Abstract:

Accelerating the cultivation of new quality productive forces and transforming them into drivers of economic growth is essential for promoting high-quality development in China. The recurrence of the "Productivity Paradox" in the era of the digital-intelligent economy has sparked discussions on technological progress and its growth effects. This paper first explains the principle of how labor-saving new technologies increase individual wealth, pointing out that such micro-level wealth gains cannot be directly aggregated at the macro level. It then analyzes the constraints on the expansion of the total social product driven by technological progress from the perspective of the social reproduction process, which stem primarily from the supply-demand structure of reproduction. Finally, it indicates that for digital-intelligent technologies to drive economic growth, they must undergo a pathway involving the transformation of technological systems, industrial structural upgrading, and changes in accumulation models. The study argues that, compared to the U.S. accumulation model which serves financial monopoly capital, China's model of deeply integrating the digital and real economies is more conducive to fully unleashing the growth potential of the new round of technological transformation.

Key words: technological progress, expansion of total social product, supply-demand structure, integration of digital and real economy