The Asset Logic of Farmers Moving towards Common Prosperity

The trickle-down theory that economic growth driven by market mechanisms can automatically improve national welfare has been widely questioned. The mainstream property rights theory emphasizes the assumption that separated property rights can induce efficiency, which can neither guarantee the maximization of efficiency, social justice, nor the realization of common prosperity. The harm caused by wealth, especially asset inequality, is more serious than income inequality. The trickle-down effect theory ignores an essential factor in the socio-economic system: the ownership of the means of production. The public property rights and the sharing of interests of rural collective assets, especially ecological assets, constitute an essential mechanism for farmers to achieve common prosperity. To alleviate the gap between the urban and rural regions and promote common prosperity for farmers, defining and revitalizing the property rights of rural collective assets is an important path. The rural region has irreplaceable land resources and diverse ecological resources. Especially the inseparability of assets under the framework of collective ownership, the fairness of membership rights, and the sharing of benefits constitute the logical basis for farmers to move towards common prosperity with ecological assets. Based on expanding farmers’ development accounts and further revitalizing rural collective ecological assets, this paper designed the execution mechanism of asset capitalization and ecological service transaction and proposed a preliminary operation strategy and scheme.