Common Prosperity
The fundamental principle and ultimate goal of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the important manifestation of the strengths of China’s socialist system.
On December 16, 1953, the “Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Developing Agricultural Production Cooperatives”, which was drafted by Mao Zedong and adopted by the CPC Central Committee, first used the language of “common prosperity”, which is understandable by Chinese farmers, to accurately describe the goals and ideals of socialism and guide the Chinese people to embark on the path of socialism.
After adopting the policy of Reform and Opening-up, the second generation of central leadership collective with Deng Xiaoping as the core summed up the positive and negative experiences in socialist construction, established common prosperity as the essential feature of socialism, and repeatedly clarified that poverty is not socialism, and polarization is not socialism either. It criticizes the misconception that common prosperity is equal to complete average and synchronous prosperity, and opens up a realistic way in which some regions and people are encouraged to get rich first, others will be brought along and through this process, and common prosperity of the entire population will be gradually achieved. The third generation of the central leadership collective with Jiang Zemin as the core put forward the idea of “taking into account both efficiency and fairness”, and advocated the use of various adjustment means including the market, which not only encouraged the advanced, promoted efficiency, rationally widened the income gap, but also prevented polarization and gradually realized common prosperity.
Our Party made bold explorations and practice about how to promote common prosperity under the conditions of the socialist market economy. Guided by the scientific outlook on development, the CPC Central Committee with Hu Jintao as the general secretary put forward the idea of “properly handling the relationship between efficiency and fairness and paying more attention to social fairness”, and put the maintenance of social fairness and the realization of common prosperity in a more prominent position. We should adopt various means to gradually establish a social fairness guarantee system with fair rights, fair opportunities, fair rules and fair distribution as the main content, so that all people can share the fruits of reform and development.
The 18th CPC National Congress identified common prosperity as “the fundamental principle of socialism with Chinese characteristics”, and clearly stated that to win new victories of socialism with Chinese characteristics under the new historical conditions, we must adhere to the path of common prosperity and the basic socialist economic system and distribution system, adjust the pattern of national income distribution, increase the intensity of redistribution adjustment, and focus on solving the problem of large income distribution gap, so that gains of development benefit all our people in a fair way, and strive to achieve shared prosperity for everyone.
The 5th Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee further put forward the new concept of “shared development” and advocated that through more effective institutional arrangements, all people will have more sense of gain in joint construction and shared development. Common prosperity is the essence and the fundamental principle of socialism. It points out the direction and goal of the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Since the Reform and Opening-up, the CPC, with the scientific attitude of keeping pace with the times and through the practice of reform, opening up and socialist modernization, has continuously enriched and specified the connotation of “common prosperity” and has made it the common ideal of hundreds of millions of Chinese people.