I’ve heard it said before, though I can’t remember where, that Marx regarded capitalism as a necessary stage in social development. Does this imply that capitalism is inevitable, along with all its exploitation? Maybe I’m misinterpreting something, but I don’t really like the idea. I understand that communism refers to a post-capitalist society rather than a non-capitalist society, making capitalism “necessary” for the creation of socialism, but I don’t think it follows to argue that capitalism is something every society must move through. Thoughts?
Capitalism was not inevitable. Feudalism could have just stagnated or died out. Capitalism is what ultimately resolved the contradictions of Feudalism and this happened over the course of centuries. Likewise, Socialism will resolve the contradictions of Capitalism (hopefully before life on Earth is doomed).
In Marx’s time, it was presumed that the most advanced centers of Capitalism would be the first to progress to Socialism, but historically this didn’t bear out. The Socialist revolution didn’t take place in England or Germany, but in Russia, which was a backwater by contemporary standards, barely letting go of serfdom. As a functionally feudal monarchy on Europe’s periphery, the bourgeois class of Russia was stunted, and this certainly played a role in their defeat. The vast majority of places we see revolutionary class struggle endure, from China to Korea to Cuba to Vietnam tend not to be the centers of industrial production (at least, at the times of their revolutions).
So you could say that countries like the USSR and China skipped past Capitalism, but only in a regional sense. It still remains as a world-hegemonic system which they have always been forced to contend with.
They didn’t though. They tried but ultimately did had to resort to state capitalism. And while in USSR it could be explained being destroyed by war and in horrible internal and external emergency, China only did it 30 years after revolution after trying to specifically avoid it at first.
Yes i do think capitalism is inevitable, Marx might been wrong about socialism coming first in most developed nations, but note how everywhere the revolution did happened, even in most backward countries it did happened as the reaction for the capitalism, specifically imperialism. So still capitalism, but not necessarily their own capitalism.
But surely it is worth interrogating what capitalism is and how it can be contrasted from the existence of capital. I think it is correct to say China, for example, couldn’t skip “capitalism.”
But when I think of capitalism, I think of the domination of capitalist social relations. I would go as far as saying capitalist relations will usurp all human social relations. These relations are present in the PRC, but how dominant are they? Have they usurped all relations and firmly entrenched its associated ideologies? I think this is contestable. While neoliberalism is, I think, a recognizable problem in the PRC, and while I do wish the Party took harder stances on its private enterprises and kept a tight leash on even its SOEs, it seems clear that the Party has been a functional barrier to a full takeover of capitalist relations.
Perhaps this view of capitalism is not good enough, but I don’t think it is merely semantical to differentiate capital, industrialism, etc. and capitalism itself. If it is true, then how does this interact with the question of capitalisms necessity? Similar to what @redtea was saying, we have learned what we need to know from capital and labor, and so we don’t really need to let these relations dominate anyone’s lives more than we need to, unless the relations themselves usurp humanity and we are left to be dominated by something that has ultimately transcended ourselves.
Capitalism (the dictatorship of capitalist social relations) IMO is not “necessary,” but since it is here there exists the possibility to utilize things like uneven and combined development pathways so that, so long as the relations do not usurp its process, socialism can be constructed dialectally. Further, I might say it is not possible to develop socialism if capitalist relations dominate the development process totally because it will just do something like what the US has done, financializing everything and consciously destroying the prospect of worker power that is instrumental to building revolutionary potential. Meanwhile, though many find the PRC to be explicitly capitalist, they fail to see that rising wages in Asia are a death sentence for the dominance of capitalist relations globally. Yes, in some ways these relations are destroying themselves, but somewhere in the world there has to be someone dictating capital and guiding the development process to arrive at this contradiction in a way that is favorable to socialist construction instead of just generic crisis.
I honestly don’t know how far capitalist relations goes in China. I can only judge based on what i hear in the news and what i deduct from the Chinese media i consume, i’m not very optimistic. Apparently the party control it and the control is raising rather than falling, but it’s clear to me they have significant problem with the petty bourgeois sentiment. The very same thing that buried socialism in Europe. And that the PRC, wating to reach any higher level of development of socialism than NEP with chinese characteristics (because frankly they are there right now), which is pretty low level athough as we can see with many massive successes already, the long and hard war with that sentiment will need to be waged. That war, which Lenin called “the hardest” part of revolution, and was certainly right about it, looking at history.
I think they can do it, but the first condition, which european socialist states couldn’t fulfill, is to not be sabotaged by imperialism.
You know, when i think about it, in a way it could be the greatest vindication of both Marx and Lenin if it happen, because it would mean the dictatorship of the proletariat, using state controlled capitalism become the most developed country and then develop further to higher stages of socialism.
But i digress, if the topic of question was involving specifically historical materialism, then i can only sign myself under @redtea comment, it was necessary because it happened just like that. But after getting all that experience the worst things can be avoided for the future, but again i can only see that under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Bourgeois states appear incorrigible even after all that time.
I agree with most of what you said, and you have very fair points, but I think you’re being a little too hard on China. China isn’t perfect of course, but I think generally speaking, there is cause for great optimism, and China and socialism is on the up and up.
Its honestly frustrating how important the PRC is because it’s so far away, so often misunderstood and misrepresented. It is easy to go full optimism or full cynicism. And then there is all the work that is needed at home that could easily consume anyone. But no matter what im doing these questions about the PRC come up inevitably because if our comrades in China are even half correct it means everything, even for us in our own struggles.
In many ways the heavy obvious consequences of the PRCs success or failure are why I have turned heavily toward Indigenous and Tribal thinkers and the contradictions and potential reconciliations between marxist thinking and Indigenous understandings of capitalism to act as a balance in attempting to understand historical materialism and the normativity it seems to conjure among different classes. It seems that Indigenous “marxists” recognize very similar problems in their development, notably the creation of an aboriginal bourgeoisie class that aligns with the settler state. They usually prioritize more “preventative” approaches to capitalism because of this than the more explicitly marxist approach of “moving through” capitalism by maturing socialism. It seems to me we need a bit of both.