Hong Yinxing
Social Sciences in Guangdong. 2026, 0(4): 5-13.
This paper investigates the theory of wealth value from the perspective of new quality productive forces while maintaining the foundation of labor value theory. Labor value theory encompasses two analytical paradigms: value analysis and wealth analysis. Since new quality productive forces represent the productivity of concrete labor, the wealth analysis paradigm can accurately evaluate the productivity effects of new quality productive forces. Wealth is created through the joint contribution of multiple factors including labor, capital, land, knowledge, technology, and management. The role of factors beyond direct labor in wealth creation will become increasingly significant, particularly scientific and technological innovation. Various productive force elements develop new quality productive forces through creative destruction, wherein entrepreneurs function not only as laborers but also as leaders of innovation, and the entrepreneurial factor itself faces creative destruction in the development of new quality productive forces. Capital plays a crucial role in optimizing the combination of new quality productive force elements to enhance total factor productivity. Entering the 21st century, the iterative upgrading of new quality productive forces manifests as: information economy—digital economy—intelligent economy. The digital economy and artificial intelligence introduce three novel factors: data, computing power, and algorithms. Confronted with the intelligent economy paradigm, economic research on wealth growth factors must expand beyond purely material factors (laborers, means of production, and objects of labor) to encompass the three elements of the digital economy. The intelligent economy is grounded in the digital economy with algorithms playing an increasingly prominent role. In the context of the digital and intelligent economies, data, computing power, and algorithms emerge as new factors of wealth creation, bringing disruptive impacts on wealth value creation. They not only substitute for labor but, more importantly, substantially replace direct labor processes. Therefore, research on wealth creation in the intelligent economy cannot be entirely explained through labor processes alone; it must also focus on innovation processes. This necessitates a series of adjustments in production relations, establishing production relations more adapted to new quality productive forces.
