Onthe“PhilosophicalDimension”ofMarx’sTheoryofSocialFormation

HE Laia,b,WU Shan-shana

(JilinUniversitya.CollegeofPhilosophyandSociology;b.ResearchCenterforBasicTheoryofPhilosophy,Changchun130012,China)

Abstract:Marx’s theory of social formation plays a significant role in understanding Marx’s historical materialism. Marx’s theory of social formation has been traditionally understood from the perspective of positivism, which resulted in its true meaning being hidden invisibly. In order to avoid this problem, the “philosophical dimension” of Marx’s theory of social formation must be emphasized. Marx’s theory of social formation can be understood from a philosophical perspective in three ways: firstly, transcending the fragmented understanding of social form by positivism is considered as a “total philosophical category” containing “structural totality” and “historical totality”; secondly, transcending positive intellectual way of thinking provides a dialectical way of thinking that conforms to its characteristics, such as contradiction, historicality and negativity in order to grasp the concept of the “total structure of society”; finally, going beyond positivism’s “value-neutral” and “value-free” value interests, theory of social formation shows the value interests consistent with a dialectical critical thinking position, namely, that value concerns for realistic people and their historical development.

Keywords:Theory of Social Formation; Philosophical Dimension; Totality; Dialectical Thinking; Realistic Person

FiscalRevenueBudgetPerformanceEvaluationofLocalGovernmentinChina:Basis,System,andResults

LI Ming, YAO Xue-hui, WANG Shuai

(SchoolofInternationalTradeandEconomics,UniversityofInternationalBusinessandEconomics,Being100029,China)

Abstract:The government budget reflects a country’s strategies and policies. Fiscal revenue is an important part of the budget, and its performance reveals the effectiveness of relevant strategies and policies. This paper systematically sorts out the theory and policy of fiscal revenue performance evaluation. Then, based on the connotation of budget performance management, the deployment of fiscal and taxation system reform, and the orientation of fiscal policy, this paper constructs an indicator system from three dimensions, including tax burden adjustment, fiscal revenue quality, and debt risk, to evaluate the fiscal revenue performance of each province from 2016 to 2020. The research finds out that: (1) The performance level of the local revenue budget in China showed an inverted U-shaped trend, and it declined after 2018. (2) There is a certain correlation between the revenue budget performance and economic development level. The performance of the eastern region is generally better than that of the central and western regions, but there are also some outliers in each region. (3) The low quality of fiscal revenue and the accumulation of debt risks are the main factors that drag down the current performance of local fiscal revenue. This paper suggests that the fiscal revenue budget performance evaluation should be further deepened so that it can form a joint force with the fiscal expenditure performance evaluation to provide a strong guarantee for national governance. In addition, the government must be highly vigilant of the declining performance of the local fiscal budget in recent years and deepen reforms targeting weakness and risks.

Keywords:Revenue Budget Performance Evaluation; Revenue Quality; Debt Risk; Tax Burden Regulation