Jacob Eyferth Associate Professor Departments of History and East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago

During the collective era (1956–80), China’s farmers earned an average annual cash income from collective sources of ¥15, equivalent to US $9 in terms of purchasing power. Total income was higher, since members of collectives received much of their pay in grain, and most households had income from private sidelines. Nonetheless, rural people lived in a world with little money and few consumer goods – a world of use values rather than commodities. This talk assumes that money creates and structures communities and asks what happens if money is replaced with other, local means of structuring social interaction.

Co-sponsored by EAS, Department of History & International Studies