Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2253410
Rob Wilkie
ABSTRACT Nihilism in its classic Nietzschean sense—the ruins of all values—is the general condition of existence of Trumpism. In contrast to Noam Chomsky’s argument that Trump, while authoritarian, is not a fascist, this article analyzes Trumpism in relation to nihilism and argues that Trump is a machine of affirmations for the collapse of all values—democracy, equality, justice . . . caused by the profound alienation of labor in contemporary capitalism. The machinic affirmations produced by the Trump administrative apparatuses—Fox News, Republican National Committee, Newsmax, the Justice Department . . . —are given a political bond and a spiritual coherence by (a nihilistic) fascism. It is a fascism that replaces the “big words” with equally ground-less affirmations (“Make American Great Again”) but, like all fascism, fails to overcome capitalism’s devaluation of all values that has in the words of Marx and Engels, “drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.”
{"title":"A Machine of Affirmations: Fascism in the Age of Trump","authors":"Rob Wilkie","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2253410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2253410","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Nihilism in its classic Nietzschean sense—the ruins of all values—is the general condition of existence of Trumpism. In contrast to Noam Chomsky’s argument that Trump, while authoritarian, is not a fascist, this article analyzes Trumpism in relation to nihilism and argues that Trump is a machine of affirmations for the collapse of all values—democracy, equality, justice . . . caused by the profound alienation of labor in contemporary capitalism. The machinic affirmations produced by the Trump administrative apparatuses—Fox News, Republican National Committee, Newsmax, the Justice Department . . . —are given a political bond and a spiritual coherence by (a nihilistic) fascism. It is a fascism that replaces the “big words” with equally ground-less affirmations (“Make American Great Again”) but, like all fascism, fails to overcome capitalism’s devaluation of all values that has in the words of Marx and Engels, “drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.”","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"59 1","pages":"360 - 380"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139363518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2253078
Jay Tharappel
ABSTRACT In 1920, Vladimir Lenin defined “imperialism” as national exploitation, which raises the question of how nations exploited other nations throughout history. This article will argue that answering this question requires introducing new concepts into Marxist discourse that can capture competition among multiple states and currencies, namely the “hegemon-rival” dialectic between the “currency hegemon” and the “mercantile rivals.” Focussing on the British empire, this article will show that British currency hegemony based on the gold standard functioned by a system that can be called “bimetallic apartheid,” which involved arbitraging the value of gold against silver in order to facilitate the plundering of India and China, however, as other states began to industrially “catch up” with Britain (i.e., the “mercantile rivals”), the credibility of the British gold standard was undermined.
{"title":"Bimetallic Apartheid: British Imperialism and the Gold Standard","authors":"Jay Tharappel","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2253078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2253078","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In 1920, Vladimir Lenin defined “imperialism” as national exploitation, which raises the question of how nations exploited other nations throughout history. This article will argue that answering this question requires introducing new concepts into Marxist discourse that can capture competition among multiple states and currencies, namely the “hegemon-rival” dialectic between the “currency hegemon” and the “mercantile rivals.” Focussing on the British empire, this article will show that British currency hegemony based on the gold standard functioned by a system that can be called “bimetallic apartheid,” which involved arbitraging the value of gold against silver in order to facilitate the plundering of India and China, however, as other states began to industrially “catch up” with Britain (i.e., the “mercantile rivals”), the credibility of the British gold standard was undermined.","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"44 1","pages":"461 - 479"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139363961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2253041
Mubarak Altwaiji
ABSTRACT Hegemonic narratives have developed considerations of several perspectives on engaging with post-9/11 American imperialism and its system of power. This article deals with post-9/11 American novel, a version of neo-orientalist discourse that is inspired primarily by the American imperial ambitions and politics and the current public debates on Islamic terrorism, aggression, and backwardness. Employing insights from contemporary discussions around post-9/11 American hegemonic narratives and from contemporary hegemonic literature on the Middle East, the study examines narrative discourse to detect literary incitement to typological and racial representations. Analysis provides an examination of different perspectives concerning the origin of Islam in the 7th century in Arab peninsula, focusing on the first generation of Muslims’ intolerance towards non-Muslims and the Islamic heritage landscape as receptacle of the Middle East backward ideology and a place where radical ideology propagates the destruction of the west. Applying the notion of hegemonic literature as an exclusivist discourse, this study finds that pot-9/11 narratives and hegemony are symbiotic, reflecting the aspirations of the American policy in the Middle East region.
ABSTRACT Hegemonic narratives have developed considerations of several perspectives on engaging with post-9/11 American imperialism and its system of power.本文论述的是 "9-11 "事件后的美国小说，它是新东方主义话语的一个版本，主要受到美帝国主义野心和政治以及当前关于伊斯兰恐怖主义、侵略和落后的公开辩论的启发。本研究运用了当代围绕 "9-11 "事件后美国霸权叙事的讨论以及当代中东霸权文学的洞察力，对叙事话语进行了研究，以发现文学对类型学和种族表征的煽动。分析从不同角度审视了 7 世纪伊斯兰教在阿拉伯半岛的起源，重点关注第一代穆斯林对非穆斯林的不容忍，以及伊斯兰遗产景观作为中东落后意识形态的容器和激进意识形态宣传摧毁西方的场所。应用霸权文学作为排他性话语的概念，本研究发现 Pot-9/11 叙事和霸权是共生的，反映了美国在中东地区政策的愿望。
{"title":"Post-9/11 American Hegemonic (Imperial) Narratives: A Typical Version of Neo-Orientalism or an Alternative to Domination?","authors":"Mubarak Altwaiji","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2253041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2253041","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Hegemonic narratives have developed considerations of several perspectives on engaging with post-9/11 American imperialism and its system of power. This article deals with post-9/11 American novel, a version of neo-orientalist discourse that is inspired primarily by the American imperial ambitions and politics and the current public debates on Islamic terrorism, aggression, and backwardness. Employing insights from contemporary discussions around post-9/11 American hegemonic narratives and from contemporary hegemonic literature on the Middle East, the study examines narrative discourse to detect literary incitement to typological and racial representations. Analysis provides an examination of different perspectives concerning the origin of Islam in the 7th century in Arab peninsula, focusing on the first generation of Muslims’ intolerance towards non-Muslims and the Islamic heritage landscape as receptacle of the Middle East backward ideology and a place where radical ideology propagates the destruction of the west. Applying the notion of hegemonic literature as an exclusivist discourse, this study finds that pot-9/11 narratives and hegemony are symbiotic, reflecting the aspirations of the American policy in the Middle East region.","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"49 1","pages":"445 - 460"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139363624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2256634
Ayodeji Bayo Ogunrotifa
ABSTRACT This paper explores the activism of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and argues that the missing link in the movement is the class question, which has impacted on its tactics, strategies, and modus operandi. Since its emergence, the BLM movement has won some concessions in police reforms, defunding of police, policy changes in use of body camera and greater transparency in policing, yet the problems of racism, police brutality, over-policing, and police killings persist. What seems to be problematic is the narrow understanding of the problems and the cosmetic nature of police reforms that have failed to address the capitalist root of the problem. By sidestepping the class question, the movement has failed to understand that racism, police brutality, and police killings are essential tools used by the ruling class and the state in the American capitalist system to sustain its rules, domination, and control. By taking the class question off the agenda, the engagement of the BLM movement has been reduced to the race question and race consciousness, which led to a failure to unpack racism and policing as class questions and draw the tactics of the movement around the class question. The solution to this impasse is to understand black struggle as a subset of class struggle and prioritise the radicalisation of the black working class as a social base to connect with the black underclass and American working class in general and externalise the issues as generic problems facing Americans. The paper concludes that it is the unity of the American working class that can confront the capitalist underpinning of the problems of racism, police brutality, and extra-judicial police killings in American society.
{"title":"Class Root of Police Brutality: The Missing Gap in the Black Lives Matter Movement","authors":"Ayodeji Bayo Ogunrotifa","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2256634","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2256634","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper explores the activism of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and argues that the missing link in the movement is the class question, which has impacted on its tactics, strategies, and modus operandi. Since its emergence, the BLM movement has won some concessions in police reforms, defunding of police, policy changes in use of body camera and greater transparency in policing, yet the problems of racism, police brutality, over-policing, and police killings persist. What seems to be problematic is the narrow understanding of the problems and the cosmetic nature of police reforms that have failed to address the capitalist root of the problem. By sidestepping the class question, the movement has failed to understand that racism, police brutality, and police killings are essential tools used by the ruling class and the state in the American capitalist system to sustain its rules, domination, and control. By taking the class question off the agenda, the engagement of the BLM movement has been reduced to the race question and race consciousness, which led to a failure to unpack racism and policing as class questions and draw the tactics of the movement around the class question. The solution to this impasse is to understand black struggle as a subset of class struggle and prioritise the radicalisation of the black working class as a social base to connect with the black underclass and American working class in general and externalise the issues as generic problems facing Americans. The paper concludes that it is the unity of the American working class that can confront the capitalist underpinning of the problems of racism, police brutality, and extra-judicial police killings in American society.","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"83 1","pages":"381 - 402"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139363698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2222994
Yunhong Gong
ABSTRACT The Chinese path to modernization, explored by the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), breaks the Western-created mindset that “modernization equals capitalism.” While overcoming the inherent problems brought about by Western modernization, problems that include polarization, ecological destruction and the supremacy of capital, China’s modernization also refutes the myth that “modernization equals Westernization.” It serves as a proof that developing countries can take an independent path to modernization based on their own national conditions and historical traditions. Through its successful practice, China’s modernization has given the lie to the Western-centric concepts of the “end of history” and the “clash of civilizations.” It has brought deep changes to the world landscape, and is exerting a profound influence on the trend of development of world history.
{"title":"The Chinese Path to Modernization and Its Implications for the World: A Historical Perspective","authors":"Yunhong Gong","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2222994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2222994","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Chinese path to modernization, explored by the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), breaks the Western-created mindset that “modernization equals capitalism.” While overcoming the inherent problems brought about by Western modernization, problems that include polarization, ecological destruction and the supremacy of capital, China’s modernization also refutes the myth that “modernization equals Westernization.” It serves as a proof that developing countries can take an independent path to modernization based on their own national conditions and historical traditions. Through its successful practice, China’s modernization has given the lie to the Western-centric concepts of the “end of history” and the “clash of civilizations.” It has brought deep changes to the world landscape, and is exerting a profound influence on the trend of development of world history.","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"10 1","pages":"166 - 176"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86655376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2226534
R. Das
ABSTRACT It is being increasingly recognized that a post-truth phenomenon has arrived where lies and deception inform politics and everyday life as a normal state of affairs in (advanced) capitalist societies. In the post-truth world, feelings are more accurate than facts, and lies are constantly told for the purpose of the political subordination of reality. The post-truth condition is deeply skeptical of objective truth and experts/scientists. This article discusses the various traits of the post-truth phenomenon, explains its connection to post-modernist idealist philosophy, and its association with Far Right politics. It also explains the post-truth phenomenon in terms of the crisis-ridden bourgeois political economy and bourgeois politics, including the contradictions of imperialism. It argues that the post-truth phenomenon is only partly because of Far Right politics and that its ultimate cause lies in the capitalist system as a whole. This article concludes by pointing out what is to be done to counter the post-truth condition.
{"title":"The Post-Truth Condition in Capitalist Society: A Critical Enquiry","authors":"R. Das","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2226534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2226534","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT It is being increasingly recognized that a post-truth phenomenon has arrived where lies and deception inform politics and everyday life as a normal state of affairs in (advanced) capitalist societies. In the post-truth world, feelings are more accurate than facts, and lies are constantly told for the purpose of the political subordination of reality. The post-truth condition is deeply skeptical of objective truth and experts/scientists. This article discusses the various traits of the post-truth phenomenon, explains its connection to post-modernist idealist philosophy, and its association with Far Right politics. It also explains the post-truth phenomenon in terms of the crisis-ridden bourgeois political economy and bourgeois politics, including the contradictions of imperialism. It argues that the post-truth phenomenon is only partly because of Far Right politics and that its ultimate cause lies in the capitalist system as a whole. This article concludes by pointing out what is to be done to counter the post-truth condition.","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"25 1","pages":"205 - 226"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77099122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2207411
John Bellamy Foster
ABSTRACT What is referred to here as the Needham thesis, after Joseph Needham, author of Science and Civilization in China , points to the strong affinity in China for dialectical materialism, and through it to modern ecological science, arising from the parallel roots in organic materialism associated with ancient Epicureanism in the West (which influenced classical Marxism) and ancient Daoist and Confucian philosophies in China. This parallel development of organic materialism in Europe (where it was largely submerged in the dominant capitalist culture) and in China embodied in each case deep ecological conceptions. Hence, dialectical materialism, once it arrived in China, served to mediate between these organic traditions within the framework of modern materialist science. It was in this general context that the notion of ecological civilization, arising initially in the last years of the USSR, was carried forward to China, where it took on added meaning. China’s own peasant-based revolution has induced further ecological developments. As a result of this general convergence, and due to China’s reemergence on the world stage, ecological Marxism is now rapidly coevolving in both East and West.
{"title":"Marxian Ecology, East and West: Joseph Needham and a Non-Eurocentric View of the Origins of China’s Ecological Civilization","authors":"John Bellamy Foster","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2207411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2207411","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT What is referred to here as the Needham thesis, after Joseph Needham, author of Science and Civilization in China , points to the strong affinity in China for dialectical materialism, and through it to modern ecological science, arising from the parallel roots in organic materialism associated with ancient Epicureanism in the West (which influenced classical Marxism) and ancient Daoist and Confucian philosophies in China. This parallel development of organic materialism in Europe (where it was largely submerged in the dominant capitalist culture) and in China embodied in each case deep ecological conceptions. Hence, dialectical materialism, once it arrived in China, served to mediate between these organic traditions within the framework of modern materialist science. It was in this general context that the notion of ecological civilization, arising initially in the last years of the USSR, was carried forward to China, where it took on added meaning. China’s own peasant-based revolution has induced further ecological developments. As a result of this general convergence, and due to China’s reemergence on the world stage, ecological Marxism is now rapidly coevolving in both East and West.","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"85 1","pages":"155 - 165"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82870533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2209332
D. M. Doust
ABSTRACT This article foregrounds the relevance of Marx’s analysis of machines beyond 19th century industrial technology. Can a Marxian analysis shed light on the historical implications of contemporary digital technology and automation? The article proposes that “automatic systems,” an expression from volume 1 of Capital, could serve as the guiding conceptual tool for envisaging possible answers to this question. A close reading of mainly volume 1 of Capital, in addition to Marx’s preparatory notes for Capital, is presented in the second and main section of this article. The overarching argument is that contrary to claims otherwise, the foundation laid out in Capital provides us with a structural analysis that neither is technologically determinist nor denies the social significance of technological shifts as the material condition for class struggle. This argument will be preceded by a detailed and critical discussion of an ongoing debate in Marxist theory today, notably literature inspired by authors such as A. Negri and P. Virno. The article concludes with the relationship between knowledge and capital.
{"title":"Automatic Systems after Marx","authors":"D. M. Doust","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2209332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2209332","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article foregrounds the relevance of Marx’s analysis of machines beyond 19th century industrial technology. Can a Marxian analysis shed light on the historical implications of contemporary digital technology and automation? The article proposes that “automatic systems,” an expression from volume 1 of Capital, could serve as the guiding conceptual tool for envisaging possible answers to this question. A close reading of mainly volume 1 of Capital, in addition to Marx’s preparatory notes for Capital, is presented in the second and main section of this article. The overarching argument is that contrary to claims otherwise, the foundation laid out in Capital provides us with a structural analysis that neither is technologically determinist nor denies the social significance of technological shifts as the material condition for class struggle. This argument will be preceded by a detailed and critical discussion of an ongoing debate in Marxist theory today, notably literature inspired by authors such as A. Negri and P. Virno. The article concludes with the relationship between knowledge and capital.","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"26 1","pages":"227 - 240"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83255805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2218786
Jianjun Zheng, Shuhua Zhang
ABSTRACT The Communist Party of China has led the Chinese people in creating their country’s system of governance. This is an outstanding achievement whose outcome contrasts with the “Western chaos” exemplified by the United States. In this regard, China, the United States, and the international community have analyzed and evaluated the political path, institutional mechanisms, democratic forms, and other factors behind the rise of China and the decline of the United States. The results of more than 40 recent studies conducted by more than a dozen of Chinese and foreign institutions show that in realistic terms, China has recorded a significantly better performance and shown greater potential for development than the United States in five areas: trust in government; democracy and the rule of law; the effectiveness of governance; international influence; and national mentality. In the future development process, China’s system of political discourse needs to be constructed on the basis of a correct concept of democracy and comprehensive development. It is necessary to end the monopoly of the West in the area of democratic discourse; to break from dependence on the logic of Western-style democratic discourse; and to enhance China’s initiative and influence in the international struggle for public opinion.
{"title":"A Comparative Analysis of Political Perceptions of China and the United States from International Public Opinion Surveys","authors":"Jianjun Zheng, Shuhua Zhang","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2218786","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2218786","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Communist Party of China has led the Chinese people in creating their country’s system of governance. This is an outstanding achievement whose outcome contrasts with the “Western chaos” exemplified by the United States. In this regard, China, the United States, and the international community have analyzed and evaluated the political path, institutional mechanisms, democratic forms, and other factors behind the rise of China and the decline of the United States. The results of more than 40 recent studies conducted by more than a dozen of Chinese and foreign institutions show that in realistic terms, China has recorded a significantly better performance and shown greater potential for development than the United States in five areas: trust in government; democracy and the rule of law; the effectiveness of governance; international influence; and national mentality. In the future development process, China’s system of political discourse needs to be constructed on the basis of a correct concept of democracy and comprehensive development. It is necessary to end the monopoly of the West in the area of democratic discourse; to break from dependence on the logic of Western-style democratic discourse; and to enhance China’s initiative and influence in the international struggle for public opinion.","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"52 1","pages":"193 - 204"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75771640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2207424
K. Marx
The ruling class unable to secure working people their existence is “unfit any longer to be the ruling class” and “impose its conditions of existence upon society,” said Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, urging revolutionaries to smother capitalism in its European cradle, already in 1848. That Springtime of the Peoples was soon followed by the Paris Commune and revolutionary activity worldwide has kept the spectre of communism haunting capitalist classes and advanced the democratisation of social relations in the teeth of determined counter-revolution. In capitalism’s imperial core, working people’s struggles won welfare states and regulated capitalisms after the Second World War, in its peripheries, national independence and developmental states. Meanwhile, some countries, beginning with the Russian Revolution in 1917, embarked on building socialism. Increasingly, they organised production for need, distributed work and its rewards equitably and related to one another in a spirit of cooperation. Despite incomplete successes, great problems and stunning reverses, the struggle they started for a world beyond capitalism, alienation, imperialism and other social injustices continues. Today, after decades of mounting capitalist contradictions, capitalist ruling classes, neoliberal or residually social democratic, in rich countries and poor, are giving Marx and Engels’s words a macabre significance. Over four decades of policies favouring capital, neoliberal financialised capitalism has lost productive dynamism and turned to unproductive plunder, created unacceptable mass poverty, shocking inequality, festering social division, draconian political repression, a growing threat of exterminist nuclear war, mass movements of population and an ecological emergency of climate warming, pollution and biodiversity loss, rendering our planet increasingly uninhabitable. To top all this, today it is responding to a raging pandemic by sacrificing lives to capital and profit and increasing political repression. Rosa Luxemburg famously feared that the alternative to socialism was barbarism. Today, however, it is human and planetary annihilation. By the 2010s, smouldering discontent burst into flames with increasing frequency. The decade began with the Tunisian protests that set off the “Arab Spring” and continued through European protests against austerity. It drew to a close amidst schoolchildren’s protests against climate change, Indian Muslim women’s struggles for citizenship rights, Black Lives Matter, “yellow vests” in France and protests against hopeless economies and political repression, from Turkey to Chile to Nigeria. By 2020, farmers laid siege
{"title":"Through Pluripolarity to Socialism: A Manifesto","authors":"K. Marx","doi":"10.1080/21598282.2023.2207424","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2023.2207424","url":null,"abstract":"The ruling class unable to secure working people their existence is “unfit any longer to be the ruling class” and “impose its conditions of existence upon society,” said Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, urging revolutionaries to smother capitalism in its European cradle, already in 1848. That Springtime of the Peoples was soon followed by the Paris Commune and revolutionary activity worldwide has kept the spectre of communism haunting capitalist classes and advanced the democratisation of social relations in the teeth of determined counter-revolution. In capitalism’s imperial core, working people’s struggles won welfare states and regulated capitalisms after the Second World War, in its peripheries, national independence and developmental states. Meanwhile, some countries, beginning with the Russian Revolution in 1917, embarked on building socialism. Increasingly, they organised production for need, distributed work and its rewards equitably and related to one another in a spirit of cooperation. Despite incomplete successes, great problems and stunning reverses, the struggle they started for a world beyond capitalism, alienation, imperialism and other social injustices continues. Today, after decades of mounting capitalist contradictions, capitalist ruling classes, neoliberal or residually social democratic, in rich countries and poor, are giving Marx and Engels’s words a macabre significance. Over four decades of policies favouring capital, neoliberal financialised capitalism has lost productive dynamism and turned to unproductive plunder, created unacceptable mass poverty, shocking inequality, festering social division, draconian political repression, a growing threat of exterminist nuclear war, mass movements of population and an ecological emergency of climate warming, pollution and biodiversity loss, rendering our planet increasingly uninhabitable. To top all this, today it is responding to a raging pandemic by sacrificing lives to capital and profit and increasing political repression. Rosa Luxemburg famously feared that the alternative to socialism was barbarism. Today, however, it is human and planetary annihilation. By the 2010s, smouldering discontent burst into flames with increasing frequency. The decade began with the Tunisian protests that set off the “Arab Spring” and continued through European protests against austerity. It drew to a close amidst schoolchildren’s protests against climate change, Indian Muslim women’s struggles for citizenship rights, Black Lives Matter, “yellow vests” in France and protests against hopeless economies and political repression, from Turkey to Chile to Nigeria. By 2020, farmers laid siege","PeriodicalId":43179,"journal":{"name":"International Critical Thought","volume":"40 1","pages":"256 - 272"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83636666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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