Study Of The Cultural System

The transformation from the planned economy system to socialist market economy system is the primary background and root cause for the reform of cultural system in China. The construction of a cultural system that goes with the socialist market economy is the basic goal of the cultural system reform. The reform of the cultural system includes three aspects: the reform of the macro-management system; the reform of the professional administrative system and the reform of the micro-management system.To study the reform of the cultural system, a clear definition on the categories of "culture" is firstly needed; then comes the clarification on the connotation and interrelationships of some categories of such important couples as culture, cultural production and cultural circulation, cultural business and cultural industry, cultural system and its reform. Culture is by nature the concept and conceptual system. In a condition of the reform of socialist market economic system, culture mostly bears the attributes of ideology and commodity. At the same time, due to the double attributes of culture itself, the cultural industry inevitably has the tendency toward "business" to different degrees. As a result, it's impossible for the government not to pay any attention to cultural industry and to control appropriately certain fields. The developing of cultural industry is also a necessity to meet people's demand on culture; while the cultural industry has the tendency toward "business" to different degrees, therefore, a unit also has to make input and output even if it is an institutional one; besides the method of funds yield, the output is shown mainly by way of other methods as return to the society, in which only the government or other public organizations play the roles of sellers and payers.The reform of cultural system refers to the reform of macro-management system, professional management system and micro-management system. In this paper, the macro-management system mainly includes the structural status and interrelationships of Party secretaries, government, cultural market and cultural enterprises and government institutions. The micro-management system primarily refers to the inner organization structure and operational mechanisms of cultural enterprises and government institutions. This paper is not going to dwell too much on the professional administrative system due to its excessive and highly specialized contents. Key expeditions to the history and present situation of the cultural system in China are required so that the study on the reform of cultural system is possible. The cultural system can be generally divided into two stages: the one before the reform and opening-up, and the one after. The drawbacks of the traditional cultural system are mainly reflected through the following aspects: politics presiding over culture; government promoting culture; applying the administrative mandatory means to the regulation of cultural production; neglecting the laws of cultural production and cultural diffusion. After the reform and opening-up, the socialist market economy system has gradually become the direction and goal of the reform of the economic structure; as a result, to fit to the general trend, the cultural system also took the road of reform. Grounded on a profound analysis on the changes and characteristics of the domestic and international situation, at the Sixteenth National Congress of the CPC our party laid down a series of new exposition and made new deployment; thus the theories of the cultural system reform are becoming systematized and clarified; at the same time, they began to pass into a phase of substantive start and nationwide promotion in practice. Based on the experience from the selected points for the reform of the cultural system embarked on in July, 2003, the State Council of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party issued "Some Counsel to Further the Reform of the Cultural System" in Jan, 2006, which marked a new stage of the reform work of Chinese cultural system.The economic base determines the superstructure, thus the transformation of the economic base decides the basic state of the transformation of the superstructure. As an important component of the superstructure, the cultural system has its reason from the transformation of the economic base to carry out its correspondent transformation. The socialist market economy is the practical mode of production and economic base of China, therefore, determines that the cultural system should adapt to it. The cultural system of our country was formed in the period of the planned economy, and is still fettered by many factors from developing, hence the deepening of the reform of the cultural system is demanded.The transition of the economic system is the fundamental cause of the reform of the cultural system; and to construct a cultural system that goes with the socialist market economy is the basic goal of the reform of the cultural system. The socialist market economy demands to innovate upon our party's styles and methods of leadership in cultural work, requires to change the way the government controls the cultural work, calls for the reform of cultural investment and financing systems, and asks for the establishment of modern cultural enterprise and institution system. In the process of advancing the reform of the cultural system, three cardinal principles should be upheld: to keep to the proceeding orientation of the advanced socialist culture; to meet the basic demands of the socialist market economy; and to adhere to the principles of differentiating, classified guidance, making steady progress and spreading gradually to others. At the present time, the cultural system in China is far away from the demands of socialist market economy, because some problems have not been put on the reform agenda, some are still in a stage of being superficially solved, and some reforms are comparatively advanced, but not settled thoroughly; besides, many new problems are produced constantly in the process of reform. In the process of advancing, the cultural system reform is mainly faced with the following hindrances: hindrances of ideas, interests, laws, finance and manpower. Whether the reform of cultural system can be carried out smoothly depends on the appropriate organization and leadership, because the reform can not been carried but without the powerful leadership of the party committees and governments as well as the all-out support from the relevant departments. Therefore, a unified leadership of the Party committee, the all-out support from the government, the coordinated guidance from the propaganda departments of Party committees, the specific carrying out by the administration departments and a leadership system and working mechanism of the cultural system reform closely cooperated by the relevant departments must be established and perfected. The reform of the cultural system is a systematic project, thus the smooth advancing of it is deeply influenced by economy, politics and social system, and involves all aspects of social links. To further the reform of the cultural system, the related supporting measures should be taken; and it is especially necessary to strengthen the support of policy and legal guarantee to reform.The core of the reform of the macro-management system is to straighten out the relationships among Party committees, government, market and enterprises and institutions, because without the settlement of this core problem, the reform of the cultural system can not be propelled smoothly. To straighten out the relationships among Party committees, government, market and enterprises and institutions is to reset the functions of culture bodies so as to make them assume their respective roles and cooperate with each other, and to establish harmonious relations among those bodies. To straighten out the relationships among Party committees, government, market and enterprises and institutions, people have not only to take all factors into account, but also to pay special attention to major tasks, among which shifting of the government functions is the central task of the reform of the macro-management system. The contents of reform of the macro-management system are various, so three major links should be firmly held: first, to innovate upon our party's methods of leadership in cultural work; second, to change the cultural administrative functions of the government; and last, to reform the cultural investment and financing systems.The reform of the macro-management system firstly demands, based on the adherence to the cultural leadership under our Party, to clarify the specific functions of our Party's cultural leadership, and to innovate upon our party's methods of leadership in cultural work. At present time, the socialist mode of production of the socialist market economy, especially the social changes brought out by economic globalization and the scientific and technological improvement, challenges violently the traditional modes of the cultural leadership. The transformation of our Party's leadership modes presently must take firm hold two key points: one is to innovate upon the management methods of the new media; the other is to innovate upon the management methods of the old media.The various tasks of the cultural system reform are all closely related to the governmental changeover, while the transformation of the cultural management functions is the key to the reform of the cultural system. The shift of the roles of the government's cultural departments is mainly manifested by five aspects: the shift from the government of regulation type to that of public service type; the shift from an almighty government to a limited government; the shift from the government of right to government of responsibility; the shift from micro-control to macro- control; the shift from single administrative means to multiple means, in which aspect the methods of the government's cultural management in western countries have provided us with many important revelation. The key and difficult points in the transformation of the functions of the government's cultural management are focused on two questions: one is the question in "separation of enterprises from government management", separation of politics from business" and "separation of administration from handling"; the other is the question of the insufficiency in the connection of various policies and related policies. Presently, we have to strive to accomplish four tasks: adjusting the cultural management structure; decomposing reasonably the functions of the governmental management; learning to perform their official duties in accordance with the law; mastering appropriately the relationship between management and service.The reform of cultural investment and financing system is an important link of the reform of the macro-management system. The reform of cultural investment and financing system has been steadily advanced since the reform and opening-up, and has carried out active exploration in many aspects, and has also accumulated a lot of significant experience. These exploration and experience mainly include: increasing investments in cultural business that facilitates population; bringing forth new ideas to the reform of investment and financing system of the cultural media industry; innovating upon the reform of investment and financing system for the cultural industry of movies and general art groups; loosening up on the rules to allow non-communal capital into the cultural industry, and to encourage a diversified investors of investment and financing; taxing construction expenditure on the cultural industry to encourage donation to cultural industry. The recent major problems existing in the cultural investment and financing system are: the state financial input has not yet incardinated the attribute of public finance; the state finance investment covers too wide area, hence a low return of the investment; the state-owned cultural enterprises after transformation has not become the true subjects of decision-making in investment and financing; the fact that the market environment still need to be purified leads to congested cultural market investment; in the aspect of investment admittance, there is still barriers set up against non-communal capital. For all these problems, this paper puts forward with effort the following suggestion: first, enhance cultural fiscal input, and readjust the financial input structure; then to classify reasonably those cultural institutional units, and to designate the key points for investment; to innovate upon the modes of financial investment to establish the evaluating mechanism for encouraging restraint and performance evaluation; to establish as soon as possible the operation center of the state-owned property as well as the operation subject of the cultural investment and financing; to attach great important to the functions of private capital, social capital and foreign capital to encourage donation from society.The major existing problem of micro-management system is that the present cultural enterprise and government institution system can not meet the demands of the socialist market economy. The core of the reform of the micro-management system is to establish a modern cultural enterprise and government institution system that goes with the socialist market economy, and to improve corporate governance structure and establish modern property rights. According to the principle of differentiation and classified guidance, "Some Counsel to Further the Reform of the Cultural System from the State Council of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party" divided the objects of the reform of the micro-management system into three categories: those cultural government institutions in need of transformation, the cultural government institutions for public welfare, and the cultural government institutions fostered by national government with great efforts.The transformation of the cultural government institutions to enterprises is the key and difficult point of the reform work of the cultural system. The fundamental thought of the reform should be: to be well prepared to offer policy support so as to carry out smoothly the work of transformation of the system into that of enterprises; well perform the work of property disposal to make sure of the safety of state-owned cultural property; to reinforce the reform of the inner system to improve corporate governance structure; to accomplish the work of staff settlement and social security, and to ensure the interests of the workers. The difficulties in the process of carrying out the reform mainly focus on five questions: the question of supporting policies in the process of transformation of the system to that of enterprises; the question of separation of editorial practices from running practice; the problem of a weak foundation of the reform; the question of the disposal of the state- owned property; and the question about the double-track system of the social security system.The fundamental thought of the system reform of the culture for the public good ought to be: to adjust the input structure of the culture for public service; to deepen the reform of interior operation mechanism and the reform of the personnel system; to further the reform of distribution system and social security system. The difficulties in the reform of the cultural institutions for public benefit mainly arise from the following five questions: the question about mechanism of financial input; the question about the position of the cooperation in the institution units; the question about wage system; the problem of the disposal of the redundant employees; and the question about the underwriting of the reform cost.The fundamental thought for the reform of the cultural institutions fostered by the state should be: to participate actively in the market economy under the condition of the government support; to establish new leadership system and to explore on the separation of propaganda practice from running practice; to improve measures of support so as to raise the efficiency of the funds utilization; to deepen the reform of interior system to give life to the institutions; to integrate cultural resources and innovate on the forms of operation to enhance the capacity of public service and market competition. The difficulties that the cultural institutions fostered by the state are faced with are mainly manifested through two questions: the question of the reform of art institutions and groups; and the problem of the tendency to group the cultural industry.