ABSTRACT
During the first decade of reform, after the long years of revolution and its ever-receding promises, it was the immediate association of economic growth and prosperity with reform that captured the popular and political imagination. One of the most important questions of that first decade was whether the government could satisfy the new and rising expectations it had set in motion. In the first years of reform it seemed possible, especially in the countryside, for one of the most important and much publicised repercussions of reform was the initial dramatic and then more gradual rise in economic opportunities, cash incomes and standards of living of peasant households. Indeed, throughout the countryside, and even in some of the poorest regions, a combination of economic reforms and new pricing policies caused the largest overall rise in peasant incomes since the early 1950s. In the 1980s the number of newly rich and in particular “ten thousand yuan” peasant households became the chief rationale and criterion for measuring the efficacy of reforms and not only in the popular imagination. Officially too, the association of riches with reform permeated government reports, policy documents and speeches and constituted the overriding criterion of policy success. “Get rich quick”, “You too can become rich” and “Riches for all” were slogans and popular sayings which encouraged widespread perceptions of economic prosperity and hopeful emulation of “ten thousand yuan” households.
