The CPC’s State-owned Economy Theory And Practice Since The Reform And Opening Up

Since the Third Plenary Session of the11th CPC (Communist Party of China) CentralCommittee in1978, the Communist Party of China, summing up the experience andlessons of the history under the correct leadership of the second generation of centralcollective leadership with Comrade Deng Xiaoping at the core, explored a market-orientedeconomic reform path with Chinese characteristics. Through the thirty-four years, thereform still has a long way to go. Among all those significant issues, the reform ofstate-owned enterprises has always been a central part for its importance and complexity.The Chinese economic reform is taking a gradual path of reform. In order to fit inwith this situation, the reform of Chinese state-owned enterprises follows the same way aswell. Roughly speaking, the reform of Chinese state-owned enterprises has experienced thestage of expansion reform, tax reform, two powers reform and mechanism reform. Now,the reform of state-owned enterprises has already entered into not only the key period ofthe system innovation but also its crucial stage. The establishment of modern enterprisesystem is the inevitable requirement of the development of socialized production andmarket economy, which is also the direction of the state-owned enterprise reform.Marxism considers that the system of ownership is the core and foundation of therelations of production and its nature determines the economy, politics, culture and otherproperties of a certain society. The implementation form of the ownership of productionmeans can be divided into public ownership and private ownership. The socialist publicownership of production means is a giant leap in the history of the development of therealization form of human ownership. The implementation form of ownership depends onand adapts to the demand of the development of productivity. The implementation form ofownership has adverse effect to productivity. Lenin and Stalin, as the two main leaders ofthe Bolshevik party in different generations, successfully conducted the first two practicaland theoretical exploration of the socialist economy reform in the20th century in theSoviet Union with backward economy and culture. The ownership theory of Marxism has avital guiding significance to our reform, such as the Chinese state-owned enterprise reform,the strategic adjustment of state-owned economy, and the exploration of public ownership’simplementation form.The most essential feature of the socialist state ownership is that it defeats the privateownership of capitalist production means and then destroys class exploitation, and finallyestablishes a new kind of mutually beneficial relationship between laborers. State-ownedeconomy is a kind of economic form in which production means are owned by the state and an important part of the socialist public ownership economy, which is a kind ofsocialist public ownership that adapts to basic industry, basic infrastructure, other highlysocialized production and business activities. The state-owned economy is playing theleading role in the whole national economy as a direction and guidance.Since the1980s of the last century, the former Soviet Union, other socialist countriesin Eastern Europe, as well as the western developed capitalist countries have reformedtheir state-owned economy. The privatization of state-owned assets is the first choice tomanage state-owned economy for most countries in the world. Having thoroughly analyzedand summarized the practice and experience of the adjustment of economic structure inwestern countries, we obtained the enormous enlightenment that the scale and the numberof state-owned enterprises can not determine the control force of the state-ownedeconomy; the privatization reformation is not the state-owned capital loss for the small andmedium-sized enterprise; the total amount of state-owned economy must be coordinatedwith the layout structure.Strategic adjustment to the layout of the state-owned economy is a guideline about thestate-owned enterprise reform and development which is passed the Forth Plenary Sessionof the15th CPC Central Committee. If we want to adjust the economic layout in thestrategic perspective, we must place all things under the basic economic system of theprimary stage of socialism and meet the demand of improving the socialist marketeconomic system. First of all, to make the state-owned economy strong, we need shrink theoverstretched state-owned economy properly through flow and restructuring of thestate-owned assets. Only in this way, the configuration structure of the state-owned assetsand organization structure of the state-owned enterprise can be improved. Next, we shouldfocus on important industries and key areas with a close bearing on the lifeline of nationaleconomy, and support, guide and drive the entire social economic development. Throughall the efforts above, the state-owned economy can play a better role in leading the socialistmarket economy.