ABSTRACT
Rural reform has been under way for almost 20 years, undermining most institutional constraints imposed during the Maoist era. Labor mobilization into factories, migration into cities and town, the restructuring of rural production, the reemergence of household-dominated farming, rural-urban interdependence on terms far more equitable to villagers than under Mao, an increased inflow of new technologies, and integration of the rural economy via foreign investment and export promotion, have all brought enormous benefits to China’s farmers and rural inhabitants. Within these sectors that have benefited from the reforms, household incomes and living standards are up, as is total rural output; villagers’ opportunities for self-actualization—such as the freedom to own a business or choose what crops to grow—have all increased. Political freedom and social mobility, as well as farmers’ level of awareness of the world outside their villages, has expanded due to an explosion of communication and transportation. Rural China has been transformed, undergoing an intense phase of what Karl Deutsch would call “social mobilization.”
