Research On Economic Justice: From The Marxist Perspective

Economic justice is an admirable ideal and noble pursuit for human beings and a required value in socialism system, but currently a worldwide problem as well. It involves in Marxism theory, philosophy, ethics, economics, law, etc. In this paper, Marxism materialist conception of history and dialectical analytical method have been adopted aiming to clarify Marx and Engels'idea of economic justice and to brief the essential view of economic justice held and developed by Chinese Marxists. The paper focuses on investigating the problems related to economic justice and the reasons that cause those problems in socialist market-oriented economy. It expects the due value and human caring demanded in the process of building a socialist harmonious society, and analyses the strategies and measures to achieve economic justice. This thesis is organized into five chapters:Chapter one gives an account for the economic connotation of justice, principle, characteristics, conditions, evaluation standard, and so on and so forth. It argues that economic justice is the values and moral principles which are determined by a certain social production mode and abided by economic systems and economic activities, and the value judgement on economic system and economic activity as well. In a classic society, economic justice has those characteristics such as class-oriented, historical, relative and developmental. The principles for economic justice are composed of mutual benefit, honesty, equality, correction, and procedure. There are both institutional and economic requirements for the realization of economic justices. In order to achieve economic justice, the institutional system should adapt to the requirement of advanced productivity, the efficient macro-control system, and also the improvement and effective implementation of legal system. From the perspective of economic activity, it requires that the main body of economic activity has got equal status, legitimate content, process and reasonable standard, and mutually beneficial results. The evaluation of economic justice must adhere to the historical standards, the subjective criteria and value standards.Chapter two explains the basic meaning of Marx's and Engels'thoughts on economic justice. Although Marx and Engels are not moralists, they not only point out the basic criteria for economic justice, and also profoundly indicate the economic justice is class-oriented, historical, relative and incessantly developing. They rebut the bourgeois concept of economic justice as the eternal values, analyze how the capitalist economic justice in the surface cover the real nature of injustice, and also sharply point out the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality and commentators as an attempt to paralyze the will of the proletarian struggle. They show the direction for us to understand scientifically the nature of economic justice. Marx and Engels hold that the economic justice is paralleled by the production pattern in a given society; economic justice develops alongside history; economic injustice is relative; economic justice in a capital society conceals the nature of injustice; economic justice in a communist society is real, and economic justice is a fundamental requirement for human development.Chapter three discusses the basic meaning of Chinese Communist Party's thoughts on economic justice. The central collective leadership of Chinese Communist Party not only adhere to the fundamental positions and methods of Marx and Engels'economic justice, but also enrich and develop the ideas of economic justice combining with the reality of Chinese revolution and construction. The central government leaded by Mao Zedong claims that the realization of Land-to-the-Tiller is the basic requirement of economic justice. Revolution is the necessary means to realize economic justice; collective ownership and scientific management guarantees economic justice; distribution according to one's performance reflects economic justice. The central government leaded by Deng Xiaoping argues that developing productivity energetically is the fundamental premise of realizing economic justice; common prosperity is the essential requirement of socialism; and reform and opening up is a realistic choice to achieve economic justice. The central government with the leading role played by Jiang Zemin holds the view that common prosperity is the basic aim of economic justice; economic justice is to be realized in the process of reform and opening up; and economic justice is an indispensable requirement of human's comprehensive development. Hu Jintao, the general secretary of the central committee, states that common prosperity is the essential attribute and pursuit of socialism; the first time distribution and redistribution are required to deal with the relationship between efficiency and fairness; and scientific development is the reasonable and inevitable choice to realize economic justice.Chapter four analyzes the performance and cause for economic justice problems in market economy. The integration of socialism market economy with the basic system of socialism not only gives the contemporary connotation of economic justice, but also ensures that the economy is developing along the values of fairness and justice and that all the people can benefit from economic development. However, the defects of market economy and the reality of productivity, ownership structure, distribution structure, ideology construction in the primary stage of socialism make economic justice not being implemented not only in principles but also in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. These shortcomings impede the smooth development and progression of market economy on one hand, and on the other hand restrain the exertion of the superiority of socialism and further restrain the comprehensive development of human beings.Chapter five presents the expectancy and path to the realization of economic justice in a socialist harmonious society. Economic justice contributes to enriching the material basis for constructing a harmonious society; to strengthening the major force to construct a harmonious society; and to establishing harmonious social orders. To solve the issue of economic justice has to be done from the perspective of the purpose to construct a harmonious society with the concentration on the perfection of the basic requirements of socialism market economy within the framework of socialism by developing social productivity, improving the public ownership as the main body of the ownership structure, exploring the distribution according to work and coordinate production development, strengthening socialist democracy and the legal system, strengthening macroscopical adjusting control ability and the ability of social security construction, strengthening the socialist ideological and moral construction. From Marxism perspective, economic justice will be more and more emphasized and become the universal pursuit of value; and more and more prominence will be given to the ultimate goal of the comprehensive development of human beings.