Wang Yixin: Deeply Understand the Significant Value of the Theory of New Quality Productive Forces
In his Explanations Regarding the Proposal of the Central Committee of the CPC on Formulating the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that to promote high-quality development, the most important task is to accelerate high-level science and technology self-reliance and self-strengthening, actively develop new quality productive forces, and achieve substantive, breakthrough progress in promoting scientific and technological innovation, accelerating the cultivation of new driving forces, and promoting the optimization and upgrading of the economic structure. Currently, the world’s changes unseen in a century [1] are accelerating their evolution; a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is developing in depth, and economic and social development faces new opportunities and challenges. Against this background, General Secretary Xi Jinping creatively proposed the development of new quality productive forces, marking a new height in our Party's understanding of the laws governing the development of productive forces. The important expositions of General Secretary Xi Jinping innovate and develop Marxist productive force theory, forming an important theoretical achievement of contemporary Chinese Marxist political economy.
Gifting New Connotations to the Elements of Productive Forces
Marxist productive force theory holds that productive forces consist of three elements: laborers, instruments of labor, and objects of labor. In today’s world, following profound transformations in the productive forces and relations of production, the connotations of these elements have undergone significant changes, urgently requiring a new theoretical synthesis. New quality productive forces break through the cognitive framework of traditional productive force theory. Taking the leap in the optimization and combination of laborers, instruments of labor, and objects of labor as their basic connotation, they gift the elements of productive forces with new definitions and new substance.
Calling for a new type of laborer. Laborers are not only the direct executors of the production process but also an important force for the innovative configuration and efficient utilization of production factors. New quality productive forces are characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality; this objectively drives a profound change in the form of labor, requiring the labor force to shift toward being knowledge-based, skill-based, and innovation-oriented.
Promoting the iterative upgrading of the instruments of labor. Instruments of labor are the material means or conditions used by laborers to change or influence the objects of labor during the labor process. Instruments of labor undergo iterative updates driven by scientific and technological innovation; in particular, the continuous application of frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data to the field of material production has expanded the boundaries of the tools of labor.
Promoting the continuous expansion of the objects of labor. Objects of labor refer to the things processed, operated upon, or used by laborers in the labor process. From the perspective of the laws of social development, different levels of productive forces correspond to different objects of labor. In the agricultural and industrial eras, the objects of labor were primarily natural resources and material goods; the theory of new quality productive forces expands the objects of labor to include new, non-entity production factors such as data.
Enriching the Sources of Power for the Development of Productive Forces
From the perspective of the power driving the development of productive forces, classical Marxist theory emphasizes the driving role of science and technology. The theory of new quality productive forces emphasizes the leading role of innovation, which includes multidimensional innovation such as technological innovation, institutional innovation, and management innovation.
Focusing on the integrated development of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “Achieving high-level science and technology self-reliance and self-strengthening and developing new quality productive forces places a more urgent demand on the integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation.” Scientific and technological innovation is the core element for developing new quality productive forces; we must use scientific and technological innovation to drive industrial innovation, particularly using disruptive and frontier technologies to give birth to new industries, new models, and new driving forces. At the same time, scientific and technological achievements can only become actual productive forces through transformation and application. We must allow scientific and technological innovation to better empower industrial innovation, and industrial innovation to better stimulate scientific and technological innovation, achieving mutual promotion and close integration to collectively empower the development of new quality productive forces.
Emphasizing the use of institutional and mechanistic innovation to promote the development of productive forces. Relations of production must adapt to the requirements of the development of productive forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly pointed out that to develop new quality productive forces, we must further comprehensively deepen reform and form new relations of production that adapt to them. With the widespread application of frontier technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, the level of social productive forces has significantly increased. This objectively requires accelerating the improvement of policies and systems that support the development of new quality productive forces, forming a favorable situation where the government’s “visible hand” and the market’s “invisible hand” jointly drive the development of new quality productive forces.
Manifesting the People-Centered Development Philosophy
A people-oriented character is the essential attribute of Marxism, and the people’s standpoint is the fundamental political standpoint of a Marxist party. Our goal in developing new quality productive forces is to improve the people’s standard of living; we must rely closely on the people and continuously enhance the people's sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security.
In the New Era, the principal contradiction in Chinese society has been transformed into the contradiction between the people’s ever-growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development [2]. Developing new quality productive forces is conducive to solving the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development, addressing the questions of "how good" and "how excellent" development is. Cultivating new quality productive forces helps shape new driving forces and advantages for development, promotes the transition between old and new driving forces, and brings about a leap in the level of social productive forces. This can better satisfy the people’s needs for a better life and promote the fruits of reform and development to benefit all people more extensively and fairly.
In developing new quality productive forces, people are the decisive factor. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that among all things in the world, people are the most precious, and all innovative achievements are made by people. We must maximize the residents' subjective initiative and cultivate high-quality laborers who meet the development needs of new quality productive forces. We must advance the integrated reform of systems and mechanisms for education, science and technology, and talent in a coordinated manner, continuously stimulating the innovation and creative vitality of talent to plant deep roots for the development of new quality productive forces.
Developing new quality productive forces is meant to create benefits for the people; we must take whether the people are satisfied or not as the fundamental yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of productive force development. To accelerate the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces, we must not only have "speed and scale," but even more so "warmth and quality." Continually raising the level of social productive forces will consolidate the material basis and create the social conditions for achieving well-rounded human development, making the people’s sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security more substantial, better guaranteed, and more sustainable.
Promoting the Green Transformation of Development Modes
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “Green development is the defining feature of high-quality development, and new quality productive forces are themselves green productive forces. We must accelerate the green transformation of development modes to help achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.” This reveals the intrinsic connection between new quality productive forces and green productive forces, pointing out the direction and path for accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development and achieving high-quality development.
Cultivating and developing new quality productive forces means changing the traditional extensive development model of high input, high consumption, high pollution, and low efficiency, and achieving resource-saving and environment-friendly development. If a new mode of production or organizational model carries problems of high resource consumption and high pollution emissions while increasing output, it definitely does not fall within the scope of new quality productive forces.
Greenification is an important trend in the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation; we must accelerate green technological innovation and the promotion and application of advanced green technologies. On one hand, through traditional technological transformation, equipment upgrading, and material optimization, we should promote the green development of industries, including the cleaning of production processes, the recycling of resource utilization, the intensification of factor use, the decarbonization of energy consumption, and the environmental friendliness of product supply. On the other hand, we should leverage the leading role of green, low-carbon, and environmental protection industries, develop green low-carbon industries and supply chains, and construct a green, low-carbon, and circular economic system. We must continuously increase both the "gold content" and the "green content" of economic development, using new achievements in green development to continuously stimulate new driving forces for the development of new quality productive forces.