---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Monthly Review Press <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 5:08 PM Subject: New! "From Commune to Capitalism: How China’s Peasants Lost Collective Farming & Gained Urban Poverty" To: [email protected] New from Monthly Review Press: From Commune to Capitalism Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser <https://mailchi.mp/monthlyreview/new-from-commune-to-capitalism-how-chinas-peasants-lost-collective-farming-gained-urban-poverty?e=960ad42244>. *new from Monthly Review Press*

From Commune to Capitalism <https://monthlyreview.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=047e6cfc64&e=960ad42244> *How China’s Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty*

*by Zhun Xu* “Zhun Xu’s careful analysis debunks the conventional wisdom about the supposed failure of agricultural collectives in China. Xu’s reassessment of the path of agrarian change in China since 1949, which relies on interviews with peasants as well as statistical analysis, provides a fascinating window into the successes and the problems of collective farming in China.” —*David M. Kotz*, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst; author, *The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism* In the early 1980s, China undertook a massive reform that dismantled its socialist rural collectives and divided the land among millions of small peasant families. Known as the decollectivization campaign, it is one of the most significant reforms in China’s transition to a market economy.

From the beginning, the official Chinese accounts, and many academic writings, uncritically portray this campaign as a huge success, both for the peasants and the economy as a whole. This mainstream history argues that the rural communes, suffering from inefficiency, greatly improved agricultural productivity under the decollectivization reform. It also describes how the peasants, due to their dissatisfaction with the rural regime, spontaneously organized and collectively dismantled the collective system.

A closer examination suggests a much different and more nuanced story. By combining historical archives, field work, and critical statistical examinations, *From Commune to Capitalism* argues that the decollectivization campaign was neither a bottom-up, spontaneous peasant movement, nor necessarily efficiency-improving. On the contrary, the reform was mainly a top-down, coercive campaign. Decollectivization was, indeed, a huge success, although far from the sort suggested by mainstream accounts. <https://monthlyreview.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=1880bf23e3&e=960ad42244> 154 pages | $25 pbk *order online here* <https://monthlyreview.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=95e0b815a9&e=960ad42244> ​ ------------------------------ *Zhun Xu* is Assistant Professor of Economics at Howard University. His research interests include political economy, social development, and the Chinese economy. His recent publications appear in *American Journal of Public Healt*h, *Journal of Agrarian Change*, *World Development*, and *Review of Radical Political Economics*. follow on twitter <https://www.twitter.com/monthly_review/> | facebook <https://monthlyreview.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=af7e7435c8&e=960ad42244> | forward to a friend <http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=8c8b2fdcfa&e=960ad42244> *Copyright © 2018 Monthly Review, All rights reserved.* [image: Monthly Review logo] <https://monthlyreview.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=dca1ec7c32&e=960ad42244> You are receiving this email either because you subscribed at monthlyreview.org, mronline.org, or made a purchase from Monthly Review Press (e.g., a book or Monthly Review magazine subscription). We send no more than one or two messages a month about new book releases and specials. You can opt out from mailings at any time. *Our mailing address is:* Monthly Review 134 W 29TH ST <https://maps.google.com/?q=134+W+29TH+ST+STE+706+New+York+,++NY+10001&entry=gmail&source=g> STE 706 <https://maps.google.com/?q=134+W+29TH+ST+STE+706+New+York+,++NY+10001&entry=gmail&source=g> New York <https://maps.google.com/?q=134+W+29TH+ST+STE+706+New+York+,++NY+10001&entry=gmail&source=g>, <https://maps.google.com/?q=134+W+29TH+ST+STE+706+New+York+,++NY+10001&entry=gmail&source=g> NY <https://maps.google.com/?q=134+W+29TH+ST+STE+706+New+York+,++NY+10001&entry=gmail&source=g> 10001 <https://maps.google.com/?q=134+W+29TH+ST+STE+706+New+York+,++NY+10001&entry=gmail&source=g> Add us to your address book <//monthlyreview.us2.list-manage.com/vcard?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=4f879628ac> unsubscribe from this list <https://monthlyreview.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=4f879628ac&e=960ad42244&c=8c8b2fdcfa> | update subscription preferences <https://monthlyreview.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=4f879628ac&e=960ad42244> -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens