Using Western economic standards to "test" China's development? This research approach should change China | theory | standards
Recently, after studying the book excerpt from Xi Jinping's excerpt on investigation and Research, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out: "experts and scholars should be based on national conditions, conduct in-depth research, focus on studying major theoretical and practical issues, and pay attention to objective economic facts. we should reveal the nature and laws behind economic phenomena, strive to produce more research results that can stand the test of practice, and offer ideas and suggestions for economic and social development." This points out the direction and provides the basic follow for the current Chinese economic research.
The Strange Current Situation of Contemporary Chinese Economic Research
Fundamentally, economics is not an unattainable discipline, it simply provides a programmatic way of thinking for people to understand the world through the extraction of special professional terms. After introducing dialectical logic and contradictory logic, economics provides a unique way to solve practical problems.
In terms of name, the reason why Western economics is named Western is because the large-scale development of market economy began in Western countries, so any discipline that studies the laws of market operation can be classified as Western economics. Since the 1990s, China has entered the development track of socialist market economy, and the introduction, digestion, and absorption of Western economics have become inevitable. But in reality, some problems have gradually emerged, such as ignoring Chinese characteristics and practical characteristics. This situation particularly occurs in the research field, which is reflected not only in the Westernization paradigm and evaluation criteria of research results, but also in the design of standards such as command and guidance for researchers and requirements for student development.
Setting aside national conditions and human factors, Western economics regards the market as an efficient "perpetual machine" for resource allocation, which is theoretically reasonable. However, this so-called equality view appears pale and powerless under the premise of unequal factors where capital is higher than labor. As Marx said, labor is the creator of surplus value, but capital is the dominator of surplus value. Creators do not have the ability to dominate, which is a fact of unequal factors in reality. Ignoring this premise in academic research, how can we possibly obtain viewpoints that help promote practical development? In fact, the scientificity of Marxist economics comes from practice. Through theoretical deduction rooted in social practice at that time, the conclusions obtained can naturally judge the development trend of practice and also guide the process of practice well. On the other hand, in today's academic research ideas of Chinese economics, some people are either addicted to the dizzying mathematical perfect logic and neglect the practical premise; Either focus on testing China's Western economic standards and use them as a basis to guide development ideas; Either be enthusiastic about recombining non theoretical texts to piece together the so-called theoretical system. These practices have departed from the spirit of science and will not play an effective role in guiding China's economic development.
Villages with poor medical resources have become "longevity villages"
Replacing economic variables with mathematical symbols, revealing practical characteristics through data statistics, and exploring economic operating laws through mathematical logic are common practices of positivism. The original intention was to achieve a perfect combination of rational assumptions and intuitive cognition. However, the lack of practical support for the mathematical application of theoretical logic, or the detachment or even violation of practical mathematical logic, will ultimately become a meaningless pile of symbols. Data doesn't speak, and the people behind it are the main body of data interpretation. If the interpreter disregards factual logic and tampers with causal relationships recklessly, if the interpreter is immersed in numerical values and ignores the reality, then what they say will only be biased words, and becoming a "brick expert" is just one step away.
For example, a previous survey found that in a remote mountainous rural area of China, the proportion of people over 80 years old is very high, almost reaching 60% of the existing village population. Therefore, some people called this village "Changshou Village" and vigorously promoted the ecological environment, dietary habits, and lifestyle of this area for longevity. However, in reality, many people between the ages of 55 and 80 in villages die prematurely due to lack of money for medical treatment. Among the two interpretations, the former represents the surface meaning of the data, while the latter represents the actual local situation. But if we neglect the mining of data structures and in-depth research, we will "take out of context" and mistake a village with poor medical resources and backward economic development for a "longevity village". Such research will cause very serious consequences.
The same situation also occurs in the area of excessive statistics. When comparing regions, many people often use per capita GDP as an indicator to distinguish differences in economic development levels, and believe that the higher the per capita GDP, the higher the level of regional economic development, and the corresponding regional economic level. Behind the seemingly reliable theoretical basis, an important prerequisite is overlooked, which is that the industrial structure and even enterprise structure between regions must be the same. Imagine two regions, one with 100% tertiary industry and the other with 100% secondary industry and capital intensive industry. Therefore, the per capita GDP of the former will be significantly lower than that of the latter. However, according to the general principles of economics, the level of a service-oriented economy is much higher than that of a manufacturing economy. In this case, using per capita GDP to represent the economic levels of two regions would go against theoretical views. The statistical data for 2022 shows that the per capita GDP of some big cities is even lower than that of Ordos and Yulin. Can we say that the economic level of big cities is far inferior to Yulin? Obviously, the conclusions and countermeasures obtained from this are of no help to reality.
There are many such situations, such as treating per capita output as labor productivity, equating the proportion of added value in the tertiary industry with industrial structure upgrading, replicating the production function of the industrial era to the service economy and even the digital economy era, viewing the added value rate of different industries as industrial creativity, and so on. In fact, users are not unaware of the shortcomings of these indicators, but they can easily get by without finding effective alternatives, as if the defects and incorrect conclusions are no longer relevant to themselves.
Western theories cannot be directly applied to China
Over the years, we have clearly seen that every introduction of foreign mathematical models has always been popular in China for several years, known as the "model dividend". Whenever someone develops a new database, a batch of achievements will emerge, which can be called the "data dividend". Objectively speaking, keeping up with the forefront of foreign academic research is a good thing, and accelerating database construction is also a good thing. However, excessive utilitarianism in academic research will only make it more superficial, ultimately leading to creative destruction.
A popular misconception is to use the conclusions of Western economics as absolute standards and use them to explore the right and wrong in China's development. For example, without considering why market economy first occurred in Western countries, and without considering the role of the tripartite game between religion, nobility, and bourgeoisie in the relationship between the market and government in Western countries during the medieval period. Perhaps one may think that China is a latecomer country different from developed countries, but it is just a fleeting moment in their minds. They blindly compare China's practices with the absolute standards of a market economy, and although differences are discovered, they are only used as an excuse to criticize China. This Western standard and paradigm centered view is almost ubiquitous in many research results.
There is also a situation where the assumption is to erase the actual national conditions and cultural characteristics, and to use Western theoretical standards to criticize by de Sinicizing the Chinese problem scene. On the surface, the theoretical depth is strong, the data is very detailed, and the econometric model is also mysterious and profound. However, behind many symbols, there is a problem of missing positions. For example, in recent years, there have always been some domestic and foreign scholars who criticize the Chinese economy. They may exaggerate the risks of the Chinese economy on the grounds of excessive local government debt or the argument of "advancing the country and retreating the people". While it may seem reasonable, it is actually a distortion of theoretical standards.
On the one hand, China is a unitary country, with the central and local governments as a whole. Once economic risks occur in local areas and exceed their own capacity to solve them, it will be an inevitable choice for the central government to coordinate with the overall situation. This means that when designing the upper limit standards for local debt risks in a unitary country, it is necessary to start from the national perspective, rather than being limited to the ability of one city, one province to respond. So, the local debt standards of Western economics are not suitable for China.
Secondly, China is a latecomer country, with advanced elements such as technology and brand being at a disadvantage for a long time. Market competition can improve efficiency but cannot reverse low-end lock-in. Therefore, concentrating resources with the power of government planning to accelerate economic catch-up is a choice of national development rights, which is the biggest reality in China. Western economic theory has no experience to refer to.
Thirdly, China advocates collectivism, emphasizes emotional communication, and the personal restraint law centered on constructing social order determines the behavioral characteristics of Chinese people; The West advocates individualism, emphasizes the spirit of contract, and the social rules centered on returning to natural order determine the behavioral characteristics of Westerners. Compared to each other, there is no distinction between high and low, but people's ways of thinking, behavior patterns, and action goals are vastly different. It is inevitable that there are differences in the theoretical laws that guide economic activities based on these differences. So, Western theories that have not been modified by Chinese practical elements cannot be directly applied to China. Is there still a lack of lessons from some of the introduction style reforms we have done in the past that went against our wishes and went against our wishes?
Building a Chinese style economics with "theoretical zenith and practical site"
Recently, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Work Plan for Investigation and Research in the Revitalization of the Party as a Whole", which not only puts forward the requirement of understanding the overall situation of academic research and asking questions from the people, but also clarifies that the value of academic research must be based on practical standards that start from reality and end in practice.
In real life, many students who are about to engage in academic research have no time to conduct practical research and study classic works. In order to pass the exam, they focus on drilling into the data pile and trying to discover problems in data analysis. This is not conducive to the cultivation and academic growth of Chinese scholars, but also has little benefit for the construction of Chinese economics. From the root cause, the distortion of academic evaluation rules is the main culprit. Under the erroneous guidance of this "baton", studying theory carefully and conducting practical research with caution seems to be the most foolish behavior, which is not as easy and effective as a calculation in the study. As a result, many strange phenomena have emerged, namely, students are enthusiastic about mathematical tools and have no intention of studying classic masterpieces, researchers are obsessed with quantitative experiments and unwilling to devote themselves to investigation and practice, reviewers advocate quantitative standards and have no intention of thinking about qualitative logic. If this continues, Chinese economic research will become increasingly trapped in a situation where more is done and more results are obtained, but the explanatory power and application value will be lower. This inevitably reminds me of the academic attitude of the older generation of economists, such as Gu Zhun, Sun Yefang, Liu Guoguang, Chen Daisun, Chen Biaoru, Zhang Peigang, Wu Jinglian, and so on. Perhaps the mathematical application level of the predecessors is not very high, but their research depth using the basic methods of economics is high. Academic research has achieved the lofty goal of applying economics to the world with the help of theory and practice.
Chinese economics has reached the moment to change the current strange situation. In the future, as the largest developing country, China today provides researchers with a rich and diverse research sample, and the unique characteristics of Chinese culture and national conditions provide excellent observation objects for the construction of Chinese characteristic economics. Of course, economics with Chinese characteristics is not a list of phenomenon cases, nor a mirror image of Western theoretical paradigms, nor is it a theoretical imagination conceived out of thin air. It is based on Marxist economic theory, rooted in the unique characteristics and development practices of Chinese history, and formed by reasonably absorbing the basic principles and concepts of Western economics, a theoretical system with strong explanatory and guiding significance for China and even developing countries, and can be connected with Western economic theory.
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