Mao’s Agricultural Reform
In respect to agricultural production, especially within the production of grain, China has had perpetual problems due to the need to feed 20% of the worlds population yet only having 7% of the worlds arable land to do so; a problem which is further intensified as a result of only half that land being suitable for agricultural production (Cannon and Jenkins, 1990).
As the former decision-maker of dominant party –Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Mao Zedong and his fellow radicals believed if domestic resources could be concentrated and utilized more efficiently, they could produce a ‘great leap’ in agriculture in few years. Therefore, in order to achieve the dramatic goal, Mao adopted an extremely radical approach - collectivization of agriculture. Prior to 1978, agriculture within rural China was arranged in a commune system, where a three-tier arrangement had developed - the work-teams being subordinate to the production brigades who in turn were subordinate to the communes. Under this system, land ownership and income control did not lie with the individual householder, instead control was primarily held by the commune (Genghang, 1984).
The flaws in Mao’s policy were gradually detected in practice, including: Poor quality work due to lack of individual responsibility towards the cultivation (Saith, 1987); Problems of pay - people were rewarded unfairly, due to unequal work for equal pay; Low morale, lack of motivation and widespread poverty (Cannon and Jenkins, 1990); Collective agriculture promotes the idea of mass-production which creates a bias towards one-crop farming, namely grain production. Such farming practices are ecologically damaging due to little crop-rotation (Gray, 1983);
These problems caused agricultural output to plummet by 38 percent in 1961 and by a further 16 percent in 1962 (U.S. Library of Congress, 2002).
Evaluation:
Mao’s Agricultural Reform is a representative policy of decision-making with models of rationality. The Rational Actor Model (rationality) emphasises on two preconditions which are intellectual capacities and adequate sources of information, piggybacking these two conditions, decision-maker can reach ideal consequence. For the model of rationality’s limitations, almost decision-makers failed ultimately for they ignoring rational preconditions which they were not possessed in real life (Dunn, 1981). A sample paradigm emerged that Mao Zedong and his fellows give people the serious lesson, which was a shortage of food; overproduction of poor-quality goods; demoralization of the peasantry, and exhaustion.
Firstly, the reform was a failure for Mao’s poor intelligence in the area of economy and his autarchy. Rationalism makes the assumption that the decision-maker can recognise the problem and that the decision-maker's goals, values and objectives are clear and ranked in accord with their importance (Hill, 1997). However, Mao is not an economist and that was not good at accepting counterviews in his old age. Thus, he not only chose an improper route that maximises the attainment of his goals, values and objectives, but also did not supply a degree of "participation in the decision-making process" ( Hill, 1997 ). Like as Simon points out that it is impossible for the behaviour of a single, isolated individual to reach any high degree of rationality. The number of the behaviour of alternatives he must explore is so great and the information he would need to evaluate them so vast that even an approximation to objective rationality is hard to conceive (Simon, 1947).
Secondly, of the amount of new information generated by our environment, our senses filter out 99% before it reaches our consciousness. Given these facts, human behaviour is in most cases restricted to satisfy behaviour. Rationality is thus bounded by the complexity of the world we live in relative to our cognitive abilities. It seems intuitively obvious to the casual observer that rationality is more descriptive of the way people with modest computational abilities make decisions, stay alive, and even thrive 47). The decision-making process of Mao’s Agricultural Reform ignored numbers of important information, which was productivity and finance limited, especially some uncertain elements, such as the withdrawal of Soviet assistance.
Deng’s Agricultural Reform
Comparing with Mao’s failure, another leader of China – Deng Xiaoping achieved extremely successes in agricultural reform from the late of 1970s. Mao’s failure just like a mirror make Deng have awareness clearly that the road of China’s agricultural development will be extremely difficult and uneven for the reality of lower level of productivity and serious inadequate resources of information and technology. Therefore, he pointed out that China’s reform had no any previous experiences as reference, the process of reform should be described as another metaphor that human wants to cross a strange river alone, he has no way but to touch stones step by step. Hence, it will guarantee the person reach opposite bank safely and stably. Even though the person makes some mistakes but remedied easily at once, and in case involving to the situation hardly to be controlled (Genghang, 1984). It means that development of Chinese agriculture will be gradually incremental not rational process based upon the real situation at that time.
One of the initial steps implemented in 1978 was to introduce the production responsibility systems (Saith, 1987). It means to control over production lay within the household. This saw the transfer of the chief units of production from the collective to the household.
In order to encourage efficiency and personal drive, in May 1984, the State Council announced that once the peasant ensured his taxes and quotas were paid, he could dispose of the surplus in any way he pleased, generally at one of the new rural markets that had been introduced by the state as part of the effort to modernise rural China. Through having rural markets, the peasants are encouraged and motivated to increase output as they reaped the benefits; the only stipulations made were the legalities of its disposal (Saith, 1987).
At the same time, one problem envisaged prior to the onset of this new agricultural system, was that once the peasant was in control of the land, he would be in a position to use it to his advantage; furthermore he may refuse to pay taxes or give the state the predetermined quota. In order to alleviate this problem, contracts were drawn up and signed by each peasant household. The contracts presented the output targets for farm produce and they carefully defined the responsibility of the household, the collective unit and the state. Contracts could be transferred to another household as long as the transfer was registered with the production team (Marshall, 1985).
In 1985, new changes were coming into place. They were expanded to allow peasants to determine crop type based on market forces, and the quotas set were abolished (Saith, 1987).
Deng’s reform achieved remarkable results in increasing supplies of food and other farm produces. The gross value of agricultural production has increased dramatically especially in the initial years, where between 1978 and 1983 there was an average annual growth of 16.2% (U.S. Library of Congress, 2002).
Evaluation:
Incrementalism is a continuous, exploratory process and the policy makers tend to operate within an existing framework and adjust their position in light of any feedback. Lindblom thought ‘The Science of Muddling Through’ which emphasises upon that this method avoids ‘big jumps’ in policy where consequences are beyond the policy-maker’s capacity to predict, and permits the corrections of past errors more quickly (Lindblom, 1959). Deng’s Agricultural Reform illustrates clearly the issues mentioned above.
Firstly, the process of Deng’s reform was step by step and exploratory, especially in the decision-making process of contracts policy. Initially the contracts formed were on a short term basis, but by 1984, they were increased to a minimum of 15 years so as to ensure long term implementation (Marshall, 1985). In addition, under the impetus of Deng’s thinking, almost all of new measures were first introduced experimentally in a few localities and then were popularized and disseminated nationally if they proved successful (U.S. Library of Congress, 2002). This ensured the policies of Deng’s Agricultural Reform were adjusted in time in light of feedback.
Secondly, Deng’s strongest opinion was that the purpose of the reform program was not to abandon communism but to make it work better by substantially increasing the role of market mechanisms in the system and by reducing - not eliminating - government planning and direct control. Just like as Lindloom said that the incremental approach is conservative in that existing policies, programs and expenditure are considered and attention is concentrated on new policies and on increases, decreases or modifications of established programs. Perhaps this suggests that they do not totally remake policy every time they make a 'policy-decision', but in its place modernise existing policy. Therefore, the question for decision-makers possibly would be "what steps can be taken in the general direction" rather than "what are the particular steps that are the best means to a specific objective" (Lindloom, 1979 ).
Conclusion
According to analysing the policy of decision-making in China, we can conclude that decision-making is absolutely worthy to be considered in the whole policy process for different decisions leading to different consequences.
Indeed there is no completely correct answer to the question – which method produces better decision. Theoretically, rationality and incrementalism are acceptable and feasible if decision-makers possess adequate wits and resources to meet preconditions. In real life, making perfect decision in policy process is really difficult to any policymakers for their distinct personalities and other complicated situations including internal and external elements. However, whichever approach is used, certain pitfalls need to be avoided. These include: avoiding misplaced priorities due to unclear goals; avoiding confusing the public interest with that of the special interest or constituency; avoiding overly rigid adherence to rules; the oversimplification of reality; the over-quantification at the expense of qualitative factors; and, the reluctance to engage in policy and program evaluation and feedback (Dunn, 1981).
Therefore, policymakers should be flexible to take advantages of the methods above in the process of decision-making according to the particular circumstances, in case of dropping into pitfalls unconsciously (Bachrach, 1963).
References
-
Sabatier, P. (1991) Towards Better Theories of the Policy Process, Political Science and Politics, Volume 24, Issue 2, pp 147 – 156.
-
Dunn, W. N. (1981) Public Policy Analysis: An Introduction, London: Prentice – Hall International, Inc.
-
Hill, M. (1997) The Policy Process in the Modern State, 3rd Ed., Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf.
-
Hill, M. (1997) The Policy Process: A Reader, 2nd Ed., Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf.
-
Cannon, T. and Jenkins, A. (eds) (1990) The Geography of Contemporary China; Routledge.
-
Genghang et al (translated) (1984) China Handbook Series - Economy; Beijing, Foreign Languge Press.
-
Saith, A. (eds) (1987) The Re-emergence of the Chinese Peasantry; London, Croom Helm.
-
Gray, J. (eds) (1983) China's New Agricultural Revolution, London, Croom Helm Ltd.
-
U.S. Library of Congress, (2002) China – The Great Leap Forward, 1958 – 1960.htm, [online]. Available from: [Accessed 1 December 2003].
-
U.S. Library of Congress, (2002) China – Reform of the Economic System, 1979.htm, [online]. Available from: [Accessed 1 December 2003].
-
Simon, H. A. (1947) Administrative Behaviour, 1st Ed. London: Macmillan.
- Marshall, M. (1985) Organisation and Growth in Rural China; Macmillan Press Ltd.
-
Lindblom, C. E. (1959) The science of muddling through, Public Administration Review, Volume 39, 79-88
-
Lindblom, C. E. (1979) Still muddling - not yet through, Public Administration Review, Volume 19, 517-26.
-
Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M. (1963), Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework, The American Political Science Review, Volume 57, pp 632-642