A closer look
In 1978, the villagers of Xiaogang were starving under Maoist collective farming, where working hard yielded the same miserable rations as doing nothing. Desperate, eighteen farmers signed a secret, highly illegal pact: they would divide the commune's land, meet the state quota, and keep the surplus for themselves. Production immediately exploded. When the Communist Party found out, instead of executing them, Deng Xiaoping realized these rural rulebreakers had accidentally discovered the ultimate life hack: personal incentives. The government scaled it nationwide, completely reversing course on communist agriculture.
