ABSTRACT
In 1980, the People’s Daily reported that 200 million Chinese farmers were living below the poverty line, while in 1982 Vice Premier Wan Li admitted that “for many years in the past, more than 150 million farmers had not solved the problem of not having enough to eat.” 1 To enrich the rural economy, Party leaders established new normative guidelines that legitimized the private pursuit of household prosperity. The new policy, highlighted by the phrase, “permit some farmers to get rich first” (rang yixie nongmin xian fuqilai), allowed households that were more industrious and innovative and, of course, had better personal and economic ties to use their skills, personal relationships, excess labor power, and comparative advantages to accrue wealth quickly.
