Lu Wenqiang: Why should we unswervingly develop the public economy?

To achieve modernization, backward agricultural countries must overcome two hurdles: one is the hurdle of primitive capital accumulation, and the other is the hurdle of innovation. Primitive accumulation is to lay the foundation, and innovation is the upper level; One talks about history, the other about reality. Focusing on these two issues, we can talk about the dominant position of the public-owned economy.

1. Public ownership has ensured that the mainland has completed its primitive accumulation

From the end of World War II to the present, among the traditional agricultural countries with a population of more than 100 million, only China has achieved industrialization, and some people believe that this is the result of the development of a market economy after reform and opening up. However, other traditional agricultural countries have been engaged in a market economy, and there are many types, such as the Philippine model, which relies entirely on market regulation, the South American model, which develops industry through borrowing, and the Indian model, which adopts trade protection, and so on. Why is it that as soon as we engage in a market economy, we develop rapidly? There must be a reason for this.

It should be noted that when we began to engage in a market economy, we had already built a complete industrial system, especially the most laborious and costly heavy industrial system. Main performance: First, we can not only produce aircraft, automobiles, trains, 10,000-ton ships, heavy machine tools, but also in many fields have been able to provide complete sets of industrial equipment; Second, tens of millions of industrial workers and a large number of scientific research personnel have been trained; Third, it has completed the research and development of high-tech military equipment such as "two bombs and one satellite" and nuclear submarines; Fourth, it took us just over a decade to pay off all our foreign debts, so that we have no domestic or foreign debts. All these achievements have taken us just over 20 years, which is a miracle! To put it in the language of economics, we have completed the accumulation of primitive capital, and this is the biggest difference between us and other traditional agricultural countries.

However, under normal circumstances, the traditional agricultural society has no capital, and even if there is a little industrial and commercial capital, it is impossible to form industrial accumulation. It is very unrealistic to think that under the market economy in the Philippines, capital can automatically concentrate in heavy industry and high-tech industries. However, if an agricultural country borrows money to engage in industry, it must pay interest at market prices, and in addition, it is just starting out and cannot compete with the old industrial countries, and it is unable to repay its debts by relying on the newly built industry, so almost all the borrowing countries have a serious debt crisis.

First of all, we cannot follow the path of the West, whose industrialization often coincides with foreign colonization, and through plunder, a certain amount of accumulation has already been accumulated in the early stage of industrialization. At comparable U.S. dollar prices in 2000, the per capita annual income of the United States reached $740 in 1870, in 1895 in Japan, and only $61 in 1952, when the mainland was in the early stage of industrialization. Under these circumstances, it is impossible to follow the road of the West, and we can only gather our strength through the establishment of a socialist system, find a way within the agrarian society, and carry out the primitive accumulation of ourselves in hardships and hardships. The specific mode of accumulation can be summed up by four words, namely, "unified purchasing and marketing" in agriculture and "unified revenue and expenditure" in industry. The unified purchase and marketing of agriculture is that the state purchases agricultural products at a low price in order to obtain the original capital provided by agriculture, which was called price scissors difference at that time; The unified revenue and expenditure of industry means that the economic surplus such as enterprise profits, depreciation, and major repair funds are all in the hands of the state, and the expenditure of enterprises is strictly controlled, so as to obtain the original capital provided by enterprises. It was precisely by relying on this primitive accumulation method that we obtained the initial construction funds from within the agrarian society and began to industrialize.

It is clear that under the conditions of private ownership, we cannot accomplish such a difficult task. The establishment of public ownership through the socialist revolution provided a fundamental institutional guarantee for primitive accumulation and accelerated construction, which was not possessed by other large agricultural countries.

Let's start with agriculture. Although our party has always advocated cooperativeization, the great development of cooperativeization came after the unified purchase and sales in 1953. After the unified purchase and marketing, we encountered two problems: first, how to collect agricultural products from more than 100 million small farmers under the condition of low prices; The second is how to ensure the normal production and livelihood of the peasants when purchasing at low prices. At that time, the central authorities believed that if one or two million agricultural production cooperatives could be established and the collectives could rely on their strength, these problems could be basically solved. Therefore, we have accelerated the process of collectivization.

Let's look at industry and commerce. In 1952, our Party still believed that it would take 10 to 15 years, or even longer, to complete the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce, but in fact, it was basically completed by 1956. This is because we have encountered two problems: First, in 1953, the mainland began large-scale industrial construction in the First Five-Year Plan, but relying only on agriculture and a small number of state-owned enterprises to accumulate is far from satisfying the demand for primitive capital for industrialization; Second, all the economic surplus of state-owned enterprises has been handed over, which is in sharp contrast to the private enterprises keeping their profits to themselves. Therefore, through the redemption policy, the state has converted private enterprises into state-owned enterprises or public-private partnerships, so that the state has the right to operate, and thus these enterprises have also been brought under the unified revenue and expenditure of the state, thus creating conditions for the state's primitive capital accumulation.

It should be said that our primitive accumulation is to exchange the immediate consumption interests of the people for the long-term interests of industrial development; It is at the cost of slowing down the independent development of old enterprises in exchange for the comprehensive construction of the industrial system. It has an irreplaceable historical role in the mainland's industrialization, and at the same time, it also has obvious phased colors, and it cannot be carried out forever. After the industrial system is basically completed, it is necessary to carry out reforms, develop a market economy, and develop the non-public economy under the premise that the public ownership is the mainstay.

The Party Central Committee has defined the period of history before the reform as a period of socialist revolution and construction. In his speech at the celebration of the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "In the process of exploration, although there have been serious setbacks, the original theoretical achievements and great achievements made by the Party in the socialist revolution and construction have provided valuable experience, theoretical preparation and material foundation for the creation of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new historical period. This important assertion points out the essential connection and inheritance relationship before and after the reform.

Second, the public-owned economy plays a fundamental role in innovation and development

If developing countries want to overcome the hurdle of innovation, they will not only be limited by the level of education and science, but also the market economy, which is supposed to promote economic growth, will also have an adverse impact on connotative innovation. For example, the most advanced aero engine technology is the most advanced technology of enterprises in developed countries through continuous investment, research and development, sales and profit cycle, which is in line with the market economy and business laws. On the other hand, our technology is many generations behind, after investing in research and development, although the technology has improved, but the products are still backward and there is no profit. In order to make the product reach the advanced level, it is necessary to constantly repeat this cycle of no profit, and the investment in R&D is very large, which is not in line with the principles of market economy and business, and this is the main problem we are facing.

To solve this problem, it is necessary to give full play to the advantages of the socialist system of concentrating forces on major tasks. The state has reduced the cost of enterprise innovation through planning, guidance, organization, tax reduction and exemption, subsidies, equity participation, loans, etc. In a certain sense, this kind of economic behavior of the state is also a kind of publicly-owned economic activity, which plays a decisive role in the overall innovation and development.

In terms of micro-enterprise innovation, we also see the important position of the public-owned economy. For the sake of observation and analysis, we can divide innovation into theoretical innovation and technological innovation. Theoretical innovation is mainly carried out by state-managed scientific research institutions, universities, etc., and of course, there are also large state-owned enterprises involved, such as controlled nuclear fusion and other theoretical research and experiments. Putting these aside, we will focus on the analysis of technological innovation issues that are closely related to enterprises. Technological innovation can be divided into applied technological innovation and basic technological innovation. For example, according to the market application prospects, the use of existing Internet basic technology to develop online social networking, shopping, taxi and other applications belong to application technology innovation; The new technologies, new algorithms, new materials, and new methods formed by theoretical innovation, such as 5G communication technology, belong to basic technological innovation, and its significance is greater and more important.

However, the innovation of many enterprises, including some large private enterprises, is still concentrated on applied technology innovation, and the number and proportion of basic technology innovation, especially major basic technology innovation, are not large. This is because it is extremely difficult to innovate basic technology and the risk of capital investment is too high. At present, some small and medium-sized private science and technology enterprises have a certain basic technological innovation, and it is observed that most of them are enterprises run by scientific researchers or returnees from overseas, and many of them have relevant research experience, foundation and experience. However, with the end of a basic technological innovation, they are less likely to continue to engage in new basic technological innovations, and more to applied technological innovations.

At present, public-owned enterprises, as well as some enterprises with public-owned characteristics, are becoming the backbone of basic technological innovation, especially major basic technological innovations. Because state-owned enterprises are more able to concentrate resources, they have shown obvious advantages in continuing to carry out basic technological innovations, such as the completion of the fourth generation of nuclear power plant technology, ultra-high voltage transmission technology, supercomputers, Beidou satellites, advanced aero engines and other major basic technological innovations, these are all related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and the stability of the country.

As a private enterprise, Huawei, 99% of its shares are owned by the trade union, which has obvious public ownership characteristics. This kind of property rights relationship has a significant impact on enterprise innovation. At present, the efficiency of money capital is declining, and the status of creative labor is rapidly rising. Therefore, the investment in human capital in enterprise innovation activities, especially in major basic technology innovation, is quite large. On the one hand, Huawei's property rights system ensures that tens of billions of dividends flow back to producers every year, reducing the human capital invested in innovation and reducing risks. On the other hand, the reconversion of surplus value into workers' income changes the employment relationship and improves the incentive efficiency. This is the reason why Huawei has been able to complete a large number of major basic technological innovations under the joint suppression of the United States and the West.

Innovation determines the future of development. The fundamental and decisive role of the public economy in innovation fully reflects the unshakable status of the main body of public ownership.