Several Theoretical Issues on the Formation and Development of New Quality Productive Forces

Accelerating the formation of new quality productive forces is an important breakthrough in building new momentum for Chinese-path modernization and an inevitable path for China's economy to shift toward high-quality development. In September 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized at the Symposium on Promoting the Full Revitalization of Northeast China in the New Era: “Actively cultivate strategic emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, advanced manufacturing, and electronic information, actively cultivate future industries, accelerate the formation of new quality productive forces, and strengthen new momentum for development.” (1) The Central Economic Work Conference in December 2023 proposed: “Use scientific and technological innovation to drive industrial innovation, especially by using disruptive technologies and cutting-edge technologies to spawn new industries, new models, and new momentum, and develop new quality productive forces.” (2) The proposal of the category of new quality productive forces expands the scope of application of the Marxist theory of productive forces, meets the objective requirements of the new stage of China's modernization, and scientifically answers the intrinsic characteristics of China's high-quality economic development from a theoretical perspective. At present, there are many theoretical explanations of new quality productive forces in Chinese academic circles, and it is necessary to discriminate and respond to several key issues involved.

加快形成新质生产力是构建中国式现代化发展新动能的重要突破口，是中国经济转向高质量发展的必然途径。2023年9月，习近平总书记在新时代推动东北全面振兴座谈会上强调：“积极培育新能源、新材料、先进制造、电子信息等战略性新兴产业，积极培育未来产业，加快形成新质生产力，增强发展新动能。”12023年12月中央经济工作会议提出：“要以科技创新推动产业创新，特别是以颠覆性技术和前沿技术催生新产业、新模式、新动能，发展新质生产力。”2新质生产力范畴的提出，拓展了马克思主义生产力理论的适用范围，适应了中国现代化新阶段的客观要求，从理论上科学解答了中国经济高质量发展的内在特征。目前国内学界对于新质生产力的理论阐释甚多，有必要就其涉及的几个关键问题进行辨析与回应。

I. Scientifically Distinguishing the Essential Definition and Realistic Form of New Quality Productive Forces

一、科学区分新质生产力的本质界定与现实形态

New quality productive forces is both a theoretical concept and a practical category. Accelerating the formation of new quality productive forces requires a scientific definition of the nature of new quality productive forces and a distinction between them and their realistic form. In other words, it is necessary both to grasp theoretically the constituent elements and essential characteristics of new quality productive forces and to grasp practically the specific mode of existence and functional characteristics of new quality productive forces.

新质生产力既是一个理论上的概念，也是一个实践范畴。加快形成新质生产力，需要科学界定新质生产力的性质，并且将其与新质生产力的现实形态区分开来。换言之，既要在理论上把握新质生产力的构成要素与本质特征，也要在实践中把握新质生产力的具体存在方式与作用特点。

(I) The Interrelationship between Marx's Category of “New Productive Forces” and China's Concept of “New Quality Productive Forces”

（一）马克思“新的生产力”范畴与我国“新质生产力”概念的相互关系

The concept of productive forces was generated by Marx borrowing the language of bourgeois political economy, but Marx transformed the concept of productive forces. It should be pointed out that in Marx's works there is no systematic and complete exposition of “new productive forces,” but his thought on “new productive forces” runs through many related discussions.

生产力概念是马克思在借用了资产阶级国民经济学的语言基础上生成的，但马克思对生产力概念进行了改造。需要指出，在马克思的著作中，并没有系统、完整的关于“新生产力”的论述，但他关于“新生产力”的思想则贯穿于诸多相关论述之中。

Regarding the essential definition of productive forces, Marx's thought underwent a process of development. In *The German Ideology*, Marx pointed out: “A certain mode of production, or industrial stage, is always combined with a certain mode of co-operation, or social stage, and this mode of co-operation is itself a ‘productive force.’ Further, that the multitude of productive forces accessible to men determines the nature of society, hence that the ‘history of humanity’ must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry and exchange.” (3) Obviously, in Marx's view, the mode of co-operation directly manifests as productive forces; productive forces are both the result of given history and change with historical development. In Marx's era, the most important factors determining the development of productive forces were the development of industry and exchange. Marx later further explained the impact of the formation of new productive forces: “The economic forms under which men produce, consume, and exchange are transitory and historical forms. With the acquisition of new productive forces, men change their mode of production, and with the change in the mode of production they change all economic relations that are merely the necessary relations of that particular mode of production.” (4) Here, Marx for the first time put forward the concept of “new productive forces,” arguing that the emergence of new productive forces is marked by a fundamental change in the economic forms of production, consumption, and exchange, and its direct consequence is the dissolution of the relations of production under a particular mode of production. In short, the mode of co-operation pre-exists the economic mode of social production and develops and changes with the evolution of economic forms, and the foundational force that can change the latter is new productive forces—this is the most fundamental and scientific conclusion of historical materialism regarding historical development.

关于生产力的本质界定，马克思的思想有一个发展的过程。马克思在《德意志意识形态》中指出：“一定的生产方式或一定的工业阶段始终是与一定的共同活动方式或一定的社会阶段联系着的，而这种共同活动方式本身就是‘生产力’；由此可见，人们所达到的生产力的总和决定着社会状况，因而，始终必须把‘人类的历史’同工业和交换的历史联系起来研究和探讨。”3显然，在马克思看来，共同活动的方式直接体现为生产力，生产力既是既定历史的成果，又随着历史发展而变化。在马克思的时代，决定生产力发展最重要的因素是工业和交换的发展。马克思后来进一步阐释了新的生产力的形成所带来的影响，即“人们借以进行生产、消费和交换的经济形式是暂时的和历史性的形式。随着新的生产力的获得，人们便改变自己的生产方式，而随着生产方式的改变，他们便改变所有不过是这一特定生产方式的必然关系的经济关系”。4在这里，马克思第一次提出了“新的生产力”的概念，认为新生产力的产生，其标志是使生产、消费和交换的经济形式发生根本变化，相应的其直接后果是导致特定生产方式下的生产关系的解体。总之，共同活动方式先于社会生产的经济方式而存在，并因经济形式演变而发展变化，而能够改变后者的基础性力量是新的生产力，这是历史唯物主义关于历史发展的最根本、最科学的结论。

Marx clarified the issue of the generation of actual productive forces. Marx pointed out that the development of productive forces is essentially the development of human capacities, but this development is not realized out of thin air; it is related to a certain social form. In a letter to Pavel Vassilyevich Annenkov in 1846, he wrote: “Men cannot freely choose their productive forces—they are the foundation of all their history, because every productive force is an acquired force, the product of previous activity. Hence productive forces are the result of men's applied capacity, but this capacity itself is determined by the conditions in which men find themselves, by the productive forces already acquired, by the social form that existed before them, created not by them but by the preceding generation.” (5) On the one hand, productive forces are the product of human activity (this activity also changes man himself), manifesting as people's applied capacity in adapting to nature and social development in terms of physical and mental labor; on the other hand, productive forces are determined by the social form, and a given social form has a decisive role in the generation of productive forces.

马克思阐明了现实生产力的生成问题。马克思指出，生产力的发展本质上是人的能力的发展，但这种发展不是凭空实现的，而是与一定的社会形式有关。1846年他在致帕维尔·瓦西里耶维奇·安年科夫的信中指出：“人们不能自由选择自己的生产力——这是他们的全部历史的基础，因为任何生产力都是一种既得的力量，是以往的活动的产物。可见，生产力是人们应用能力的结果，但是这种能力本身决定于人们所处的条件，决定于先前已经获得的生产力，决定于在他们以前已经存在、不是由他们创立而是由前一代人创立的社会形式。”5一方面，生产力是人们活动的产物（这种活动也改变人自身），体现为人们在体力和脑力方面适应自然和社会发展的应用能力；另一方面，生产力又是由社会形式所决定的，一定的社会形式对生产力的生成具有决定性作用。

Marx also contemplated the issue of the persistence and development of productive forces: “Productive forces created in a certain region, especially inventions, will be lost in later development unless communication expands.” (6) This shows that the expansion of social intercourse (narrowly understood as commodity exchange) is an important factor enabling productive forces to continue to play a decisive role. Productive forces cannot be understood solely from the relationship between man and nature; they must also be understood from the interrelations of people in the labor process, so their historical generation is always systematic and holistic. Some scholars simply regard individual scientific and technological inventions as the primary element of new productive forces, but this view is not objective from the perspective of productive forces. The discovery of a new scientific knowledge or the invention of a new technology cannot directly become productive forces; it can become new productive forces only when it is incorporated or integrated into the universal economic form of social production. For these reasons, we cannot simply simplify Marx's theory of productive forces and historical development to “technological determinism” and thus understand new quality productive forces as the application of new technology.

马克思还设想了生产力存续和发展的问题：“某一个地域创造出来的生产力，特别是发明，在往后的发展中是否会失传，完全取决于交往扩展的情况。”6这就说明，社会交往（在狭义上可理解为商品交换）的扩展，是生产力得以持续发挥决定性作用的一个重要因素。生产力不能单纯从人对自然的关系来认识，还要从人们劳动过程的相互结合关系来理解，因此其历史生成总是系统性和整体性的。有些学者简单地将个别的科学技术发明作为新生产力的第一要素，但这种观点从生产力角度看并不客观。一种新科学知识的发现或一种新技术的发明并不能直接成为生产力，只有它被合并进入或融合于社会生产的普遍经济形式之中，才可能成为新生产力。由于上述原因，我们不能单纯将马克思的生产力理论和历史发展理论简化理解为“技术决定论”，从而将新质生产力理解为新科技的运用。

In fact, from the generative logic of new productive forces, Marx believed that productive forces are created socially, and all elements of society may influence the formation of productive forces. In the *Grundrisse*, Marx pointed out: “New productive forces and relations of production do not develop out of nothing, nor out of the air, nor out of the womb of the self-positing Idea… On the contrary, their development toward a totality consists in bringing all elements of society under its sway, or in creating out of society the organs it still lacks. This is historically how the organic system becomes a totality. Becoming a totality is a moment of its process, of its development.” (7) This can be understood as follows: the emergence of new productive forces means bringing different elements of society under the sway of a new mode of social co-operation; this is the path for the generation of new productive forces.

实际上，从新生产力的生成逻辑看，马克思认为生产力是被社会化地创造出来的，而社会的一切要素均可能对生产力的形成产生影响。马克思在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中指出：“新的生产力和生产关系不是从无中发展起来的，也不是从空中，也不是从自己设定自己的那种观念的母胎中发展起来的……而它向总体的发展过程就在于：使社会的一切要素从属于自己，或者把自己还缺乏的器官从社会中创造出来。有机体制在历史上就是这样生成为总体的。生成为这种总体是它的过程即它的发展的一个要素。”7可以这样来理解，新的生产力产生，就是使社会的不同要素从属于新的社会共同生活方式，这是新的生产力产生的路径。

China's current advocacy of new quality productive forces both adheres to the basic judgments of the Marxist theory of productive forces and differs from them. The consistency lies in the fact that the category of “new quality productive forces” is proposed on the basis of the profound social changes promoted by Chinese-path modernization; it originates from the deep changes in China's social life, including the development of technical forms of production, the transformation of modes of exchange, the expansion of forms of consumption, and the transformation of modes of social intercourse—this is consistent with Marx's overall view of productive forces. The difference lies in the fact that Marx's “new productive forces” refer to a qualitative change in overall productive forces associated with changes in social formations, while China's “new quality productive forces” focus on the advanced nature of individual productive forces and their concrete forms of existence, taking the “qualitative state” of new production factors as the measure, and explaining the new connotation of productive forces more from the dimension of production outcomes achieved through factor utilization.

我国目前所提倡的新质生产力，既坚持了马克思主义生产力理论的基本论断，但又与之有所区别。其一致性在于，“新质生产力”范畴是在中国式现代化所推动形成的社会巨变基础上提出的，它源于我国社会生活的深刻变化，包括生产技术形式的发展、交换方式的转化、消费形式的拓展以及社会交往方式的转变，这与马克思的总体生产力观是一致的。而二者的区别在于，马克思的“新的生产力”是指与社会形态变革相关的总体生产力质变，我国提出的“新质生产力”则着眼于从个体生产力的先进性及其具体存在形式角度，以新生产要素的“质态”作为衡量依据，更多地从要素利用达成的生产成果维度阐释生产力的新内涵。

(II) The Relationship between New Quality Productive Forces and Labor Productivity

（二）新质生产力与劳动生产力的关系

Labor productivity is one of the core contents of the Marxist theory of productive forces. Some scholars argue that what makes new quality productive forces “new” or “advanced” is the higher labor productivity they contain. Their main basis is Marx's statement: “The laborer and the means of production are always the factors of production. But in a state of separation from each other, both of them are only potentially factors of production. For production to take place, they must be united. The particular manner and mode of this union distinguishes the different economic epochs of the structure of society.” (8) Thus, the current “new quality productive forces” proposed by China emphasize the “qualitative state” of productive forces, speaking more about production factors and their combination, focusing on accelerating the transformation of potential productive forces into actual productive forces.

劳动生产力是马克思主义生产力理论中的核心内容之一。有的学者认为，新质生产力之所以“新”或“先进”，在于其蕴藏的劳动生产力更高。其主要依据是马克思所提出的，“劳动者和生产资料始终是生产的因素。但是，二者在彼此分离的情况下只在可能性上是生产因素。凡要进行生产，它们就必须结合起来。实行这种结合的特殊方式和方法，使社会结构区分为各个不同的经济时期”。8由此，当前我国所提出的新质生产力强调生产力的“质态”，更多的是从生产要素及其结合来说的，着眼点在于加快潜在生产力向现实生产力的转化。

The reason labor factors are important in the concept of productive forces is that no matter how productive forces are defined, they presuppose production. Productive forces based on the substantive elements of material production occupy an important place in Marx's thought on productive forces. Two factors are involved here: changes in production itself and changes in productive capacity. It should be said that the relationship between the two is not simple and directly corresponding. The latter is often directly related to technology, while the former is more related to human needs. If we look solely from the perspective of technological change and the law of development of industrial sectors, new general-purpose technologies and leading sectors can often serve as general indicators for examining qualitative changes in productive forces. (9) However, Marx's thought did not stop there. For him, profound qualitative changes in productive forces are linked to human activity, and the core is the change in the laborer himself.

在生产力概念中劳动要素之所以重要，是因为无论生产力如何界定，它都是以生产为前提的。以物质生产实体性要素为前提的生产力，在马克思生产力思想中占有重要地位。这里涉及两个因素，即生产本身的变化与生产能力的变化。应当说，二者间并不是简单直接对应的关系。后者常常与技术直接相关，而前者则更多与人的需要联系在一起。如果单纯从技术变革和产业部门的发展规律来看，新的通用技术和主导部门往往能够作为考察生产力质变的一般表征。9不过，马克思的思想没有停留在这一步。在他那里，深刻的生产力质变是与人的活动联系在一起的，其核心是劳动者本身的变化。

Labor productivity has a certain significance in judging the generation of new quality productive forces. The key to labor productivity driving the development of productive forces lies in changes in the nature of labor, such as the specialization of labor brought about by division of labor, the cooperation of labor brought about by collective production, the replacement of human labor by animal power, the replacement of physical strength by natural forces implied by the use of machinery, etc. Among these, the division between physical and mental labor is epoch-making in the development of productive forces, because the replacement of physical labor by mental labor is essentially the replacement of simple labor by complex labor, which implies a huge saving of labor time. From the law of evolution of labor forms, we can see: “To the extent that production is based on mere physical labor, on the use of muscle power, etc., in short, on the physical strain and physical labor of the individual, the growth of productivity depends all the more on the large-scale collective labor of individuals.” (10) In modern society, due to the power of science, the development of productive forces has broken away from the concentrated use of the natural forces inherent in man himself; collective labor has taken on a form surpassing individual labor, and the use and control of objective natural forces will correspondingly increase, thereby promoting productive forces to emerge in a new qualitative state.

劳动生产力在判断新质生产力的生成时具有一定意义。劳动生产力推动生产力发展的关键在于劳动性质的改变，如分工导致的劳动专业化、共同生产导致的劳动协作化、畜力对人力的替代、机器运用蕴含的自然力对体力的替代，等等。其中，体力劳动和脑力劳动的分工在生产力发展中的作用是划时代的，这是因为，脑力劳动取代体力劳动本质上是复杂劳动对简单劳动的替代，它意味着劳动时间的巨大节约。从劳动形式的演变规律可以看出，“生产越是以单纯的体力劳动，以使用肌肉力等等为基础，简言之，越是以单个人的肉体紧张和体力劳动为基础，生产力的增长就越是依赖于单个人的大规模的共同劳动”。10现代社会中由于科学的力量，生产力的发展摆脱了对人自身所拥有的自然力的集中使用，共同劳动取得了超越个人劳动的劳动形式，对客观自然力的利用和控制会相应提升，从而促进生产力以新的质态出现。

It must be pointed out that it is incomplete to define new quality productive forces solely in terms of the application of technical conditions with higher labor productivity, forms of production organization, industries, or sectors. Labor productivity is only one element constituting social productive forces; it is just that in *Capital* Marx used “productive forces” and “labor productivity” interchangeably when analyzing the immediate process of production, leading people often to conflate the two. Even from the perspective of labor productivity, its determining factors are multidimensional. In Volume I of *Capital*, Marx clearly pointed out: “Labor productivity is determined by many circumstances, including the average degree of skill of the workers, the level of development of science and its degree of technological application, the social combination of the process of production, the scale and efficiency of the means of production, and natural conditions.” (11) Here, not only the scale and efficiency of the means of production have an important impact on the generation of new productive forces, but natural forces also constitute part of the content of labor productivity.

必须指出，将新质生产力单纯界定为劳动生产力更高的技术条件运用、生产组织形式、产业或部门，都是不全面的。劳动生产力只是构成社会生产力的一个要素，只不过在《资本论》中马克思分析直接生产过程时将“生产力”与“劳动生产力”相互借用，使人们常将二者混同。即使从劳动生产力来看，其决定因素也是多维的。马克思在《资本论》第一卷中明确指出：“劳动生产力是由多种情况决定的，其中包括：工人的平均熟练程度，科学的发展水平和它在工艺上应用的程度，生产过程的社会结合，生产资料的规模和效能，以及自然条件。”11在这里，不仅生产资料的规模和效能对新生产力的生成产生重要影响，自然力也同样构成劳动生产力的内容。

(III) The Subject-Object Relationship in New Quality Productive Forces

（三）新质生产力中的主客体关系

The subject-object relationship under the category of productive forces is a key to understanding new quality productive forces. Marx clearly pointed out: “Productive forces…include both the subject’s productive forces, which manifest as individual characteristics, and the object’s productive forces.” (12) The subject’s productive forces include not only the labor efficiency brought about by the expenditure of human physical and mental strength but also human creativity, such as the productive application of scientific knowledge. The object’s productive forces include the means of production and their development, natural forces, and also the forces of division of labor and cooperation. Among these, Marx attached great importance to the impact of the development of the system of machinery. Some scholars argue that Marx did not emphasize the study of productive forces in *Capital* but only the study of relations of production, based on Marx's statement: “Machinery is no more an economic category than an ox drawing a plow. Machinery is only a productive force. The modern factory based on the use of machinery is a social relation of production, an economic category.” (13) Such an understanding is too narrow; here Marx is precisely emphasizing the need to study economic relations (categories) in connection with productive forces. However, the above statement also illustrates a fact: the object’s productive forces can reveal the essence of productive forces only when combined with the subject’s productive forces.

生产力范畴下的主客体关系是理解新质生产力的一把钥匙。马克思明确指出：“生产力……既包括表现为个人特性的主体的生产力，也包括客体的生产力。”12主体的生产力既包括人的体力和脑力付出所带来的劳动效率，也包括人的创造力，例如对科学知识的生产性应用。而客体的生产力则包括生产要素及其发展，也包括自然力，还包括分工和协作力等内涵。其中，马克思高度重视机器体系的发展所带来的影响。有的学者认为，马克思在《资本论》中不重视研究生产力而只重视研究生产关系，其依据在于马克思的论述：“机器正像拖犁的牛一样，并不是一个经济范畴。机器只是一种生产力。以应用机器为基础的现代工厂才是社会生产关系，才是经济范畴。”13这样的理解显得偏狭了，这里恰恰是强调要联系生产力来研究经济关系（范畴）。不过，上述论述也说明了一个事实：客体的生产力只有与主体的生产力相结合时，才能揭示出生产力本质。

From subjective and objective conditions, the productive forces of man and material elements can be fully demonstrated through differences in productive capacity. First, the object’s productive forces must be separated from direct labor in order to greatly promote the formation and development of new quality productive forces. In analyzing the contradictions and development of internal factors of productive forces, Marx said: “Capital does not create science; but it uses science, appropriates it for the needs of the production process. In this way, science as applied to production becomes separated from direct labor. In earlier stages of production, limited knowledge and experience were directly linked to labor itself and did not develop into an independent force separate from labor; thus, they never exceeded the scope of traditional handicraft accumulation, which was passed down from generation to generation and expanded very slowly, bit by bit.” (14) This is because division of labor and the cooperation it brings, as a mode of human activity, in a sense directly manifest as the object’s productive forces, and therefore can develop independently of the individual labor capacity of a single worker.

从主客观条件出发，人和物质要素的生产力完全可以通过生产能力差异来体现。首先，客体的生产力必须与直接劳动相分离，才能极大促进新质生产力的形成和发展。马克思在分析生产力内部因素的矛盾和发展时说：“资本不创造科学，但是它为了生产过程的需要，利用科学，占有科学。这样一来，科学作为应用于生产的科学同时就和直接劳动相分离，而在以前的生产阶段上，范围有限的知识和经验是同劳动本身直接联系在一起的，并没有发展成为同劳动相分离的独立的力量，因而整个说来从未超出传统的手艺积累的范围，这种积累是一代代加以充实的，并且是很缓慢地、一点一点地扩大的。”14这是因为，分工以及由此带来的协作，作为人类活动方式在某种意义上直接体现为客体的生产力，因而可以不依赖于单个劳动者的个体劳动能力而独立发展。

Second, when understanding new quality productive forces, we cannot exaggerate the subject’s productive forces. It should be seen that the object’s productive forces are an objective existence inherent in the object itself. In this regard, Marx once pointed out: “The capacity of a thing is something intrinsic to the thing, although this intrinsic attribute can only manifest itself in its relationship to other things. For example, gravity is a capacity of the thing itself, even though this capacity is ‘potential’ when there is nothing to attract.” (15) In *The Holy Family*, when criticizing Proudhon, Marx also pointed out that the cultivation of land can increase agricultural productive capacity, thereby realizing the benefits of land ownership, but the existence of land itself is a limit to agricultural productive forces. This is because, logically speaking, land cultivation only creates a new productive capacity of land relative to the human subject, but the land material itself and its productive capacity pre-exist; in the process of cultivation, humans do not and cannot create the land material itself. This fact shows that the precondition of the object’s productive forces is the material substantive element; it can generate new productive forces only when it is incorporated into the production process.

其次，在理解新质生产力时，不能过度夸大主体的生产力。应当看到，客体的生产力是一种客观存在，是客体本身就具有的。对此马克思曾指出：“一物的能力是该物内在的东西，尽管它这个内在的属性只能表现在它对其他物的关系上。例如，引力是物本身的能力，虽然这种能力在没有东西可以吸引时是‘潜在的’。”15马克思在《神圣家族》中批判普鲁东时也指出，土地的开垦可以提高农业生产能力，进而使土地所有权的利益得到实现，但土地的存在本身就是对农业生产力的一个限制。这是因为，从逻辑上看，土地开垦只是创造了土地相对于人这一主体的新生产能力，但土地这一物质本身乃至土地的生产能力是预先就存在的，在开垦过程中人类没有也不可能创造土地物质本身。这一事实说明，客体生产力的前提是物质性的实体要素，它只有被并入生产过程才能产生新的生产力。

Finally, although the object’s productive forces are important for the generation of new productive forces, the condition for their entry into productive forces is actual labor. Marx pointed out: “Natural elements that enter production as factors without costing anything, no matter what role they play in production, do not enter production as components of capital, but as free natural forces of capital, that is, as free natural productive forces of labor.” (16) This gives us an insight: the most important thing in the formation of new quality productive forces is to externalize the intrinsic attributes of objective things; in other words, scientific discoveries can only form potential productive forces; science can form actual productive forces only when it is applied on a large scale to means of labor or objects of labor through technology. Furthermore, simply changing the combination of production factors and improving productive capacity through optimal allocation cannot form new productive forces.

最后，客体的生产力对于新生产力的生成尽管重要，但它加入生产力所需要的条件是现实的劳动。马克思指出：“作为要素加入生产但无须付代价的自然要素，不论在生产中起什么作用，都不是作为资本的组成部分加入生产，而是作为资本的无偿的自然力，也就是，作为劳动的无偿的自然生产力加入生产的。”16这给我们一种启示，即新质生产力的形成中最重要的是将客观之物的内在属性外化，换言之，科技发现还只能形成潜在的生产力，科学只有通过技术被大规模运用于劳动资料或劳动对象，才可以形成现实的生产力。进一步说，简单地改变生产要素的组合，通过优化配置来提升生产能力，并不能形成新的生产力。

In summary, material productive forces and material itself cannot be equated; matter can either carry or not carry productive forces, but productive forces cannot do without the carrier of matter. Further, if science, technology, and knowledge do not have corresponding material carriers, the formation of new productive forces is also impossible. It is in this sense that Marx attached special importance to the development of the means of production and their role in the generation of new productive forces.

总之，物质的生产力和物质本身并不能等同，物质可以承载，也可以不承载生产力，但生产力却离不开物质的承载。进一步看，科学、技术和知识如果没有相应的物质来承载，新生产力的形成也是不可能的。正是在这个意义上，马克思特别重视生产要素的发展及其在新生产力生成中的作用。

II. Emphasizing Three Theoretical Breakthroughs of the Category of New Quality Productive Forces

二、重视新质生产力范畴的三个理论突破

Productive forces are the ultimate decisive force driving human civilization forward, and rapidly developing social productive forces is the primary task of socialist economic construction. The category of new quality productive forces is based on the Marxist theory of productive forces, expands the connotation of productive forces, and is rooted in China's new journey of socialist modernization, clarifying the development trend and fundamental requirements of new quality productive forces. Its important theoretical breakthroughs are reflected in the following three aspects.

生产力是推动人类文明不断向前发展的终极决定性力量，快速发展社会生产力是社会主义经济建设的首要任务。新质生产力范畴立足于马克思主义生产力理论，拓展了生产力的内涵，又立足于我国社会主义现代化新征程，阐明了新质生产力的发展趋势和根本要求。其重要理论突破体现在以下三个方面。

(I) The Expansion of the Constituent Elements of Productive Forces by New Quality Productive Forces

（一）新质生产力对生产力构成要素的拓展

Marx pointed out that new productive forces, in their connotation, first manifest as “the development of productive capacity and its elements.” (17) The development of productive capacity is directly related to the large-scale application of scientific knowledge in the realm of production, and it is embodied in the improvement of human labor capacity. The application of scientific knowledge is fundamentally reflected in the development of the means of production themselves.

马克思指出，新的生产力在其内涵上首先表现为“生产能力及其要素的发展”。17生产能力的发展与科学知识在生产领域中的大规模运用有直接的关系，它体现为人的劳动能力的提高。而科学知识的运用在根本上体现为生产要素本身的发展。

It should be pointed out that in the category of productive forces, different factors of production play different roles. Not only are their positions different, but their functions and effects are also different. Among them, material substantive elements, especially the means of labor, play the most important role. The means of labor are not only the measure of the development of labor power but also the indicator of the social relations of the laborers. Marx attached special importance to the role of the material foundation and pointed out that it has decisive significance for the formation of new productive forces: “The precondition for organizing a common household economy is the development of machinery, the use of natural forces and many other productive forces, such as running water, gas lighting, steam heating, etc., and the elimination of the [antagonism] between town and country. Without these conditions, a common economy itself would no longer become a new productive force; it would have no material foundation and would be built on a purely theoretical basis, that is, it would be a pure whimsy and could only lead to a monastic economy.” (18) For productive forces to develop, it is necessary to expand their material substantive elements and bring into play the capacity and inner potential of those elements. To achieve this, the role of scientific and technological innovation is highlighted.

需要指出的是，在生产力范畴中，不同生产要素的作用是不同的。不仅地位不同，功能和作用也不同。其中，物质实体要素特别是劳动资料起到最重要的作用，劳动资料不仅是劳动力发展的测量器，而且是劳动者社会关系的指示器。马克思特别重视物质基础的作用，并指出它们对新生产力的形成有决定性意义：“组织共同的家庭经济的前提是发展机器，利用自然力和许多其他的生产力，例如自来水、煤气照明、蒸汽采暖等，以及消灭城乡之间的[对立]。没有这些条件，共同的经济本身将不会再成为新生产力，将没有任何物质基础，将建立在纯粹的理论基础上，就是说，将是一种纯粹的怪想，只能导致寺院经济。”18生产力要发展，就需要拓展其物质实体要素，发挥实体要素的能力和内在潜能。而要做到这一点，科技创新的作用就被突出出来。

The expansion of the factors of production and the role it plays have charted the direction for the current development of new quality productive forces[12]12 A concept introduced by Xi Jinping in 2023 that has become central to China's economic policy, denoting productive forces driven by revolutionary technological breakthroughs, the intelligent deployment of new factors of production such as data, and deep industrial upgrading. in our country. General Secretary Xi Jinping points out: "As a new factor of production, data has a major impact on the transformation of the traditional mode of production."(19) In modern social production, chips, codes, programs, data and information constitute the core elements of the new-type labor process. Data collection, data mining, data analysis, processing of data products and data marketing form, through the internet, a process of data reproduction, which in turn commands and changes the direction, scale and structure of the input and output of the traditional factors of production. In particular, the system of data-processing technology, as a new means of labor, not only changes the qualitative state of labor, but also greatly changes the social relations in and through which labor is conducted under the conditions of digital society. It can thus be seen that the integration of the traditional factors of production by data, information and networks not only taps the new potential of the traditional factors of production, but also creates a new productive force of digital production. The proposal of the category of new quality productive forces has, under new historical conditions, scientifically distilled and explained the constituent elements of the new productive forces, such as the data factor, and deepened the understanding of the laws of development of the productive forces.

生产要素的拓展及其作用，为我国当前发展新质生产力指明了方向。习近平总书记指出：“数据作为新型生产要素，对传统生产方式变革具有重大影响。”19在现代社会生产中，芯片、编码、程序、数据、信息等构成了新型劳动过程的核心要素。数据搜集、数据挖掘、数据分析、数据产品加工、数据营销等通过互联网构成了数据再生产过程，进而驾驭和改变传统生产要素投入和产出的方向、规模和结构。特别是，数据处理技术系统作为新的劳动资料不仅改变了劳动的质态，还大大地改变了数字社会条件下劳动借以进行的社会关系。可见，数据、信息和网络等对传统生产要素的整合，既挖掘了传统生产要素的新潜能，又创造了数字化生产的新生产力。新质生产力范畴的提出，在新的历史条件下对数据要素等新生产力的构成要素进行了科学的提炼和说明，深化了对生产力发展规律的认识。

(2) The activation of the momentum of modernization development by new quality productive forces

（二）新质生产力对现代化发展动能的激发

People's understanding of the productive forces is always deepened in step with practice. Western economic theory offers mainly two paths of explanation for the laws of development of the productive forces: one proceeds from the angle of the division of labor and cooperation, the other from the angle of competition and evolution, and both have enormous limitations. Marxism, by contrast, demonstrates the formation and development of the productive forces from the nature of the combination of the factors of production and from their mode of action. In the industrial revolution, factors such as science and technology and management were continually incorporated into the production process, becoming a direct driving force in the development of the productive forces.

人们对于生产力的认识，总是随着实践而不断深化。西方经济理论关于生产力发展规律主要有两种解释路径，一是从分工和协作角度出发，二是从竞争和演化角度出发，二者均有着巨大的局限性。马克思主义则从生产要素结合性质和作用方式论证生产力的形成与发展。在工业革命中，科技要素、管理要素等被不断合并进入生产过程，成为生产力发展的直接推动力。

The formation of new quality productive forces is not the same thing as scientific and technological innovation, yet in practice the latter provides the former with full generative conditions. When analyzing the application of science and technology by large-scale machine industry, Marx points out that the development of the means of production shows "to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct productive force, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. It shows to what degree the social productive forces are produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as direct organs of social practice, of the real life process."(20) Therefore, any scientific knowledge capable of changing the conditions of social life is a transformed form of humanity's general intellect or "mental labor"; as long as it is promptly applied to real production, it will form a direct productive force. This tells us that scientific and technological innovation devoted to the formation of new quality productive forces must proceed from the living needs of people and of society, and can truly take effect only when it is transformed as quickly as possible into the corresponding forms of the means of production and placed at the service of social production.

新质生产力的形成不等同于科技创新，但在实践中后者又为其奠定了充分的生成条件。马克思在分析机器大工业对科学技术的运用时指出，生产资料的发展表明“一般社会知识，已经在多么大的程度上变成了直接的生产力，从而社会生活过程的条件本身在多么大的程度上受到一般智力的控制并按照这种智力得到改造。它表明，社会生产力已经在多么大的程度上，不仅以知识的形式，而且作为社会实践的直接器官，作为实际生活过程的直接器官被生产出来”。20因此，任何可以改变社会生活条件的科学知识，均是人类一般智力或“脑力劳动”的转化形式，只要及时将其运用于现实的生产，都将形成直接的生产力。这就告诉我们，致力于形成新质生产力的科技创新，必须是从人们和社会的生活需要出发，并且要尽快转化为相应的生产资料形式服务于社会生产，才能真正发生作用。

Faced with the reality of a new round of the scientific and technological revolution, the category of new quality productive forces, taking its stand on the interconnection of the internal links of the production process, has in good time incorporated into the category of the productive forces the material elements of related facilities and equipment — the capacity for information collection, data processing, information interaction, computing power, gene technology, ecological technology, artificial intelligence, and so on — as new factors of production. In so doing it upholds the scientific thesis of Marxism that regards laborers and scientific-technological factors as the "primary productive forces",[13]13 An allusion to Deng Xiaoping's 1988 statement that "science and technology are the primary productive force" (科学技术是第一生产力), a foundational slogan of the era of reform and opening up. and goes beyond the thinking of the traditional modernization paradigm that reduces the factors of production simply to labor, land and capital. In this way, it conducts a new exploration of the laws of development of the productive forces from the angle of the transformation of the productive forces, and opens up new ideas for the high-quality development[14]14 The official policy keyword, in use since the 19th National Congress of the CPC (2017), for a development model driven by innovation, efficiency and sustainability rather than by sheer quantitative expansion. of our country's economy.

面对新一轮科技革命的现实，新质生产力范畴立足于生产过程内部环节的联系，及时将信息收集能力、数据处理能力、信息交互能力、算力、基因技术、生态技术、人工智能等相关设施和设备物质要素作为新的生产要素合并到生产力范畴中，坚持了马克思主义将劳动者和科技因素作为“第一生产力”的科学论断，并超越了传统现代化范式中将生产要素单纯归结为劳动力、土地、资本的思维。这样，就从生产力变革角度对生产力发展规律进行了新的探索，为我国经济高质量发展打开了新思路。

(3) The construction of a new starting point for economic development by new quality productive forces

（三）新质生产力对经济发展新起点的构建

The fact that the labor productivity of the national economy as a whole is not high is an important factor constraining China's high-quality development, and also a difficult issue hindering the raising of income levels and the realization of common prosperity.[15]15 A long-standing socialist goal of the CPC, revived with particular emphasis under Xi Jinping, denoting prosperity shared by all members of society and the gradual elimination of stark income and wealth disparities. For this reason, when "new quality productive forces" are discussed today, the "labor productivity" related to the labor productive forces is sometimes cited as the most important ground. After all, higher labor productivity is the basis on which socialism prevails over the old system. Labor productivity not only differs from the productive forces; it is moreover determined by the latter. In reality, labor productivity exists as a result of the productive forces, and "productivity can be raised by developing the productive forces, etc."(21) But labor productivity, like the division of labor and cooperation, is a "basic condition of labor productivity",(22) and without the productive forces existing as a premise, there would be no labor productivity.

国民经济在整体上的劳动生产率不高，是制约中国经济高质量发展的一个重要因素，也是阻碍收入水平提高和实现共同富裕的一个难点问题。因此，当前在谈到“新质生产力”时，与劳动生产力相关的“劳动生产率”有时也被作为最重要的依据。毕竟，更高的劳动生产率是社会主义战胜旧制度的基础。劳动生产率不仅不同于生产力，并且还要由后者来决定。劳动生产率在现实中是作为生产力的结果而存在，并且“生产率能够通过发展生产力等等而提高”。21但是，劳动生产力和分工与协助一样，是“劳动生产率的基本条件”，22没有生产力作为前提存在，就不会有劳动生产率。

The category of new quality productive forces endows the traditional factors of production with new connotations, greatly broadens the prospects of the system of machinery replacing human mental labor, substantially raises the proportion of complex labor in modern production, and increases labor efficiency. Judging from current development trends, artificial intelligence, with "computing power" at its core, plays the greatest role in replacing human mental labor and holds the greatest prospects for raising labor productivity. Upholding high-quality development is the absolute principle of the New Era;[16]16 The official designation of the historical period opened by the 19th National Congress of the CPC (2017), in which Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era guides the Party and the country. first of all, it is necessary to raise labor productivity as soon as possible, and the most pressing task in raising labor productivity is to accelerate the formation of new quality productive forces, in particular the development of the artificial-intelligence productive forces based on technologies such as information data, new materials and new components, and new digital processing.

新质生产力范畴赋予传统生产要素新的内涵，极大拓宽了机器体系替代人类脑力劳动的前景，使现代生产中复杂劳动的比例大幅上升，提高了劳动效率。从目前发展趋势看，以“算力”为核心的人工智能，在替代人的脑力劳动方面发挥的作用最大，提升劳动生产率的发展前景也最大。坚持高质量发展是新时代的硬道理，首先要尽快提高劳动生产率，而提高劳动生产率的当务之急是要加快形成新质生产力，特别是发展以信息数据、新材料新元器件、新数字处理等技术为基础的人工智能生产力的发展。

New quality productive forces can expand the productive utilization of the original material elements, enabling material resources to be incorporated into the productive forces more efficiently, on a larger scale and to a higher degree. Marx points out: "Large-scale production — the application of machinery to large-scale cooperation — for the first time made natural forces, namely wind, water, steam, electricity, massively subordinate to the direct production process, turning natural forces into factors of social labor. (In agriculture, in its pre-capitalist form, human labor merely appears as an assistant to natural processes that it cannot control.) These natural forces in themselves have no value. They are not the products of human labor. But natural forces can be appropriated only with the aid of machinery, and machinery has value; it is itself the product of past labor. Hence natural forces, as factors of the labor process, can be appropriated only with the aid of machinery, and only by the owner of the machinery."(23) In the same way, the development of a system of machinery of a new qualitative form (such as artificial intelligence) will enable people to appropriate natural forces that were previously left unused, thereby promoting high-quality economic development.

新质生产力可以拓展原有物质要素的生产性利用，使物质资源更高效、更大范围和更高程度地被合并入生产力。马克思指出：“大生产——应用机器的大规模协作——第一次使自然力，即风、水、蒸汽、电大规模地从属于直接的生产过程，使自然力变成社会劳动的因素。（在农业中，在其资本主义前的形式中，人类劳动只不过表现为它所不能控制的自然过程的助手。）这些自然力本身没有价值。它们不是人类劳动的产物。但是，只有借助机器才能占有自然力，而机器是有价值的，它本身是过去劳动的产物。因此，自然力作为劳动过程的因素，只有借助机器才能占有，并且只有机器的主人才能占有。”23新质态的机器体系（如人工智能等）的发展，同样会使过去未被利用的自然力为人们所占有，从而推动经济的高质量发展。

The development of the system of machinery occupies an important place in the formation of new factors of production. Marx points out: "The improvement of machinery gives materials that could not be used in their original form a form in which they can be utilized in new production."(24) For example, knowledge and information, in becoming new factors of production, promote the iterative upgrading of industries, thereby making it possible to greatly overcome the exclusivity and depletability of natural material resources. In the new practice of China's modernization, modern manufacturing industries such as new energy, 3D printing and biotechnology cooperate with digital machines; integrating technologies such as networks, hardware, software and sensors, they collect the latest data from the production process in real time and carry out intelligent analysis and optimization of decisions. They are guiding the sustainable utilization of natural material resources, bringing disruptive changes to the traditional mode of production and opening up an entirely new techno-economic ecosystem. It can be seen that the smooth progress of all digital economic activities is inseparable from digital machines. New quality productive forces have greatly changed the relationship between laborers and the means of labor: the laborer's control of the machines, the interconnection of production information, the coordination of production within the system of machinery, and the monitoring of products by intelligent tools can all be realized through digital communication interconnection and machine control, thereby raising labor efficiency and promoting the development of the productive forces.

机器体系的发展在新生产要素的形成中占有重要地位。马克思指出：“机器的改良，使那些在原有形式上本来不能利用的物质，获得一种在新的生产中可以利用的形态。”24例如，知识和信息成为新的生产要素推动产业迭代升级，由此可以大大克服自然物质资源的排他性和消耗性。在我国现代化建设新的实践中，新能源、3D打印、生物技术等现代制造业与数字机器相互协作，整合网络、硬件、软件、传感器等技术，实时采集生产过程中的最新数据，进行智能分析和决策优化，正在引导自然物质资源的永续利用，给传统生产方式带来颠覆性变化，开辟出一个全新的技术经济生态圈。可见，一切数字经济活动的顺利进展都离不开数字机器。新质生产力极大改变了劳动者与劳动资料的关系，劳动者对机器的掌控、生产信息的互通互联、机器体系内的生产协同以及智能工具对产品的监测等环节，均可通过数字化通信互联和机器操控来实现，从而提高劳动效率和促进生产力发展。

III. Correctly handling the relationship between new quality productive forces and the new-type relations of production

三、正确处理新质生产力与新型生产关系的关系

New quality productive forces are grounded in the Marxist theory of the productive forces and extend the connotation and structure of the productive forces in all respects — the composition of the elements, the content of the elements, and the mechanism of their action. Viewed from the category of practice, new quality productive forces are the inevitable product of the great leap of China's social productive forces since reform and opening up, and likewise the necessary orientation by which, under the wave of a new round of the scientific and technological revolution, Chinese-path modernization[17]17 The official concept, elaborated by Xi Jinping and formally set out at the 20th National Congress of the CPC (2022), of modernization pursued along a distinctly Chinese path as against the Western model; it is held to comprise a huge population, common prosperity, coordinated material and cultural-ethical progress, harmony between humanity and nature, and peaceful development. surpasses Western modernization. In accelerating the formation of new quality productive forces, contemporary China possesses a natural institutional advantage. This advantage consists in its ability to better form new-type relations of production suited to new quality productive forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping points out: "The relations of production must conform to the requirements of the development of the productive forces. To develop new quality productive forces, it is necessary to further deepen reform in an all-round way and form new-type relations of production suited to them."(25) To accelerate the formation of new quality productive forces, it is necessary to correctly understand the new-type relations of production suited to them.

新质生产力立足于马克思主义生产力理论，从要素构成、要素内容和作用机制等诸方面拓展了生产力的内涵与结构。从实践范畴看，新质生产力是改革开放以来中国社会生产力大跃升的必然产物，也是新一轮科技革命浪潮下中国式现代化超越西方现代化的必然指向。加快形成新质生产力，当代中国具有天然的制度优势。这种优势在于能够更好地形成与新质生产力相适应的新型生产关系。习近平总书记指出：“生产关系必须与生产力发展要求相适应。发展新质生产力，必须进一步全面深化改革，形成与之相适应的新型生产关系。”25加快形成新质生产力，需要正确认识与之相适应的新型生产关系。

(1) The simultaneity of the formation of the new-type relations of production and new quality productive forces

（一）新型生产关系与新质生产力形成的同步性

Broadly speaking, the productive forces determine the relations of production, and the relations of production react upon the productive forces. On the surface, it appears that the productive forces come first and the relations of production come after. But for Marx, the formation of new relations of production and the generation of new productive forces are more often synchronous. Given that the productive forces are the result of historical activity, new relations of production — especially relations of production demarcated by social formation — can sometimes also be logically prior to the actual generation of the productive forces. In the primitive accumulation of capital, the establishment of capital's relation to wage labor played a crucial role in the formation of the capitalist productive forces of large-scale machine industry. And the emergence of new productive forces is necessarily accompanied at the same time by the transformation of the existing relations of production. Engels specifically pointed out in Principles of Communism: "Every change in the social system, every revolution in property relations, is the necessary result of the creation of new productive forces that are no longer in accord with the old property relations."(26) Of course, this transformation of the relations of production brought about by new productive forces is a fundamental transformation in the sense of property ownership, and an important indicator for the demarcation of social formations.

在广义上来说，生产力决定生产关系，生产关系反作用于生产力。表面看起来，是先有生产力后有生产关系。但在马克思那里，新生产关系的形成与新的生产力的生成更多是同步的。考虑到生产力是历史活动的成果，新生产关系特别是从社会形态划分的生产关系，在逻辑上有时还会优先于生产力的现实生成。在资本的原始积累中，资本对于雇佣劳动的关系的确立，对于机器大工业的资本主义生产力的形成起到了至关重要的作用。而新生产力的产生，必然也同时伴随着原有生产关系的变革。恩格斯在《共产主义原理》中曾专门指出：“社会制度中的任何变化，所有制关系中的每一次变革，都是产生了同旧的所有制关系不再相适应的新的生产力的必然结果。”26当然，这种由新的生产力带来的生产关系变革，是所有制意义上的根本性变革，是划分社会形态的一个重要指征。

It is necessary to point out that the new quality productive forces put forward by our country at present are a concrete form of the productive forces corresponding to the transformation of development momentum, and not a transformation of the productive forces under the category of changes in social formation. Hence the new-type relations of production suited to new quality productive forces can only be the relations of production in the direct production process in the narrow sense, and not relations of production manifesting the character of a social formation. In this change, the means of labor are an important yardstick; they not only mark the development of labor power itself, but also bring with them new changes in labor relations. The characteristic of this change lies in the simultaneous movement of the two: the formation of new quality productive forces means the establishment of the new-type relations of production. In other words, the formation of new quality productive forces changes, to a certain extent, the roles of the means of labor, the objects of labor and the laborers and their interrelations, so that the relations of production among different laborers assume new features. For example, in the digital economy, the core of the narrow-sense relations of production of the new-quality factors of production in the direct production process is transformed into the relation between new-type digital labor and digital capital, because under the system of intelligent machinery, new-type factors of production such as data and information still exist in the form of capital ownership, or are dominated by capital.

有必要指出，当前我国所提出的新质生产力，是与发展动能转换相契合的生产力具体形式，而不是在社会形态变化范畴下的生产力变革。因此，与新质生产力相适应的新型生产关系，只能是狭义上直接生产过程中的生产关系，而非表现为社会形态性质的生产关系。在这种变化中，劳动资料是一个重要衡量尺度，它不仅标志着劳动力本身的发展，同时也带来劳动关系的新变化。这一变化的特点在于二者同步变动，新质生产力的形成就意味着新型生产关系的确立。换言之，新质生产力的形成在一定程度上改变了劳动资料、劳动对象和劳动者的角色及其关系，从而使不同劳动者之间的生产关系呈现出新的特点。例如，在数字经济中，新质生产要素在直接生产过程中的狭义生产关系，其核心转化为新型数字化劳动和数字资本的关系。因为数据、信息等新型生产要素在智能机器体系下仍然以资本所有权的方式存在，或被资本所支配。

(2) The reaction of the new-type relations of exchange and distribution upon new quality productive forces

（二）新型交换关系与分配关系对新质生产力的反作用

The new-type relations of production do not passively adapt to new quality productive forces; they exert a huge reaction upon the generation of new quality productive forces. Among them, the influence of the relations of exchange and distribution is especially evident. Some Western scholars habitually use the techno-economic paradigm to designate the relations of production, holding that when a techno-economic paradigm is universally accepted, the occurrence of a revolution in the productive forces will bring rapid development, and hence that new quality productive forces are "a process in which a technological revolution and its paradigm spread through the entire economy, a process that produces structural changes not only in production, distribution, exchange and consumption, but also profound qualitative changes in society".(27) This view, by means of structural change, evades the core content and essence of the new-type relations of production.

新型生产关系不是被动地适应新质生产力，它对新质生产力的生成具有巨大的反作用。其中，交换关系和分配关系的影响尤其明显。西方一些学者惯常用技术—经济范式来指代生产关系，认为当一种技术—经济范式被普遍接纳时，生产力革命的发生会带来快速发展，因而新质生产力是“一次技术革命及其范式在整个经济中得以传播的过程，这一过程不仅在生产、分配、交换和消费方面产生出结构性变化，而且也在社会中产生了深刻的质的变化”。27这一观点用结构性变化回避了新型生产关系的核心内容与本质。

In reality, for Marx, exchange, distribution and production possess direct unity. In the sphere of production, the generation of new productive forces is historically inseparable from the expansion of exchange and the adjustment of distribution. For example, in the exchange relations of new-type factors such as data and digital elements, data becomes independent in the form of a commodity; owing to its scale and diversity, the generation and use of big data inevitably lead to the development of the forms of information exchange and the expansion of the exchange market. "Circulation itself is merely a definite moment of exchange, or exchange viewed from the totality of exchange. Since exchange is only the mediating moment between production and the distribution determined by production, on the one hand, and consumption, on the other, and since consumption itself appears as a moment of production, exchange is evidently also included in production as a moment of production."(28) As the mutual exchange of new-type factors and new commodity forms expands sharply, it is evidently necessary to transform the relations of exchange so as to ensure the fairness of the exchange process.

实际上，在马克思那里，交换、分配与生产均具有直接的统一性。在生产领域中新的生产力生成，与交换的扩大、分配的调整是历史性地分不开的。例如，在数据、数字等新型要素的交换关系中，数据是以商品的形态独立出来，大数据的生成和使用，因其规模性和多样性，必然导致信息交换形式上的发展以及交换市场的扩大。“流通本身只是交换的一定要素，或者也就是从交换总体上看的交换。既然交换只是生产和由生产决定的分配一方同消费一方之间的中介要素，而消费本身又表现为生产的一个要素，交换显然也就作为生产要素包含在生产之内。”28随着新型要素和新商品形式的相互交换急剧扩大，变革交换关系以确保交换过程的公平性显然是必要的。

What is especially important is that, as various new-type factors of production such as data, digital elements and information participate in distribution, the social relations of distribution are correspondingly adjusted, undergoing changes not in the distribution paradigm but in the content of distribution. Changes in the content of distribution directly expand the development space of new quality productive forces, causing more social material elements to be invested in and subordinated to the sphere of new quality productive forces, thereby accelerating their development. Changes in the relations of distribution, of course, include changes in the pattern of income distribution, which sometimes even intensify the imbalance in income distribution and make the development of individual productive forces at different industrial levels uneven in speed. With respect to the former, society needs to encourage and guide it; with respect to the latter, it is evidently necessary to regulate and guard against it — both preventing monopoly and improper acts in new industries and new fields, and safeguarding the interests of all participating parties. In addition, the breaking down, under digitalized production, of the boundary between productive activity and consumption behavior also leads, to a certain extent, to changes in the relations among the owners of the factors of production in the sphere of consumption. If the relations of exchange and distribution are not handled well, they will exert an enormous influence on the generation of new quality productive forces.

尤其重要的是，随着各种新型生产要素如数据、数字、信息等参与分配，社会分配关系会相应调整，不是在分配范式而是在分配内容上产生变动。分配内容变动会直接拓展新质生产力的发展空间，使更多社会物质要素被投入并从属于新质生产力领域，进而加快其发展。分配关系的变动当然包括收入分配格局的改变，这有时甚至加剧收入分配失衡，使不同产业层面上个别生产力的发展快慢不一。对前者，社会需要加以鼓励和引导，而对后者则显然有必要加以规范和防范，既防止新产业新领域的垄断、欺诈、不合理行为，也保障各参与方的利益。此外，数字化生产下生产活动与消费行为的界限的打破，在一定程度上也导致消费领域的生产要素所有者间的关系发生改变。交换和分配关系如果处理不好，将会对新质生产力的生成带来巨大影响。

(3) The stabilization and standardization of the new-type economic relations

（三）新型经济关系的稳定化与规范化

The development environment required by new quality productive forces is stability; only when the production departments of the new qualitative form and their related parties are situated in relatively constant market relations and hold stable expectations can the rapid development of new quality productive forces be promoted. New quality productive forces are always formed under definite relations of production, and only in accordance with the requirements of the new-type economic relations can their development avoid falling into twists and turns or even interruption. Of course, after the relations of the new-type factors of production under new quality productive forces have been formed in the direct production process, phenomena such as new-type monopoly and disorder may also appear, undermining market stability.

新质生产力所要求的发展环境是稳定，新质态的生产部门及其关联方只有处于相对恒定的市场关系中，且抱有稳定预期，才能促进新质生产力快速发展。新质生产力总是在一定的生产关系下形成的，只有按照新型经济关系的要求，新质生产力的发展才不至于陷入曲折甚至中断。当然，处于新质生产力下的新型生产要素，其在直接生产过程中的关系形成之后，也可能出现新型垄断、无序等现象，破坏市场稳定。

Therefore, government departments must straighten out the relations of rights, responsibilities and interests among new-type industries and new-type factors of production, strengthen the guarantee and protection of the main body of new quality productive forces, namely the laborers, safeguard the reasonable interests of the various new-type factors and of the main bodies of new quality productive forces, and regulate acts that encroach on the interests of the various participating entities of new quality productive forces. It is necessary to enact and improve, as soon as possible, regulatory laws and regulations for labor-capital relations in new fields, new industries and new forms of business; to improve the new mechanism of income distribution, so that new factors such as information, data and digital-processing technology participate in distribution according to their contribution. Only by actively deepening the reform of the income-distribution system and perfecting the mechanism by which new factors, new industries, new organizational forms and new forms of business participate in income distribution can the convergence of resources toward new quality productive forces be accelerated and their formation and development be promoted.

因此，政府部门有必要理顺新型产业、新型生产要素间的权责和利益关系，加强对新质生产力主体即劳动者的保障和保护，保障各新型要素和新质生产力主体的合理利益，对侵蚀新质生产力各参与主体利益的行为加以规范。要尽快出台和完善针对新领域、新产业与新业态中劳资关系的规范性法规；完善新的收入分配机制，促进信息、数据、数字处理技术等新要素按其贡献参与分配。只有积极深化收入分配体制改革，健全新要素、新产业、新组织质态和新业态参与收入分配的机制，才能加快资源向新质生产力的汇集，促进其形成与发展。

(4) The relationship between the cultivation and use of innovative talent

（四）创新人才的培养与使用之间的关系

The relations of production are the relations among people in the process of social production; their subject is the human being, and the crux lies with the laborers. From the standpoint of the requirements of the development of new quality productive forces, innovative talent is increasingly becoming the core subject of the new-type laborers, and it is necessary to gather high-level innovative talent suited to new quality productive forces, so as to provide new quality productive forces with ample and powerful support in human resources.

生产关系是社会生产过程中人与人之间的关系，其主体是人，关键在于劳动者。从新质生产力发展要求看，创新人才日渐成为新型劳动者的核心主体，需要集聚与新质生产力相适应的高层次创新人才，为新质生产力提供充足而有力的人力资源支撑。

Scientific and technological innovation and talent are inseparable. "The development of science, which is at once intellectual wealth and practical wealth, is only one aspect, one form, in which the development of the productive forces of man, that is, the development of wealth, manifests itself."(29) Without talent, the role of science and technology as the primary productive forces could neither come into existence nor be applied and brought into play. Viewed from the latter, innovative talent includes high-end scientific research talent, high-level technological innovation talent and innovative entrepreneurial talent; these are the most active and most dynamic subjects in the formation of new quality productive forces. To cultivate such a contingent of innovative talent, one cannot rely on traditional modes of cultivation. In modern society, this requires the formation of positive interaction among the education departments, the field of science and technology, and the talent market — relying not only on coordination between science and education, but also on the integration of science and enterprises, the integration of industry and education, and the integration of the cultivation and employment of talent. In particular, our country, as a socialist country, must all the more play a leading role in the cultivation and use of innovative talent. In short, the accelerated formation of new quality productive forces will promote and require partial adjustments in the socialist relations of production, and give birth to new civilizational achievements in the course of Chinese-path modernization; it fully suffices to constitute the core content of the new form of human civilization,[18]18 A concept introduced by Xi Jinping in his speech at the celebration of the centenary of the CPC (July 2021), according to which Chinese-path modernization creates a form of civilization qualitatively different from capitalist civilization. and to form an important support for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation[19]19 The overarching national objective continuously invoked by the CPC under Xi Jinping, closely associated with the "Chinese Dream"; it denotes the restoration of China's strength, prosperity and global standing. and for the development of Marxism in the 21st century.

科技创新与人才是密不可分的。“科学这种既是观念的财富同时又是实际的财富的发展，只不过是人的生产力的发展即财富的发展所表现的一个方面，一种形式。”29没有人才，科学技术作为第一生产力的作用不仅无从产生，也无法运用和发挥。从后者来看，创新人才包括高端科学研究人才、高层次技术创新人才和创新创业人才，这些都是新质生产力形成中最活跃、最具能动性的主体。要培育这样的创新人才队伍，不能依靠传统的培养方式。在现代社会中，它需要教育部门、科技领域和人才市场之间形成良性互动，不仅要依托科教协同，还要有科企融合、产教融合和育人用人融合。特别是我国作为一个社会主义国家，更要在创新人才的培养与使用上发挥主导作用。总之，新质生产力的加快形成会促进并要求社会主义生产关系的局部性调整，在中国式现代化进程中催生出新的文明成果，它足以构成人类文明新形态的核心内容，并对中华民族伟大复兴和21世纪马克思主义发展形成重要的支撑。

IV. Giving play to the leading role of the state-owned economy in the formation of new quality productive forces

四、发挥国有经济在新质生产力形成中的主导作用

The proposal of the category of new quality productive forces upholds and deepens the Marxist theory of the productive forces under the conditions of the New Era, and has provided the theoretical guidance for our country's new journey of socialist modernization with Chinese characteristics in the New Era. Whether new quality productive forces can benefit the people hinges on the institutional attributes of the subject forming them. To accelerate the formation of new quality productive forces, it is necessary to give play to the leading role of the state-owned economy in new quality productive forces.

新质生产力范畴的提出，在新时代条件下坚持并深化了马克思主义生产力理论，为我国新时代中国特色社会主义现代化新征程奠定了理论上的指导。新质生产力能否为人民造福，关键在于新质生产力的形成主体的制度属性。加快形成新质生产力，必须发挥国有经济在新质生产力中的主导作用。

(1) The development of new quality productive forces should be based more on the institutional attributes of the state-owned economy

（一）发展新质生产力要更多立足国有经济的制度属性

The development of new quality productive forces cannot proceed in separation from definite relations of production. Upholding the dominant position of socialist public ownership is an inevitable requirement of the road of socialist modernization, while accelerating the formation of new quality productive forces is what is necessary for consolidating and improving socialist public ownership. "The conditions under which a given productive force can be utilized are the conditions of the rule of a certain class of society."(30) Only by attaching importance to the possession and utilization of new quality productive forces under public ownership can the basic system of the socialist market economy[20]20 The reform target formally adopted at the 14th National Congress of the CPC (1992), denoting an economic system in which market mechanisms operate under the dominant position of public ownership. be consolidated and improved. Viewed from practice, real new quality productive forces must ultimately be borne by a new system of machinery, but the ownership form of the system of machinery is at present still dominated chiefly by capital. Only by cutting in from the nature of capital can a basic normative judgment be made concerning the classification of capital under the conditions of the contemporary Chinese socialist market economy.(31) Likewise, only by upholding public ownership can the state-owned economy adapt to the characteristics of the new factors of production and the requirements of their development, guide the formation of new operating entities under mixed ownership, and give play to the backbone role of the state-owned economy in developing new quality productive forces.

新质生产力的发展不能脱离一定生产关系来进行。坚持社会主义公有制的主体地位，是社会主义现代化道路的必然要求，而加快形成新质生产力，则是巩固完善社会主义公有制所必需的。“那些使一定的生产力能够得到利用的条件，是社会的一定阶级实行统治的条件。”30只有重视新质生产力的公有制占有和利用，才能巩固和完善社会主义市场经济基本制度。从实践来看，现实的新质生产力最终要由新的机器体系来承载，而机器体系的所有权形态目前还主要由资本来主导。只有从资本的性质切入，才能对当代中国社会主义市场经济条件下资本的分类作出基本的规范性判断。31同样，只有坚持公有制，才能使国有经济适应新生产要素的特点和发展要求，并引导形成混合所有制的新经营主体，发挥国有经济在发展新质生产力上的中坚作用。

In its historical process of development, the productive forces are not neutral. From the standpoint of the historical subjectivity of the human being and the requirement of being "people-centered", the purpose of a socialist society in developing the productive forces is, fundamentally, to improve the life of the people and to promote the free and all-round development of all the people. Marx points out in "The Future Results of British Rule in India" that the freedom of the masses and the improvement of their social condition depend "not only on the development of the productive forces, but also on whether the productive forces belong to the people".(32) Under the conditions of the socialist market economy, whether the productive forces can ultimately belong to the people depends, in the final analysis, on whether the important means of production can belong to all the people and whether the laborers can become the masters of society. In a socialist country marked by the overall leadership of the Communist Party, the government, as the representative of all the people, relies on the state-owned economy to promote the formation and development of new quality productive forces; this possesses natural rationality and historical inevitability.

生产力在其历史发展进程中并不是中性的。从人的历史主体性和“以人民为中心”的要求看，社会主义社会发展生产力的目的，从根本上是为了改善人民生活，促进全体人民自由全面发展。马克思在《不列颠在印度统治的未来结果》一文中指出：人民群众的自由及其社会状况的改善，“不仅仅决定于生产力的发展，而且决定于生产力是否归人民所有”。32在社会主义市场经济条件下，生产力最终能否归人民所有，归根到底取决于重要生产资料能否归全体人民所有、劳动者能否成为社会的主人。在以共产党全面领导为标志的社会主义国家中，政府作为全体人民的代表，依托国有经济推动新质生产力的形成与发展，具有天然合理性和历史必然性。

Some scholars argue that the most active and widespread carriers of new quality productive forces are private enterprises, and therefore the development of new quality productive forces can only take root in the soil of the market economy. Hence, the core issue in developing new quality productive forces well remains how to break institutional constraints and develop the private economy and market economy well. This view is not entirely consistent with the current orientation of our country's development of new relations of production. There is no denying that the private economy currently plays an indispensable role in the formation of new quality productive forces in our country, but the state-owned economy plays an even greater role. The inherent attributes of the state-owned economy contain genes more suited to the development of new quality productive forces. Due to the joint labor relations of collectively-owned means of production, the degree of coordination among state-owned economic units is far higher than the market relations dominated by competition among economic subjects under the private ownership economy, the ability to withstand risks is stronger, and the resulting cooperative productive forces are greater. The reasons why our country’s high-speed rail, 5G, power transmission, solar energy development, new energy vehicles, logistics platform information infrastructure, etc., have been able to develop rapidly and form an international competitive advantage over Western countries lie not only in technological innovation but also in an important factor: the cooperative productive forces formed by the domestic super-large market scale and coordination network, which Western countries are far from being able to match.

有学者提出，新质生产力最活跃、最广泛的载体是民营企业，因而新质生产力发展只能根植于市场经济土壤。所以，发展好新质生产力的核心问题，仍是如何破除制度性约束发展好民营经济和市场经济的问题。这一观点与我国当前发展新型生产关系的取向并不完全一致。不可否认，当前民营经济在我国形成新质生产力中发挥了不可或缺的作用，但国有经济的作用更大。国有经济的内在属性具有更适合新质生产力发展的基因，由于共同占有生产资料的联合劳动关系，国有经济单位间的协作程度要远高于私有制经济下经济主体间以竞争为主的市场关系，抵御风险的能力更强，形成的协作生产力更大。我国的高铁、5G、电力输送、太阳能开发、新能源汽车、物流平台信息基础设施等之所以能迅速发展并形成对西方国家的国际竞争优势，除了技术上的创新，还有一个重要因素就在于国内的超大市场规模和协作网络所形成的协作生产力，这是西方国家所远远不能比拟的。

Related to this is the issue of who controls artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is a focus of the current development of new quality productive forces. It has a huge impact on the improvement of traditional productive forces in all aspects, such as the improvement of physical elements, the perfection of division of labor and cooperation, the construction of industrial systems, and the penetration and coverage of technology, and can achieve an overall leap in productive forces. However, everything has two sides. If artificial intelligence technology is abused, it can bring problems such as data bias, data monopoly, and data leakage.[33] Therefore, for the application of artificial intelligence, it is necessary to ensure that large digital platforms must be controlled by state-owned capital. In the digital and artificial intelligence industries, we must adhere to national unified planning and management, with the state-owned economy taking the lead in formulating industry rules and standards, improving the artificial intelligence regulatory system, while stimulating and releasing the technological dividends of artificial intelligence, guarding against its potential application risks and ethical risks, and ensuring the healthy growth and development of productive forces in the field of artificial intelligence.

与此相关的是人工智能掌控主体问题。人工智能是当前新质生产力发展的重点，它在实体要素的改进、分工协作的完善、产业体系的构建、技术渗透与覆盖等各方面均对传统生产力的提升有巨大影响，可以实现生产力的整体跃升。但事物都有两面性，人工智能技术如果被滥用，则会带来数据偏差、数据垄断、数据泄露等问题。33因此，对于人工智能的应用要保证大型数字平台必须由国有资本控股。在数字和人工智能产业中，要坚持国家统一规划和管理，由国有经济牵头制定行业规则和准则，完善人工智能规制体系，在激发和释放人工智能技术红利的同时防范其潜在应用风险和伦理道德风险，保障人工智能领域生产力健康生长和发展。

(B) Accelerating the Formation of New Quality Productive Forces through the Strength Advantage of State-Owned Capital

（二）以国有资本的实力优势加快形成新质生产力

The fixed assets on which new quality productive forces rely are of great significance to economic development, especially in the early stages of the formation of new quality productive forces, where fixed asset investment is indispensable. Marx pointed out: “The development of machinery follows the accumulation of social knowledge and the accumulation of productive forces as a whole… The productive forces of society are measured by fixed capital, which exists in the form of objects within fixed capital.”[34]

新质生产力所依赖的固定资产对于经济发展具有重要意义，特别是在新质生产力的形成初期，固定资产投资更是不可或缺。马克思指出：“机器体系随着社会知识的积累、整个生产力的积累而发展……社会的生产力是用固定资本来衡量的，它以物的形式存在于固定资本中。”34

The formation of new quality productive forces requires a large amount of investment, including scientific research investment and fixed asset investment. Without the leadership of the state-owned economy and without attention to industrial coordination, it will inevitably generate a great deal of waste and drag down the overall efficiency of the national economy. Some scholars propose that a new type of joint-stock system, combining the capitalization of means of production into shares for capital owners and the capitalization of labor into shares for workers, can realize that labor contributions belong to workers and capital contributions belong to capital owners. Thus it is considered a form of ownership realization that both promotes high-quality development of productivity and wealth growth and advances common prosperity for workers. However, the productive power of capital can only be contained in surplus labor. On this point Marx cited Mill’s statement: “The productive power of capital means nothing but the quantity of real productive power (labor) which the capitalist, by means of his capital, can command.”[35] The capitalization of labor is essentially eliminating capital within the enterprise; if capital cannot command labor, it ceases to be capital. The key issue is not whether labor is commanded, but by what kind of capital it is commanded. Therefore, developing new quality productive forces requires not only exploring new resource allocation mechanisms but also increasing state investment in new technologies, new industries, and new business forms, establishing corresponding state-owned capital support funds and operating entities.

新质生产力的形成需要大量的投资，包括科研投入和固定资产的投入。如果没有国有经济主导，不注重产业协调，势必会产生大量浪费，拖累国民经济总体效率。有的学者提出，生产资料资本化为资本所有者股份和劳动力资本化为劳动者股份相结合的新型股份制，能够实现劳动贡献归劳动者所有，资本贡献归资本所有者所得，因而被认为是既有利于推动生产力和财富增长的高质量发展，又能推进劳动者共同富裕的所有制实现形式。但资本生产力只能包含在剩余劳动中，对此马克思曾引用穆勒的论述：“资本的生产力不外是指资本家借助于他的资本所能支配的实际生产力〈劳动〉的数量。”35劳动力资本化无异于消除企业中的资本，资本如不能支配劳动，也就不成为资本。问题的关键不在于劳动是否被支配，而在于受何种资本支配。因此，发展新质生产力既要探索新的资源配置机制，也应加大对新科技、新产业和新业态的国家投入，设立相应的国有资本支持基金和经营实体。

Strengthening the layout and investment of state-owned capital in new industries, new business forms, and new organizations plays an important role in consolidating and improving the basic economic system of the socialist market economy. The investment of state-owned capital in the field of new quality productive forces must first be implemented in fixed asset investment: “Reproduction on an expanded scale, i.e., accumulation, even if it initially appears only as quantitative expansion (investing more capital under the same production conditions), will at a certain point always manifest itself qualitatively, i.e., as greater efficiency of the conditions of reproduction.”[36] Secondly, the investment of state-owned capital in new quality productive forces should focus on layout, that is, on the rationality of the investment structure. Finally, it must be implemented in investment in the soft environment, especially talent investment, changing the situation where investment in human resources is out of touch with market concepts, and highlighting the role of technology-led talents and innovation management talents.

加强国有资本在新产业、新业态、新组织中的布局和投资，对于巩固完善社会主义市场经济基本经济制度有重要作用。国有资本对新质生产力领域的投入，首先是要落实在固定资产投资上：“在更加广阔的基础上进行的再生产即积累，即使它最初只表现为生产在量上的扩大（在同样的生产条件下投入更多的资本），但在某一点上也总会在质上表现出来，即表现为进行再生产的条件具有更大的效率。”36其次，国有资本对新质生产力的投入要注重布局，即注重投入结构上的合理性。最后，要落实在对软环境特别是人才的投入上，改变人才资源投入与市场观念相脱节的状况，突出科技引领人才和创新管理人才的作用。

(C) Generating New Quality Productive Forces through the Collaborative Advantage of the State-Owned Economy

（三）以国有经济的协作优势催生新质生产力

The nationwide coordination of the state-owned economy is a major advantage in forming and developing new quality productive forces. When discussing the determinants of labor productivity, Marx referred to cooperation as “the social combination of the production process,” and “the productive power resulting from cooperation and division of labor costs capital nothing. It is the natural power of social labor.”[37] From the perspective of the mode of action of new quality productive forces, machinery as a means of labor requires a direct process of socialization, i.e., functioning through common labor. But “the development of the means of labor into a system of machinery is not accidental for capital; it is the historical transformation of the traditional inherited means of labor to suit the requirements of capital. Therefore, the accumulation of knowledge and skills, the general production of the social intellect, is absorbed into capital in opposition to labor, and thus appears as an attribute of capital, more precisely as an attribute of fixed capital, insofar as the latter enters the production process as a real means of production.”[38]

国有经济的全国性协作，是其形成和发展新质生产力的一大优势。在论述劳动生产力的决定因素时，马克思将协作称为“生产过程的社会结合”，且“由协作和分工产生的生产力，不费资本分文。它是社会劳动的自然力”。37从新质生产力的作用形式看，作为劳动资料的机器，需要有一个直接的社会化过程，即通过共同的劳动来发生作用，但“劳动资料发展为机器体系，对资本来说并不是偶然的，而是使传统的继承下来的劳动资料适合于资本要求的历史性变革。因此，知识和技能的积累，社会智力的一般生产力的积累，就同劳动相对立而被吸收在资本当中，从而表现为资本的属性，更明确些说，表现为固定资本的属性，只要后者是作为真正的生产资料加入生产过程”。38

The cooperation of machinery is a matter within a production unit or department, while the cooperation of a system of machinery is a matter at the level of industrial division of labor: “It is necessary to distinguish between the cooperation of many similar machines and a system of machinery.”[39] Developing new quality productive forces cannot focus only on the division of labor and cooperation advantages brought by internal enterprise technology; it also requires effectively organizing machinery in different fields, using different labor resources, and targeting different objects of labor in the overall sense of the national economy. The state-owned economy obviously has advantages in this regard.

机器的协作是生产单位或部门内部的事情，而机器体系的协作则是产业分工层面的问题，“必须把许多同种机器的协作和机器体系这两件事区别开来”。39发展新质生产力不能只关注企业内部技术带来的分工协作优势，还需要在国民经济全局的意义上将不同领域、运用不同劳动资源、针对不同劳动对象的机器有效地组织起来，而国有经济在这方面显然具有优势。

When discussing the cooperative productive forces of a system of machinery, most scholars currently emphasize the “empowerment” of traditional industries by new technologies such as artificial intelligence, i.e., bringing new productive forces through the integration of production technology and labor processes (based on division of labor). In fact, empowerment is not the essence of new quality productive forces, nor is it the characteristic of cooperative productive forces. So-called empowerment is essentially nothing more than the saving of labor time at the entire societal level. This is of great significance for improving our country’s overall economic efficiency. From a practical perspective, the low efficiency of productive forces in traditional fields is closely related to the long labor hours, low income, and high labor intensity in our country. The reason why enterprises in the field of new quality productive forces develop rapidly and expand quickly is mainly related to their more intensive labor input, lower costs, and higher output. Therefore, it is an inevitable trend that traditional economic fields will be influenced and changed by the field of new quality productive forces.

在谈到机器体系的协作生产力时，目前多数学者强调新技术如人工智能等对传统产业的“赋能”，即通过生产技术和劳动过程融合（以分工为基础）带来新的生产力。实际上，赋能并不是新质生产力的本质，也不是协作生产力的特点。所谓赋能，本质上不过是劳动时间在整个社会层面的节约，这对于提高我国的整体经济效益有重要意义。从实践来看，传统领域的生产力之所以效能低下，与我国劳动时间长、收入低、劳动强度大等有很大关系。而新质生产力领域的企业之所以发展迅速、扩张很快，主要在于其劳动投入更集约化、成本更低、产出更高有关，所以传统经济领域被新质生产力领域所影响和改变是一个必然的趋势。

At present, our country should make good use of the advantages of national macro-control and the domestic super-large market economy. On the one hand, we should concentrate the nation’s strength on breaking through bottlenecks in key areas and key technologies, accelerating scientific and technological innovation and the cultivation of new industries, promoting the rapid integration of digital technologies such as the Internet, big data, cloud computing, virtual computing, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and intelligent production with each other and with traditional industries, strengthening the coordinated development of fields such as ecology, aerospace, oceans, and geological technology, truly making efforts in saving social labor time, and promoting a leap in the energy level of the whole society’s productive forces. On the other hand, developing new quality productive forces should not be divorced from reality; we should not require all sectors to rush headlong into action. Instead, we should focus on top-level design, encourage orderly competition, do a good job in industrial development planning, and especially pay attention to the coordination of industry and labor processes.

目前，我国应利用好国家宏观调控和国内超大市场经济体的优势。一方面，在重点领域和关键技术上举全国之力突破瓶颈，加快科技创新和新产业培育，促进互联网、大数据、云计算、虚拟计算、物联网、人工智能、智能化生产等数字技术相互间及其与传统产业间的快速融合，加强生态、航天、海洋、地质技术等领域的协同发展，真正在节约社会劳动时间上下功夫，推动全社会生产力的能级跃迁；另一方面，发展新质生产力也不能脱离实际，不能要求所有部门都一哄而上，而应注重顶层设计，鼓励有序竞争，做好产业发展规划，特别是要注重产业和劳动过程的协作。

(D) State-Level Support and Policy Guidance for Developing New Quality Productive Forces

（四）发展新质生产力的国家层面支持和政策引导

Giving play to the leading role of the state-owned economy in the formation of new quality productive forces requires strong government support. First, we must strengthen policy design, clarify the identification and reward policies for the main bodies of new quality productive forces, treat different industries differently, and provide policy guidance and encouragement. It must be clearly noted that we should avoid simply using technology, industry, etc., to roughly identify the field of new quality productive forces. Since new quality productive forces are a systematic and holistic category, the factors involved must be comprehensive and all-round. In practice, they will not only manifest as new technologies, new industries, new business forms, new organizations, etc., but will further include new materials, new raw materials, new processes, new methods, new substances, new media, new division-of-labor relations, new modes of cooperation, etc., which need to be scientifically identified on a case-by-case basis. In fact, the measurement standards for new quality productive forces are multiple, including both technical standards and economic standards, as well as value dimensions (such as green energy, humanized technology, etc.). Therefore, it is necessary to carry out overall planning in the field of new quality productive forces under multiple standards, strengthen policy guidance, and promote the development of new quality productive forces through supportive policies such as tax, loan, and fiscal fund preferences.

发挥国有经济在新质生产力形成中的主导作用，需要政府的强有力支持。首先要强化政策设计，明确新质生产力主体的认定和奖励性政策，区别对待不同领域不同行业的情况，给予政策引导和鼓励。需要明确的是，要注意避免单纯用技术、产业等来粗线条认定新质生产力领域的做法。新质生产力既然是一个系统性、整体性的范畴，涉及的因素一定是全面和全方位的，在实践中不仅会体现为新科技、新产业、新业态、新组织等，还会进一步包含新材料、新原料、新工艺、新方法、新物质、新介质、新分工关系、新协作方式等，需要分门别类进行科学甄别。实际上，新质生产力的衡量标准是多重的，既有技术标准也有经济标准，还有价值尺度（如绿色能源、人性化技术方面）等。因此，需要在多重标准上对新质生产力领域进行整体规划，加强政策引导，通过税收、贷款、财政资金等倾斜性支持政策，促进新质生产力发展。

To develop new quality productive forces, we must further strengthen the dominant position of state-owned enterprises in scientific and technological innovation, optimize the allocation of human resources around the formation of new quality productive forces, provide a good environment and scientific and technological innovation guarantee for accelerating the formation of new quality productive forces, further deepen the internal reform of state-owned enterprises, improve the new income distribution mechanism, promote the distribution of new factors such as information, data, and digital processing technology according to their contribution, and form a joint force for developing new quality productive forces.

发展新质生产力，要进一步强化国有企业科技创新主体地位，围绕形成新质生产力优化人力资源配置，为加快形成新质生产力提供良好的环境和科技创新保障，要进一步深入国有企业内部改革，完善新的收入分配机制，促进信息、数据、数字处理技术等新要素按其贡献参与分配，形成发展新质生产力的合力。

To develop new quality productive forces, we must advance the reform of the national scientific research management system, introduce special policies for science and technology investment, rely on central state-owned capital holding groups and large state-owned enterprises, and accelerate the establishment of world-class international science and technology innovation centers for new technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and high-end chips. In particular, we must coordinate the relationship between research departments and education departments. The state-owned genes of the scientific research and education systems are a major support for the formation and development of new quality productive forces in our country, and also a huge advantage for surpassing the development of productive forces in the West. Relying on the state-led scientific research and education system, we must strengthen systematic construction in talent training to form a joint force, accelerate the improvement of talent management systems and mechanisms that are compatible with new quality productive forces in talent introduction, use, and management, and provide sustainable scientific and technological foundation support for supporting the transformation and upgrading of new industries and traditional industries.

发展新质生产力，要推进国家科研管理体制改革，出台科技投入专项政策，依托中央所属国有资产控股集团和大型国有企业，加快建立世界一流的大数据、人工智能、云计算、高端芯片等新技术国际科技创新中心。特别是要协调好科研部门与教育部门的关系。科研和教育体制的国有化基因，是我国新质生产力形成和发展的一大依托，也是超越西方生产力发展的巨大优势。要依托国家主导的科研教育体制，在人才培养上加强体系化建设以形成合力，在人才引进、使用和管理上要加快完善与新质生产力相适应的人才管理体制机制，为支撑新产业和传统产业转型升级发展提供可持续的科技基础支撑。

(Author’s biography: Hou Weimin, researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; director of the Research Center for Marxist Economic and Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; president of the Chinese Society of Political Economics.)

（作者简介：侯为民，中国社会科学院马克思主义研究院研究员、博士生导师，中国社会科学院马克思主义经济社会发展研究中心主任，中国政治经济学学会会长）

(Fund: Major Project of the Marxist Theoretical Research and Construction Project of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, “Research on the New Connotations, New Characteristics, and New Requirements of the New Journey of Building a Modern Socialist Country in All Respects” (2021mgczd017))

（基金：中国社会科学院马克思主义理论研究和建设工程重大项目“全面建设社会主义现代化国家新征程的新内涵、新特点和新要求研究”（2021mgczd017））

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