It is also a common feature of modernization in various countries. Xuelin Essays | This is the fundamental difference between modern society and traditional society
One important reason why modernization is a common aspiration of people around the world is that modern production methods can bring about improvements in labor productivity and people's living standards. This is the trend of human social development.
Modernization is first and foremost the modernization of productive forces. After going through steam, electrification, and informatization, it is moving towards intelligence, which has brought about a historic change in the production mode of human society: from natural economy and agricultural production to modern industrial and socialized large-scale production, labor productivity has greatly improved, and people's production conditions and living standards have greatly improved.
This is the fundamental difference between modern society and traditional society, and also the commonality of modernization in various countries. Its core is how to organize and establish socialized mass production.
First mover capitalist countries drive the operation of various production factors with capital. Capital is not an individual force, but a social force. The infinite proliferation of capital promotes the continuous improvement of social production and brings about a huge leap in productivity. Therefore, the productive forces created by the bourgeoisie during its less than a hundred years of class rule are greater and greater than the total productive forces created by all previous generations. Along with it, modernization was once seen as synonymous with capitalization or Westernization.
The modern capitalist mode of production requires cheap labor, sufficient raw materials, and a vast product market. So, capital is searching for labor markets, raw material markets, and product markets globally, making production and consumption in all countries global. In 1900, one out of every three miners and quarrying workers in the world worked on the land of the British Empire.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty and the British Empire could be said to be the "poles" of the world: one side developed a self-sufficient small-scale agricultural economy to its peak, while the other began "global colonization" through a magnificent industrial revolution. The closed and self-sufficient agricultural civilization collided with the advanced industrial civilization from abroad on the ancient land of China. The Qing Dynasty, which claimed to be the "Heavenly Kingdom," suffered repeated defeats and had to "measure China's material resources and win the hearts of its friends.".
Modernization is the transformation from traditional agricultural society to modern industrial civilization. Since 1640, capitalism has been invincible and dominant on a global scale. One important reason is that modern industrial capitalism has broken the long-term slow growth trend of labor productivity in agricultural society.
Compared to capitalism, socialism is more in line with the development requirements of socialized productive forces. Especially for underdeveloped countries, the most effective way to build a modern productivity system is to leverage the advantages of the socialist system, concentrate the forces of the whole society, and organize socialized large-scale production, without sufficient conditions for primitive accumulation that can be converted into capital.
As early as the revolutionary war era, Comrade Mao Zedong deeply realized that "the main reason for China's backwardness is the lack of modern industry." After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, we persisted in following the socialist path, insisting on both socialist transformation and socialist industrialization. Decentralized agriculture and handicrafts have achieved socialized large-scale production in the form of cooperatives, and the entire industry's public-private partnership has completed the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce, thereby utilizing the power of the whole society to build a modern productive force system.
On this basis, how to liberate and develop productive forces to improve people's living standards? The reform and opening up, in accordance with the standards of "three benefits", aims to "feel the stones and cross the river" and establish and develop a socialist market economy.
Firstly, with public ownership as the mainstay, establish a sound infrastructure system for the development of the entire socialized productive forces; Equal treatment of all types of ownership enterprises, providing development space and opportunities for the private economy and international capital; Expanding channels for workers to create value and accumulate wealth while meeting the diverse and personalized needs of the people.
Secondly, with distribution according to work as the main body, we will maintain basic synchronization between the growth of labor income and economic growth, and the improvement of labor remuneration and labor productivity; Adhere to the common development of multiple economic components and the coexistence of multiple distribution methods, so that the labor accumulation of workers can be invested in social reproduction through multiple channels and continuously achieve growth.
Thirdly, under the premise of independence and autonomy, we should regard opening up to the outside world as an important tool for modernization construction, absorb and draw on all beneficial achievements of human civilization, including capitalism, actively expand foreign cooperation, introduce funds and technology, learn from the world's advanced, and promote industrialization, urbanization, agricultural modernization, and informatization in a coordinated and overlapping manner.
This is a new modern mode of production that can best adapt to the development requirements of modern productive forces and continuously meet the needs of the people for a better life. It not only fully utilizes the mechanism of capital growth, plays a decisive role in market resource allocation, but also, under the premise of socialist system and based on public ownership as the main body, guides the results of capital growth to continuously meet the people's needs for a better life.
From 1978 to 2020, the average absolute growth rate of China's GDP was 9.2%, and the average growth rates of the secondary and tertiary industries were both 10.2%; The average growth rate of per capita disposable income for residents nationwide is 8.2%, and the average growth rate of per capita consumption expenditure is 7.5%. From the entry of socialism with Chinese characteristics into a new era in 2012 to the comprehensive construction of a moderately prosperous society in 2021, we have historically eliminated absolute poverty and embarked on a new journey of common prosperity.
Chinese path to modernization is a socialist modernization led by the CPC and a great creation of a new mode of production in human society. Over the past 10 years, China's average annual contribution to global economic growth has exceeded 30%. The International Monetary Fund predicts that China's contribution to world economic growth will reach one-third this year. Chinese path to modernization promotes the overall progress of mankind by respecting objective laws, adapting to China's national conditions, meeting the needs of the people, adapting to the characteristics of the times, and conforming to the historical trend.
Chinese path to modernization has both the common characteristics of modernization in all countries and the Chinese characteristics based on their own national conditions. The common feature is the development of modern social productivity by organizations, constantly improving labor productivity; The distinctive feature is to adhere to the organic unity of the Party's leadership, the people being the masters of the country, and the rule of law. Through political parties rooted in the people, workers are united, and the advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics are utilized to organize socialized production, continuously meeting the needs of the people for a better life, and breaking the misconception that modernization equals Westernization.
Further, everything depends on the people and everything is for the people, which determines that Chinese path to modernization is a modernization of common prosperity for all people, a modernization with a huge population, and further determines that the comprehensive construction of a socialist modern country must adhere to the people as the center.
