Zheng Yongnian's video speech, Li Nian intercepted on the live page
"Academic China" International Summit Forum, also known as "Hundred Forum", invites China's top experts in the field of philosophy and social sciences and international famous scholars a total of 100, around a theme of continuous holding every year, this year for the first time, in the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's July 1st speech, aims to comprehensively show "China in academia", "China in theory" and "China in philosophy and social sciences", to create an important influential academic forum brand in the world, to become a prosperous Chinese academic, the development of Chinese theory, An important platform for the dissemination of Chinese thought. Sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Organized by China Social Sciences Magazine.
Among them, many scholars who have been guests of the Wenhui Lecture Hall or reported in the lecture hall include Feng Jun, Wu Xiaoming, Gao Jianping, Li Youmei, Huang Ping, Peng Xizhe, Ji Weidong, Yang Jiemian, Huang Renwei, Zhang Yuyan, and Zheng Yongnian, all of whom were guests of the lecture hall. Lecture Hall Today's Special Edition of Lecture Hall Guest Zheng Yongnian (Dean of the Institute for Advanced Study of Global and Contemporary China, University of Chinese, Hong Kong, Shenzhen) delivered a speech at the forum "Three Sources of Original Theories of Chinese Political Economy"
At the closing ceremony, Fang Ping, Secretary-General of the Forum, pointed out that the full dialogue of the Forum demonstrated the academic dignity and ideological strength
Panoramic view of the closing ceremony venue (all taken by Li Nian)
【Zheng Yongnian's speech】
Thank you, first of all, thank you very much to the organizers, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Chinese Social Sciences Magazine, for inviting me to participate in the "Academic China" forum and express my views. This forum is very important for a scholar, and I have written more than 20,000 words about it, sharing the main ideas here.
According to the requirements of the conference, Zheng Yongnian recorded a video of his speech for the forum
The original theories of Chinese social sciences are also "the weight of the country"
The Chinese social sciences need our own innovative theories, original theories, which, like original technology, are the heavy weapons of the great powers. I think that social sciences are difficult to become social sciences without innovative theories.
In modern times, China has traditionally had no social sciences, and through the study, reference and dialogue of Western social sciences, our social sciences have also achieved great results, which is needed at this stage. At present, in many fields, our conceptual theories of social science are still applied, and I myself feel that this situation is difficult to sustain. China has now become a responsible big country, and many of our students have long learned how to write papers in the Western way, which also exposes our lack of ideological knowledge as a thesis power.
I personally feel that in order to create China's original social science theory, we must start with political economy, and the core of the Western social science system is political economy. The core of China's social sciences is also inevitably political economy. How do you construct this originality? What is the source of our original theory of Chinese political economy? Looking at the West, whether it is Adam Smith or Karl Marx, we all recognize it as a very great theory of political economy. But without knowing their origin and background, it's hard to understand their correspondence. So, first of all, we need to know the sources that affect us.
The original theories of Chinese political economy have three major sources and three traditions based on practice
Through all these years of research, I feel that there are at least three major sources, which I call the Three Traditions.
The first source is based on the great tradition, that is, the practical experience of political economy from the Qin and Han dynasties to the late Qing Dynasty from more than 2,000 years. The second source is the Chinese tradition, that is, the practical experience of Chinese political economy since modern times. The third source, which is near tradition, is China's political economy practice and experience since the reform and opening up.
Mao Zedong once said, where does man's correct thinking come from? It can only come from practice. The original theory of Chinese political economy is also based on Chinese practice, these three major practices. The traditional political economy of nearly 2,000 years has been combined with the practice of political economy in modern times and the practice and experience of political economy since the reform and opening up.
*The Great Tradition is a traditional practice in 2000, and "The Pipe" and "Salt and Iron Theory" have a political economy framework
I think the best classic of Chinese political economy is "The Pipe" and "On Salt and Iron", which I call the framework of political economy
Traditional political economy, in the past, we used to regard tradition as feudal backwardness, and the May Fourth Movement knocked tradition to the ground with a single sentence, but in recent years, based on our cultural self-confidence, we have begun to look for the source of our political economy more from tradition. If you study it carefully, you will find that traditional Chinese society is no worse than the practice of political economy and economics in any other country. It raises many sources and roots, and there are many intellectual traditions contained in the great traditions. You may not remember that the first school of political economy in modern times, the French Physiocrat School, was based on the ancient Chinese classics, including the I Ching, including the Taoist doctrine of rule by inaction. Including Confucianism. After years of research, I think that the best classic of Chinese political economy is "The Pipe" and "Salt and Iron Theory", which I call the framework of political economy, but we have not systematized, conceptualized, and theorized it.
*Since the Han Dynasty, there has always been a mixed economy with three layers of capital and three layers of capital markets of government office, commercial office, and official supervision and commercial office
China's economy is divided into three categories: the first is the government-run, that is, our state-owned enterprises today; the second is the commercial office, which we now call private enterprise; and the other is the official supervision and commercial office, that is, the public-private partnership
From the Han Dynasty to the present, China has actually existed as a mixed economy composed of three layers of capital and three layers of market. At the top of China's economic system is state-owned capital, at the grassroots level there is a huge amount of private capital based on small and medium-sized enterprises or micro-enterprises, and the middle layer is the interactive field of state-owned capital and private capital. In modern times Chinese are very clever, dividing China's economy into three categories, or Chinese enterprises into three categories. The first type is the government office, that is, our state-owned enterprise today; the second type is the commercial office, which we now call the private enterprise; and the other type is the official supervision and commercial office, that is, the public-private partnership. Therefore, in China's history, the role of the government and the market is relatively balanced, and when the resources of the government and the market are relatively balanced, China's economic development is good, and economic development is sustainable.
There are also several historical stages that are not very long, in fact, they have become stronger, and the role of the market has been weakened or even disappeared. These four periods are not long, the first is the reform of Wang Mang during the two Han Dynasties, the second is the reform of Wang Anshi in the Northern Song Dynasty, the third is the reform of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and finally the era of planned economy before the reform and opening up. It should be noted that the prevalence of nationalism during these four periods was mainly to cope with the previous economic crisis caused by economic structural imbalances. In addition to these short periods of time, the power between The Chinese government and the market has always been very balanced and controllable. Of course, today we are back to a traditional three-tier, three-tier market structure. The material inside is very rich for excavation. China is the only country in the world where civilization has not been interrupted, and China's economic practice is also like this, although dynasties come and go, China's economic world can not avoid the structure of these three layers of capital and three layers of markets.
* In the Chinese tradition, the sinicization of Marxism has always accompanied and has not completely copied the Soviet model
The second of course, the tradition is more complicated. The main body is the sinicization of Marxism led by the Communist Party of China. We emphasize the contribution of Marxism to China, but what we should emphasize more is that the influence of Marxism on China is the influence of Marxism on China through the sinification of Marxism. Starting from Sun Yat-sen, we also learned from the West, but we did not succeed. Since the beginning of the Communist Party, marxism has been sinicized, because only the sinicization of Marxism can solve China's problems, not the sinicization of fundamentalism.
There are two phases here. In the early days, before 1949, the sinification of Marxism mainly solved the problems of the Chinese revolution and the political order, and this period was the successful sinification of Marxism. After liberation, we initially copied and copied the Soviet model for a planned economy, and soon found that the Soviet version of the economic model did not conform to China's reality. So although the Soviet Union and China were both planned economies at that time, the reality was different, the Soviet version was mainly the central government's central government's central power, while our China included all aspects of the rights, and even property rights can be divided, controlled by governments at all levels.
* Recent tradition refers to the fact that since the reform and opening up, the Chinese model of both development and independence has contributed a lot of practice to the world
In the early 1980s, the average GDP of Chinese was less than $30,000, and by 2020 it was $11,000, which is a rarity
The third source is objectively called the near tradition, that is, the practice since China's reform and opening up, with a wider time and a higher starting point. Because this is China's economic growth, economic development is carried out in an open state, China and the world economy interact, China through learning from the West to integrate with the world economy, become a part of today's world economy. The 19th National Congress summed it up very well, why can China provide other developing countries with another system and another choice model? It is a model of Chinese modernization that is both developing and independent. Looking at the contemporary world, many countries cannot develop without opening up; many countries are open to the West and slowly evolve into an economy dependent on the West.
China, on the other hand, is one of the few models of modernization that is both open and has achieved its own independent development. This is a very important resource in China's political economy. This is also related to the great Tradition of China, we have faith in Marxism, and we have also gone through Sinicization, and since the reform and opening up, we have never simply copied and copied the West. General Secretary Xi Jinping said that whether the shoes you wear properly or not is known only to the people who wear shoes, not the people who make shoes, so it is very important not to copy them.
Since the beginning of reform and opening up, it is precisely because we are responsible for the world economy and the Western economy that our system in all aspects has undergone a great transformation, and the practice here is very rich. In the early 1980s, the average GDP of Chinese was less than $30,000, and by 2020 it was $11,000, which is a rarity. I think the bigger achievement is to lift 800 million people out of absolute poverty in the last 40 years, and to lift the last 100 million people out of absolute poverty in less than 10 years since the 18th Party Congress, which are all world economic miracles. Therefore, I think the three major practices and three major roots are the rich sources of our Chinese political economy theory.
Modern China has made three major theoretical contributions to Marxism: property rights, the state, and class
What should we in academia do? There are a lot of things to do. First of all, in terms of the big ones, we have to summarize well. Since modern times, our historians, especially economists, have done a lot of work in quantitative characterization, but it is far from enough. I hope that more of our economists, more social science scholars, will read history and look for the traditions of Chinese political economy from 2,000 years of history. The roots of Western political economy are its ethical traditions, and China's political economy is also based on its own ethics and traditions.
Second, we must study Marxist political economy, and for China at this stage, we must emphasize the contribution of our Chinese practice to Marxist political economy, rather than simply using the original ideas of Marxism to judge China's political and economic practice.
The practice since the reform and opening up has made three major contributions to Marxist political economy. The first major contribution is the property rights system. According to the conditions of Western Europe at that time, Marx believed that private property was the root of social injustice and injustice, so his goal was to eliminate private property. In fact, state-owned capital dominates Chinese society, but we also allow and encourage the existence of private capital, and we work together with private capital to promote the success of China's economy.
The second major contribution is China's contribution to the Marxist theory of the state. Based on the situation in Western Europe at that time, Marx believed that the state was only the representative of capital, but this was neither suitable for explaining China's traditional society nor China's current national conditions. Our current government and state represent the will of the greatest majority of the people and are the representatives of the people.
The third major contribution is China's practice of Marxist class and stratum theory. Marxist class theory is mainly a theory of society and revolution, society and great social change. In peacetime, few countries encourage class struggle, and most societies emphasize class harmony and class coordination. As the political subject of China, the Communist Party of China does not represent its own interests, he represents the interests of the majority of the people, and he wants to coordinate the interests of different social classes, different social groups, and different regions.
From this tradition, we have a lot of practice to sort out the contribution to Marx's political economy. Since the recent tradition, that is, since the reform and opening up, we have many aspects of innovation in the political and economic system, such as the theory of mixed property rights. The West simply has only one private property right, while China is a composite property rights system, and we have made great contributions to our experience in poverty alleviation, the experience of common prosperity, the national mobilization mechanism, the open policy of joining the world economy without losing independence, and the contribution to the world rules in line with the world. So I think that in order to create a theory of Political Originality in China, we should not take the Western proposition as the proposition, we must first find the Chinese proposition, and a lot of the research we are doing now is the Western proposition Chinese empirical material, this phenomenon I feel is unsustainable.
China's practice is the best proposition of Chinese political economy and is expected to build an original theoretical system in China
Screenshots of the sub-forums on political economy and international relations
So how to find the Chinese proposition, I think our practice in modern times is the best Chinese proposition. The great tradition is, of course, China's proposition. After modern China came into contact with the West, we accepted the Western proposition from the Westerners, and we did not find our own proposition, but in fact the success of our practice was precisely because we found our own proposition- the sinification of Marxism.
From the perspective of academic China, I think it is necessary to summarize the three traditional three sources to find China's propositions and find China's answers. Therefore, I hope that our colleagues will consciously build our political economy theoretical system based on China's practice and rich practical experience.
(Li Nian compiled it based on the live broadcast of the academic Chinese political science session, without my review)
【Forum Agenda】
Author: Zheng Yongnian (Dean, Institute for Advanced Study in Global and Contemporary China, University of Chinese, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, And Editor-in-Chief, Institute of Political Economy, Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China Policy)
Editor: Qian Yichen
Photo of the meeting: Li Nian intercepted in the live video, the website of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences