Capitalist Crisis Makes Socialism Necessary

Published on November 14, 2009

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the workers and peoples of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the world have undergone ever worsening economic and social conditions. They see monopoly capitalism as an evil and bankrupt system that is destroying the world’s productive forces and is inflicting immense suffering on the people.

Monopoly capitalism is igniting the people’s desire for socialism. So long as imperialist oppression and exploitation persist, the people fight for national and social liberation. It is farthest from the truth that monopoly capitalism is the end of history. The utter bankruptcy of monopoly capitalism and its descent to ever more barbarous forms of plunder and aggression drive the people to fight for their rights and for a bright socialist future.

The workers and peoples of the world are called upon to persevere in the struggle for genuine socialism, against monopoly capitalism that is now in the throes of its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis of the world capitalist system makes socialism necessary for humankind.

Contrary to the claims of the imperialists and their propagandists that socialism fell in 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall has actually meant the collapse of the modern revisionist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the completion of the restoration of capitalism. It is the end result of the revisionist betrayal of socialism started by Khruschov in 1956 and completed by Gorbachov in the years of 1989-91.

The history of socialist countries from the Bolshevik victory of 1917 up to 1956, and from the founding of the People’s Republic of China up to 1976 shows great leaps in the advancement of the social, economic, political, cultural and defense situations of the workers and peoples of those countries. The poverty, hunger, joblessness, and the cruelties of exploitation and oppression before the victory of the socialist revolution were overcome. The great victories in socialist construction and revolution were achieved despite imperialist wars of aggression and economic and military blockades and subversion.

The rise of modern revisionism in socialist countries and elsewhere reversed all the great achievements of socialism. Advances in the situation of the workers and peoples were slowly but surely eroded, and pre-revolutionary forms of exploitation, oppression and violence were restored. Together with criminal syndicates in the so-called free market, the modern revisionist big bourgeoisie grew fat on bureaucratic corruption and enjoyed the lifestyles of the rich and famous, while the workers and peoples suffered from the decrease in food, jobs, savings and social services.

As workers and peoples grew restive and began clamoring for reforms, the ruling revisionist regimes imposed severe political repression. In Eastern Europe, and in East Germany especially, this condition fueled the mass protests that brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The revisionist regimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union peacefully gave up power and gave way to the legalization of their bureaucratic loot, the barefaced restoration of capitalism and the blatant privatization of state assets.

Since Nikita Khrushchov’s reign in the Soviet Union, genuine proletarian revolutionaries the world over have called the ruling regimes in the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe as modern revisionists, who mouth socialism but practice capitalism. They have predicted that it will not take long before capitalism reveals itself bare-faced in these countries.

The fall of the Wall has shown how accurate their predictions are. The modern revisionists in these countries have since exposed themselves as pseudo-communists and anti-communists. It is modern revisionism, not socialism, which fell with the Berlin Wall and delivered the workers and peoples of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe into the even more predatory and violent rule of barefaced capitalism. The revisionists had earlier undermined, eroded and destroyed socialism.

Since 1989 up to the present, imperialism and its well-paid propagandists in the mass media and academe have tirelessly repeated their line on the fall of the Berlin Wall. They have misrepresented the revisionist regimes as socialist and boasted that their fall meant the futility of socialism and the end of history with capitalism and liberal democracy.

They have touted the jump from the frying pan of revisionist-ruled state monopoly capitalism to the flames of barefaced capitalism as the beginning of development and democracy. But the imperialist powers are incomparable in discrediting monopoly capitalism through their unbridled plunder and wars of aggression and the recurrent and increasingly severe crisis.

The workers and peoples of the world are subjected to ever-increasing exploitation, oppression and violence and are impelled to wage resistance, seek national and social liberation and aim for the attainment of socialism. The present crisis, which has been generated by the US-directed policy of neoliberal “globalization” in the last three decades, incites the people to struggle for socialism.

The world capitalist system continues to sink deeper into crisis. It is devastating jobs and livelihood of the workers and peoples of the world. The profuse use of public funds to bail out the big banks and corporations in the military industrial complex is building bigger bubbles than ever before. These are bound to burst and cause a steeper fall in the crisis.

The US and its imperialist allies have generated the global financial and economic crisis, have plunged the world into a state of economic depression and have aggravated and deepened the conditions for state terrorism and aggressive wars.

The combination of state monopoly capitalism and monopoly capitalism in imperialist countries is responsible for the unprecedentedly greatest devastation of productive forces through the most rapacious forms of private profit-taking and private accumulation, including the wanton creation of fictitious capital.

We are in the era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution. Further economic crisis, social disorder, state terrorism and imperialist wars of aggression are in prospect. These are the objective conditions for the rise of revolutionary movements for national and social liberation led by the working class. Bulatlat.com

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One Response to “Capitalist Crisis Makes Socialism Necessary”

D G Bokare Says:
November 15th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Yes, we need a different kind of socialism and certainly not the one that proved utopian in the former USSR. Marx had good intention but in the process of developing economic systems, he had not followed the economic theories and Nature's laws. As such it could not become immortal. Marx once said,"Laws should bring people together and not to divide them. Laws dividing people are against the Nature as such not moral. What is immoral cannot be immortal." We know the result of this. He on the other hand, developed classes between wage-wokers, farm labour, state employees, capitalists etc. His 'reserve army' was not in forefront of revolution.He instead banked on organised workers.

Capitalism, like Marxism, has severe internal contradictions and lack of adherence to Nature's laws. Monopoly in capitalist economic system has no economic theory.Free market does not exist. Paul Samuelson says' "Free market cannot exist any time now or in future". Yhis is his lame excuse to protect capitalism. Capitalism has to collapse sooner or later. The signs of its death are very clear. Pope Benedict XVI has said in his Encyclical dated 7th July 2009 that capitalism has now become "obsolete". This is the death certificate given by him for capitalism. Gorbachev did not understand the phenomenon of economic laws as such he started copying Western capitalism of so called free market (?). He did not check that monopoly market which was being sold under the garb of free market. Free market as defined in any economic textbook. If implemented in its true spirit and letter, capitalism cannot survive even for short period.

What we need now? We need new concept of socialism as visionary Marx had a dream of. It has to be based on true free market with oversight of omnipotent state to ensure that no one use coercive influences on prices and supplies and demands of goods in the market.Creator of surplus value, as defined rightly by Marx, to be retained fully with himself. State to provide all the necessary infrastructure support along with finance at zero rate of interest to all the needy working population. Family units would be the final form along with working people's cooperatives and partnerships. Socially essential monopoly production activities (electricity, railways, water supplies, public transport etc) should be with state. There has to be a competition between socially necessary units with private units, if any, and transperency about cost of production of each good supplied in the market. Pigou's empty boxes could be filled up wherever required.

This new form of socialism would see full competition as defined by Hayek and other economists who were free from influence of business people. This will bring in a trend of constantly lowering prices of goods and services which in turn abolishes interest and inflation as elements of economic activities. Abundance of goods is the mantra in this kind of socialism. All capitalists including Keynes and Adam Smith were afraid of this but could not distance from this any time. Prof. J. Pen, a Keynesian follower, had said that abundance would destroy the industrial world so asciduously built by us in no time. He said the truth.

New socialism of Hindu-economics promises FULL employment with freedom to each individual to apply his naturally available talents and innovative mind to face free competition.He becomes a proprietor instead of a wage-worker. As such the class war between workers and capitalists gets completely wiped out. Family members, including physically incapable old and young people, can also join these units to increase value added. Stagflation and economic theory of distribution is demolished and the system becomes an eternal economic order. Direct taxes too can be reduced and over time abolished in the same economic order to avoid black money generation.

This is fully backed by all the recent known economic theories. This new theory of socialism (a much improved version of Marxian socialism) was presented by an Indian economist Dr. M G Bokare in 1993 for world discussion. This is based on first books of world knowledge Hindu-Vedas. As such the new economics is called Hindu-economics. The second edition of this book is now available from http://www.pothi.com. The author was a member of Indian Communist Party for over three decades. He was sacked from the Party as he wanted to present an improved version of Maxian economic theory. It is expected to have open mind in developing any economic model. This was not available during period earlier to collapse of former USSR. This amended format of Marxian socialism was offered to then President Gorbachev when he was applying peristoica and glasnost principles in the initial stages of his efforts in opening the economy. However, he preferred to stick to Western model of economics and got into trouble. Hope we have now an option for a more scientific socialism to be implemented to save the mankind and the planet itself from collapse and destruction.

Hindu-economics subsumes Mahatma Gandhi's decentralization, interest-free society of Islamic economics, socialistic ethos, etc. This is one hundred percent eco-friendly economic system.