新书：倪志宏《产权之上的权力：中共土改的政治经济学》

Power over Property：

The Political Economy of Communist Land Reform in China

作者：倪志宏（Matthew Noellert）

出版社：密歇根大学出版社

出版时间：2020年12月

页码：358

本书简介

Following the end of World War II in 1945, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spent the next three decades carrying out agrarian reform among nearly one-third of the world’s peasants. This book presents a new perspective on the first step of this reform, when the CCP helped redistribute over 40 million hectares of land to over three hundred million impoverished peasants in the nationwide land reform movement. This land reform, the founding myth of the People’s Republic of China (1949–present) and one of the largest redistributions of wealth and power in history, embodies the idea that an equal distribution of property will lead to social and political equality.

Power Over Property argues that in practice, however, the opposite occurred: the redistribution of political power led to a more equal distribution of property. China’s land reform was accomplished not only through the state’s power to define the distribution of resources, but also through village communities prioritizing political entitlements above property rights. Through the systematic analysis of never-before studied micro-level data on practices of land reform in over five hundred villages, Power Over Property demonstrates how land reform primarily involved the removal of former power holders, the mobilization of mass political participation, and the creation of a new social-political hierarchy. Only after accomplishing all of this was it possible to redistribute land. This redistribution, moreover, was determined by political relations to a new structure of power, not just economic relations to the means of production.

The experience of China’s land reform complicates our understanding of the relations between economic, social, and political equality. On the one hand, social equality in China was achieved through political, not economic means. On the other hand, the fundamental solution was a more effective hierarchy of fair entitlements, not equal rights. This book ultimately suggests that focusing on economic equality alone may obscure more important social and political dynamics in the development of the modern world.

作者简介

倪志宏(Matthew Noellert)，1985年生，美国密歇根州人，2006年密歇根大学学士，2008年密歇根大学硕士，2014年香港科技大学人文博士毕业，师从李中清（James Lee）教授，现任一桥大学经济史准教授。近期著有《大背景下的农村社会——1935-1966年道备村社会经济构成初探》《中国东北土地改革与地方政府: 以 1947-1949 年的黑龙江省双城县为例》，其研究着重探索20世纪中国农村从小农经济到集体农场的大转型，及其与全球工业化、现代化的关系。利用华北、东北的土地改革、集体化的基层档案资料，建立了多种量化历史数据库，并以此分析大量家庭、个人在革命时代的行为。独著 Power over Property: The Political Economy of Communist Land Reform in China 着重分析东北老区五百多村庄土地改革的历史数据所建立的中国农村革命数据库——土改 (CRRD-LR)。自2014年起，与山西大学中国社会史研究中心合作，整理并建立山西省境内两百多生产队四清运动的《阶级成份登记表》的历史数据库，并开始从基层视角上探讨40年代末土改到60年代文革前夜期间社会经济与不平等的历史变迁。至2019年为止此数据库已扩大到四个省两万多户的中国农村革命数据库——四清 (CRRD-SQ). 2020年四月在 Research in Social Stratification and Mobility期刊发表利用CRRD-SQ数据的合著论文。2006年在密歇根大学中国研究中心读硕士的时候认识李中清教授，2007年暑假在北京大学-密歇根大学学院开始与李老师进一步交流，随后参加李康研究小组。2008年硕士毕业后到日本农村打工度假，2009年决定跟随李老师來到香港科技大学攻读博士。攻读博士期间，将本来对农业的兴趣与研究小组的经验结合，到东北研究近现代历史，并发现了县档案馆保存的大量关于土改的档案。在研究小组的帮助下，进行了上文所述的土改、集体化量化历史数据库建设与分析。