Acceptance Speech for World Marxian Economics Award (II)

Abstract

May 24, 2014It is a great honor to receive the World Marxian Economics Award in 2014, which encourages me and warms me.In October 1935, I was born in Rugao County, Jiangsu Province. My father worked as a clerk. In such a family, I grew with books. When I was 16 years old, and a sophomore in high school, I leftmy hometown and transferred to Jiangsu Finance and Economics School, and have been devoting myself to the study of economics ever since. In 1953, I graduated with honors and started to work in Jiangsu Provincial Bureau of Industry.In 1956, I was admitted by Fudan University as a cadre student through the enrollment program for advancing science and technology advocated by the CPC Central Committee and State Council. Political economy was my major. From 1961 to 1964, I worked as a graduate student under the supervision of Professor Jiang Xuemo, focusing on socialist economic theory. After that, I began to teach at Fudan University. My research covered Das Kapital, price theory, socialist economic theory, comparative economic theory, economic interest theory and practice, and coordinative economic theory and practice.I served in Fudan University as Dean in the Department of Economics and its chair of the degree committee. I also earlier served in a lot of academic positions, such as Director of Postdoctoral Program for Theoretical Economics at Fudan University, advisory member of National Social Science Foundation, Vice President of the Association of Das Kapital in China, Honorary President of Association of Das Kapital Studies in Chinese Universities, Director of Fanhai Books in Fudan University, editorial board Director in World Economic Papers, distinguished research fellow at the Academy of Marxism (CASS). My publications include over 50 books and textbooks and more than 300 papers, with awards at national and provincial levels.I am turning 80 years old this year and could soon be tagged as a member of the post-80s generation. In the past 60 years, I have worked for the advancement of Marxist Economics, being awarded many times in spite of my humble achievement, which mostly fall into two areas.The first one is the study of Das Kapital, which includes three volumes of Lecture Notes on Das Kapital, four volumes of New Textbook on Das Kapital, A Brief Textbook on Das Kapital, Exploration of Hard Problems in Das Kapital, and Popular Das Kapital. In a century beginning with global financial crisis, Marx and his Das Kapital attracted the public attention again, hence the reprint of my Popular Das Kapital, which was selected by the Propaganda Department of CPC Central Committee as the outstanding popularized theoretical work for the public, making it more visible to Chinese readers. Also, the articles I published in newspapers and journals were put together as a small book entitled On Das Kapital. In my opinion, there is still a long way to go in the studies and propagation of Das Kapital by Karl Marx.The second area is my systematic studies of economic interest in the socialist market economy, which contribute to the Marxist economic theory. Results of my studies and my team's research appeared in the form of the Economic Interest Series (consisting of 8 books), Contemporary Economic Interest Series (consisting of 12 books) and Sharing Interest, etc. There are also papers published in newspapers and magazines that are to be collected for a booklet entitled On Interest.I view our findings as systematic thought on interest relations in Chinese society, consisting of 6 aspects with 60 propositions.The first aspect is on theory and practice of social interest, consisting of 10 propositions: (1) Interest is the sum total of material wealth and spiritual wealth that meets people's needs; (2) Interest is eternal while social interest relations are always changing; (3) Interest is at the core of all social relations; (4) Social interest is a multi-dimensioned totality; (5) The value of interest is the measure that quantifies social interest; (6) Evolution of social interest relations is bound by certain Law; (7) Fundamental interest of the people is the beginning and ending point of all our work; (8) Social interest relation is the major problem in the internal contradiction among people; (9) Coordinating social interest relations is a key to building a socialist harmonious society; (10) Marxists always pay special attention to social interest relations. …