[Research Contribution] The Decisive Role of Vietnamese People in Ensuring Production Relations Align with the Development of Productive Forces in the Nation’s New Era

4 Tháng Mười, 2025

Keywords: Industrial Revolution 4.0, productive forces, production relations, human resources

Vietnam is entering the digital era with significant opportunities arising from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, yet it also faces challenges related to institutional frameworks, human resources, and the environment. Digital transformation, green economy, and innovation are inevitable trends for sustainable development. However, production relations have not kept pace with the development of productive forces, resulting in inadequacies in the ownership of digital means of production, labor management, and benefit distribution. Therefore, the Communist Party of Vietnam must take the lead in institutional reform, enhance the quality of human resources, and promote innovation to ensure equitable and efficient development. Explore the research by authors from the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH) on “The Decisive Role of Vietnamese People in Ensuring Production Relations Align with the Development of Productive Forces in the Nation’s New Era.”

In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, productive forces in Vietnam are undergoing a profound transformation driven by artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data, and the Internet of Things (IoT). However, production relations have yet to adapt accordingly, leading to limitations in harnessing economic potential, as evidenced by outdated management models, inadequacies in benefit distribution, and uneven workforce quality. To address these issues, it is necessary to strengthen digital skills training, reform ownership and management models, apply technology to enterprise governance, and innovate the political system. According to Marxism-Leninism, human beings are creative agents who determine the development of both productive forces and production relations. The Communist Party of Vietnam has flexibly applied this ideology, maximizing all resources, promoting cultural values and national qualities, and striving toward a prosperous, thriving society advancing toward socialism, with the comprehensive development of human beings as its core objective.

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Marxist-Leninist Theory on the Role of Human Beings in the Relationship between Productive Forces and Production Relations

According to Marxism-Leninism, productive forces and production relations are two core elements constituting the mode of production that determine socio-economic development. Productive forces represent the combination of laborers and means of production, which previously relied on manual labor and rudimentary tools but have now evolved with science, technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation, generating high productivity and driving the knowledge economy. Production relations encompass the ownership of means of production, organizational management, and product distribution, modernized through diverse forms of ownership, digital technology management models, and distribution mechanisms tied to market forces and labor efficiency.

Production relations must align with the nature and level of development of productive forces to drive socio-economic growth. If production relations become outdated, they will hinder development, generate contradictions, and demand reform. Conversely, when synchronized, productive forces are unleashed, creating conditions for sustainable development. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels affirmed that productive forces form the foundation of all social change, determining class division and shaping political and legal institutions. Engels likened Marx to the Darwin of human history, for he discovered the laws of social development based on changes in the mode of production.

In the era of digital transformation, digital workers hold a central role in modern productive forces, directly engaging with digital means of production such as data, algorithms, and intelligent systems. This requires them to possess high professional qualifications, creative thinking, and comprehensive digital skills, including programming, data analysis, cybersecurity, and technological adaptability. Core technologies such as AI, Big Data, and IoT are profoundly transforming production and management methods, increasing the demand for innovative human resources. Compared to traditional production, digital workers deliver superior outcomes by optimizing processes, reducing costs, and enhancing productivity. However, production relations have not kept pace with productive forces, resulting in inadequacies in technology access, benefit distribution, and human resource development. In the digital economy, individuals exercise their roles in ownership, organization, management, and product distribution through creating and utilizing technology and participating in digital platforms to optimize economic value. Meanwhile, society as a collective plays a regulatory, connective role, ensuring fairness in ownership relations, management, and distribution through policy mechanisms, community cooperation, and building a sustainable, transparent digital environment. Consequently, ownership of digital means of production is increasingly concentrated among major technology corporations such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba, exacerbating inequality in access to digital resources and limiting innovation opportunities for small enterprises. Production organization and management are carried out through advanced technology models such as AI-driven automation, Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, ERP, and Big Data Analytics, which optimize value chains while simultaneously posing challenges for labor oversight. Product distribution depends on Big Tech platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud, and e-commerce platforms like eBay, Shopee, and TikTok Shop, creating a concentration of power in distribution and market control. Therefore, individuals have opportunities to access digital markets but are also susceptible to dependence on large platforms, while society as a whole faces challenges regarding fairness in data ownership rights and labor benefits. The concentration of digital means of production leads to class contradictions between technology corporations dominating the market and digital workers, while also deepening social stratification between those who control technology and those who depend on digital platforms. Nations today must confront contradictions over data sovereignty, technology supply chains, and digital market control strategies, exemplified by the technological confrontation between the United States and China in semiconductors, AI, and 5G.

Thus, to optimize the role of digital workers, clear legal frameworks, supportive technology, and advanced management models are needed to create a flexible, creative, and sustainable production environment.

The Current State of Vietnamese People’s Role Demanding that Production Relations Align with the Development of Productive Forces in the Context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The role of Vietnamese workers in the development of productive forces today

In the digital economy, Vietnamese people participating in the creative value-generation labor process play a crucial role in operating the production system – not merely as task executors but as technology creators, process innovators, and labor productivity optimizers. This workforce includes programmers, data scientists, engineers, and technology specialists who contribute to the advancement of industries based on data and artificial intelligence. However, 38.0 million workers remain untrained, posing challenges in upgrading the technical qualifications of the labor force.

According to the 2024 Global Innovation Index (GII) Report, Vietnam ranked 44th out of 133 countries, indicating improvement in innovation capacity. Nevertheless, Vietnam’s labor productivity remains lower than that of many countries in the region, estimated at 199.3 million VND per worker (equivalent to 8,380 USD per worker). Despite growth, this productivity level has yet to meet the requirements of modern production, presenting significant challenges in enhancing work efficiency and the competitiveness of Vietnamese workers. The rate of trained workers holding degrees or certificates reached only 27.0%, reflecting the reality that the majority of the workforce has not been adequately equipped with professional skills and digital competencies. Access to and application of advanced technologies such as automation, AI, and Big Data remain limited, preventing labor productivity from being fully optimized. At the same time, labor management systems retain traditional characteristics, lacking the flexibility to adapt to digital transformation, resulting in suboptimal production efficiency. Furthermore, most enterprises have yet to invest sufficiently in digital human resource training, while many workers lack access to learning programs and new skills development opportunities. The gap between actual enterprise demands and workforce qualifications remains substantial, creating a shortage of high-quality labor, particularly in industries requiring specialized technical expertise and strong creative capacity.

The role of Vietnamese people in production relations today

In Vietnam’s current economy, ownership of means of production is distributed among multiple economic sectors, each with varying roles and levels of contribution to overall growth. Vietnam is witnessing a transition from traditional physical ownership to ownership of digital means of production, including data, software, information technology, AI, and the digital ecosystem. In this process, the role of Vietnamese people in owning means of production has become more important than ever. Currently, digital means of production are primarily owned by foreign corporations, placing Vietnam at risk of losing control over the digital economy, becoming dependent on imported technology, and facing limitations in domestic innovation capacity. Therefore, to ensure sustainable development, domestic ownership of digital means of production – particularly the ownership by private enterprises and state-owned enterprises of core technologies, strategic data, and digital resources – is essential. The State must implement policies to support the development of domestic technology enterprises, encourage innovation, and build a digital economic ecosystem founded on Vietnamese ownership. This is a prerequisite for ensuring the economy not only develops sustainably but also maintains competitiveness in the era of digitalization and global integration. However, the majority of data centers in Vietnam are currently owned by foreign investors. This leads to difficulties for domestic enterprises and Vietnamese workers in accessing and controlling critical digital resources, creating dependence on foreign entities. The loss of control over digital means of production affects not only economic competitiveness but also poses challenges to national security and sovereignty in the digital era. Dependence on technology and data controlled by foreign entities can lead to risks of being influenced in economic policy and cybersecurity.

Moreover, Vietnamese workers participate in organizational and management functions primarily in execution and operational roles, with limited opportunities to engage in strategic planning or senior management within enterprises. The ILO Report (2023) indicated that only approximately 15% of workers in Vietnam possess basic management skills, while the demand for management competencies is rising in modern production chains. Limitations in qualifications and management skills result in Vietnamese workers typically assuming only lower-level roles within production organizations. This affects their comprehensive development and diminishes the operational efficiency of production chains. In product distribution chains, Vietnamese workers participate primarily in intermediary and operational segments such as logistics and sales. However, the role of Vietnamese workers in high value-added segments, such as market research and distribution strategy development, remains very limited. Although Vietnamese workers have gained access to e-commerce platforms and blockchain technology, the adoption rate remains low. The World Bank Report (2023) revealed that only 10% of the workforce in Vietnam participates in high-technology product distribution activities, while regional counterparts such as Thailand and Malaysia achieve rates of 30–40%.

Therefore, Vietnamese people play a central role in both productive forces and production relations, yet they continue to face limitations in skills and ownership rights. The lack of synchronization between these two factors reduces production efficiency and workers’ benefits, necessitating the comprehensive development of Vietnamese people in the digital era.

Authors: Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dong Phong, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Thi Kien – University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City.

This article is part of the Series on Research Dissemination and Applied Knowledge from UEH, carrying the message “Research Contribution For All”. UEH cordially invites readers to follow the next edition of UEH Research Insights.

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Content and images: Authors, UEH Department of Communications and Partnerships

 

 

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