.7 times that of 1978. At present, the national towns accommodate about 1