Unified Purchase and Sale: Nationalization of Agricultural Product Resource

Unified purchases and sales (tǒng gòu tǒng xiāo) comprised an important economic system used during the planned economy period in our country. On the one hand, the state replaced the market in allocating agricultural product resources through the nationalization of the social production process of agricultural products for the needs of social stability and economic construction. On the other hand, it “deprived” rural economic resources forcibly to ensure supply to cities. At the same time, the system also served as a tool of social control. The state not only extended state power vertically from the central, provincial, and county levels directly to townships, teams, groups, and even rural households through the unified purchase and sale system but also extended power horizontally to the production, distribution, exchange, circulation, and consumption areas of society, completely controlling the entire process of social production of agricultural products. Undeniably, this system played an important historical role in maintaining social stability and promoting the development of heavy industry at that time; however, it also had a significant impact on socioeconomic development, especially agricultural development and farmers’ lives. With the development of productive forces, the drawbacks of the unified purchase and sale system restricting economic development became increasingly exposed. Under the influence of the strong development demands of grassroots society and the strong economic development trend, the state eventually had to cancel the unified purchase and sale system and change its method of intervening in the supply and demand of agricultural product resources, mainly through market allocation, which was supplemented by state regulation.