Xing Caili: "Chaos in the West": Populism or a Crisis of Capitalism
Currently, many people are perplexed by the phenomena of large-scale protests, violent conflicts, and wartime turbulence frequently appearing across Western society and throughout the globe. In particular, they do not understand why the Euro-American "millennial kingdom"—long regarded as developed, prosperous, and free—would see phenomena such as the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, the "Tea Party" movement, the "Trump phenomenon," the "Sanders whirlwind," Brexit, the London riots, the "Nuit Debout" (Up All Night) movement in Paris, long-term strikes, and the "Yellow Vests" movement. However, faced with such severe "Western chaos," the reflections and attributions offered by mainstream Euro-American public opinion are even more startling and bewildering. It is fashionable among Western political, business, and academic circles to use the "proliferation of populism" to explain these social phenomena that began to appear in large numbers after the 2008 financial crisis; they believe it is precisely this "populism" that has led to the emergence of "anti-globalization," "de-globalization," and the "post-truth era." Especially after the "black swan" events of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, Western newspapers, magazines, and online opinion outlets have intensified their calls to "oppose" and "resist" populism. Yet, using the "proliferation of populism" to explain the frequent social unrest and political "black swan" phenomena in Western countries in recent years is not only theoretically unconvincing, but also raises a question: why do the struggles and outcries of the people at the bottom cause such panic among the political elites and capital forces—who have sat firmly at the center of power for decades—that they frequently mobilize the media apparatus to "resist" and "condemn" populism?
I. The Heterogeneous Concept of "Populism" Cannot Explain "Western Chaos"
(1) The "Signified" of Populism Under the Crisis of Capitalism and Its Contradictions
To analyze whether populism can explain "Western chaos," one must first understand populism. Although the meanings and understandings of populism have been quite broad, heterogeneous, vague, and even chaotic to date—making a consensual definition a theoretical challenge in itself—when facing "Western chaos," we can still roughly clarify the sense in which the concept of populism is being employed.
A comprehensive analysis of various media reports and academic literature using populism to explain "Western chaos" reveals three main specific "signifieds" for the concept: first, it refers to the "disordered resistance" of the masses, such as various "Occupy" movements, "Nuit Debout," riots, and marches, while many texts add qualifiers such as "emotional," "irrational," or "angry" to this "disordered resistance"; second, it refers to left-wing and socialist-leaning forces represented by figures like Bernie Sanders and Slavoj Žižek, including Western left-wing forces such as the World Congress on Marxism, the São Paulo Forum, and the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, which are usually regarded as left-wing (extreme) populism; third, it refers to conservative forces represented by the National Front in France and the Trump phenomenon in the United States, generally regarded as right-wing (extreme) populism.
However, even a brief reflection on these three definitions of populism shows that, setting aside the many other definitions and references at home and abroad, these three meanings used to explain "Western chaos" already contain self-contradictions and conceptual confusion. Specifically, using the concept of populism to analyze "Western chaos" reveals at least three points of contradiction:
First, the rupture and contradiction between the "signifier" and the "signified" [1] of the concept. In a general sense, the "signifier" of populism primarily involves "taking the people as the essence" (yi min wei cui) and "the essence of the people" (min zhi jing cui). "Taking the people as the essence" emphasizes the value and role of the masses, while "the essence of the people" stresses the leading role of elites and historical figures in social development. Thus, viewed as a whole, the original intent of the concept of populism reflects the subjectivity of the people. However, most current explanations and uses of populism are derogatory and negative; for instance, the "disordered resistance" of the masses is often extrapolated as the "mobs" or "mob rule," while "populist politicians" are considered those who incite the emotions of the masses. Some even believe that anti-science and anti-intellectualism are manifestations of populism. It is clear that although the term populism is very widely used, there is a serious rupture between its signified and its signifier.
Second, the self-contradiction between multiple signifieds. The self-contradiction within the various signifieds of the concept of populism is most evident in the context of "Western chaos." Calling both the Left and the Right—whose political positions and value orientations are completely different—"populism" not only creates logical contradictions but also leads to cognitive errors when facing major questions of principle. In fact, these instances of grouping the Left and Right as populism, or even linking socialism and fascism respectively to populism, already provoked strong opposition from leftists in the United States during the 1960s. For example, the Left argued that liberal scholars at the time, represented by Richard Hofstadter, characterized progressives and socialists who were cruelly persecuted by McCarthyism [2] as populists, while simultaneously calling McCarthyism itself populism. This was not only irrational but an insult and injustice to socialists and the victims on the Left.
Third, the contradiction between theoretical and practical criteria for identification. In reality, there is no objective standard for what constitutes "populism" or in what sense it is "populist"; it is more a contest of discourse power [3] and a gambit for leadership over public opinion. When Western capitalist rulers launch street riots and "color revolutions" [4] to subvert other dissident regimes around the world, the international mainstream media they control frames these as "just" actions in pursuit of "democracy," with the "Arab Spring" being a typical example. Yet, when resistance movements of the grassroots occur within Western countries—such as "Occupy Wall Street" in the U.S. or the "Yellow Vests" in France—the media controlled by capital defines them as populist "mob rule" or the behavior of an anarchist "rabble." This double standard in definition demonstrates that in the era of "capital above all," the masses are merely utilized as political tools and pawns. In the eyes of capital, the masses have no personality, dignity, or basic human needs; thus, when capital needs the masses, they are deceived, utilized, or coerced; but when the words and deeds of the masses do not conform to the interests and intentions of capital, they are denounced as "populism," "tyranny of the majority," "the melon-eating masses" [5], or a "mindless mob," and are viewed as "heresy" or "venomous beasts."
(2) Analysis of the Derogatory Shift of the Concept of Populism and Its Causes
A study of the history of the use of the concept of populism reveals that the contradictions mentioned above did not exist in the early stages of the concept's emergence. Initially, populism was not a derogatory term, nor was it always used to define "the Other." Since the term populism derived from the concept of "the people," its basic meanings—such as "taking the people as the essence," which focuses on people-centered thought, and "the essence of the people," which emphasizes historical figures—are closely related to relevant concepts in the socialist discourse system. Precisely because of this, even until the end of World War II, many political parties and figures took pride in being identified as populists, as it signified being welcomed by the masses. However, by the 1960s, populism basically became a derogatory term, and the combined use of fascism and populism began to be commonplace.
What exactly caused such a massive, quiet shift in the basic connotation of populism? The Spanish scholar Marco d'Eramo, in studying the development of the concepts of populism and the people, discovered a crucial point: the systematic use of the term populism by academic and political circles is a post-WWII phenomenon. This phenomenon formed precisely in correspondence with the abandonment of the term "the people"—that is, the more marginalized the status of "the people" became in political discourse, the more central populism became. By analyzing literature in the University of California library databases containing titles with "populism" and "populism and fascism" (1920–2013), he found that after WWII, the use of populism in Western academia grew exponentially and was gradually grouped with fascism and totalitarianism. The emergence of this situation was closely related to the large-scale historical revisionist movement that unfolded in the United States in the 1950s. Cold War liberal scholars, represented by the American historian Richard Hofstadter, first described the late 19th-century Populist Party movement as a proto-fascist movement. They continuously disseminated this through elite and mass media to solidify the derogatory side of populism’s connotation. Finally, through the works of Hofstadter, Daniel Bell, and others—who described both the Populist Party movement and McCarthyism as populism—the task of equating populism with fascism was largely completed.
Although this definition and use of populism provoked strong opposition from Western leftists at the time, it could not change the new image of populism—full of contempt and derogation—established in international academic circles by Hofstadter and others who held powerful positions. In particular, after a famous conference on populism held at the London School of Economics in 1967 under Hofstadter’s influence, his insights into populism came to dominate the field of political science: namely, that populism equals fascism.
In the process of becoming derogatory, populism was gradually equated with Nazism, the "mindless mob," and the "tyranny of the majority." Its original meaning and glory vanished. A term that originally represented the theories and activities of progressives pursuing fairness and justice became an "academic concept" that seemingly critiqued the irrational emotions of the masses from a "neutral," "objective," and "independent" standpoint. Thus, we see a ubiquitous paradox today: "capitalism," which has brought disasters and suffering to humanity such as war, genocide, and colonial rule, is not only shielded from crusade and condemnation, but is instead replaced by ideological descriptors like "civilization," "progress," and "success," receiving widespread praise. Meanwhile, theories and practical activities concerning the interests of the masses are severely disparaged, or even wantonly smeared and slandered, in the name of "populism." As the American scholar James Petras revealed, in the modern dictionary of Empire, the most abused and intentionally confused concept is "populism." This concept originated from the movements of oppressed working masses, but the cultural ideology of Empire leveraged and distorted positive ideas connected to the struggle for liberation, combining populism with overbearing theories and regressive regimes. This emptied the concept of populism of its original progressive and liberating content, linking it to a reactionary, racist, xenophobic, and fascist ideology, ultimately propagandizing everything related to independent peoples' movements as regressive.
In domestic academic circles, people also frequently link populism with Nazism, nationalism, and socialism. Since nationalism is believed to lead to war and fascism, the implicit meaning of using these concepts together is often: fascism ≈ extreme nationalism ≈ populism ≈ socialism. That is, the ultimate goal is still to point at the socialism that possesses actual global influence today through its ideas and physical existence, and which poses a challenge to the logic of capital and imperialist hegemony.
The derogatory use of the concept of populism also directly affects the evaluation of relevant history. Today, a large body of literature considers the Russian Narodnik (populist) movement and the American Populist Party movement of the second half of the 19th century as the primary origins of populist politics and thought. Among these, many texts describe and evaluate this history using negative and derogatory terms—for instance, asserting that the Russian Narodnik movement was historically reactionary and that Lenin held a fiercely critical attitude toward it. Regarding the American Populist Party movement, many accounts strip away the historical background of its emergence, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s [6], while deliberately amplifying the racist tendencies of certain leaders to emphasize that it was an early fascist movement.
However, a deep dive into history reveals that both of these movements arose from specific historical backgrounds and causes, and possessed a progressive character in their defense of the interests of the broad masses. The Russian Narodnik [7] movement passed through three stages and contributed to the turning point of modern Russian history. They were not, as some articles claim, representatives of backward and extreme conservative forces; on the contrary, the Russian Narodniks played a very progressive and revolutionary role in history. First, the spirit of self-sacrifice shown by these revolutionaries—who identified as Narodniks—in abandoning their social status, and even their freedom and lives, to transform a serf-based society deserves the respect of later generations. Second, the Narodniks were the earliest group to spread Marxism in Russia. The translators of the first two Russian editions of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Bakunin in 1869 and Zasulich in 1882) were both Narodnik theorists. Furthermore, the formation of Marx and Engels' "Theory of Oriental Society" cannot be separated from the influence of the Russian Narodniks. Finally, during his revolutionary career, Lenin's attitude toward the Narodniks underwent two distinct stages. In the early period before he fully entered the historical stage (1893–1905), Lenin held a primarily critical stance, engaging in polemics with works such as What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats, The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of it in Mr. Struve's Book, and The Heritage We Renounce. However, after 1905, as his revolutionary thought matured, Lenin became increasing aligned with the Narodniks' revolutionary program and propositions. This contradicts the view held by some that Lenin remained consistently opposed to them. Many contemporary articles use Lenin's early critiques of the Russian Narodniks as a basis for a total rejection of the movement, a practice that is open to debate.
Some articles argue that the massive People's Party movement, which emerged in the United States in the late 19th century—composed primarily of farmers and commoners opposing financial and oil monopolies—was also a manifestation of the origins of populism. An analysis of existing literature on the American Populist movement reveals that most scholars hold a negative view of it. In reality, this thirty-year Populist movement was the first large-scale mass movement in American history, forcing American monopolists to witness the power of resistance from the bottom of society. Out of fear and loathing of this power, the movement was subsequently described and evaluated in increasingly disparaging terms. As can be seen in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, various capital groups and conservative elites went to great lengths to belittle or even smear mass movements represented by the People's Party, labeling them as terrifying "populism." Conversely, the Left views such movements as a necessary resistance by the lower classes, regarding the masses with sympathy and respect. Engels noted the struggle of the American masses at the time. In his letters to friends or newspaper editors during this period, he frequently discussed the struggles of American labor groups. For instance, in an 1886 letter to a friend, he pointed out: "Whatever mistakes the leaders of the movement and the partially awakened masses may make, however narrow their ideas, one thing is clear: the American working class has entered the movement, and of that there is no doubt. After some detours, they will soon find the right path. I believe the appearance of the Americans on the stage is one of the most important events of the year. The outbreak of class war in America means for the bourgeoisie of the whole world what the collapse of Russian Tsarism would mean for the major military monarchies of Europe: the falling away of their main pillar."
In summary, the concept of populism has undergone a process of continuous pejorative transformation. A concept that originally represented progress, liberation, and the supremacy of the people has been generalized and used as a label, manifesting its nature as a discourse tool for political struggle. Consequently, it not only fails to explain the root causes of the "chaos in the West," but also serves as an excuse for the forces of capital and their agents to evade responsibility and conceal crises. As Marxists, we must stand with the masses and bring the analysis of the current "chaos in the West" back into the Marxist horizon. We must use Marxist theory to analyze the source of the problem, rather than allowing a concept as ambiguous, equivocal, and seemingly mysterious as populism to serve as a tool and counter in political struggle. Such a concept conceals the roots and essence of the crisis in Western society, while slandering the lower classes—who already endure the disasters and pain caused by the economic crisis—as the "initiators" [8] of crisis and turmoil.
II. Marxist Crisis Theory as the Theoretical Weapon for Analyzing the "Chaos in the West"
(1) Economic crisis is the inevitable result of the endogenous contradictions of capitalism
In studying the operation and laws of the capitalist economy, Marx discovered major issues such as the secret of surplus value and the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist system. In the era of free-competition capitalism in which Marx lived, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production was the root cause of the periodic outbreaks of economic crisis in capitalist society. In an era where capital valorization relied primarily on extracting surplus value through commodity production, the key link for the smooth progression of the G—W—G' (Money-Commodity-More Money) circuit was the production of more commodities (W). To obtain surplus profit and achieve capital accumulation on a larger scale, capitalists required commodity production as an intermediary. However, the conversion of a commodity's use-value into value constitutes a "deadly leap," which requires effective demand as a condition. Because of the nature of the relations of production under capitalist private ownership, only a few people own the means of production. The vast majority are workers who are "free and own nothing," surviving only by selling their labor for low wages. They lack the capacity to consume the massive quantities of goods produced by the capitalist class. Thus, situations where "the working class is incensed and embittered by the lack of consumer goods, while the upper classes are ruined by overproduction" are inevitable.
The contradiction between socialized production and capitalist private appropriation means that the social wealth brought by the progress of productive forces is ultimately possessed by only a small minority. Therefore, within the capitalist system, the phenomena of overproduction and underconsumption appear simultaneously. Moreover, this system, which excludes the majority of society from sharing wealth, causes overproduction to coexist with absolute poverty and polarization. Marx once used vivid language to describe the reality of this intensification of fundamental contradictions and the outbreak of economic crises caused by the private ownership of the means of production: "Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells."
To date, capitalism has passed through different developmental stages, but its fundamental contradictions remain unchanged. Whether in the era of state-monopoly capitalism in which Lenin lived, or the current era dominated by international financial monopoly capital, the root cause of financial and economic crises remains the fundamental contradiction of the capitalist system. The contradiction between the infinite pursuit of profit by private capital and the limited consumption capacity of the masses leads not only to a surplus of physical commodities, resulting in economic crises, but also—starting after the 1980s—to a surplus of financial products. This creates a false prosperity built on inflating financial bubbles. Once these bubbles burst, as they did on Wall Street in 2008, the crisis inevitably spreads rapidly from the realm of fictitious economy to the real economy, and expands from the economic sphere into the political and social spheres, triggering political storms and social unrest. After the 2008 financial and economic crisis broke out in the United States, it spread rapidly across the globe. The various phenomena characterizing the "chaos in the West" are precisely the political and social effects of this economic crisis.
In the current era dominated by international financial monopoly capital, both the causes and the direct consequences of economic crises differ significantly from those of the eras of free-competition and state-monopoly capitalism.
First, in the era of international financial monopoly capital, financial and economic crises are not only periodic phenomena inevitably caused by the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, but may also be man-made financial weapons and economic wars. As capitalism entered the international financial monopoly stage, the degree of global economic and financial monopoly deepened. Military-industrial-financial monopoly syndicates, formed by the fusion of large banks and transnational corporations, manipulate the U.S. government, the Federal Reserve, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. They seek monopoly profits by expanding their spheres of influence and establishing a global empire, while launching financial wars to destroy other countries' economies in more covert ways. Neoliberal policies representing the interests of transnational monopoly financial capital are continuously promoted globally under the name of the "Washington Consensus," providing ideological justification for international monopoly capital forces to control the global political and economic landscape.
Second, in terms of consequences, financial and economic crises might not lead to the collapse of the reigning order dominated by the financial oligarchy; instead, they may become opportunities for them to continue amassing wealth. In the current neoliberal period, because the international financial monopoly capital that creates these crises possesses extraordinary control, it is not only immune to bankruptcy, imprisonment, or desperate suicide, but can also hijack government executive power and manipulate public policy. It forces the general public to "transfuse blood" into it using their hard-earned money and pension funds. After the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, "financial predators" on Wall Street, represented by Goldman Sachs, were not only unscathed but received massive bailouts from the U.S. government. President Obama, who came to power railing against "Wall Street fat cats," oversaw a crisis management plan characterized by "using neoliberalism to save neoliberalism," demonstrating capital's control over executive power. Similarly, while Donald Trump used even more intense rhetoric against Wall Street during his campaign to win over lower-class voters, his administration was primarily composed of economic monopolists and political conservatives.
In short, in the era of international financial monopoly capital, economic crises can be man-made; their timing and location can be controlled. The global power possessed by transnational monopoly capital—especially the sheer scale, capability, and secretive nature of international financial monopoly capital—is sufficient to subvert the currencies and economies of sovereign nations. Because the perpetrators of these crises possess unprecedented political, economic, and cultural control, they can not only profit from the crisis but also shift the responsibility for its outbreak onto the lower classes or onto countries like China, which occupy a disadvantaged position in the international discourse arena. The rule of contemporary financial monopoly capital is "gigantic yet invisible" and "deep yet colorless," and its ideology is increasingly covert and pervasive. This is why, following an economic crisis, the oligarchic capital that caused the crisis becomes the recipient of government aid, while the resistance movements of the angry and helpless masses—who bear the disastrous consequences—are branded as "evil" and loathsome populism, or characterized as "madmen," "anarchist punks," and "socialists."
(2) Does capitalist crisis inevitably lead to proletarian revolution?
It is a common understanding that economic crisis signals that capitalism is nearing its end and that the outbreak of crisis heralds an era of revolution. However, current phenomena in Europe and America—including those categorized under "populism"—indicate that the relationship between capitalist crisis and socialist revolution is complex. The outbreak of economic crisis is only one condition for revolution; a high degree of revolutionary proletarian movement requires many subjective and objective factors to occur.
The fundamental contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production in capitalist society makes crisis an inevitable "malignancy" in economic and social operations. Simultaneously, crisis provides the necessary preconditions for war or revolution. Marx pointed out in Revolution in China and in Europe: "neither wars nor revolutions are likely to shake Europe to any great extent, unless they are preceded by a general commercial and industrial crisis, which must always be signaled from England, as the representative of European industry in the world market." Further analyzing the history of modern European wars, Marx noted: "Since the beginning of the 18th century there has been no serious revolution in Europe which had not been preceded by a commercial and financial crisis. This applies to the revolution of 1789, as well as to that of 1848." Therefore, economic crisis and the resulting social crisis are objective conditions that accelerate the demise of capitalism. In other words, capitalist crisis is the condition that prompts proletarian revolution. In a capitalist economic crisis, a large number of proletarians are completely cast out of the system, which creates the possibility of a revolution against the entire capitalist system.
However, a capitalist crisis does not necessarily lead to a high degree of revolutionization within the proletariat. Historical facts demonstrate that while crises inevitably erupt, they cannot automatically bring forth an entirely new mode of production fundamentally different from the principles of capitalist society. In a capitalist crisis, worker unemployment, factory closures, social chaos, political instability, and even war are common phenomena; however, a highly progressive and constructive proletarian revolution requires specific conditions to emerge. This is why the possibility of a revolution against the capitalist system is not a guaranteed certainty.
First, a high degree of proletarian revolutionization necessarily requires workers to ascend to the status of a proletariat; that is, the revolutionary subject must be a class that has "been raised to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole," rather than "masses scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their competition." Second, the process of workers ascending to the proletariat requires conscious forging and conscious intervention. The proletariat is not "delivered" by capitalist society but is continuously forged through the struggle of workers resisting capitalist society. Without the conscious intervention and forging of the revolutionary subject, workers will often likely "fight not their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies," or "would become a mentally shriveled, intellectually backward, internally hollow, and victimized mass—such a mass cannot achieve liberation through its own strength."
How, then, can the proletariat, as the revolutionary subject, be consciously intervened in and forged? A vital link is ideology—namely, the mastery of the scientific theory guiding the revolution by the workers and the masses. Both theory and reality show that in the political revolution of the proletariat, ideological issues must be undertaken and implemented by an organization. However, within the working class, debates over organization and Party building have never ceased. The most trenchant and typical of these are the understandings and arguments between Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin on this issue. To this day, the ideological and organizational questions in revolutionary struggle remain the greatest difficulties in the world socialist movement. Currently, solving how "ideology" can be mastered by the masses through "organization" is the key link in advancing the world socialist movement. The "disorganized resistance of the populace" precisely illustrates the reality that proletarian revolutionary ideology has not been mastered by the masses and that a high degree of proletarian revolution is absent. When the populace is cast out of the capitalist production system and armed with proletarian revolutionary ideology, they become the vital force of communist revolution; however, if the populace is exploited and deceived by the conservative forces of monopoly capitalism, they are highly likely to become cannon fodder for imperialist wars or victims of fascism. The "disorganized resistance" displayed in the "chaos of the West" demonstrates the current mass movement’s deficiencies in class consciousness, organization, awareness, and militancy. Because the anger and resistance of the populace lack the height of communist revolution and a socialist vision, they are disorganized, weak, and contemptuously defined by the forces of capital as pejorative populism.
Which theories and forces control or influence the broad masses is a major issue concerning the direction of global politics. The key to the problem lies in how one views the populace and how one treats the people; who can ultimately win depends fundamentally on the mobilization and winning over of the mass base. The populace is extremely complex and is the indispensable foundation of any political movement. The masses are the most basic political building material; any political force wishing to develop must, above all, strive to win over as many of the masses as possible. As a political building material, the populace does not naturally belong to the Left or the Right; the key is which ideology and organization influence them. If influenced by leftist ideas and groups, they may develop into a revolutionary movement for their own liberation; if deceptively exploited by the conservative Right, they are highly likely to become cannon fodder for fascism or racist wars. Of course, as is the case most of the time now, the populace may remain in a state of bewilderment, ignorance, fragmentation, and lack of organization—a "sheet of loose sand" [9]—resulting in scattered, atomized, and disordered individual struggles that are easily smeared, framed, and suppressed by the rulers due to their weakness.
Precisely for this reason, smearing Marx himself, demonizing Marxism, and propagating communism as an unspeakable "flood or wild beast" [10] are what bourgeois theory has always done. Its purpose is to isolate the masses from the truly scientific theoretical weapon that would liberate them, using various religious, materialist, pragmatic, nihilistic, and even terrorist concepts to infiltrate, induce, corrupt, and paralyze the class consciousness of the public. When oligarchic capital groups fear that the masses will master Marxism—this "theoretical weapon"—yet can no longer use bourgeois theory to explain the root causes and essence of the dilemmas, economic crises, and social turmoil faced by the people, they can only use the hybrid concept of "populism" to lead the issue in a more mysterious and vague direction. In fact, against the backdrop of the capitalist crisis, what is concealed behind the concept of populism are class and national issues: "The 'foreigner problem' is actually the national question of traditional political science; the problem of the lower classes pursuing social justice is the class question of traditional political science. If the class and national questions were stated directly, not only politicians but even ordinary people would understand the essence of the problem and know what should be done."
III. The Current Danger of Fascism and the Urgency of Revitalizing World Socialism
Equally important as revealing the ideological fog surrounding the concept of populism is fully recognizing another major reality that pejorative and labeled populism happens to illustrate: the danger of the world falling into fascism and the urgency of revitalizing the world socialist movement.
When world capitalism falls into economic crisis, it inevitably faces the question of where to go. Broadly speaking, there are three main possibilities: first, to move forward by drawing on socialism to implement reformist policies, such as the Roosevelt New Deal; second, the occurrence of a communist revolution; and third, falling into more extreme and dark fascism.
From a global perspective, since the outbreak of the 2008 global economic crisis, the various policies of the major capitalist countries mired in crisis—such as Trump’s tax cuts, fiscal austerity, cutting public welfare, and waging trade wars—indicate that the reformist path of the Roosevelt New Deal variety has lost the conditions for its existence. This is because the power of international finance monopoly capital enables it to block reformist policies that would limit its expansion; moreover, even those seemingly reformist measures serve the long-term goals of extreme conservative forces. This is reflected in the various neoliberal crisis governance measures implemented in European and American countries in recent years that have further exacerbated polarization, and in the practical fate of the New Keynesians, represented by Stiglitz, who were highly popular at the start of the crisis but later found to be of little use. Regarding the second possibility, the world socialist movement is still in a low period, and the road to revitalization is extremely arduous. Fortunately, a few socialist countries, such as China, have broken through the encirclement of the capitalist world system, persisting through hardships and to some extent checking the rampages of oligarchic capital forces. However, if fascist extremist forces further expand during the great crisis while the growth of the world's socialist revolutionary forces remains limited, the most likely outcome for capitalism is to fall back into the third scenario: inciting racism and national conflicts, creating hatred and fear to control the lower classes, and destroying the fascist socialism of the movement.
Historical facts prove that the reason no new world war occurred after World War II was the critical balancing role played by the existence of socialist countries like China and the national democratic liberation movements of the broad Third World. Simultaneously, it was precisely due to the existence of the socialist camp and progressive forces that Western capitalist countries, such as the United States, internally implemented reformist social welfare systems beneficial to the lower and middle classes. Over the past twenty or thirty years, the welfare security for the lower classes in European and American countries has become the primary target of attack and reduction by capital and political elites. This is also closely related to the world socialist movement falling into a low ebb and the decline of the Left. Once freed from the external pressure of the world socialist alliance, the major capitalist countries' anxiety over internal uprisings and revolutions diminished, allowing them to intensify the exploitation ("crunching the bones and sucking the marrow") of their domestic lower classes with even less restraint.
Today’s capitalist world system is being dragged into the abyss of fascism by continuous crises. Many Western scholars have written to call for vigilance against neo-fascist forces, such as Samir Amin, Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, and William I. Robinson. Amin argued that the current version of capitalism—neoliberal globalization—is the direct cause of why the world may fall into fascism. The polarization and economic crisis caused by neoliberalism make the system unsustainable and create massive resistance: "It then looks toward fascism to respond to its increasingly obvious defects. That is why fascism is reappearing in the West." William I. Robinson also pointed out that whether in the typical form of the 20th century or the possible neo-fascist variants of the 21st century, fascism is a specific response to the crisis of capitalism. Capitalism currently faces a deep-rooted crisis involving both the economic dimension of an over-accumulation crisis and the political dimension of a legitimacy or hegemony crisis. The increasing influence of neo-fascist forces—represented by Trumpism in the U.S., Brexit in the UK, and the National Front in France—all represent the response of the far-right conservatives to the crisis of global capitalism.
The economic crisis occurring in the heartland of capitalist countries in the 21st century has once again proved the inevitability of capitalism’s inherent contradictions and its historical transience. Faced with severe economic crises and social turmoil, on the one hand, there are anti-capitalist movements rising one after another around the world, constantly proclaiming that "another world is possible," that the "specter" of communism is reviving, and that the world socialist movement is revitalizing. On the other hand, extremist capitalist forces are also continuously gestating; neo-fascism may once again drag humanity into the dark moments of racism, chauvinism, and even world war. The capitalist economic crisis leaves humanity at another crossroads of historical development. Faced with this situation, capital, as an active and offensive force, joined together long ago. "In the historical period that has just passed, an important phenomenon in world politics has been the formation and union of power elite groups in various countries to form an international transnational bourgeoisie. They are a special stratum of the bourgeoisie, believing in globalism and cosmopolitanism, with weak concepts of state and nation, basing their interests on globalization, and often treating their own countries as objects of consumption." Meanwhile, the mass movement is in a "class-in-itself" state—passive, fragmented, and lacking "class consciousness." The marginalization of leftist socialist forces in political status and their intellectual weakness have left current mass movements either scattered and powerless or organized by right-wing ideologies, all of which are termed "populism" and suppressed by capital groups. If leftist action cannot stop the militaristic pace of figures like Trump or the rise of fascist forces like the National Front in France, it will mean another catastrophe for human development.
Therefore, from the perspective of the balance of forces between the world capitalist system and the revitalizing global socialist movement, there is a significant possibility that the world will slide into the abyss of fascism. Faced with the global crisis of capitalism and the possibility of humanity being dragged into fascist peril, the only fundamental way out is to revitalize the socialist movement and strengthen progressive forces such as communism.
(The author is an Associate Professor at the School of Marxism, Hexi University) Online Editor: Tongxin Source: Journal of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theory, 2021, Issue 1