abstract: 'This paper develops a classification of the emerging agrarian class

  positions in China today. Using an instrument based on rural households''

  combination of market positions in four markets - land, labour, means of

  production and product - I identify five agrarian classes: the

  capitalist employer class, the petty-bourgeois class of commercial

  farmers, two labouring classes of dual-employment households and wage

  workers, and subsistence peasants. This classification is then used as a

  heuristic device to organize the empirical analysis that examines how

  dynamics of agrarian change drive class differentiation in rural China.

  For the capitalist employer class, the analysis focuses on their diverse

  paths of accumulation; for the petty-bourgeois commercial farmers, their

  contingent resilience and tendencies of differentiation; and for the two

  classes of labour, the commodification of their subsistence. The state

  plays important but varying roles in all these processes.'
affiliation: 'Zhang, QF (Corresponding Author), Singapore Management Univ, Sch Social
  Sci, Sociol, 90 Stamford Rd, Singapore 178903, Singapore.

  Singapore Management Univ, Sch Social Sci, Sociol, Singapore 178903, Singapore.'
author: Zhang, Qian Forrest
author-email: forrestzhang@smu.edu.sg
author_list:
- family: Zhang
  given: Qian Forrest
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1111/joac.12120
eissn: 1471-0366
files: []
issn: 1471-0358
journal: JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE
keywords: 'class differentiation; accumulation; commodification; state

  intervention; capitalism; China'
keywords-plus: 'LAND; MARKETS; REFORM; AGRIBUSINESS; INEQUALITY; MIGRATION; EMERGENCE;

  PEASANTS; POLITICS; INCOME'
language: English
month: JUL
number: 3, SI
number-of-cited-references: '64'
orcid-numbers: Zhang, Qian Forrest/0000-0002-5004-6715
pages: 338-365
papis_id: 3652396edfb14f8176b51fdb657c9660
ref: Zhang2015classdifferentiation
researcherid-numbers: Zhang, Qian Forrest/F-9094-2010
times-cited: '71'
title: 'Class Differentiation in Rural China: Dynamics of Accumulation, Commodification
  and State Intervention'
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000355693700003
usage-count-last-180-days: '2'
usage-count-since-2013: '32'
volume: '15'
web-of-science-categories: Development Studies; Economics
year: '2015'