TWO KINDS OF GREEN REVOLUTION 63 drives to contribute to the sister-province from their wages and private produce, and this of course raised the incentive to increase production: I was told that each family would contribute as ^much as 100 kilograms of rice., about one month's rations., in a single emulation drive. I have tried to show that the living standards as well as the usefulness., hope and wellbeing of Thai Binh's rural people are much higher than in the villages of Thanjavur, in spite of 34 years of intermittent warfare and 10 years of extraordinary devastation in Vietnam. The main reasons are that the distribution of wealth is relatively egalitarian in Vietnam, and that there is also more to distribute, since the product per hectare is larger and there has been no ^drain" on the villager's surplus to absentee landlords, moneylenders, nor, as far as I know, to foreign companies or governments. The product is greater because cooperation, full employment and planning allow much greater labour efficiency and creativity, yet without overwork, starvation or oppression for anyone. The removal of profit as the main motive for production leads to less interest in and reliance on foreign models, to cheaper and more useful machines, and to full use of local materials. The problem of'"lack of demand", which is so crippling for industry, disappears in a planned and cooperative economy; the only problem then is how to produce enough to serve the people. It is true of course that although it is moving towards socialism, Vietnam must still participate in the capitalist world economy. Its government is in fact now trying to obtain machinery and equipment for oil and metal mining from the Western nations as well as the Soviet Union and the eastern Europe. To this end, it is encouraging certain kinds of foreign private investment, taking loans from the International Monetary Fund, and stepping up the export of handicraft goods. The present policy of the government is to industrialize as fast as possible, its slogan being "All for production, all for socialist construction" and to emphasize production above self-sufficiency. Such a policy, or indeed any policy short of total self-sufficiency, means a certain degree of involvement by Vietnam in unequal exchange with the industrial nations, some drain in foreign profits and interest on foreign loans, and some use of the market in the internal economy. One hopes that this will not lead to a more unequal society nor to any loss of political power among the common people. I think it unlikely that this would happen in Vietnam because of the unity between workers and peasants and because of the revolutionary tradition and the general trend of world history. Perhaps Vietnam, together with other socialist countries, will be able to modify and eventually transcend the world market. Whether, or when, this will happen depends much on how quickly other countries become socialist, notably India and the United States of America. [The research in Thanjavur on which this paper is based was carried out in