The Modernization of Naidu

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the political economy and modernization of a small-scale agricultural community, Naidu Village, Yunnan Province, China. It describes how it is a labor and production society characterized by reliance on a particular cash-crop - matsutake. The paper then discusses how this traditional society was forced into a process of modernization under market demand stemming from a foreign capitalist nation.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Paradigms of Economic Development
Modernization
A Political Economy Perspective
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Marxist thinking highlights the movement toward capitalist production in Naidu, an ideal also upheld by the theory of modernization. These changes have been clearly reflected in "community crafting and refining a process of rulemaking and implementation" (Menzies 37-38) in terms of Naidu's agricultural and political economy, including increased administration, military control and regimented labor under a probable advance to full-scale capitalism. When ones looks at the Naidu case from a global political economy perspective, the character (inevitably a fluctuating one) of the Japanese economy has a direct impact on Naidu, as Japan is its primary export partner - the implementation of government legislation and loss of villager control over production was, perhaps, inevitable, under this commoditization of matsutake."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Boserup, Mogens. 1963. "Agrarian Structure and Take-Off", Chapter 12 in The Economics of Take-off into Sustained Growth (pp. 201-224).
• Kuhn, Thomas S. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapters 2 and 10 (10-22; 111-123).
• Menzies, Nicholas K. (Forthcoming, 2007). Our Forest, Your Ecosystem, Their Timber : Communities, Conservation, And The State In Community-Based Forest Management. New York: Columbia University Press. Chapter 2.
• Mintz, Sidney W. 1988. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Chapter 2, Production (pp. 19-73).
• Rostow, W. W. 1971. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 2.

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