People’s Well-rounded Development: The Value Orientation of Common Prosperity in the New Era
ZHANG Han*
Abstract: Achieving common prosperity for all is an important feature of Chinese modernization and an essential requirement of socialism with Chinese characteristics, with the core value orientation of promoting the people’s well-rounded development. This reflects the close relationship between people’s well-rounded development and common prosperity and implies that common prosperity is not just an economic issue, but also a political matter, a moral subject, and a human rights goal. Being “people-centered” is the core positioning of common prosperity, with its inherent collective and individual attributes. In terms of the object dimension of prosperity, it encompasses a wide range of rights such as material and spiritual well-being, which are advanced in a coordinated manner, and a deepening level of guarantee gradually improving. In the practical concept of “shared development,” it emphasizes the unity of state obligations and individual responsibilities, as well as the phased approach and promotion of common prosperity through the rule of law. Therefore, the essence of common prosperity lies in shifting from a “material-centered” perspective to a “people’s well-rounded development-centered” perspective. It combines the principles of fairness and inclusiveness with the recognition of diverse developmental needs. The focus is on enhancing the subjective initiative of the people, aiming to truly achieve the happiness of the people and promote people’s well-rounded development through the realization of “common prosperity.”
Keywords: common prosperity · people’s well-rounded development · people-centered · shared development · subjective initiative
The report to the 20th CPC National Congress pointed out that “Chinese modernization is the modernization of common prosperity for all.” “By 2035, markedly substantial progress will be made in people’s well-rounded development and common prosperity for all.” Just as Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commitee has pointed out, “advancing common prosperity and promoting people’s well-rounded development are highly consistent.”1 The all-round development of the people is the core value orientation and fundamental requirement of common prosperity. After China achieved a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the steady promotion of common prosperity for all people was quickly put on the agenda.2 Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights clearly states in Chapter 4 that “upholding the rights to survival and development is the fundamental human rights to gradually achieve common prosperity for all.”3 The third resolution on historical issues adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee also proposed that the human rights undertaking with Chinese characteristics should focus on eliminating poverty, promoting common prosperity for all the people and satisfying the pursuit of the masses for a better life.4 Therefore, “in the sense of political philosophy and legal philosophy, common prosperity is the necessary requirement and important manifest of the people as the masters of the country, protection of human rights, and realization of people’s happiness.”5 The observation not only tells the close relationship between human rights and common prosperity, but also indicates that common prosperity is an economic issue, a political issue, a moral issue, and a human rights goal. In particular, seen from the perspective of human rights, the protection of vulnerable groups has a comprehensive significance for achieving common prosperity. The Human Rights Action Plan of China (2021-2025) points out that “promoting the people’s well-rounded development and their common prosperity are the starting point and goal of the development of human rights.” Therefore, common prosperity in the new era cannot be simply construed as the transfer of material wealth possession and income distribution. Instead, it should aim at the full-structure well-being with the purpose of “promoting the free and well-rounded development of the people,” so as to meet the people’s aspirations for a better life. This paper draws on the report to the 20th CPC National Congress and Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights to demonstrate the subject, target and content of rights of common prosperity from three aspects, namely, subject orientation, object dimension, and practice concept, and fully explain the human rights essence of common prosperity — people’s well-rounded development, thus comprehensively interpreting the core proposition “the people’s well-rounded development is the value orientation of common prosperity in the new era.”
I. Subject Orientation: Centered Around the People
The subject orientation of common prosperity is essentially to clarify and distinguish the issues of “who to be rich,” “being rich for whom” and “depending on whom to become rich.”6 In expounding on human rights, General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly combined common prosperity with the people-centered approach, pointing out that “the development sought by us is development beneficial for the people, and the prosperity sought by us is common prosperity for all the people.”7 Just as “development is for the people and by the people and that its fruits are shared by the people,” common prosperity emphasizes the subject orientation of the main positioning of prosperity for the people and by the people and that its fruits are shared by the people. It is a value goal not only for individuals, but also for society, aimed at satisfying the fundamental and overall needs of the entire society for “common prosperity.” As the subject of common prosperity, “the people” is not only a term that has specific reference and a core of achieving a better life for all the people, but also a holistic concept that emphasizes the “sharing” of human rights interests by all people, and focuses on providing a better institutional environment and development space for each individual to achieve personal freedom and rights.
Therefore, the term “people” constructs the dual attributes of human beings, namely, the organic unity of individual existence and collective existence. Human beings are not only specific individuals in society, but also part of the overall gathering of people. The former denotes that the state has the obligation to provide a good social and legal order for safeguarding individual rights, while the latter requests the state to protect the collective existence of the “people” from a holistic perspective. The internal mechanism of the balance between the collective and individual attributes of the “people” is the people-centered approach, which respects the value of life and the free development of each individual, and respects the subject status of the people and their inherent needs for free and well-rounded development; adherence to the position of the people as the subject, to achieve, safeguard, and develop their fundamental interests, turn them into a harmonious organic whole, and make their collective existence the foundation and guarantee for their all-around development. Here, the “people-centered approach” reflected in common prosperity means organically combining the pursuit of the people’s free development with the people as the masters of their country, and taking into account the dual attributes of human existence.
A. Collective attribute of the people
People orientation is the most iconic spiritual core of contemporary Chinese views on human rights.8 As the superior concept of human rights, “human beings” has dual attributes, that is, the organic unity of individual existence and collective existence. While emphasizing starting from the individual, we must fully consider the overall people formed by the collective existence of human beings.9 General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized on multiple occasions that “common prosperity the prosperity for all the people,”10 “upholding the feelings for the people, relying on the people to constantly work for the benefit of the people, and make solid efforts to promote common prosperity,”11 “common prosperity is the essential requirement of socialism and the common expectation of the people. In the final analysis, our efforts to promote economic and social development are intended to achieve common prosperity for all people,”12; “the Chinese modernization is the modernization of common prosperity for all people,”13; “we must take the promotion of common prosperity of all people as the focus in seeking happiness for the people.”14 “The people” are not only the owner, requester and consumer of common prosperity, but also the “participant” and “playwright” of its practice process. “Common prosperity for all people” means recognizing the equal participation and rational appeal of all social members as the subject status. As the subject of common prosperity, “the people” emphasizes mutual benefit and universal benefit among all social groups. It does not mean the prosperity of the few, let alone the prosperity of the few based on the damage to the interests of the majority. After the problem of survival is solved, development becomes particularly prominent, and the ensuing common prosperity becomes the focus of collective human rights.15 Therefore, in terms of the subject coverage of common prosperity, the keyword “all” has become the inevitable connotation, and realizing the new expectations of all people for a better life has become the starting point and result of development.
The common prosperity, with the collective attribute of the people as the subject, is considered from the perspective of maximizing the overall interests of the people. It means taking the people as the main beneficiaries of a prosperous life and meeting their aspirations for a better life. However, Western liberalism believes that the concept of “people” is empty, illusory, and general, lacking clear subjectivity, and may also lead to the denial of individual subjective initiative. Therefore, for Western liberalism, the central positioning of the subject is “individual.” In their view, the establishment of modern society is precisely due to the “rational” choices made by every specific citizen. Therefore, there is no “common”responsibility for “common prosperity,” but only the responsibility of each “individual.” Obviously, Western liberal thought is not fully aware of the flaws in its logical assumptions. In other words, an individual’s “rational” choices do not necessarily unite the entire society. The reason is that in the specific field of civil society, the “individuals” envisioned are merely “atomic” “individuals,” and the so-called “rationality” is nothing but a means and tool to achieve one’s passion and satisfy one’s desires. When social inequality arises from social development, the only thing individuals with power and established interests will do is to use their power to seek and consolidate their own interests, rather than seek or enhance any common interests. A typical example is the US and some other Western countries that still wallow in the dominance of neoliberal ideas, allowing the power of capital to ride roughshod over political power, letting about 1% of people to occupy 99% of the country’s wealth in the name of market freedom, and leading to a period of severe wealth inequity.16 Therefore, individuals can emphasize the right to democracy anywhere, but the people assembled by individuals do not thus become the true force that ultimately determines the development of the country. Instead, they become enslaved by a few privileged forces.17 Just as General Secretary Xi Jinping has observed, “in some countries, the gap between the rich and the poor and the collapse of the middle class have led to social fragmentation, political polarization, and rampant populism, and the lessons are very profound.” Therefore, whether it is the country or society, in the positioning of the main body of common prosperity, the collective existence of the “people” is needed.18 This is the fundamental requirement of establishing and forming the social consensus and rational action of “common prosperity” from the overall interests of the people, so as to truly promote the coordination and cooperation of the whole society.
B. Individual attribute of the people
“Common prosperity” refers not only to “all the people,” but also to specific individuals. The significance of “common” lies not only in achieving the solidarity and integration of the entire society, but also in ensuring the independence and autonomy of each social member, as well as their right and room for free and well-rounded development within the legal framework. “Under socialist conditions, society should ‘provide all people with real and full freedom.’”19 In the modern sense, common prosperity means satisfying the demands of every individual citizen for basic human rights through the state’s performance of specific constitutional and legal duties. Only with independent and free development can every member of society make consensual choices and self-improving efforts, and fully release their potential and vitality.
Marx pointed out that “man is special as an individual, and it is his particularity that makes him an individual, a realistic and individual social existence. Similarly, man is also the whole, the whole of ideas, and the self-acting subject existence of society being considered and perceived.”20 As the subject of common prosperity, “the people” neither obscures the individual dimension of prosperity nor reduces it to pure ndividualism.21 Because after economic development and improvement of life quality, there is still the issue of common prosperity to be addressed. If the development is extremely unbalanced, the gap between the rich and the poor is huge, and society is unfair with tearing polarization, a country will lose popular support. Therefore, in the battle against poverty, China has upheld targeted poverty alleviation and targeted poverty eradication, and shifted from “flooding irrigation” to “drip irrigation,” and from “blood transfusion” to “blood creation.”22 Eventually, all the rural poor people were lifted out of poverty under the current standards, and all the poor counties were removed from the list of impoverished counties. China has interpreted with practical actions the ideal of “leaving no one behind in building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way or on the road toward common prosperity.”23 This pursuit not only emphasizes the subject status of all the people in common prosperity, but also takes into consideration of each individual’s pursuit of prosperity, thus avoiding the two biases of denying the people’s collective from an individual perspective or individual demands from the people’s collective. It also means that, from the perspective of people-orientated and holistic common prosperity, we should always cherish the ethical concern and favorable treatment of disadvantaged groups, and the pursuit of specific groups for fair rights, since they properly integrate the universality of subjects of being rich, the diversity of the content of being rich, and the fairness of degree of being rich. Although social justice, rights protection and feasibility are the basic values that must be upheld to promote common prosperity, they are insufficient, and inequality caused by some institutional factors needs to be compensated and calibrated.24 In this sense, the institutional arrangement of preferential protection for specific groups runs through the substantive equality concept of “support for the disadvantaged,”25 which fully reflects the humanistic spirit of protecting socially vulnerable groups and actively creates conditions for achieving common prosperity for all the people.
II. Object Dimension: Prosperity in Both Material and Spiritual Life
General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward that “common prosperity covers enrichment of people’s lives in both the material and non-material sense.”26 In a material sense, common prosperity includes better education, medical care, employment, housing, pension, environment, etc. In the spiritual sense, it includes fuller enjoyment of civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, personality rights, digital human rights, etc. As a further goal after a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, it emphasizes a “better life” and a higher standard of “quality of life” on the basis of a better-developed economy, society and the rule of law. As scholars have said, for most countries in the world, the issue of common prosperity cannot be and has not been put on their agenda, since they are still faced with the issue of fighting poverty. How to get rid of poverty is their major concern. China has now put this issue on the agenda because it has completed its previous mission, namely, combating poverty.27 In this sense, rich material life and spiritual life cover the breadth and depth of common prosperity, and emphasize both quantity and quality, caring for all aspects of the “human” spiritual world and material world.
A. The breadth of prosperity: coordinated promotion of various rights
Regarding poverty, some scholars have proposed the concepts of absolute poverty and relative poverty. The former focuses on the need for survival, has absoluteness and objectivity, and can be basically eliminated through specific institutional mechanisms and methods. The latter centers on the lack of opportunities and insufficient rights, and features relativity, subjectivity, and dynamism.28 It not only includes material supply, but also involves social rights such as the rights to housing, education, healthcare, employment, and culture. Relative poverty as a dynamic concept has always been associated with social inequality and can only be gradually improved, but cannot be eliminated once and for all. If building a moderately well-off society means helping people get rid of poverty and achievea relatively “sufficient” and “free-fromwant” life, then a society of common prosperity is concerned about “a better life” and higher “quality of life.”29 The underlying logic is how to further address relative poverty after eliminating absolute poverty, and how to shift the efforts from making up for the defects of “insufficient supply” to making up for insufficient rights.
After building a comprehensive moderately prosperous society, China has achieved a practical shift from “survival” to “living,” and continues to expand toward a comprehensive discourse of rights. The demand for the right to survival and development has grown to the expectation for a “better life,” and the requirements for comprehensive protection of the citizens’ economic rights, social rights, cultural rights, political rights, development rights, environmental rights, and other rights have been logically expanded. This way, the objective dimension of wealth is reflected, on the basis of unifying the natural and social attributes of human beings. First, the approach ensures equal treatment of human dignity and the bottom line of survival, with a focus on equal protection of human dignity and the guarantee of a subsistence standard. Just as General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “We must implement the people-centered development thinking with effective measures, address the issues of employment, income distribution, education, social security, medical care, housing, pension, childcare, food safety, and social security via coordination, properly handle the relationship between ecology and the people’s livelihood, and achieve the coordination of ecological protection and people’s livelihood security.”30 Second, the free development that champions the diverse needs of the people focuses on free choice and free development room. Based on the concept of “human beings”, common prosperity means not only satisfying purely biological needs for food, clothing, and warmth, but also achieving the basic conditions required for social development. This means a shift from simple material and cultural life to the country’s economic, political, cultural, social and ecological aspects, and requirements for comprehensively protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the people in all aspects. Therefore, common prosperity is full-structure well-being including politics, economy, society, culture and ecological environment, and a common right and overall right formed by the collection of individual rights.31 The power bundle connotated by “prosperity” emphasizes the coordinated advancement of various rights, and the absence of one or imbalance will lead to incompleteness in its depth and breadth. The reason is that ignoring the people’s needs of “well-rounded development,” trying to replace all the needs of the people with material needs, and adopting a one-sided materialistic outlook on development to promote economic and social development will inevitably lead to conflict and imbalance between welfare supply and social needs.32 In the stage of general deprivation of material life, the people’s value orientation tends to focus on material survival needs, including the right to adequate food, housing, clean drinking water, and other adequate living standards for human survival. However, at the stage when material needs are generally satisfied, their values tend to prioritize self-satisfaction or realization of a sense of gain, happiness, security, and dignity. Taking the phenomenon of “spiritual poverty” of vulnerable groups for example, if their self-development ability is insufficient, it will be difficult to address their dependence on social welfare or deep-seated poverty culture.
The Soviet Union established a relatively complete social welfare system, and members of society were able to enjoy public services such as social security, education, healthcare, and housing. It basically solved the problem of material scarcity. However, the gradually rigid planned economic system brought about compulsory distribution and extremely strong personal dependence, which objectively denied the well-rounded development of its people spiritually. The free space and free will of social members were severely narrowed, depriving the whole society of vitality and creativity, and the “spiritual poverty” of human beings did not receive due attention. Excessive focus on material or spiritual aspects will lead to deviations in the design of relevant systems and policy arrangements, and exert negative effects of varying degrees on social order and free human development. In this regard, the common prosperity of the new era has expanded the form and scope of rights, and “feeling” has been elevated to the category of “rights,” to include the material aspects of food, clothing, housing and transportation, the spiritual aspects of culture, education, freedom, and social life aspects of fairness and justice, equal development and dignity of personality. In this sense, the essence of “prosperity” is actually a vision composed of a series of basic human rights. It is no longer a material right that marks the bottom line of survival, but a “dignified life” at a higher level, and a multi-element system of rights discourse.
B. Depth of prosperity: gradually enhanced protection of rights
The well-being of the people can be divided into three increasingly higher levels. The first level is “nurturing for young children, education for students, remuneration for labor, medical care for the sick, care for the elderly, housing, and support for the disadvantaged.” This is the lowest level of human needs oriented at solving the problem of food and clothing. The second level is the realization of a better life for the people, which includes not only higher material requirements, but also spiritual interests, emphasizing the people’s social needs for “democracy, rule of law, fairness, justice, security,” etc. The third and highest level of the people’s well-being is “common prosperity for all the people.”33 This is an integrated concept combining material, spiritual, and social needs and a comprehensive and holistic benefit to be gradually met through struggle, in order to achieve the free and well-rounded development of the people. From sufficient food and clothing to a moderately well-off society to an overall well-off society and then to common prosperity, the realization of each social stage will effectively improve the quality of life for the people, and common prosperity will also shift from the “preset development goals” to “gradually achieved prospects.”
Based on the hierarchical needs of people’s well-being, “enrichment in both the material and non-material sense” means the breadth and depth of “prosperity.” In terms of breadth, there is not only the material pursuit, such as employment, education, medical care, housing, pension, childcare, and food safety, but also the spiritual advocation, such as fairness, justice, equality, and the rule of law. In terms of depth, although the bottom line is its proper meaning,34 common prosperity is more reflected in the gradual improvement and enhancement of the people’s current material and spiritual interests, and their needs for a better life can be gradually realized. “There is no best, only better on the protection of human rights.” “In the past, we had to address the problem of ‘sufficiency,’ now we have to solve the problem of ‘quality.’ We should focus on improving the quality and efficiency of development, better meet the growing needs of the people in various aspects, and better promote well-rounded human development and common prosperity for all people.”35 From poverty eradication to a better life, we have to go through the multiple stages of “ensuring survival — ensuring survival and promoting development — addressing the sufficiency of food and clothing — enhancing sufficiency of food and clothing — achieving comprehensive moderate prosperity — common prosperity — a better life.” This shows that targeted poverty alleviation is a bottom-line task, a necessary process toward common prosperity, and a guarantee of the people’s right to survival and development in the social sense. Similarly, there is no superlative for prosperity, only a comparative. Its essence consists in the constant increase in the people’s needs, material and spiritual life, subjective initiative and innovation ability, and time and room for free development. This not only takes into account the socio-economic conditions and feasible capabilities of individuals and resource command of the state, but also emphasizes that “prosperity” is a dimension of dynamic development, and a gradual realization process from “minimum standard” to “higher standard.” Therefore, “prosperity” itself in the new era emphasizes satisfying the people’s practical needs at the material, social and spiritual levels from the aspects of “breadth” and “depth.” It is a comprehensive concept integrating material, spiritual and social interests.36
III. Practical Concept: Shared Development
Shared development is the practical concept of realizing common prosperity, and its core is “right sharing.” General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that “the essence of the sharing concept is to uphold the people-centered development thinking, and it reflects the requirement of gradually realizing common prosperity.”37 The concept of sharing includes four levels, namely, sharing by all the people, full sharing, joint construction and sharing, and gradual sharing, and its essential requirements are emphasizing the unification of national obligations and individuals from the perspective of obligations, adhering to phased governance from the practical approach, and promoting common prosperity through the guarantee of the rule of law, so as to truly implement the practical concept of “shared development” and promote the well-rounded development of “the people.”
A. Emphasizing the unification of national and individual obligations
Shared development combines the leadership of the CPC from top to bottom, the action power of the government to coordinate the overall situation, and the people’s drive from the bottom to the top to promote common prosperity for all the people. From the perspective of obligations, the concept of shared development emphasizes the obligation of joint construction by the state and individuals in society. A country is a community composed of all members of society, and each member is a constituent element. Then, all members of society should be the beneficiaries, builders and duty-performers of the Chinese path to modernization.
On the one hand, the concept of shared development is not about making one part of society support another, nor about endless “giving” or “charity.” Instead, it is about providing necessary assistance to those temporarily disadvantaged social members and groups, and helping them to enhance their potential to resist social uncertainty risks. Through necessary “blood transfusions” to vulnerable groups to restore their “blood creation” function, we can thereby recover their ability to participate in society and achieve development. Poverty seems to be a relatively low standard of living because of material scarcity. However, the root cause of individual poverty at the micro level is the lack of individual’s own abilities; at the macro level, it is due to the lack of endogenous motivation and the corresponding ideological and cultural poverty. However, excessive “welfare”and “charity” can also lead to the separation of the rights and obligations of social members. It only emphasizes the protection of equal rights of social members by the community, without recognizing their responsibilities and obligations toward the community, or seeing that society may lack the corresponding ability to comprehensively protect all the rights of social members during a specific period. Therefore, individuals of relatively disadvantaged social groups can only lead a “worthwhile living” through “self-motivated” efforts or the improvement of their own abilities, even after overcoming absolute poverty and ensuring basic living standards and dignity with the help of the state.
On the other hand, people may become disadvantaged due to immutable objective factors, or subjective mental status and accidental opportunities. They may fall into the ranks of the disadvantaged due to insufficient subjective effort, or may inevitably live as the disadvantaged due to special circumstances.38 If the basic rights of the disadvantaged are deprived, the people cannot participate in social cooperation in any sense, and they can only be reduced to an enslaved status like slaves. Meanwhile, the state should ensure basic conditions for the survival and development of every social member, put the people’s right to survival and development in the first place with the concept of bottom-line justice to perform the basic obligation of ensuring people’s livelihood, and shoulder more political, legal and moral responsibilities for the disadvantaged groups. In particular, in such fields as education, healthcare, and social security, there is a clear phenomenon of “localization of rights.” A person can only be guaranteed in the areas of education, pension, medical care, social assistance and other livelihood areas in his place of his registered residence. Although China has broken through the barrier of “localization of rights” in economic rights, the territorial nature of social rights is still relatively solid. For the migrant population in particular, the localization of rights can easily lead to the lack of responsible parties.39 The concept of shared development means breaking through the shackles of “localization of rights” and gradually separating various social rights tied to the registered residence and the people’s livelihood, so that the people will not be unfairly treated because of the region, ability, age and other factors, and will be able to obtain the basic security they deserve. Poverty alleviation and common prosperity are the “primary tasks” in enhancing the construction of socialist human rights with Chinese characteristics, and are committed to consolidating the institutional conditions and social environment for effectively realizing the right to subsistence and the right to development.40 This also reflects the important efforts made by China to achieve comprehensive human development in the new stage of development, which have expanded from the economic field to social, political, cultural, ecological and other fields, to vigorously promote the joint performance of national and individual obligations.
B. Adhering to a phased practical approach
“Promoting common prosperity in stages” is a major strategic deployment in the new era. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that “in the multi-party system practiced in Western countries, political parties represent different interest groups. It is difficult to form a consensus on social policies, and everything can be promised for the sake of votes, which is often reduced to a mere scrap of paper in the end. China is a socialist country under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and the Party and the state are working for the interests of the people. So we should better unify our understanding and grasp the tone of social policy.” The essence of electoral democracy in the United States and other Western countries is to choose “a master of the people” through election, after which, the political rights of the people will become dormant, the “right promise” will cease to exist, and the interests of citizens are controlled by the chosen “master.” However, the idea of common prosperity not only is a real commitment, but also has clear and gradual phased goals in practice. It follows the basic logic of “symbiosis, joint construction, common prosperity and fruit sharing,” formulates a corresponding timetable and development roadmap, and finally forms a holistic, systematic and feasible shared development model based on “addressing livelihood issues,” with “achieving common prosperity” as the content, and adhering to “the people-centered philosophy.”41 Due to the diversity of the people’s needs and the uncertainty of social development, common prosperity assumes apparent features in phases, development, static value goals and dynamic development processes.
The 18th CPC National Congress put forward the new goal of “promoting the well-rounded development of the people” and “gradually realizing the common prosperity of all people” for socialism with Chinese characteristics. The report of the 19th CPC National Congress clearly pointed out the “two-steps” strategy to achieve common prosperity: by 2035, on the basis of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, all the people will have taken solid steps toward common prosperity; by the middle of the 21st century, on the basis of basically realizing modernization, common prosperity will be basically achieved for all the people. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee further put forward that “by 2035, China’s middle-income groups will be significantly expanded, basic public services will be equalized, the gap between urban and rural areas in development and residents’ living standards will be significantly narrowed, the people’s lives will be better, and substantive progress will be made in the people’s well-rounded development and common prosperity of all the people.” By 2050, “common prosperity for all people will be basically achieved, and the Chinese people will enjoy a happier and healthier life.” The report to the 20th CPC National Congress put forward that “the Chinese modernization is the modernization of common prosperity for all. Achieving common prosperity is a defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics and involves a long historical process.” At present, China has effectively implemented and completed the two stages of poverty alleviation and a comprehensive moderately well-off society, and is marching toward the third stage of common prosperity for all the people. Among them, poverty alleviation is the bottom-line task of a comprehensive moderately well-off society, laying the foundation and objective guarantee for its achievement, and greatly protecting the right of the poor people to survival and development. The overall well-off society is not only the goal of poverty alleviation, but also the realistic material basis for common prosperity. “Only with an effective guarantee for the basic rights of members of society can the basic contribution of individuals to society and the affirmation of human dignity be reflected in the bottom line sense, and the purpose of social development be realized in the essential sense.”42 Common prosperity has expanded the “right to a better life” and the “value of fairness and justice,” and its fundamental lies in shifting from a material-centered logic to a logic integrating “material, spirit, and society,” thereby truly unifying the material and spiritual interests of the people.
C. Ensuring the rule of law to promote common prosperity
The key to achieving the goal of common prosperity consists not only in national action, but also in the institutional framework delineating its boundaries. The rule of law plays a fundamental, stable and long-term role in ensuring common prosperity. Just as some scholars have said, “The rule of law is the institutional resource of common prosperity.”43 China’s promotion of comprehensive rule of law and promotion of common prosperity are essentially unified and both are aimed at achieving well-rounded human development. They are identical in subject and they both uphold the supremacy of the people and safeguard the fundamental interests of the people. Since common prosperity is a programmatic declaration and political layout, it often assumes the characteristics of principles, and is often ambiguous and uncertain, while the rule of law is a clear, institutionalized and procedural normative system. Then, promoting common prosperity through the guarantee of the rule of law means gradually incorporating the fairness and justice pursued by common prosperity into the track of the rule of law, transforming them into fairness and justice in the rule of law system such as legislation, law enforcement, justice, and law-abiding, and endowing them with the rule-of-law attributes of a normative and coercive force.44
First, by improving the distribution order centered on fairness and efficiency through the rule of law, a fundamental institutional arrangement is established and maintained in the coordination system of “primary distribution — secondary distribution — tertiary distribution.” The primary distribution, which is market-led, emphasizes the mandatory minimum wage standard of a “bottom-line” nature to satisfy the basic living standards and personal dignity of individuals. The secondary distribution is reflected in the government’s active protection of the people’s livelihood rights to medical care, pension, compulsory education, poverty alleviation, and social assistance, and the equalization of basic public services.45 In particular, low-income groups, as the key guarantee objects for achieving common prosperity, should enjoy a greater sense of gain, happiness and satisfaction in pension, medical security, bottom-line assistance, housing supply and security system through laws, regulations and policies. The tertiary distribution is a form of redistribution featuring social leadership and voluntary participation. Although it is difficult to make the tertiary distribution mandatory and unified institutional arrangement, it has become an important supplement to the bottom-line institutional arrangement.
On the other hand, the dilemma of starting point fairness and opportunity fairness can be addressed with the rule of law, to solve the structural or institutional problems with common prosperity. A happy life for the people is the greatest human right. The intrinsic value of the pursuit of common prosperity and people’s happy life is gradually being transformed into a human rights value system guaranteed by the Constitution and law. Constitutionally, the goal of common prosperity assumes the tendency to gradually withdraw from the “prosperity dimension” to the “common dimension,” featuring greater importance attached to fairness, tolerance, responsibility, and assistance to the disadvantaged.46 However, in fact, even in the secondary and tertiary distribution, structural and institutional factors beyond the capabilities of social members will still hinder personal development and a decent life, and forestall the free movement of social classes. Therefore, the “governance of institutions” is required to achieve fairness of starting point and equal opportunity inherent in common prosperity. Fairness of starting point and fairness of opportunity are justice requirements higher than the tertiary distribution. Only by relying on rule of law thinking and rule of law methods to create more mobile and smooth channels and opportunities can we improve the opportunities and status of vulnerable groups in the social ecosystem. Therefore, the connection between the rule of law and common prosperity lies in transforming the general concept of “people” in common prosperity into a citizen subject in the legal sense, the abstract and vague “prosperity” into concrete legal rights, and the policy proposition of common prosperity into specific legal norms, and realizing people’s happiness and common prosperity in the form of protecting human rights via rule of law. In the field of the rule of law, a development mechanism that integrates joint construction and sharing, efficiency and fairness, balance and difference will be gradually established, so as to lay the foundation for well-rounded human development.
IV. Core Essence: Achieving Well-rounded Development for all the People
General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed: “Development is still the priority for our Party to govern and rejuvenate the country, and it is still a basic and fundamental undertaking. However, economic development and improvement of material life are not everything, and they alone do not determine people’s support. After development, there is still the issue of common prosperity. With material abundance alone, can we win the hearts of the people, if we don’t address extremely unbalanced development, a huge disparity between the rich and the poor, social injustice and polarization?”47 In this observation, common prosperity contains two important values. First, China promotes human rights through development and takes social “fairness and justice” as its original aspiration, and it is committed to narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, achieving coordination and synchronization of economic growth, social progress and improvement of people’s lives, as well as the resources and environment, and taking into account the unification of human inclusiveness and difference.48 Second, the property rights standard with capital or quantitative indicators as the core cannot be used to measure real development, which must establish a human rights standard with “the people” as the core, truly achieve development for the people, and ensure that the fruits of development are shared by the people, so as to achieve the free and well-rounded development of everyone.
A. Unification of inclusiveness and differentiation
“Prosperity” represents the enrichment of material and spiritual interests, while “common” signifies the actual subject of enjoyment. Without “prosperity,” “common” becomes common poverty; without “common,” “prosperity” entails a huge disparity between the rich and the poor.49 If fairness and justice are the formal value pursuit of common prosperity, the free and well-rounded development of the people should be its core value orientation. Therefore, some scholars have divided justice into “inclusive justice” and “differentiated justice.”50 The former emphasizes the basic “equal treatment,” which means that the basic dignity and basic life bottom line of every social member can be guaranteed, including the equality for social members in basic rights, such as the right to survival, development, education, etc. The latter emphasizes basic “free development,” and protection for the diverse needs and development space of social members. The two are mutually complementary and can be continuously improved with social development.
However, common prosperity does not mean that there is no difference between individuals, nor does sharing by all the people mean absolutely equal shares. Instead, it is necessary to manage the gap between the rich and the poor within a reasonable range while ensuring that everyone gets their due. In implementing social equity embodying the “principle of the greatest majority” and “bottom-line coverage” embodying social security principles, the development rights and interests of the “least benefitted” should be taken into account with the principle of differentiation.51 Excessive emphasis on improving the “most disadvantaged” social members and human similarity may suppress or restrict the free growth of other social members, thus suffocating social vitality and creativity. That is the strongest refutation of “leveling” by egalitarians, since it not only harms the interests of other members of society, but also does not improve the position of the socially disadvantaged.52 On the contrary, excessive emphasis on differential development can seriously lead to social injustice. In particular, in the process of rapid economic development, the disorderly expansion of capital and the one-sided pursuit of profits driven by speculation can seriously affect the satisfaction of the people’s needs in such areas as housing, education, healthcare, and employment, and the overall anxiety over inequality and imbalance in society will generally increase. The reason is that in reality, the economically dominant party will shift from a freedom to control things to a freedom to control people. Whoever owns the means of production can dominate the labor force. The freedom of contract, which is linked to the freedom of property, is the dominant freedom of those favorably positioned in society and the dependence of the socially disadvantaged.53 If the favorably positioned have control over both things and people, there would be factual inequality. Therefore, the “common” in “common prosperity” means that the development fruits of the Chinese path to modernization can benefit all the people and effectively improve the living standards and development rights of all social members; “prosperity” means respecting the free development requirements of all social members, providing them with sufficient room for development, and stimulating positive vitality within society. The concept embodies the justice of the path for social members to obtain wealth, and also guarantees the maximum interests and feasible abilities of the vulnerable groups in society, thereby narrowing the wealth gap in shared development and gradually aligning abstract equality with factual equality.
B. Enhancing the subjective initiative of the people
Common prosperity always adheres to giving play to the subjective initiative of the people.54 The practical concept of “all the people, well-rounded, result sharing and joint construction” for promoting common prosperity means that people are no longer “materialistic,” “rigid” and “unidirectional,” but are “dynamic,” “comprehensive” and “multi-dimensional.” The realization of individual rights must be based on the individual demands and subjective initiative of the beneficiaries. Dworkin once proposed two ethical principles of human dignity: first, the principle of intrinsic value, which means that there is a special objective value to everyone’s life, and everyone should take their own life seriously; second, the principle of personal responsibility, which means that individuals should bear the primary responsibility for achieving success in life.55 Those two principles mean that everyone has an inherent value and dignity in life, which demands that they live a meaningful life, give due respect to the lives of others and take pride in living meaningfully. From the perspective of human rights, common prosperity does not mean to hinder people’s free development, but to guarantee it from the perspective of individual demands, so that everyone can choose their own free life and development path.
In the “people-centered” subject positioning, common prosperity always cherishes the realistic needs of people for survival, life and development, and always upholds the two basic value orientations of “equality” and “development.” First, based on the concept of equality or the concept of inclusive justice, it allows all members of society to share the fruits of social development. In particular, priority is given to basic livelihood issues, including social security, compulsory education, public health, employment, and housing security, thus forming a “full-coverage” and “inclusive” livelihood security system, and enhancing the basic and premise significance of “social solidarity.” Second, based on the concept of development or the concept of differentiated justice, it seeks to provide sufficient conditions and space for the free development of every social member, emphasize that the due for social members as individuals should be linked with their subjective initiative, thus enhancing the “social vitality” of individuals, and enabling them to have the conditions and rights of free development. That concept not only contributes to the solidarity and integration of the whole society on the basis of equality, but also stimulates the vitality and creativity of all individuals on the path of free development. Although all people are born equal and have equal dignity and basic rights, “they are born different,” and everyone has specific needs and abilities. Therefore, while basic life continues to improve, people’s independent awareness and independent room of choice are also increasing. If the differences between people are ignored, the importance of freedom will be lost, and the value of being humans will be reduced. Once the concept of shared development becomes the “only” absolute interpretation, it will exert a serious negative impact on the country and individuals.56
The shift of the people’s growing needs from “material culture” to “a better life” reflects the shift in the new development of socialism with Chinese characteristics to solve the new needs of the people, and the diverse social life may be the objective premise of the people’s choice under given historical conditions. The interests and needs of the people constitute the internal basis of their choices, which will have an impact on the direction, goals and methods of the development of their future social life, and prompt them to make new choices.57 This is a historical process from shirking “human dependence” and “material dependence” to embracing “free individuality.”58 The shared development implied by common prosperity is to truly provide full freedom for all, not only enhancing the bottom-line livelihood construction from the perspective of equality, but also ensuring the differentiated development of everyone from the perspective of freedom, so as to achieve universal and well-rounded development of personal relationships and abilities. The excessively large gap between the rich and the poor will not only damage the material living standards of certain social groups, but also shake the social foundation for people to become better citizens by participating in public life. Just as a scholar has pointed out, “as inequality gradually deepens, the rich will withdraw from public spaces and services, leaving them to those who cannot afford to consume anything else.” When public institutions such as schools, parks, playgrounds, and community centers cease to be places where different social classes meet, places for the public to gather and serving as civic morality education will become increasingly fewer, and the people will become increasingly estranged from each other. The void of the public sphere makes it difficult to cultivate the solidarity and sense of community underpinning a good society.”59
V. Conclusion
The report to the 20th CPC National Congress pointed out that “the immutable goal of our modernization drive is to meet the people’s aspirations for a better life. We will endeavor to maintain and promote social fairness and justice, bring prosperity to all, and prevent polarization.” Common prosperity in the new era manifests how China solves the contradiction between people’s needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development, and reflects its attitude in addressing common world problems such as social differentiation and the gap between the rich and the poor. If “the right to subsistence and the right to development are the primary basic human rights” and “the people’s happy life is the greatest human right,” then the process from “the fundamental” to “the greatest” requires solid efforts to promote“common prosperity,” since the people’s happiness and promoting of well-rounded development can be achieved through “common prosperity.”
(Translated by QIAN Chuijun)
* ZHANG Han ( 张晗 ), Lecturer at the Law Teaching and Research Department of the Party School of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee (Chongqing Academy of Governance), Doctor of Laws. This article is a phased result of “General Secretary Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights,” a major project of the 2022 National Social Science Foundation (22&ZD004).
1. Xi Jinping, “Making Solid Progress Toward Common Prosperity,” Qiushi 20 (2021).
2. Ibid.
3. Institute of Party History and Literature of CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights (Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2021), 45.
4. Xi Jinping, “Speech at the Conference to Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the CPC,” People’s Daily, July 2, 2021, page 1.
5. Li Lin, “Strengthening the Rule of Law Guarantee for People’s Common Prosperity in the New Era,” Democracy and Legal System 1 (2022).
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7. Institute of Party History and Literature of CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights (Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2021), 50.
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9. Refer to Lin Shangli, “People-based Democracy and Its Practices in China”, CASS Journal of Political Science 3 (2016).
10. Institute of Party History and Literature of CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights (Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2021), 67.
11. Ibid., 66.
12. Ibid., 57.
13. Ibid., 58.
14. Ibid., 66.
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