At the MPR's foundation in 1924, Mongolia was a nomadic subsistence society. Farming and industry were almost nonexistent, and transportation and communications were primitive. Most people were illiterate nomadic herders, and a large part of the male labor force lived in the monasteries, contributing little to the economy. Property in the form of livestock was primarily owned by aristocrats and the monasteries; ownership of the remaining sectors of the economy was dominated by Chinese and other foreigners. The MPR was thus faced with the daunting task of building a modern economy. Socialist collectivization, industrialization, and urbanization ultimately transformed the agrarian, nomadic economy of the 1920s into a developing, agricultural-industrial economy by the late 1980s.
