Which One Should Take Priority At Present In China, Environmental Protection Or Economic Development?

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Critical Thinking Final Paper

Topic: Which one should take priority at present in China, environmental

protection or economic development?

Affirmative

THBT in China, economic development should take priority than environmental

protection at present.

Introduction

One of the most famous principles of Marxist Philosophy said: “Economic

basis determine superstructure”1, in this sentence, economic basis including

productivity and production relations, especially the level of economic development.

The so called superstructure is the sum of various kinds of social system、state

facilities and ideology. This principle tries to explain the decisive role of the economy.

There is no doubt, this doctrine not only applies to the time when Marx lived, it’s also

applies today.

Thirty years ago, China started to open the closed national door and

integration into the world. Before that, this country living under the shadow of

complete planned economy, a popular saying of that time is even the price of toilet

paper and toothpick was taken by the central government. In the operation of

economy, the government controlled everything. After the Reform and Opening

police, everything in this country has experienced an earth-shaking change. One of

Deng Xiaoping’s well-known saying began take deep root in the heart of common

people since that time: “Economic development is the absolute truth.” 2 China today’s

achievement due to the last thirty years’ high speed economy development, and this

development also helps the world a lot.

At the same time, many social problems also exist, compared to environment

problem, these problems are much more in demand at present. For example, today,

China faces too much difference between the rich and the poor, this problem is caused

by the economy underdeveloped, to solve this problem, there is no

doubt, it should further develop and improve the process. Besides, China has the

largest amount popularity in the world, still many poor areas need help, a lot of people

still live under the poverty line; The aging of the society is becoming more and more

serious; because of the One Child Policy, now the society is facing the potential lack

1. 、Basic Principles of Marxism、 Chapter three. By Peking University Press

2. 、Deng Xiaoping and the start of the reform and open policy、 Preface. The

history of the Party Press.

of labor, in some southern regions, the factories have to hire unlawful labors 3from

Vietnam and other southeast Asian nations; and it’s still a developing country,

compared to Korea and Japan, the per capita economic level is not high; at present,

especially during the worldwide economic recession time, though China is so called

world factory, the economy also be battered seriously, the economy is facing

downside risks to growth.

Compared to these problems, environment protection is not the main

contradictory problem. Apparently, there is no excuse to slow down the economic

speed; China should focus on economic construction. The purpose of this policy paper

is to explain why economy development is the urgent affair and why it should take

priority than environmental protection at present.

Definition of Terms

Economic recession

In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general

slowdown in economic activity.3 Macroeconomic indicators such as GDP,

employment, investment spending, capacity utilization, household income, business

profits, and inflation fall, while bankruptcies and the unemployment rate rise.

Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending, often

following an adverse supply shock or the bursting of an economic bubble.

Governments usually respond to recessions by adopting expansionary macroeconomic

policies, such as increasing money supply, increasing public spending and decreasing

taxation.4 More generally, economic recession means the rate of economic growth

slows down, and the amount of available money for the public sector or our individual

families decreased.

Economic inequality

Economic inequality (also known as the gap between rich and poor, income

inequality, wealth disparity, or wealth and income differences) comprises disparities

in the distribution of economic assets and income within or between populations or

3. ^ “Recession”. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/recession. Retrieved 19 November 2008.

4.The explanation of economic recession comes from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

individuals. The term typically refers to inequality among individuals and groups

within a society, but can also refer to inequality among countries. The issue of

economic inequality is related to the ideas of equity, equality of outcome and equality

of opportunity.5 Observers differ on both the morality and utility of inequality,

whether, and/or how much inequality is necessary in society and how it can be

affected. It has been praised as necessary and beneficial, and attacked as a social

problem.6 We often use the shape of pyramid metaphor for the difference between the

income inequalities among each social stratum.

Take priority

Priority means “1.the condition of being prior; antecedence; precedence; or

2.the right of precedence over others; 3. something given specified attention; 4. Status

established in order of importance or urgency. ” 7 In this paper, it can be taken as A is

much more important than B vulgarly.

Developing country

According to the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook

Report, April 2012, China is one of the members in the list of developing countries. A

developing country, also known as a less-developed country (LDC), is a nation with a

low living standard, undeveloped industrial base, and low Human Development Index

(HDI) relative to other countries.8 The World Bank classifies countries into four

income groups, according to 2008 GNI per capita; China was in the penultimate rank,

which said: “Lower middle income countries had GNI per capita between US$1,006

and US$3,975.” 9

Policy

55.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_gap

66. Wilkinson, Richard; Pickett, Kate (2009). The Spirit Level: Why More Equal

Societies Almost Always Do Better. Allen Lane. pp. 352. ISBN [[Special:

BookSources/1-84614-039-6|1-84614-039-6]].

7. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/priority

78. ^ Farlex Financial Dictionary. “Financial Definition of less-developed country”.

TheFreeDictionary.com. Farlex, Inc. http://financial-

dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/less-developed+country. Retrieved 18 November

2011.

99. “How we Classify Countries”. World Bank.

data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications. Retrieved September 25, 2010.

10. http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2005-01/16/content_2467918.htm

11. Gini, C (1909) Concentration and dependency ratios (in Italian). English

translation in Rivista di Politica Economica, 87 (1997), 769-789.

12. Gini, C. (1936) On the Measure of Concentration with Special Reference to

Income and Statistics, Colorado College Publication, General Series No. 208, 73-79.

Harm 1- The gap between rich and poor is becoming larger.

Thirty years ago, most common Chinese people were living in the situation called

widespread poverty, in economic status, everybody seems equal; and in that time, the

government took central planning policy, just like today’s North Korea. When the

country began to practice the reform and opening policy, one slogan by Deng

Xiaoping was very deeply into the human mind: “I have consistently maintained that

some people and some regions should be allowed to prosper before others, always

with the goal of common prosperity.”10 After that, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone,

Shanghai Pudong New Area arisen one by one in eastern coastal zone. Many people

especially lived in coastal areas caught the opportunity, gradually become rich.

At the same time, a lot of citizens lived in remote and rural areas or vulnerable

groups in the society still stumbled. During the last thirty years’ high speed

development, the gap between rich and poor is becoming larger and larger. Now, the

slogan by Deng is disputed continuously, some extremists changed the sentence

to:”Some people and some regions should be allowed to prosper before others, then,

the rich kill the poor, so we can reach the goal of common prosperity.” This problem

has caused many mass incidents these years. Here, we adopt the Gini coefficient as

our reference standard.

“Gini coefficient” also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, it’s a measure of

statistical dispersion developed by the Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini

and published in his 1912 paper “Variability and Mutability“.11 It is commonly used as

a measure of inequality of income or wealth.12

13 http://baike.baidu.com/view/186.htm

、、、、

The Gini coefficient measures the inequality among values of a frequency

distribution (for example levels of income). A Gini coefficient of zero expresses

perfect equality where all values are the same (for example, where everyone has an

exactly equal income). A Gini coefficient of one (100 on the percentile scale)

expresses maximal inequality among values (for example where only one person has

all the income).14

According some related organizations of UN, if the number lower than 0.2, that

means the income is absolute average; if the number is between 0.2-0.3, that means

relatively average; if the number is between 0.3-0.4, that means relatively reasonable;

if it’s between 0.4-0.5, that means gap is big; when it’s higher than 0.5, that means

great disparity. Through the following map, we can find the situation of some

countries clearly. The yellow part, 0.45-0.49, which is included in 0.4-0.5, it shows