Abstract: The new institutional economics is inadequate to expound China’s rural reform from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Mobilization was clearly the characteristic of the reform； that was a reform by mobilizing. The reform was different from the past organized mobilization manifested as mass movements， and from the quasiorganized mobilization seen in the context of market transition as well. The reform by mobilizing combined material incentives with spirit encouragement， which demonstrated two distinctive properties： the mutual influence of mobilization and institutional construction in the reform process and the state’s inability to fully control the impact of the mobilization. The start of the marketization in the rural areas was an unintentional consequence of the reform by mobilizing.

Key words: marketization, reform by mobilizing, rural reform, social mobilization, system/institution