An Outline of the Basic Economic Law of Socialism

This paper explores the three major tenets ofthe basic economic law of socialism in accordance with a three-tiered logical framework: the purpose of production, the methods of production, and the development trend of reproduction. Firstly, the labor-capital sharing contract dictates that the production purpose of state-owned enterprises must balance the individual interests of workers and the public interests. This enterprise production purpose, which encompasses the “complete interests of workers”, is added value. It is merely the manifestation in the form of value at the enterprise level of the social production purpose of “meeting the people’s growing expectation for a better life”. Secondly, there are two production methods for added value: absolute added value production and relative added value production. Among them, relative added value production is the most important means to achieve the socialist production purpose. Relative added value production is driven by innovation, enabling the continuous improvement of social productive forces. Finally, the distribution of innovation dividends in socialism takes into account both the overall and individual interests of workers, and maximiazes the interests of all the people through a balance between consumption and accumulation. This determines that the law of economic growth in socialism can only be as follows: economic growth drives up the consumption of workers; consumption growth promotes the improvement of workers’ capabilities; the improvement of workers’ capabilities drives the continuous acceleration of enterprise innovation, which in turn drives the continuous growth of the social economy. This is a process of virtuous cycle and spiral ascent, fundamentally different from the law of capital accumulation that the polarization of capitalism inevitably leads to economic crises.