Xiong Anjing: Promoting the Concentration of Factors of Production Toward the Development of New Quality Productive Forces
As an advanced state of productive forces catalyzed by revolutionary technological breakthroughs, the innovative allocation of productive factors, and the deep transformation and upgrading of industries, new quality productive forces possess the substantial increase of total factor productivity [1] as their core indicator. Their formation and development rely on the optimized configuration of the three elements: laborers, objects of labor, and instruments of labor. Improving the mechanisms where the market evaluates the contribution of productive factors—such as labor, capital, land, knowledge, technology, management, and data—and determines remuneration based on that contribution is an essential condition for promoting the development of new quality productive forces. This has profound and significant implications for stimulating social vitality, improving resource utilization, and achieving distributive justice.
Promote entrepreneurial spirit and stimulate the creativity of market entities. In a socialist society, the principle of "distribution according to work" [2] is practiced; thus, labor is naturally the primary productive factor participating in distribution. Since the Reform and Opening-up, based on national conditions such as China’s history, institutions, markets, and culture, the Party Central Committee—while clarifying the right of individual capital to participate in distribution as a productive factor—has sequentially recognized knowledge, technology, and management as productive factors for distribution, and emphasized the vigorous promotion of entrepreneurial spirit. Entrepreneurs are the primary subjects of wealth creation under market economy conditions. Only by protecting and supporting outstanding entrepreneurs can we effectively stimulate their initiative and creativity to discover new markets, develop new products, apply new technologies, and achieve "new combinations," leading enterprises toward a more brilliant future. Simultaneously, we must balance efficiency and fairness, persist in having "those who get rich first lead those who lag behind" [3], maintain a reasonable ratio in the income gap between entrepreneurs and ordinary staff, and promote common prosperity.
Deepen the reform of the management system for labor and talent development to form rational, fair, smooth, and orderly social mobility. The social mobility of labor and talent is the fundamental guarantee for releasing economic vitality, promoting fairness and justice, maintaining social stability, and achieving well-rounded human development. We must persist in implementing the employment-first policy, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, and actively cultivate and develop emerging and future industries to provide more sufficient and higher-quality jobs, continuously creating opportunities for social mobility. Driven by the household registration (hukou) [4] system reform and public services, we should improve the mechanism for the "utilization, cultivation, introduction, and mobility" of talent, clear orderly circulation channels, strengthen the motivation of individuals to change their destiny through hard work, and stimulate the vitality of social mobility. We must innovate incentive mechanisms for grassroots talent, implement income-increase policies with greater incentive effects to reflect an orientation that values the grassroots and practical experience, and expand the space for social mobility. Furthermore, we must improve evaluation methods for model workers and advanced workers [5] to stimulate the initiative of scientific researchers in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Improve the technology-finance system and provide full-lifecycle financial services. Technology-finance refers to a series of financial activities where financial services support scientific and technological innovation and the development of tech enterprises. It is a product of the deep integration of technological and financial innovation, involving financial systems, policies, models, and products. Through diversified financing methods, technology-finance encourages tech enterprises to carry out R&D and the transformation of scientific achievements, reduces the tendency of capital to "shift from the real to the virtual" [6], builds a competitive development platform for innovative financial institutions, and promotes the formation of an innovation ecosystem between the real economy and the financial sector. We must improve diversified "relay-style" financial services adapted to the characteristics of different stages in the lifecycles of technological innovation and industrial development. This includes encouraging and regulating the development of angel investment, venture capital, and private equity, enabling excellent technology-finance institutions to quickly and effectively identify tech-innovation enterprises with technical transformation capabilities and market potential, while providing multi-level services in finance, operations, R&D, and industrial chain integration.
Deepen the reform of mechanisms for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and vigorously promote the application of advanced applicable technologies. We must strengthen the deep integration of industry, academia, and research, reinforce a goal-oriented approach, and guide and support "specialized, refined, differential, and innovative" (zhuanjingtexin) [7] enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain to participate in building national-level technical platforms, thereby improving the level of transformation and industrialization of scientific achievements. We must strengthen the role of the industrial sector in driving innovation transformation, including increasing support for industrial transformation projects on the basis of special technological plans and setting up special projects for the application of technological innovation in SMEs, giving private SMEs more opportunities to participate in major national projects. We must strengthen the ranks of technology managers and allow scientific personnel greater autonomy in the distribution of income from the transformation of scientific achievements. By optimizing the evaluation system for researchers involved in transformation, we can further improve the efficiency of technological outcomes, solve bottleneck problems in transformation through top-level institutional design, better leverage the irreplaceable role of patents, and empower innovative development.
Optimize management systems for land, marine, and spatial resources to expand development space in advantageous regions. We should formulate policies for the extension and renewal of land-use rights for industrial and commercial land upon expiration. We must promote the mixed-use development of land and the rational conversion of land functions. We should promote the intensive development of coastal industry, marine transportation, coastal tourism, and marine biology; explore the implementation of three-dimensional stratified rights for sea area usage; and implement the "clean sea" transfer system where the government funds sea area use demonstrations and environmental assessments. We should support qualified regions in accelerating the development of the entire industrial chain for commercial aerospace—including satellite chains, launch chains, and data chains—and orderly develop orbital resources, environmental resources, and celestial mineral resources.
Improve the market-based allocation system for resource and environmental factors to guide various factors toward green productive forces. We must improve the market-based allocation system for resource and environmental factors and build a price system where factors flow freely, prices are formed through market competition, and price signals are responsive. This includes establishing and improving market-based allocation mechanisms for carbon emission rights, energy-use rights, water-use rights, and pollution discharge rights, as well as deepening the reform of the energy management system to enhance the quality and efficiency of economic development.
(The author, Xiong Anjing, is a specially invited researcher at the Hainan Provincial Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, Vice President of the Hainan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, and Vice Chairman of the Provincial Federation of Social Sciences.)
Source: Guangming Daily (December 6, 2024, Page 05)
Online Editor: Huihui