A Historical Materialist Perspective On The Needs Of People’s Better Life In The New Era

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China formally put forward the assertion of "the need for a better life".Since then,the Communist Party of China has implemented "the need for a better life" as an important goal of social development in all aspects of society to guide the work of the party and the state.Using historical materialism to study the people’s needs for a better life in the new era is conducive to grasping the connotation of the needs for a better life from a deep level,guiding the people to form reasonable needs,and promoting the realization of people’s free and all-round development.This paper first puts forward three principles that must be grasped to study the needs of a better life from the perspective of historical materialism.First,it must be grasped on the basis of the positioning of the times,that is,it must be based on China’s current historical position,basic national conditions and international status to investigate the needs of the people for a better life in the new era;Second,we should grasp the height of the main social contradiction.The proposal of the concept of "need for a better life" is based on the judgment of the main social contradiction.Without solving this main contradiction,other contradictions can not be truly solved and needs can not be met;Third,we should grasp the relationship between the unity of opposites and realize that a better life needs a dialectical relationship between individuality and sociality,certainty and survivability,and survivability and development.Adhering to these three principles is the methodological requirement for us to correctly understand the generation,content and path of satisfying the needs of a better life.Next,this paper discusses the emergence and content of people’s needs for a better life in the new era.It is precisely because man is a natural,social and quasi existence that man can produce material needs,spiritual needs and social needs,distinguish the instincts of animals for survival,and make life a category that belongs to man alone.The satisfaction of needs cannot be separated from production.The need for a better life is the result of further development on the basis of production development.With the change of productive forces,the content of needs is constantly refined.It can be considered that the "needs for a better life" of the people in the new era include five aspects: good material,political,cultural,social and ecological needs.Finally,based on the basic analysis framework of historical materialism,which is productivity and production relations,economic foundation and superstructure,this paper deeply studies how to meet the people’s needs for a better life in the new era.Historical materialism holds that productive labor is a means to meet needs.The content of needs can be summarized as material,spiritual and social relations.Accordingly,production also includes material,spiritual and social relations.In terms of material production and spiritual production,production is the fundamental way to meet needs.To increase the supply of material materials to meet the needs of a better life,we must vigorously develop the real economy,recognize the driving role of innovation in promoting social production to meet needs,and see that people are the dual subjects of needs and production;From the perspective of social relations production,economic relations play a decisive role in social relations.We should continue to adhere to public ownership of the means of production,form equal and harmonious relations of production,and adopt reasonable distribution methods to adjust the interests among the people;In addition,the superstructure can promote the removal of institutional mechanisms and ideological barriers in social production.We should adhere to the modernization of systems and concepts.