Contemporary China’s Rural Landownership with Reference to Antony M. Honoré’s Concept of Ownership

Abstract:

This article analyses the property rights that Chinese peasants have under the present Household Responsibility System (HRS) using Antony M. Honoré’s work on ownership, especially his analysis of eleven standard incidents of the full liberal concept of ownership. It confirms Honoré’s insight that these standard incidents can be divided among two or more persons, and thus there are different types of property rights which are variants and alternatives to the liberal type of property rights. This article also confirms that the Chinese land system is a real alternative to the full liberal concept of ownership. The current Chinese land system is alleged to be “unclear and insecure” because it is not the kind of private ownership that neoliberals champion. In the tradition of the “bundle of rights” theory, it is helpful to use Honoré’s concept of ownership, rather than Harold Demsetz’s type of property rights, to understand the current Chinese system.

Keywords::

• eleven ingredients of ownership
• Household Responsibility System
• split ownership

JEL Classification Codes::

• E60
• P260
• O130
• Q120
• Q180

Notes

¹ It was probably coined by William Forster Lloyd and later used by Garrett Hardin. As David Harvey (2012, 68) observes, it has been used to justify the privatization of land.

² This is still true today, just as they wrote twenty-two years ago.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gaofeng Meng

Gaofeng Meng is a doctoral student in the School of Law at the University of Glasgow. The author is grateful for useful and insightful comments from Christopher Brown, the JEI editor, and one anonymous referee. The idea for this article was inspired by Paddy Ireland. An early draft of the article was presented at Tilburg University’s School of Law (Netherlands) in April 2014, and then at Glasgow University’s School of Law (Scotland). Emilios Christodoulidis and H.K. Lindahl’s detailed guidance is highly appreciated. The author is also indebted to David McLellan for all his help, as well as to Pauline Walters, Brain Kelly, Mr. and Mrs. de Groot, Timothy Noel Peacock, Su Bian, Jose Manuel Fernandez, Sindhyar Talpur, and Taric Olcay for their helpful advice and comments. He highly appreciates Fatme Myuhtar-May’s proof-reading.