Han Yuli and Chen Xueming: Foreign Left-wing Scholars' Dual Reflections on Capitalism and Socialism in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic
On April 8, 2020, Bernie Sanders, an advocate of democratic socialist ideals, announced his withdrawal from the U.S. Democratic presidential primary. This event occurred during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and was deeply evocative. His withdrawal linked socialism, the public health crisis, and a capital-dominated America: even in the face of a raging plague, the United States chose to prioritize capital. All conscientious intellectuals were forced to reflect on a matter of public concern: against the backdrop of a major pandemic, will the Western capitalist ideology currently dominated by Europe and the United States lead human society toward the abyss or toward redemption? The political imagination of Western left-wing intellectuals was once again activated. Faced with the vast uncertainty universally encountered by humanity, a brand-new political and economic order was summoned forth in unison: "Global communism or the law of the jungle, the coronavirus forces us to decide." [1]
I. The Crisis of Neoliberalism and the Possibility of Transformation
If the 1986 nuclear disaster brought a "Chernobyl moment" to the Soviet Union that served as a pretext for the Western world to criticize Soviet socialism, then the Western world's widespread entanglement in the whirlpool of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has become the "Chernobyl moment" for neoliberalism, sounding its funeral knell.
(i) The Crisis of Consumerism
David Harvey argues that the COVID-19 pandemic, in an unexpected manner, caused the circuit and turnover of global capital to fall into hemorrhagic shock because "this neoliberal model is increasingly dependent on fictitious capital and a huge expansion of money supply and debt creation." [2] The production and demand chains of the entire society were put on pause; conversely, this allows us to more rationally perceive the deep crisis of productionism and consumerism under the dominance of capital. In fact, the reason the contemporary capitalist economy can still complete the circuit of capital and achieve the accumulation of profit is that 70% to 80% of its main driving force depends on the promotion of consumerism. The sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic "caused a total collapse in the core of the dominant form of consumerism in the richest countries. The spiral of endless capital accumulation is collapsing inward from one part of the world... It is testing what Marx called 'overconsumption and insane consumption, thereby foreshadowing the terrible and monstrous collapse of the whole system.'" [2] Harvey focuses on evaluating the possibility of the collapse of the global capital system by looking at the destruction of the contemporary capitalist economic "ecological jungle" shaped by neoliberalism. In this ecological jungle, consumerism is the rich soil that provides for the circuit and turnover of capital, yet many frontier models of "contemporary capitalist consumerism" cannot operate under current conditions because "COVID-19 is not a violent fluctuation, but a powerful strike against the core of the consumerist form dominating the richest countries; the spiral of endless capital accumulation is collapsing inward from one part of the world to another." [2]
However, some scholars argue that Harvey's analysis of the pandemic's impact on the capitalist economy solely from the perspective of capital circulation is a "so-called 'underconsumption crisis theory' that was long ago criticized by Marx." [3] That is to say, to judge whether the pandemic will bring a fundamental transformation to capitalism, one must still return to the classic Marxist analytical paradigm—the changing contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production. Viewed from productive forces and relations of production (especially the forms of ownership of the means of production), the pandemic has not touched the existing relations of private ownership and wage labor. Although a total collapse is far from likely, the crisis of consumerism in the neoliberal world caused by the pandemic has already made the capitalist economy appear in a state of decline. This decline manifests as the sunset-like, totalizing pathological face of a capital-dominated social system, so much so that Habermas appealed: "We must strive to abolish neoliberalism." Habermas's appeal is clearly corroborated by the facts currently unfolding in Europe: "The EU is more concerned with the survival of financial institutions and multinational corporations than with the safety of the people, proving once again that it is a failed political entity. The EU left its 27 member states (except Italy) to fend for themselves, and never even called for countries to jointly support Italy in its predicament." [4]
(ii) From Politics to Ecology: A Rehearsal for a Greater Crisis
The crisis caused by consumerism to the global capitalist economy is merely a rehearsal for a greater crisis. Within the scope of neoliberal governance, wider inequalities will continue to expand. The Spanish Flu of 1918 caused the deaths of 60% of the poor living in Punjab, Bombay, and other parts of Western India. The same thing is happening again today, 100 years later. In regions with vast gaps between rich and poor, such as India, Africa, and Latin America, malnutrition caused by food shortages, high infection rates caused by poor public health conditions in slums, and high rates of severe disease have made these areas hard-hit centers where the virus rages. Thomas Piketty pointed out that the coronavirus has exposed the long-standing, massive inequalities in human society; unequal economic status has played a role in fueling the lethal spread of the pandemic, exacerbating the difficulty of controlling the outbreak for countries with excessively large gaps in wealth polarization. [5] Antonio Negri believes that neoliberalism has already fully exposed its own political flaws during the pandemic, which will, in the foreseeable future, activate a series of anti-neoliberal struggles. [6]
Left-wing scholars generally believe that even if the systemic decline of the neoliberal governance model can be avoided, the decline of Western democracy in the post-pandemic era will be inevitable. Noam Chomsky regards the crisis brought by the pandemic as a "crisis of civilization" brought by barbaric neoliberalism [7], where the ideology of free markets and corporations avoids incorporating virus control into the "black hole" of profit, and public health is treated as an "expendable" cost of production. The vacillation of European and American governments between restarting work and isolation indicates that, in terms of systemic coordination of social governance, the government and corporations are in a stalemate game where no clear winner emerges. The ravages of the virus will ultimately prompt the masses to rethink what kind of world we actually need. Andres Piqueras's view responds precisely to such a question: "We must never turn a blind eye to the situation in China. Medicine from Cuba (especially Interferon Alpha-2b) opened China's path to fighting the pandemic. China has shown us how a planned economic system of 'equality for all' can defeat an unknown virus in the shortest possible time. Now, medical aid teams from China, Cuba, and Venezuela have arrived in Italy to help them overcome the pandemic. Spain has also recognized that we need the help of these countries." [4]
After the domestic spread of the COVID-19 pandemic was brought under control, China and Cuba began to provide international assistance, which is precisely a spirit of true internationalism that breaks through ideological barriers and the chasm of national interests. Meanwhile, the Western world has yet to make a serious assessment of the institutional and civilized behavior of socialist countries like China and Cuba during the crisis; instead, it has continued to adopt a "beggar-thy-neighbor" political strategy of shifting the focus of domestic contradictions abroad, particularly onto China. On one hand, this will delay the rational and long-term measures of the Western world to effectively respond to the pandemic; on the other hand, it is overdrawing and suffocating the ideological leadership of the neoliberal system dominated by Europe and the United States.
While the political crisis is faintly revealing a gloomy prospect, the ecological crisis has long shown its grim face. "Excessive deforestation and the large-scale planting of cash crops in plantations (rubber, oil palm, coffee, or cocoa) destroyed the balance of ecosystems and biodiversity, thereby leading to the transmission of viruses to communities. The excessive occupation of agricultural land led to excessive deforestation; urbanization and endless urban expansion have similarly accelerated the speed of deforestation and destroyed the living environment of flora and fauna. Finally, through the globalized movement of people, economic interactions between multinational corporations, and the siphon effect of metropolises, individual regional epidemics were rapidly pushed toward global pandemics." [8] Capital and the free market have expanded the "metabolic rift" between society and nature, and the ravages of the coronavirus are precisely the demon summoned from this crack. Professor Chen Xueming reflected on the relationship between the pandemic and ecology by critiquing two views widely popular both at home and abroad—"humanized nature" and "people-centeredness." He believes that "humanized nature" in practice only emphasizes "humanization" while failing to give sufficient weight to nature: "When facing nature, one must establish a limit for one's behavior, truly clarifying what can be done and what cannot, rather than blindly and infinitely exaggerating one's own power." [9] Correspondingly, "people-centeredness" is not based on the material desires of humans, but on the well-rounded development of humans; healthy living conditions and freedom from public health crises are precisely what "people-centeredness" implies. Wang Yuchen echoed Chen Xueming's view, arguing for a distinction between "needs" and "desires." The consumerist ideology driven by capital replaces needs with desires, "encouraging all individuals to place consumption activities at the very core of their daily activities, while simultaneously strengthening the feeling of dissatisfaction with every level of consumption already reached." [10]
Thus, from politics to ecology, we are facing the prospect of a larger and more extensive crisis. As Marx said: "In the development of productive forces there comes a stage such that productive forces and means of intercourse are brought into being, which, under the existing relationships, only cause mischief, and are no longer productive but destructive forces (machinery and money)." [11] The coronavirus further causes these destructive forces to turn back upon human society, thereby "plunging us into a state of postmodern barbarism. To escape this state, we must, like many socialist movements, re-explore other paths outside the state and capital, creating an unknown world that transcends disaster capitalism." [8]
(iii) The Beginning of Transformation: To the Left or to the Right?
According to the assessment of public health experts, the pandemic will persist globally for months or even years. This is a depressing scientific prophecy; neoliberalism is facing an external, non-war threat for the first time. If the Cold War made neoliberals cheer for the victory over their socialist rival, then the Western world today likely has no chance to announce the same victory. After the global circuit of capitalism was tragically interrupted, everyone—whether on the left or the right—faces the same naked fact of life: survival. To the left or to the right? Piqueras raised a question that the Western world pretends not to see: "If the pandemic truly leads to the paralysis of the capitalist economy, should we ask ourselves: what kind of economy do we actually have? Can competition and self-interest save humanity from the invasion of pandemics, wars, hunger, and climate change, and escape the outcome of self-destruction? The answer is, of course, no. Perhaps it is time to pay attention to China; they have shown us the feasibility of another path." [4]
Wang Qingfeng made a similar judgment from the perspective of biopolitics: capital ignores life during public health crises and even attempts to abandon the care of the elderly and the weak; capital's "draining the pond to catch the fish" [1] has accelerated the frequent occurrence of "states of exception," a trend seen from the violent terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years to this sudden global infectious disease. Therefore, "regarding the social governance of the state of exception under the COVID-19 pandemic, Western society primarily adopted a liberal, laissez-faire art of government; when responding to the pandemic, strict controls were very difficult to achieve, failing to produce good management results. For China, behind the governance methods, there is a collectivist total social governance at work. It is precisely with this total social governance as a support that the pandemic could be rapidly brought under control." [12]
In Slavoj Žižek's eyes, the COVID-19 pandemic announced the beginning of the "second half" of the love story between the West and capitalism. If in the first half this love was lingering and inseparable, then the second half has seen the beginning of infidelity and the desertion of followers. Even though the Trump administration is using the strategy of sending $1,000 to every adult citizen...
The way of the dollar check to keep the romance alive, but Žižek scoffs: "This is communism forced by the requirements of bare survival. It is, unfortunately, a version of what was called in the Soviet Union in 1918 'War Communism'." [14] Ajit Singh, on the other hand, posits that the COVID-19 pandemic will make it possible to replace the U.S.-led neoliberal order. Any honest participant in the international community can see that "rather than any form of solidarity and cooperation, Washington has doubled down on its New Cold War strategy in this global struggle, attempting to deflect blame for its failures onto China and turning to naked racism. Behind Washington’s deepening hostility toward China is a deep-seated anxiety that is becoming increasingly apparent to countries around the world and even to the most ardent defenders of the U.S. system: China's state-led system is outperforming U.S. capitalism and gradually legitimizing an alternative to the U.S.-led neoliberal international order." [15] Aleksandr Buzgalin explicitly proposed an alternative, calling for planned, non-market organized action by the state and civil society groups to support public systems such as healthcare, social security, and infrastructure. More importantly, it must follow "the path of establishing clear, transparent, and consistently applied new rules to achieve the universal public interest. In this regard, the principle of the inviolability of private property and the interests involved in achieving profit maximization must be placed in a secondary position." [16]
Turn left or turn right? This is both a choice of survival and a choice between "communism" and "barbarism."
II. Rebuilding Order: The Socialist or Communist Imagination
If the COVID-19 pandemic has thoroughly exposed the hypocrisy of liberal ideology, then amidst this crisis sweeping the globe, Marxism has once again demonstrated the light of its truth and its profound historical insight. It can be said that the COVID-19 pandemic is both a common crisis for all humanity and a historical opportunity to re-enlighten the laborers of the whole world with communist discourse.
(1) The Justification of Injustice: The Illusion of Equality and Its Consequences
Capitalism promised equality and prosperity to the world, but it brought injustice and poverty. The Intercept website listed the five areas in New York City with the highest and lowest COVID-19 testing positivity rates: in the five areas with the highest positivity rates, the per capita annual income was $17,595–$35,141; in the five areas with the lowest positivity rates, the per capita annual income was approximately $106,702–$147,547. But the paradox lies in the fact that the unjust system of social production and wealth distribution finally received a verdict of justice through the intervention of the coronavirus. In other words, the massive gap between social classes and social risk factors overlapped to form an exponential effect that amplified risk; ultimately, this inequality turned back on the upper class in a destructive equalization of risk. The disasters that have occurred and are occurring in the globalized system of production, trade, and consumption constantly warn us: "The wealthy countries once hoped to eradicate dangers by shifting them abroad, only to find they had to import cheap food, and pesticides returned to their highly industrialized homelands via fruit, cocoa, and tea." 17 In this major pandemic, we have clearly discovered a high degree of equalization of pandemic risk. No social class can ultimately avoid the risk of infection by the virus through the possession of wealth and power (although the aforementioned data shows a positive correlation between the risk of infection and the income gap). Similarly, when U.S. President Trump declared global warming a hoax, claimed it created an unfair economic burden on the United States, and stubbornly withdrew from the Paris Agreement, it was an attempt by the American industrial bourgeoisie to shake off the shackles of international environmental obligations and regain total control over the interpretation of environmental issues. However, the developed capitalist countries did not thereby escape the risks of environmental and ecological degradation; on the contrary, risks continue to accumulate globally in increasingly invisible forms.
The management of the pandemic crisis is also becoming another field of class struggle. On one hand, by defining the source of risk and the solutions, the bourgeoisie transforms class conflict into a technical issue of risk management—that is, reifying the aggregate causes of risk into a sociological or economic empirical problem. For example, the universal risk of biochemical disasters to humanity is simplified into a biochemical technical puzzle, thereby giving rise to a group of companies and professions that "digest" biochemical disasters; thus, the disasters produced by capital eventually become a business opportunity. Taking the medical industry as an example: driven by capital, the medical industry is in fact constantly producing diseases while simultaneously creating pharmaceutical consumption through the production of disease. The French eco-Marxist André Gorz provided powerful evidence for this: "Illness becomes the engine of the most profitable industry, creating jobs and 'wealth.' At the same time, the increase in the number of patients and the 'health' industry have been included in national accounting; if patients decrease, the disappearance of these industries translates into a decrease in GNP and a major blow to capital. In short, illness is profitable, health is not." 18 On the other hand, the structural accumulation of crises also expands the field of class struggle into civil movements. As mentioned earlier, the trend of risk equalization within the social structure transcends the conflict of class interests. The commonality of risk is real; therefore, it is possible for "members of different classes, parties, professional groups, and age groups to unite to form a civil movement in order to prevent the dangers of nuclear energy and toxic waste and to stop the obvious destruction of nature." 17 Consequently, the optimal governance of the COVID-19 pandemic requires the generation of a cross-class social union, which is aptly expressed as "a community with a shared future for humanity." Reflecting on the pandemic, Žižek also argued that compared to the beggar-thy-neighbor approach of certain countries using the pandemic to blockade China, the whole world "needs completely unconditional solidarity and a globally coordinated response, a new form of what was once called communism. If we do not work toward this direction, then today's Wuhan may be the image of our future cities." [19] In fact, any politician or thinker with truly profound cosmopolitan and historical insight can arrive at the fundamental logic of a community with a shared future for humanity. It is precisely in this sense that Marx emphasized: "The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new materialism is human society, or social humanity." 12 It is out of this common human responsibility and commitment that Communist Parties across various countries have issued successive international and regional joint statements, speaking for the classes and groups "insulted and injured" [2] under the impact of the pandemic. On the one hand, they oppose the "anti-social and parasitic nature of neoliberalism"; on the other, they call for regional and international labor unions to support each other and overcome difficulties together. It is also in this sense that Li Daxi [3] does not pin his hopes for the fundamental transformation of capitalism on the economic or social crisis caused by the pandemic, but rather on the struggles and revolutions launched by the working class in the sphere of capitalist production.
(2) Green Capitalism: A Pseudo-Proposition
Does the choice of turning left or right presented to us by the COVID-19 pandemic mean that a transition to green capitalism might provide a sustainable platform for the self-preservation of contemporary capitalism?
James O'Connor proposed the theory of the "second contradiction" of capitalism and attempted to replace the Marxist theory of economic crisis with a theory of ecological crisis as the primary analytical paradigm for the crisis of contemporary capitalism. O'Connor believes that the crisis of contemporary capitalism primarily occurs in the sphere where the conditions of production are destroyed. The so-called capitalist conditions of production are the external natural conditions (such as forests and water) and the public conditions of production (such as urban infrastructure) upon which the capitalist production process depends. The occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic destroyed the natural and public conditions of global capitalist production and reproduction on an incredible scale and depth. However, O'Connor argues that a reformed capitalist democracy can still control the crisis caused by the destruction of production conditions within a tolerable range, and that a democratized bureaucracy is "the only potentially viable political form... a democratic state in which the administration of social labor is democratically organized." 20 To this, John Bellamy Foster’s critique is that "focusing merely on the conditions of production and the second contradiction of capitalism will weaken the comprehensiveness of the ecological crisis, and even weaken the environmental impact of capitalism in the process of incorporating everything into the closed framework of a specific economic crisis theory." [21] Based on a study of Saral Sarkar, Huan Qingzhi argues that "green capitalism" or "eco-capitalism" alternatives fundamentally cannot change the unsustainability and anti-ecological nature of capitalism: "A true ecological economy can only operate in a socialist socio-political environment; moreover, it can only become true socialism by becoming a true ecological society. This is because, on the one hand, there is an inevitable and irreconcilable contradiction between capitalism and the industrial economy, and on the other hand, capitalism needs a true ecological economy, whereas there is no contradiction between socialism and a true ecological economy—provided that socialist society is viewed as a non-industrial society." 22 In essence, the green capitalism scheme attempts to solve the dilemma of the destruction of production conditions through ecological technology or modern management means while retaining the existing neoliberal order, thereby avoiding systemic crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. It attempts to "systematically integrate business principles of profitability, operability, and sustainability into the theoretical foundation of green capitalism, creating a new generation of industrial development models that balance economic costs and ecological benefits." [23] However, the outbreak of COVID-19 proves that green capitalism seriously underestimated the severity of the ecological crisis. Market mechanisms may have some effect on regulating carbon emissions and controlling climate change, but nature's means of punishment are unpredictable by social and technical means. Has the coronavirus not already exceeded the scope of capitalist self-regulation?
Of course, the "tender mercies" of green capitalism also mask its essence of "ecological imperialism." The "greenness" of capitalist countries comes at a price, and that price is the right to development of developing countries, particularly the right to ecological health. It is an indisputable fact that Western developed countries, such as those in Europe and America, export large amounts of electronic waste and industrial refuse to developing countries like China through global trade. When China, considering the protection of its own rights to ecological civilization [4], stopped importing waste such as plastic products from Western countries, Europe and America generally fell into an ecological predicament of being "besieged by garbage." This once again illustrates that the "ecological imperialism" of green capitalism is truly an unbearable burden for the international community.
(3) Marx's Ghost: Communist Discourse in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Economic crises are nothing new; they follow the history of capitalist development like a ghost. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the global capitalist economy had already begun to show exhaustion. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the United States has relied on massive quantitative easing to export inflation to the rest of the world, using beggar-thy-neighbor, egoistic fiscal policies to sustain a false economic prosperity until now. The sudden COVID-19 pandemic played the role of a world war; the period after economic stagnation and the collapse of order will see a new era of rebuilding order. Thus, communist discourse in the COVID-19 pandemic has been activated once again. David Harvey again invoked Marx's revolutionary incantation: "The working class has no ideals to realize, but to set free the elements of the new society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant." 24
He views the systemic crisis of capitalism triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic as "that old, terrible, collapsing social order." This disaster is creating a "new working class"—a relative surplus population cast out by the stagnation of capital circulation. Harvey defines the primary groups within this population as "African Americans, Latin Americans, and wage-earning women," among others [28]. City-wide lockdowns are creating a habit of collective action, a habit that had been internalized and tamed by the institutional forces of capitalism since World War II. Harvey asks rhetorically: "Why don't we liberate those elements inherent in the currently collapsing bourgeois society—the astonishing science, technology, and productive forces—and use artificial intelligence, technological transformation, and organizational forms so that we can create something utterly different from anything that has existed before?" [28] Harvey's communist imagination is exciting because it is clear that while returning to work allows the new working class to pay rent, mortgages, and buy food—exactly what the bourgeoisie desires—it also returns them to the old order of wage labor. However, since the lockdowns allowed the new working class to experience "socialist-like" alternatives such as the free provision of basic food and medical security, why not let the return to work come later, thereby cultivating these so-called socialist habits and activating the socialist imagination of the working class?
However, the Chinese people might not agree with Harvey’s imagination of communism existing only on "the other shore" [5], because in socialist Cuba, we feel "the spirit of freedom and equality that this poor but unyielding island nation has always pursued" [29]. Even under an imperialist economic blockade, Cuba has still demonstrated a great communist spirit: its foreign aid has been continuous, providing medical assistance to 59 countries and even receiving the British cruise ship MS Braemar (which carried COVID-19 patients and had been refused docking by multiple countries). Is this not precisely a projection of communist morality in "this world" [6]? As Marx said: "To recognize truth, justice, and morality as the basis of their conduct towards each other and towards all men, without regard to color, creed, or nationality" [27]. Perhaps, when neoliberals mock the struggles of socialist China and Cuba in the whirlpool of the pandemic while doing nothing themselves and "beggaring their neighbors" [7], it is precisely the time for us to redefine liberalism and communism. Thus, Žižek reminds us once again: "Suppose we define all those who care about freedom as liberals, and those who believe that freedom can only be saved through radical change when global capitalism heads toward crisis as communists. In that case, we should say that today, those who still view themselves as communists are the 'real deal' liberals—they are the only ones seriously studying why our values of freedom are under threat and realizing that only radical change can save them" [30].
III. The Chinese Response: Evaluations of China's Anti-Epidemic Efforts by Global Left-Wing Parties
The attempts of Western left-wing scholars to reopen a new realm of communist discourse in the face of the pandemic are not impractical utopias. In fact, the anti-epidemic practice of socialist China has demonstrated the superiority of the socialist system to the entire world. In contrast, the Western world led by the United States is having the "Emperor's New Clothes" of the neoliberal system stripped away step by step by the escalating COVID-19 pandemic.
(1) The Chinese response reflects a high degree of political consciousness regarding a community with a shared future for humanity
Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, remarked after inspecting Wuhan: "What I saw was a tremendous sense of responsibility and duty. The Chinese people are committed to protecting their families, their communities, and even the whole world from this disease" [18]. Since the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists, politicians, and intellectuals who respect science and humanity have unanimously agreed that socialist China successfully responded to the disaster brought by the pandemic and provided a scientific and effective model for controlling it to all countries.
The victory of China's response to the pandemic is also a victory for the concept of state governance. The Communist Party of China (CPC) takes charge of the overall situation and has established basic principles based on the concept of "a community with a shared future for humanity": being responsible for the life and health of both the Chinese people and the people of the world. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We resolutely safeguard the life safety and physical health of the Chinese people, and we also resolutely safeguard the life safety and physical health of people in all countries, striving to contribute to global public health security" [31]. Under the guidance of this concept, the CPC united with more than 230 political parties worldwide to issue a joint initiative on strengthening international unity to fight COVID-19, calling for: "Countries should enhance their awareness of a community with a shared future for humanity. The more difficult the times, the more we must support and help each other. By strengthening international cooperation, policy coordination, and synchronization of actions, we can pool global resources and strength to resolutely defeat the virus—the common enemy of humanity" [32].
Moments of crisis for all of humanity are exactly the key points for strengthening solidarity and coordinated action. The neoliberal market mechanism has completely failed. However, the ideology of the monopoly bourgeoisie, represented by the Trump administration, intends to throw every citizen nakedly to the coronavirus and refuses to assume public responsibility. This proves that the barbaric neoliberal system has never regarded the common welfare of humanity as its highest principle. On the contrary, the fate of humanity is property that private owners can sell, if a price can be put on it.
The principle of a community with a shared future for humanity is rejected by the neoliberal system but welcomed by the communist world. The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), in an official public letter, highly praised socialist China's important role in the global fight against the pandemic, stating that the CPC proceeded from public health rather than profit, adopting large-scale viral testing and quarantine measures to quickly and effectively mobilize national resources to respond to the crisis [33]. Robert Griffiths, leader of the Communist Party of Britain, stated: "This public letter continues the excellent tradition of the international communist movement in striving for peace, cooperation, and social progress" [34]. Communist parties in Latin America, including those in Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia, issued a joint statement arguing that private monopoly capital controls Latin American countries and that public health undertakings have been nearly derelict for a long time due to lack of profitability. While the wealthy might obtain better private medical security, the majority of middle- and lower-income populations face a desperate situation. Therefore, "we believe that the rights of workers, the unemployed, and the underemployed in the poorest social strata must be protected as a gesture of humanity and solidarity" [35]. An article on the official website of the Workers World Party (WWP) in the US stated that the foundations of socialism helped China defeat the coronavirus; the decisions made by the CPC were not based on the interests of millionaires, but on how to maintain the welfare of all people—something unimaginable in capitalist America [36].
From this, it can be seen that the principle of a community with a shared future for humanity embodied in China's anti-epidemic efforts thoroughly abandons the "illusory community" based on property rights as a new hierarchy under the dominance of the logic of capital. In an illusory community, the system of exchange value overrides the system of use [8], the desire for profit overrides the realization of human essence, and the interests of private companies override the universal interests of humanity. The capital-led illusory community "appears to all individuals as something external, and therefore accidental. The social connection expressed through the contact of independent individuals appears to them simultaneously as both a material necessity and an external bond" [37]. Consequently, under the attack of the COVID-19 pandemic, the illusory community once again becomes a battlefield of "all against all" [9]. From the high praise of global left-wing scholars and leaders, we can sense that the "insulted and injured" people of the world can no longer tolerate the logic of capital hindering collective action for humanity to respond to common disasters. The conscious awareness of a human community stimulated during the disaster will surely become the cornerstone of a brand-new global political and economic governance order in the post-disaster era.
(2) The Chinese response reflects the governance superiority of the socialist system
Left-wing scholar Carlos Martinez, under the title "Karl Marx in Wuhan," detailed three important reasons why Chinese socialism defeated the coronavirus: First, the combination of socialism and high-end technology realized comprehensive monitoring of the virus. AI, cloud computing, and high-speed internet infrastructure widely used by ordinary people ensured timely tracking and isolation of every potentially ill person. Second, the highly coordinated top-down social mobilization capacity ensured that scientific decisions from the top could be implemented at the grassroots level. Third, free and mandatory universal "wartime" medical welfare ensured that every citizen was free from the fear of the virus [38]. Alberto Moreno Rojas, Chairman of the Communist Party of Peru (Red Fatherland), believes that the anti-epidemic struggle reflects the efficient governance model of Chinese socialism: mobilizing national medical resources to aid Wuhan in a short time while decisively implementing city-wide quarantine; more importantly, providing completely free medical services for all COVID-19 patients, avoiding a larger humanitarian disaster.
Clearly, these two scholars have astutely noticed the core principle of the governance superiority of the socialist system—public ownership and its practical rationality. The essential attribute of the socialist system is the socialist public ownership of the means of production. According to Engels' view, socialist public ownership means that "all branches of production will be managed by society as a whole, that is, operated for the common interest according to a general plan and with the participation of all members of society. ... Private property must also be abolished, and in its place comes the common use of all instruments of production and the distribution of products according to common agreement" [15]. The COVID-19 pandemic has once again proven Engels' judgment on the superiority of socialist public ownership in at least the following three aspects:
First, socialist public ownership places economic activities such as production and consumption under social governance, with humanity and society being the sole purposes of economic activity. Therefore, what socialist public ownership constructs is an "economics of need" rather than an "economics of desire." It is in this sense that satisfying the basic medical needs of society during the pandemic, without considering capital's vigorous desire for profit, became the primary choice for a society of public ownership.
Second, a planned and organized social governance model starting from the public interest constructs a beautiful vision of sharing development fruits. In fact, despite the existence of a massive non-public economic sector in our country, due to the leading role of the public-owned economy, the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics has formed the kinetic energy of "practical rationality of public ownership" [10]. In other words, under the guidance of the public economy, the non-public economy has exerted socialist functions of planning, organizing, and regulating economic activities. In a short period, it led non-public production sectors to actively invest in the production of anti-epidemic materials, forming a continuous supply capacity for the whole world. China has now become the world's manufacturing center for anti-epidemic supplies.
Third, the potential massive social resource allocation and mobilization capacity of public ownership. Public ownership allows the means of production and subsistence to be distributed throughout society. Thus, "the nationalization of land will work a complete change in the relations between labor and capital... government or state power, as opposed to society, will disappear... National centralization of the means of production will become the national basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers" [27]. From Marx's judgment on the practical rationality of the public economy, it is not difficult to understand why the Trump administration would openly stand in opposition to society and common sense, while the Chinese government firmly stands on the same front as the people and society.
Fourth, we must reconsider how humans and nature can achieve a "harmonious symbiosis" [11]. The COVID-19 pandemic has once again sounded the alarm for humanity: if humans do not pursue a green development [12] path and a "green way of life," they will inevitably face more severe ecological crises and public health threats. Foreign leftist scholars emphasize that we must look beyond the immediate public health crisis to examine the deep-seated ecological roots of the pandemic. They argue that capital’s infinite expansion and its predatory exploitation of the natural world have disrupted the "metabolic interaction" [13] between humans and nature.
James O'Connor and other ecological Marxists have long pointed out that the "second contradiction" of capitalism—the contradiction between the relations of production (and productive forces) and the conditions of production (including the environment)—is becoming increasingly acute [14]. Under the logic of capital, nature is treated merely as a source of raw materials and a sink for waste. The pursuit of surplus value necessitates a model of "high consumption" and "high waste," which has led to global warming, biodiversity loss, and the frequent outbreak of zoonotic diseases. Scholars like John Bellamy Foster argue that the COVID-19 pandemic is a manifestation of the "metabolic rift" [15] inherent in the capitalist mode of production.
To resolve this crisis, it is not enough to rely on "green capitalism" or purely technical fixes. As many leftist theorists suggest, we must fundamentally transform our relations of production and consumption patterns. This requires upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground in ecological governance, moving toward an ecological socialism that prioritizes "use value" over "exchange value" and communal well-being over private profit. We must implement a "green revolution" in the productive forces, utilizing new quality productive forces to promote high-quality development that respects ecological limits.
Only by establishing a new relationship with nature based on stewardship rather than domination can we achieve a community with a shared future for humanity in which the health of the planet and the health of the human species are inextricably linked. The pandemic has demonstrated that "the Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth." Therefore, a thorough reflection on our mode of existence is the only way to ensure that we do not fall back into the "Four Winds" of wasteful and decadent consumerism that characterized the pre-pandemic era. We must persist over the long term in building a "Beautiful China" and a beautiful world, ensuring that the ecological civilization remains a central pillar of the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan.
[45] Britain's Communists Sign Open Letter on International Response to COVID-19. MORNING STAR ONLINE, 2020-04-04 [2020-07-07]. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/britains-communists-sign-open-letter-international-responsecovid-19.
[46] ICOR. Declaration on the Corona Pandemic. INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION OF REVOLUTIONARY PARTIES AND ORGANIZATIONS, 2020-04-03 [2020-07-07]. https://www.icor.info/2020/declaration-on-the-corona-pandemic.
[47] Sara Flounders. How Socialist Base Helps China Combat Coronavirus. WORKERS WORLD, 2020-02-11 [2020-07-07]. https://www.workers.org/2020/02/46128.
[48] Collected Works of Marx and Engels: Volume 31 (马克思恩格斯全集：第31卷). Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1998. [16]
[49] Carlos Martinez. Karl Marx in Wuhan: How Chinese Socialism Is Defeating COVID-19. INVENT THE FUTURE, 2020-03-25 [2020-07-07]. https://www.invent-the-future.org/2020/03/karl-marx-in-wuhan-how-chinese-socialism-is-defeating-covid-19.
(Author Affiliation: School of Marxism, Fudan University) Internet Editor: Zhang Jian Source: Wuhan University Journal (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 2020, Issue 5