In 1978, the farmers in a small Chinese village called Xiaogang gathered in a mud hut to sign a secret contract. They thought it might get them executed. Instead, it wound up transforming China's economy in ways that are still reverberating today.
"Back then ..." says Yen Jingchang, who was a farmer in Xiaogang in 1978. "No one owned anything." ...
"Work hard, don't work hard — everyone gets the same," he says. "So people don't want to work."
In Xiaogang there was never enough food, and the farmers often had to go to other villages to beg. Their children were going hungry. They were desperate.
Listen to this amazing story at:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-secret-document-that-transformed-china
