Just finished reading Thomas L. Friedman’s “The World is Flat”. Interesting book, the only thing is that I probably read it few years too late, many of the things mentioned in the book have become so common that saying them out loud seems almost like stating the obvious (which actually goes on to show how rapid the change has been, point mentioned in the book as well). However, the book has its moments even now, and one of them especially caught my attention.
After few hundred pages of examples and explanations how more and more people across the world can now participate to the global economy and how the world is truly becoming connected and globalized (or “flat” as Friedman puts it), Friedman interviews Michael J. Sandel, political theorist from Harvard University. He points out that the first to foresee all this was, somewhat surprisingly, Karl Marx, who described it in his “Communist Manifesto” together with Engels. The text seems to match the way things are now relatively well. The manifesto states for example the following:
“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie (a.k.a. the capitalists) over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere [...] industries[...] no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. [...] The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production…[...] It (the bourgeoisie) has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.” (The whole manifesto can be found here).
The curious thing is (and one that Friedman’s book does not mention) that for Marx, capitalism was not the final destination but only a stop on the road towards communism and economic socialism. After the fall of communism in Europe in the early 90’s it was widely seen that Marxist theory on economic socialism and the socialist/communist world order was pretty much over and done with. However, since Marx’s and Engels’ views describe well the way things are now, it might prove out to be an interesting thought experiment to ponder that what if the era of socialism that Marx “foresaw” was not due to start in the beginning of last century but is yet to come?
I hope this would not mean USSR 2.0 or any of the current communist states for that matter, I think the results of these experiments have not been too promising. There are, however, quite a few (e.g. Noam Chomsky) who consider that in practice Soviet Union or any of the others were not really socialist or communist states at all. Thus, we are still to be seen a “true” communist state and if this really is the case, the question is not only what would it be like but also which one of the world’s states will then turn out to be the world’s first truly communist state in a genuine marxist spirit?
In relation to the first question, I suppose it might a be good idea to take a look on Marx’s writings, something I have not really done. What comes to the second one, well, all I can say is that I would put my 2 cents on China. Why? Because out of all the states in the world it seems to match most the marxist views on a capitalist state. Therefore, if capitalism is only a phase as Marx predicted, China seems to be well prepared to move on to the next stage. Furthermore, there is also the case of pure irony: after taking a U-turn on many of the socialist and communist policies and heading towards market economy and capitalism, just imagine the irony if China found itself from the place it originally wanted to go and later on depart?
Tags: capitalism, China, Globalization, Marx, socialism, Thomas L. Friedman
Category: Observations of some sort
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