-- A translation from Chinese of Part II-2(9) of the book:

Where is the Mankind Heading for:

Contests and realignments between ideologies in the new century

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an excerpt from the author’s book in Chinese on philosophy and social theories published in 2013. The book partially summarizes the results of the author’s decades-long exploration in the realm of ideology and is rich in ideas both old and new at the same time – new expositions in modern terminology of traditional Chinese thought as applied to social issues and ideologies of the world today. Any comment and criticism and any offer to help improve the English translation of the whole book will be welcome and appreciated. For a list of contents of the book with links to other translated parts, please see:

Where is the Mankind Heading for: Contests and realignments between ideologies in the new century: List of content

THE TEXT

II. Human Society: A dynamically-balanced multi-dimensional whole (continued)

II-2. Multi-dimensional and multi-level structure of human society (continued)

II-2(9). Monopoly Capital – Non-Monopoly Small Capital – Laboring Masses: The three basic levels of global capitalist production relationships

At the present stage of human history，the major contradiction in the global society is that between international monopoly capital, especially the hegemonic forces of monopoly financial capital, together with their comprador and bureaucratic agents in all individual countries on the one side and all the laboring peoples of the world and all native small- and medium-sized non-monopoly capital in all those countries on the other. This contradiction is acute, extensive and profound, as expressed in persisting wars and war threats in certain areas, in other forms of violence all over the world, in frequent cold-war style of military exercises, in crisis-transferring and counter-transferring maneuvers in economic fields, and in the tumultuous state of ideological conflicts and rampancy of extremisms. Geopolitically speaking, as world monopoly capital is rooted in Euro-American old capitalist countries, the above contradiction also finds expression in conflicts between the U.S.-led Western imperialist block and the Third World countries, or in North-South conflicts, with comprador and bureaucratic capitalists in the latter as agents for the former. If we trace the root of the current production relations, monopoly capital is found to be born of capital’s domination over labor in the whole economic realm. In this sense, the above-said contradiction is a class contradiction. That is to say, the world’s people’s struggle against global monopoly capital is a kind of class struggle. In a word, all internal class struggles in individual countries (those between capital and labor, between monopoly and non-monopoly capital, and between the 99% working masses and 1% privileged parasites), all North-South clashes, East-West conflicts, intertwined with regional ethnic, and religious frictions – all these contradictions are subject to the above-said major global one.

To put things in perspective and to seek out the pivotal link, such a generalization of the production relations and economic-political relations in and between all countries of this current world which has been globalized under capital domination can better help to grasp the whole situation of a specific nation-state and of the world in general, and better help guard against, avoid and resist Rightist (capitulationist) or ultra-Leftist (over-radical) tendencies in handling all internal and external affairs.

On the one hand, capital enjoys a much advantaged position mainly because of the inalienability of labor, which means, in brief, on-the-spot labor cannot be separated, or “alienated”, from its owner-provider as capital can; the delivery of labor, only in vague terms of working hours and working skills, cannot be so accurate in quality and quantity as that of material goods or money; and, so, the actual delivery of labor cannot be guaranteed by legally enforceable contracts, but only by direct supervision by the “buyer” of labor, i.e., the capitalist-employer, or his agent.* In contrast, capital has high mobility: One person’s capital can be split as separate investments in several different businesses in order to lower risk ratio, whereas the cost and risk for transferring one’s labor to another capitalist “buyer” is much higher than transferring one’s money investments. As a result, most of the laborers have to live with the domination by capital in order to earn bare survival for self and family, and the institution of domination has thus been taken for granted.**

       It is obvious from the above that the so-called “free exchange” between labor and capital is actually an unequal deal enforced by objectively unequal positions of the related parties. To most of the laborers, however high their personal ability and motivation, they cannot escape the disadvantaged position predestined for all laborers. Compared with capital’s greater freedom in choosing labor, labor’s freedom in choosing capital is much more limited. That is to say, labor’s inalienability from laborer has led to the dominating position enjoyed by capital (even “just capital”) over labor.

The inalienability between labor and laborer, however, is no reason at all for denying the equal role of any labor in creating new values and for denying laborers their equal rights in business governance. No social production is possible without either capital or labor. The inalienability is an objectively existing disadvantage for all laborers, which are independent of their will, their personal effort and ability but are dictated by the nature of labor itself.  Even if someday everybody becomes rich (which will never come true, however, if capital goes on dominating over labor) and so rich that everybody has abundant wealth to live on and to invest, there will still be the social need for most people to be laborers. Labor is what distinguishes man from all other animals. Once it is trampled under foot, is detested and rejected, man will degenerate into beasts, and human civilization will degenerate and disintegrate. In fact, signs are showing already of this anticipated degeneration and disintegration. Therefore, a just and civilized society should try every possible means to keep laborers’ disadvantaged situation from being exploited, consciously or unconsciously, to subjugate them to an unequal status. Just as safeguarding (just) capital’s equal status can help nurture the spirit of diligence and frugality so as to increase investment for social production, realizing laborers’ equal status can as well greatly motivate their will and raise their productivity, and also help cultivate a healthy social-moral atmosphere for obtaining wealth through diligence while curbing the currently prevalent social tendency of trying to reap quick and short-term gains with little pains or even trying to get rich by unlawful or immoral means.

So, it is a Rightist or even reactionary tendency to ignore the unjustness of capital’s domination over labor, to allow Western MNCs and their local agents to oppress and exploit native workers, to deny the latter their right to organize and fight for their justifiable interests, and even to betray national interests to Western monopoly capital for their personal gains. Such a tendency must be exposed and resisted. As to non-monopoly small- and medium-sized capital, it is also necessary to call, through education and regulation, for fair and justifiable treatment of workers, other employees and consumers, for social responsibility, i.e., not pursuing profits as the sole goal. At the same time it is advisable, where and when conditions allow, to advocate, encourage and support trial efforts at capital-labor co-governance of businesses. When labor disputes arise, social administrators should interfere and provide guidance towards a balance of interests between related parties and, when labor is generally in a disadvantaged position, not to favor capital against it.

On the other hand, it is not appropriate, either, to indiscriminately pit labor against capital. This is because: 1) Sometimes capital is raised from savings from labor income  and/or from justly-gained (i.e., without exploiting labor) profits from investment of such capital (called “just capital”). 2) Both capital and labor can come from same investors, such as self-employed family-run small farms or handicraft or business shops, and collectively owned and self-employed enterprises. Although small capital has a spontaneous tendency towards capitalism and hence needs to be educated, regulated and guided, however, so long as such owners are self-employed and not employing and exploiting any others, they are still laborers in the full sense and should not be put in the same category as dominating and exploitative capitalists and thus should not be censured or deprived in any case. 3) Even dominating and exploitative capital, if not monopolizing, still has two sides – while gaining unjust profits from labor, it is an indispensable part of social economy under certain social conditions. So long as global monopoly capital is still, or threatens to be, in full control of world economy, politics and culture, local ethnic non-monopoly small- and medium-sized capital should remain to be allies of and conditionally united by the world labor population in its fight against their common enemy -- monopoly capital.

Therefore, all state power-holders and social forces that genuinely stand for the interests of 99% and for the right direction of development of human history should, while regulating capital-labor relations with strict laws to prevent excessive exploitation of labor by capital, not indiscriminately confiscate those legally-run non-monopoly capital but provide encouragement and support and help those businesses stand against bullying from monopoly ones so as to bring into full play their constructive social role, and at the same time help the 99% to see through the true nature of world monopoly capital as the root cause of all the human-made disasters confronting mankind and the necessity of getting united to eradicate this root and also raise their awareness, through common struggles, of the justifiableness of giving up the capitalistic way of running businesses in steps that promote an all-round comprehensive social balance and harmony and the justifiableness of taking an approach that promotes prosperity shared by all working people (in a broad sense). Only thus can world peace be achieved.

Mainstream Western economics has always upheld a theory for “strengthening the middle class”, alleging that, so long as the middle class is kept strong so that polarization is prevented, the society would remain peaceful and economical development be sustained. It has been blind to the fact that polarization is rooted in the ownership of means of production by private capital which engendered capital’s domination of labor and that serious polarization in the all-round control of social life by monopoly capital. So, this theory should not be believed in nor touted.

As capitalist production relations are closely related with large-scale social production and even global economy, capital’s dominative power shows on different social levels. On the one hand, conflicts between labor and local small- and medium-sized capital, with global monopoly capital as their common oppressor and exploiter, would be alleviated in various degrees; and on the other hand, so long as capital’s domination of labor stays, conflicts between capital and labor would never fade away and small capitalists would always show their opportunistic attitude and keep wavering in the common struggle against monopoly capital. And the antagonisms between labor and small capital on lower social levels would be exploited by monopoly capital in its “divide and rule” strategy to serve its monopoly interests on macro-social levels.

To protect interests reaped from its hegemonic position, monopoly capital would definitely use its immense capital power to control public media and manipulate the nation’s political developments. Domestically, they can render support to rival parties at the same time to both influence their political agenda and help put up a façade of “democracy” to fool the masses. For instance, U.S. big businesses usually donate campaign contributions to both Republicans and Democrats, just like feeding a tiger and a lion in such a way as to make them fight and make people believe that in this way the beasts would be prevented form attacking human beings. Of course, such tricks cannot deceive all people for long, as is evidenced by the fact that around half of eligible voters would not bother to caste a vote all these years.

Notes:

* Bowles, Samuel and Herbert Gintis, 1986, Democracy and capitalism: Property, community, and the contradictions of modern social thought, Basic Bookx, New York, PP. 75-79.