Role Definition And Function Research Of Local Government Under The Market Economy System

"The existence of country is the key to economic growth, but the country is also a man-made cause of economic recession" North paradox analyzed the relationship between country and economic development, and showed that the country played a major role and took an important position in economic growth.On the description about Asian economic development, Marx said,"It can often be found in Asian countries that agriculture declines under the rule of one government, but revivals again while under the rule of another. The development of economy depends on the government's leadership, just like Europe, the harvest of agriculture is determined by the weather conditions" the easy-to-read words implied a profound truth, and the straightforward description confirmed that the close relationship between the government and the development of country--ountry's prosperity depends on the leadership of the government. The right policies can promote economic development, and vice versa. It seems that an effective government always keeps an inconsonant tensile force with the history of human civilization, and it changes in each social transition, promoting the social progress and development. The movements of government reform have gone globally like mushrooms, with the moving forward steadily and prosperousness of the economic globalization, the political diversity and the social networking. As an important force to maintain the world order, lead the regional economy and protect personal security, the government's capacity, functions, which field it will work, how to work and what finally it will be will directly resolve and influence steady progress and smooth development of the social transformation.Since reform and opening-up of the 1980s, China has achieved a smooth transition from the planned economy system to the competitive market economy system, experienced reform of baptism from the economic field to every field, not only people's life has undergone the earth-shaking change, but the government reform also made the remarkable achievement. Although a great revolution in the transition has created the unprecedented miracle, the path of exploration is still rough. Needless to say, our administrative system reform still remains the traditional mode of thinking and behavior left from the planned economic system, the roles and functions of the government are not adapted to the market economy environment objectively. If the transition of the planned economy to the market economy is a historically important economic transformation in last century, in the gradual deepening of globalization today, China is experiencing another comprehensive and profound social transformation, which is a rethinking of how the government redefines its position, and eliminates the traditional thinking and behavior under the market economy.The paper starts with reviewing roles of the government in history and studying cases, trys to clarify the historical logic in the transition of government's economic roles of China and the West and speculate the trend of future development. The approach of taking a number of well-developed cities and counties of Zhejiang Province as the main objects reveals the substantial roles of the local government that is in the process of transition, analyzing the existing problems, summarizing experience and inspiration. Under the guidance of the basic functional framework which the local government should exert, combining with the realistic limited elements, we try to explore role definition and transformation of the local government function. Although the investigation takes the particular cases of the individual regions as objects, the concrete form of an abstract concept—government, the investigation and thinking of whose specific acts and future construction will have a far-reaching impact on economy and society in the county or region. As the founder of Marxism expressed his idea in the theory of Path Dependence in the study of historical development, each stage of historical development is not only its own history, but also a continuation of the past history. The similar development process of human beings offers the possibility of mutual learning and mirroring:When Chinese government learns the experiences of the market economy from some developed western countries, other countries or regions also will take us as a reference for the exploration.This paper is divided into five parts, and its basic framework and the internal logic is:The first part is an introduction. First of all, it shows the necessity and urgency of government reform from the internal and external situation, and come to the conclusion--the meaning and value of the research. Second, it defines what the local government, roles and functions of the government and other related concepts are, in order to provide a theoretical framework for future research. In the second part, in the theoretical level, it straightens out the transition of the government's economic roles of China and the West in history. After the brief review of four courses in the development of the western government's roles, and two periods of the evolution of roles of Chinese government--three changes in the history, the historical experiences have been summarized. Therefore, there are some inspirations we have got from it. The third part, in the empirical level, it cites the specific examples of roles of the local government in market economy. From the level of the specific facts, it observes and studies the real roles and functions of the local government, analyze the existing problems, sum up the basic functions which the local government should possess in the fourth part, the paper starts from the cases and has a profound consideration of relations among government, market and society. According to the analysis of the cases in part three, we can get the conclusion that the government and the market should complement with each other, the government and the society should cooperate, and come up with the issue that the govern-ment should adhere to the principle of "two-handed combination"--complementary between government and market, co-operation between government and society. The fifth part is transformation of the local government functions and the exploration of specific methods. Under the guidance of two ways of logic thinking--abstract and concrete, ideal and reality, theory and evidence, through studying the historical evolution and the actual situation, combining the analysis of specific issues, the paper gets the conclusion that three principles of role definition of the local government, roles which the government should play(the economic development coordinator, the market regulator, the basic cause manager, the public service provider), four directions of transformation of the government function(from a versatile government to a limited-oriented government; from a control-oriented government to a service-oriented government; from a power-oriented government to a responsible government; from a closed government to a transparent-type government), and four specific methods (to develop and improve the capacity of the market self-regulation; to encourage and stimulate the enthusiasm of the social participation and supervision; to establish and complete the standard legal system; to strengthen and improve the responsibility of public service of the government).