ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the characteristics of rural collectivism in southern Jiangsu in the new period by studying Hecun Village’s empirical practices so as to outline the recent changes in rural collectivism. Some scholars also believe that the various crises that township enterprise transformation has brought about may also be an opportunity for the emergence of rural democratic society. Hecun’s collective benefits system, to a great extent, continued the tradition of the Southern Jiangsu Model in the post- township and village enterprise era, in that the majority of the village’s collective income was used for accumulation and not directly distributed to the villagers. However, because of lacking the capacity of utilizing the labor force in capital operation, in the post-township enterprise era, the connection between the collective economy and villagers became more indirect. The ownership changes of the collective enterprises in southern Jiangsu took on various forms, such as shares, leases and auctions.
