China has a history that spans some 3,500 years. It is perhaps one of the oldest most "great-aged" human civilizations ever recorded. 3,500 years of history is quite vast and many historians divide Chinese periods of political transformation and civil unrest's into 3 categories: The imperial (Dynasty) era, onto the transition of the republican period, and onto the current communist stage of Chinese history. For the sake of simplicity, I will cover the period leading up to the rise of the communist party and the country's transition to a socialist market-based economy. This period between 1949 and 1979 brought with it enormous transformations to traditional Chinese society. The "take-over" by a socialist regime in 1949 culminated in drastic structural and economic transformations, which have brought China to the forefront of the emerging global market.
             For most of its 3,500 years of history, China has been plagued with major famines, civil disturbances, and foreign occupation. To add to these unrest's, the traditional Chinese economy was primarily rural and hundreds of millions of people were forced to coexist under this scarce subsistence. Prior to the socialist rule in 1949, China's rural economy experienced a long slumber. Production techniques were, for the most part, unchanged and output rose just enough to keep up with population growth. The output growth that did occur seems to have been attributed to more intensive cultivation rather than rising farm productivity. According to the World Bank, China was among the world's poorest countries just twenty years ago. 80% of China's population was living on incomes of less than US $1 a day. In a publication authored by the World Bank titled, Accelerating China's Rural Transformation, "productivity gains [in the rural sector] were only achieved from increased efficienci!
             es, stimulated by market forces, and improved productivity of scarce water and land resources, throu...