Tan Youzhi: New Changes and Characteristics of Contemporary Capitalism
Under the overlapping impact of multiple complex factors—the world facing great changes unseen in a century, the continued global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the turbulent game between major powers triggered by the Ukraine crisis—the current global governance order is confronting all-around challenges from "four deficits": the governance deficit, trust deficit, peace deficit, and development deficit. Instability and uncertainty in the international situation have significantly increased. Regarding this, General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "The world pattern is in a historical process of accelerating evolution. A large number of profound and complex realistic problems have emerged, and a large number of theoretical subjects in urgent need of answers have been raised. This requires us to strengthen the study of contemporary capitalism, analyze and grasp the various changes and their essence, and deepen our understanding of the laws governing the profound and complex changes in capitalism and international political and economic relations." Since the end of World War II, and particularly since entering the 21st century, contemporary capitalism has exhibited several trends and characteristics that differ from the past due to intricate reasons. Through a critical revelation of the important new changes in contemporary capitalism and a forward-looking exploration of its main characteristics, we can accurately grasp the fundamental contradictions and general laws of contemporary capitalism with a more comprehensive, dialectical, and long-term perspective. This will help us strengthen our precise judgment of the correct direction for the advancement of human society.
New Changes in Contemporary Capitalism
From the perspective of historical materialism, the new changes appearing in contemporary capitalism are the result of multiple factors influencing and constraining one another to create a combined effect. Among these, the surging wave of the new technological revolution and the counter-currents of the globalization process are undoubtedly the two primary drivers and vital roles that have highly stimulated and deeply embedded themselves in the ups and downs of contemporary capitalism.
Dead wood meeting a new spring: Contemporary capitalism catches the era dividend of the technological revolution wave. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels asserted: "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society." "Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones." When systematically investigating the intrinsic connection between capitalism and science and technology, the famous German philosopher Jürgen Habermas also believed that a prominent feature distinguishing capitalism from previous social forms is its reliance on science and technology to develop productive forces. Especially "since the last quarter of the 19th century, two striking developmental trends have emerged in the most advanced capitalist countries: first, the intensification of state intervention, which ensured the stability of the system; second, the advancement of the interdependence between scientific research and technology, which has made science the primary productive force." [1] Contemporary capitalism, which was once deeply mired in the "stagflation" [2] trap after World War II, is no exception. It has likewise utilized the "east wind" [3] of the new technological revolution to constantly innovate instruments of production and actively adjust relations of production and all social relations. This has "blown" the productive forces of capitalist society into a high-speed leap, thereby allowing it to escape "the end of history" [4] at this particular stage.
The technological revolution has been a historical phenomenon since the 16th century, during which scientific revolutions and technological revolutions have often appeared in an intertwined and complementary state. It is generally believed that since the dawn of the modern era, human society has undergone three technological revolutions, and a fourth is currently in the making. In fact, a survey of the history of the birth and development of capitalism shows that every great historical advance achieved in the past was inseparable from the powerful drive of the technological revolution at the time. The first technological revolution began in the mid-18th century, marked by the invention, improvement, and widespread use of the steam engine, after which human society entered the "Age of Steam." The sudden emergence of this technological revolution created unprecedented development in the textile, metallurgical, mechanical, shipbuilding, and navigation industries. It replaced individual handicraft production with large-scale factory production, greatly promoting the rapid development of material productive forces in European countries led by Britain. This enabled Western capitalism to break free from the shackles of feudalism, establish the capitalist system, and gradually begin colonial rule on a global scale. The second technological revolution occurred at the end of the 19th century. Technological innovations centered on breakthroughs in electric power and the emergence of the internal combustion engine laid a new power foundation for the rapid development of social production. This moved human society from the "Age of Steam" into the "Age of Electricity," which was also the first "Golden Age" of capitalist development. The "spillover" of electrical technology applications promoted comprehensive development in many other technical fields, creating the necessary material and technical conditions for organizing modern industrial production and automating production processes on a larger scale. At the same time, it sharply deepened the struggle for hegemony and economic crises in capitalist society, leading capitalism into the monopoly stage. The uneven development among capitalist countries accelerated the formation of the world colonial system. The third technological revolution budded in the 1940s and reached its climax in the 1970s. Marked primarily by the widespread application of atomic energy, electronic computers, and space technology, it created the second "Golden Age" of capitalist development. It swept through almost all developed capitalist countries, including the United States, Britain, Japan, and Germany, prompting capitalism to stride into the stage of state monopoly capitalism, with a trend toward transitioning to a higher stage of international monopoly capitalism through the global strategic layout of giant multinational corporations. It not only drove the comprehensive upgrading of traditional industrial technologies but also prompted human society to begin advancing toward the new heights of the knowledge economy. Its most direct and critical byproduct was that the United States, as the "epicenter" of the third technological revolution, held an overall leading position in the contest of comprehensive national strength with the Soviet Union. This ultimately allowed the capitalist world to win without fighting in a "war without smoke," [5] while the international communist movement suffered unprecedented and serious setbacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The fourth technological revolution currently underway is a new round of technological revolution led by the digital economy and intelligent manufacturing. It is based on the knowledge systems of the first three technological revolutions, supplemented by the advantages of emerging technology clusters such as information engineering and manufacturing engineering, achieving the interactive mapping and deep integration of cyberspace, physical space, and biological space. The fourth technological revolution is a cross-disciplinary, multi-field, integrated new industrial revolution involving new materials, new energy, and the development of new resources—namely, "Industry 4.0"—and has become the main driver of contemporary capitalist economic and social development. The American scholar Dan Schiller calls capitalism entering this new stage "digital capitalism." In his view, in the era of digital capitalism, traditional labor-capital relations have undergone new changes, and labor-capital contradictions have further intensified. However, objectively speaking, contemporary capitalist countries represented by the United States, Japan, and developed European nations have significantly improved labor productivity and reduced production costs by vigorously promoting technological innovation. On the surface, they have gradually overcome the "sequelae" [6] left by the 2008 international financial crisis and stimulated the potential and vitality of economic development. This has created conditions for capitalism to perform self-adjustment, which both temporarily Eased class contradictions and effectively promoted the development of contemporary capitalism. Therefore, the dead wood of contemporary capitalism has only been able to meet a "new spring" and sprout new life because it has continuously reaped the era dividends of the new round of technological revolution.
Light at the end of the tunnel, but the path remains unclear: Contemporary capitalism sets off a counter-current in the globalization process. The wave of the new technological revolution is one of the fundamental reasons for the rapid improvement of productive forces in capitalist society. Meanwhile, the thirst for surplus value and the fierce competition for international markets—never satisfied and always looking for more [7]—constitute the original driving force for capitalism to "dance with the wind" during the various stages of the globalization process. Since the Great Geographical Discoveries and the opening of new maritime routes at the end of the 15th century broke the natural isolation between different regions of the world, the globalization process has gradually advanced in depth for over 500 years. Western capitalist powers seized the initiative in the early stages of globalization. As the industrial production capacity of Europe and the United States became surplus, a large number of goods were sold worldwide. While this brought them enormous social wealth, it also objectively accelerated the international division of labor and pushed the world into the era of liberal capitalism. Carrying the residual power of advanced productive forces brought by the first and second technological revolutions, Western developed capitalist countries and the vast number of developing countries and regions gradually formed the "center-periphery" structure proposed by Raúl Prebisch, the founder of Latin American developmentalism. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, capitalism transitioned from the stage of free competition to the stage of monopoly. Imperialist countries pushed their strategies of capital globalization through violent means. To pursue high monopoly profits, old and new capitalist powers did not hesitate to resort to world wars to re-divide the global colonial markets.
Having experienced two world wars, the "old guard" of capitalism—such as Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan—all suffered heavy blows. Meanwhile, the capitalist "upstart," the United States, profited from all sides [8] and rose rapidly, eventually becoming the "bellwether" of the contemporary capitalist camp. After World War II, the Bretton Woods system dominated by the United States not only strengthened hegemonism for a long period but also brought about the rapid post-war recovery of Europe and Japan under its support. It is particularly worth mentioning that the pace of integration among European countries within the contemporary capitalist camp continuously accelerated, becoming a "living" model for the globalization process that was then forging ahead. However, beneath the seemingly glamorous appearance of prosperity, capitalism actually harbored a giant development crisis. After entering the 1970s, due to the simultaneous impact of internal and external factors such as the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the oil crisis, the severe situation of "stagflation" forced capitalist countries to re-examine their guiding ideologies and governance policies. Economically, this provided conditions for the rise of neoliberalism; politically, it led to the empowerment of right-wing forces in Europe and the United States. They strengthened macro-control to deal with economic crises and partial restorative measures for social crises, which mitigated urgent crises and existential concerns to a limited extent.
After the Cold War ended, contemporary capitalist nations indulged briefly in the dream of a "victory for democracy" following the defeat of their old rival, the socialist Soviet Union. However, as the primary beneficiaries of globalization, these Western capitalist states soon realized that the globalization process, which once seemed like smooth sailing, had entered a state of "rowing against the current," facing unprecedented and powerful resistance. Because the people of many countries and regions cannot share the fruits of globalization as relatively equitably or fairly as those in Western capitalist nations, new trends—such as the globalization of production, trade, investment, finance, and consumption—have deepened global interdependence while simultaneously accelerating the emergence and accumulation of global issues. these include ecological imbalances, environmental pollution, population explosions, resource shortages, drug trafficking, and the frequent appearance of international terrorism. Consequently, calls for global governance have become increasingly urgent. Since the beginning of the 21st century, from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis originating on Wall Street to the international financial crisis that roiled major global markets, and from the Ebola outbreak in Africa to the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the various risks facing human social development have produced a "blowout effect." These include both low-probability, high-risk "Black Swans" and high-probability, high-risk "Grey Rhinos." Facing these thorny dilemmas, the latent crises within contemporary capitalism have erupted across all sectors. The political landscapes of many capitalist countries have undergone significant shifts, and the flaws of the Western "democratic" system—increasingly corroded by capital—have been fully exposed to the light of day. The ill-fated globalization process has repeatedly encountered turbulent undercurrents; "anti-globalization" sentiments like unilateralism, populism, and trade protectionism have surged, while "de-globalization" actions such as "leaving the group" (withdrawing from international organizations), "scrapping treaties," and "decoupling" have emerged incessantly. It cannot be ignored that, throughout this process, the bullying behavior of contemporary capitalism—especially that of certain major capitalist powers—and the humanitarian disasters they have created, have "completely shredded the lies of Western democratic values and vividly revealed the ugly face of European and American countries." [9] Trapped by the sustained global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the "three chains"—global value chains, industrial chains, and supply chains—are all on the verge of breaking and urgently require repair and reconstruction. The pandemic’s unexpectedly powerful spillover effect has acted like a "magnifying glass," invisibly amplifying public hesitation toward and criticism of the globalization process. It is unlikely that the "Global Village" will see the light at the end of the tunnel in the foreseeable future, and the condition of contemporary capitalism, which resonates at the same frequency, naturally fluctuates between fits of manic eccentricity and episodes of listless despair.
Characteristics of Contemporary Capitalism
Although the government agencies and elite classes of capitalist countries have made various efforts—some effective, others futile—to alleviate crises, the inherent contradiction between the socialization of production and the private ownership of the means of production determines that these crises cannot be fundamentally eliminated. As the wheels of time roll forward, the internal contradictions of capitalist society become increasingly acute, and the national governance and future development of contemporary capitalism are increasingly mired in hardship.
Destiny remains difficult to defy: The development of contemporary capitalism has not changed its historical fate of being replaced. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx clearly pointed out that the bourgeoisie "produces, above all, its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." This refers to the thought of the "Two Inevitabilities": the inevitable demise of capitalism and the inevitable victory of socialism. However, looking back at history, a massive bourgeois-democratic revolutionary movement broke out across the European continent in 1848. The proletariat began to take the political stage as an independent force. After the failure of these revolutions, Marx and Engels—who had actively participated and held high hopes—discovered through their research that the reason a new high tide of proletarian revolution did not follow quickly as originally expected was that capitalism still possessed great capacity for expansion, and all the productive forces it could accommodate had not yet been fully realized. Following further practice and reflection, Marx made a more objective, scientific, and comprehensive assessment in the 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: "No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society." [10] The history of modern capitalist development has repeatedly proven that, for the sake of survival and development, capitalism actively promotes technological revolutions and strives for institutional innovation. It intends to develop productive forces at an even faster pace and constantly adjust relations of production and social relations, making the "inevitably doomed" capitalism appear "decayed but not rotten, dying but not dead." Reality reflects theory; grasping the internal logic between the two shows that Marx's "Two Nevers" thought [11] is a rational extension and inherent meaning of his "Two Inevitabilities" thought. The "Two Inevitabilities" reveal the specific laws of development of capitalist society, while the "Two Nevers" reveal the general laws of development of human society. The former highlights the objective necessity of socialism replacing capitalism, while the latter emphasizes the long-term and arduous nature of this transition.
It goes without saying that after undergoing different stages—liberal capitalism, private monopoly capitalism, state capitalism, and international monopoly capitalism—contemporary capitalism has undergone earth-shaking changes. Its mechanisms are more mature, and it still possesses a strong capacity for self-innovation, self-abnegation, self-adjustment, and self-repair. This allows contemporary capitalism to still exhibit certain development potential and vitality for a certain period. Therefore, only by applying the Marxist standpoint, viewpoint, and method can we comprehensively understand and accurately recognize the many new changes and future trends in contemporary capitalism. In other words, compared to the capitalism Marx and Engels examined—or even the capitalism of the first half of the 20th century—contemporary capitalism still possesses that "capacity for expansion" mentioned by Marx. Even so, this has not changed, nor can it change, the historical fate that capitalism will eventually be replaced by socialism.
The active regulation and self-improvement of contemporary capitalism have indeed increased the capacity and level of bourgeois rule and exploitation to some extent. They have reduced the volatility of economic cycles and the destructiveness of economic crises, and eased class contradictions within developed capitalist countries as well as interest disputes between them. However, this capacity for adjustment and repair is not without its elastic limits. After all, it cannot shake the foundations of contemporary capitalist economic and political rule. "Cradle-to-grave" social security and welfare policies have not actually changed the essence of capital employing labor; state intervention in the economy cannot overcome the innate defects of the market economy. The "periodic law" of unbalanced political, economic, and cultural development remains in effect, and the possibility of imperialist wars cannot be ruled out. Furthermore, these limited operations, starting from the protection of monopoly capital interests, inevitably further expand existing social inequalities, exposing the lack of stability, sustainability, and the parasitic and decadent nature of the capitalist system in a more multi-dimensional way. In recent years, the persistent sluggish economic growth, the waves of street politics, and the resurgence of violent terrorism (exemplified by the 9/11 attacks) common in capitalist countries serve as the most powerful evidence. As long as there is room for the socialization of capital, capitalism still has some room for delay and maneuver. Contemporary capitalism may yet go through other new stages of development; indeed, it is certain that in the new century of the 21st century, contemporary capitalism will continue to manufacture incidents to prolong its life. As human society develops, the internal contradictions of capitalist society will become more prominent, and these contradictions cannot be eliminated within the framework of capitalism. Humanity today is still in a grand historical era of transition from the capitalist social formation to the socialist formation. The historical fate of capitalism being replaced by socialism will not be reversed. Contemporary capitalism is accumulating a profound social and material foundation for the future transition to socialism and communism.
The path of replacement is long: Contemporary capitalism will not suddenly decline and perish in a short period. Firm ideals and beliefs must be rooted in a scientific understanding. We firmly believe that the inevitable demise of capitalism and the victory of socialism are trends that do not change according to human will and conform to the laws of historical development. However, this inevitable law has a prerequisite: only when the capitalist relations of production—characterized by private ownership—severely restrain and restrict the socialized production of modernization, and when the contradiction between productive forces and relations of production reaches an irreconcilable tipping point, will capitalism face its demise and socialism achieve final victory. Judging from the series of new changes in contemporary capitalism, the replacement of capitalism by socialism will be a long historical process. Therefore, "decaying but not yet completely decayed capitalism, dying but not yet dead capitalism" will not suddenly collapse in a short time. It is in this sense that we must follow Marxist dialectical materialism and historical materialism, using a developmental perspective to unify the historical "inevitability" of capitalism's demise with the "long-term nature" of the evolutionary process. We must unify the "decadence" of capitalism with its "possibility" of continued development, and unify the "staged nature" of the historical developmental process with the "directional nature" of the historical outcome. We must not be blindly optimistic and thus mistakenly underestimate the long-term, tortuous, and complex nature of this process. [12]
Since the end of World War II, the world has presented a stalemate in which two social systems, ideologies, and camps—capitalism and socialism—coexist long-term, engaging in mutual struggle and shifting in strength. Overall, the form of "strong capitalism and weak socialism" has not changed, though the trend of "the West declining and the East rising" has become increasingly evident. The bourgeoisie of developed countries strives to maintain an irrational and unequal economic structure and political order, with capitalism at the "center" and the vast number of developing countries and regions at the "periphery." Utilizing their advanced technological and military advantages, they seize excess wealth from across the globe, attempting to permanently freeze developing nations as their raw material suppliers, cheap labor markets, and dumping grounds for their products. Meanwhile, because the developmental levels of various economies vary, the capitalist camp is by no means a monolith; trade frictions and the smoke of "financial wars" can dissipate or spread at any time. A more severe realistic paradox is this: as globalization trudges forward and capitalist internal contradictions develop to a certain point, they use economic crises as a trigger to spill over into other fields, inducing holistic and systemic crises where political, social, and cultural contradictions interweave. However, the state intervention measures contemporary capitalism takes to deal with economic crises often lay the groundwork for the arrival of new crises, forming a vicious circle that may worsen over time, with the ever-increasing bottom-tier poor being the first to suffer. Contemporary capitalism is like a freakish coexistence of spiritual and material contradictions: economic development and technological leadership coexist with widespread unemployment and poverty. The French scholar Michel Albert once harshly criticized this as a "binary opposition," where "residents of different strata live on different planets that are moving further away from each other every year." [13] This phenomenon was further exacerbated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. At the onset of the crisis, the lack of net wealth in grassroots families meant a large portion could not cope with income shocks caused by the labor market's weakness. Nearly half of low-income earners lacked emergency savings; their disposable liquid assets were insufficient to sustain household expenditures for even three weeks in the event of a short-term income interruption. [14] The "curse" of the economic crisis is a periodic problem in the development and evolution of capitalism. Once public dissatisfaction with economic crises and social problems intensifies, a few elite leaders in contemporary capitalist countries will manipulate populist appearances to cover up the insoluble essence of these chronic illnesses just to win votes and gain prominence.
Beyond its habitual use of "drinking poison to quench thirst" [15] methods of self-rescue, contemporary capitalism also frequently assumes a sanctimonious pose, deploying its "hallmark skills" such as international rule-making and key agenda-setting to shift crises onto others. It is adept at transforming domestic contradictions into conflicts between states, systems, and civilizations. Regarding the many epochal challenges currently facing human society, the majority of global problems triggered by non-natural factors are inextricably linked to the greedy and unrestrained expansion of capitalism. For example, since the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe [16], the United States has relied on its asymmetric power advantages to engage in wanton economic exploitation, military deterrence, political interference, "cultural infiltration," and ideological subversion on a global scale. It has frequently imposed economic sanctions or even launched military invasions against so-called "axis of evil" or "rogue states"—labels it arbitrarily applies through a tinted lens—to directly or indirectly overthrow the legitimate governments of other nations and overtly or covertly create regional tensions. We ought to maintain the necessary vigilance against such actions.