Rise under the Household Responsibility System

Abstract

Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 symbolized the end of the Chinese traditional socialist system, but the Mao-style highly centralized system continued until the end of 1978. In the post-Mao time, what China faced is a highly centralized economy with sole public ownership. Through various campaigns, China eliminated private ownership comprehensively in all fields of its economy and established the sole public ownership system. In its industry, the majority of enterprises were owned by the state with no private enterprise at all. In 1978 the share of state-owned enterprises in national industry output value was 78 percent, the share of urban and rural collective enterprises 22 percent. In the countryside, except for a few private plots, the people’s commune, RCC and SMC controlled completely all farmers and the entire rural economy.