Voluntary collectivization: A model of producers' institutional choice

The concept of democratic transition to rural collective socialism is analyzed by modeling a village with both a collective farm and individual household plots. Labor is freely allocated by each household, and both the division of land between sectors and the system of distributing the net collective product are determined by majority vote, each household being equally represented. The effects of varying parameters of productivity, rent, and aggregate responsiveness to individual labor allocations are examined. A discussion of the model's relevance to Tanzania, China, and to the concept of voluntary rural collectivization concludes the paper.