Fifty Years in Countryside: The State and Peasant In the Process of Daily Economic Practice
A Case Study of the Hou Le Village in Yiwu City
Abstract: The fifty years of evolution in the relationship between state and the peasants in Hou Le Village shows what an important impact the daily economic activities of the peasants has on the social changes and development of the village. In other words, the daily economic activities of the peasants provide a powerful explanatory framework for the feasibility of the state’s institutional arrangement with regard to allowing peasant autonomy and removing social bias against the peasants. If China wants to modernize her rural areas, she cannot afford to neglect the “local elements” which are expressed in the peasants’ daily economic activities.
