In Memory of Comrade P . Jaswantha Rao :
Socialist Transformation of Society Is Inevitable
( This paper was submitted by Com . P . Jaswantha Rao at a seminar in1997 )
Having recognised that the economic system is the foundation on which the political superstructure is erected , Karl Marx devoted most of his attention to the study of economic system . Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things , Marx revealed a relation between people . An investigation of relations or production in a given historically defined society , in their genesis , development and decline is the content of Marx ’ s economic doctrine . Thus Marx traced the development of capitalism from the first germs of commodity economy , from simple exchange to its higher forms of large scale production . And Lenin continued this study and established the capitalist laws that developed it into monopoly capitalism i . e . imperialism .
And the experience of the countries is clearly demonstrating the truth of the Marxism-Leninism to increasing number of people every year . To put in the words of Lenin “ Capitalism has triumphed all over the world , but this triumph is only a prelude to the triumph of labour over capital ”, i . e . the struggle of the proletariat to overthrow capitalism .
It has become fashionable , even for the so-called left , to proclaim that the days of class struggle are over . This version gained momentum with the demise of social imperialism , which capped the political and ideological bankruptcy of the revisionist forces the world over . The idea that there could still emerge a collective struggle on the basis of class striving for socialism is being rediculed . Though the imperialist “ Market Economy ” advancing apparent individualisation and fragmentation , and at the same time ,
August - 2022 collectivisation of the forces of production , is caught in its own irreconcilable contradictions .
The December 1995 movement in France , followed a year later by the truckers blockade , the rebellion of Zapatismo and the rise of working class struggle and resistance in Mexico ; the collective action of Korean working class in the form of general strike ; the civil war in Zaire which paralysed the machinations of imperialist forces and the advancing peoples war in Philippines under the leadership of Communist Party of Philippines flies in the face of this revisionist bankruptcy and theories of globalisation that profess the end of class struggles .
The aim of this paper is to expose this poverty of philosophy from the angle of Marxist political economy . Is globalisation a new advanced stage of capitalism , that made it invincible ? Has the national economies lost their relevance due to recent changes in the International economic relations ? Had the MNC ’ s transformed into supranational and super-state subjects ? These are some of the questions that this paper attempts to answer .
The post-Marxist theories argue that the universal capitalism of the post-war world is dominated by liberal democracy and a democratic consumerism , and both of these have opened up a whole new areas of democratic opposition and struggle , which are much more diverse than the old class struggles . The implicit conclusion is that these struggles cannot really be against capitalism , since it is now so total that there is really no alternative . So in this universal system of capitalism , there can be , and can only be , multitude of fragmented particular struggles within the interstices of capitalism .
Post-Modernists have gone one step further . Now , it is not even just a question of universal capitalism ; now capitalism is so universal that it is basically invisible , as air to us human beings . We may play around in this universal medium , and may be we even carve out little enclaves , little sanctuaries of privacy , seclusion and freedom . But we cannot escape this universal medium itself .
They see the globalisation as a tide sweeping over borders in which technology and irresistible market forces transform the global system in ways beyond the power of anyone to do much to change . The TNC ’ s and global governance organisations like World Bank , IMF and WTO enforce conformity on all nations and “ subsumes and subordinates national level processes ”. Hence , the class struggles-the struggle of workers against monopoly capitalists , struggle of peasants against feudal lords , the struggle of people against national oppression etc . have lost their relevance . One need not and cannot change the system . But just fight for some improvements .
These theories of globalisation are based on myth , are not based on sound analysis of what is more complex social process called imperialism and have profound political implications which are defeatist in nature , and disarms the people .
Capitalism has always been a global system . It created world market before it advanced to the present stage of imperialism . In the history of mankind , the only social organisation that brought the world under one economic system is the capitalism .
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