Chapter 6 "Gemini"

In this process of social change that can be described as "great", township enterprises and professional markets are a pair of "Gemini constellations" that reflect each other.In the words of farmers in Zhejiang, it is "one car, two wheels".The car is to develop a modern commodity economy, and the wheels are township enterprises and professional markets.These are two great creations and two historic achievements of farmers in the first reform of China's rural areas. It is most appropriate to describe the township and village enterprises in the start-up period as "every village is lit, and every household smokes".

Since the end of the 1970s, with the promotion of the joint production contract responsibility system, rural productivity has been released on an unprecedented scale, and a large amount of surplus labor has been separated from the land.Especially in the southeast coastal area where there is little land and a lot of people, thousands of farmers stand barefoot on the edge of the field ridges, starting from there, they start to weave their own industrial dreams. As a result, countless agricultural machinery factories, blacksmith shops, and clothing workshops sprung up like mushrooms after rain.Around 1982, the production of small commodities in the eastern rural areas was in full swing.

The products of township enterprises are first dumped into impoverished rural areas and small and medium-sized cities that are also underdeveloped at a cost that is almost negligible in rural China—human costs. product characteristics at that time. Soon after, the first professional markets appeared.Like township enterprises, they are "wild children" outside the traditional planning system, and they are also outside the orthodox state-owned industrial and commercial system. The reason why this pair of "Gemini constellations" who share weal and woe can become the most brilliant scenery in the starry sky of China's reform after the 1980s is closely related to the national conditions at that time.On the one hand, there are social needs, especially the extreme expansion of rural consumption capacity; on the other hand, the weakening of urban radiation; on the one hand, there is a huge gap in economic development between regions; on the other hand, the relatively sound long-distance transportation network; On the one hand, the relative occlusion of information, and on the other hand, the priority profits obtained by some pioneers... It is these various aspects and aspects that enable those farmers who are the first to awaken to obtain a large world to gallop freely.

By the mid-to-late 1980s, the maturity of modern industrial technology provided another huge opportunity for township enterprises that had partially completed their primitive accumulation.They were able to rapidly improve their equipment and improve the quality of their products. In the vast Chinese market, their market share rose exponentially. In the coastal provinces, the economic equivalent of township enterprises has further expanded.They account for more than 50% of the province's total economic output, and in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong and other provinces, "four out of every five" can be called "an unprecedented situation in history." .

Accompanying it, the grade and structure of commodities in the professional market have undergone a fundamental upgrade, and a super-large wholesale market for industrial products has emerged.Their annual trading volume often accounts for more than 10% of the national trading volume of similar products, and this ratio can even affect the price fluctuations in the national market. In Zhejiang Province, hundreds of billions of township enterprise products are sold through professional market channels, and there are at least 3 million rural population in the province looking for their own opportunities in various links of the market.

Based on the calculation of the transfer of 500 agricultural population in a specialized market, at least 2.5 million people have been transferred from the 5,000 markets in Zhejiang Province.If factories are to be used to absorb these labors, at least 25 large iron and steel factories such as Baosteel should be built.If a city is to be built to accommodate these people, at least two new cities of Hangzhou must be built. Obviously, this is a string of data that makes "the city" and "the people in the city" feel unbelievable. Gradually, more and more state-owned enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises appeared in the professional market.People in the city rushed to the specialized markets in the countryside to shop, and farmers and merchants went to the cities to set up markets, and the original dual structure of urban and rural areas underwent unprecedented shocks.

With the expansion of international circulation, the supply radius of the professional market has even surpassed national borders and extended to other developing countries and even developed countries. Then, these market locations will sprout a trend of primary urbanization. This is the earth-shaking wave of rural reform that took place in some coastal provinces of China throughout the 1980s to the mid-1990s. During these unforgettable years, Chinese peasants once again let the term "peasant", which has been underestimated for a long time, glow with compelling brilliance. Now, it is known as "the development model of rural economy with the most Chinese characteristics in the international economy in this century".

Among the provinces in the country, Zhejiang Province has become a model in this development model with the most developed professional market network and huge township industrial system. Around 1980, Harrison traveled to 23 countries to write "The Third World" for the factory.He even went to the little-known Burkina Faso and Singapore, which is no longer the third world. However, he missed one of the largest developing countries in the world, China, during his flight plan.At that time, an exciting local revolution was in the ascendant in this ancient oriental country. Paul Harrison should really feel sorry for himself.

What he left out was perhaps the best chapter. He should really come to China, shake hands with Chinese peasants, and talk about family life—if he had been to the rural areas of Zhejiang, he might have felt that his trip was worthwhile.