Public Demand Theory In Marxism And Its Development In The Contemporary Era

The connotations of public demands are repeatedly touched upon by Marx and Engels in their works of Marxism. In order to understand the concept of Marxist’s public demand, dialectical materialism and historical materialism are to be fully adopted for analytical studies. Also, ideas and views on such topics as social public demands and public interest scattered in Marxist works are to be drawn upon, so as to gain the basic meanings of the Marxist’s public demand theory. Some scholars confuse the concept of Marxist’s public demand with that of public goods in the western economics. Thus, there is a need to have a further study and summary on the Marxist’s theory and make an analysis on the limitations of the western theory in the regard, so that the essence of the public demand theory can be fully revealed. On the other hand, it may enable a combing on the development of the sinicized public demand theory as well as a further improvement of the theory.At present, China is faced with a golden opportunity to develop its economy, but at the same time it has a high exposure to social conflicts. The mechanism malpractice of the old systems is increasingly becoming a bottleneck in its development, and problems emerge endlessly in a number of social aspects, such as resources, environment, and cultural innovations. Contemporarily, the major contradiction in public demands and supplies that China is confronted with is the one between the rapid growth of public demands and the shortage, imbalance and irrationality of the present public supplies (basic public wants in particular). There is still a big gap between the level of public supplies and the requirements for building a well-off and harmonious society in all aspects, which, to a great extent, affects China’s economic and social development. Thus, only when certain issues, such as the relationship between the puiposes and rules, between fairness and efficiency, between government and market, and between public establishment and public interest, are duly coped with, can public demands be better met.By adopting the method of literature review, this thesis combs and sums up the Marxist’s theory on public demands, focuses its analysis on the attributes of Marxist’s major pubic demands, states its natural attributes, such as the purposiveness of public interest, the integrity of public demands, the necessity of the public subject, and the efficiency of public supplies, and its social attributes, including dynamic development, fairness rationality and class nature, and points out the decisive significance of the social attributes. Specific to the current development of China’s public demands, this thesis indicates that the major characteristics of these demands lie in the urgent fulfillment of basic public demands, the rapid growth of transitional and developed public demands, and the brisk public demands for a harmonious growth. It also believes that the limits and key points of public demands and supplies need to be further specified, its decision mechanism be further improved, its organization and management be further strengthened, its inspection and assessment be further refined, and finally, puts forward concrete policies and suggestions.