Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 8, 2021

Distributive Justice and Historical Generative Logic from the Perspective of Historical Materialism

(Abstract)

Huang Jianjun

Distributive justice doesn’t only refer to “getting one’s due” and “individual ownership,” nor is it only an abstract principle of legal right. In the last analysis, distributive justice reflects the mode of production at a certain historical stage. It is based on the factual principles and normative values of the “mode of material production” to which historical materialism refers, and is directly linked to the forms of ownership and property relations in different historical periods. Marx reveals the labor ownership of the stage of human dependence, and criticizes the capital justice and individual ownership of the stage of material dependence, for the purpose of advocating the distributive justice of “to each according to his need” in the “true community” and gaining a thorough understanding of human self-actualization. It is only from the philosophical perspective created by historical materialism and the criticism of politics and the economy that we can truly understand the historical generative logic of distributive justice. China’s distribution system expands the hierarchy and structure of Marx’s distributive justice, which not only firmly grasps the initiative of distribution through the principle of “to each according to his work”, but also suppresses the negative effects of “capital logic” and thus exhibits its positive effect in a specific historical era.