The Research On Li Da's Economic Thoughts

Li Da was a pioneer who transmitted Marxism in China and also a distinguishing Marxist theorist, educator and propagandist. In the history of Marxist develop-ment in China, he was an encyclopedic scholar and theorist. He was not only an outstanding Marxist philosopher but also a prominent Marxist economist. Economic research was an important part in his study, while at present, academic research on Li Da mainly focused in the field of philosophy and people have not paid enough attention to his economic thoughts. There is lack of systematic monograph on economic thoughts. This paper aims to fill the gap and carries on a study of economic thoughts of Li Da from multi-angles and multi-levels mainly by literature study, historical analysis, comparison study and synthetic analysis, trying to reveal the complete picture and the connotation of Li Da's economic thoughts as well as giving an objective evaluation of theoretical contribution and historic status of Li Da.This paper is consisted of three parts. The first and second chapters consist part one. The first chapter describes and discusses the historical background and theoretical origins of the formation of his economic thoughts and elaborates their overall methodological characteristics. They have four origins, as pointed out in this paper, that are Marx's economic thoughts from the classical writers, economic thoughts from Marxists from Japan, Europe and the socialist theorists and practice of Soviet Union. Their basic characteristics of methodology are dialectical materialism and historical materialism. Chapter two investigates the formation and development of Li Da's economic thoughts and divides Li Da's economic research into three historical stages, mainly through describing and analyzing economic works of Li Da and the characteristics which are different in his academic research.The second part, from Chapter III to Chapter VII, is the research about the specific content of Li Da's economic thoughts. Chapter III, conducts and summarizes the research of basic theory and methods of Li Da's economic research, including Li Da's understanding on the study objects, scope, mission, purpose of economics and specific research approaches that he emphasizes in the use of economic research. These theories and methods of economic research carry through the whole economic research by Li Da. Chapter IV to Chapter VII specific investigates and analysis Li Da's economic thoughts from four respects, that are research on the capitalist economic formation, research on social economic history, monetary and financial thoughts, socialist economic thoughts, strengthening the rich connotations and theoretical contribution of Li Da's economic thoughts. The part of capitalist economic formation describes Li Da's specific expanding methods of the research on the capitalist economic formation, analyzes the uniqueness and profoundness in his study, and evaluates the creativity and theoretical contribution in his statement of the principles in Das Kapital, pointing out that he was the first scholar who systematically elaborated the basic principles of Marx's Economics. The social economic history part specifically investigates his theory of industrial revolution of China and his research of Chinese economic history, pointing out that Li Da was the first scholar who studied concrete economic situation of China with the use of viewpoints and the methods of Marxism. He used historical materialism as methodology to profoundly study Chinese economic history, thus obtained a series of important conclusions and understandings, which made outstanding contribution to the development of Marxist economics and history. The part of monetary and financial thoughts specifically investigates Li Da's view to the nature of money, his critics to the western theories of money as well as his theories of monetary standard, financial panic and inflation, pointing out that while stated the main content of money, he not only insisted principles and the conclusions of the Marxism, but also developed new understanding and progress of money theories of Marxism in new historical conditions. His systematical elaboration on money theories of Marxism has marked the system of money theories of Marxism in China, which exerted great influence on the formation and development of money theories in the new China. The part of socialist economic thoughts specifically investigates that his propaganda of socialist economic thoughts in his early time of his academic career, his elaboration of the economic characteristic and basic principles of the socialist transition period in his middle time, and his exploration of socialist construction in his late time, which recognizes the important significance of his argument of the socialist road of economic development of China in his early time and states that the socialist economic thoughts of Li Da are not only look-ahead and profound in theoretical exploration but also played the vital role in practice.The third part, which is Chapter8, is the overall evaluation of economic thoughts of Li Da. This chapter summarizes main features of Li Da's economic thoughts based on the analysis of the previous chapters, and evaluates the historical status and theoretical contributions of Li Da's economic thoughts and points out that he has made a significant contribution for the spread, use and development of Marxist economic theory in China. The academic tradition he created, that are the principles of seeking truth from facts, integrating theory with practice and unity with development, has important significance in theory and practice in the process of promoting and developing Marxist economic thought in China today.