Worth of Man

A particular form of value, the highest of all forms of value. As Mao Zedong said, of all things in the world, people are the most precious. There is a fundamental difference between the worth of man and the value of things. Man has a value that no kind of thing has, i.e., the value of creating value.

As far as individuals are concerned, the worth of man includes self-worth and social value.

The social value of man refers to the value of the individual to society, the meaning of the existence and activity of the individual to society, the satisfaction of social needs by the creative activity of the individual and the contribution the creative activity of the individual to social progress, in essence, making society and others better off. The social value of man can manifest itself at all levels. A person has a certain social value from the moment one is born, and each person is a link in the chain of continuity of mankind as well as society. The social value of man is more importantly embodied in his contribution. In this sense, the magnitude of a person’s labor contribution and creative achievements marks the magnitude of his or her value. The greater one’s labor contribution and creative achievements, the greater his social value. A person who does not bear any responsibility to society and does not make any contribution is also a person without social value. Whether a person has social value or not, he depends not only on his labor-capacity and creative capacity, but also on his moral standard; it depends not only on the magnitude of his capacity, but also, and more importantly, on the degree to which his capacity is brought into play.

The self-worth of man refers to an individual’s value of the self, the meaning of one’s existence and activity for oneself, is the satisfaction of his needs through one’s own activity and one’s attainment of respect and satisfaction from the society. The self-worth of man is first and foremost manifested in the affirmation of the value of his own life existence. The existence of life is the basis of all values of man. The existence of individual life is the premise of personal value; it is a value in itself, but not the whole of personal value. The self-worth of man is also manifested in the need for self-esteem, self-love and self-improvement; the need for self-realization and full development; the need for understanding, respect and satisfaction of the self by others and society, and the satisfaction of these needs through one’s own existence and activity.

The worth of man is a unity of social value and self-worth, the two are indissoluble presuppositions of each other. Social value is the basis of the self-worth. Without social value, it will be impossible to achieve true self-worth. An individual can achieve one’s self-worth only in society and through achieving social value. Self-worth should be premised on the benefit of society and others, and only when a person’s self-worth is beneficial to society can he or she obtain one’s own happiness and achieve one’s own perfection. An individual whose activity jeopardizes the interests of society and others will be denied by society and others, and ultimately lose one’s self-worth. Fundamentally speaking, the worth of man lies in his contribution to society. The self-worth of man cannot be overlooked either. In order for a person to contribute to society, the realization of self-worth is also a necessary condition. Marx and Engels said that in the replacement of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms, “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”.