东亚农业的制度变迁和变革——一个历史学阐释

Institutional Change and the Transformation of East Asian Agriculture: A Historical lnterpretation

在前现代社会 ,东亚的农业有着几乎同样的特征 :几乎每一寸的土地都用来生产粮食、燃料和衣物纤维。通过饲养很少份额的家畜而支撑着大量的人口 ,土地的生产率很高 ,但是劳动生产率很低。差不多 80 %的人口从事农业及生活在农村 ,农业在整个国内生产总值的份额中占 70 %到 80 %。然而 ,在今天的日本和韩国 ,多数的家庭农场是一种被植入了现代市场经济特点的农商企业。作者指出 ,土地制度和税制改革 ,是日本、韩国农业现代化的重要突破。但是中国农业的发展历史不同 ,政府没有从事和日本明治时期同样的改革。 1 980至 1 982年 ,政府在农村实施产权方面的改革 ,实施家庭联产承包责任制 ,激励农民提高劳动效率并提高生产水平。但是这个改革还不彻底 ,中国政府所面临的一个重要难题的是如何公平和有效地分配产权。

There is the same characteristic; almost every foot of land is made to contribute materials for food, fuel or fabric, in the agriculture of East Asia before modern time. Those farms supported a large population with little livestock; land productivity was extremely high but labor productivity low. Some 80 percent of the population lived and worked in agriculture, which contributed 70 to 80 percent of gross domestic product. However, most of the family farms today are agro-business enterprises imbedded in a modern market economy in Korea and Japan. Author points out that land survey and land tax reform were important breakthroughs in the modernization of Japanese and Korean agricultures. China's agricultural history was very different because Chinas government was not able to carry out the same institutional changes as occurred in Japan. During 1980-1982 the Chinese government began to reform its rural farming system into one of mixed property rights. This new system～village brigade leased land to selected households and renewed those leases on a trial basis-provided rural people with new incentives to increase output and raised their living standards. But the reforms did not go far enough. One of the most serious problems facing Chinese agriculture today is how to equitably and efficiently distribute property rights.