The trend and perspective of the rural sociological study for the development of agriculture and a community in a rural area

The purposes of this study are as follows (1) to evaluate contributions for the development of agriculture and a community in a rural area by the rural sociological study in the period of 50 years after The World War 2 , and (2) to illustrate the perspective of the rural sociological study in the future. These subjects are discussed basically on resources' utilization, conservation and management in a rural area. One of the important characteristics with resources' utilization, conservation and management in a rural area is that non-market systems play important roles. Therefore, it is very important how we could make designs of social systems with combining market and non-market systems for efficient utilization and allocation on rural resources to achieve the development of agriculture and a community. In the domain of a nonmarket system, the community organizations in a rural area will take important parts. We evaluate the above mentioned contributions by the rural sociological study respectively at three periodical parts (the first period: 1950-1970, the second period 1970-1990, the third period: 1990-2000). The reason of introducing three periodical parts is the differences between main purposes for resources' utilization in each periodical part. The excellent results cleared up by the rural sociological study are as follows; (1) we can not rely only on the market system, but also (2) we should recognize important roles of the community organizations from the stand point of reduction of transaction costs for achieving efficient resources' utilization. On the other hand, the remained problem is that large part of the rural sociological study describe only the state of affairs in a rural area with lack of sufficient theoretical considerations. The rural sociological study should move to the next higher step being able to make designs for desirable social systems to achieve efficient resources' utilization, conservation and management. This should be done by comparison of each managing cost by different types of social systems.