Private Property

Corresponding to “public property”. The form of property in which the means of production are in possession of private persons. Historically, the forms of private property include individual private property, slave-owner private property, feudal landlord private property and bourgeois private property.

Individual private property exists in each social system in a subordinate position, it is dependent on the dominant form of property. Exploitation and oppression inevitably arise on the basis of private property. Marx Engels declared in The Communist Manifesto that the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. It is only by abolishing private property that the proletariat and other working people can be emancipated. The complete abolition of private property is an inevitable requirement of socialism. This point must not be forgotten at any time.

The part played by private property must be evaluated in the context of concrete historical conditions. When a certain form of private property is appropriate to the development of the productive forces, it is a driving force that pushes forward the development of the productive forces and social progress; when it is not appropriate to the development of the productive forces, it fetters the development of the productive forces and social progress, and must be replaced by another form of property. According to the objective law that the relations of production must be appropriate to the nature of the productive forces, replacing capitalist private property with socialist public property is the inevitable trend of historical development.

China is in the primary stage of socialism, the level of development of productive forces is not high, and the development is uneven, which determines that the non-public economy (i.e., private economy, including individual economy, private economy, foreign funded economy) still plays a positive part in the development of the national economy. Therefore, the current property structure of China includes, in addition to the public property as its mainstay, also private property economy as a supplement to the socialist economy. The non-public property economy is an important component part of socialist market economy, however there is a certain contradiction between private property and the essence of socialism. China adopts a policy of encouragement, support and guidance of the private property economy, giving full play to its role in developing the economy, securing employment and satisfying the multifaceted needs of the people, while at the same time guiding their development in a direction conducive to socialism. This policy must be maintained throughout the primary stage of socialism. With the development of the productive forces and the increase in the socialization of production, we are going to abolish private property, but this is a matter for the future.