Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaften

Abstrakt

One Paradoxical Nature of Market Economy

Rongqing Dai

a society to improve the standard of living of its citizens in general. This conflict might be less compromisable than it is usually assumed to be due to some intrinsic logical uneasiness within any economic system, which would perpetually create uncertainties in the market. As a matter of fact, market economy is paradoxical in nature in the sense that some good will of development in a market economy would logically hurt the economy itself. This paradox is the result of logical conflict of the following two facts: 1) economic development would aim at increasing productivity which would potentially lead to a reduction of human workforce in individual enterprises. This is because of the common goal of maximizing profit through cost reduction, including the reduction of the cost of human resource; 2) the ultimate economic responsibility of a society to increase the standard of living for ordinary citizens would require a higher employment rate with increasing wage rate since the major income for most families is employment wages. This writing provides an in depth philosophical analysis on the logical conflict that determines this paradoxical nature of market economy that causes incessant uncertainties in the market, from which we might see some important tasks for us to carry out in the future.