“New quality productive forces” is a symbolic concept of practical and theoretical innovation of China’s productivity, a contemporary development and innovation of the Marxist productivity theory, and an important component of Xi Jinping’s economic thought. Scholars generally adopt a static perspective, while ignoring the dynamic evolution of China’s ideology of using scientific and technological innovation to develop productivity, so there is still a lack of systematic and in-depth research on the innovation context of new quality productive forces.

From the perspective of the history of economic thought, this paper dynamically examines the ideological innovation of new quality productive forces. The concept of productivity was initially proposed by classical political economists and critically inherited by Marx. The productivity theory has experienced the historical evolution from “tradition” to “new quality”, and China has changed from a recipient of western productivity theory and Marxist productivity theory in modern times to a leader in promoting continuous innovation in productivity theory nowadays. The theory of new quality productive forces comes from the practice of Chinese modernization, and represents the latest insights of the Communist Party of China on the modernization of productivity. The transformation of production relations is the active factor that gives birth to the theory of new quality productive forces. Compared with the traditional productivity theory, The theory of new quality productive forces develops a more in-depth analysis of the mechanism of productivity realization, taking industrial transformation as the path, innovative allocation of production factors as the focus, and production relations as the driving force, more clearly clarifying the logical relationship between scientific and technological innovation and productivity development.

This paper has the following innovations: First, it provides a new perspective to understand the theoretical innovation and practical significance of new quality productive forces. Second, it provides a new framework for analyzing the evolutionary logic and essential factors of productivity theory by considering the process of human exploration of modernization and the transformation of production relations. Third, it presents the innovative understanding and specific practice of science and technology in promoting the progress of productivity in various historical periods by focusing on the relationship between science and technology and productivity.