ABSTRACT
While farmers in the interior struggle to make ends meet when they attempt to supplement their agricultural income with migrant labor, in the better-off parts of the countryside new strata of very prosperous households are being generated through personal economic endeavors and through becoming employers of others' labor. The greatest source of personal wealth in these districts lies in the rise of private industry. While a high proportion of rural industry is owned by local rural governments, during the past decade the private rural industrial sector has been growing at a much quicker rate. 1 As a result, according to official statistics, by 1997 the total profits of rural private industry surpassed those of rural collective industry. 2 Some of these private factories were established by the families of officials or were "privatized" into their own hands. But a great many other factories were started by ambitious individuals with few connections to the officialdom.
