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“Reform and opening” started from the top with the seminal leadership transition from Mao to Deng. Deng Xiaoping heralded China’s boom in late 1978 when he called for experiments with “economic democracy” and “emancipation” from orthodox ideas. But the boom was not simply a top-down, state-orchestrated phenomenon. In fact, the biggest contribution of the state, especially in the first phase of growth, was to get out of the way. Farmers were liberated from collectives, sparking a wildfire of capitalism in the countryside. Urban markets and industry were freed to “grow out of the plan,” making profits on surplus production and creating powerful incentives for rapid growth.

For 800 Million People, It Was a Huge Bang

Period: Emancipation (1978-84)

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  • Reform Was Accompanied by an Open Door Policy

    Jin Canrong

  • Deng Xiaoping Was Modern China's First Modernizer

    Xu Xiaonian

  • Phasing Out The Planned Economy

    Barry Naughton

  • Chinese Were Enthusiastic About The New Beginning

    Yoichi Funabashi

  • If We Don't Do Anything, This Country is Ruined

    Philip P. Pan

  • Economics Was a Minor Aspect of Opening in 70s

    Winston Lord

  • Deng's Visit to The US Resulted in Capitalism

    Mao Yushi

  • The Resurgent Elite Legitimized Deng's Government

    Michael Anti

  • China's Development in Three Periods

    Li Cheng

  • The Legacy of Property Provides Stability

    Fan Jianchuan

  • Eating from One Rice Bowl

    Zhong Taiyin

  • Factory Managers Did Not Understand Business

    Thomas Rawski

  • Playing to The Provinces

    Susan Shirk

  • For 800 Million People, It Was a Huge Bang

    Deborah Davis

  • Beijing Back Then Was Like Pyongyang

    Carl E. Walter

  • The Birth of Private Workers, The Death of People’s Communes

    Bao Yujun

  • One Child Policy Stimulated Growth

    Michael Pettis

  • People Who Fall Behind Will Be Beaten

    Cai Guoqiang

  • Deng Understood That the World Had Changed

    Wu Jianmin

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Meettheexpert

Deborah Davis

Professor of Sociology, Yale University

Deborah S. Davis (Ph.D. Boston University, 1979) is a Professor of Sociology at Yale University. Her primary teaching interests are historical and comparative sociology, inequality and stratification, contemporary Chinese society, and methods of fieldwork. Davis is currently a member of the National Committee on US China Relations and in 2004 helped launch the Yale China Health Journal. At Yale she has served as Director of Academic Programs at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Chair of the Department of Sociology, Chair of the Council of East Asian Studies, Director of Graduate Studies in both East Asian Studies and Sociology, Member of the Publications Committee for Yale Press, co-chair of the Women’s Faculty Forum and Member of the Tenure Appointments Committee for the Social Sciences. Past publications have analyzed the politics of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese family life, social welfare policy, consumer culture, property rights, social stratification and occupational mobility. In 2008 Stanford University Press will publish Creating Wealth and Poverty in Post-Socialist China, co-edited with Wang Feng. Currently she is completing a monograph entitled A Home of Their Own, a study of the social consequences of the privatization of real estate in urban China.

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I don't have all the figures in my head but, of course, people are factory owners and shop owners, China is a private economy. In fact, it has a higher level of private ownership than most European countries, it's not that much lower than the United States, rather, quite comparable. So, yes. It's a capitalist China. And they got there, I wouldn't say gradually, but over time. It happened in different places and in different dimensions, let's say. But, the changes were extremely radical. In 1983, they walk away from the communes. I mean, that's unbelievable! The end. No more commune, no more brigade, no more team. You're on your own. I'm actually dumbfounded when people say, "There was no big bang in China." I don't know what they mean. For 800 million people, it was a huge bang and, nationally, it only took two years. And, in certain communities, it was six weeks. The commune's there, the commune's gone. Now, every single household is going to contract to the state for their grain. Instantly, eight hundred million tenant farmers. Wow, that's huge! And that's why I emphasize this self-reliance, as well as strong family, that was the foundation on which this growth is built. They didn't lose a harvest. Immediately, productivity was higher. Until the economic reform changes in urban China, in '86, the urban-rural [income] gap was falling. The people in the countryside were quick to figure out how capitalism was going to work for them. So, I think that was a huge bang and we see it. And then, of course, there were other bangs, but that one was the most dramatic.

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Cite this Source >>
“For 800 Million People, It Was a Huge Bang | Deborah Davis | Emancipation | The China Boom Project.”
The China Boom Project.
The Asia Society Center on US-China Relations.
1 June 2010.
Web.
09 May 2025.
<https://chinaboom.asiasociety.org/period/emancipation/0/197>.
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  • Capitalism
  • Globalization
  • The Party
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  • Inheritance (Pre-1978)
  • Emancipation (1978-1984)
  • Reckoning (1985-1989)
  • Rebirth (1990s)
  • Overdrive (2000s)
  • Prospects
  • Mao's Failure, Deng's Success
  • China Boom: Rural China in the 1980s

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