Contracts in China Revisited, With a Focus on Agriculture, 1949–63

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Abstract
For A Western-trained lawyer considering contracts within the context of a planned economy, three caveats are in order at the outset. First, plans inevitably involve consultation, which easily shades over into negotiation at the stages of formulation and implementation (the latter often requiring re-formulation). In this sense, plans are not wholly antithetical to the concept of agreement between concerned parties. Second, subject to that qualification, a primary function of contracts in a planned economy is to implement the planners’ preferences. Consequently, it is to be expected that the degree of private autonomy associated with contracts in the West will be restricted. Finally, in Western societies also the parties are limited, to a lesser degree to be sure, in the terms they may incorporate in a contract; e.g., minimum wage laws set limits on wage provisions. Thus, in the theoretical spectrum from wholly unrestrained, enforceable agreements to pure commands, both plans and contracts in practice fall somewhere in the middle in all societies.

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