Mutual Aid Groups: From Civilian Behavior to Governmental Organization

Mutual aid groups are collective labor organizations with socialist embryonic characteristics organized by Chinese laboring farmers on the basis of individual economies. They have evolved from traditional unorganized, institutionless civilian behavior to organized behavior under government guidance, seeking the micromechanism of this transformation process. The motivations for farmers to join mutual aid groups are divided into three categories: existing labor exchange traditions, poverty, and state mobilization. When dividing the boundaries of these three types of groups, they generally coincide with kinship, geographical proximity, and administrative order. This results in different performances, organizational compactness, and collective action capabilities within mutual aid groups. Even the same mutual aid mechanism can produce completely different effects on different types of mutual aid groups. Yi village’s case study shows that only state-led mutual aid organizations effectively absorb local traditional culture to build their own connection mechanisms, thereby allowing not only the state institutional framework and traditional civilian mutual aid habits to play a role together but also mutual aid groups to achieve the greatest performance.