Karl Marx's social capital reproduction theory is his significant contribution to economics. The purpose of this paper is to review the contributions of the exploration of Chinese…
Abstract
Purpose
Karl Marx's social capital reproduction theory is his significant contribution to economics. The purpose of this paper is to review the contributions of the exploration of Chinese economists (especially Professor Liu Guoguang) in the concretization of Marx’s social capital reproduction theory combined with socialist construction since 1949.
Design/methodology/approach
During this process, Professor Liu Guoguang, a famous Chinese Marxist economist, has made an outstanding contribution by creating a Marxist social capital reproduction model with Chinese characteristics and a distinctive Marxist economic growth model. Professor Liu's exploration is still of crucial practical significance to building a socialist market economy today.
Findings
The process and achievements in the sinicization exploration of Marx's social capital reproduction theory were reviewed. With the reform and opening up, fundamental changes have occurred in China's economic system – the centralized planned economic system has been transformed into a socialist market economic system.
Originality/value
The planned management of the national economy is replaced by a macro-regulation system characterized by gross control gradually, and the concepts of agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry, and their intercorrelation are no longer applied in theory and policy. However, the sinicization exploration of Marx's social capital reproduction theory in the older generation of Marxist economists represented by Liu is not only of historical significance but also of important practical significance.
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Bangxi Li, Chong Liu, Feng Zhao and Yanghua Huang
In the current literature, there is little systematic research on the relationship among adjustment of the income distribution, change in economic structure and improvement of…
Abstract
Purpose
In the current literature, there is little systematic research on the relationship among adjustment of the income distribution, change in economic structure and improvement of macroeconomic efficiency.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper expands Marx's reproduction schema into the “Marx–Sraffa” three-department structure table comprising fixed capital, general means of production and means of consumption and employs China's input–output table from 1987 to 2015 to portray the relationship between income distribution and macroeconomic efficiency under investment-driven growth.
Findings
This paper calculates the wage–profit curve of China's economy and evaluates the space of macroeconomic efficiency improvement in China based on the deviation between actual and potential income distribution structure.
Originality/value
The results show that there is a downward trend of the profit rate, which meets Marx's theoretical prediction, and the decline in the profit rate is mainly attributed to an increase in the organic composition of capital arising from the rapid growth of fixed capital investment under extended growth. The analysis of macroeconomic efficiency shows that the space for improving macroeconomic efficiency is extremely limited under traditional growth pattern and that China must transform its economic development pattern and foster new economic growth drivers.
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Jie Meng and Fenghua Wu
As a crucial institutional form established since the Chinese economic reform, the system of competitive local governments has been shaping the characteristics of China's…
Abstract
Purpose
As a crucial institutional form established since the Chinese economic reform, the system of competitive local governments has been shaping the characteristics of China's socialist market economy to a considerable degree.
Design/methodology/approach
This study not only adopts the view of existing studies that attribute the economic motive of local governments to rent and consider land public finance as a means through which local governments carry out strategic investment but also attempts to further develop the view within a Marxist analytical framework.
Findings
As a result, the local governments have helped to maintain an incredibly high investment rate over a considerable period of time, facilitating the continuous, rapid growth of the Chinese economy.
Originality/value
This study concludes that China's local governments function as the productive allocator and user of rent in the strategic investment based on land public finance and thereby embed themselves in the relative surplus-value production initially arising from competition amongst enterprises, forming the dual structure of relative surplus-value production unique to China's economy.
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General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that to uphold and develop socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics, the authors should be guided by Marxist political…
Abstract
Purpose
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that to uphold and develop socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics, the authors should be guided by Marxist political economics.
Design/methodology/approach
It is an essential methodological principle for building a theoretical system of socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics as a “systematic economic theory”.
Findings
To implement this principle, the authors need to understand the rich connotation of Marxist political economics and its relationship with socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics fully and correctly and unswervingly uphold and inherit, creatively transform and innovatively develop the theoretical achievements of Marxist economics, especially capital.
Originality/value
It is also an essential and necessary way to build a theoretical system of socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics.