Ownership reform is an important issue in China's economic system reform. Since the reform and opening up, many disputes and differences have been related to deepening the reform of ownership. Some people think that the direction of China's reform should be privatization, arguing that privatization is the "right way on earth"; Others say that China's reform is in the wrong direction, mainly because the proportion of the public-owned economy has decreased and the state-owned economy has weakened, and they advocate returning to the previous economic system. Both of these views are unrealistic and wrong. The practice of reform and development in the past 30 years of reform and opening up has fully proved that in the whole primary stage of socialism, we must adhere to the basic economic system with public ownership as the main body and multiple ownership economies developing together, rather than privatization and single public ownership. This is the proper meaning of promoting the further liberation and development of China's productive forces, upholding and developing Socialism with Chinese characteristics, and an important institutional basis for upholding and improving the socialist market economic system.
1. Why should we adhere to the basic economic system?
In the primary stage of socialism, why should we adhere to the basic economic system with public ownership as the main body and multiple ownership economies developing together? Why can't we engage in privatization and single public ownership? To answer these questions, we must first make clear what is the connotation of China's basic economic system.
Ownership of means of production is the foundation of a social and economic system and the fundamental factor that determines the basic nature and development direction of a society. Since the reform and opening up, based on the basic national conditions of China, our party has made unremitting exploration around improving the ownership structure in the primary stage of socialism, and established a basic economic system with public ownership as the main body and multiple ownership economies developing together. This basic economic system reveals the essential characteristics of production relations in the primary stage of socialism, is a scientific summary of both positive and negative experiences in socialist construction, and also enriches and develops Marxist ownership theory.
To understand the basic economic system in the primary stage of socialism in China, the most important thing is to grasp two points: first, adhere to public ownership as the main body; Second, adhere to the development of diversified ownership economy.
Adhering to the dominant position of public ownership is a fundamental principle of socialism. China is a socialist country where the people are the masters of the country, and we must adhere to the socialist economic system based on public ownership. Unswervingly consolidating and developing the public sector of the economy is an important aspect of adhering to and improving the basic economic system. Adhering to public ownership as the main body is of great significance to give full play to the superiority of the socialist system, enhance China's economic strength, national defense strength and national cohesion, prevent polarization, safeguard social fairness and justice, gradually realize common prosperity, provide a strong material foundation for consolidating socialist state power, and promote social harmony.
So, how to understand the meaning of public ownership as the main body? Public ownership economy includes not only state-owned economy and collective economy, but also state-owned and collective components in mixed ownership economy. The dominant position of public ownership is mainly reflected in the dominant position of public assets in total social assets; The state-owned economy controls the lifeline of the national economy and plays a leading role in economic development. Public assets dominate, not only in quantity but also in quality. The state-owned economy plays a leading role, mainly reflected in its control. Adhering to public ownership as the main body, the key is to have a good realization form of public ownership. Joint-stock system, joint-stock cooperative system and lease contract under certain conditions can all be used as the realization forms of public ownership.
Why should we encourage, support and guide the development of non-public ownership economy when public ownership is the mainstay? Under the traditional planned economy system, overemphasizing the single public ownership structure and excluding and restricting the non-public ownership economy is not in line with China's national conditions and reality, which seriously hinders the development of social productive forces. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, our party conscientiously summed up the past experience and lessons, re-recognized and clarified the position and role of the non-public economy in the primary stage of socialism, and regarded it as an important part of the socialist market economy. This change reflects the basic national conditions of China's primary stage of socialism and the law that production relations must adapt to the development level of productive forces. It should be noted that it is difficult to solve the problems of food and employment for more than one billion people, increase their income and improve their lives only by relying on the public economy, especially state-owned enterprises. Developing the non-public economy is conducive to adjusting and optimizing the ownership structure, promoting economic development to be more dynamic, and providing various effective forms for the development of public ownership; It is conducive to promoting market competition, promoting the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure and promoting the rapid development of the national economy; It is conducive to introducing and absorbing advanced technology and management experience and promoting international economic cooperation; It is conducive to mobilizing the enthusiasm of the people and all sectors of society, facilitating people's lives, expanding employment, maintaining social stability, and so on. Unswervingly encouraging, supporting and guiding the non-public economy is another important aspect of adhering to and improving the basic economic system. Vigorously developing and actively guiding the non-public economy is in line with the inherent requirements of China's economic and social development and is by no means an expedient measure. We must persist in it for a long time and be firm.
Some people simply think that public ownership economy and non-public ownership economy are antagonistic and irreconcilable. Practice has proved that this view is incorrect. In the primary stage of socialism, public ownership and non-public ownership are both indispensable forms of ownership for developing social productive forces, and both can and should be used to serve socialism. Public ownership economy is the main body of socialist market economy, and non-public ownership economy is an important part of socialist market economy. Under the condition of socialist market economy, public ownership economy and non-public ownership economy compete on an equal footing and promote each other, and they are unified in the process of socialist modernization. The Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee made the "Decision of the Central Committee on Several Issues Concerning the Perfection of the Socialist Market Economic System", pointing out that it is necessary to vigorously develop the mixed ownership economy in which state-owned capital, collective capital and non-public capital jointly participate, so as to make the shareholding system the main form of public ownership. Developing a mixed ownership economy is conducive to giving full play to the leading role of the state-owned economy, upholding the dominant position of public ownership, and further improving the basic economic system in the primary stage of socialism. Under the condition of socialist market economy, all kinds of ownership economies can give full play to their respective advantages in market competition and promote the development of social productive forces. Promoting the synchronous development of various ownership economies not only affects the nature of China's socialist state power, but also helps to promote the development of productive forces and give full play to the superiority of the socialist system.
2. The system guarantee of China's vigorous economic development.
With the development of the socialist market economy, especially the deepening of the reform of state-owned enterprises, the proportion of China's public ownership economy has changed. Some people worry that the development of non-public economy will shake the dominant position of China's public economy.
In fact, in recent years, by deepening the reform of the economic system, including ownership reform, the overall strength of China's public ownership economy has not weakened, but has consolidated its dominant position, greatly improved the vitality and competitiveness of state-owned enterprises, and firmly grasped the lifeline of the national economy. 1978, the total assets of China's state-owned enterprises were 0.72 trillion yuan, reaching 35.5 trillion yuan in 2007; In petroleum and petrochemical, aerospace, electric power, telecommunications, transportation, national defense industry, important resource development, major equipment manufacturing and other important industries and key areas related to national security and the lifeline of the national economy, the total amount of state-owned assets has been increasing, and the control power has been further enhanced, and a large number of highly dynamic state-owned and state-controlled enterprises have emerged. Among the top 500 enterprises in the world in 2008, there are 26 state-owned or state-controlled enterprises in Chinese mainland, many of which are completely competitive enterprises, such as COSCO Group, China Minmetals, China Construction, China Railway and China Railway Construction. It can be said that China's relatively strong comprehensive national strength and important international status today, as well as its sustained and stable development in the fierce international competition, are inseparable from the great role played by the public sector of the economy.
Then, what about the development of the non-public economy? It should be said that since the reform and opening up, especially since the 1990s, the non-public sector of the economy has developed rapidly, and it has grown into an indispensable part of the development of China's productive forces, forming a vivid situation of "the country and the people advance together" and "the country is strong and the people are rich", and the advantages of the basic economic system in the primary stage of socialism have fully emerged.
The proportion of China's non-public sector of the economy in GDP has greatly increased. In the past 30 years, about 70% of technological innovation, 65% of domestic invention patents and more than 80% of new products in China have come from small and medium-sized enterprises, of which more than 95% are non-public enterprises. Since the mid-1990s, more than 70% of new jobs in cities and towns have been provided by non-public enterprises, and more than 70% of rural migrant laborers have also been employed in non-public enterprises. It can be said that the continuous improvement of the basic economic system has made China's individual, private and other non-public economies develop rapidly and become an important economic growth point in China.
The simultaneous development of public ownership economy and non-public ownership economy has injected great vitality and vitality into China's economic development, which has put us on the track of rapid development. From 1978 to 2008, China's economy grew at an average annual rate of 9.8%, which was not only significantly higher than the average annual growth rate of 6. 1% from 1953 to 1978, but also slightly higher than that of Japanese economy of 9.2% and Korean economy of 8.5%. This change in ownership structure has also had a far-reaching impact on our daily life. For example, because of invigorating the economy, the living standards of ordinary people have been greatly improved and enriched. The "three big things" in everyone's mind are no longer bicycles, sewing machines and watches, nor are they color TVs, refrigerators and washing machines. Now it's houses, cars, computers. For another example, due to the development of various ownership enterprises, people's employment methods are diversified, and the "iron rice bowl" of state-owned enterprises is no longer the only pursuit of people. Private enterprises and foreign enterprises, "self-employment" and "personal career choice" have become the choices of many new generations of young people; Another example is the increase in personal property income, and investment and financial management have become a hot topic. Treasury bonds, funds, stocks, futures, foreign exchange and gold have become many people's investment means.
Practice has proved that it is of great practical and far-reaching historical significance for us to establish a sound socialist market economic system, promote the development of productive forces, build a well-off society in an all-round way and accelerate socialist modernization.
3. Why not privatize?
Advocating privatization is a trend of thought since the reform and opening up. Some people think that "man is selfish" and the subject of market economy is selfish individual, that is, the so-called rational "economic man". Only private ownership can make a market economy, and only privatization can promote economic development. Some people think that the developed capitalist countries are developed today because of privatization, and developing countries must take this road if they want to be rich and strong.
Will privatization definitely promote economic development?
At present, there are nearly 200 countries and regions that have implemented privatization in the world, of which developed capitalist countries only account for a very small part. The development experience of many countries shows that privatization does not necessarily bring about economic development, let alone a panacea for all diseases. A few years ago, some people in the west advocated the "liberalization, marketization and privatization" of neoliberalism in Russia, eastern European countries and third world countries. Russia engaged in the so-called 500-day plan and the privatization movement of "shock therapy", which disintegrated Russia's original economic system, fundamentally changed the face of the whole society, changed the social structure, gave birth to the formation of private capital, especially large capital, and led to the emergence of financial oligarchs. As a result, the economy declined sharply, the national strength was greatly weakened, wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few people, the gap between the rich and the poor was wide, the poverty rate and unemployment rate rose rapidly, and the ruble depreciated sharply. In Ukraine, during the privatization reform in 10, the national economy regressed by 60%. With the support of the west, Argentina carried out the "economic privatization" reform, which led to a serious decline in the national economy, with a national debt of more than 654.38+03 billion US dollars, social division and people's livelihood. The poverty rate soared from 7.7% before privatization to 30%, and the unemployment rate exceeded 20%. Privatization has not brought peanuts to developing countries, but economic depression, people's poverty and social unrest.
Contrary to the privatization economic reform in some developing countries, under the guidance of Socialism with Chinese characteristics's theoretical system, China adheres to the basic economic system with public ownership as the main body and multiple ownership economies developing together, and adheres to the correct direction of socialist market economic reform, which has greatly promoted economic development and achieved great achievements that have attracted worldwide attention. Imagine what would happen if we accepted the privatization prescription prescribed by some people? What is certain is that the socialist market economy will be transformed into a capitalist market economy, and the working class and the broad masses of working people will basically or completely lose the means of production, which will inevitably lead to the disparity between the rich and the poor, resulting in a large number of capital and real estate owned by a few people, while most people are in abject poverty, and social contradictions are unprecedentedly intensified, making it difficult for the socialist system to continue to exist. In a big developing country like ours, without the leading role of the state-owned economy, it will be controlled by international monopoly capital sooner or later, and it is difficult to guarantee national sovereignty and national independence.
At present, on the issue of deepening the reform of rural ownership, some people put forward the privatization of land, replacing the policy of land contractual management right transfer proposed by our party with land privatization. It should be noted that China's two-tier management system, which is based on household contract management and combines unification and separation, has greatly mobilized farmers' enthusiasm for production and liberated rural productive forces. Since the reform and opening up, China has solved the problem of feeding more than one billion people with cultivated land with per capita far lower than the world average, which fundamentally changed the shortage economy that plagued us for a long time before the reform and opening up. This is an unprecedented miracle. In the past 30 years, the per capita net income of rural residents has increased from 1.34 yuan to 476 1 yuan, which has increased more than six times after deducting the price factor. Practice has proved that the two-tier management system based on household contract management and combining unified management with separate management is a form of ownership that is suitable for China's current reality and conducive to rural economic development. Of course, China's rural reform and development still faces many difficulties and problems, which need to be solved seriously, but land privatization is by no means the way out. China has a large population, small business scale and low labor productivity, and the per capita arable land is only about one acre and eight points. If land is allowed to be privatized and traded freely, instead of realizing industrialization and agricultural modernization quickly and at low cost, the result will be polarization and economic depression in rural areas. Farmers who have lost their land will flood into cities but find it difficult to find jobs, instead of urbanization, urban slums will be realized and even the world will fall into chaos. At present, only no more than 10 countries in the world engage in large-scale farm system. Although those developed countries in Europe have been marketized for hundreds of years, they are still dominated by small farms. Even the United States, which has achieved land scale management, has not fully operated its agriculture according to the market, and has received much more government subsidies than any developing country. In some developing countries, the implementation of land privatization has mainly led to the impoverishment of farmers, prominent social problems and the proliferation of urban slums. Facts show that there is no way out for land privatization. To realize rural economic and social development in China, we must adhere to the two-tier management system based on household contract management, which is the cornerstone of the party's rural policy.
Adhering to the basic economic system is not only a major economic issue, but also a major political issue related to the future and destiny of the party and the country and the life and death of the 654.38+0.3 billion population. Facts tell us that China's economy can only be revitalized and developed if public ownership is the mainstay and diversified ownership economies develop together. To deny the dominant position of public ownership and engage in privatization is to leave the socialist road and violate the law of historical development, which is an crooked way that does not meet the requirements of China's current economic development and the vital interests of the broad masses of the people.
4. Single public ownership has no way out.
Isn't privatization a return to the past single public ownership? Historical experience and lessons tell us that going to the other extreme will only ruin China's socialist modernization.
Historical experience shows that it is unsuccessful to engage in single public ownership in the primary stage of socialism. At the beginning of the founding of New China, China established and consolidated the public ownership economy through socialist transformation, and soon established a relatively complete industrial system on the ruins, turning the poor and weak old China into a vibrant and energetic new China. However, in the subsequent development process, due to the blind pursuit of "one university and two universities" and "purity", the proportion of public ownership economy exceeded 99%. As a result, it not only failed to promote the better development of production, but also violated the requirements of the development of productive forces, resulting in low production efficiency, low level of economic development and people's living difficulties, which seriously affected the superiority of the socialist system. From 65438 to 0978, China's GDP was only 364.5 billion yuan, with 250 million poor people in rural areas and tens of millions unemployed people in cities and towns. It can be seen that in the primary stage of socialism, the implementation of single public ownership and one-sided pursuit of the proportion of public ownership economy violate the objective law that production relations meet the requirements of productivity development and are not conducive to the development of socialist economy.
In recent years, China's economic development has made great achievements, the level of productivity has been greatly improved, and the strength of the public sector of the economy has become stronger. In this case, can we stop adhering to the policy of simultaneous development of multiple ownership economies? The answer is no. First of all, we should be soberly aware that China's basic national conditions, which will remain in the primary stage of socialism for a long time, and the contradiction between the people's growing material and cultural needs and backward social production, the main social contradiction, have not changed. The population is large, the foundation is weak, the productivity is underdeveloped, the per capita GDP is still in a low ranking in the world, the regional and urban-rural development is still unbalanced, and the economic development in many inland and remote areas is still very backward. Under such conditions, failure to adhere to the basic economic system in the primary stage of socialism will inevitably lead to rigid economic system, insufficient economic vitality and low economic efficiency, which is not conducive to China's economic development.
On the other hand, the standard of Marxist evaluation of ownership is not only the proportion of ownership components, but more importantly, whether it is conducive to the development of productive forces. Especially in the primary stage of socialism, we can't simply think that the higher the proportion of public ownership economy is, the better it is for socialism, and the lower the proportion of public ownership economy is, the worse it is for socialism. That's not true. Ownership that is conducive to the development of productive forces in socialist society is good and beneficial to socialism, otherwise it is not good ownership. As Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out, the criterion for judging reform should be whether it is conducive to developing the productive forces of socialist society, enhancing the comprehensive national strength of socialist countries and improving people's living standards, and there is no other criterion. To establish and improve the socialist market economy, we should not only insist on public ownership as the main body, but also allow all kinds of ownership economies to compete on an equal footing, so as to promote the development of the national economy and continuously improve the development level of China's productive forces through this competition.
Over the past 30 years, China has broken the dominant position of public ownership, established the basic economic system in the primary stage of socialism, and made the socialist economy move from planned to market, from closed to semi-closed to open. The development of diversified ownership economy has not weakened and shaken the dominant position of public ownership economy, but consolidated and developed the dominant position of public ownership economy and enhanced its control. Practice has proved that a single economic component and the ownership structure of "one public ownership and two public ownership" will only lead to slow development, poverty and backwardness; Liberalize and enliven Qian Fan, and socialism will be full of vitality.
Whether we can always adhere to and improve the basic economic system is the key to the success or failure of China's economic system reform, the key to achieving social harmony and building a well-off society in an all-round way, and the key to upholding and developing Socialism with Chinese characteristics's great cause in the ever-changing international situation. We must unswervingly consolidate and develop the public ownership economy, unswervingly encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public ownership economy, adhere to equal protection of property rights, and form a new pattern of equal competition and mutual promotion of all ownership economies.