In a professor's apartment in Beijing's Zhongguancun, Li Yining, 89, and his wife, He Yuchun, live a mundane life. The living room is still a decoration of more than ten years ago, the furniture is also a little old, only a pair of slightly new sofas, sent by students. Dressed in a somewhat wrinkled white cotton linen shirt, sitting on the sofa, recalling decades of shouting for the reform of China's economic system, Li Yining said it lightly, as if it were an economist's academic deduction based on his own academic views.
"The shareholding system is an important way to solve the employment problem" "The success of economic reform does not depend on price reform, but on the reform of ownership" "Downsizing and increasing efficiency is fundamentally wrong from a macro point of view", "The government's primary economic goal is to increase employment opportunities", "We must implement the reform of the social security system so that more people can enjoy the fruits of reform and opening up", "China needs a large number of private enterprises", "Morality is the third force after market regulation and government regulation"... In the past 40 years, Li Yining's voice has always been accompanied by the beat of reform and opening up into people's ears.
As one of the earliest scholars in China to put forward the theory of shareholding system reform, Li Yining continued to advocate for the shareholding system reform of state-owned enterprises, known as "Li Shares". He presided over the drafting of the Securities Law and the Securities Investment Fund Law. During his tenure as a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, he participated in the promotion of the "36 Articles of the Non-public Economy" and proposed that "China's private enterprises themselves must carry out long-term structural adjustment, and they must continue to innovate in the system, technology and brand.".
On December 18, 2018, the Party Central Committee and the State Council awarded him the title of "Pioneer of Reform" and awarded him the medal of "Pioneer of Reform", calling him "an active advocate of economic structural reform".
When receiving this commendation, Li Yining said: "As a reader, there are always some ideas of righteousness, family unity, and improving people's lives, which is the driving force for me to persist to this day." ”
【Profile】
Li Yining is a senior professor and doctoral supervisor of Peking University, the former director of the Department of Social Sciences of Peking University, and the founding dean and honorary dean of Guanghua School of Management. He is a member of the Standing Committee of the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth National People's Congresses, vice chairmen of the Law Committee of the Seventh National People's Congress, vice chairmen of the Eighth and Ninth Financial and Economic Committees, members of the Standing Committee of the 10th and 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairmen of the Economic Committee, and members of the Standing Committee of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
He presided over the drafting of the Securities Law and the Securities Investment Fund Law, and was the recipient of many important academic awards such as the Sun Yefang Economics Award.
On December 18, 2018, the Party Central Committee and the State Council awarded him the title of "Pioneer of Reform".
a literary boy drifting
"Best" first choice
Born in 1930, Li Yining is the eldest son in the family, born in Yizheng, in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and was born in Nanjing. "Yi" is the ranking of the Li family, and "Ning" is to commemorate the place of birth. At the age of 4, he moved to Shanghai with his business father and his family, and at the age of 6, he enrolled in the Second Affiliated Elementary School of Shanghai Zhongxi Girls' High School (now Yongjia Road Primary School), and was admitted to Shanghai Nanyang Model Middle School after graduation. Soon, the Pacific War broke out, the Japanese invading China occupied Shanghai, in 1943, the family to escape the war, took refuge in the Xiangxi Yuanling, enrolled in Changsha Yali Middle School, which was moved here due to the war.
From elementary school to middle school, Li Yining was a teenager who loved literature. In junior high school, he wrote novels under the pseudonym "Mountains Outside the Mountains" and serialized them in the school's posters. Yuanling is very close to Shen Congwen's hometown of Phoenix, and is a "beautiful and heart-wrenching place". Li Yining, a teenager who reads here, often reads Shen Congwen's novels at night, strolls along the banks of the YuanJiang River at dusk, worries about the broken mountains and rivers, and laments the displacement of life.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Li Yining returned to Nanjing and transferred to jinling university for the second year of high school. Jinling University Affiliated Middle School is known for teaching mathematics, physics and chemistry, and here, Li Yining met several outstanding science teachers, let him serve as a study committee member and representative of the chemistry class, and also took the students to visit the chemical factory. Li Yining said: "This visit left a deep impression on me, I learned for the first time about the importance of chemical fertilizers to agriculture, so I decided to study chemistry and take the road of 'industry to save the country'." ”
At the end of 1948, Li Yining graduated from high school and was sent to Jinling University, with chemical engineering as his first choice. With the collapse of the Kuomintang government and the temporary suspension of teaching at Jinling University, Li Yining, with the enthusiasm of devoting himself to the cause of new China construction, returned to Yuanling, Hunan Province, where he once lived, and became an accountant in the newly established educational supplies consumption cooperative.
After working for two years, he felt that if he wanted to better serve the construction of the country, he had to learn more knowledge, so he decided to take the 1951 college entrance examination and asked his friend Zhao Huijie, who was already studying in the history department of Peking University, to sign up for him. Zhao Huijie believed that although Li Yining wanted to study chemical engineering, he had more literary skills, a wide range of knowledge, and had worked as an accountant, and it was more appropriate to study economics, so he took the initiative to fill in the economics department of Peking University as his first choice. "So far, I feel more and more that Zhao Huijie's first wish for me is the best choice." Li Yining recalled.
In July of that year, Li Yining took the entrance examination of Peking University in Changsha, and received the admission letter in August, and has been associated with Peking University for nearly 70 years.
◆ In October 1961, Professor Zhao Andiyan Zhao and Li Yining (right) were at Peking University.
Students that the teacher loves
Students are welcome by teachers
When Li Yining enrolled, Peking University was still in the Red House on the beach. The second, third and fourth year students of the Department of Economics all went to Guangxi to participate in the land reform, and only the new students stayed on campus to study. The following year, the news came that the department was adjusted. Most of the Economics Department of Peking University was merged into the newly established Central School of Finance and Economics, and a small part remained in Peking University, with political economy as the only major. Li Yining's interest was precisely political economy, but somehow, at that time, some people suggested that he was not suitable for studying this discipline. Professor Chen Zhenhan, acting head of the department, and Mr. Zhang Youren, who was in charge of teaching this course, had a good word to say, and he was able to stay at Peking University.
Li Yining said: "Mr. Chen Zhenhan is talking about Chinese economic history, and for some reason, he noticed me among the students who were listening to the lecture and asked me to come to his house and sit down. Maybe it's because I like to ask questions after recess! Li Yining also "had time to sit down" and Mr. Zhao's home. Mr. Zhao, who was the head of the Economics Department of Peking University, saw that Li Yining often went to the law school library to borrow books, so he said to Li Yining: "I have a lot of books at home, and some books are not available here. Mr. Zhao also recommended Li Yining to meet Mr. Zhou Binglin, who specializes in Western economic history. Zhou Binglin once said: Without the foundation of economic history, economic theory is not good to learn; if there is no study of Western economic history, industrialization will take a detour. Li Yining said: "These two sentences have influenced my lifelong research and study. ”
Li Yining still misses his college days. He recalled that when he first entered the school, there were more than 20 people living in a room in the student dormitory, and the students rushed to the library after eating. The students organized many research groups, and he was the representative of the National Economic Planning Department and the leader of the research group, and carried out activities under the guidance of Professor Luo Zhiru. Mr. Luo read to him the debates of Western scholars on the market economy and the planned economy in English journals in the 1930s. Li Yining later said: "It was Teacher Luo who made me vaguely feel that there may be a third way between the Soviet-style planned economy and the Western market economy. ”
In 1955, Li Yining graduated and stayed in school and worked in the reference room of the Department of Economics. At that time, in addition to providing teachers with books and periodicals for borrowing, the reference room also had to collect, sort out, and compile new materials at home and abroad. This job gave Li Yining the opportunity to contact a large number of Western economic works and dozens of foreign economic journals. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he translated more than 2 million words of economic history works and provided hundreds of thousands of words of manuscripts for the internal journal of the Department of Economics of Peking University, "Trends in Economics Abroad".
In 1977, Li Yining ended more than 20 years of life in the library, officially appeared on the podium, and soon became a popular teacher among students. In the past few years, he has lectured from capital, economic history, and the history of economic thought to statistics and accounting, and has taught more than 20 courses before and after.
He did not read the lecture notes, but only listed the outline on a few cards, or sat or walked, and the difficult content was told. Some students said that listening to Teacher Li's lectures was like talking with an elderly person in the winter. His class economics students want to listen, students in other majors often come to "rub", sometimes even the corridor is crowded with people, so that some students receive their numbers in advance and enter with their numbers. This lecture career continued until 2016.
Known as "Li Shares"
Self-proclaimed "sharp imbalance"
In the early 1980s, a large number of young intellectuals who went to the mountains and the countryside returned to the city, urgently needing to find jobs, and employment became a prominent economic and social problem. In the summer of 1980, Wan Li, then vice premier of the State Council, presided over the National Labor and Employment Conference. At this meeting, Li Yining proposed that joint-stock enterprises can be formed by means of nongovernmental fund-raising, and without the state investing a penny, we can open up a new road for solving the employment problem. This was the first time he formally proposed a joint-stock system, which triggered a fierce debate in the theoretical circles and academic circles, and his opinions were not adopted.
In 1986, China's reform extended from rural to urban areas, facing more complex problems, and the negative impact of the "dual-track system" of prices was becoming increasingly apparent. The relevant departments of the central government entrusted 9 units to conduct special research on the reform plan. At the time, the World Bank's proposal to China was to follow the practice of the Federal Republic of Germany after World War II and fully liberalize prices, that is, to adopt "shock therapy". Peking University, on the other hand, has put forward another idea: to take the road of property rights reform. On April 26 of that year, Li Yining proposed the reform of ownership for the first time in front of thousands of listeners at the Symposium on Commemorating May Fourth at Peking University. He took to the podium and hit the point: "I am ready to speak on 19 questions today. The first problem is that the failure of China's reform may be the failure of price reform; but the success of China's reform must be the success of the ownership reform. One sentence captivated the audience. In September of that year, Li Yining published an article in the People's Daily entitled "Ideas for the Reform of China's Ownership System", once again advocating for the reform of the shareholding system in state-owned enterprises. Since then, he has preached this proposition on various occasions, and some overseas Chinese newspapers have given him the nickname of "Li Shares".
Decades later, Li Yining said of this nickname: "Everyone called me 'Li Shares', but in the early 1980s, scholars who advocated and advocated the joint-stock system included Feng Lanrui, Zhao Lukuan, Hu Zhiren, and later Yu Guangyuan, Tong Dalin, Jiang Yiwei, Wang Jue, and Dong Fureng. Some people call me 'the first creator of the shareholding system', which is not true. If there is a nickname, I think it should be 'strong and unbalanced'. ”
"Non-equilibrium" is an economic theory. In the 19th century, the French economist Leon Vallas put forward the assumption that under the perfect market and a sensitive price system, the total amount of excessive demand and excess supply in the market must be equal, which is called the "Wallace equilibrium". "Non-equilibrium" refers to the equilibrium achieved under the condition that the market is imperfect and the price system is not sensitive. Since the 1930s, Western economists such as Keynes have conducted extensive research on the imbalance under the capitalist market economy. Li Yining noticed the theory of non-equilibrium in the 1960s, and in the late 1980s, he put forward the idea of "two types of imbalance" based on the current state of China's economy. He believes that according to whether market entities can operate independently and bear their own profits and losses, "unbalanced" is divided into two categories. The first category is "non-equilibrium" in which enterprises can operate autonomously and without interference. In the planned economic system under the traditional and dual-track system, it is difficult for enterprises to get rid of administrative intervention, which is the second type of "imbalance". Only by cultivating fully autonomous and dynamic market players can we transform the first type of "non-equilibrium". This is the theoretical basis for his insistence that economic reform must start with property rights reform. He said: "The price is like a traffic signal system, and no matter how good this system is, it is meaningless to a blind person." Only when a modern enterprise system is established can it comply with signals and interact. ”
In 1990, his monograph "Unbalanced China's Economy" was published, and it has been reprinted several times in the following decades, and has been called "one of the ten most important books that have influenced the reform of China's economic system."
From 1988 to 2003, Li Yining was a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for 15 years, and successively served as vice chairman of the Law Committee and the Financial and Economic Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. "The joint-stock system is a form of capital organization for modern enterprises", in September 1997, the report of the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clarified the direction of China's economic structural reform; in December 1998, at the sixth session of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress, the Securities Law, which had been brewed for six years with Li Yining as the leader of the drafting group, was passed with 135 votes in favor. A year later, the drafting group for the Securities Investment Fund Law was established, with Li Yining as its leader. In October 2003, the law was passed by a large majority at the Fifth Session of the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People's Congress.
Looking back on this process, Li Yining said that from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, China's shareholding reform experienced pilots, suspensions, and restarts, and scholars advocating the shareholding system were once faced with denial and criticism, until Deng Xiaoping issued a southern speech.
Since 2003, Li Yining has been a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference for three more years and has served as deputy director of the Economic Committee. In October 2003, the Economic Committee of the CPPCC National Committee organized a research group with the theme of promoting the development of the non-public economy, headed by Li Yining, and went to Guangdong, Liaoning and other places to investigate. In 2004, the 17-page "Proposal on Promoting the Development of the Non-public Ownership Economy" was sent to the State Council together with a sincere letter from Li Yining. In 2005, the State Council's "Several Opinions on Encouraging, Supporting and Guiding the Development of the Non-public Ownership Economy, Including Individuals and Private Enterprises", was published, namely the famous "36 Articles of the Non-public Economy". Li Yining has become "Li Min" again.
Li Yining's writings are abundant and cover a wide range of fields. Some students said that There are nearly 200 monographs, co-authors, editors-in-chief, co-editors, and translations published by Mr. Li, covering many fields such as Western economic history, economic history, macroeconomics, transformation and development theory, economic ethics, and social credit system, and many other topics with strong practicality and practice, such as the reform of China's forest rights system and the discussion of poverty alleviation paths.
Don't ask for flashy aphorisms
Shen Sha unintentionally became a boat
On November 22, 2000, Li Yining's 70th birthday, he held a special academic activity in Room 101 of the Guanghua School of Management of Peking University, which he founded. In the first half, Li Yining made an academic report, talking not about the economy, but about "appreciation of Tang and Song poetry"; in the second half, it was "Li Yining Poetry Seminar". In the evening, the unfinished teachers and students held a "Li Yining Poetry Recitation Meeting".
Li Yining's poetry skills benefit from the Chinese language teachers in elementary and middle school. The rhythm of the poem was taught by the teacher, and the rhyme of the poem was memorized by himself. He told the students that poetry has a subtle effect on a person's cultivation, and he has experienced ups and downs, but his will has never been depressed, and it should be attributed to the nourishment of poetry. Since writing his first poem in his hometown of Yizheng in 1947, Li Yining has written more than 1,400 poems over the past 70 years. He wrote classical Chinese poetry, poems follow the rules, words follow the word plate. There are mountains, rivers, rivers, seas, and feelings of home and country in the poems, as well as the ups and downs of the years and the joys of life; there are youthful ambitions and the taste of life, and there are also the exploration of learning and the understanding of governance. "Don't ask for glitz, but for aphorisms."
In 1951, on the way from Yuanling to Changsha to take the college entrance examination, he filled out a poem "Phoenix": "Winding around the forest, muddy roads, and the sun shines after deep rain." The stream is full, the bamboo bridge is short, the ridge is separated by fog, the spring festival gala of the year is cold, and the return is complete. return? return? Green grass, small cherries, gradually feel that the scenery is good, clouds and smoke disperse, peaks turn, cauliflower ten miles, a river flat, catch! drive! drive! The 21-year-old student who rushed to the exam seemed to know that the road ahead was bumpy, but if he could "catch up!" drive! drive! In the end, "cauliflower is ten miles, and a river is flat."
After graduating from university, Li Yining had no access to the podium for more than 20 years, and in the late 1960s, he was raided three times and was once imprisoned in the "supervision and reform compound" of Peking University. Worried about the fate of the country and lamenting the family's suffering, at the Liyuzhou Cadre School in Jiangxi, Li Yining wrote poems such as "Family affairs are forgotten, and the country is worried about the bottom of the heart".
In January 1976, premier Zhou Enlai passed away, Li Yining mixed sorrows and sorrows, composed a "picking mulberry", "the sound of mourning and tears, everywhere the spiritual hall, everywhere flower walls, one night in the capital to change plain makeup." Although the sound has gone to the edge of the sky, leaving sadness, leaving wandering, and foreboding that the wind and rain are getting wilder," the deep feelings for Premier Zhou, the worries about the future of the motherland, and the expectations for the turning point in the future history jumped on the paper.
In 1978, when the door of reform and opening up was about to open, Li Yining wrote a poem that "mountain scenery must always be looked at horizontally, and the evening sun is also a sunny day". This year, he was 48 years old, and he had just walked from the reference room to the podium, and the "sunny day" of his academic career had begun to dawn. Two years later, the first proposal to use the "shareholding system" to pool social funds to set up enterprises and solve employment problems was not adopted and questioned, and some people said that he was "a plan to repair the reform of state-owned enterprises, and a secret privatization of Chen Cang" Li Yining wrote a poem that was later widely circulated: "The Sui Dynasty did not follow the laws of the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the Ming people did not wear the Costume of the Song People." Stereotypes must eventually change, and leave them with their children and grandchildren to comment on the short and long. The poem became a portrayal of the mental journey of a generation of reformers. In 1981, he wrote another poem: "Climb the small pavilion, look at the front river, the slow current is always wider than the rapids." In the language of Gelug poetry, he expressed the idea of gradual reform, reducing intervention, and regulating the economy with the "invisible hand", which also became the tone of his academic research in the following decades.
◆ In February 1997, Mr. and Mrs. Li Yining were in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.
Journalist's Note
An economist who cooks for his wife every day
Li Yining got up at 6 o'clock every morning, insisted on writing an hour's article, making breakfast for two people at 7 o'clock, and then reading and writing until 11 o'clock and starting to make lunch.
Li Yining's cooking skills were learned at Liyuzhou Cadre School. After returning to Beijing, if it is not cooking, he can sit at his desk all the time to think and write, there is no activity at all, cooking, it is Mrs. He Yuchun to give him a chance to rest his brain and move his body.
He Yuchun is a senior electrical engineer. Li Yining's articles are always shown to her first, He Yuchun is satisfied, Li Yining is assured, so that the general reader will not be too difficult to read.
Since the reunion of the two in 1957 and why Yuchun wrote the first poem, Li Yining has written many "love poems", from youth to full of white hair, from newlywed Yan'er to his children and grandchildren. In 2008, it was their golden marriage, and Li Yining summed up the 50-year marriage with the verse "Calmly living in the wind and rain, no regrets in this life and not worrying about yourself", which can also be regarded as the author's own situation.