Marx confused the substance of capitalism for its form and this resulted in a temporary victory of Western big capital holders 150 years later

In my last post from 2003-03-06 I mentioned that I would try to give a monthly quote of parts of the book "Knowledge formation" that I was writing. I have not been able to keep this promise because my attention was fully absorbed by writing the book which visibly hindered my capability to conciliate the extreme focus, necessary to write it, with a weekly interruption to publish an extract of it.

Writing the book is finally terminated and my focus is presently on the customization of its published form. Its 1,150 pages will be available for download this 27th of August on my website. Until then I'll publish some parts that I personally find of particular interest.

Today's quote explains why the left, and the working class which represent over 90% of the population, have been defeated by Western big capital holders. Yes, as Warren Buffet recognized some years ago, his class has indeed won the class war. But, rest reassured, it was merely a temporary victory !  The failure of the Western left, and of the Soviet-Union, was due to Marx's confusion of the substance of capitalism for its form which Marxism has perpetuated to this day. China's millennial practice and theory, about societal governance, gave to the Communist Party of China the clout to see through this confusion and its success proved that "There Is An Alternative" (TIAA) to Western-hegemony after all. Herein resides Russia's daring to claim its territorial security from the West and the energized mood of the Global South that no longer hesitates to say no to the West !

The following quote was copy-pasted, from page 335 and following, of "Knowledge Formation. 4.2.1. Rupture versus continuity".

The genius, of the paradigm of Western-Modernity, is that it addresses the reason, or the rationality, that is at work in the generation of the process of capital accumulation which reads as "the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation". European classical economists were distracted from the paradigmatic nature that capital originated in the transformation of, what early 13th century Latin literature described as, “sterile money” (1). The silent revolution of the 1970’s expanded this transformation of sterile money to debt and by the first decades of this 21st century the transformation was again expanded to the processes that are at work in nature itself (2).

Marx had failed to detect that the societal system of logic, of the rationality of Western-Modernity, emerged from the profound nature of the paradigm of Western-Modernity. He merely contested the outcome, of capitalism, or the private ownership of “the process of capital accumulation”, on the ground of Judeo-Christian morality. And the remedy that he advocated was the union of proletarian forces against the big capital holders and their institutional and technical servants. He advocated a class-war in order to terminate Modernity’s fundamental social injustice and this is what the socialist and communist movements, in turn, focused on in the 20th century.

But having confused the substance, that capitalism inherited from the paradigm of Modernity, for its form, Marx co-opted the reality of this substance without any questioning. He estimated indeed that it was the most revolutionary force ever without caring about the contradictions that this entailed for his political call to reject the injustice of the outcome of the paradigm of Modernity, as the exclusive private ownership of the means of production. But the fact is that the instrumental rationality, that is at work in the paradigm of Western-Modernity, has no preference for any particular form of ownership of the means of production. That preference was only expressed by liberalism which is the ideology of Western big capital holders and their servants. The focus of Marxism against private ownership was thus a distraction that left the instrumental rationality of Western-Modernity unchallenged.

The fact is that Marx's theories were baked in his initial failure to appreciate the nature of the reason, or the rationality, of Modernity. And this is what ultimately caused the collapse, at the end of the 20th century, of the movements that had claimed his inheritance.

But to my knowledge the social form, of the paradigm’s outcome, has never affected the substance of the paradigm itself nor in the Soviet-Union, nor in socialist China, nor in the West for that matter !  It was the ignorance of the reason, or the rationality of the paradigm of Modernity, by the Soviet-Union that ultimately collapsed its system of governance. And it is the same ignorance by the West, which is so advanced already today, that will collapse its systems of governance tomorrow !

Deng Xiao Ping, and his comrades, did not make the mistake to confuse the substance of the paradigm of Modernity for its form. They avoided the trap, of merely addressing the social form of the paradigm’s outcome, by advocating a tactical mental conversion, of their country, to the substance of the paradigm of Western-Modernity. This tactical conversion, by the end of the 1970's, allowed them to build up the economic strength of their nation, which they sensed was absolutely necessary, to save it from annihilation by Western capital holders who had suddenly decided to expand their reach to the whole world.

I do not contest that fighting against the private outcome, of the paradigm of Modernity, is morally justified. This has certainly led to social progress during the 20th century. But the fact is that it was the adherence to the paradigm of Western-Modernity, by a tiny clique of Western big capital holders, that gave them the strength to engineer the social conformism of the working people, and their representatives in the public decision-making institutions, toward the rationality of Modernity. Socialist and communists movements were blinded, by their ideological opposition to the private outcome of the paradigm and so they never realized that the adherence to the paradigm by Western big capital holders, and their institutional servants, is what allowed them to engineer the societal conformism that in the end caused the demise of socialism.

The fact is that the rationality, at work in the paradigm of Modernity, is what procures its exceptional efficacy in churning out goods and services that irresistibly attract the eyes and guts of the world population. So conformism was baked in the paradigm's capability to churn out goods and services with the utmost efficacy.

By beating the West at its own game China powerfully demonstrated that the private ownership, of the means of production, is not the determinant factor in the efficacy of Modernity. The determinant factor is the rationality that is at work in its paradigm which fixes the ontology of the system of logic of the societies that convert to it. And conscious of the instrumental rationality of Western-Modernity China harvested that rationality to build up the strength of its nation.

In matter of fact it is the paradigm of Western-Modernity that drives the extreme efficacy, in churning out goods and services, in both the West and in China. But this paradigm is simultaneously the cause of the externalities that are generating the side-effects which are presently shifting the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth into a new state that unfortunately is far less hospitable to life and this will inevitably accelerate the 6th mass extinction that already started some time ago.

Contrary to the belief, of some members of the Communist Party of China, a Chinese-Modernity is definitely not a panacea to counter “the great convergence of the side-effects of Western-Modernity”. The answer to humanity’s predicament resides in a new paradigm that focuses on the reason of life and the elimination of toxic externalities !

 

 

Notes

1. "The Great Turning. 4.1. The implications of “the reason” are far reaching“. See page 106 :

"Fernand Braudel, ..., wrote that in the commercial city-states, of Italy in the early thirteenth century, the meaning of capital had evolved into the idea of the “money of a merchant” devoted to investment which was also called “Capitale”, or a dynamic form of money capable of expansion through investment in commerce, that was different from “simple money” which was considered to be sterile and only existing for facilitating daily commercial exchanges.” Quote from “Civilization and Capitalism. Volume 1, The Structure of Everyday Life”, William Collins Sons & Co Ltd. 1992, by Fernand Braudel.

2. The Great Turning.2.2. The morphing of the paradigm of Modernity. See page 47 :

"The paradigm of Modernity addresses the nature of the formation of capital. After taking into account the late Western trial to monetize the services of nature we observe that the paradigm took 3 forms along the entire 900 years of Western-Modernity :
1.  Emergence of the paradigm or the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation.
2. The expansion during the silent revolution of the 1970's, of the reach of Western big capital holders to the whole world, called for "the gamble of capital formation through the transformation of debt into capital" that launched the historical era of "financialization". 
3. Trying to counter the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world towards East-Asia with a Western “totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital”.