人类社会是不断发展的,发展的一个重要标志是人们劳动能力的不断提高,社会的劳动生产率不断提高。劳动生产率随着科学技术的发展越来越快。原始社会,劳动生产率极低,提高的速度也慢,据估计,劳动生产率每万年才能提高1—2％。①奴隶社会的劳动生产率比原始社会要高,据估计,每百年提高近4％。②封建社会的劳动生产率以每年平均0.2％的速度提高。资本主义社会,产生了近现代大工业,产生了近现代科学技术,劳动生产率水平大大提高;增长速度大大加快,1770～1840年的70年间,主要资本主义国家的工业劳动生产率提高了20倍,而后增长更快,1870～1913年劳动生产率平均增长速度各国虽不一样,但发展都很快,美国年平均增长1.9％,德国年平均增长1.6％,英国年平均增长1.1％。所以马克思恩格斯指出:“资产阶级在它的不到100年的阶级统治中所创造的生产力,比过去一切世代创造的全部生产力还要多,还要大。”③还说:“使得一个小孩在今天所生产的东西,比以前的 Human society is constantly evolving. An important symbol of development is the constant improvement of people’s ability to work and the continuous improvement of labor productivity in society. Labor productivity is accelerating with the development of science and technology. Primitive society, labor productivity is very low, the pace of increase is also slow, it is estimated that labor productivity can increase 1-2% per thousand years. ① The labor productivity of the slave society is higher than that of the primitive society. It is estimated that the rate of increase of nearly 4% per hundred years. ② feudal society’s labor productivity at an average annual rate of 0.2% increase. In the capitalist society, large-scale modern industry was created and modern science and technology were brought into production. The level of labor productivity was greatly raised. The growth rate was greatly accelerated. During the 70 years from 1770 to 1840, the industrial labor productivity of the major capitalist countries was increased by 20 times. However, the growth rate was even faster. The average growth rate of labor productivity in 1870-1913 was not the same. However, the development was very rapid with the average annual growth rate of 1.9% in the United States, 1.6% in Germany and 1.1% in the United Kingdom. Therefore, Marx and Engels pointed out: “The productivity created by the bourgeoisie in its class reign of less than 100 years is even greater and greater than the total productivity created by all generations.” 3 He also said: "Making a child Things produced today are more than before