Politics of China
China practices a form of democracy that it calls socialist consultative democracy. Socialist Consultative Democracy is the form of democracy that exists in the People's Republic of China, though at least one source says that this form of democracy was created by the Communist Party of China. According to an article on Qiushi Journal, "Consultative democracy was created by the CPC and the Chinese people as a form of socialist democracy. In this sense, consultative democracy represents the grand product of our efforts to enrich and develop Marxist theories on democracy. Socialist consultative democracy exhibits distinctive features as well as unique advantages. Not only representing a commitment to socialism, it carries forward China’s fine political and cultural traditions. Not only representing a commitment to the organizational principles and leadership mode of democratic centralism, it also affirms the role of the general public in democracy. Not only representing a commitment to the leadership of the CPC, it also gives play to the role of all political parties and organizations as well as people of all ethnic groups and all sectors of society".
Wage reform in China, 1949–1976
Politically, it aimed at creating a more equal society that fits the vision of socialist society. Following Marx's conception of the communist society, CCP held that the optimal principle of distribution is “distribution according to need” (按需分配). The need mentioned here was determined by the nature of the society. However, the socialist period is still a transitive period towards the communist society.It is transitive in two senses: in the sense of forces of production and also in the sense of social consciousness. The Marxism's orthodox discussion about productivity and social consciousness is expressed as “the economic base determines the superstructure”. Due to the low level of economic development in China, there were different kinds of ownership existing during this period, making the market remain a necessary mediation between different parts of the economy. More importantly, according to this thought, the social consciousness is still undeveloped due to the backwards in the economy. Thus people were supposed to continue being guided by the commodity exchange. During this transitive period, the “distribution according to need” is impossible. Alternatively, the general principle in it was called “distribution according to labor” (按劳分配).