Equality And Efficiency Thought

Equity-efficiency is one of primary issues in the field of economics, at the same time considered to be an important problem in the economic development. This research includes the following questions: what are implications of equity and efficiency? For a given society, how to develop a series of indices to measure equity and efficiency? What are the requirements as to build harmonious society? The views of problems are related to the stability of society and the policy-making by national economics sector. Particularly, China undergoes profound development and endeavor to build harmonious society now. Many problems need to be solved. Therefore, how to improve social function at a more effective level and cope with various gaps in economic development appear to be significant. This paper provides coverage of most important thoughts economists have proposed and also insights into above questions from the perspective of economic thought.This paper includes seven chapters, the main content respectively is: Introduction (Chapter 1) firstly presents the study background and purpose. The topics I have chosen focus on theories in more depth. Furthermore, I briefly introduce the approaches, values and innovations of my study.Chapter 2 is on equity theory, primarily discussing the western classical propositions of equity theory. Primary thoughts include Classical School, Keynesian School as well as Liberalist School. The world-renowned economists consist of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, the major developers of classical economics and Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, John Maynard Keynes, John Rawls, and Arthur M. Okun, which are outstanding economists and political philosophers of the twentieth century. In addition, I illustrate the equity thoughts of Chinese scholars in all ages.In chapter 3, the focus turns to discuss western efficiency theory. Here, the paper introduces the representative economic thoughts as to make the efficiency development distinct. It begins with the classical economics. Next, research stresses on the ideas addressed by Marginalism after 1870s. Then, it turns to the foundation of work of Pareto efficiency and finally introduces what the modern economists have incorporated new insights from their researches.Chapter 4 investigates western thoughts of the relationship between equity and efficiency. The theories basically consist of three branches: the theory of equity preference, efficiency preference and focus on the efficiency and care about the fairness.Chapter 5 relates to research by Chinese economists. It includes the ancient and modern greatest thoughts, particularly emphasizing on the studies after 1980s. Also those equity-efficiency thoughts applied to society transformation and reflected in society welfare are also the important sections discussed in this part.Chapter 6 covers the viewpoints of Chinese Communist Party towards equity and efficiency. The ideas are mainly addressed by leaders Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin. In addition, the interpretation of equity and efficiency from scientific concept of development is also given by President Hu in his speech. These ideas are formed in the process of perfecting socialist market economy, focusing on problems concerned among people in their best interests. For the most part, it can be understood as Chinese Marxism. The thought of Chinese Communist Party towards equity and efficiency is regarded as vital guideline for economic development in China.The final chapter 7 contains two aspects. One is conclusion. The other proposes current problems in building harmonious society from the perspectives of equity and efficiency. In this study, I seek to investigate the relationship between social welfare and harmonious society. In order to enrich the content and try to provide a comprehensive explanation, I also suggest policy towards the equity and efficiency in the field of distribution and redistribution after careful analysis and thought.Facing with this conflict, I try to divide equity into the first social equity and the second social equity. The former means equality of opportunity on civil human rights. The latter is the income equity. Having this theory, it becomes easy to understand the kinds of theories, realize their potential logic correlation, and provide useful method that surrounds the equity-efficiency in public policy.Building harmonious society, we ought to deal with conflict between the equity and efficiency, which is the conclusion that I intend to draw and the essential idea of this paper. The factors should be in the economic criteria of harmonious society. To sum up, society perfecting equity and efficiency is a harmonious society. In reverse, it goes without saying that social harmony is bound to be the society existing "harmonious" trade-off between equity and efficiency.