Chapter 42 Chapter Nine: Dare to Ask Where the Way Is—2 Behind the Splendor and Abundance

Anhui is a large agricultural province, as well as a large province of labor resources.In 2000, when the central government deployed Anhui Province to start a pilot reform of rural taxes and fees, there were more than 10 million rural surplus laborers in the province, accounting for 40 percent of the total rural labor force.It is certain that this proportion will further expand as the intensity of rural industrial restructuring increases. How to develop the resources of rural labor force and promote the transfer of rural surplus labor force is not only the proper meaning of reducing the burden on farmers, but also the realization of agricultural modernization, a major strategic issue related to China's modernization.Because of China's modernization process, farmers cannot be left behind; without the modernization of farmers, there will be no modernization of China.

Farming has experienced operating losses, and the burden of farmers has further reduced the efficiency of farming. The farm model of one farmer with only a small amount of land is losing its appeal to farmers; the huge gap between urban and rural areas has made many farmers regard generations as generations. The land, which is life, is regarded as a kind of "burden". Therefore, an astonishingly large army of farmers left their hometowns, broke through all kinds of man-made iron walls and copper walls, and poured into cities all over China. Walked into the city, but most of them can only parasitize under the eaves of the city.The city's warm network of "subsistence allowances", "medical insurance", housing subsidies, and various social benefits still keeps them out.

The insurmountable household registration system destined them to only become "migratory birds" in the city. According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, my country's inter-provincial floating population has exceeded 120 million people.Among these inter-provincial floating populations, those from the six provinces of Sichuan, Anhui, Hunan, Jiangxi, Henan, and Hubei accounted for 59.3% of the national inter-provincial floating population, more than half of the total.The population outflow from Anhui ranks second in the country. There are more than 27 million rural laborers in Anhui, of which more than 7 million are working in other places.Among the more than 7 million migrant workers, there are more than 1.25 million in Shanghai alone, accounting for one-third of the migrant workers in Shanghai.And these are just official statistics. In fact, a large number of Anhui migrant workers have established themselves in Shanghai and brought their wives and children to Shanghai. The actual number of Anhui migrant workers in Shanghai is far more than two million. .In this metropolis in eastern China, as long as there is a place that can accommodate migrant workers, the shadow of the "Anhui Army" will definitely be found.

The more than 7 million Anhui farmers who go out to work have created a GDP for other places. If calculated at 50,000 yuan per person per year, the total value is 300 billion yuan, which is almost equivalent to the annual GDP of Anhui Province. , Anhui migrant workers who go out to work create a "floating Anhui" outside Anhui every year; and the salary income they get from working, remitted to their hometowns every year, at least about 30 billion yuan, which is obviously high. In other words, these Anhui farmers who work outside create a "floating Anhui" outside every year, and at the same time create a "returning Anhui"!

In the remote villages we visited, we often found a few buildings that stand out from the crowd among dilapidated and old farmhouses.These buildings, no need to ask, their owners are either privileged rural cadres or families with migrant workers. If Anhui wants to realize the leap from a large agricultural province to a strong agricultural province, it must pay attention to and make good use of this army of migrant workers entering the city.In fact, Anhui Province started earlier in the transfer of rural surplus labor. With the continuous deepening of tax and fee reforms, the provincial party committee and the provincial government have successively issued many related documents, vigorously commending the "farmers" who have "traveled everywhere". Entrepreneurship Star".The Provincial Agricultural Committee, Provincial Labor and Social Security Department, Provincial Civil Affairs Department, Provincial Public Security Department, Provincial Communications Department and Provincial Construction Department have also done a lot of work for this.

In the early 1960s, when scholars from European and American countries gathered in Hakone, Japan, to systematically and earnestly discuss issues related to modernization, China was trapped in a famine caused by natural and man-made disasters, and then another catastrophe broke out. The "Cultural Revolution" lasted for ten years.Therefore, when we began to carry out a reform to achieve modernization, it was not even clear that if China wanted to modernize, especially the modernization of agriculture, the agricultural population must first be greatly reduced. An irreversible historical trend in today's China.

In the United States, the most economically developed country in the world, the agricultural population only accounts for 7% of the country's total population; Japan's economic development after the Meiji Restoration is the fastest in history, which is precisely the reason why its agricultural population has increased from 7% of the total population. my country's Taiwan Province is no exception. Its rapid development also occurred when the agricultural population decreased from 80% to 15% of the total population. this period. China currently has a population of 1.3 billion, of which the agricultural population accounts for 900 million. Among them, the working-age population accounts for more than 500 million. Township enterprises only solve tens of millions, and agricultural production only needs more than 100 million. There are still 300 to 400 million Surplus labor is waiting to flow out.

Therefore, it can be said that only when a large number of farmers come out of the land and become citizens can China's modernization have hope.However, today's Chinese cities are unlikely to be places of love for the hundreds of millions of migrant workers.What most of them enjoy is just a wandering life and lost emotion.It is impossible for them to truly "sit on an equal footing with the people in the city". Some people take advantage of the powers granted by the government to eat, take, block, and demand from them. Many people work overtime without overtime pay; labor that is harmful to health or even life-threatening has no minimum labor protection facilities, and many people are often deceived, and they do not get paid for their work; moreover, they are injured, sick, or disabled due to work. Just being kicked out of the house and harrowingly reduced to beggars, prostitutes, drug dealers and criminals...

Sociological research expert Li Qiang and other surveys found that in 2002 alone, about one out of every four migrant workers in Beijing did not receive wages or were owed wages; due to various reasons, 3 percent 16.3 of the migrant workers have experienced poverty; 60% of the migrant workers work more than 10 hours a day, 1/3 work more than 12 hours, 16% work more than 14 hours; Six out of 10 people have been ill, and 93% of them have not paid a penny for their medical expenses. All of this happened in Beijing, the capital of China! Countless migrant workers from outside have used their sweat and tears to create the splendor and prosperity of each city, but some people in our cities have taught migrant workers everywhere what it means to be rich and not benevolent.Under the same blue sky, the equality, mutual assistance, friendship, respect and humility between people were ruthlessly and completely broken in this way, and there was not even much pity and warmth left for them.

We have come to the 21st century, bathed in the fresh sun of the new century, but we are still troubled and shocked by such news: the per capita net income of farmers continues to decline, and the phenomenon of uneven national income has become become more and more prominent.Lu Zhiqiang, deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, pointed out bitterly that China has entered a country with very unequal residents' income; the public has become dissatisfied with the status quo of income distribution, and more than 70% of people believe that the "disparity between rich and poor" has affected the social stability.

In today's China, almost no one who is capable is willing to stay in the countryside.The quick-witted ones entered the city through the entrance examination, and those with some connections also flocked to the city through recruiting, visiting relatives, or working part-time.Why did township enterprises flourish in the 1980s?The main reason is that a group of talents was accumulated in the countryside at that time.However, since then, the rural talents have been outflowing continuously, the human resources of township enterprises are unsustainable, and the creative spirit and entrepreneurial resources are poor and exhausted. This is undoubtedly an important reason for the lack of stamina of township enterprises in recent years. The difference between urban and rural areas makes a country's wealth resources highly concentrated in cities. Wealth resources include not only human resources, but also physical resources.Therefore, it is not only the outstanding talents in the countryside that flow away with the talents, but also a lot of money.According to the figures we have, in the ten years from 1985 to 1994, the cumulative net outflow of funds from rural areas was as high as 305.7 billion yuan, an average of more than 30 billion yuan per year! It is reported that the Ministry of Public Security began drafting the "Household Registration Law" as early as 1985 in order to completely bridge the unequal gap between urban and rural people.However, 18 long years have passed, and the "Household Registration Law", which Chinese farmers have longed for, has not yet been promulgated.The main reason is that there is too much resistance from various government departments. The abolition of the dual structure of agricultural household registration and non-agricultural population has been almost unanimously opposed by all government departments. It seems unbelievable, but in the final analysis, we have many government departments that cling to the many departmental interests and traditional privileges that have been obtained in the era of planned economy. What is disturbing is that, as the pressure on urban laid-off workers to re-employ is increasing, cities around the world have generally adopted the method of "vacating cages and changing birds", either dismissing migrant workers, or using migrant workers for a limited time, and even increasing restrictions on the use of non-local workers Due to the wide range of industries and occupations, the number of migrant workers who cannot find work and return to their hometowns increases year by year.This is a huge agricultural unemployed group that is not included in our statistics today. The number of this group greatly exceeds the number of urban unemployed and laid-off workers! As long as the agricultural social security is not resolved, and there is no new system to arrange for the life, old age, sickness and death of the farmers who are still in the countryside, the farmers can only rely on the already very limited land.Although this dependence is very passive and helpless, we can say that if agriculture in China is still the main source of income for most farmers today, the disparity between urban and rural areas and between regions will inevitably be eliminated. If the output of the city cannot be accepted by the rural market, the overall surplus of our commodities and deflation will come uninvited; if the countryside is excluded from the process of modernization for a long time, it is very likely that the younger generation will Peasants have become a source of instability in an active society, thereby exacerbating the danger of urban-rural rupture, and the resulting shocks and shocks will definitely be catastrophic!