Reform and Improvement of China's Social Security System

Author: None
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Publish Date: 2000-04-01
Features: d. In November 1942, during World War II, W.H. Beveridge, the chairman of the Interdepartmental Committee on Social Security and National Insurance in the United Kingdom, submitted a report to the British government titled "Social Insurance and Related Services," known as the famous "Beveridge Report." The report proposed a social security plan that included three policies: social insurance, social assistance, and voluntary insurance. Social insurance was designed to meet the basic needs of residents; voluntary insurance catered to the higher demands of residents with higher incomes; and social assistance targeted impoverished residents. He also proposed six reform principles: ① uniform standards for basic living allowances; ② uniform standards for insurance premiums; ③ adequate subsidies; ④ comprehensiveness and universality; ⑤ unified management responsibility; ⑥ differentiated treatment. The report also stated that the social security plan was a "plan that guarantees the income necessary to maintain people's ability to work and continue working, conditioned on labor and paying insurance premiums." His social security plan reflected two theoretical foundations: first, social security should ensure residents have the minimum living necessities for survival; second, social security should embody the principle of "universality and comprehensiveness," meaning it should benefit all residents and various social strata, and social security is a universal and comprehensive guarantee. e. Social Democratic Party's Welfare Socialism After World War II, the "welfare socialism" ideology of the Social Democratic Parties in Western Europe objectively promoted the establishment and improvement of the social security system. Among the international members of the Social Democratic Party, the British Labour Party and the Swedish Social Democratic Party had the greatest influence on the theory and policy of the "welfare state." The British Labour Party is the largest Social Democratic Party in Europe. It proposed a program and theory of "democratic socialism," inheriting the traditions of "socialism from the pulpit" and "Fabian socialism," and formulated five principles of "democratic socialism," namely political freedom, mixed economy, welfare state, Keynesianism, and belief in equality. The Swedish Social Democratic Party, in policy terms, advocated a "mixed economy," believing that in a society with private ownership of production means, "economic and social equality" could also be achieved without implementing public ownership, but through a high progressive tax system and workers' participation in corporate management, socialism could be realized. Therefore, Sweden is known as the "paradigm of the welfare state." The "welfare socialism" of the Social Democratic Party has the following characteristics: ① it does not advocate nationalization and planned economy to advance national welfare policies; ② it promotes "labor-capital cooperation"; ③ it emphasizes redistributing income and wealth through a high progressive tax system to achieve fair income distribution. Although the "welfare socialism" theory of the Social Democratic Party caters to the ruling requirements of the bourgeoisie, it objectively played an important role in the establishment and improvement of the social security system. 1.3 Choice of Financing Methods The existence and development of the social security system ultimately require strong financial support, and different financing methods will have completely different effects on the socio-economic system, bringing different consequences for economic growth and fair distribution of social income. The financing of security funds begins