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Marx still relevant though he missed LV and banking
By Wan Lixin |
December 31, 2011, Saturday
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NO educated Chinese has not heard of Karl Marx's "Das Kapital."
Marx's didactic materialism is the basis of ideological orthodoxy for all stages of school education in China, and later periodic indoctrination is required for politically ambitious Party members.
There is no exception, even for people seeking advanced academic degrees in fields as diverse as science and literature.
One official recently noted that "The CPC's use of Marxism and all its theories, ideas and actions as a guide is based on the dialectical materialism view of the world." ("Party: Members must be atheists," Shanghai Daily, December 21)
But to what degree are Marxist doctrines still a living source of inspiration - not just book knowledge to be tested on - for Chinese policy makers in this age of heady economic growth?
A new, abridged "Capital" (Oxford University Press, 1999) provides valuable guidance to people who are lost in the consumer society but are too busy to thumb through the volumes of "Das Kapital" in its totality.
Careful readers can profit enormously from the masterpiece on which Marx (1818-1883) labored 15 years - on the first volume alone.
Marx showed great perspicacity in singling out commodity as the point of departure in dissecting capitalism.
"A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties," Marx wrote.
Each type of goods carries two kinds of value: use value and exchange value.
Ostensibly, workers exchange their capacity to work for money to buy goods, while capitalists exchange money for goods, which they then resell for more money.
A thitherto ignored key element in this exchange is the surplus value, or "the difference between the value of the product of labor and the cost of producing that labor, ie, the laborer's subsistence."
It is the exploitation of this surplus value that explains the vigor, resilience, and the moribund nature of capitalist society.
Thus, in hiring workers, the capitalists would pay them only the subsistence wages, while pocketing the surplus value.
"As the conscious representative of this movement, the possessor of money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which the money starts and to which it returns," Marx observed.
In comparison with peasants who till their own land, industrial workers become estranged from their work because its result does not belong to them anymore. Work is an integral part of the human personality, but modern workers perform specialized, mindless activities that are connected to workers only by wages.
The craving for ever more profit drives capitalism and leads to ever-growing amounts of capital. Whoever owns the money that drives this process has just one goal: to become richer and richer.
As production revs up, the demand for labor intensifies. Hence the need for a huge labor reserve.
Expropriation of lands could throw peasants off agricultural properties, and force them to offer their labor in the growing industrial marketplace.
In their "Communist Manifesto," Marx and Engels correctly foresaw the age of globalization in predicting, "The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it (the bourgeoisie) batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production ..."
As we can see, many of Marxist predictions have come true.
The market credo has prevailed and appears irresistible, as economic boosterism (growth) becomes stated national mandate for all civilized countries.
As Marx and Engels claimed, "The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers."
The poverty of the working class is becoming manifest, as wealth gaps steadily grow in countries whether "developed," "underdeveloped," or "emerging."
The repeated calls for "consuming more" both embody the "commodity fetish" and widen the wealth gap.
And the inability for the working masses to consume more - as a result of exploitation- must necessarily lead to crisis.
But we have yet to verify again Marxist prediction that the fight over surplus value will lead to "the revolt of the working class."
Marx failed to envision several new developments.
One is the ravaging of our physical environment through reckless growth, so that the environment revolts - or groans - even before the working class.
Another development is that in his analysis Marx focused only on manufacturing.
He failed to see how manufacturing profit would appear to be a trifle beside such inventions as financial derivatives, LV bags, or "Apple."
Marx's didactic materialism is the basis of ideological orthodoxy for all stages of school education in China, and later periodic indoctrination is required for politically ambitious Party members.
There is no exception, even for people seeking advanced academic degrees in fields as diverse as science and literature.
One official recently noted that "The CPC's use of Marxism and all its theories, ideas and actions as a guide is based on the dialectical materialism view of the world." ("Party: Members must be atheists," Shanghai Daily, December 21)
But to what degree are Marxist doctrines still a living source of inspiration - not just book knowledge to be tested on - for Chinese policy makers in this age of heady economic growth?
A new, abridged "Capital" (Oxford University Press, 1999) provides valuable guidance to people who are lost in the consumer society but are too busy to thumb through the volumes of "Das Kapital" in its totality.
Careful readers can profit enormously from the masterpiece on which Marx (1818-1883) labored 15 years - on the first volume alone.
Marx showed great perspicacity in singling out commodity as the point of departure in dissecting capitalism.
"A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties," Marx wrote.
Each type of goods carries two kinds of value: use value and exchange value.
Ostensibly, workers exchange their capacity to work for money to buy goods, while capitalists exchange money for goods, which they then resell for more money.
A thitherto ignored key element in this exchange is the surplus value, or "the difference between the value of the product of labor and the cost of producing that labor, ie, the laborer's subsistence."
It is the exploitation of this surplus value that explains the vigor, resilience, and the moribund nature of capitalist society.
Thus, in hiring workers, the capitalists would pay them only the subsistence wages, while pocketing the surplus value.
"As the conscious representative of this movement, the possessor of money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which the money starts and to which it returns," Marx observed.
In comparison with peasants who till their own land, industrial workers become estranged from their work because its result does not belong to them anymore. Work is an integral part of the human personality, but modern workers perform specialized, mindless activities that are connected to workers only by wages.
The craving for ever more profit drives capitalism and leads to ever-growing amounts of capital. Whoever owns the money that drives this process has just one goal: to become richer and richer.
As production revs up, the demand for labor intensifies. Hence the need for a huge labor reserve.
Expropriation of lands could throw peasants off agricultural properties, and force them to offer their labor in the growing industrial marketplace.
In their "Communist Manifesto," Marx and Engels correctly foresaw the age of globalization in predicting, "The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it (the bourgeoisie) batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production ..."
As we can see, many of Marxist predictions have come true.
The market credo has prevailed and appears irresistible, as economic boosterism (growth) becomes stated national mandate for all civilized countries.
As Marx and Engels claimed, "The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers."
The poverty of the working class is becoming manifest, as wealth gaps steadily grow in countries whether "developed," "underdeveloped," or "emerging."
The repeated calls for "consuming more" both embody the "commodity fetish" and widen the wealth gap.
And the inability for the working masses to consume more - as a result of exploitation- must necessarily lead to crisis.
But we have yet to verify again Marxist prediction that the fight over surplus value will lead to "the revolt of the working class."
Marx failed to envision several new developments.
One is the ravaging of our physical environment through reckless growth, so that the environment revolts - or groans - even before the working class.
Another development is that in his analysis Marx focused only on manufacturing.
He failed to see how manufacturing profit would appear to be a trifle beside such inventions as financial derivatives, LV bags, or "Apple."
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