The reform of the urban economic system began with the reform of the rural economic system, although in the first few years, the focus of key work was placed on the rural areas. However, from 1984 onwards, the focus of reform was on the cities.
From 1984 to 1988, it took only four years for the reform of the city to make great changes, and people from that era have a deep understanding of the collision of new ideas and old ideas, and many people have felt the new vitality and new vitality of the society when they are not adaptable.
The reform of the city can be divided into two phases, the first of which was before October 1984, when it was still in the pilot and exploration phase, and in general, it can be boiled down to these three aspects:
First, we should actively develop a variety of economic forms and modes of operation
Around 1979, more than 10 million educated youths across the country began to return to the cities one after another, and one of the major problems they faced after returning to the cities was how to arrange their work? At that time, there were already many new laborers in the city, who were unemployed, and the return of educated youths to the city would be unrealistic if all of them were arranged by the state.
Therefore, they began to encourage and allow them to develop their individual economies.
However, at that time, it was still dominated by state-run commerce, and at the same time allowed the existence of multiple economic forms. At that time, the individual economy was mainly small-scale and decentralized. Moreover, people's thinking has not been completely broken, and people who are engaged in the individual economy belong to the "unemployed vagrants".
Second, expand the autonomy of enterprises and promote the economic responsibility system
In October 1978, six enterprises in Sichuan began to implement the pilot project of expanding their powers, which also meant that the curtain of the reform of the urban economic system was officially opened.
In May 1979, eight key enterprises in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai also began to implement pilot projects to expand their powers. Since then, enterprises across the country have also begun to carry out pilot work in accordance with the models of Sichuan, Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, combined with their own actual conditions.
To put it simply, this idea is to "expand the autonomy of enterprises", and specifically to make profits and rights, invigorate the enterprise economy, improve the welfare of employees, and so on.
The expansion of the level of autonomy of enterprises basically began at the same time as the rural reform, and after that, state-owned enterprises gradually began to experiment with the economic responsibility system.
In order to completely break the dependence of enterprises on the state and break the "big pot rice" of enterprises eating from the state, in terms of the state and enterprises on the issue of profit distribution, we have successively tried out measures such as enterprise retention, profit retention, and profit and loss lump sum.
Third, carry out a pilot project for comprehensive reform of the urban economic system
In October 1981 and March 1982, the state began to pilot the comprehensive reform of the urban economic system in Shashi, Hubei Province, and Changzhou, Jiangsu. The simple understanding of this work is to carry out corresponding supporting reforms in the production, circulation, material exchange, and material distribution of the urban economy.
At that time, a comprehensive reform was carried out in Shashi: financial system, planning system, banking system, ** system, labor wage system, etc.; In Changzhou, it is aimed at 11 other aspects: invigorating the circulation of market materials, industrial management system, commercial system, enterprise reorganization, foreign trade system, and so on.
By the end of 1984, there were 58 pilot cities nationwide that had carried out comprehensive reform of the urban economic system.
For example, at the end of 1983, there were more than 2,400 industrial companies and factories set up across the country, and the number of employees reached more than 11 million, accounting for 36% of the total number of workers in the country.
Among them, the biggest changes are in these two areas:
1. Wage system. The bonus system and piecework wage system have been restored, the bonus cap has been abolished, and the excess bonus tax has been levied progressively; Some enterprises have also begun to implement job wages, post allowances, and floating wages.
2. Labor and personnel system. Some enterprises and provinces and municipalities have changed the previous "fixed labor employment system" to "contract employment system" and openly recruited employees.
There is a lot of content at this stage, so I will talk to you briefly and emphatically.
The beginning of the time point was in October 1984, mainly to encourage the development of multiple economic forms, but also to give great policy care and financial inclination. By 1987, there were 230,000 private enterprises in the country, employing 3.6 million workers.
Among them, the registered capital of many enterprises is hundreds of thousands, and the registered capital of a few enterprises is as high as millions! However, according to statistics at the time, in 1984, the majority of self-employed workers were engaged in sales and service.
It was not until April 1988 that the legal status of the private economy was truly written into the constitution and recognized and protected by law.
In 1984, the country also began to try to explore the "joint-stock system", this year, there were joint-stock enterprises in China, and in October 1985, Shenzhen formally established a ** company. Subsequently, Beijing, Shanghai and other places also followed suit and established stock exchanges.
By 1987, there was another major change, that is, the previous "eight-level wage system" was abolished, and it was replaced by a variety of flexible distribution methods such as floating wages, post wages, piecework wages, and fixed wages. Therefore, the wages of employees are not only linked to the operating efficiency of the enterprise, but also linked to the labor contribution of individual employees.