The Thoughts Of Marx And Engels’ The People’s Livelihood And Its Contemporary Development

Marx and Engels’ thoughts about the people’s livelihood are very profound and meaningful. Since the19th century, Capitalism has become the major social cause that obstructed the overall development of the people’s livelihood. Great thoughts in the history, such as restraining theocratic rights and promoting human rights in Renaissance, humanitarianism in Enlightenment, judicial power in Bourgeoisie class, free liberation and overall development of human beings in Utopian socialism and Feuerbach’s humanism, have exerted enormous influence to the formation and development of Marx and Engels’ thoughts about people’s livelihood. The thoughts about people’s livelihood mainly consist of beginning, formation, development and maturity.The people’s livelihood mainly refers to the people’s basic needs for survival and life. People’s basic rights can be protected in a fair way and people’s rights and opportunities of all-round development can be realized. All the writings of Marx and Engels fully embody the thoughts about paying attention to people’s livelihood and realizing people’s livelihood. Its theoretical core includes the people’s basic needs for survival and life, the people’s basic rights to be fair protected, and the free and comprehensive development of human. Marx and Engels also explore the achievement of the people’s livelihood, which includes the focus on the people’s historical status as the prerequisite for the development of people’s livelihood; Critique of capitalism people’s livelihood "alienation" to lead the direction of achieving people’s livelihood; Practice improving people’s livelihood; The Communism is the fundamental guarantee of livelihood.In the west, Marx and Engels’ thought about people’s livelihood has a derivation, such as western Marxist humanistic trend, new Hegel’s Marxism, existential Marxism, and New Freud’s Marxism. These theories have studies on Marx and Engels’ the people’s livelihood, from the aspects of critique of economic determinism, alienation theory of discourse, the critique of capitalist social phenomena, etc. However, these thoughts excessively emphasized man’s subjective initiatives. From the viewpoint of the abstract man, they failed to radically criticize capitalist system, either. As a result, all of them went too far away from Marx and Engels’ thoughts about the people’s livelihood.In contemporary society, Marx and Engels’ thoughts about the people’s livelihood has successfully generated the outlook of Marxism people’s livelihood with Chinese characteristics."People-oriented" is the basic starting point of the outlook of Chinese Marx’s people’s livelihood; development of productive forces is the fundamental way of improving Chinese Marxism people’s livelihood. The socialist system is the fundamental guarantee of the outlook of Marxist people’s livelihood with Chinese characteristics. Common prosperity is the goal of the outlook of Marxist people’s livelihood with Chinese characteristics. The outlook of Marxist people’s livelihood with Chinese characteristics has five aspects: characteristics of concept, far-reaching influence, comprehensive content, and the feasibility. At present, facing the situation, the construction of people’s livelihood in China should proceed within these five issues in education, employment, health care, social security and housing.