The Study On Theory And Practice Of Predicting China's Social Development

The first chapter, in general, mainly investigates and analyzes the characteristicsand the significance of predicting social development and the relevant researchmethod. As one advanced form of social recognition, social prediction refers to suchone that under the guidance of certain theory, the subject has the forecasting to thepossible social phenomena, events and processes in future based on laws of socialdevelopment, which has roughly undergone the four stages in the human history:divine prediction, experimental prediction, philosophical prediction and empiricalprediction. Prediction of social development has a practical significance. Thepurpose of predicting social development is to help people select the goal of socialimprovement and the approach or means of realizing the ideal society, and providethe improvement measures for controlling the social development tendency andpreventing its negative effects. Furthermore, prediction of social development hasalso provided the credible basis to make the scientific and reasonable decision anddraw up the long-rang planning on future society. At present, the research method ofpredicting social development comprises literature, comparison and case study.The second chapter is to conduct the research and the analysis on the westernclassical theories of predicting social development. Since the middle of20th century,the upsurge of prediction has sprung up in European and American countries. Thefamous philosophers, like Vico, Spengler, Toynbee, Paul Kennedy, has carried outthe prediction of social development from the perspective of historical philosophy,which makes us comprehensively treat the problem of social development. Inaddition, a more important thing is the contribution of "future sociology", which hasbrought about the significant revolution of conception of human social history, andhas innovated the social theory, and has had the guiding influence on thedevelopment plan in human society. Economic projection is such predicted activitythat predicts the tendency and the condition of uncertainty events in future ofeconomic field and serves for economic decision. Economic projection hasaccounted for a considerable proportion in the activities of social prediction. And theories of economic prediction have greatly developed and have become anindependent new branch in social prediction----science of economic projection.The third chapter discusses the Marx's prediction to social historical laws andscientific socialism. Marxian historical materialism, in some sense, can be regardedas the prediction about the historical development of human society. The goal ofsocial historical development that Marx sets is "human liberation". Marx proclaimsthat the productivity and relations of production have interacted with each other andsuch basic principle is the scientific footstone of theory of Marxian socialdevelopment prediction. According to the fundamental principle that productivitydetermines relations of production, Marx has divided human social formation intofive stages. They are primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist societyand communist society. Later Marx has also proposed "Tri-formation Theory":person-to-person relations of dependence, independence based on objects'dependence and unity of free men. Marxian prediction to scientific socialismdisplays in the following aspects: certainty of class struggle, certainty of economiccrisis, certainty of proletarian dictatorship, and certainty of the system ofpublic-owned economy.The forth chapter introduces the research of contemporary Chinese academiccircles on predicting social development. With the rapid development of reform andopening of Chinese society, more and more scholars in the fields of philosophy,sociology, culturology, politics, and futurology, have devoted themselves to the studyand research on predicting social development, which shows in the followingrespects: foreseeing the relation between the development of market-orientedeconomy and the "country-society"; exploring and constructing theory of China'ssocial development; change of the social development outlook of Marxism and therise of philosophy of social development. In the area of Chinese sociology, the maindiscussion is about the internal relationship between sociology and social prediction.The relevant scholars have reached an agreement that, the contemporary society hasrapidly changed while the social prediction has been comparatively delayed. Suchcontrast requires studying the basic theory and the approach of social prediction. Thecontemporary Chinese area of social prediction has also carried out the in-depth research not only on the fundamental principle, the methods or means and themechanism of social prediction, but also on social stability and risk warning.The fifth chapter undertakes the investigation to a variety of levels about theoryof social development prediction. First of all, we will study the dialectical relationbetween social development prediction and social laws. The subjectivity of sociallaws implies that social laws have always been affected by people's intention andawareness, while the historical subjectivity stresses that the organizational form ofsocial history cannot change only because of the individual. Besides, the research onthe contradictory relation between social development and social prediction has beenfocused and mainly been performed as follows.1. Contradiction between subject andobject of social development;2. Contradiction between purpose and approaches ofsocial development;3. Contradiction between necessity and occasionality of socialdevelopment;4. Contradiction between unitarity and diversity of social development.Thirdly, we will consider the relation between macro-prediction andmicro-prediction of social development, including the following aspects.1. Relationbetween philosophical prediction and theoretical sociology;2. Relation betweentheoretical sociology and measuring methods;3. Relation between social predictionand index system.The sixth chapter points out the standards and approaches of socialdevelopment prediction. According to the fundamental knowledge of socialdevelopment, we can divide the standards into four types: economic standard,political standard, cultural standard and life standard. The important approaches ofpredicting social development comprise disciplinary cognition, trend projection,construction of theoretical model and prediction of index system. The generaltheoretical knowledge based on laws of social development has made the theoreticalprediction of social development possible. In addition, prediction of socialdevelopment relies on the comprehensive analysis on known facts and intelligenceinformation as well. As an approach of analyzing and describing the realistic world,the theoretical model is such model that analyzes social development by buildingsome hypotheses on the basis of the primary influencing factors, by which we couldcarry on the analysis and the prediction on social development under specificcircumstances.The seventh chapter lays more emphasis on particularity (Chinese characteristics) and regularity (universality) of social development prediction incontemporary China. First of all, it is particularity of predicting social developmentin contemporary China. Deng Xiaoping points out that we should combine Marxismwith the national conditions of Chinese society and walk out the socialist road withChinese characteristics. The prediction to regularity of social development incontemporary China involves a series of questions.(1) Nature of Chinese socialdevelopment. Since reform and opening-up, although we have shifted from classstruggle to centre on economic construction and realized market-oriented economicsystem, it doesn't mean that nature of the nation has changed.(2) There are twostages with respect to Chinese social development. One is "Development is theabsolute principle." proposed by Deng Xiaoping; the other one is "scientificdevelopment" from the scientific development view.(3) Goal of Chinese socialdevelopment. Starting from theory of the scientific development view, we needachieve the "people-oriented" goal.(4) Pattern of Chinese social development. Itconsists of sudden pattern and gradual pattern. And the contemporary Chinese socialdevelopment may not be completed in a sudden way.