The role and function of the government in the pre-capitalist period
The role and function of government in the period of free capitalism
The role and function of the government in the period of monopoly capitalism
The role and function of the government in contemporary capitalist countries
The role and function of the government in the pre-capitalist period
In the slave society and feudal society before the capitalist society, due to the underdeveloped social division of labor, low productivity level, self-sufficiency in production, scattered ethnic residence, underdeveloped transportation and communication, and farmers' dependence on land under the feudal system, a few social affairs were solved by themselves in a decentralized state.
Under the condition of natural economy, the government's functions are mainly limited to "defending against aggression" and "maintaining peace" and maintaining state rule. It shows that the function of political rule is extremely strengthened and the function of social management is relatively weakened.
The role and function of government in the era of free capital
After human society entered the stage of capitalist development, large-scale machinery industry replaced manual workshops as the main production form. Due to the development of commodity production and commodity exchange, the expansion of city scale and the development of transportation and communication, people's demand for public affairs and public affairs is increasing day by day.
In the meantime, Adam? Smith's economic theory and free competition market economy are dominant, and the social and economic operation is mainly regulated by the "invisible hand" of the market, without excessive government intervention. Therefore, the government only acts as a "night watchman", providing only the most basic core products such as legal system and property rights protection, and leaving the rest to the market to adjust.
Adam, a British classical economist? Based on the hypothesis of rational economic man, Smith demonstrated the effectiveness of market mechanism. It is believed that "self-interested lubricating oil will make the economic gear work miraculously, without the rule of planning and heads of state, and the market will solve all problems."
So, Adam, Smith advocated a laissez-faire market economy and opposed government intervention in social and economic life.
In a free market economy country, the "night watchman" has five government functions:
Safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity; To formulate and implement laws to maintain basic social order; Defining and protecting property rights; Supervise the implementation of the contract; Maintain the value of the national currency.
The government management in this period adhered to the creed that "the government with less management is the better government" and did not directly interfere with social and economic activities.
The role and function of government in the era of monopoly capital
After human society entered the 20th century, free competition capitalism turned into monopoly capitalism. Due to the deepening of the internal contradictions of capitalism and "market failure", a serious economic crisis broke out in western countries in the 1930s.
In this case, Keynesian economic theory and the idea of government intervention in the economy prevailed. Therefore, after World War II, western governments have stepped up their direct intervention in economic and social affairs to varying degrees to make up for the shortage of the market and correct the failure of the market.
Keynesianism believes that the market is not omnipotent. Without the macro-management of the country, the market economy will become an evil resource, and resources will be destroyed and destroyed. Therefore, the government should not only act as a passive protector of social order, but should actively intervene in social and economic life.
Roosevelt's New Deal initiated the government's strong intervention in social economy, and thus ended the era of laissez-faire capitalism.
Facing the economic depression in 1930s, American President Roosevelt stepped up his intervention in social and economic life, and promulgated and implemented a series of new policies, including the Emergency Banking Act, the Savings Act, the Beer Act, the Agriculture Act, the Unemployment Relief Act, the Industrial Recovery Act, the Work-for-Welfare Act, the Social Security Act and the Tax Reform Act.
Other western governments have also stepped up their intervention in economic and social affairs to promote economic recovery.
The functions of governments in monopoly capitalist countries to intervene in the economy and correct market failures mainly include:
Providing public goods and services;
Stabilize the macro economy;
Adjust social income and wealth distribution;
Eliminate the negative externalities of the economy;
Maintain the market order of fair competition;
Make up for the incompleteness of the market and the asymmetry of information.
Due to the comprehensive intervention of the government, the functions and scale of the government are expanding and the financial expenditure is increasing.
The Role and Function of Contemporary Capitalist Government
Contemporary western scholars neither approve of liberalism that the government only assumes the function of night watchman, nor of interventionism that the government fully intervenes in the economy, but advocate selective intervention in "market failure".
They believe that "the government is not a cow fed from the sky and milk produced on the ground", and the government will fail like the market. Government failures include rampant bureaucracy, low administrative efficiency, rampant official privileges, self-expansion of institutions, high management costs, sharp increase in fiscal deficit, serious abuse of power for personal gain, and a large amount of financial funds being pocketed by special interest groups. Therefore, using "failed government" to intervene in "failed market" is bound to add insult to injury.
The market is out of order and the government is out of order, so how should we choose?
Research Report of RAND Corporation, Market or Government —— Weighing Two Imperfect Options (Inspection? Wolff presided over the completion) concluded that:
We should not only let the government play a role in improving and expanding the market, but also use market forces to improve government functions. In other words, the government is used to make up for market defects and the market is used to overcome government failures.
To sum up the views of this school, there are mainly:
The market has failed, and so has the government. Government failure is not only manifested in the further failure of the market due to excessive state intervention in the economy, but also in the failure of the market to operate normally due to insufficient state intervention in the economy.
The government can only intervene in the fundamental failure of the market, but not in the non-fundamental defects.
The government should use the market to intervene in the economy.
The development trend of government functions in contemporary capitalist countries
Government functions are gradually expanding.
In the past two centuries, especially since World War II, the functions of western governments have expanded rapidly. Due to the rapid development of social economy, there are more and more social affairs and government activities to adapt to higher social development. This is Wagner's law.
/kloc-Wagner, a German economist in the 0/9th century, believes that in order to meet higher social development, government activities will inevitably increase. His assertion is called "the law of increasing national activities", which has been constantly confirmed by the development process of all countries in the world.
The political function in the government function system is relatively weakened.
In the early government function system, political function occupied an important proportion, and the main duty and task of the government was to suppress internally, expand externally or safeguard the special interests of the ruling class. The social management function of the government is regarded as a necessary supplement to the implementation of political rule, which obeys and serves political rule.
However, the function of political rule can only control social contradictions and conflicts, but not eliminate them.
The ruling class is increasingly aware that the bipolar opposition between the ruler and the ruled will eventually harm the interests of the ruler. At the same time, with the development of social productive forces and the substantial increase of social material resources, the ruling class can provide more distribution shares for all social classes and strata, so that class contradictions and class confrontation can be relatively eased. Although the government's political ruling function still exists, its form is more subtle.
Due to the increase of social affairs, the government's social management function is constantly strengthened and expanded, which makes the government's political function show a weakening trend.
Socialization of social public affairs management function.
After all, the government's management ability is limited. With the explosion of social affairs, the government feels powerless in many aspects. At the same time, with the development and progress of social economy, the improvement of cultural quality and the increase of leisure time of social members provide the possibility for them to participate in the management of social affairs. In this case, the government is forced to hand over the management right of some social affairs to the society and concentrate on what it should, has the ability and manages well.
At present, many western countries privatize the management of public affairs and entrust public services or some government functions to private organizations or private management.
The Japanese government entrusts public affairs such as sanitation, maintenance of public facilities and school construction to local governments, non-governmental organizations or private individuals. Except for social welfare facilities, about 80% of other public affairs are entrusted.
About 35% local governments in the United States put private companies in charge of collecting urban garbage, and 42% local governments use private enterprises to operate urban public transport systems.
In recent years, social intermediary organizations have sprung up widely in western countries, which is an important embodiment of the socialization trend of social public affairs management functions.
Through macro-coordination, the government returns some management functions of public affairs to the society, and social organizations replace the government to manage them, thus realizing the socialization of social functions, which is a new feature and trend in the development of contemporary government functions.
Macro-control and comprehensive coordination functions have been enhanced.
Western governments attach great importance to strengthening the macro-control function and comprehensive coordination function of the government while implementing the socialization of social public affairs management functions.
Governments around the world generally strengthen macro-control and comprehensive coordination departments, and establish and improve comprehensive coordination mechanisms. The Presidential Palace of the United States, the Cabinet Committee of the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Finance, the Presidential Palace of France and the Ministry of Economic Planning are all important departments that undertake macro-control and comprehensive coordination functions.
Governments all over the world generally attach importance to the comprehensive application of planning means, economic means and legal means.
On the one hand, the government predicts the development prospect of the national economy by making guiding plans, and provides comprehensive information on government economic policies and market development prospects to social and economic organizations;
On the other hand, the government regulates the market through economic and legal means such as budget adjustment, monetary and financial adjustment and price adjustment, so as to ensure the normal operation of the market and the fairness and legitimacy of competition.
(B) the transformation of China government functions in the transition period
The meaning of the transformation of government functions
The content of the transformation of government functions
The key to the transformation of government functions
Measures for the transformation of government functions
The transformation of government functions refers to the adjustment and transfer of the scope, content and methods of government responsibilities in a certain period of time according to the needs of economic and social development.
The fundamental reason for the transformation of China's government functions is the fundamental change of economic system and China's entry into WTO.
Due to the transformation of economic system from planned economy to market economy, the original allocation of government functions, the establishment of government institutions and the operation mode of government administration, which are based on planned economy and adapt to it, have completely failed to meet the requirements of market economy, and must be changed in accordance with the requirements of socialist market economy.
China has joined the WTO, and the allocation of functions of the China government must meet the requirements of the WTO, and those that are not suitable must be adjusted and changed according to the requirements of the WTO.
The allocation of government functions, the establishment of government institutions and the operation mode of government administration are compatible with the planned economic system;
The planned economy system does not adapt to the market economy system;
The allocation of government functions, the establishment of government institutions and the operation mode of government administration are incompatible with the market economic system.
The content of the transformation of government functions: the transformation of the center of gravity of government functions
The change of the focus of government work is determined by the change of basic social contradictions.
In the early days of the People's Republic of China, class function was the focus of government functions. Subsequently, with the changes of the main social contradictions, the focus of government functions gradually shifted from class functions to social management functions.
The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to shift the focus of the Party and the state to the track of modernization centered on economic construction.
Judging from the development trend, the government's function of managing social affairs will gradually change from focusing on economic functions to paying equal attention to economic and other social affairs management functions, so as to promote the coordinated and orderly development of economy and society.
The transformation of the content of government functions
The adjustment and change of government management content is an objective requirement for developing socialist market economy and realizing the optimization of government functions and scientific management.
According to the requirements of the socialist market economy, the government should return the functions that do not belong to itself to enterprises, institutions and social intermediary organizations to prevent government functions from being "offside"; Return your own functions to the government, avoid the "absence" of government functions, and realize the readjustment and combination of the functions of the government and other non-governmental organizations. Through this functional transformation, we can find the position of the government in the management of social public affairs.
The transformation of government function relationship
That is, the re-division and distribution of functions between vertical levels and horizontal departments within the government system.
The division and allocation of the functions of the central and local governments should be based on the principle of necessary centralization and appropriate decentralization, rationally divide the functional scope of the central and local governments, and clarify their respective rights and responsibilities.
All the management functions of state affairs and state public affairs should be exercised by the central government, and the corresponding institutional setup, staffing and fund payment should also be undertaken by the central government.
All the functions of local public affairs management should be exercised by local governments, and the corresponding institutional setup, staffing and fund payment should be borne by local governments.
The division and allocation of functions between horizontal departments should be based on the principle that the same or similar functions should be undertaken by one department, and the functions between various government functional departments should be rationally divided and allocated to form a coordinated, complete and unified departmental functional system.
The transformation of government function mode
The transformation of government management mode is the requirement of market economy.
China implements a socialist market economy system, and the market plays a fundamental role in resource allocation under the macro-control of the state. This requires a fundamental change in the way the government manages:
From micro-management to macro-management
From direct management to indirect management
From product-oriented departmental management to industry-oriented management.
From relying mainly on administrative means to relying mainly on economic and legal means.
From emphasizing the plan to ignoring the market to the organic combination of plan and market.
From simple management to management service.
Through such a functional transformation, we can truly separate the functions of government and enterprise, political affairs, government and society, and do their own duties.
Government agencies mainly manage national economic and social affairs through overall planning, grasping policies, information guidance, organization and coordination, providing services, inspection and supervision. , so as to realize macro-control and micro-release.
Perfection and development of government functions
The specific functions of the government in managing state and social affairs should be continuously expanded and improved with the development of society and economy. This is determined by social and economic development.
When some new social affairs need government management in social and economic development, the government must add some new functions to meet the needs of social and economic development.
The key to the transformation of government functions is the separation of government from enterprise.
The separation of government from enterprise is the inherent requirement of establishing a socialist market economic system, the key to the transformation of government functions, and the necessary condition for the success of government institutional reform.
The separation of government from enterprise means the separation of government's social responsibility and enterprise's social responsibility, the separation of enterprise's ownership and management right, and the separation of government's state-owned assets owner function and administrative management function.
Measures for the transformation of government functions
Remove the administrative subordination relationship between the competent government departments and the directly affiliated economic entities and enterprises.
Government departments no longer directly manage enterprises, and no longer interfere in the production, operation and investment decisions of enterprises.
At the same time, the government should undertake social affairs separated from enterprises and solve the specific problems of enterprises running society.
Reduce the government's professional economic departments and various administrative companies and develop social intermediary organizations.
The reduction of professional economic departments and administrative companies is to fundamentally cancel the superior competent department that manages enterprises and turn enterprises into non-competent enterprises.
During the transition period, some professional economic departments can be retained, whose main functions are to formulate industry plans and guide the adjustment of product structure in the industry.
Judging from the historical changes of fiscal expenditure structure, the key changes of state functions have gone through three stages: in the early days of liberation, the independence and security functions of the state were very prominent; From 65438 to 0953, before the reform and opening up, the national economic construction function occupied a dominant position; Since the reform and opening up, the social management function of the country has become more and more important.
We should actively cultivate and develop social intermediary organizations. In the future, the industry development and industry self-discipline of enterprises should be mainly managed by industry associations.
Strengthen and improve the supervision mode of state-owned enterprises
Implement the special inspector system in key state-owned enterprises.
In some places or fields, send representatives to participate in the board of supervisors of enterprises.