| The Reform and Opening up, a fresh socialist endeavor which was launched in the late 1970, has given a strong impetus to the development of economics in the new period. The economy has experienced steady and fast growth, social wealth has become increasingly accumulated, citizen's awareness's of democracy, rights, just and fairness have been strengthen. At the same time, in the process of reform, the relationships of social interests tend to be more complicated, the issues of how to narrow down the differences of wealth distribution, how to narrow down the unreasonable consumption gap , have increasingly become a significant task in both theory and practice in the current social and of economic development. Questions raised by one time, as any item is reasonable as well as fair, have common fortunate, the main trouble is not the answer but the question itself. The question, which is public and aweless, controls everyone in his/ her time's voice, question is the call of times, and is the reflection of the actual call of his/her own state of mind.Since the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the CPC, Objective of building a harmonious society has been put forward. In the Report of the 17th National Congress of CPC, it is imperative that guaranteeing social equity and justice is an important task in building socialism with Chinese characteristics, accelerating social development with improving people's livelihood as the priority will ensure that all our people enjoy their rights to education, employment, medical and old-age care, and housing. Equity and justice is the essential value of Marxism, and also the objective requirement of building a well-off society in all-round way. Therefore, guarantee social equity and justice will have a fundamental, far-reaching impact on the building harmonious society. Consumption is among human beings, human is both the core of social development and subjective of social harmoniousness. Consumption equity, which can coordinate the relationship of rights among people in the field of consumer spending, is a significant aspect of social equity, also an important measure and access to social equity.From the aspect of the integration of Theory of Consumption Economics and the conditions of our economy, the research method of norm analysis, experimental analysis, historical analysis, comparative analysis are applied on the combination of economics, sociology, consumer ethnics, economic philosophy, in the dissertation it is expounded on the definition of consumption equity, the historical evolvemen and the current problem of residents'consumption equity, general features of consumption equity internationwide and its enlightenments, and how to implement consumption equity.There are five chapters in the dissertation. Basic theory of consumption equity is elaborated in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Firstly, the connotation of consumption equity is elaborated on the basis of Marx and Engel's Equity Theory and other research results by scholars home and abroad. The author holds that Consumption equity is the evaluation of consumers'interests among the subjects of consumption. The so called"consumption interests"not only refers to the interests existing in the process of consumption, but also includes the consumer's, when acting as social citizens, rights of enjoying social securities and other various rights and benefits by legal protection. It requires both social institutional arrangement and non-institutional arrangement should offer equal opportunity of survival and development to every consumer subject. It requires all our people should enjoy their principal welfare rights to elementary education, basic medical care and housing. Consumption equity is the basic principle in coordinating the relationship of rights among people in the field of consumer spending. It is characterized by subjectivity, objectivity, historic and relativity. Secondly, three principles are proposed to judge consumption equity: Principle of distinctiveness, Principle of appropriateness and Principle of interests coordinating. The prerequisite of judging whether consumption is fair or not is to acknowledge the proper consumption gap among people. Protecting the equity of every consumer enjoy basic rights of welfare is the most fundamental principle of consumption equity. Principle of interest coordinating is one of the social coordinating principles, it is a fundamental measure to achieve consumption equity. Next, aspects of hindering consumption equity are expounded. Aspects of hindering consumption equity are various and complex, from the internal factors of the field of consumption, it mainly contains the ability of providing public consumption goods, effective demand of consumption goods, differences of quality of consumers and consumers'awareness of fairness. From the external factors of the field of consumption, it mainly contains the institutions, situations of economic development, conditions of social safety and social ideology. Lastly, the mechanism of access consumption equity is put forward. On the one hand, consumer is the subject of every consumption activity, the subject of the relationship of rights among people in the field of consumer spending. Therefore, Consumer's capability of involvement and implement is indispensable for the internal conditions to guarantee consumption equity. On the other hand, benign interaction and integration among market, government and non-government sector is the external conditions to guarantee consumption equity. From the aspect of sociology, society is formed through interaction and social interaction is the basis of human combination. Integration is the mechanism to promote the stability and the order of social system. In the process of social development, a complete market economy system can effectively bring the subjective of consumption into full play. Governing is a kind of activity and it reflects the common pursuit of the whole society. Government should establish and protect the rights of citizens to obtain they should acquire, the basic goal of governments'activities is the pursuit of just and fairness. The non-government sector exercises the construction and maintenance of social ethnics and support the citizens'rights and securities. Benign interaction and integration among market, government and non-government sector is the external mechanism to achieve consumption fairness. Current China household consumption equity is analyzed in Chapter 3 andChapter 4. Firstly, a general analysis of China's household consumption equity is made through the comparison of historical changes and present conditions between the pre-reform and opening stage and the post-reform and opening up stage. Different features of consumption equity in different stages are pictured objectively: In the pre-reform and opening up stage, in the income distribution of highly equalitarianism, our development of consumption fluctuated slowly. On the one hand, the gap of domestic consumption between rural and urban residents is narrowing. On the other hand, the gap of consumption between rural and urban resident is significant. Since the reform and opening up,China's economy continued to grow steadily. On the one hand, the daily consumptions of both rural and urban residents have experienced significant changes. The standard of consumption and the structure of consumption are transformed remarkably, Residents'quality of life improved significantly. On the other hand, unfairness of consumption has increasingly appeared. The gap of consumption between rural and urban residents is enlarging, the gap of consumption in different lines is widening, the growth of residents'consumption and the government's consumption is not fair, and the gap of the resource allocation is striking in public consumption, the basic welfare service of the disadvantages is treated indifferently, the rights of consumption is alienated, ect. Secondly, the fairness of consumption on the new"Three Big Mountains"—Elementary Education, Basic Medical Care and Housing are analyzed in great details. The objective of society is the realization of everybody enjoying his rights-rights of citizen, culture, economy, politics and society. As far as the importance of human's liberty is concerned, obtaining the rights of elementary education, medical care, housing and employment is not second to the rights of politics and citizen. Nevertheless, numerous problems on fairness of consumption at the present stage is on the increase: There is a big difference in the consumption of elementary education, basic medical care and housing, whether in rural area or in urban area, or different regions or different classes. The roots exist in the incompleteness of market economy system, the deficiency or imperfection of policies and their related regulations, systems or mechanism, the imbalance between providing and offering of government public services, the immatureness of non-government sectors, and influence of Chinese traditional culture and occidental culture. Theoretics and reality indicate negative domino effect, which engenders to economy and society by household consumption equity. Secondly, general features and enlightenments of foreign residents'consumption equity are explored in details. From the comparison of consumption equity on residents home and abroad, it is found that globalization not only bring along social, economic development internationally, but also sharpen the unfairness in elementary education, basic medical care and basic housing globally. The general features and enlightenments are obtained through the investigation on the consumption equity of elementary education, basic medical care and housing in highly developed countries such as America, Singapore: advanced economy is the safeguard for the basis of residents'fairness of consumption, completeness of legal system is the insurance for the steady and continual policy of residents'consumption equity. Government's effective macro-control is the key to the realization of residents'consumption fairness. The involvement of non-government sector renders effective support to residents'consumption equity.Strategies and countermeasures on current residents'consumption equity is proposed in Chapter 5. First, the overall plan on the realization of our residents'consumption equity is put forward, it contains two strategic objectives of our residents'consumption equity ( including the realization of consumption equity between the rural and urban, the fairness of different lines), three must adhering principles ( Principle of Harmonious Consumption, Principle of Distinctive Compensation and Fairness Principle of Intra-generation and Inter-generation)and the key points and difficult points(the unfairness of consumption between rural and urban residents, and the unfairness of consumption between the disadvantages and advantages). Next, detailed countermeasures and suggestions are given on the fairness of consumption of our residents'elementary education, basic medical care and housing.Based on the research objectives of household consumption equity, several breakthroughs are tentatively made on the following: 1.The conception of consumption fairness is clearly defined. The concept of consumption equity is brought up by both theoretical and practical workers in China, but up to now, the concept has not been fully defined and explored. In this dissertation it is held that the consumption equity is not the same as the fairness of distribution in income or property. The equity of distribution in income or property is the basis to satisfy the consumption interests, that is to say, it is essential to consumption equity. On in the field of consumption can people's interest can be expressed fully, remarkably, profoundly, and easily excited. Consumption equity is the evaluation of consumers'interests among the subjects of consumption. The so called"consumption interests"not only refers to the interests existing in the process of consumption, but also includes the consumer's, when acting as social citizens, rights of enjoying social securities and other various rights and benefits by legal protection. The form of consumption equity is subjective, but its connotation is objective and changes with the development of social economy. 2. The theoretical system on consumption equity studies has been initially established. On the basis of clarifying consumption equity, the factors hindering consumption equity, principles of judgment and the mechanism of realization have been fully explored in this dissertation. Rights should be used as the base of analysis. Theoretical expound and empirical research is centered on the three subjects"the definition of consumption equity, the current conditions of residents'consumption equity, problems and reasons, and how to implement consumption fairness."A systematic theoretical system of studying consumption equity is attempted to construct. 3. Multi-discipline and multi-viewpoint approach is applied. On the one hand, general theoretical paradigm of modern economy is adhered in this dissertation, norm analysis and experimental analysis is combined, concrete historic analysis is united with logic induction, case study is integrated with systematic analysis. On the other hand, the basic approach which is once applied in anthropology, sociology, and consumer ethnics, and economic philosophy will be applied in the analysis of consumption equity, methodologically, there are many advantages from other disciplines.It must be noted that the research is far beyond perfection because of the author's boundedness in academy and limitation of data collection, although efforts have been put into the aspect of viewpoint, theoretic basis, and contents with the purpose of pursuing perfection. Owing to the complexity of consumption itself, it includes issues concerning economy, politics and culture, which can not be resolved in an overall frame. Furthermore, the existing theory on the studies of consumption equity is still short of systematicality. There are more or less some deficiencies about the attempts, which need further generalization and improvement in the future studies, any comment and suggestion from experts, colleagues and other readers is heartily welcome!... |
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