The Socialist Market Economy: Theory Origin、Debate And Development

The relationship between socialism and market economy has been the focusdebate in theoretical circle. Marx and Engels believed that socialism is a kind of idealsocial system built on the basis of the highly developed capitalism and that the socialsystem inevitably eliminated market economy bringing great disasters tohumanbeings, but the idea proposed by them of socialism eliminating marketeconomy, was obviously historical, when we talk about the situation of the socialistconstruction,we also need specific analysis.Actually,analyzing the nature of theirmarket economy theory from their social development theory and world markettheory, we find that their theories do not fundamentally deny the relationship betweensocialism and market economy, but prepare sufficient theoretical foundation for thedevelopment of socialism market economy.Lenin not only practised the Marx and Engels’ scientific socialism ideal, alsodeveloped the theory of socialist market economy. Originally, Lenin removed factorsof market economy from his "wartime communism" policy,and with the deepening ofthe socialism, he gradually realized that the market economy is essential to theoperation of the socialist economy,and his "new economic policy" during the formerSoviet union became the earliest practice of socialist market economy. It’s a pity thatLenin’s market economy thoughts is not institutionalized and systematized. After hepassed away, two big debates around the future of the new economic policy producedin the Soviet party, and finally the Stalin pattern was established. Stalin pattern wascharacteristic of the highly centralized economic decisions and the pattern had a deepand great influnence in the later socialist countries like eastern Europe, China, and theeastern European countries and China has built up a highly centralized plannedeconomic system in succession.In the1930’s, there was a big debate about socialist resource allocation, theopposition is Mises, Robbins, Hayek, they considered that the socialism was plannedeconomy and could not efficiently solve the problem of resource allocation. The affirmative is Taylor, Lange, Lerner, they put forward thatsocialism also couldachieve the high efficiency of resource allocation by simulating market in the plannedeconomy. In this debate, Lange and Lerner almost simultaneously put forward theplan solving the problem of the resource allocation of socialism by simulating marketcompetition,known as the "Lange-Lerner model". The "Lange-Lerner model"represented the formal birth of market socialism. Later, eastern European countriesrepeatedly suffering setbacks in the economic practice had carried on the reform of"separation of powers model" in the introduction of market mechanism in the plannedeconomy. In the process of reform,appeared market socialism models like Bruce’s"the planned economy including controling the market mechanism”, Sikh’s " theallocation of project on the basis of market mechanism ", Cole nai’s "marketcoordination containing the macroscopic control " and so on, and these had broughtthe new development of market socialism. At the same time, in Germany, Marx’shometown, was produced theory of the socialist market economy represented by k.Nash and A. weber. The decentralized decision-making mode coexisting in plan andmarket did not bring economic development to the Soviet union and eastern Europeancountries, but establish the neutral theory of market mechanism, and promoted thefirst establishment of "market leading"market socialism mode represented by Britain’sLabour party in the UK in the1980’s.After the coup of the Soviet and the disintegration of eastern Europe, thecapitalism world don’t receive the expected development,the appearance of a newbatch of market socialism theories in western economics circle embodied newdevelopment of contemporary market socialism. The coup of the Soviet and thedisintegration of eastern Europe were a huge impact on those who cherished hopes forsocialism,after all, an alternative model of capitalism disappeared. Meanwhile,capitalist market economy greatly hoped by people did not bring the intended effect,the Keynesian and later the new liberalism economy policy did not realize theredemption of capitalism. And the contemporary market socialism tried to combinethe efficiency of market economy and the fairness of socialism an d put forward avariety of specific market socialism modes. There are many places deserving learning in these solutions to contemporary capitalism market economy problems.Thought of socialist market economy has never really interrupted in our country.Mao Zedong made a deep exploration of the commodity economy thoughts and hedeveloped Stalin’s commodity economy theory, expanding the scope and significanceof commodity economy. At the same time in the Chinese theory circle,the explorationof commodity economy is also very deep. Deng Xiaoping restarted the China’ssocialist market economic model, described the blueprint of China’s reform andopening. In the end, guided by the marxism, China combined marxist theory andChina’s actual situation, carrying on the reform and opening, and became the classicexample of success of reform of market economy in socialist countries. Frommakeing decision of the reform and opening in the11th third plenary session in1978to today, China’s market economy has seen36years of history, experienceing fromfirst the introduction of market mechanism in the planned economy to theestablishment of market economy as the goal of the economic system reform toperfecting the market economic system and finally to today’s puting forward task todeepen the reform.From the initial "touch stone across the river" to the founding ofthe central deepening reform leading team, each reform stage is companied by thetheoretical arguments, the focus of the debate has shifted away from the originaldoubt if the socialism can be combined with market economy to the present day howto make socialism better combine with market economy, reflecting the process ofconcept of market economy gradually establishing in our country.Reform continues and the debate has never stopped. Theory debates in differentstages promote the continuing and deepening of the reform. At present, China’smarket economy reform has entered into the deep water area and the crucial stage,summarizing and combing the origin, debate and development of the socialist marketeconomy theory can make us clearly get to know the context and thoughtway of thereform, firm the belief in reform and opening, see the direction of the reform, havinggreat significance in continuing to deepen reform.