Research on Mixed Ownership Reform of State-Owned Enterprises from the Perspective of Marxist Political Economy

Under China’s socialist system,state-owned enterprises are key forces driving the economic trajectory and providing strong momentum.These enterprises not only bear the crucial responsibility of advancing the process of national modernization but also serve as the core of the national economic lifeline through their irreplaceable status and function amidst changing times.In the new era,with the advent of the technological revolution and the wave of globalization,state-owned enterprises face unprecedented opportunities and challenges.As a significant aspect of state-owned enterprise reform,the mixed ownership reform is not only a transformation in the structure of enterprise ownership but also a reflection of China’s broader,comprehensive reform efforts.By deeply advancing this reform,it will help optimize the allocation of state-owned assets and significantly boost technological and management innovation within state-owned enterprises,ensuring their competitiveness in the intense market environment.Therefore,this paper will conduct an in-depth analysis of the mixed ownership reform of state-owned enterprises from the perspective of Marxist political economy.

Research on Financial Performance of State-owned Enterprise Mixed Ownership Reform

Mixed ownership is an important form of realization of China＇s economic system reform and development, and it is also the main direction of state-owned enterprise reform. In order to further promote the deepening of the reform of mixed ownership, this paper randomly selects 200 listed state-owned enterprises as research objects, and studies the trends of the financial performance of these enterprises from the mixed state-owned enterprises and non-mixed-modification enterprises in the five years from 2013 to 2017, and compares their various trends. Financial indicators, a comprehensive evaluation of the problems and causes in the reform of the mixed ownership system, and then propose countermeasures to further deepen the reform of mixed ownership based on the research conclusions.

Mixed-ownership Reform:Private Firms’Role in Targeted Poverty Alleviation-A Perspective on Resource Complementarity and Check&Balance

Targeted poverty alleviation(TPA)serves as a winning formula for fighting poverty and has generated valuable experiences for achieving common prosperity.The mixed-ownership reform has enhanced corporate economic performance.However,further testing is required to assess whether enterprises contribute to the improvement of distribution by participating in TPA.Taking A-share-listed private enterprises between 2016 and 2021 as research samples,we conducted an investigation into the extent and manner in which the mixed-ownership reform contributes to TPA.Our research reveals that a higher proportion of state capital equity participation is correlated with a greater level of private enterprises’contribution to TPA.This indicates that the mixed-ownership reform is beneficial for prompting private enterprises to shoulder responsibilities for building a society of common prosperity.As shown by the mechanism test,state capital equity participation encourages private enterprises to contribute to TPA primarily by alleviating corporate financing constraints through the resource complementarity effect.In contrast,the check&balance effect of promoting corporate poverty alleviation by mitigating the principal-agent problem has not yet been significantly demonstrated.Regarding the poverty alleviation model,state capital equity participation prompts private enterprises to contribute to TPA through industrial development,educational investment,and environmental protection,emphasizing a combination of providing external assistance and cultivating endogenous development capacity.In terms of TPA regions,state capital equity participation plays a significant role in supporting economically less-developed regions,regions with high unemployment rates,and central and western regions.This paper provides new empirical evidence for deepening mixed-ownership reforms and advancing common prosperity.

Building State-owned Assets Supervision System and Conducting Mixed Ownership Reforms to Reinforce Each Other’s Collaboration

Improving the state-owned assets supervision system(SOASS)can effectively get over the defects of systems and mechanisms and further promote the reform of mixed ownership of state-owned enterprises(SOEs);and the deepening of the reform can advance the change of the SOASS to the supervision on capital.By analyzing the relationship between the SOASS and the reform of mixed ownership of state-owned enterprises,we have found that collaborative promotion of the change of the SOASS to the supervision on capital and promotion of the reform of mixed ownership can do good to ameliorating the corporate management mechanism,improving the market-oriented management mechanism of enterprises and completing the medium-and long-term incentive mechanisms,etc.to enhance business operation efficiency.Due to such prevailing problems as relative dispersion and vagueness of the policies relating to deepening the reform of SOEs,inconsistent progress of the reform of state-owned assets(SOAs)and SOEs,and corporate reform focusing on apprence,improving the SOASS and deepening collaborative development of the reform of mixed ownership of SOEs are hindered by some constraints.To construct and improve the SOASS and the reform of mixed ownership collaboratively,we should make efforts to promote the reform in the following five aspects,namely,placing importance to policy coordination,boosting synchronism of the reform of SOAs and SOEs at different levels and in different areas to coordinate the nationwide reform of SOAs and SOEs,facilitating reform of the mechanism of enterprises of mixed ownership through mixed capital,and promoting the SOASS and stimulating classified monitoring and reform of mixed ownership based on classified reform of SOEs.

The CPC’s Century-Long Exploration of a Socialist Ownership System

Throughout its century-long history,the Communist Party of China(CPC)has been striving to explore and implement an ownership system of the means of production.Upon its founding in 1921,the Party envisioned to create a sole ownership system after the victory of the National Revolution.In war times,land issues dominated the agenda of the Party’s work on the ownership structure since most of its bases and liberated areas were in the countryside.After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949,China established a basic socialist economic system through“one industrialization and three transformations,”i.e.socialist industrialization and the transformations of agriculture,artisanal production,and capitalist industry and commerce.This nascent socialist economic system was characterized by the sole public ownership of the means of production and a highly centralized planned economy.Since the reform and opening up in 1978,the Party took bold steps to explore and reform the socialist ownership system under the principle to keep public ownership as the mainstay and allow diverse forms of ownership to develop side by side.In the new era,the Party has redefined China’s basic socialist economic system by creating a mixed ownership structure at two levels with public ownership as the mainstay.China’s increasing economic vitality and dynamism have witnessed the exploration and growth of this mixed ownership system.

Tasks and Priorities for Comprehensively Deepening Reform of China’s State Sector of Economy

The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee ushered in a new chapter of China＇s comprehensive deepening of reform. The basic objective of comprehensively deepening reform of the state sector of economy in the new chapter is to fully integrate this sector with a sophisticated market economic system with the market playing the decisive role in resource allocation. In order to achieve this objective, China is confronted with the four major priorities of adjusting the functions and layout of the state sector of economy according to national mandates, expediting the mixed ownership reform, creating a classified and multi- tiered new system for the administration of the sector, and developing a modern corporate system for SOEs to ensure an efficient micro-level governance mechanism for the sector. （1） The functions of the different types of SOEs should be accurately defined and SOEs should be divided into the three types of public policy SOEs, functional SOEs, and commercial SOEs. This classification forms the premises for reforming the state sector of economy. Based on the functions of the three types of SOEs, the directions and emphases for strategic adjustment should differ as well. （2） The mixed ownership reform should adhere to the methodological principles of combining top-down and bottom-up approaches, implementing pilot programs, and promoting coordinated progress. Practical implementation should ensure fair and standard reform procedures, reform programs consistent with laws and regulations, open and fair equity transfers, as well as fair and transparent internal distributions. The mixed ownership reform of SOEs should introduce the employee stock ownership system and adhere to the principles of compatible incentives, shared growth, and long-term development. Monopolistic sectors should be transformed into competitive market structures to create conditions for the implementation of mixed ownership for SOEs. （3） The new system for the administration of the state sector of economy should comprise three hierarchies： the Commission for the Administration of State Economy at the top level, state capital operation companies or state capital investment companies at the intermediate level and general for-profit enterprises at the bottom level, which administer public policy, functional SOEs, and commercial SOEs respectively. （4） Under the new system for the administration of the state sector of economy characterized by the three hierarchies and categories, the key for perfecting the modern corporate system of SOEs is to establish a differentiated, classified governance mechanism, i.e., different corporate governance mechanisms should be created for SOEs of different functions and roles.

Breakthroughs on Fundamental Issues of Socialist Political Economy in China's Economic Reform

How to effectively integrate the basic economic system of the primary stage of socialism in which public ownership is the dominant and diverse economic sectors develop side by side with a resource allocation model in which the market plays a decisive role is a fundamental issue in building a socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.Western bourgeois economics and the traditional understanding of Marxist classical writers reject the possibility of such integration.In the transitional countries of Central and Eastern Europe,the practice and theoretical exploration of combining the two ended by abandoning public ownership.The fundamental feature of socialist economic reform practice with Chinese characteristics is to uphold their organic unity.This approach has already achieved great progress but at the same time is confronting a series of new problems.