is an investigative report on “contracting output quotas to households under unified management” as a form of the system of job responsibility in agricultural production being implemented in various accounting units of people’s communes. Actually, this form is a synthesis of unified collective management and decentralized management by individual commune member households, on the basis of collective ownership of the means of production. According to our survey, the productive forces within each accounting unit are multileveled; so much so that neither completely unified collective management, nor completely decentralized management by commune member households is suitable for the productive forces’ conditions. Nor is the exclusive use of either form of management conducive to the most effective promotion of agricultural production and the development of a diversified economy. Only a combination of the two can bring into play the productive forces of both the collective and the commune member households and mobilize the initiative of each. is an investigative report on “contracting output quotas to households under unified management ” as a form of the system of job responsibility in agricultural production being implemented in various accounting units of people’s communes. Actually, this form is a synthesis of unified collective management according to our survey, the productive forces within each accounting unit are multileveled; so much so that neither completely not unified collective management, nor completely decentralized management by commune member households is suitable for the productive forces’ conditions. Nor is the exclusive use of either either form of management conducive to the most effective promotion of agricultural production and the development of a diversified economy. Only a combination of the two can bring into play the productive forces of both the collective and the commun e member households and mobilize the initiative of each.