Ensuring social welfare in the socialist-oriented market economy of our country in the spirit of the 13th National Congress of Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Doan Minh Huan
Member of the Party Central Committee, Editor-in-Chief of Communist Review
Thursday, November 18, 2021 08:00

Communist Review - Social welfare is a part of national income, used to satisfy the material and spiritual needs of members of society, mainly redistributed beside labor distribution. The CPV has always attached great importance to ensuring social welfare for the people. The 13th National Congress of CPV has made a new development in theoretical awareness and policy orientation for social welfare issues in the socialist-oriented market economy.

Ensuring social welfare for the people is always thought highly of by the Party and State of Vietnam (In the photo: General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visits and gives gifts to patients treated at the Department of Artificial Kidneys, Bac Kan General Hospital) _Photo: VNA

“Social Welfare” is mentioned in the 13th National Party Congress with a more intensity and frequency, and its comprehensive and multi-dimensional approach.

As easily seen that the level and frequency of mentioning about social welfare in the documents of the 13th National Congress of CPV (1) are higher than those of the previous National Congresses of CPV. Particularly, the Political Report of the 13th National Congress of CPV mentioned the concept of “social welfare” 8 times (2). Social welfare is inclusive in many issues from resource allocation in the market economy; the relationships among the state, market and society; ensuring people’s access to public services; the role and responsibility of the State in the process of renewing and improving the operational efficiency of the public non-business service sector; developing education, culture and health service; managing social development, taking care of social classes, such as workers, farmers, intellectuals, people who have contributed to the revolution, ethnic minorities ... The concept of “social welfare” does not appear in the documents of the 13th National Congress of CPV with a higher frequency at random, but it reflects the new perceptions and approaches of the Vietnam’s Communist Party on this particularly important issue.

Firstly, the approach from the method of ensuring the implementation of progress and social justice in the socialist-oriented market economy is based on two pillars, namely social welfare and social security, which are placed in the reciprocal, complementary and interrelated relationships. This overcomes the confused concepts between social welfare and social security, even expressions of apprehension about mentioning the concept of social welfare and identifying “social welfare” with “subsidy”, considering social welfare as just a one-way enjoyment of economic results. These conceptions have not clarified both social security and social welfare yet. Despite participating in the realization of social progress and equity, they perform different functions. If social security with its pillar is social insurance and health insurance (the social security net also emphasizes the guarantee of sustainability), has the goal of maintaining income and compensating for the income deficit when facing risks, mainly based on the closed financial mechanism - enjoying and sharing, preventing people from falling into the utmost, then social welfare directs at broader goals.

The goal orientation of social welfare includes: (i) Making equitable distribution of production results through redistribution, minimizing the excessive stratification of income in society arising from the first distribution; (ii) Ensuring equality of development opportunities by ensuring equal approaching rights for all members of society with basic, essential and meaningful social services that lay the foundation for development of each individuals; (iii) Promoting social progress when all people enjoy social welfare, generating a higher happiness index and better gender equality, low-income people are not “impoverished” because they do not have to spend their too much source of finance enjoying public services. The pillar of social welfare is basic and essential public services that are free of charge or low cost such as education, health care, culture...; workers’ welfare regarding social housing, cultural institutions, convalescence regime, bonuses); community welfares.

In the market economy, social welfare does not enjoy one-way economic results, spending on social welfare must not be a “subsidy”, but rather an investment in human development, social infrastructure development, especially in the condition that human resources become the most important for the development of the knowledge and digital economy. Progressive, effective and quality social welfare also means to ensure the social development in a stable order and to prevent the risks of social conflicts arising from social injustice. With such a broad role and function, social welfare and social security complement each other, jointly realize social progress and justice, as well as contribute to maintaining the socialist orientation. It is necessary to separate and distinguish social welfare from social security in research, but when designing policies, it is necessary to avoid mechanical division, it would be better to integrate, combine, intertwine, create a reciprocal, interconnected, and complementary relationship between social welfare and social security. The progressive, humane and effective social welfare system contributes to promoting coverage and improving the quality of social security. For example, a free, quality education system that helps adults gain an opportunity to find jobs, which creates stable incomes and conditions to buy insurances; or the budget support for the poor to buy health insurance makes the implementation of whole people’s health insurance coverage soon achieve the goal …

Secondly, the approach based on human rights to live in peace, freedom and happiness while ensuring social welfare is a basic content. The document of the 13th National Party Congress states that one of the key tasks of the 2021-2025 term is “arousing the national aspiration of development, prosperity and happiness, … improving the quality of life and the happiness index for Vietnamese people” (3).

The reality of industrialization and market economy development illustrates that many countries have high gross national income and per capita income, but people still do not feel happy. By contrast, there are developing countries, whose per capita income is not high, but they have the highest happiness index in the world (such as Bhutan). Although there is no unified set of criteria for the national happiness index and individual human happiness, in general, the happiness index aims at measuring social progress and justice through ensuring social welfare and social security, especially health (including psychological and physical health), medical healthcare, harmony between material, spiritual and cultural life; harmony between working and resting time; opportunities to access educational, cultural, and medical services (free or low-fee); a certain income that ensures a living not to fall into extreme poverty; cultural diversity and people can live in a healthy cultural environment; ecological diversity and people can live and work in a harmony with nature; long and healthy lifespan; people can enjoy freedom, work and be creative in accordance with their capacity, forte and get conditions to assert themselves; people can live in a safe and secure environment without any threats...

No matter how the happiness index is interpreted and supplemented, its core is still to ensure social welfare of the people. Ever since the revolutionary State of Vietnam was established, after affirming the government, the national title “Democratic Republic of Vietnam” was the motto Independence - Freedom - Happiness and President Ho Chi Minh called it “three great policies”. After the country’s reunification (in 1975), this national title was changed into “Socialist Republic of Vietnam”, but this motto is kept intact. Inheriting, applying and creatively developing Ho Chi Minh’s ideology in new conditions, the 13th National Congress of CPV states “aspiration to develop a prosperous and happy country”.

Thirdly, the approach of social welfare from the perspective of efficiency associated with the development of a socialist-oriented market economy. Ensuring social welfare always requires corresponding resources, the Political Report at the 13th National Congress of CPV defines that “The market plays a decisive role in determining the prices of goods and services; creating motivation for efficient mobilization and allocation of resources” (4), “Implementation of prices according to the market mechanism for goods and services, including basic public service prices” (5), “The State’s economic resources are used in accordance with the strategies, projects and plans of national development, and are basically allocated according to the market mechanism”(6).

The above arguments imply that: (i) Only by being based on a dynamic and efficient market economy, which promotes continuous high growth, will the budget revenue be ensured for spending on social welfare; (ii) Resources mobilized and used for social welfare need applying the appropriate market mechanism to ensure efficiency, avoid recovering “subsidy”, creating a mentality of dependence and expectation of the people through a series of innovations, such as not integrating social policies in prices, focusing investment on beneficiaries rather than subsidizing public service providers, increasing competitiveness (including both public sector competition and competition between public and private sectors) to improve service quality; (iii) Public resources for the purpose of ensuring social welfare must be allocated and used according to plans and projects; (iv) Service prices must be market-based, including public service prices; Prices or fees belonging to autonomous public non-business units must be calculated correctly and fully according to the market mechanism.

This approach allows to expand the scale, improve the quality of social welfare while promoting the dynamism of the people and the providers, without leading to the recovery of subsidies. The resources are used effectively, which makes social welfare actively participate in creating the foundation for economic development.

Fourthly, the approach from the requirement for maintaining the socialist orientation in the renovation process. The more developing the market economy, the more demanding it is to maintain the socialist orientation, in which, ensuring social welfare is a method of managing socialist goals in every step of the innovation work. The 13th National Congress of CPV emphasizes that “Handling the inadequacies of the market mechanism, ensuring social welfare and social security …” (7). This comes from the market, which often leads to negative externalities, asymmetric information, the gulf between the rich and the poor, if not taking care of social welfare in association with strengthening the State’s responsibility, it will lead to immeasurable consequences. Market forces always seek to maximize profits, even overlooking public benefits (such as polluting the environment, not caring about people’s health and safety, the gap between the rich and the poor, etc.); taking advantage of information to promote profits, sacrificing the interests of customers (such as medical services if they are floating in the market, the only information given by doctors is associated with medical indications, and the patient has no information about his illness); distribution according to economic efficiency, contributed capital causes the lack of opportunity to access resources for an unlucky group of people falling into the poverty hole and being left behind in the development process.

Therefore, taking care of social welfare in association with strengthening the State’s responsibility is a way to contribute to correcting the market’s deficiencies, and to make up for the shortfalls of those affected by the allocation of resources according to the market mechanism, especially in the face of negative externalities and asymmetric information. A progressive and effective social welfare system (free primary and secondary education; universal health insurance; good public health; service prices for medical examination and treatment are effectively controlled by the role of the State; developing affordable social housing...) does not only ensure equitable access to basic and essential social services, but also does not “impoverish” beneficiaries. Many social benefits also carry out a social security function, such as supporting the state budget for the poor, ethnic minorities to buy health insurance when their family incomes are still low or the people do not form the habit of volunteering to buy insurance supported by the State in a certain period. The above-mentioned progressive, humane and effective works do not only make social welfare meaningful for socialist orientation, but also create a method of managing socialist goals, making good values and humanity of socialism is structured into everyday life that every citizen enjoys and attests to.

Medical examination for ethnic minorities _Photo: Document

Ensuring social welfare based on the development of a socialist-oriented market economy is placed and solved in the relationship between the State, the market and society, in which the State plays a decisive role.

Firstly, ensuring social welfare in the current conditions should be based on the development of a socialist-oriented market economy. This is fundamentally different from social welfare in the previously centrally planned economy, which was performed by the absolute role of the State, through the form of “subsidy”, negating the role of the market. After 35 years of doi moi, Vietnam has learned many valuable lessons, including the lesson that it must respect objective economic laws, which allows to release maximum production capacity, promoting economic growth, creating a source of revenue to ensure spending on social welfare, and only in a socialist-oriented market economy so that spending on social welfare really means investing in development. Emphasizing this to show that, if it is not based on a dynamic, developing and productive economy that ensures a balance between accumulation and consumption, it sounds difficult to build a quality, effective welfare system. Although it may expand in size without accompanying improvements in the quality of welfare. It is necessary to avoid the pitfalls of models of social welfare assurance that only care about the distribution of production results without finding a way to promote economic growth, and cause psychological dependence, and stagnation of the people, while making social welfare meaningless for investment in development.

Therefore, from the beginning of Doi Moi until now, when it put forwards solutions to deepen innovation, Communist Party of Vietnam has emphasized the unity between economic and social policy, ensuring social welfare and social security associated with perfecting the socialist-oriented market economic institution. Economic growth by itself does not bring about social welfare to the people but depends on the progressive stance of the State in association with specific roles and responsibilities to redistribute the results of economic growth, making all segments of the population are entitled to social welfare benefits. The 13th National Congress of CPV determines the market plays a decisive role in mobilizing and allocating resources and affirms “full awareness and guarantee of the socialist orientation in social policies. Strengthening the management of social development, ensuring social progress and justice, and sustainability in social policies, especially social welfare, social security and human security” (8).

Secondly, the State plays a decisive role in ensuring social welfare, both affirming the good nature of the socialist regime, and correcting market failures and compensating for deficiencies after the first distribution. (i) Using institutions, policies and plans to promote social welfare; ensuring a reasonable adjustment between economic growth and the distribution of economic growth results for the realization of social progress and justice; the economic development plan is always towards social goals, taking social and human development as the driving force for economic development; the general development, branch, field and regional projects must be fully and harmoniously calculated between investing economic growth and ensuring social welfare, especially when balancing financial resources, land-use planning. (ii) Restructuring budget expenditure, as the socio-economic development orientation and tasks for the five years 2021-2025 identify that “Continuing to restructure state budget expenditure towards sustainability, increasing the ratio focus on development investment spending, reducing the proportion of recurrent expenditure, supporting the effective implementation of socio-economic development goals ... Renovating, building and perfecting the institutions on state budget management in order to enhance the efficiency of allocation, management and use of financial resources from the state budget in association with the process of economic restructuring”(9). Spending on social welfare must be seen as a development investment. Spending on development of education, health, culture, science - technology, public transport, social housing, ... must be gradually raised along with economic growth. Along with finance, land is also an important resource that needs to be used rationally to expand and improve social welfare, such as land incentives for opening schools and hospitals operating on a non-profit basis, social housing development, construction of parks and green trees, expansion of urban and rural transport ... The state also has to take on the role of “public investment leading private investment” to attract the private sectors in expanding social welfare, especially in value-added social services, such as higher education; medical examination and treatment services upon request; culture - entertainment; football... (iii) The State, as a management entity, must be responsible for controlling service quality, managing fee collection activities and prices not to operate according to regulations of free market for basic and essential public services. The mainstay of social welfare is free or low-fee public services, many services are directly provided by the State, but there is still a situation of “surcharge”, which is essentially a “disguised fee”, must be controlled and rectified in a timely manner. Public services authorized by the non-state sector to provide, if there is no control of service prices from the State, will lead to liberalization, lose the character of social welfare, make the spontaneity of the developed market, low-income people using services are “impoverished”. Therefore, state management plays a very important role to keep the social welfare right, including service quality and service price management, equipment prices, (such as drug and equipment prices in healthcare; prices of textbooks in education; prices of social housing; ...). (iv) The State’s responsibility is to create competitiveness among the public sectors and between the public and private sectors to find motivations for providers to improve service quality.

Thirdly, businesses and business owners play an important role in expanding social welfare based on the orientation of the 13th National Congress of CPV in “Encouraging entrepreneurs to perform social responsibility and participate in social development”, (10) with the improvement of workers’ welfare, invest and develop social services operating on non-profit principles and implement social responsibility. In the planning mechanism, the State authorizes enterprises to take care of many welfares for workers, such as housing, lunch, convalescence, organizing kindergartens at enterprises. In the market economy, along with promoting corporate culture, business owners need to renew their management thinking, consider improving workers’ welfare as an investment in human resource development, deducting a part of profits to improve welfares for workers, such as building social housing for workers to buy or rent reasonably, investing in the development of cultural institutions, social services for workers and improving lunch, rest, salary and bonus ... The State gives priority to inviting investors to meet environmental standards, ensure workers’ welfare, use land to build social housing for workers as a revenue incentive tool to attract investment from businesses that uphold business culture. In addition, the State needs to set aside investment funds for infrastructure development (electricity, water supply and drainage, traffic, schools, clinics) for areas planned to develop social housing for workers to “bait”, helping businesses reduce investment costs to build social housing; It is necessary to encourage businesses with a large accumulation to transfer a part of their capital to invest in the development of social services operating on the non-profit principles through tax exemption and investment incentives.

Fourth, society plays a very important role in ensuring social welfare. The political report at the 13th National Congress presenting the requirement to perfect the socialist-oriented market economy institution emphasizes that “Social organizations play a role in creating linkages and coordination of activities, solving problems arising between members; representing and protecting the interests of the members in relation to other subjects and partners; providing support services to members; reflecting the aspirations and interests of all classes of people to the State and participate in criticizing the laws, mechanisms and policies of the State, supervising agencies and the contingent of state officials and civil servants in the law enforcement” (11). Orientation and tasks for socio-economic development in the five years from 2021 to 2025 are more specific with “Strongly renewing the state management of the economy in the direction of transferring unnecessary state jobs for social organizations, converting direct provision of public services to ordering mode” (12). In that spirit, social welfare is only guaranteed when there is active participation from the society, namely social organizations, non-state business units operating on the non-profit principles, families, and individuals using services. The State can order social organizations and non-business units for basic and essential public services, regardless of the state or non-state sectors. Having mechanisms and policies to encourage people with high incomes, loving their jobs, having passion for their careers to contribute capital to develop schools, hospitals, science funds, and social protection centers operating according to non-profit principles. Households using public services provided by the State, enterprises or the community must form the habit of economizing and avoiding squandering but accepting voluntary payment is one way for consumers to use services positively, responsibly and independently. The State supports disadvantaged households and individuals to buy health insurance (social welfare with a security function), which is offered as a “bait” as their incomes are low, economic conditions are scanty, but when personal incomes increase, they must change their habits and buy insurance voluntarily. Each family must form an appropriate spending structure, combine traditional family welfare with effective participation in the welfare system guaranteed by the State and society, especially using the financial resources of the family as “reciprocal capital” to enjoy effective social welfare. It is not completely dependent on the State and society. At the same time, the role of social organizations must be fully promoted in social supervision and criticism, contributing to improving the quality of social welfare.

Free education is the most important content of social welfare, ensuring quality human resources and social infrastructure for the development of the country, promoting equality of development opportunities for everyone in society (In photo: Joyfulness in Graduation Day) _Photo: Document

Social welfare covers and involves in a wide range of fields but focuses on the key stages of ensuring basic and essential needs such as education, health service, culture, social housing, public transportation, and workers’ welfare.

The document of the 13th National Congress mentions a very wide scope of social welfare, covering many areas, especially emphasizes ensuring the basic and essential needs of the people such as housing, travel, education, health service and employment... (13).

Free education is the most important content of social welfare, ensuring quality human resources and social infrastructure for national development, promoting equality of development opportunities for everyone in society. The 13th National Congress orients that “Building and implementing a roadmap towards free tuition for secondary students, first of all for primary and junior high school students” (14). In the process of innovating national education system, special attention should be paid to pre-school and primary education (15), because these are the foundational levels of education, plainly containing welfare’s characteristics. Associated with the above-mentioned policy orientations, it is necessary to “continue to increase investment in education and training in association with renovating mechanisms and policies to improve investment efficiency” and “improving mechanisms and policies to promote the socialization of education in the right direction and effectively” (16). Increasing the level of investment in education and moving towards the elimination of tuition fees for primary and junior high education have emphasized the nature and function of social welfare as using the financial budget to spend on education. When the entire population enjoys basic and essential education without tuition fees, this means creating development opportunities for everyone, especially low-income people, who still have equal opportunities with high-income people in the future in accessing educational services. The essence of tuition-free education is that the State transfers a certain amount of cash supply to households, also known that the State helps learners pay fees, supporting the poor to spend on other goods and services, improving the quality of life. Therefore, their children’s education does not become a burden to impoverish their families. The 13th National Congress emphasizes the effectiveness of increasing investment in education. That is defining budget spending on education as investment in development, increasing spending is necessary but must ensure that spending is on the right target and specialized fields, instead of spending based on the total payroll of each organization, agency or unit without clearly identifying the effectiveness of the beneficiaries. The document of the 13th National Congress also states that it is necessary to carry out the socialization of education in the right direction, but the big problem is to classify what educational activities at the request of individual learners and their ability to pay financial expenses are, and what the non-profit educational activities associated with the respective mechanisms and policies of the State are. For non-profit educational activities, it is necessary to support the State both policies and resources such as land to open schools, tax exemption for cases with personal income or inheritance to invest in developing education ... Pre-school education plays a particularly important role in ensuring social welfare. Sometimes, in some places, it has been floating for the market, leading to regrettable consequences. For example, teachers have ever been violent towards children, the feeding regime does not guarantee nutrition, hygiene and food safety, and there is a lack of suitable methods and means to the characteristics of “early education” … In market mechanism, it is necessary to encourage the non-public sectors to invest in developing schools fulfilling requirements of families who financially affordable, associated with good conditions in terms of school facilities, educational equipment, transportation, students’ regimen, etc., but there is no distinction between the public and private sectors in basic standards (quality of teachers, learning materials, hygiene, food safety, raising conditions...).

The healthcare system ensures effective disease prevention, meets the people’s needs for medical examination and treatment without “impoverishing” low-income people. Thanks to universal health insurance and healthcare service prices controlled by the role of the State, this demonstrates progressive, effective and humane social welfare. That spirit has been clearly stated in the goal orientation of the health system, which is to “ensure the entire population is managed, protected and cared for” (17). Public health service is focused, invested, paid attention to developing, which performs a role in preventing and minimizing diseases, especially overcoming increasing trends of diseases due to lack of scientific lifestyle and exercise, lack of harmony between labor and the imbalance between material and spiritual life, leading to an increase in “lifestyle-related diseases” (obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, cirrhosis of the liver ...). In the context that communicable diseases in the community are becoming more and more complicated, causing a serious threat to human security, the public health service system has a decisive role in preventing or controlling effectively not to transform into a health crisis. However, the current practice of COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control is a typical case. The 13th National Congress states that “it is necessary to improve the quality of formulation and effective implementation of policies on nutrition, food safety, protection, health care and the stature of the Vietnamese people” (18). In order to build a health system ensuring all people’s access to medical examination and treatment services without impoverishing themselves, the 13th National Congress orients “It has to renew the health financing mechanism, the management system and the provision of health services” (19). The State must focus on investing in the development of a capable public health system preventing diseases; expanding health insurance coverage, including continuing to support the budget for the poor and ethnic minorities to purchase health insurance; effectively managing of medical service prices (medical equipment, drugs, controlling doctors’ appointments for the use of high technology in medical examination and treatment...) for public hospitals given an authority of autonomy, as well as non-state hospitals. Therefore, to build a health system that reflects the true welfare, it is not only necessary to propagate and educate medical ethics for medical staff, but also to strengthen state management over health service prices to avoid commercializing medical services. This is also the spirit of “Implementing in the right direction and effectively socializing in the health sector; ensure equality between state healthcare and non-state healthcare” (20). This will create opportunities for the development of non-state hospitals operating on non-profit principles (21) in association with maximally mobilizing resources of businesses and society to serve the cause of people’s health care.

Cultural welfare is ensured by the development of cultural institutions with the nature of public services that beneficiaries receive free or low fees for use such as festivals, visits to monuments and landscapes. _Photo: Documentation

The cultural welfare of the people is ensured by promoting the roles of the State, enterprises and society. The document of the 13th National Congress of CPV determined that there must be mechanisms, policies and solutions to build a clean and healthy cultural environment, improve the people’s conditions for cultural enjoyment, ... equality of opportunity and cultural enjoyment (22). Cultural welfare is ensured by the development of cultural institutions of the nature of public service that beneficiaries enjoy free or with low usage fees such as Internet access, television, radio, newspapers, mail institutes, museums, parks. Besides, the people have a chance to enjoy community’s cultural values, such as festivals, visiting monuments and landscapes associated with the practice of religious rites and rituals managed by the community; free accessing to cultural, artistic and sports products through public communication channels. It must focus on “Overcoming the disparities in development levels and cultural life between regions, regions and social classes, paying special attention to remote areas, ethnic minority areas, industrial parks” … through various policies, such as providing newspapers, radio and internet access, television, … free charging in disadvantaged areas, and investing in expanding cultural institutions of the community, cultural institutions of workers in industrial zones  with responsibilities of the State, enterprises and trade unions.

Social housing and workers’ welfare are emerging issues that are very pressing in the process of accelerating industrialization and modernization of the country. Therefore, in the presentation of policies to the working class, the Political Report of the 13th National Congress emphasized “taking care of the material and spiritual life, housing and social welfare for workers.” (23). The five-year socio-economic development directions and tasks for 2021-2025 are more specific with developing and expanding types of housing; promoting the development of social housing, rental housing, affordable housing, housing for workers in industrial zones; creating conditions to encourage all economic sectors to participate in the development of housing under the market mechanism for social policy beneficiaries. Striving to 2025, the average housing area nationwide will be from 27m2 to 27.5m2 of floor/person (24). This is a huge problem of social welfare because since the removal of the housing subsidy, the housing issue has been pushed to the market, while the income of workers in both the public and private sectors can not afford to buy or rent housing, especially industrial park workers, urban immigrants. Workers are forced to spend most of their income buying or renting houses, which limits their ability to buy other goods and services to improve their quality of life. Therefore, the policy orientation of the 13th National Congress has reflected new perceptions on social housing in ensuring the people’s welfare and high determination with multi-participants to achieve the set goals. The State’s responsibility is reflected in the planning of land used for the construction of social housing. The land for social housing development must be considered for public and social purposes of decreasing housing prices - due to high housing prices, mainly because the price of social housing land is identified with commercial housing land, the people receive little support from the State, and few local projects dedicated land funds for social housing construction. The role of the State in this case is extremely important, not only planning land exclusively for social housing construction, but also implementing tax exemption or reduction for enterprises engaged in social housing business, spending the budget for investment and development of infrastructure of electricity, roads, schools, stations and synchronous social services in the planning area for social housing construction, management of social housing prices, etc. Hence, low-income people can afford to rent or buy a house at a reasonable price. Enterprises need to share a part of the profit invested in building housing for industrial park workers, making the rental or purchase price reasonable, and making housing costs not a burden for low-income people. Trade unions need to promote the role of collective bargaining to pressure employers to pay attention to workers’ welfare, to criticize and supervise the government in formulating and organizing the implementation of worker welfare policies. The trade union’s financial fund needs to be supported by a profitable business organization to help improve workers’ welfare.

If social welfare in capitalism is aimed at easing class conflicts, social welfare in socialism is ensured because people have a prosperous, free, happy life and have conditions for comprehensive development. Theoretical perceptions and policy orientations of the 13th National Congress affirm that the expansion of social welfare is taking care of human development, developing social infrastructure, spending on welfare is spending on development investment, constantly improving the people’s quality of life and happiness, realizing social progress and justice in each development steps and policies, and contributing to maintaining the socialist orientation in the process of national renewal.

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(1) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Publishing House. National Politics Truth, Hanoi, 2021, t. I, p. 65, 86, 102, 116, 133, 147, 149, 166

(2) Shown in the following contents: “The results of the implementation of the Resolution of the 12th Congress and the country's structure after 35 years of renovation (p. 65, p. 86, p. 102), "Development orientations" country in the period of 2021 - 2030" (p. 116), "Continuing to perfect the socialist-oriented market economy institution, focusing on removing bottlenecks" (p. 133), "Development management sustainable social development, ensuring social progress and justice" (p. 147 and p. 149), "Promoting the strength of great national unity" (p. 166)

(3) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 202

(4), (5), (6) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 131, 132, 129

(7) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 133

(8) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p, 147 - 148

(9) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. II, p. 102

(10) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p.168

(11) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p.131, 132

(12) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. II, p. 98

(13), (14), (15), (16) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 149, 138, 137, 139

(17) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 151

(18), (19), (20) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 151

(21) Non-profit hospital does not mean that the hospital has no profit, but the profit earned (after paying salaries and deducting expenses) is not distributed to shareholders but is reinvested in career development medican

(22) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 144

(23) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. I, p. 166

(24) Documents of the 13th National Congress of Deputies, Phone number, t. II, p. 138

This article was published in the Communist Review No. 966 (May 2021)