First of all, to clarify the core point, lest someone distort my original intention and talk nonsense about my support for the restoration of agricultural taxes.
The abolition of agricultural taxes is already a historical process, and there is no turning back from the bow, and we have to bear the consequences if we go the way we go.
From the perspective of the peasants at the bottom, removing the agricultural tax can avoid a lot of flies and dogs from increasing the burden of taxes and fees in disguise, and looting the people's fat and ointment, which is beyond doubt.
Let's not mention foreign countries, let's just say that in ancient China, during the Ming and Qing dynasties when the feudal dynasty was at its peak, the state's control over the grassroots still depended on the gentry and landlords, and the old township party clans.
The essence of our thousands of years of civilization is the golden mean, and many simple-minded people with dualism always have a one-sided understanding of mediocrity and inaction.
Taxation is actually a kind of control over the grassroots, ancient is the imperial power, modern is the rule of law, can be exempted as appropriate, or engage in transfer payments, agricultural subsidies, but if the grassroots tax problem is canceled, in essence, it is the loss of part of the control, of course, there are other aspects of this control in modern society, but the tax problem is the most intuitive.
In ancient China, the embodiment of the ruling power is the Ding tax and the field tax, the poll tax and the land tax, under the modern system, these two actually no longer exist, after the country develops industry, but also feeds the agricultural population, so there is an agricultural subsidy, but it is always blindly given, for a long time is to fight Mien to promote rice hatred, if the wartime system under the forced requisition of grain, how to ensure the stability of the rural grassroots order will be a big topic.
Although the urban population has no land in its name, it has actually been taxed in disguise through the commercial housing system, and the poll tax is set according to the income threshold, and urban residents must obey the order of modern society, their food, clothing, housing and transportation are controlled by the modern regime, and if you want to rebel, it is impossible to have no food.
If there were no taxes at all, what kind of state would it be in an agrarian society in ancient China, in fact, the frontier Tusi of the past dynasties is an example. For example, the Tusi system in the Ming and Qing dynasties in Yunnan was evolved from the Tuguan system of the Yuan Dynasty, and before that, these small regimes of border ethnic minorities were free from the actual jurisdiction of the country, after all, the Song Dynasty was still the Dali domain.
Although it is difficult to transport in the border areas, but after the hereditary succession of a Tusi chief, he will always have to pay tribute to the imperial court from time to time in his life, even if the actual amount is not large, but this procedure must be completed.
If the ** dynasty loses control, then these wartime small regimes, to the local economy, society and people's livelihood, are not a small hidden danger, in fact, during the war period, these disobedience to the king's "fetters and subordinates", the Han people's gathering places burning, killing and looting, there are not a few.
With China's current industrial strength, the only thing that can really shake our country's fundamental problem may be the grain problem, China's staple grain self-sufficiency rate is enough, claiming to be 100% self-sufficient, but feed grain, soybeans and corn are still controlled by the Americans, because of this reason, the proportion of wheat and rice rations used for feed grain by our people has also been increasing, resulting in a declining trend in China's ration self-sufficiency rate. The incident of cutting green wheat for feed in 2022 has caused a lot of uproar across the country, and many people have heard of this concept for the first time.
Self-sufficiency in staple food is enough, but people can't just eat staple food, and China's food self-sufficiency rate has increased from 93 in 20006% down to 65 in 20208%, of which the self-sufficiency rate of soybeans is only 17%, the United States launched the ** war in the past few years, many people also understand that the world's soybean producing areas, Brazil, Argentina and the United States, the channels are pinched in the hands of the Americans, and we can't escape from going around.
Even if it is a staple grain, because of the abolition of agricultural taxes, there is still a big hidden danger, China's grain purchase, has gone through several stages:
When New China was first founded, the grain war in Shanghai at that time defeated the profiteers who hoarded and suppressed the grain prices in Shanghai.
Then, in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, in order to deal with various international political crises, we established local grain bureaus and public grain depots, formulated national grain prices, and also started grain requisition work to establish a national grain reserve mechanism. Subsequently, legislation was also enacted to regulate the procurement, distribution and distribution of grain. Generally speaking, the grain trade during this period still belonged to the free purchase and sales market under macroeconomic regulation and control.
In 1953, after the beginning of China's first five-year plan, it entered a new stage, in order to crack down on the manipulation of grain merchants on the market at that time, the grain market officially changed to a period of unified purchase and marketing, after a series of corrections and attempts, the final shape was fixed for grain production, purchase and sales, and a series of balance points were found in encouraging the enthusiasm of growing grain and curbing grain speculation and trading.
Later, after a series of international political games, due to the various economic blockades imposed by the United States and the West, our industrial fertilizer system has not yet been established, and there is a crisis in domestic grain production.
After the reform and opening up in 1978, the unified purchase and marketing began to loosen, in order to improve the grain reserve mechanism, and continued to increase the unified purchase price, which further distorted the inversion of the market mechanism, and in 1985, when the financial could not afford it, we carried out the reform of unified purchase and marketing, and opened the era of the dual-track system.
Under the dual-track system, it is "purchase price + market price", the grain ordered is in parallel with the actual transaction in the market, allowing the state-owned grain department to operate part of the grain according to the market, allowing relevant commercial entities to enter the grain market, and individual farmers to maintain the previous regulations, and after completing the unified procurement standards, the surplus grain can be freely circulated in the market. After the implementation of the dual-track system, many problems have also emerged, but with the development of China's economy, many problems have also been solved in the course of development.
In 1993, the policy of "guaranteeing quantity and reducing prices" was introduced, and this reform allowed most of the grain purchases and sales in many places to be liberalized, but the mechanism for curbing grain prices was still retained.
After China's economic take-off, many of the previous problems have been solved, China's grain trading mechanism has gradually evolved into today's purchase and sale marketization, which has undergone a lot of reforms, because there are too many contents here will not be repeated, including protective price purchase, minimum purchase price, target ** subsidy, market-oriented acquisition plus subsidies, a series of policies and regulations introduced with social development.
The current agricultural policy, which exempts agricultural taxes and allows agricultural subsidies to be granted to the agricultural population, is also unique in China's thousands of years of history, and only today's modern industrialized society can afford such a policy. However, once this road is opened, it will not be difficult to go back to it, and some people have suggested that agricultural subsidies should be increased to cover the amount of additional agricultural taxes.
The starting point is good, but the people will not accept it, human nature is such an absurd thing, just like the famous little story, eat four peaches in the morning and eat three at night, the monkeys are very satisfied, if it is changed to three in the morning and four in the evening, the monkeys are unwilling.
Even if it is repeatedly stated that more will be distributed later, it will definitely dampen the enthusiasm of many people to grow grain, so once the agricultural tax is abolished, it will be quite difficult to add it.
However, without the natural control of the agricultural population in the legal theory of agricultural tax, once there is a big deviation on the issue of grain requisition, it will cause social turmoil and unrest at the grassroots level.
In recent years, the proportion of China's grain market-oriented procurement has reached 90%-99%, and the unified purchasing system has basically become history, in this environment, if farmers are willing to sell grain, they must greatly expand the circulation of existing grain on the market, because this is a paradox of human nature, if the commodity is scarce, the seller of the commodity will be reluctant to sell, and it will spiral If the market supply is unusually abundant, in order to obtain sufficient labor income, the seller has to increase the supply, at this time our grain purchase is in a higher level of dynamic balance between supply and demand.
To put it in layman's terms, twisted melons are not sweet, and the business of begging people to sell on the pole will only become more and more difficult, and the market with abundant commodity circulation will prompt the peasants to take the initiative to increase their efforts to sell grain.
To achieve this, it is not enough to rely on grain imports alone, grain imports can only be used as one of the supplementary means, and if the proportion is too high, it will be subject to the control of the international grain trading market, simply put, the four major grain controls headed by the United States, and the only way is to be self-reliant, develop high-tech agriculture, and cultivate large areas of agriculture, and these need to severely crack down on private land circulation, so that the state can firmly control the land control in its hands.
At present, the people who advocate land circulation and those who engage in the docking of agriculture and finance do not need to explain what evil intentions they harbor, and the author does not want to criticize some specific people, everyone understands it.
The current situation is how to improve the problems of agriculture, rural areas and rural areas under the condition of industrial upgrading, steadily and gradually reduce the agricultural population, and greatly transform the people who move to the countryside and cities into urban workers under the background of high-tech agriculture supported by modern industry, lower the Gini index, and completely move towards developed countries.
This process may be slow, but not extreme, gentle and gentle, but it will not rudely use high welfare to feed the agricultural population more than the urban population, and Chinese civilization has never raised lazy people who have clothes to reach out for food and open their mouths.
I have full confidence in the leadership of the Party, because from its birth to today, its foothold has always been the people.