ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the case for and against collective farms in developing countries' economic strategies in the light of China's post-Mao rural economic reforms. It analyses the record of China's rural economy under Maoist policies. The book outlines the transformation of the rural economy that accompanied and followed the reforms. It shows that collective farms are not, usually, a useful institutional form for poor countries. The importance of rural co-operation in developing countries is widely recognized among development economists. There are many activities in which it is agreed that individual farm households often can benefit from co-operation. In the late 1970s and early 1980s China abandoned collective farming and returned to a structure similar to that of the early 1950s, in which individual family farming was combined with extensive co-operation in ancillary activities.
