Common Prosperity from the Perspective of Fairness and Justice

Common prosperity is the essential requirement of socialism with Chinese characteristics and also the essential feature of Chinese-path modernization. At the same time, common prosperity is the core category through which Chinese intellectual circles interpret their own concept of fairness and justice. Steadily promoting common prosperity for all the people is not only the concentrated embodiment of the institutional practice of social fairness and justice, but also an important practical foundation for constructing a socialist discourse system of fairness and justice.

共同富裕是中国特色社会主义的本质要求，也是中国式现代化的本质特征。同时，共同富裕还是中国思想界阐释自己的公平正义观念的核心范畴。扎实推进全体人民共同富裕，既是社会公平正义的制度实践之集中体现，也是构建社会主义公平正义话语体系的重要现实基础。

Whether common prosperity can be achieved is an important dimension for measuring fairness and justice.

能否实现共同富裕是衡量公平正义的一个重要维度

Historical practice shows that although common prosperity is people’s ideal, it can only be truly realized under the socialist system. In capitalist society, fairness and justice are essentially separated from common prosperity. In the process of opposing feudal privileges, the bourgeoisie put forward concepts such as freedom, equality, and fraternity. Marx pointed out, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” [1]1 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology* (1845-1846). In Marx’s view, the freedom, equality, and fraternity proclaimed by capitalism are nothing but lies of the bourgeoisie: capitalist freedom is not based on the union of people, but on the separation of people; the right to freedom ultimately evolves into the right to private property, and its freedom is merely the freedom of the propertied; capitalist equality is a hypocritical defense of economic inequality through legal rhetoric and political ceremony, ultimately the equality of the bourgeoisie before the law; capitalist fraternity, in essence, is used to cover up civil war and the sharp and terrible war between labor and capital.

历史实践表明，共同富裕虽然是人们的理想，但只有在社会主义制度中，共同富裕才能真正落到实处。在资本主义社会，公平正义与共同富裕实质上是分离的。资产阶级在反对封建特权的过程中，提出了自由、平等、博爱等理念。马克思指出，“占统治地位的思想不过是占统治地位的物质关系在观念上的表现，不过是以思想的形式表现出来的占统治地位的物质关系”。在马克思看来，资本主义宣扬的自由、平等、博爱，不过是资产阶级的谎言：资本主义的自由不是建立在人与人结合的基础上，而是建立在人与人分隔的基础上，自由权最终演变成私有财产权，其自由只是有产者的自由；资本主义的平等是以法律的言辞和政治的仪式，为经济上的不平等进行的伪善辩护，归根到底是法律面前的资产阶级的平等；资本主义的博爱，其本质是用来掩盖内战、掩盖劳动与资本之间尖锐而可怕的战争。

The capitalist private ownership of the means of production and its exploitative nature determine that it cannot achieve genuine fairness and justice; the inherent class antagonism of capitalism determines that it cannot achieve common prosperity for all people. The capitalist mode of production presupposes the existence of two opposing classes: the bourgeoisie controls the means of production and dominates production and distribution; the working class is separated from the means of production and can only earn wages by selling its own labor power. Capitalists recapitalize profits, continuously raising the organic composition of capital through capital accumulation, blocking workers’ upward mobility; workers’ wages are only sufficient to maintain the reproduction of labor power, and their fate can only depend on “the use of capital and the whim of the rich.” [2]2 Paraphrase of a theme in Marx’s *Capital*, Volume 1, describing the worker’s dependence on capital. Even in the period of social wealth increase that appears most favorable to workers, the outcome for workers is inevitably overwork, reduced to slaves of machinery and capital. The more wealth workers produce, the greater the scale and impact of production, the poorer they become. In modern society, capital accumulation and technological progress have widened the wealth gap and intensified conflicts between workers and capitalists, exposing the essence of the capitalist state as “a huge institution for the exploitation of the vast majority by a small, ever-shrinking minority.” [3]3 Paraphrase of Friedrich Engels, *Anti-Dühring* (1878), describing the capitalist state.

资本主义的生产资料私有制及其剥削本性，决定了它不可能实现真正的公平正义；资本主义固有的阶级对立，决定了它不可能实现所有人的共同富裕。资本主义的生产方式以两大对立阶级的存在为前提：资产阶级掌握生产资料，主导着生产与分配；工人阶级与生产资料分离，只能靠出卖自身劳动力挣得工资。资本家将利润再资本化，通过资本积累不断提升资本的有机构成，阻断工人向上流动；工人的工资只够维持劳动力再生产，其命运只能依靠“资本的使用和富人的兴致”。即便是在看起来对工人最为有利的社会财富上升时期，工人的结局也必然是劳动过度，沦为机器和资本的奴隶。工人生产的财富越多，生产影响和规模越大，反而越贫穷。在现代社会，资本积累和技术进步使工人与资本家之间的财富差距和矛盾冲突越来越大，资本主义国家的本质即“人数不多并且仍在不断缩减的少数人剥削绝大多数人的庞大机构”暴露无遗。

“The proletarian movement is the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.” [4]4 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The Communist Manifesto* (1848). Socialism aims to eliminate exploitation and class antagonism; the nature of socialism determines that common prosperity and fairness and justice are completely consistent in form and content. Socialist fairness and justice are not merely formal but guarantee the interests of all people; socialist common prosperity is the sharing of social benefits by all people after the elimination of the exploitation system, and is the concentrated embodiment of socialist fairness and justice. Socialist public ownership lays a solid foundation for achieving common prosperity for all the people. Socialist public ownership requires that the means of production belong to all the people collectively, achieving the unity of the owners of the means of production and the laborers, the unity of the producers and the enjoyers of social wealth, ensuring the public nature and shareability of the fruits of modernization, and guaranteeing the realistic possibility and inevitable realization of common prosperity.

“无产阶级的运动是绝大多数人的，为绝大多数人谋利益的独立的运动”。社会主义要消灭剥削、消灭阶级对立，社会主义的性质决定了共同富裕与公平正义在形式和内容上完全一致。社会主义的公平正义不是形式上的，而是保障所有人利益的；社会主义的共同富裕是消灭剥削制度后所有人共享社会利益，是社会主义公平正义的集中体现。社会主义公有制为实现全体人民共同富裕奠定了坚实基础。社会主义公有制要求生产资料归全体人民共同所有，实现了生产资料的所有者与劳动者的统一、社会财富生产者与享有者的统一，保证了现代化建设成果的公共性和共享性，保证了共同富裕的现实可能性和实现必然性。

Grasping the Essential Implications of Common Prosperity from the Perspective of Fairness and Justice

从公平正义出发把握共同富裕的本质意蕴

There is no abstract fairness and justice, nor common prosperity divorced from reality. Entering the New Era, the contradiction between the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development has become the principal contradiction in our society. [5]5 The principal contradiction was officially redefined at the 19th National Congress of the CPC in 2017. China remains the world’s largest developing country and is still in and will long remain in the primary stage of socialism. This is the basic national condition and historical context we must grasp to understand fairness, justice, and common prosperity. Achieving fairness and justice requires, on the basis of the common struggle of all the people and economic and social development, gradually establishing a social fairness guarantee system with equal rights, equal opportunities, and fair rules as its main content, striving to create a fair social environment, and ensuring the people’s rights to equal participation and equal development.

没有抽象的公平正义，也没有脱离实际的共同富裕。进入新时代，人民日益增长的美好生活需要和不平衡不充分的发展之间的矛盾成为我国社会主要矛盾。我国依然是世界上最大的发展中国家，依然处于并将长期处于社会主义初级阶段，这是我们认识和理解公平正义和共同富裕必须把握的基本国情和时代背景。实现公平正义，要求在全体人民共同奋斗、经济社会发展的基础上，逐步建立以权利公平、机会公平、规则公平为主要内容的社会公平保障体系，努力营造公平的社会环境，保证人民平等参与、平等发展的权利。

To accurately understand and grasp common prosperity from the perspective of fairness and justice, we must scientifically answer major theoretical questions such as “what is common prosperity” and “how to achieve common prosperity.” Common prosperity is not a purely economic concept but one involving important fields and content such as economy, politics, and society; common prosperity is the common prosperity of all the people, the prosperity of both the material and cultural-ethical life of the people. It is not only reflected in economic development and material abundance but also includes meeting higher requirements in democratic participation, rights protection, environmental health, and other aspects. In short, all material, spiritual, and social factors that can promote the people’s better life are covered by common prosperity and are the comprehensive manifestation of the content regulated by fairness and justice in the process of realizing common prosperity.

从公平正义出发准确认识和把握共同富裕，就要科学回答“什么是共同富裕”以及“如何实现共同富裕”等重大理论问题。共同富裕不是单纯的经济概念，而是涉及经济、政治、社会等重要领域和重要内容的概念；共同富裕是全体人民共同富裕，是人民群众物质生活和精神生活都富裕，不仅体现为经济发展、物质丰裕，还包括实现民主参与、权利保障、环境健康等各方面更高要求。质言之，一切能够促进人民美好生活的物质、精神和社会因素，都是共同富裕涵盖的内容，都是公平正义所规范的内容在共同富裕实现进程中的全面体现。

The Practice of Common Prosperity Provides a Chinese Solution for Achieving Fairness and Justice

共同富裕实践为实现公平正义提供中国方案

Fairness and justice are the value pursuit of human society and an important yardstick for measuring comprehensive social progress. They are not abstract concepts but institutional practices and institutional guarantees concerning the vital interests of the people. Promoting common prosperity for all the people is not only China’s great practice of the concept of fairness and justice but also a unique expression of the concept of fairness and justice.

公平正义是人类社会的价值追求，是衡量社会全面进步的重要尺度，它不是抽象概念，而是事关人民群众切身利益的制度实践和制度保障。推进全体人民共同富裕，不仅是中国对公平正义理念的伟大实践，同时也是对公平正义观念的独特表达。

Eliminating absolute poverty lays a solid foundation for achieving social fairness and justice. Eliminating poverty, improving people’s livelihoods, and gradually achieving common prosperity are important manifestations of fairness and justice. Poverty is a chronic disease of human society, and anti-poverty and escaping poverty have always been prominent problems plaguing global development and governance. Whether it was the series of anti-poverty practices after the founding of New China or the gradually enriched and perfected anti-poverty theories of our Party since reform and opening up, they all targeted solving the absolute poverty problem that directly affects the realization of common prosperity. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, we have adhered to targeted poverty alleviation, mobilized the best forces, won the largest-scale battle against poverty in human history, historically solved the problem of absolute poverty, realized the millennia-old dream of the Chinese nation of moderate prosperity, and China’s development has stood at a new historical starting point. [6]6 The 18th National Congress of the CPC was held in 2012, marking the start of the New Era under Xi Jinping’s leadership. The comprehensive victory in the battle against poverty marks a major step forward by our Party in uniting and leading the people to create a better life and achieve common prosperity. China’s elimination of absolute poverty has created a miracle in the history of human poverty reduction and laid a cornerstone for achieving fairness and justice. Shedding the poverty label is not the end, but the starting point of a new life and new struggle. Currently, we are striding forward with vigor and determination toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects, continuously solving the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development on the existing basis, narrowing the development gap between urban and rural areas and regions, and realizing the comprehensive development of people and common prosperity for all the people. [7]7 The second centenary goal refers to building China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of the 21st century.

消除绝对贫困为实现社会公平正义奠定坚实基础。消除贫困、改善民生、逐步实现共同富裕，是公平正义的重要体现。贫困是人类社会的顽疾，反贫困、摆脱贫困一直是困扰全球发展和治理的突出难题。无论是新中国成立后的一系列反贫困实践，还是改革开放以来我们党逐渐丰富完善的反贫困理论，针对的都是要解决直接影响共同富裕实现的绝对贫困问题。党的十八大以来，我们坚持精准扶贫、尽锐出战，打赢了人类历史上规模最大的脱贫攻坚战，历史性地解决了绝对贫困问题，实现了小康这个中华民族的千年梦想，我国发展站在了更高历史起点上。脱贫攻坚战的全面胜利，标志着我们党在团结带领人民创造美好生活、实现共同富裕的道路上迈出了坚实的一大步。中国消除绝对贫困，创造了人类减贫史上的奇迹，为实现公平正义奠定了基石基础。脱贫摘帽不是终点，而是新生活、新奋斗的起点。当前，我们正在意气风发向着全面建成社会主义现代化强国的第二个百年奋斗目标迈进，在已有基础上不断解决发展不平衡不充分问题，缩小城乡区域发展差距，实现人的全面发展和全体人民共同富裕。

Leverage institutional advantages to promote and achieve the organic unity of fairness and efficiency. Handling the relationship between fairness and efficiency is a difficult problem that must be solved in economic and social development. Capitalist private ownership cannot properly resolve this problem, leading inevitably to polarization in that society. Since reform and opening up, our Party has balanced efficiency and fairness in advancing modernization, leveraged the institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics, more actively and effectively promoted common prosperity, and while creating higher efficiency than capitalism, effectively safeguarded social fairness and justice, achieving high-quality development that is both efficient and fair. From the perspective of the market mechanism, establish a socialist market economy system, give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, better play the role of the government, use the concept of shared development to solve the problems of unbalanced and inadequate development, continuously meet the people's needs for a better life, and ensure that the fruits of reform benefit all the people. From the perspective of the distribution mechanism, gradually build a basic institutional arrangement in which primary distribution, redistribution, and tertiary distribution are coordinated and complementary, effectively balance the roles of all factors including labor, technology, capital, and management in the market economy, establish a minimum living security system and framework, and provide social members with basic employment security, old-age security, livelihood security, education and cultural services, health security, and so on. From the perspective of improving people's wellbeing, strive to ensure that children are well cared for, students are well educated, workers are well paid, the sick are well treated, the elderly are well cared for, people have adequate housing, and the vulnerable are well supported, and realize, safeguard, and develop the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people.

发挥制度优势，促进和实现公平与效率的有机统一。处理好公平与效率的关系，是经济社会发展中必须解决的难题。资本主义私有制无法妥善解决这个问题，导致其社会不可避免出现两极分化。改革开放以来，我们党在推进现代化进程中兼顾效率与公平，发挥中国特色社会主义的制度优势，更加积极有为地促进共同富裕，在创造比资本主义更高的效率的同时，有效维护社会公平正义，实现既有效率又有公平的高质量发展。从市场机制来说，建立社会主义市场经济体系，充分发挥市场在资源配置中的决定性作用，更好发挥政府作用，以共享发展理念破解发展不平衡不充分问题，不断满足人民群众对美好生活的需要，使改革红利惠及全体人民。从分配机制上说，逐步构建初次分配、再分配、三次分配协调配套的基础性制度安排，有效平衡市场经济中劳动、技术、资本和管理等全要素的作用，建立起最低生活保障制度和体系，为社会成员提供基本就业保障、养老保障、生活保障、教育和文化服务、健康保障等。从增进民生福祉来说，努力实现幼有所育、学有所教、劳有所得、病有所医、老有所养、住有所居、弱有所扶，实现好、维护好、发展好最广大人民的根本利益。

The free and comprehensive development of the individual has always been the value orientation of advancing common prosperity. Achieving common prosperity is a necessary stage on the path toward the free and comprehensive development of the individual. Marx pointed out that socialist production "will have as its goal the enrichment of all people." [8]8 Karl Marx, "Economic Manuscripts 1857–1858," in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 31 (Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1998), p. 104. Common prosperity truly embodies the idea that people are the end rather than the means of social development, and that the value of the human being is absolute. In building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, not a single person is to be left behind; on the road to common prosperity, not a single person is to be left out. Common prosperity truly embodies the concept of justice as equality for all. Common prosperity means that all people share the fruits of social development, enjoy equal basic rights in economic, political, social, and cultural aspects, and embodies genuine equality among all members of society. The free and comprehensive development of the individual is the ultimate goal of communism regarding human development and an important measure of social development and progress. In the process of solidly promoting common prosperity for all the people, our Party consistently maintains the unity of the criterion of productive forces and the criterion of the people's interests, the unity of the measure of things and the measure of people, and the unity of conformity to laws and conformity to purposes, takes people's needs as the starting point and end point for seeking and promoting development, takes the realization of the free and comprehensive development of the individual as the highest value of development, promotes more obvious and substantive progress in common prosperity for all the people, and promotes the maximum realization of social fairness and justice.

人的自由全面发展始终是推进共同富裕的价值旨归。实现共同富裕，是走向人的自由而全面的发展所必经的阶段。马克思指出，社会主义的生产“将以所有的人富裕为目的”。共同富裕真正体现了人是社会发展的目的而非手段，人的价值具有绝对性。全面建成小康社会，一个也不能少；共同富裕的路上，一个也不能掉队。共同富裕真正体现了人人平等的正义理念。共同富裕是所有人共享社会发展成果，在经济、政治和社会文化等各个方面享有平等的基本权利，体现了社会全体成员之间真正的平等。人的自由全面发展是共产主义关于人的发展的最终目标，是社会发展和社会进步的重要衡量尺度。我们党在扎实推进全体人民共同富裕过程中，始终保持生产力标准和人民利益标准的统一、物的尺度和人的尺度的统一、合规律性和合目的性的统一，以人的需要为出发点和落脚点来谋发展促发展，以实现人的自由全面发展为发展的最高价值，推动全体人民共同富裕取得更为明显的实质性进展，推动社会公平正义得以最大实现。

Online editor: Zhang Fujun

网络编辑：张福军