China Tells

According to the classic Marxist economic theory (which is the mostly taught economics in China), three factors are key for productivity: Capital, Labor and Land. Among them, according to Marx, the most important factor is labor. Following this logic, it would be hugely an evil for capitalist to pay labor low wage as they are taking away the productivity created by Labor instead of Capital. Above is an interesting chart to compare the Capital (millions RMB) to labor (number of workers) in China since 1991. Unsurprisingly, the Capital to Labor Ratio has continued to increase in the past 20 years, reflecting a fact that the increase of capital spending to Labor has been one of the contributing factors to the GDP growth in the past two decades. To explain the real world, maybe Marxist economists need to amend the theory from time to time.

根据马克思主义经济学，生产力的提高主要受益于资本，劳动和土地的投入。在这其中，劳动力的投入最为重要，资本为辅。因此马克思认为，资本家如果仅给工人微薄的工资，是明目张胆的窃取工人创造的剩余价值，是丧尽天良的剥削。上图显示了在过去20年中中国资本投入和劳动力投入的比值。从图中可以看出，资本对劳动力的投入在过去20年不断增长，与同期的GDP增长相辅相成。资本和劳动，到底谁的贡献大，可能还远未到盖棺定论的时候。