理解中国农民合作社的发展困境:来自恰亚诺夫视角的解释

Understanding the dilemma of Chinese farmers’cooperatives:a Chayanov perspective

恰亚诺夫的《农民合作社理论》被广泛解读为倡导农民合作社的生命力及其相对于资本主义农业优越性的理论框架,本研究认为,其理论恰恰提供了对大部分农民合作社难以成功的最有力解释。恰亚诺夫从俄国小农群体与乡村社会的现实出发,指出农民合作社在发展过程中面临五个主要障碍,这些障碍以互相勾连的形式将小农合作组织拖入一个恶性循环,而打破该恶性循环只能通过以国家为后盾的全国性合作社组织系统才能实现。本研究根据来自20个省份的65个典型合作社案例材料阐述了恰亚诺夫指出的障碍因素可以解释中国农民合作社的长期发展困境,而恰亚诺夫指出的出路所需要的结构性条件在当今中国似乎并不存在。本研究主要有两层贡献:第一,全面介绍了恰亚诺夫的农民合作社理论;第二,以其理论视角来解释中国主流合作社模式陷入困境的现实。

Chayanov’s The Theory of Peasant Cooperatives has been widely read as a work advocating the viability and even superiority of peasant cooperatives as compared to capitalist farming.We contend that it actually provides the strongest analysis of why most peasant cooperatives are doomed to fail.Chayanov identified five major obstacles confronting peasant cooperatives,and those obstacles push cooperatives into a vicious circle.Without powerful state support,it is nearly impossible for the cooperatives to break the vicious circle.Based on 65 typical cooperatives from 20 provinces,this paper illustrates how these obstacles that Chayanov identified are precisely the reasons why almost all the cooperatives in our sample failed while the pathway that Chayanov devised for successful cooperative movements seems non-existent in contemporary China.This study makes contribution in two dimensions.First,it comprehensively introduces Chayanov’s peasant cooperative theory.Second,it applies his theory to explain the failure of farmers’cooperatives in China.