Ma Xinying: Critiques of Capitalist Modernization by Foreign Marxists
Modernization in the 21st century exhibits specific stage-based characteristics of rapid transformation, accelerated development, profound reform, and deep adjustment. Bolstered by the new scientific and technological revolution represented by computers, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI), new changes have emerged in capitalist modernization, with its productive forces and science and technology expanding to an unprecedented degree. However, due to the inherent contradictions of capitalism and the problems exposed by capital in the process of global accumulation, capitalist modernization remains a "troublemaker" in the process of world modernization, even in the digital age. Positioned within these new era characteristics, foreign Marxism combines the critical stance of Marxism with new theoretical resources to launch a fresh critique of capitalist modernization.
I. New Trends in the Critique of Capitalist Modernization
The critique of modernization is a reflection and critique directed at the contradictions, ruptures, deviations, negative consequences, and loss of meaning that arise during the modernization process. Its purpose is to pull a deviating modernization back onto the developmental track of human civilization. Marx once described the negative consequences of capitalist modernization in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:
"Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed. … The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property." The thoroughness of Marx's critique of modernization lies in the fact that, although he regarded the birth of capitalism as the beginning of modern society, he never believed that capitalist modernization was the "end of the road" for modern development. The barbarism, exploitation, predation, profit-seeking, and inequality inherent in the capitalist mode of production and relations of production dictate that capitalist modernization is merely a specific model of modernization. It is destined to be replaced by a higher form of civilization—a modernization that better meets the requirements for the free and well-rounded development of the individual.
Foreign Marxists of the 20th century inherited Marx's critical stance, conducting in-depth critiques of capitalist modernization from various perspectives, including the reconstruction of modernity, the drawbacks of industrialization, the trends of globalization, the alienation of modern society, and the crisis of the ecological environment. In their critiques, the mask of "civilizational model" was stripped from capitalist modernization, leaving its flaws fully exposed, its developmental dilemmas increasingly clear, and its negative effects increasingly obvious. Entering the 21st century, "the contradiction between the content and form of the modernization and world-wide processes led by Western society and capital has continued to develop, embodying the objective requirement for new forms to replace the old." The 2008 international financial crisis was not only a manifestation of the continued worsening of the basic contradictions of capitalism but also demonstrated that capitalist modernization, rather than escaping its developmental predicament, has dragged the entire world into a new crisis. In response, foreign Marxists have seized upon the new contradictions and problems of capitalist modernization to conduct new analyses and critiques.
(1) Critique of Digital Capitalism
In the 21st century, digital technologies represented by computers, big data, and AI have reshaped the time and space of human society, altered people's modes of production, life, and interaction, and pushed modernization into the digital era. However, "the combination of ubiquitous computer networks and existing capitalism has greatly broadened the effective scope of the market." Regarding the combination of digital technology and capitalism, Dan Schiller first proposed the term "digital capitalism" in 1990, noting that computer networks and capitalist market principles are a "two-way conquest." On one hand, computer networks make market deepening possible, continuously expanding the scope of the capitalist economy; on the other hand, capitalist market principles have conquered and controlled cyberspace, making it a core production and control tool within a highly transnational market system. Subsequent foreign Marxists have also criticized digital capitalism as an economic form under capitalist conditions of production.
In terms of content, the critique of digital capitalism mainly targets the exploitative nature of digital labor and the monopolistic nature of digital platforms. In addition to the direct exploitation of digital labor related to the production of information and communication technologies, the unpaid labor of internet users is also an object of exploitation. Furthermore, this exploitation is hidden within the "play" [1] of social media, where entertainment and labor time are interwoven, leading to a blurring of the boundaries between work and leisure, such that all time is incorporated into the mechanism of capitalist exploitation. On the other hand, once data is organized by algorithms, it becomes a reusable database, granting platforms that aggregate data a monopolistic advantage. Platforms not only obtain data from numerous users but can also control and set the rules for data usage. The laborers who produce the data have no discourse power over the data materials they create. Meanwhile, platforms acquire ownership of data through various rules and, relying on data analysis, obtain monopoly returns through diverse channels.
(2) Critique of Biopolitics
As the control of human life by modern society becomes increasingly pervasive, the "critique of biopolitics" pioneered by Foucault has become a new perspective for the critique of modernization. Life-power (biopower) was the concept Foucault used to describe capital's manipulation of the human body, but Hardt and Negri argue that biopower is a new paradigm of power whose fundamental task is to play a normative role within society. Biopower has deeply penetrated people's consciousness, minds, intellects, and emotions: "Power has expressed itself as a control that extends to the deepest reaches of the consciousness and bodies of the population—and at the same time across the entirety of social relations," achieving capital's comprehensive control over human life.
Agamben proposed a "new biopolitics" from the perspective of state sovereignty. Life is divided into "natural life" (zoë) in a biological sense and "political life" (bios) at the political level. Once political life is stripped away by the "sovereign," the human is left only with unprotected "bare life" [2], whom anyone can kill without committing homicide. Within the sovereign state, the sovereign carves out a "state of exception" [3] outside the community, leaving life potentially reduced to bare life at any moment, thereby manifesting power's control over life. Esposito, conversely, argues that life under a community is not merely suppressed or deprived but also immune and protected. The community constructs an "immunitary" [4] body that enjoys protection over individual life. For society, the immunitary mechanism not only expands the space of the community but also restores the positive side of biopolitics.
(3) Critique of the Modern State
Capitalist states in the 21st century have undergone three major changes: the impact and challenges of globalization on the state have become more immense; state governance has become the primary political means; and the capitalist world has built up even more powerful state apparatuses. Accordingly, foreign Marxists have launched a "critique of new imperialism." They argue that the United States is a capitalist empire in the true sense. The U.S. exercises a new mode of imperial rule, exerting dominance over other countries through the use of economic trade, foreign aid, international patronage, and covert coercive means. The U.S. can interfere in the economic development of subordinate countries either through unilateral action or via [5] transnational institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), achieving effects no less significant than direct colonial rule without paying the high costs of occupation. Since the financial crisis, although U.S. economic hegemony is no longer unchallenged, U.S. military hegemony, as the essential manifestation of imperialism, has been further strengthened.
As the relationship between globalization and the nation-state has become a focal point, state-critique theory has seen a revival, with Bob Jessop as its representative figure. He proposes analyzing the state within a "strategic-relational" [6] context. Under globalization, when capitalist accumulation strategies change, the form of the state and state decision-making change accordingly. Furthermore, the behavior of nation-states is being reshaped, with "governance" becoming the primary task and new functional focus of the nation-state. However, state governance is not a permanent solution; governance still generates serious conflicts and creates new contradictions. This is because these governance means are merely state strategies for the current stage of globalization; the future capitalist state remains latent with various crises.
(4) Critique of Ecological Crisis
As developed countries shift ecological contradictions to other nations and use globalization issues to mask the ecological crisis—combined with the improvement of the living environment in developed countries and the trend toward conservatism in ecological protection movements—Ecological Marxism no longer shows the same forceful development in the 21st century, yet its critique continues.
Ecological justice is a critical theme formed on the basis of politics and ethics. In the 21st century, ecological justice has moved from "biological justice"—the pursuit of equality between humans and nature—toward "social justice." "Social justice, or its increasing lack on a global scale, is the most pressing of all environmental problems." From the perspective of social development, social justice identifies capitalism as the root cause of the ecological crisis. Additionally, ecological justice has shifted from "distributive justice" toward "productive justice," emphasizing that justice is reflected not only in the quantitative distribution process of wages, wealth, and income, but more so in the production processes of labor, technology, the division of labor, and land use.
Regarding the ecological revolution, there are two main proposals: one advocates for "incremental" social change, tending to view the ecological problems brought by capitalist development from an "objective" perspective; the other combines ecological issues with socialism, advocating for a radical ecological revolution. Eco-socialism emphasizes the need to reconstruct society, a reconstruction that must transform the relationship between humanity and nature through the "metabolism" [7] of the entire society. These two different propositions cause Ecological Marxism to present a face where conservatism and radicalism coexist.
(5) Spatial Critique
Spatial critique treats space and the production of space as fundamental dimensions of the critique of modernization. Urban and global spaces are the primary sites of struggle for spatial justice. In cities, due to speculation by capitalists, land prices rise and space becomes a symbol of wealth. The amount of an individual's wealth is manifested in the amount of space they occupy. Urbanization is both a means of wealth accumulation for capitalists and a process through which the wealth of laborers is plundered. In the globalization of capital, capital has formed a spatial production pattern of "center-periphery" [8] countries. Center countries exploit and oppress periphery countries economically and dominate and control them politically; capital is transferred to periphery countries through globalization, and high profits are continuously extracted back from them, resulting in inequality between nations.
Spatial resistance aims to achieve spatial justice by resisting the "spatialization" of capital and unequal spatial relations. Edward Soja proposed "Thirdspace" as a new space for contesting capitalist dominance. In this space, "all historical-geographies, all times and places, are ubiquitously presented and represented, becoming a strategic space of force and domination, of power oppression and resistance." Soja also proposed the "right to the city" to ensure urban residents' right to participate in the production of space and to guarantee their equal status within that space.
Furthermore, cyberspace possesses greater mobility and convenience, making it easier for capital to circulate and turnover rapidly, and thus more likely to become a target of capitalist control. Consequently, the critique of cyberspace primarily includes the relationship between cyberspace and physical space, the relationship between cyberspace and the capitalist production of space, and whether cyberspace possesses an emancipatory significance for resisting capitalist control.
(6) Critique of Modern Society
Modern social critique in the 21st century continues to adhere to the method of "social diagnosis"—that is, uncovering the specific traits of modern society and then conducting a critical analysis of those traits. Following this method, Rahel Jaeggi resolved to rediscover the critical power of "alienation." She points out that alienation is a blockage in the relationship between the self and the world: "An alienated world is a meaningless world, one that we do not experience as a meaningful whole." In alienation, humans are estranged from the world. One loses both power and meaning, unable to move or change the world, nor obtain an emotional or existential basis from it. Hartmut Rosa also explains alienation as a relationship between the self and the world: "Alienation denotes a deep, structural distortion of the relationship between the self and the world—that is, the way a subject is 'placed' or 'located' in the world is distorted." Alienation signifies the failure of the subject’s adaptive activities and the subject's detachment from the world.
Hartmut Rosa...
Rosa argues that modern society is governed, regulated, and dominated by a rigorous, non-political temporal regime. This temporal regime is the "logic of social acceleration." Under this logic, society experiences acceleration in science and technology, social change, and the pace of life, with the three forming a closed-loop system. Technological acceleration increases the speed of production and daily life, while accelerated social change in turn causes an acceleration in the pace of life; in modern society, social acceleration has become a self-propelling system that requires no external driving force. In an accelerated society, time flies by but no longer leaves traces in human memory. Man's lived experience becomes increasingly impoverished, ultimately leading to severe self-alienation.
II. New Trends in the Critique of Capitalist Modernization
If we view modernization as a historical process of global transformation with specific connotations, then compared to the critiques of capitalist modernization in the 20th century, the critiques by overseas Marxists in the 21st century exhibit trends in three areas:
(1) Shifting from Diachronic Critique to Synchronic Critique
"Synchronic" and "diachronic" were originally concepts used by the linguist Saussure to denote states of language and stages of evolution. As research methods, the two differ. Synchronic research emphasizes the logical and psychological relations connecting coexisting elements that constitute a system, elements perceivable by a single collective consciousness. Diachronic research, by contrast, emphasizes relations between successive elements "not perceived by a single collective consciousness—elements which replace one another without forming a system." Synchrony knows only a single situation; all its methods can be reduced to the collection of facts. Diachronic linguistics, however, can probe downwards or trace upwards through time.
If we apply this method to the critique of modernization, the 20th-century critique of capitalist modernization displays relatively clear "diachronic" characteristics. Marx pointed out in The German Ideology: "History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations... The more the separate spheres, which interact on one another, expand in the course of this development... the more history becomes world history." Based on the Marxist conception of world history, 20th-century overseas Marxists placed modernization within the process of historical development. Much like performing a vertical integration of modernization, they began from the feudal and pre-modern to explore the formation and development of capitalist modernization, reflect on its characteristics and manifestations, and critique its negative aspects and flaws.
By contrast, 21st-century critiques of capitalist modernization manifest "synchronic" characteristics. Having entered the 21st century, modernization has become a vast "situation" (or "milieu"), where various critical themes, angles, discourses, and concepts reflect new features of modernization. The 21st-century critique of capitalist modernization is like taking a cross-section of modernization. Critics no longer obsess over the origins and development of modernization or confine themselves to historical tracing; they seek the centralized manifestation of modernization and its internal connections. Modernization has acquired a powerful reality in the 21st century. For the critique of capitalist modernization, what matters is its current existence, manifestations, and characteristics, and the impact of this modernization on the existential state of contemporary people. While tracing the origins of capitalist modernization remains important, it is no longer the gravity center of 21st-century critique, as this point is clearly no longer as vital for people living in contemporary society.
(2) Shifting from the Critique of Modernity to the Critique of Modernization Itself
Overseas Marxists in the 20th century were more concerned with the core concept of modernization: modernity. As Habermas said, "Since the end of the 18th century, modernity has been the theme of 'philosophical' discussion." In Habermas's view, the concept of modernity needs to obtain self-understanding from the perspective of Western rationality; thus, definitions of modernity began with Hegel, while Marx, Weber, Lukács, and the Frankfurt School continually used the methods of social theory to elaborate upon it. Through the efforts of these thinkers, the self-understanding of modernity manifested not only as a theoretical "self-consciousness" and a stance of self-critique directed at all traditions, but also as moral and ethical concepts of "self-determination" and "self-realization." Additionally, the self-critique of modernity triggered an analysis of the crisis of modernity. Questioning the fate of modernity in capitalist society became a focal point of critique, and the critique and reflection on modernity became an effective tool for analyzing the rational essence of capitalist society, as well as a theme running through the entire 20th-century critique of capitalist modernization.
Unlike the 20th century, 21st-century critiques of capitalist modernization no longer focus on the rationality of modernity. This is because, through the deconstruction of postmodern discourse, the authority of the former metaphysical concept of rationality has vanished. By emphasizing fragments, gaps, and marginalization, and by stressing difference, non-identity, and particularity, the critical themes of modern society have been renewed. On a global scale, by the 21st century, most countries and regions have been integrated into the process of modernization, gradually moving toward a more mature modern society. Modern industrial civilization, along with its flaws, has been accepted by people; whether it be crisis or alienation, these have become established facts of modern society. The 21st-century critique of capitalist modernization no longer judges the suffering or alienation people endure based on external grounds, but emphasizes making judgments on the negative degree of capitalist modernization based on the feelings, beliefs, and actions of social subjects themselves. Therefore, focusing on the "present" of capitalist modernization—its structures, developmental paths, power controls, new manifestations of contradictions, and the consequences of its global expansion—has become the primary content of 21st-century critique.
(3) Shifting from Social-Cultural Critique to Political Critique
As early as the beginning of the 20th century, a group of overseas Marxists took it as their mission to reveal the oppression of human nature and society by capitalist modernization, proposing profoundly influential critical theories. Critical theory explored why, under capitalist enlightenment, humanity did not enter a truly human state but instead sank into barbarism. "As bourgeois commodity economy developed, the dark horizon of myth was illuminated by the sun of calculating reason, yet behind this cold light, the seeds of a new barbarism were taking root." While capitalist modernization created modern civilization, it also brought barbarism and the suppression of human nature. Critical theory inherited the Marxist tradition of critique, recognizing that the capitalist system leads to social irrationality. From this emerged numerous concepts such as the critique of instrumental reason, the critique of the culture industry, the critique of capitalist ideology, and the critique of the one-dimensional society. However, as Horkheimer and Adorno noted, critical theory remained confined within traditional disciplines, primarily conducting research within the domains of sociology, psychology, and epistemology. Thus, critical theory appeared more as a form of social-cultural or ideological critique.
Critiques of capitalist modernization in the 21st century have shifted more toward political critique. By "shift," we mean that the focus and fields of critique have changed. While political critique existed in 20th-century critiques of capitalist modernization, it was merely one angle among many themes and did not receive sufficient attention. Since entering the 21st century, political critique has gradually become the core of the critique of capitalist modernization. From the critique of new imperialism and neoliberalism under capitalist globalization to the critique of spatial politics, biopolitics, and national governance—including even the critique of digital capitalism and ecological justice—all possess distinct characteristics of political critique. Hegemony, power control, equality, justice, and biopower have become the conceptual sources capable of stimulating a more radical critique of capitalist modernization. It is worth mentioning that after the 2008 international financial crisis signaled the failure of neoliberalism, the theoretical threads of Marxist political critique were reactivated. Amid the intensifying instability of the contemporary world political system, overseas Marxists have also integrated Marxist methods of political critique to redefine the capitalist state.
III. New Significance of the Critique of Capitalist Modernization
In the 21st century, besides continuing their critique of capitalist modernization, overseas Marxists are no longer confined to the distinction between "traditional and modern," nor do they view capitalist modernization as a "singular modernization." Instead, they boldly explore the historical stage of capitalist modernization and conduct new inquiries into the future of modernization and the possibilities for human civilization.
(1) Revealing New Contradictions Faced by Contemporary Capitalism
As "two sides of the same coin" of contemporary capitalism, neoliberalism and new imperialism together form the state and social formations of the contemporary capitalist world. They jointly resolve the contradictions of capitalist accumulation, striving desperately to create conditions for the profitable absorption of surplus value, even going so far as to use hegemony to dismantle all possible barriers. Driven by neoliberalism and new imperialism, financial monopoly capital has achieved a high degree of globalization and internationalization, forming international financial monopoly capitalism. Correspondingly, contemporary capitalism has entered the stage of international financial monopoly capitalism, characterized by the globalization of monopolies, the alliance-building of transnational corporations, and the absolutization of financial monopoly capital.
The critique of neoliberalism and new imperialism by overseas Marxists is not only an inherent part of the critique of modernization but also represents their deep analysis and profound insight into contemporary capitalism. Through their critique, the basic contradictions of contemporary capitalism have taken on new forms of expression: the contradiction between the infinite expansion of capitalist productive capacity enhanced by new technology and the insufficiency of effective global demand; the contradiction between the financial speculation and plunder carried out by international financial monopoly capitalism and the financial sovereignty of developing nations; the contradiction between the mitigation of ecological conflicts in developed countries and the deterioration of the global ecological environment; the contradiction between the expansion of capital into cyberspace and digital domains and the globalization of networks and data; and the contradiction between the accelerated development of science, technology, and society and the state of existential anxiety and alienation in which modern people find themselves. These contradictions, to varying degrees, aggravate the basic contradictions of capitalism and intensify the trends of surplus monopoly capital and financial crises.
(2) Enriching New Understandings of the Developmental Stages of Modernization
Through the 21st-century critique of capitalist modernization, one can clearly perceive that human society has entered a high-tech era of accelerated development, while simultaneously entering a high-risk era fraught with crises and frequent dangers. The hallmark of 21st-century society is "global integration." Modernization at this stage has not only achieved the globalization of production processes, trade cooperation, capital flows, and cultural exchange, but has also realized the globalization of network connectivity, information interaction, and talent exchange. However, the capitalist form of private appropriation is becoming increasingly incompatible with this grand trend of "integration" through world-mapping and globalization. Capitalist unipolarity, economic hegemony, political power-plays, military threats, and cultural invasion—no matter the manifestation—all run counter to the grand trend of world development.
The contradiction between "globalization" and "capitalization" in the 21st century is not merely a contradiction between "form and content"; it signals that capitalist modernization is by no means a bright path toward human civilization. The new grand trend of world development will inevitably call forth higher and better new contents of modernization to adapt to it. The path and model of modernization are not limited to the single road of capitalist modernization; rather, there is a multiplicity and diversity of path choices.
From another perspective, the critique of capitalist modernization by overseas Marxists serves as a warning against the negative consequences of modernization's development. Although capitalist modernization has promoted a massive development of productive forces, this development has come at the cost of exploiting and plundering other countries, oppressing and squeezing the working people, destroying and extracting natural resources, and intensifying and aggravating the global gap between rich and poor. In fact, in...
In the 20th-century critiques of capitalist modernization, people had already witnessed the price the world paid to achieve capitalist modernization; however, at that time, the world could still bear it. Yet in the 21st century, the Earth—whether in terms of the natural environment, demographic distribution, or conditions for survival—has become extremely fragile and can no longer endure the bottomless development methods of capitalist modernization. The world-wide economic crises, severe natural disasters, sudden global diseases, and destructive climate catastrophes that have erupted over these twenty-plus years of the 21st century are all clear evidence. They all demonstrate that human modernization has reached a stage where its development must be profoundly reflected upon.
(III) Containing New Expectations for Future Society
Compared to the 20th-century critiques of capitalist modernization, 21st-century foreign Marxists have not been permeated by a universal sense of pessimism while conducting their critiques; on the contrary, they have put forward more expectations for the future development of society. This is because, in the 21st-century practice of human modernization, foreign Marxists have found a new point of reference—the developmental path and model of socialist modernization. John B. Bellamy Foster, a representative figure of ecological Marxism, points out that humanity entirely has another choice, which is to build a truly equal, ecologically sustainable, and 21st-century ecological socialism that can satisfy the needs of the masses. David Kotz also notes that if neoliberalism continues to wreak havoc on the world, the socialist movement will again radiate vitality to abolish capitalism and establish a social system based on human needs rather than private profit. There are even many scholars who imagine the beautiful prospects of "digital socialism": "Public ownership, computerized high technology, a post-scarcity society that creates wealth for all, the comprehensive development of individuality, distribution according to need, participatory management, a shared culture, and the spirit of internationalism are all characteristics of a socialist society."
There are reasons why foreign Marxists no longer possess a universal pessimism toward modernization and seek to explore a more beautiful prospect for modernization alongside their critiques. From the perspective of human civilization, modernization is the mode of realization for human civilization. Differences in the paths to achieving modernization determine the state in which civilization presents itself. Capitalist modernization has reinforced the negativity of modern civilization, causing modern civilization to manifest disastrous consequences such as the supremacy of capital, the supremacy of money, the bullying of the weak by the strong, and the destruction of nature. Conversely, the socialist modernization represented by Chinese-path modernization guides the progressiveness of modern civilization. The principles it embodies—the supremacy of the people, unity and cooperation, peaceful development, and green development—will greatly stimulate the positivity of modern civilization. By following such a path, world modernization will eventually break through its predicament and reveal a new blueprint for development.