Fu Wenzhong and Li Bingqing: The Dialectics of Contemporary Capitalist Crisis and Anti-Inequality Movements
Why must we reconstruct the theory of liberation today? What is the significance of advocating for a 21st-century liberation movement? In the view of Nancy Fraser, a third-generation representative of the Frankfurt School [1], this is necessary, on the one hand, for the development of Marxism, as striving for the comprehensive liberation of humanity is the ultimate goal and value pursuit of Marxism. On the other hand, it is necessary for the critique of contemporary capitalism: "Today, all the contradictions of capitalism have reached a boiling point. Hardly anyone can escape the effects of political chaos, economic instability, and the depletion of social reproduction. Of course, climate change threatens all life on Earth. There is also a growing recognition that these catastrophic developments are so closely intertwined that the solution to any one problem cannot be separated from the solution to the others." [2] Therefore, to transcend the catastrophic consequences the capitalist system has inflicted upon humanity, it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to rethink the cause of human liberation in the 21st century and to promote the in-depth development of Western liberation movements.
I. Fraser’s Reflection on 20th-Century Western Liberation Movements
Fraser is renowned in academic circles for her feminist theory of justice, having "pushed Western Marxist feminist theory and justice theory to a new height of development." [3] A theory of justice necessarily contains a logic of liberation: "Fraser’s theory of social justice is a complete interdisciplinary theory of social critique with liberatory intent." [4] According to the unfolding logic of justice theory, social liberation is the only path to the realization of social justice. Since the 1980s, the focus of Fraser’s theoretical research has shifted from a theory of justice to a theory of liberation. Rooted in the critical theory tradition of Western Marxism and based on the perspective of post-war capitalist social movements and women’s liberation movements, she began to reflect on the dialectical relationship between 20th-century capitalist crises and Western liberation movements, summarizing the successes and failures of the latter.
First is her reflection on the new characteristics of post-war Western capitalist crises. Fraser argues that the traditional Marxist method of crisis analysis is primarily conducted from a political-economic perspective. While such a perspective is certainly very important, one cannot neglect the examination of crises in other aspects of capitalism. The Hungarian thinker Karl Polanyi described capitalist crisis as a category that transcends economic crisis, constituting a multifaceted historical process; he incorporated contradictions in local resistance, national politics, international affairs, and the global financial system into the scope of capitalist crisis investigation. Fraser strongly agrees with Polanyi’s comprehensive understanding of Western capitalist crises, believing that Polanyi’s analytical framework helps overcome "narrow" economism.
Influenced by Polanyi, Fraser proposed her own analytical framework for capitalist crisis, summarizing four characteristics of post-war capitalist crisis. At the economic level, against the backdrop of globalization, the global financial system is precarious, production and employment worldwide have plummeted, and the prospect of long-term recession is imminent. At the social level, the social crisis of contemporary capitalism is increasingly prominent, seen in the destruction of communities, the displacement of many families, and many regions being devastated by war and disease. At the ecological level, global warming continues to intensify, environmental pollution is becoming increasingly serious, and resource depletion is inevitable. At the political level, the political crisis of capitalism manifests as a crisis of modern state governance, where American hegemonism has triggered a profound global political crisis, leading to the dilemmas and crises of global governance. Consequently, Fraser believes that today’s capitalist crisis is multi-dimensional—it is not only an economic and financial crisis but also an ecological, social, and political crisis. Fraser emphasizes that reflection on the nature and roots of today’s capitalist crisis cannot focus solely on the "logic" of the economic system but must conduct theoretical dissection through an expanded, multi-dimensional perspective.
Secondly, Fraser emphasizes that to better clarify the essence and roots of capitalist crisis and to better understand the dialectical relationship between social crisis and liberation movements, a comprehensive examination of post-war Western capitalist liberation movements is required. Fraser points out that before World War II, almost all important political struggles were carried out in the name of "liberation," such as the abolition of slavery, women's liberation, and the struggles of colonized peoples. After World War II, especially after the 1960s, the scope of liberation movements expanded to include anti-racism, anti-imperialism, anti-war movements, the New Left movement, feminist movements, environmentalist movements, and multiculturalist movements.
Polanyi described post-war capitalist social movements as a "social conflict paradigm" between market forces and social protection movements. [5] According to the "double movement" analytical framework proposed by Polanyi in The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, the logic of market forces is to thoroughly commodify both humanity and the natural environment, which inevitably leads to severe damage to society and the natural environment. The logic of social protection movements is to counteract the commodification logic of market forces and prevent the catastrophic consequences that total commodification brings to the economy and society. [6] Although Fraser values Polanyi’s framework for analyzing social movements, she does not entirely agree with his views because Polanyi’s framework lacks a dimension of liberation. Fraser argues that many post-war social movements in Western countries supported neither marketization nor the social protection movements that opposed marketization; these social movements were movements for political liberation, seeking and believing in a "conception of total liberation." [7] Fraser points out that the global political struggles and social movements for liberation in the post-war period should be taken seriously. The internal logic of these liberation movements transcends Polanyi’s "double movement" logic; liberation logic is a "third logic" of resistance against capitalism. Through a systematic examination of the internal logic of post-war liberation movements and political struggles, Fraser gained a new understanding of 20th-century social liberation movements, laying the foundation for reconstructing liberation theory for the 21st century.
Thirdly, the women’s liberation movement is an important component of post-war liberation movements, and Fraser has conducted a systematic reflection on the post-war feminist liberation movement. Fraser believes that because Western feminist movements focused on social protection movements opposing marketization and commodification, the political movement for Western feminist liberation became trapped in a dual struggle between marketization and anti-marketization. Due to a failure to realize that the goal of feminist movements lies in striving for liberation, the political struggles participated in by many feminists deviated from the purpose of seeking women’s liberation. Faced with the expansion of liberal marketization, women hoped to rely on the power of the state to counter the expansion of market forces in order to protect their equal rights; this was unrealistic. This is because the subject of social protection is not society itself, but the state, which possesses political power; the state can ally with society to limit the market, but it can also ally with the market to limit society. In Fraser’s view, for the feminist movement, only by adhering to the standpoint of Marxist liberation theory can the developmental direction of the women’s liberation movement be grasped. In fact, feminists in every era have put forward their own demands for liberation, though the orientation of these demands differed in different periods: sometimes pointing to economic inequality, sometimes to political inequality, and sometimes to status inequality. Fraser emphasizes that from a Marxist standpoint, the liberation demands put forward by feminists should be reconstructed to include the elimination of all forms of capitalist rule within the scope of women's liberation.
Finally, there is the interpretation of the oppressive characteristics of neoliberal political hegemony. Fraser sharply points out that the global spread of neoliberalism has triggered "two catastrophic consequences: on the one hand, the severe instability of the economic system, and on the other hand, the instability of nature and society." [8] Neoliberalism has become the root of global instability. Fraser examined the oppressive characteristics of the post-war capitalist welfare state, pointing out that the intent of Western social security systems in providing economic relief was to consolidate their political rule. Starting from the 1960s, Marxists, socialists, and left-wing feminists exposed the oppressive characteristics of capitalist social security. Fraser believes that capitalist social security exists in two modes: "stratified protection" and "misframed protection." The oppressiveness of stratified protection is manifested in the setting of many prerequisites, by which certain groups of people are denied the right to participate in social security. The oppressiveness of misframed protection is manifested in a mismatch of scale, where groups needing protection are wrongly excluded while being made to bear the costs of protecting other groups. Thus, Fraser says, "stratified protection denies internal equality, while misframed protection constructs the external other." [9] On this basis, Fraser interpreted the dilemma faced by 20th-century liberation movements: political struggles for liberation in the 20th century were mainly concentrated on the critique of social security systems, deviating from the goal of liberation and resulting in two dilemmas for the Western liberation movement. On the one hand, there was an uncritical acceptance of elite individualism and privatized consumerism; on the other hand, the legitimate demands of the laboring masses were neglected. These dilemmas led to a situation where the liberation movement was "demoralized, on the defensive, and lacking conviction." Therefore, re-establishing the struggle goals of 21st-century Western liberation politics, deeply exposing the oppressive characteristics of capitalism, taking a clear-cut stand against neoliberal political hegemony, and exposing neoliberalism's defense of capitalism are all important tasks that 21st-century liberation theory needs to address.
II. Fraser’s Theoretical Reconstruction of 21st-Century Liberation Movements
Through profound reflection on 20th-century and especially post-war Western liberation movements, Fraser discovered several urgent problems in 20th-century liberation movements: first, the connotation of the liberation movement was unclear, causing confusion in theory and practice; second, the goals and value demands of the liberation movement urgently needed clarification; third, the critical dimension of the liberation movement needed reconstruction; fourth, the 21st-century women’s liberation movement required a new plan; and fifth, the tasks of the 21st-century liberation movement needed explicit explanation.
1. Reconstructing the connotation of 21st-century liberation movements. As to why the concept of liberation must be redefined, Fraser points out that although liberation movements have been ongoing, movements such as feminism, anti-imperialism, multiculturalism, and the New Left have not provided a clear explanation of the connotation of liberation. To clarify the direction of the political struggle for liberation in contemporary capitalism and to prevent it from being interfered with or undermined by neoliberal ideological hegemony, Fraser redefined the connotation of the concept of contemporary liberation politics. Fraser believes that the reconstruction of the concept of liberation must be based on the Marxist theoretical tradition while incorporating the new changes of contemporary capitalism into the concept's definitions. The connotation of contemporary Western left-wing liberation politics should include three aspects: First, the struggle for liberation is to oppose all forms of rule. Fraser emphasizes that liberation "aims to expose any form of rule rooted in the economy and society." [10] Liberation is not social reform to make capitalism fairer or freer; liberation is the pursuit of a thorough change in social structures to end capitalist economic oppression and political rule. Second, the main thrust of the critique of liberation is to critically examine all types of norms from the standpoint of justice, including market exchange norms and non-market norms such as ethics and morality. Fraser believes that capitalism is a system of unequal rule, and this inequality cannot be resolved within the capitalist system. Third, the primary task or supreme value of liberation politics is to achieve equality, overthrow all forms of inequality and oppression, and achieve the genuine liberation of humanity. Based on the above, Fraser’s concept of liberation can be summarized as—
Fraser views the connotation of the liberation movement as a historical alternative that transcends capitalism—one aimed at eliminating hierarchical orders, overcoming domination and oppression, and pursuing intersubjective equality and the realization of justice.
- The reconstruction of the goals and value claims of the 21st-century liberation movement. Fraser points out that while social struggles such as feminism, anti-imperialism, and multiculturalism put forward different liberation claims and resist different domains of domination, their claims all contain a common principle: the principle of parity of participation. This principle is also the vital driving force of liberation movements. Fraser examines different manifestations of inequality in contemporary capitalism. Because capitalist domination is distributed across the social, economic, civil society, and state spheres, different forms of obstacles to parity of participation are formed, which in turn determine the different goals and contents of liberation.
Fraser distinguishes four types of liberation goals: (1) When the aim is to eliminate hierarchies of status inequality, liberation means a transformation of the status order; (2) In order to overcome the division between core and peripheral countries and ensure that all people have fair and full access to resource entitlements, liberation means changing the unequal order of the global political-economic sphere; (3) To allow minority social members to participate in social life on an equal footing, liberation means a change in the norms of participation in the public sphere; (4) To promote parity of participation and eliminate domination, liberation means a change in the social structure and the mode of operation of public power. In any of these cases, Fraser emphasizes that the removal of barriers to parity of participation is the core value contained within these various liberation claims.
Because the goals and values of liberation remain unclear, liberation movements often find themselves trapped between two antagonistic forces: on one side is the logic of capital, which seeks to marketize and commodify all social relations; on the other is the force of social protection that seeks to shield society from the harms of commodification. Fraser points out that the force of marketization transforms class consciousness into consumerist consciousness and turns the masses into atomized individuals, greatly weakening and disintegrating the solidarity of liberation movements. Meanwhile, the capitalist anti-marketization force for social protection targets the economic sphere, while the true power of oppression lies in the political sphere, thereby diverting the goal and direction of the liberation movement. Therefore, the political struggle for liberation must grasp the dialectical relationship of the conflict between marketizing forces and anti-marketizing forces, and firmly seize the direction of contemporary political struggles for liberation [20]. Only in this way can the internal contradictions and dilemmas of the liberation movement be overcome, opening a new chapter for 21st-century liberation movements.
The reconstruction of the critical dimensions of the 21st-century liberation movement. Fraser analyzes the critical dimensions of liberation movements. Contemporary liberation movements—including anti-racism, feminism, pacifism, environmentalism, multiculturalism, and New Left resistance—possess different political claims and diverse liberation propositions. These struggles collectively manifest the diversification of resistance against capitalist modes of domination. Contemporary capitalist domination primarily includes status domination, economic domination, political domination, and bureaucratic domination. Addressing these primary forms, Fraser proposes three new dimensions for the contemporary political struggle for liberation in Western society: in the cultural sphere, a critique of the "misrecognition" of identity; in the economic sphere, a critique of "maldistribution"; and in the political sphere, a critique of "misrepresentation." Fraser explicitly emphasizes that the critique of liberation is an important way to challenge capitalism’s modes of status, economic, and political domination. Fraser's theoretical innovation lies in dialectically linking the three critical dimensions of the liberation movement with the modes of domination in capitalist society, economy, and the state, and then launching a systematic critique. This critical strategy for liberation is of great significance because Fraser greatly expands the scope of the critique of capitalist domination within liberation theory. From the perspective of Fraser's liberation theory, the scope of the anti-capitalist liberation struggle in the 21st century is much broader than that advocated by traditional Western Marxists; it is not merely a struggle between labor and capital in the economic sphere against economic exploitation, but also includes resistance against status oppression, cultural oppression, and political oppression. Fraser's reconstruction of the critical dimensions of the 21st-century liberation movement represents an important innovation in critical theory.
The reconstruction of the program for women's liberation in the 21st century. The reconstruction of 21st-century liberation theory must include the reconstruction of 21st-century women's liberation theory. Fraser emphasizes that to reconstruct the program for women's liberation, one must first restore the important position of feminist thought within the goals of liberation, requiring an "interrogation and exploration of how feminism can recover its promise of liberation" [21]. Therefore, "feminist theory cannot evade the social problems of capitalism" [22]. Fraser analyzes a series of consequences caused by the new developments of contemporary capitalism: the primary engine of capital accumulation is no longer the exploitation of labor; new technologies have reduced the role and central position of labor; the power and influence of the working class has diminished sharply; the class division between labor and capital has become blurred; and labor organizations no longer possess the powerful influence they once did. In light of new changes in capitalist workplaces and methods of work, the feminist movement must adjust its strategies of struggle, propose new claims and programs, and re-coalesce the social forces resisting capitalist hegemony; this is a vital component of the new program for the feminist liberation movement. To achieve this goal, "we need to transcend the idealization of work advocated by liberal feminism and move toward a more comprehensive vision of the liberation enterprise concerning gender justice" [23]. Regarding the possibility of women's liberation in the 21st century, Fraser points out that the mode of accumulating capitalist contradictions contains the possibility of liberation. Fraser dissects the destructive political consequences of the crisis of neoliberal hegemony in detail, noting that various political forces in the West resisting capitalism can utilize the crisis of capital accumulation to join the struggle of liberation politics. This new possibility provides a direction for the liberation struggle of oppressed women: "They seek not only income and security, but also dignity, self-fulfillment, and liberation from the oppression of power" [24]. To be liberated from the oppression of power is to overthrow the unequal social structures of capitalism and thoroughly liberate women from the multiple oppressions of capitalism; this is the liberation goal Fraser sets for the new 21st-century program of women's liberation.
The reconstruction of the tasks of liberation in the 21st century. Fraser states, "all discussions of capitalism indicate a growing intuition that the various ailments surrounding us—financial, economic, ecological, political, social—can all be traced back to a common root" [25]. The "common root" of capitalist crises is the capitalist system itself. Within the framework of the capitalist system, economic, political, environmental, and social crises cannot be resolved; nor can problems of social inequality, the wealth gap, or gender inequality be overcome. Therefore, reconstructing the revolutionary goals, political tasks, supporting subjects, and paths to realization of liberation theory cannot be separated from the understanding and critique of the systemic roots of inequality and injustice.
Building on the tradition of critical theory, Fraser strives to advance the reconstruction of the tasks of 21st-century Marxism. She bases the construction of liberation theory on the actual historical reality of contemporary capitalism, working to tap into the inherent liberation potential of contemporary Western social resistance movements. She is committed to transforming this potential into a political struggle against capitalist inequality and uncovering "the dynamics of the great struggle for the genuine liberation of humanity." Fraser reconstructs the tasks of 21st-century liberation from four aspects: first, guiding the direction of contemporary liberation movements, correcting cognitive deviations, and overcoming the challenges and contradictions they face; second, establishing diverse alliances to unite new social movements and join together anti-capitalist forces from different countries; third, developing the content of Marxist liberation theory—acknowledging that capitalism is not merely an economic system and that the liberation movement is not merely about opposing labor-capital antagonism and class conflict, but also about opposing gender, racial, cultural, and ecological inequality; fourth, asserting that liberation is the only way to achieve genuine equality—one can only achieve what Marx called true "human liberation" [26] by overthrowing "actually existing" capitalism. Therefore, true liberation is the only path to achieving real equality; it is only by overthrowing "actually existing" capitalism that the task of "human liberation" as described by Marx can be realized.
III. Recent Developments and Significance of Fraser’s Liberation Theory
Fraser's theoretical reconstruction of the 21st-century liberation movement was completed prior to 2008. After the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, Western left-wing scholars proposed new reflections on replacing capitalism. In 2011, Jameson pointed out that globalization had created a situation where the capitalist system was unprecedentedly vast and absolutely transcended human scale, making it seemingly impossible for any conceivable form of individual resistance to affect it. Yet, facing a "capitalist system in the throes of a unique financial crisis," he argued, "we absolutely cannot say that we are in a historical period where the capitalist system is so stable that no subjective forces or actions could possibly exist" [27]. In his 2019 magnum opus Capital and Ideology, Piketty also pointed out that capitalism cannot solve the problem of inequality and that a new program of participatory socialism is a new strategy for transcending capitalism: "I believe that today's identity politics is failing because of the lack of a persuasive internationalist egalitarian program; in other words, it is due to the lack of a truly credible social federalism." Piketty emphasizes that we should "learn lessons from historical experience and look forward to 21st-century participatory socialism" [28]. As a heavyweight representative of the Frankfurt School, Fraser is no exception. In response to the new characteristics of the capitalist financial crisis, she conducted a new theoretical investigation into the latest changes in the contemporary capitalist crisis and the dialectical development of the liberation movement. In her two important works, Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto (2018) and Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory (2019), she put forward her latest thoughts on the liberation movement.
First, she proposed criteria for distinguishing between liberation movements and non-liberation movements. Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, resistance movements have surged in Western society, and populism has risen as a sudden force. How does one identify a liberation movement? Are there certain criteria? Fraser answered this question in a 2019 interview regarding "capitalism." In the view of Laclau, a representative of post-Marxism, liberation today is liberation with a "small l"—its meaning is indeterminate, diverse, and a floating signifier; there are no universal standards for liberation claims, and "no struggle can claim to represent the 'total liberation of humanity'" [29]. Fraser not only proposed criteria but also argued that various liberation movements have a common foundation, emphasizing that "establishing criteria for judgment is crucial." She proposed three criteria for distinguishing liberation from non-liberation movements. The first criterion is nondomination: the principle of nondomination advocates for the subversion of social orders that institutionalize the subordination of social groups. The institutional divisions of capitalism consolidate deep-seated relations of domination, including gender, race/ethnicity, and class. Any claim to change these institutions that strengthens or consolidates capitalist dominance is not a liberation claim.
...if it weakens dominance, it is an acceptable liberatory claim. The second criterion is functional sustainability: any liberatory claim must be sustainable; it must be capable of being institutionalized within a new social order and possess the capacity to ensure self-stability over time. A new social order cannot be built in a manner that leads to continuous upheaval, nor can it be predicated on destabilizing the very foundations of its own existence. Liberation movements indeed require sustainable development. The third criterion is democracy: any acceptable liberatory claim must be capable of institutionalization in a way that allows participants to continue reflecting upon and questioning these claims, deciding whether they remain useful, and refining or amending them as necessary. Fraser states: "As a diagnostic tool, these three criteria should be used together." [21] These three criteria possess practical significance, providing a basis for identifying the liberatory claims and movements that can transform the social structure of capitalism.
Second, she proposes a new framework for identifying the contradictions and crises of capitalism: the "4D" structural map. In her 2019 book Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory, Fraser proposed her latest analytical model to interpret the trends and characteristics of capitalist crisis, which has garnered widespread attention in academic circles. Fraser argues that the contradictions and crisis tendencies of capitalism are not superficial but immanent and deep-seated. The 2008 financial crisis demonstrated that contemporary capitalist contradictions and crises possess four distinct characteristics, constituted by four "Ds": division, dependency, disavowal, and destabilization.
The first "D" is division, referring to the institutional separation in capitalism between production and reproduction, between politics and the economy, and between human society and nature. These divisions did not exist in previous social formations but are products of capitalism, as are the tensions between them.
The second "D" is dependency. Capitalism not only separates its economy from politics, nature, and social reproduction but also makes the economy dependent on the "others" it has fashioned, treating these "others" as the background conditions upon which the economy relies. The development of the capitalist economy cannot occur without social public power, social reproduction, and the input of "natural" resources; this is the dependency of the economy and the root of crisis and contradiction, as these background conditions are frequently undermined.
The third "D" is disavowal. Capitalist society not only separates the economy from the necessary background conditions upon which it depends while simultaneously making the former strictly dependent on the latter, but it also disavows or denies that the capitalist economy extracts value from the "non-economic" realms it has constituted. Fraser considers this the heart of the contradiction: the capitalist economy continuously extracts value from these realms while denying the value they possess. Consequently, capitalists assume that social reproduction, public power, and natural inputs are virtually infinite—treating them as free gifts. Not only do they fail to concern themselves with how to replenish these inputs, but they also destroy the very inputs upon which they depend.
The fourth "D" is destabilization. Destabilization describes the inherent tendency toward instability in capitalist society, unfolding along its three constitutive boundaries: production/reproduction, politics/economics, and human society/non-human nature, thereby constituting capitalism’s immanent crisis tendencies. When these four destabilizing factors are integrated, capitalism is placed within a complete structural map of crisis and contradiction. The 4D structural map represents the unique, internal crisis tendencies of capitalism in a refreshing way. Fraser describes this as a redrawn "4D" structural map of capitalist social crisis, noting that its theoretical innovation lies primarily in its use of an "ethical" approach to provide an explanatory critique of capitalist crisis trends and contradictory structures.
Third, she emphasizes the use of a developed Marxism to recognize the diversity of liberation movements. In her 2018 Feminist Manifesto, Fraser points out that the potential influence of Marxism on contemporary liberation movements is profound; simultaneously, the development of contemporary Western liberation movements provides the possibility for the development of Marxist liberation theory. "As we noted in the Feminist Manifesto, the feminist movement forces us to rethink what class is and what class struggle is. Karl Marx theorized the working class as the universal class, meaning that through its struggle to overthrow capitalist exploitation and domination, the working class also challenges a social system that oppresses the vast majority of the world's population, thereby advancing the cause of humanity." [22]
However, Fraser also emphasizes that some of Marx’s followers in the West do not always understand that neither the working class nor humanity is an undifferentiated, homogeneous entity. It is impossible to realize universalist claims while ignoring internal differences. Fraser states: today, a failure to develop Marx's concept of the working class will result in paying a price for these political and intellectual lapses. Yet many on the Left remain trapped in old universalist models, believing that what unites us is a homogeneous concept of class, and that the "diversity" of feminism and anti-racism might fracture our ranks—precisely because neoliberals utilize "diversity" to aestheticize the predatory behavior of capital.
Fraser emphasizes that while recognizing the diversity of liberation movements is important, one must simultaneously correct the interference and disintegration of these movements by neoliberalism’s appropriation of diversity to ensure the goals of liberation are not distorted. This insight holds significant practical meaning: "It is particularly important for us to correct the liberation movements of our time, as existing liberation movements have become allies and excuses for the forces fueling neoliberalism." [23] Fraser directly confronts the new dilemmas and challenges facing the feminist liberation movements of Western Marxism, reminding Left-wing feminism to resist the influence of neoliberal ideology. To prevent neoliberal trends from reducing the cause of feminist liberation to a status of minority elitism, a developed Marxism must be used to counter the influence of neoliberal ideological hegemony.
Fourth, she emphasizes the important role of trade unions and working-class alliances in liberation movements. In a 2019 interview regarding "Beyond Neoliberalism and Trumpian Populism," Fraser offered new perspectives on the organizational problems of liberation planning. She argues that contemporary social liberation movements have given insufficient consideration to trade unions, political parties, and other forms of working-class organization. Today, the Left's cause of liberation "is in crisis in at least two respects: we lack both programmatic vision and an organizational concept." [24] This lack of programmatic vision and organizational concept has prevented the healthy development of the cause of liberation, leading some on the Left to turn directly toward neo-anarchism. Fraser asserts that "if one truly wishes to fundamentally change the world," the question of the liberation program is important, but the question of organization is even more critical; no matter how well a liberation program is planned, it remains empty talk without an organization to realize it.
Regarding the organizational question, Fraser notes that in a country like the United States, one cannot underestimate the potential power and importance of trade unions. There is a need for a program of organizational planning that can unite unions of American service workers, fast-food workers, domestic workers, agricultural workers, and public sector workers; it must protect existing unions while organizing unions where none exist, expanding the scope of trade union organization. On this issue, without a credible political stance and a viable organizational strategy to resolve these problems, the liberation struggle cannot escape its predicament.
To better expand trade union organization, the concept of the "working class" must be reconstructed. If the Left hopes to establish a new counter-hegemonic bloc, it will have to envision this "working class" in a new way. The "working class" would include manufacturing and mining workers—white, heterosexual, male, and ethnic majorities—but also all other paid and unpaid occupations, including migrants, women, and people of color. If the concept of the working class can be reconstructed in this way, a leading group within the working class can also be constructed, which should include trade union organizations at all levels and representatives of all laboring strata. This would be a powerful new alliance with the potential to become a new coalition of leading groups. Fraser mentions, "In my view, recognizing the important role of trade unions requires social liberation movements to reshape the image of the union." [25] This important assertion serves as a vital guide for directing Western liberation movements along the correct track; only by overthrowing the oppressive rule of capitalism can true equality be achieved.
Conclusion
Fraser endeavors to integrate Marxist liberation theory with the theory of justice found in Western Marxist critical theory. She provides a comprehensive description of the dilemmas and challenges experienced by contemporary Western social liberation struggles and offers a concrete analysis of the status and developmental trends of 21st-century liberation movements. She seeks to place the fundamental tenets of the Marxist liberation movement at the center of the task of reconstructing liberation movements—efforts that possess significant theoretical value and practical significance.
Although Fraser’s new planning for 21st-century liberation remains incomplete and she continues to struggle to find a practical path to transcend capitalism, the limitations of her theory do not obscure the practical significance and contemporary value of her new blueprint for liberation. In light of the new changes in the capitalist crisis, many of the innovative viewpoints proposed by Fraser provide important references for understanding contemporary capitalist social liberation movements. Fraser’s new planning for liberation comprehensively and profoundly critiques the institutional crisis of contemporary capitalism, providing a new horizon for analyzing and understanding today’s capitalist crisis. Through new reflections on contemporary liberation movements, it also helps us further explore the prospects and direction of the human liberation movement in the 21st century.
In summary, contemporary capitalist crisis is a systemic, multidimensional crisis of "social reproduction." The anti-inequality movements triggered by this crisis are increasingly transcending the narrow confines of "economic struggle" or "identity politics," evolving toward a "Triple Movement" [26] that integrates marketization, social protection, and emancipation. Especially in the New Era, as the contradictions of global capitalism intensify, the study of these movements through the lens of dialectical materialism and historical materialism is of significant theoretical value for understanding the limitations of Western capitalist governance and for exploring the path toward Chinese-path modernization.
By upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground, we must recognize that the ultimate resolution of capitalist inequality relies on the fundamental transformation of the relations of production and the eventual realization of common prosperity. Only by persisting over the long term and promoting high-quality development can a community with a shared future for humanity provide a viable alternative to the fragmented and crisis-ridden landscape of contemporary global capitalism.
(Authors’ affiliation: School of Marxism, Shandong University) Web Editor: Zhang Jian Source: Journal of Sichuan University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 1, 2021.