Question

Compare ownership of land in the urban and rural sectors. Do you think China should privatize the agricultural land?

Answer 1

In India, a region is considered to be a village or a rural area when the population density per square kilometre is 400, it has clear demarcated boundaries without a municipal board, and 75% of the working population is engaged in agriculture, or any of the cottage industries, fishing or pottery for a livelihood. In India approximately 72% of the population lives in the rural area, in approximately 50,000 villages.

Urban area in India, constituting cities and satellite cities, includes any region with a very high population density of more than 400 persons per square kilometre. It differs from a rural area in terms of infrastructure of built environment. It has more than 75% of its population engaged in non-agricultural activities. The 2011 census projects an accelerated urbanisation with more people migrating into urban areas in search of employment as well as education.

Life in a Rural :-

There are approximately 50,000 villages in India. Far from the hustle and hustle of the cities, villages do have a charm of their own. In most of the villages, the view is scenic and the atmosphere tranquil. The air is pollution free and the environment peaceful. However, living in a village is full of trials and tribulations.

Mostly everything done in villages is manual. Life is difficult and labour intensive.
Most of the villages in India are very remote with some being literally inaccessible due to their locations on high altitudes.
Life in a village is indeed very basic and the conditions primitive, with no infrastructure for water or electricity.
Proper health care services are not available in villages, as a result of which many villagers suffer from conditions like malnutrition and diseases like tuberculosis. As per latest reports, 57 million children are malnourished in India, most of whom reside in villages.
The practice of landlordship, where land is owned by a few rich people, has resulted in increase in the poverty in the villages, with the rich landlords getting richer by exploiting poor villagers.
The caste system is still very much prevalent in villages adding on to the woes of the poor.
Education available in villages lacks the infrastructure and good teachers because of which it is not of a good standard.
Education takes a backseat with poverty taking over and thus in spite of laws against child labour, more and more children are sent away to work and earn a living for the family.
The system of dividing the land among the sons during inheritance has resulted in making the plots smaller over a period of time till they are of no use on their own.

Life in a Urban :-

Urban life is a cake walk in comparison to life in a village. Be it infrastructure, facilities like water, electricity and sanitation, urban areas are well equipped and life in a city is more comfortable in spite of the growing pollution. A city life constitutes the following amenities:

All kinds of facilities which make life more comfortable and easier are available in cities.
Education is of good quality and thus more people from urban areas are better qualified, giving them the competitive edge to land the best jobs.
The development in urban areas allows for more job opportunities and everyone gets paid for whatever effort they put in. When compared to the efforts of farmers being capitalised on landlords, city life is any day better.
There is no caste system or discrimination and thus everyone stands an equal chance to do well in whatever field they opt for.
Medical facilities are of excellent quality with some government run hospitals providing free treatment to people belonging to economically backward classes.

In speaking of China's rural economic stagnation and widespread poverty among peasants, there will be some people who make excuses again. They will say that it is due to small production, low quality of the people, and shortage of land, etc. These excuses are all nonsense using truth to deceive. The favourite counter-example by these people is the United States: open fields, advanced technology including farmers with Ph.D.'s, etc. Indeed, these elements are all true.

But China also has broad land, and once the United States also depended on small-scale farming. Why doesn't China have large-scale operations? It is due to the land policy. The Chinese Communist Party has always insisted on its public ownership of land from its early days. Some people think that this insistence is due to ideological reasons. But why can almost all other things be privatized, except land? If we pay attention on the princelings who got rich by granting land and doing demolition, we have the answers.

That people hate these "princelings" so much is not due to ideology, but due to all kinds of unreasonable profits and atrocities incurred. The adult Chinese with more experience know that the Chinese people's traditional concepts are still influential, thus they would go with the concept that "the hero's sons are heroes", and the emperor's son shall be an emperor. So usually, the Chinese people have more tolerant attitudes toward the official's children becoming the new officials. However, when people's vital interests and security are violated, it is another matter. fact that China's land ownership is unclear has created the opportunity for corruptive officials to make quick profits from it. The side effect is that annexation of land are blocked and is always in small scale. There is very little income from the land. The young peasants naturally tend to give up farming and migrate to the cities to be workers. The probability to realize advanced technology on a small piece of land is also greatly reduced. Coupled with authoritarian corruption, the space for rural economic development is reduced, thus producing rural poverty.

So, to solve the bottleneck problem of rural economic development in China, the first thing that needs to be solved is the communist dictatorship at the grassroots level. Not only must we tackle corruption, more importantly we must liberate the peasants, and give them back the freedom they traditional had. The second important issue is to privatize land. Land privatization is not only conducive to the annexation of land for development of large-scale agriculture; in fact, even on small pieces of land, modern agriculture can be developed. The agriculture in Japan, Taiwan and Europe is carried out on small parcels of land with great efficiency.