FANG Han-ting
Understanding new quality productive forces hinges on two key aspects: whether there has been a qualitative change in the composition of production factors, and whether there has been a qualitative transformation in the form of industrial carriers. From a long-term historical perspective, human society has thus far experienced a superimposed four-dimensional evolution of productive forces: natural productive forces, tool productive forces, energy productive forces, and data productive forces. In reality, only three civilizational breakthroughs have been driven by new quality productive forces: the agricultural civilization driven by tool productive forces, the industrial civilization driven by the superimposition of energy productive forces onto tool productive forces, and the information civilization driven by the superimposition of data productive forces onto tool and energy productive forces. As human productive forces advanced from one-dimensional to two-dimensional, three-dimensional, and finally four-dimensional, wealth growth shifted from natural growth, arithmetic growth, and multiplicative growth to exponential growth. The underlying logic behind this progression is technological driving forces. Natural forces alone can only drive natural wealth growth; the superimposition of natural forces and tool forces leads to arithmetic wealth growth; the triple superimposition of natural, tool, and energy forces triggers multiplicative wealth growth; and the quadruple superimposition of natural, tool, energy, and data forces ignites exponential wealth growth. Therefore, it can be boldly anticipated that the new model of urban wealth growth in the future will be an exponential growth driven by the integration of 4P, and an affluent human society is highly likely to become a reality within the next 50 years.
