For thousands of years, the good faith of the Chinese nation has been to achieve common prosperity, which remains the unwavering goal of the CPC. In the new era and on the new journey, while advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese modernization on all fronts, prioritizing the advancement of common prosperity for all should be increasingly emphasized, thereby transforming individuals’ aspirations for a better quality of life into tangible realities.

Connotations of common prosperity

Common prosperity requires making the economic pie bigger and distributing it well. On one hand, making the pie bigger is a prerequisite for promoting common prosperity. This determines that we must firmly grasp development as the key to solving all of China’s problems. On the premise of fully, accurately, and comprehensively implementing the new development philosophy, we should guide industrial transformation and upgrading with scientific and technological innovation, allowing all sources of social wealth creation to fully flow, and providing a solid material foundation for achieving common prosperity. On the other hand, market mechanisms cannot automatically solve issues of social equity, and distributive fairness is the key to common prosperity. Only by establishing a fair and reasonable income distribution system can we effectively redress the phenomenon of “market failure,” enhance efficiency with social equity, continue to expand the pie, and create more social wealth. In this process, the relationships between “prosperity” and “common,” between making the pie bigger and dividing the pie better, are of dialectical unity.

Common prosperity encompasses both material and cultural-ethical abundance. To achieve this goal, it is important to focus on building a strong foundation for material prosperity, improving the conditions for people to live a better and more fulfilling life, and vigorously promoting the development of an advanced socialist culture. It is equally important to achieve a high degree of unity between the comprehensive enrichment of material wealth and the all-round development of the people.

Common prosperity is the dialectical unity of goals and processes. Common prosperity is not only a developmental process, but also a long-term goal that cannot be rushed or waited for. As long as we continue to make incremental advances, we will be able to achieve common prosperity for all.

Common prosperity is also the dialectical unity of totality and multiple levels. It is for the entire society. Meanwhile, achieving common prosperity is a long-term historical process, which must be continuously promoted.

Multiple measures

Achievements of poverty alleviation must be consolidated and expanded as we strive to bring common prosperity to rural areas and residents. The most arduous task of promoting common prosperity remains in rural areas. The key to this is to comprehensively promote rural revitalization.

High-quality development should be promoted so as to focus on addressing the issue of imbalanced and insufficient development. Development is fundamental for solving all problems, particularly for those arising from development itself. On the new journey, addressing the issue of imbalanced and insufficient development requires strengthening the systematic and targeted approach, and actively expanding new space for development.

The upward mobility channels should be streamlined and the scale of middle-income groups continuously expanded. It is necessary to open up social mobility channels for those who work hard to become prosperous, create more development opportunities for more people, and form a development environment for everyone to participate in and enjoy. Opening up social channels for upward mobility is objectively conducive to expanding the size of the middle-income group. China’s current middle-income population is over 400 million, and it is expected that by 2035, when China basically realizes socialist modernization, the middle-income group will exceed 800 million, and the main foundation for common prosperity will be greatly consolidated.

The distribution system and social welfare system should be improved to provide effective institutional support for common prosperity. In order to promote common prosperity, it is important to build a coordinated system for primary, secondary and tertiary distribution. While enhancing the social welfare system at all levels, we must balance social equity and economic efficiency. We should utilize the social security system to effectively support the progress towards common prosperity by maximizing social welfare and resource allocation benefits on a fair basis.

Ren Jie is a research fellow from the Academy of Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.