in terms of basic value orientation, Confucianism advocates enriching the people before teaching, and enriching the people before enriching the country, which is still the basic principle followed in the process of improving people's livelihood in China today. Since Confucius put "wealth" before "teaching", Meng and Xun all talked about wealth before teaching. They all saw that people's basic survival needs should be met before they could talk about etiquette and morality. People must first meet the basic needs of survival, and then they will pursue the satisfaction of spiritual life. This understanding is most clearly expressed in Guanzi: "Cang Shi knows etiquette, and food and clothing know honor and shame." Yan Hui lived in a mean alley and didn't change his pleasure. "Only those who have perseverance without constant production can do what they can." Only a few people can maintain noble morality in poverty. For all living beings, eating and dressing is still the first need. Therefore, people's livelihood has different levels, and people's livelihood issues have different manifestations at different stages. For this, China * * * producers have a clear understanding. From the "three-step" development strategy of the 13th National Congress to the "promoting social construction with the focus on improving people's livelihood" of the 17th National Congress, we all follow the process of getting rich first and then educating. In the early days of reform and opening up, the main livelihood problem faced by China was the worry of food and clothing for urban and rural residents, so adequate food and clothing was the main goal at that time. After 3 years of reform and opening up, the living standards of residents have been greatly improved. Nowadays, good education, stable employment, fair income distribution, sound social security, beautiful living environment and free and equal development space have increasingly become the common aspirations of urban and rural residents and the main content of improving people's livelihood. Therefore, in the report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it is the main goal of social construction to realize "learning to be educated, earning from labor, getting medical care for illness, providing for the elderly and living in a proper place".

Confucianists' pursuit of wealth is not only the pursuit of the enrichment of the national treasury, but also the people's adequate use of wealth. They distinguish between the national wealth and the people's wealth, and believe that only when the people are rich first can the national wealth be truly realized. "The people are rich, but the monarch is not enough." "If the people are rich, the land will be fertile and easy, and the land will be a hundred times richer ..." ("Xunzi" Mencius sharply criticized the ruler who extorted wealth for his own extravagance and enjoyment, regardless of the poverty and hunger of the people: "There is fat meat in the barn, fat horses in the stables, hungry people, and hungry wild people, which leads to beasts and cannibalism." ("Mencius Liang Hui Wang Shang") This typically shows the Confucian people-oriented stance, which is different from the Legalists' emphasis on enriching the country. Legalists reward farming wars, impose heavy penalties and lightly reward them, and pursue the goal of enriching Qiang Bing through farming wars, rather than satisfying the people's survival needs. "Confucianism will enrich the country through enriching the people, and Legalists will strengthen the country through losing people." ② The value orientation of regarding the wealth of the people as the premise of the wealth of the country means today that in the process of building a well-off society in an all-round way, we can't judge whether we have reached a well-off society only on the basis of economic growth rate, gross national product, total import and export volume, but on whether the wealth of the country brings tangible benefits to the people.

The concrete measures put forward by Confucianism to enrich the people still have certain reference significance for today's social construction. These ideas, such as sparing taxes and controlling the people's property, are all schemes for distributing the existing social wealth. Their main purpose is to reduce the share of social wealth owned and enjoyed by the ruling group and let more people share it, which is also in line with the modern ruling concept of "the fruits of development are enjoyed by the people". At present, the problem of uneven distribution of social resources among different social groups is more serious in China, especially the social wealth shared by some vulnerable groups is too little. As pointed out in the report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China: "People's lives have generally reached a well-off level, while the widening income distribution gap has not been fundamentally reversed, and there are still a considerable number of poor and low-income people in urban and rural areas, making it more difficult to take into account the interests of all parties; Significant achievements have been made in coordinated development. At the same time, the situation of weak agricultural foundation and lagging rural development has not changed. It is an arduous task to narrow the development gap between urban and rural areas and promote coordinated economic and social development. " In order to solve these problems, China has established a reasonable and orderly income distribution pattern, a social security system covering urban and rural areas, and implemented active employment policies to coordinate the distribution of interests, ensure the inclusiveness of development results, and ensure the improvement of the people's livelihood.

Although the idea of making the people timely is the product of the labor service system in feudal society, it has no direct value today, but it reflects the importance of the labor force in the development of production, which is still of positive significance to today's economic and social development. To improve people's livelihood, developing production is the basic premise. To develop production, we must maintain and ensure the production and reproduction of labor force, not only to ensure the quantity of labor force, but also to ensure the quality of labor force, that is, to improve the quality of workers. Therefore, today, on the one hand, we should give priority to the development of education to improve the quality of workers, on the other hand, we should establish and improve the public medical and health system to ensure the health level of workers. These are important aspects of modern people's livelihood. (