ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we survey the waves of changes that the Vietnamese farmers underwent throughout nearly three generations and what they meant to them. One wave of changes always replaced or displaced another, and as a result, a set of policy goals pushing the changes rarely saw their fruition. Even the efforts to build a socialist mode of production in the North were overshadowed by those to sustain the war of unification. Constant changes in the living environment meant a life saturated with uncertainties for the Vietnamese. Under such conditions, to entertain long-term goals alone becomes a costly intellectual exercise. The experiences with these constant changes led the Vietnamese to develop ways to endure the uncertainties, and to reduce the burden of uncertainties on their life, which helped them form the kind of behavioural pattern best described by behavioural economist, Daniel Kahneman, as loss aversive, a rather conservative but durable outlook on life.
