CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC VINDICATES MARXISM LIKE NEVER BEFORE

ON HIS 203RD BIRTHDAY, KARL MARX IS THE RADICAL THINKER WE NEED
Two centuries later since the birth of Karl Marx, the teachings of the Communist Manifesto are being further underlined by the coming of the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath. On the great German philosopher’s 203rd birth anniversary, it’s good to recall what Marx said in the Communist Manifesto: “…this formula clearly proves that the bourgeoisie no longer has the right to be the ruler of society, has no right to impose the conditions of its existence on society as the ultimate law. The bourgeoisie is not fit to rule because they Unable to confirm the existence of slaves in slavery, cannot bring them down to a state where the wealth of slaves Instead of eating, the slave has to be fed. In this bourgeois regime, society can no longer live, that is, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society … The fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are both inevitable. …. ”

Now what do we see in the aftermath of corona? “Controversial capitalism is dying out. At least, for something of the communist type is moving closer to one,” Australian multinational investment bank and financial services company Macquarie Wealth Group , one of the world’s largest capitalist companies, told investors.

In the words of US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, “The collapse of 2008 brought the US unemployment rate to 10 percent. This time it will jump to 30 percent. Trump’s 2 trillion dollar bailout package will not be able to overcome this crisis.”

Many raised eyebrows at the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States in 2007-08, calling it an exaggeration. The argument is not that there was absolutely no. But then a 2011 Gallup poll found that 51 percent of young Americans support socialist ideas. That rate remained the same in 2018. And now?

In the words of Scott Maynard, chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners: “I see no hope of recovering the economy from the Corona pandemic. Rather, it will lead to a mass uprising in the heated atmosphere of huge disparity in wealth and income. There is a risk of moral liability for social debt in administration and monetary policy (before Trump — the author). We have to pay the price for the policy mistakes. The United States will never be able to return to free market capitalism. ”

Along with this two more important issues are coming up mainly from the followers of its alternative philosophy. Paul Mason, a British expert, is a journalist, television analyst, film and documentary director, and economist. In a report written after Corona on April 3, he observed: “The plague of the 1340s spread from Mongolia to Europe. Many experts argue that this is one of the reasons for the collapse of the era of feudalism, because of the perimeter of the feudal structure It was impossible to cope with this catastrophe. As a result, the environment between the huge gap between human needs and reality, and the need for human liberation from medieval ideas, gave the bourgeoisie a chance to emerge.

Before Corona, US Democratic candidate Barney Sanders or British Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn like Left-wing leaders did not get the people’s vote. Before Corona, there was usually a negative nod to social security or public sector investment, but after Corona, even those who have witnessed the collapse of Soviet communism now say abolish capitalism.

Another Marxist, Rob Sewell, has expressed his view very boldly about the second issue. In a report on March 22, he wrote: “The Great Depression of 2007-08 is still unresolved. There has been a lot of talk about this system ever since. The Corona outbreak is worse than the 1930s, The Great Depression. As a result, if World War II could break out and the world order could change as a result. But in this 2020 pandemic, the level of helplessness of the present system is several times greater, and the emergence of consciousness in human society will create ample ground for the change of this system… There are two ways for capitalism to get out of this situation. One: more trade wars, which they have already started, but to no avail. Two: to wage another world war. But in context of current atmosphere of nuclear catastrophe, which is almost impossible today.”
With that in mind, Sewell mentions the undisputed nature of Marx’s teaching. He writes: “It’s not like the 2008-09 period. No one is out of it. It’s just the beginning. The ruling class is helpless on the whole. They want to pour money into the problem. But it’s not just a financial problem (which will continue to get worse), it is the crisis of capitalist management, a system that has exhausted itself. The market is now much smaller than the productive capacity, what capitalism has created. They have tried to solve this problem by artificially increasing the market, and as a result the crisis has become more the crisis of overproduction, as Marx explained long ago. Today’s issue is proof of Marx’s interpretation. ”

Sewell concludes by stating that “the only socialist planned economy, where the planet’s wealth is not in the hands of a few billionaire parasites, but for the welfare of every human being is the only way .The abolition of this nightmare of capitalist anarchy can only protect us.”

Of course, these things have started to come up long before that. The’ Economist’ is not a leftist magazine. Wrote in 2017: “There is so much to learn from what Marx on this subject. What Marx said has become more relevant today.” Wolfgang Streeck, a German economic sociologist and emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, wrote in his 2015 book, ‘How will capitalism end’: “Since the crisis, capitalism has faced multifaceted failures. Today, it has ended in mass failure and has run out of weapons to solve it. “Ken Rogoff, former director of the international Monetary Fund (IMF), wrote in 2005: “The next battle between capitalism and socialism awaits human health and the cost of living.” So there is reason to hope that corona creates the situation of that fight forward.
Socialism cannot be obtained if one desires it. Capitalism has proved its incompetence: that objective condition is being observed. But for any revolutionary passage, the subjective condition has to be fulfilled. In this case, Lenin, the teacher of the most creative application of Marxism, is memorable. Regarding the maturity of the revolutionary situation, both the ‘objective’ and the subjective condition , Lenin writes: , “1) When the ruling class or the superstructure of governance can no longer function in the old way without any change and their policies can no longer handle the situation, 2) At the same time when human suffering reaches its climax, when people no longer want to follow the old way, 3) At the same time, there is a massive activism to change the situation among the people and to face any situation to change it. Only then is a revolutionary change possible. That is what is called a revolutionary situation. “So he showed that” revolution is not possible without the objective conditions described above, just as revolution is not possible without fulfilling the subjective conditions. ..There was a revolutionary situation in Russia in 1905. But it did not turn into a revolution because of the level of the working class in the revolutionary mass struggle. There was no maturity in the subjective condition that needed to be passed. ”

So everything will depend on where the consequences of the corona situation turn and what shape the struggles of the world community and people take or whether the masses are ready to face any consequences for change. Because the situation is not the same everywhere in the world, it’s, different in different countries. The level of strength and power of the revolutionary struggle there is not the same in each country. So it is insane to predict anything. But, one thing is clear in everything.

That is the corona situation has increased the urge, necessity and aspiration to change the system in the world community. It can be compared to the objective material for revolutionary change. After the Second World War, there was never such a general situation in favour of system change. This is a completely new situation, a new possibility. This is a new light of hope. Marxists-Leninists play a leading role in trying to mobilize the masses to exploit this possibility. Let us not ignore this handful of history. On the 203rd birthday of the great Karl Marx, let’s tie the knot to spread this message across the horizon.
The author is Editor, Kalantar Patrika

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