ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a theory of public goods making in China that purports a reconsideration of recent analysis, quoted at the beginning, of the rise of a 'rights' discourse in China. It introduces the historical and philosophical backdrop of the repertoire of practices, values and forms of judgement that informs widely supported ways of holding goods in common in present day Yancong and trace their configuration in relation to contemporary theories of public goods. In Yancong the local state is recurring to a particularly dismissive and dispossessing form of 'rights talk' in the effort to subtly reframe the terms of villagers' participation in the making of local public goods. The chapter focuses at how the expectations break down by telling the story of how legal provisions help delimit the province of villagers' political involvement in the public life of their own community.
