The role of commerce and services in the national economy?

As the combination and connection between production and consumption, commerce is directly related to the realization of the market, as well as the stable and rapid development of the national economy. This paper applies the Marxist materialistic dialectical point of view only on the status and role of commerce in the national economy to make a rough discussion.

I. Definition of the concept of business

Western business theory equates business with trade, and considers that business includes all forms of trade--wholesale, retail, import and export trade, entrepot trade, as well as all services practiced for the purpose of trade, such as banking, storage and transportation, etc. Obviously, during the period of developed commodity economy, business was not the same as trade. Obviously, in the period of developed commodity economy, the accelerated development of productive forces makes the social division of labor more refined, bringing about the extreme expansion of the scope of transactions, so that all commodities and services that can be used for transactions are included in the scope of the circulation industry. Therefore, the circulation industry is the further development of the modern social division of labor and the diversification of commodity circulation, the product of complexity, is equipped with modern technology, management tools, a huge system, is the past any era of commodity circulation and the scale of business can not be compared.

Marx said, business "is mediated by the activities of merchants, that is, the act of buying and selling of merchants, so that this activity forms a special, separate from the other functions of industrial capital, and therefore an independent existence of the business ...... manifests itself as a different and special circulation of producers. specialized function of the parties." As a well-developed form of commodity circulation, commerce is an economic activity that specializes in mediating the exchange of commodities and making a profit from it. Its most essential characteristic is "G-W-G", i.e., buying and selling, repeatedly buying and selling in order to make commercial profits.

In reality, business in the broad sense refers to all exchange activities in the economy and its related organizations, that is, the above-mentioned distribution industry. Business in the narrow sense refers specifically to sectors of the national economy that specialize in the distribution of goods. Business in the narrow sense emphasizes sectors or industries specializing in the exchange of commodities, and industries engaged in the transfer of tangible material products and their ownership. In China's current statistical indicator system, the term "commerce" refers to "wholesale and retail trade". For the sake of discussion, the concept of business in this paper refers to the wholesale and retail trade.

Second, the relationship between commodity circulation and commodity production

The status and role of business is closely linked to the relationship between commodity circulation and production. The traditional business theory is to emphasize production, light circulation. Marx emphasized production, he put forward: production is in a dominant position, exchange is determined by production, a certain amount of production determines a certain amount of consumption, distribution, exchange and these different elements of a certain relationship between each other. However, this theory has its historical limitations: at the time when Marx put forward the labor theory of value, the contradiction between the supply of commodities and the demand for them had not yet been highlighted in the capitalist society, and the importance of circulation was far less obvious than that of production, so it was natural for economists to focus on the field of production. The classical schools all emphasized production. Until Keynesianism, demand becomes the first place, the development of production depends on the market.

China's economic development has likewise experienced the transition of commodities from a seller's market to a buyer's market. before the 1980s, attention was focused on how to increase production to meet the growing material and cultural needs of the people. With the establishment of the market economic system, the whole society's wealth accumulation is relatively abundant, the buyer's market gradually formed. People began to recognize the role of exchange in promoting and determining production, and realized that the position and role of commerce in the national economy should be studied from a broader perspective.

In a market economy, the market as the main means of allocating resources, business shows the economic regulation of guiding production and promoting consumption will become more and more obvious. Therefore, the role of business must be re-examined to give the position of business in the national economy to the position it deserves.

Three, the position of commerce in the national economy

1, from the world's economic development in the development of commerce in the national economy. The essence of the market economy is the exchange economy, the market economy conditions, business and the market is most closely linked. The history of world economic development shows that with the development of the economy, the center of the development of the first, second and third industries is backward. The industrial structure has the characteristic of evolving from a low level equilibrium to a high level equilibrium, and the center of gravity of its evolution is roughly as follows: agriculture-light industry-basic industry-light and heavy combination of high-tech processing industry-modern service industry. And commerce and service industry happen to be an important part of the tertiary industry. This situation is more obvious in developed countries, the proportion of tertiary industry including commerce in the whole national economy is getting higher and higher, and its contribution to the economy is getting bigger and bigger, and the level of development of commerce reflects the level of economic development to a considerable extent.

Based on the experience of various countries, the proportion of a country's commercial output to GDP is positively correlated with the degree of marketization of the country's goods and services. Therefore, the contribution of commerce to GDP is also an important indicator of the degree of marketization of a country's economy. The status of commerce in China's national economy is on the low side, and its position in terms of output value is not only lower than that of developed countries, but even lower than that of developing countries with similar levels of the world economy as a whole and of similar economic levels. This situation of commerce not only affects its own development, but also affects the sustainable development of the whole national economy.

2. After the reform and opening up, the position of commerce in the development of China's national economy. The trend of the evolution of China's industrial structure is basically consistent with the general law in the process of industrialization in various countries, but the growth of the tertiary industry lags behind that of the secondary industry, and the proportion of output to GDP has not expanded significantly.

It was found that China had effectively promoted the rapid growth of the tertiary industry in the 1980s, and the speed of commercial development was also greatly improved, and the industrial structure was obviously improved. But into the 1990s, the proportion of the tertiary industry did not increase significantly, the share of commercial and catering industry is only hovering at 8%. Reflecting the relative lack of commercial development, the overall low status in China's national economy.

3, the deep-seated reasons for the low status of business. Business in China's national economic development in the low status and the level of commercial development is directly related. Long-term planned economic system so that China's commercial development seriously lagged behind the overall process of national economic development, which makes in the economic system after the shift to market-oriented, with the relaxation of control over the commercial sector, various forms of ownership and various types of capital and labor force into the commercial industry, especially the individual business is very much. This change in promoting the rapid expansion of the scale of business, but also brought about a series of problems such as the intensification of the degree of commercial enterprise miniaturization, low efficiency of scale, slow technological progress, and so on, which seriously hindered the optimization of the internal structure of the commercial industry.

In addition, the characteristics of commercial activities themselves, such as the organic composition of commercial capital is too low, the threshold of entry into the industry is not high, but also in the objective of the small amount of capital, asset-specific investment in the formation of a strong attraction. Relative to the primary and secondary industries, business does not particularly need physical strength and highly specialized technical labor, and therefore, naturally become an important way out to solve social employment. The result is that a large number of low-quality labor force is concentrated in an excessive number of small-scale commercial enterprises, so that the development of commerce shows a serious trend of miniaturization and decentralization.

Finally, the output utility of commerce is that it speeds up the circulation of producers, spreads out their risks, and makes it easy and economical for purchasers to buy. Thus, commercial output can only realize its value if it is combined with other outputs. This also determines that the growth of commercial output is subject to a considerable degree to the growth of other industries.

To sum up, it shows that the degree of commercialization and marketization of China's economy is still very low, and we must have a deep understanding of the important role of the commodity circulation industry in launching the market, promoting demand, and promoting the development of the national economy.

Four, the role of commerce in the development of the national economy

At this stage in China, the role of commerce is not only manifested in the output volume of the national economy's contribution, while the commercial development of the breeding market relations, improve the market mechanism as well as to solve the problem of labor force employment have an important role.

1. Business has the role of articulation and coordination between producers and consumers. From the reality of economic activities found that the connection between producers and consumers obstacles have actually become an important cause of market supply and demand imbalance. One of the reasons why producers and consumers are unable to agree on prices lies in the lack of a buffering and coordinating market body between them. In a market economy, this body is the commercial organizations that independently bear the risks of distribution and reduce transaction costs. They are the market forces that have the most say in the final transaction price, and can play a role in making the supply and demand prices tend to harmonize the articulation.

At the same time, the market economy requires that the market allocation of economic resources plays a major role in the various interests of the main body must be sold through the market exchange of products and access to resources. The development of production depends on the market, the demand for production, market demand is the first. In the process of commodity circulation, who is closer to the consumer, who will be able to correctly understand the consumer, the more accurate demand information can be captured. Therefore, commerce plays a dynamic regulatory role in production and consumption.

From the consumer's point of view, the development of commerce promotes the development of logistics and distribution industry, while the emergence of new retail formats saves the consumer's time and money costs, and accordingly increases the consumer's leisure, and satisfies the consumer demand to a greater extent.

2, the role of business on the absorption of labor. Full employment is an important macroeconomic indicator for all countries. China is a large labor supplying country, and one of the major problems encountered by the Chinese society during the economic reform is the unemployment problem. In a large number of rural surplus labor force into the city, while the urban population employment pressure is increasing the situation, the role of business on the absorption of labor is particularly important.

It must be emphasized that there are boundaries to the role and ability of business to absorb labor. First, too much absorption of low-quality labor is not conducive to business development. Secondly, the scale of employment in commerce at a certain period of time is also constrained by the scale of society and the degree of socialization and specialization at that time. In a period of economic development when the institutional system is not yet sound, the unlimited expansion of the scale of commercial employment may easily lead to a serious disruption of the order of commercial circulation, which will have a negative impact on the development of the national economy. Therefore, while vigorously promoting commercial employment absorption, we should strengthen the optimization of the internal structure of the industry and pay attention to the fundamental role of the development of the primary and secondary industries in supporting the development of the tertiary industry.

3. The role of commerce in promoting other industries of the national economy. In the 18th century in Britain, the real driving force of the industrial revolution was commercial trade. At that time, the expansion of the scale of production is greatly restricted by market demand, is the commercial trade for the industrial revolution ready. The role of commerce in promoting the process of industrialization and the development of the national economy as a whole cannot be underestimated.

With the manufacturing industry production scale, relatively intensive trend and consumer purchasing volume is small, relatively dispersed characteristics, in the commodity space, time, and specific categories, characteristics of the contradiction produced by the increasingly expanding trend. This requires commercial organizations in size, quantity and quality must be a certain rate of growth in order to match the requirements of industry, manufacturing high growth.

Whether an industry can smoothly obtain production factors and sell its products is not only related to its own normal operation, but also determines whether the related industrial chain can operate normally. In this case, there is an increasing need for specialized intermediaries to establish an efficient and orderly coordination mechanism between industries and between industries and markets, and business is undoubtedly an important force to play this role.

4, business has the role of promoting the development and improvement of the market system. Business is the first feedback consumer demand information, the price of the final product is also formed in the commodity market, various types of factor market can clearly and accurately respond and refractive demand and effective pricing, to a considerable extent, are dependent on the price mechanism of the commodity market whether the timeliness, accuracy and efficiency. Therefore, without a well-developed and efficient business system and intermediary organizations, there can be no perfect market system.

As Liu Guoguang said, business is "elevated to the socialist market economic system as a pioneer industry", so a deep understanding of the status and role of the circulation industry in the national economy is very necessary.