●Yi Fei
Since its birth, capitalism has gone through four stages of development, including primitive accumulation of capital, free competition, private monopoly and state monopoly. The so-called contemporary capitalism is the capitalism at the stage of state monopoly starting from the end of World War II. Nowadays, the contemporary capitalism, which takes the western developed countries as its typical form, has undergone a series of significant changes in terms of productive forces, production relations and superstructure, and many new phenomena and characteristics have emerged.
The founder of Marxism once lamented back then that the productive forces created by the bourgeoisie in its less than one hundred years of class rule were more and greater than all the productive forces created in all past generations. Now, after more than 50 years of post-World War II development, the developed countries of the West have again created far more productive forces than all the staggering records created by capitalism in previous centuries. At the same time, the volatility of economic development has slowed. Before World War II, the United States averaged 50 months per development cycle, while after the war it extended to more than 75 months; moreover, the duration of economic growth was lengthening, the duration of crises was shortening, and the destructive power caused by each cycle was also reduced. In addition, the industrial structure has undergone profound changes. At present, the proportion of the primary industry in western developed countries is less than 3%, and only 2% in the United States; the proportion of the secondary industry is decreasing; and the proportion of the tertiary industry is generally above 60%. The proportion of these three industries actually reflects the degree of socialization of production. Under the advancement of the new scientific and technological revolution, the industrial structure of the western developed countries has completed the transformation from labor-intensive to capital-intensive and then to technology- and knowledge-intensive; at present, it is shifting from the traditional industrial economy to the information economy.
Contemporary capitalism has also made a series of adjustments in the relations of production. In terms of property relations, many developed countries have made adjustments to the forms of property ownership under the premise of insisting that private ownership remains unchanged, and there has been a tendency towards the so-called socialization of capital, which is mainly manifested in two aspects: first, the establishment and development of a certain proportion of state-owned economy in accordance with the needs of the economic situation; and, second, the decentralization of the shareholdings of enterprises. In the post-war period, more and more individuals in society bought shares and corporate entities bought shares from each other, giving rise to the so-called tendency towards the decentralization of shareholdings and the socialization of capital. In terms of industrial relations, the developed countries of the West, on the premise of insisting that the fundamental interests of the bourgeoisie not be jeopardized, have taken various forms, including allowing some workers to participate in the management of enterprises, in order to improve industrial relations and ease class contradictions. For example, since the 1980s, the European Union has generally implemented a system of enterprise *** same decision-making, stipulating that enterprises must absorb a certain proportion of workers' representatives into their boards of directors to participate in decision-making, or else they will be in violation of the law. In terms of distribution relations, many developed countries, while adhering to the premise of capital-based distribution characterized by exploitation, have made certain adjustments to their income distribution policies, easing social contradictions to a certain extent. At present, the annual national income centralized through taxation in Western countries accounts for more than one third of GDP, with the European Union countries accounting for close to 50 per cent. In the national financial form of this part of the national wealth, about 50% of more than mainly for poverty relief, free medical care, unemployment subsidies, pensions and other social welfare spending, so that workers' lives have been greatly improved.
In terms of superstructure, the western countries have also made some adjustments in the structure of state power, the form of social management, and the construction of the legal system on the premise that the fundamental rule of the bourgeoisie remains unchanged. The structure of state power and its operation have been increasingly legalized, and the bourgeois state, through its constitution and laws, has brought the composition of state power, the activities of the main bodies of power in the power structure, and the appointment, promotion, reward, and supervision of officials into the orbit of the rule of law; and the functions of the state in managing the economy and the society have also been further strengthened.
The above changes show that although the basic contradictions inherent in contemporary capitalist society still exist and it still faces all kinds of intractable problems and difficulties; objectively speaking, however, contemporary capitalism still possesses a certain capacity for development and self-adjustment, which will not disappear until the full range of productive forces that can be accommodated by the capitalist system has been brought into play.
Information on the regulation and control of certain areas of the national economy by the state monopoly by virtue of its political power and the resources it possesses. At the present stage, the developed countries in the West is practiced in the combination of state power and monopoly capital of the state monopoly capital. Its specific forms of realization include: nationalized operation or holding in some important enterprises; state monopoly in certain industries; and monopoly of the social management and regulation system through the use of the state's financial and monetary systems. State monopoly capital to a certain extent alleviates the contradiction between limited private capital and the development of socialized productive forces, and also reduces some of the negative impact of private capital on social and economic development.
Since capitalism is rotten and dying, why did the economies of the developed Western countries develop with a stronger momentum after the war? This is because--
There is still room for the development of the productive forces of capitalism
●Jiang Zixi
Marx famously said in the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy that "whichever social formation, in the the full productive forces it can accommodate are brought into play, it will never perish." This insightful statement is a key to unlocking the labyrinth of development of contemporary capitalism. At present, the fundamental reason why capitalism is still able to develop at a relatively strong momentum is that it is still able to regulate and improve certain aspects of the relations of production to a certain extent, which can to a certain extent alleviate the contradiction between the private possession of the means of production and the socialized production, and provide a new space for the development of the productive forces to be accommodated by contemporary capitalism.
Currently, the economic and political conditions that have contributed to the development of contemporary capitalism are mainly:
The great impetus of the new scientific and technological revolution. The third post-war scientific and technological revolution, so that the economic growth of the developed countries in the West generally from the "extended" to the "connotative" transformation of the degree of dependence on natural resources is relatively reduced, while the dependence on science and technology, information and human quality greatly enhanced. At present, the economic growth of developed countries in the West, science and technology contribution rate has increased from 20% to 30% at the beginning of this century to about 70%. A direct consequence of the new scientific and technological revolution is that the enormous productive forces it has created have laid a strong material foundation for the easing of social contradictions in the developed capitalist countries. In fact, many times after the war, the social contradictions of capitalism were already very sharp, but due to the sharp increase in social wealth created by the new scientific and technological revolution, the cake of capitalism's wealth distribution was enlarged. In this way, Western countries were able to increase the absolute amount of income of laborers without changing the proportion of wealth distribution or even increasing the proportion accounted for by capitalists, slowing down capitalism's own contradictions to a certain extent and prolonging its life.
The establishment of the modern market economy has provided contemporary capitalism with an economic form capable of sustaining its development. Before the birth of the modern market economy, there were institutional obstacles such as chaotic macro-order and excessive monopolization in the capitalist economy. With the establishment of the capitalist state intervention function in the modern market economy, especially the successive introduction and formation of a system of anti-monopoly policies such as the "antitrust laws", the normal role of the competition mechanism was protected to a certain extent, thus slowing down the volatility, spontaneity and destructive nature of the market economy, which largely contributed to the new scientific and technological revolutions and the continued development of the capitalist economy.
The irrational international economic division of labor has underpinned the development of contemporary capitalism. Among the many countries and regions practicing the capitalist system today, there is a wide gap between their economic and technological levels, forming a pattern of developed countries on one side and developing countries on the other. Generally speaking, the developed countries are responsible for high-value-added high-tech industries in the international economic division of labor, while the underdeveloped countries are responsible for low-value-added traditional industries. This division of labor reflects the economic exploitation of the vast number of developing countries by the developed countries. After the war, the western developed countries, in the process of increasing the export of capital, directly exploited the cheap labor of developing countries and earned surplus value; at the same time, they also made another fortune from the developing countries in international trade by means of unreasonable scissor differences in product prices. For example, during the 22 years from 1951 to 1973, the developed countries took more than 130 billion dollars from the developing countries through the unequal exchange of import and export trade. Clearly, it is this foreign exploitation resulting from the irrational division of labor that constitutes an important pillar supporting the development of the contemporary capitalist economy.
Some of the experiences of the socialist system are also useful for the development of contemporary capitalism. In the post-war period, whenever the operation of the capitalist system encountered major obstacles, the developed countries were compelled to summarize and draw on some of the experiences and approaches of the socialist countries. For example, some of the macro-regulatory instruments now commonly used in Western countries, as well as welfare policies, social security systems and allowing some workers to participate in the management of enterprises, were inspired and directly influenced by socialist countries.
InformationAntitrust law, also known as antitrust law, is a general term for a series of legislations in market economy countries concerning the protection of competition and the prohibition of monopoly and unfair trade. Its main content is: from the legal system to limit the large enterprises or business associations to use administrative means and economic power, control social production, manipulate the operation of the market, and obtain excessive profits. Antitrust law is a product of the development of capitalism to the stage of monopoly, it protects competition and economic vitality to a certain extent, and promotes the normal development of the market economy.
Does the development of contemporary capitalism mean that the historical law of the inevitable demise of capitalism as revealed by Marx has been changed? Our answer is ---
The laws of history are not shifted by human will
●Jiang Luming
Objectively speaking, today's capitalism, compared with the one that the founding fathers of Marxism faced in those years, has indeed undergone many great changes. However, within the "changes" there are "constants". A correct understanding of this is the key to grasping the historical direction of contemporary capitalism.
The basic contradictions inherent in capitalist society have not changed. At the present stage, the basic contradiction of capitalism is still the contradiction between the socialization of production and capitalist private appropriation, and this contradiction is still developing. Although the socialization of production has led to changes in its internal class structure and mode of labor, the status of the working class as exploited for hire remains unchanged, and the contradiction between them and their exploiters, who make up a minority of the population, has developed in a more complex form at a deeper level, the most striking manifestation of which is the serious and ever-widening polarization between the rich and the poor. For example, in 1979, the ratio of the income of the top 5 percent of families to the bottom 20 percent of families in the United States was 10:1, and by 1999, the gap had widened to 19:1. Because of this basic contradiction, the economic crisis in the western countries is still cyclical, and there is also the momentum of the emergence of a new form of the spread of the momentum, in recent years, the frequent occurrence of the global financial crises is a clear proof of this.
The capitalist private system has not changed. The ownership structure of today's capitalist economy is still dominated by capitalist private ownership, the dominance of large monopoly capital groups, and the coexistence of a variety of economic components; the development of the shareholding system has not changed the private ownership system of capitalism.
None of the three contradictions derived from the basic contradictions of capitalism, namely, the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the contradiction between the suzerain states and the colonies, and the contradiction between the developed capitalist countries, has diminished, and they have appeared again in new forms under the new circumstances. For example, at the present stage of relations between the developed Western countries, the high degree of socialization of production and even the globalization of the economy have not eliminated the competition between them; on the contrary, this competition has become more intense on a global scale. Especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar pattern, the ****similarity of the Western countries in terms of strategic objectives has been greatly weakened, and the "West-West contradiction" has been increasingly exposed. At the same time, the vast number of developing countries are still subject to the exploitation and suppression of international monopoly capital, which will inevitably lead to the long-standing "North-South contradiction" more irreconcilable.
These three "no changes" show that capitalism's "relative prosperity" over the past few decades does not indicate that it has returned to its old age and can survive forever. Its basic contradictions have not disappeared, but have further developed in the direction of intensified structural contradictions, and its confrontational nature continues to deepen; the strengthening of macroeconomic control by capitalist countries has certainly overcome some of the shortcomings of the market economy, but at the same time it has also brought about new obstacles to the development of the productive forces of society by means of huge fiscal deficits and enormous debts; science and technology have greatly promoted the development of the productive forces, and at the same time its application in capitalist society has also made the development of productive forces more and more difficult. The application of science and technology in capitalist society has also put science and technology itself in a state of antagonism with the laborers, bringing about serious and unavoidable unemployment. Therefore, we have every reason to say that there is a limit to the extent to which contemporary capitalism can adjust its own relations of production and accommodate the development of the productive forces. That limit is that private ownership, even if it were to grow further, would not allow its ownership to develop to the point of communal ownership of the whole of society, which would inevitably lead to an insurmountable contradiction with the highly socialized production of the future. One day, the socialized productive forces will have to break through the shell that is capitalist ownership, and the demise of capitalism is inevitable.