The Dr. Seaker Chan Center for Comparative Political Development Studies Lecture Series Opening Talk was held in room 104 at Center for American Studies on May 4, 2012. Prof. Xu from Central China Normal University who is also an academic committee member of CCPDS gave a talk on “Never Mistake Foreign as Chinese: A Comparison Between the Village System in the East and Household System”. Prof. Chen Mingming, Director of CCPDS, hosted the lecture.
He pointed out that the individual household system has been the traditional system in the rural areas of China since the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the fundamental system or original tradition of China’s rural society is “household”. But the people’s commune system formed in the socialist transformation in agriculture is a complete rupture from the household tradition; since the reform and opening policy, the development path of household operation as its core has undergone serious challenges. Prof. Xu believed that the household operation system has sustained a long time in China and household units can certainly be inherited. Household units is a conserving organization of agricultural production. Contemporary agricultural production also needs to learn from the household units tradition.
