Western Marxism’s Analysis and Critical Study of Capitalism
September 2019
Author Chen Wang is from the Institute of Western Marxism, School of Marxism, Hubei University of Technology
Capitalism incorporates all aspects of social life into the logic of capital, resulting in comprehensive control of society by capital and providing “favorable” conditions for the construction of new imperial hegemony by capitalism. This issue is also not recognized by Western Marxism, and requires Chinese Marxist scholars to conduct in-depth research on it and propose a Chinese discourse paradigm for the study of capitalism.
Since the birth of Marxism, the study of capitalism has become the core content of its theory. The purpose of Marxism’s criticism of capitalism is to scientifically reveal its essence, internal contradictions, and development trends, and to construct communism on this basis. The Communist Manifesto and Capital have become the two most classic documents for criticizing capitalism, in which Marx scientifically revealed the laws of movement and development trends of capitalism, and put forward the argument of “two inevitabilities”, which provides us with basic viewpoints and directions for further studying Lenin pointed out that “Marx’s entire theory is to use the most thorough, complete, meticulous, and rich development theory to examine modern capitalism. Naturally, Marx also needed to use this theory to examine the imminent collapse of capitalism and the future development of communism.
Two inevitabilities: The perishment of Capitalism is inevitable so is the birth of Communism
Deeply penetrate into the reality of Western society
Western Marxism has gone through three main periods in its development over the past 90 years, forming various schools of thought with different theoretical perspectives. However, regardless of the period or school, critical research on capitalism has become its main content. The first stage was in the 1920s and 1930s, which was the period of the formation of Western Marxism. The founders of Western Marxism, represented by Lukacs, Korsch, and Gramsci, constructed a new form of Marxism that is different from traditional Marxism and also different from Leninism in order to reveal the reasons for the failure of the European revolution, explore the path suitable for the European revolution, and re understand Marxism. They focus on understanding contemporary capitalism from a holistic perspective and place greater emphasis on criticizing capitalism from a philosophical and cultural ideological level, which is known as the cultural critique shift of Western Marxism. This shift in cultural criticism reflects the trend of economic cultural integration in capitalist countries, where the cultural field has been completely manipulated by capital logic and maximized its profits.
The second stage was from the 1930s to the late 1960s, which was the prosperous period of Western Marxism.
During this period, the Frankfurt School, existentialist Marxism, Freudian Marxism, structuralist Marxism, and neo-positivist Marxism emerged.
They tried to link the main texts of Marx and Engels with various social trends in the West and explore the contemporary value of Marxism.
They reflected on a series of political, economic and social problems that emerged in Western society from a philosophical perspective, and deeply criticized the enlightenment spirit, instrumental rationality, economic rationality, science and technology, mass culture, and consumerism of capitalism; they revealed the comprehensive crisis and complete alienation of capitalist society and exposed the shortcomings of Western industrial civilization.
During this period, Western Marxism deeply penetrated into the reality of Western society, cooperated deeply with the radical left movement, and became a trend of thought with global influence.
The third stage was after the 1970s, which was a period of further differentiation of Western Marxism.
In addition to the differentiation within the previous schools, many schools such as analytical Marxism, ecological Marxism, political Marxism, feminist Marxism, cultural Marxism, and postmodern Marxism were formed.
Through the analysis of the crisis of capitalism, they focus on issues such as technological alienation, ecological crisis, new imperialism, ideology and cultural hegemony.
Later, their theoretical focus gradually shifted to the critique of political economy, especially the critical analysis of capitalism in the micro field.
This made the study of capitalism more refined and comprehensive, and Western Marxism shows a trend of fission and integration.
Developing a critical model around real problems
Around the issues of the state, consumption, ecology, ideology, technology, globalization, modernity, etc. in the real capitalist society, Western Marxism has formed critical models such as state capitalism criticism, consumer society criticism, late capitalism criticism, global capitalism criticism, ideological criticism, and technological capitalism criticism.
These critical models are essentially the historical understanding of contemporary capitalism by Western Marxists.
It should be said that Western Marxism’s analysis of the contradictions and laws of capitalism proves that capitalism is not a solidified structure, but a constantly changing spatial structure. As long as capitalism does not end, the decryption and criticism of capitalism will not stop.
Criticism of capitalism is the common concern of Western Marxists.
Faced with the transition of capitalism from free capitalism to state monopoly capitalism or financial capitalism, the political, economic and social structures of capitalism have undergone major changes.
In particular, the capitalist financial crisis that began in 2008 has caused people to turn to Marxism, hoping to find the answer to the capitalist financial crisis from the vision of Marxism.
Therefore, it is particularly important to re-understand capitalism in this new era of drastic changes, grasp the essence and characteristics of contemporary capitalism, respond to the criticism and attack of Western right-wing scholars on Marxism, and highlight the contemporary value of Marx’s critical theory of capitalism.
Contemporary Western Marxism is based on the actual situation of the changed capitalist society and opposes the so-called “end of history”, trying to conduct a new critical analysis of contemporary capitalism.
Contemporary Western Marxism conducts research around the increasingly serious social problems in the West. They call contemporary capitalism casino capitalism, debt capitalism, disaster capitalism, technological capitalism, Authoritarian capitalism etc., revealing the latest changes and characteristics of capitalism from different aspects and levels, and enriching Marxist research on capitalism.
They have carried out criticisms of neoliberalism, neo-imperialism, ecological crisis, capitalist system, etc., and deeply analyzed how contemporary capitalism has achieved spatial expansion and hegemony under the manipulation of capital logic.
On the one hand, they focus on micro-political economic analysis, go deep into the daily life of the working people, and analyze in detail the comprehensive alienation of contemporary capitalist society.
On the other hand, they have launched a comprehensive critique of capitalism from multiple levels, including labor, work, medical care, education, science and technology, consumption, ecology, country, and culture, centering on economic rationality and instrumental rationality.
On this basis, Western Marxism further demonstrated the scientific nature of Marx’s “two inevitables” assertion.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that “the world pattern is in the process of accelerating historical evolution, which has produced a large number of profound and complex practical problems and raised a large number of theoretical issues that need to be answered urgently.
This requires us to strengthen our research on contemporary capitalism, analyze and grasp the various changes that have occurred and their essence, and deepen our understanding of the laws of profound and complex changes in capitalism and international political and economic relations.”
It should be said that General Secretary Xi Jinping has grasped the essence and main purpose of Marxism.
In this sense, contemporary Western Marxism’s criticism of capitalism only inherits the critical tradition of Marxism to a certain extent.
When facing the problems of current capitalist society, Western Marxism only interprets the capital logic manipulation of contemporary capitalist society as a one-dimensional society, as a spectacle society and as a consumer society, and its solution is still to make adjustments within capitalism.
When faced with deep-seated problems such as the logic of capital advocating the accumulation, proliferation and maximization of profits of capital, and the maximization of profits will inevitably prompt capitalists to measure social value by the amount of profits, the explanations and solutions given by Western Marxists are very weak.
It can be said that capitalism incorporates all areas of social life into the logic of capital, which in turn causes capital to fully control society and also provides “good” conditions for capitalism to build a new imperial hegemony.
This problem is also not realized by Western Marxism, and it requires Chinese Marxist scholars to conduct in-depth research on it and propose a Chinese discourse paradigm for the study of capitalism.