Why the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects cannot be simplified into a limited set of indicators

In recent years, in order to assess the achievements of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and measure the distance from completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, some research institutions have proposed a system of indicators for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Measuring by such an indicator system can give people an intuitive view of the progress of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. But there is a tendency that requires great attention, namely the belief that completing these quantified indicators is equivalent to achieving the goal of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Is this attitude toward the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects scientific? Can the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects be merely simplified into a limited set of indicators?

The answer is no. A review of the process by which the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects was put forward makes it clear that building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is a goal that combines both quantitative and qualitative elements and is very rich in connotation. After entering the new century, after the living standards of our people generally reached the level of a moderately prosperous society, the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China established the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, making it clear that it is "a goal of comprehensive economic, political and cultural development of socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "a connecting stage of development that must be passed through to realize the third-step strategic goal of modernization." Around the economic, political, cultural and social development of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward new requirements for achieving the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further clarified the new requirements for completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, namely sustained and healthy economic development, continuous expansion of people's democracy, significantly enhanced cultural soft power, an all-round improvement in people's living standards, and major progress in building a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society. It can be seen that building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is in essence a stage-specific goal of China's modernization, covering the "four modernizations" of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology, and embodying the overall layout of the "five-sphere integrated plan" for building socialism with Chinese characteristics. Among the five aspects, some can be quantified, such as some goals in the economic and social aspects; some are difficult to quantify, such as some goals in the political and cultural aspects. Therefore, the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is a combination of quantitative and qualitative goals.

Although some goals in the economic and social aspects can be quantified, attention must be paid to guarding against two tendencies: first, treating quantitative goals in a simplistic way, which leads to lowering standards or even deviations. For example, with regard to the goal of doubling the per capita income of urban and rural residents by 2020 compared with 2010, one cannot focus only on the numbers. Because even if per capita income doubles, if the income gap is too large, there may be a problem of per capita income doubling while the number of poor people remains large. In that case, it cannot be said that the goal of "a moderately prosperous society at a higher level that benefits more than a billion people" has been achieved. Second, focusing only on limited goals, which leads to overgeneralization. Quantifying the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is for the sake of simplicity and intuitiveness in analysis, and only the relatively important and quantifiable parts can be selected. This practice of making choices and concretizing quantitative goals into certain indicators cannot comprehensively and accurately reflect and evaluate the actual progress of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

Some goals are inherently difficult to quantify, and if they are forcibly quantified, the effect will instead be poor. For example, many researchers have not included political development and cultural development in quantitative indicators, and even if some researchers try to quantify them, the indicators selected have great limitations. For another example, some quantitative indicators lack content on ecological civilization development, and if construction is carried out according to such indicators, it will lead to attaching importance to economic development and neglecting ecological and environmental protection. It must be recognized that the fact that some goals cannot be quantified or have not been quantified does not mean that these goals are unimportant. Building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is a whole under the "five-sphere integrated plan," and the five aspects interact with and condition one another; without any one aspect, it is impossible to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

Since there are goals that are difficult to quantify and the situation of quantifiable goals is also relatively complex, in practice special attention should be paid to preventing the tendency to simplify the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects into a limited set of indicators, and to avoiding the misleading effect of this tendency on building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. It should be seen even more clearly that the difficulty in completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects lies not in completing quantitative goals but in completing qualitative goals. If limited indicators are one-sidedly treated as the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, resulting in good completion of quantifiable goals and poor completion of non-quantifiable goals, there will be an awkward situation in which the completion of goals does not match the actual feelings of the people.

It should be seen that at present many places have the mistaken understanding that "completing the indicators means achieving the goal of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects." Some places believe, according to the indicator system, that they have already achieved the goal of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, when in fact they still face arduous tasks in ecological civilization development, education, scientific and technological innovation, and other aspects; some places do not fully understand the complexity and difficulty of the goals and tasks of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and are slack in thinking and slow in action. Such ideas and practices must be corrected. 2015 is the concluding year for fully completing the "12th Five-Year Plan," and the "13th Five-Year Plan" period is the decisive stage for completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. All localities and departments must strive to avoid the erroneous tendency of understanding the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in a fragmented and selective way, strictly follow the goals and tasks for completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects put forward by the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, deeply study, understand and implement the relevant spirit of the central authorities, and truly put all requirements for completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects into practice.