Chapter 27 A large number of socialist factors have been born in contemporary capitalist society

I have also read two of your articles, one is "What is Socialism" and the other is "Analysis of Contemporary Capitalist Society", both of which were published in "Wen Wei Po". You feel right.The previous article talked about what socialism is, and the latter article talked about what capitalism is.These are two complementary issues. In essence, two issues are one issue.So I said: "How to understand contemporary capitalist society is an extremely important and complex question, and it is also a question that contemporary Marxism must answer. Contemporary socialism must transcend contemporary capitalism. If you don’t even know what you are transcending, how can you build contemporary socialism? Therefore, a correct understanding of contemporary capitalist society is a fundamental theoretical issue of Marxism.”

Before you make a specific analysis, first make a strict distinction between "contemporary capitalism" and "contemporary capitalist society".In your opinion, contemporary capitalism refers to the capitalist system, which must have strict qualitative regulations to distinguish it from other social systems.And as a society, capitalist society is never absolutely pure, containing various factors and components.We call it a capitalist society because in this society the capitalist system predominates.Capitalist society has gone through three or four hundred years of development, and various components and factors have developed one after another. Especially in the past 100 years, the changes have become more drastic and profound.Today, a large number of socialist factors have also been born in contemporary capitalist society.

exactly.This is very important.What elements of socialism are present in contemporary capitalist society?This is a major subject worthy of serious study.For example, I have visited Germany six times. The Germans are very wealthy and their living standards are generally very high.I often ask them a question: Is your Germany socialist or capitalist?Most of them replied that they opposed both the laissez-faire capitalism of the United States and the centralized economy of Hitler and the former Soviet Union. Germany was practicing a social market economy based on the market economy and carried out social regulation.They often ask me what does socialism with Chinese characteristics mean?I will briefly introduce Deng Xiaoping Theory.Finally they shook my hand in a friendly way and said:

"So, we are very similar, and we have the same goal." When I went to the UK for investigation, I also asked the same question.Their initial answer was always: "We've always been capitalism." I asked why capitalism?An economist confidently said that Britain is private ownership.I said: "Then please introduce a private company and let me visit it." He said that there is Shell Oil Company, the largest company in the UK.I just visited this company, and its general manager received me. I asked him, how much is your company's total assets? He said £8 billion.I asked him again, who does this 8 billion pounds of assets belong to?is yours?He replied no, "I am a senior wage earner who was hired."Does it belong to the chairman?No, the chairman doesn't even own shares. In the end he said it belongs to all shareholders. How can the common property of 300,000 shareholders be said to be private ownership?The economist is not good at answering.Said that this question has not been thought of in the past, and should be rethought.I have visited Sweden four times, and every time I meet influential politicians and economists, I have to ask whether Sweden is capitalism or socialism?The direct answer is "Of course it is capitalism", and then I always add: "Of course we are humane capitalism, which is different from the United States." They always ask me about my impression of Sweden.I have summarized a few points: first, rich, with a per capita GDP of 30,000; second, the role of the government is very important; third, the public economy has a great influence, the public sector accounts for 25%, and its influence reaches 60% to 70%; Fourth, the "three major differences" are basically eliminated; fifth, the social welfare security is so good that all people enjoy social security when they are born, old, sick and dead; sixth, the social spiritual civilization is quite good.They always applaud me for summarizing accurately.So I asked them back, which of these is capitalism?Everything is socialism!Some of them shrugged, and some said: "Yes, economically we are socialist, but we are politically democratic." So, in my opinion, there is a lot of socialism in developed capitalist societies, especially in Western and Northern Europe. the elements of.We must learn from the West, not capitalism, but the socialist factors in capitalist society.This is still the basic principle of Marxism, productivity is the decisive factor of social development.Since the advanced productive forces of European and American countries are developing so fast, new production relations must be created.The new relations of production, the advanced relations of production, are socialism.The joint-stock system is an advanced production relationship.Marx said back then: "The shareholding system is a bridge to communism." Marx also said that we need to rebuild individual ownership on the basis of public ownership of the means of production.The joint-stock system is the public ownership of the means of production, and stocks can be bought today and sold tomorrow. This is individual ownership, which is exactly what Marx ideally foresees.The proletariat is not eternally proletarian. The ideal of communism is that everyone lives a prosperous life, that is, everyone has rich property!Marx and Engels talked about abolishing the bourgeois private property in which man exploits man. In the past, we simplified it into five words: abolish private property.Go check the original text and see what is written in the "Communist Manifesto"?The original text of Marx and Engels is: "The characteristic of communism is not to abolish general ownership, but to abolish bourgeois ownership. However, modern bourgeois private ownership is based on class antagonism, and is built on some people's opposition to others. The final and most complete manifestation of the production and possession of products above human exploitation. In this sense, the Communists can sum up their theory as: the abolition of private property."

The meaning of this is very clear, referring to the elimination of bourgeois private ownership, not property possession in the general sense. We want to eliminate exploitation and share social wealth. This kind of socialist view is completely in line with the Marxist view. Therefore, Jiang Zemin said at the meeting celebrating the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China: "We should not simply use whether or not we have property and how much property we have as the criterion for judging whether people are politically advanced or backward, but should mainly look at their ideological and political conditions and actual performance. Look at how they got their property and how they control and use it, and look at their contribution to the cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics through their own labor.”

At present, there is still a lot of room for "emancipating the mind". In addition to emancipating the mind in the development of democratic politics, we also need to further emancipate the mind in the reform of the economic system. There is also a lot of room for emancipating the mind.Deng Xiaoping said that the essence of socialism is to liberate and develop productive forces, eliminate exploitation, prevent polarization, and finally achieve common prosperity.This is Deng Xiaoping's new socialist outlook.According to Deng Xiaoping’s point of view, all ownership that conforms to this essence is socialist ownership, regardless of whether it is private or public; on the contrary, all practices that do not conform to this essence are not socialist ownership, regardless of whether it is public or private, even if it is private or public. is state-owned.Some state-owned enterprises are losing money every year. Isn’t that blatantly depriving workers of their surplus value?Isn't it exploitative?Is it still socialism?The specific standard is "three benefits", and the realization of "three benefits" is socialist.Capitalist private ownership is exploitative, but private ownership itself is not necessarily exploitative.For example, individual workers, family labor ownership, and "private ownership" controlled by state laws and society are not exploitation.So later Deng Xiaoping talked about the essence of socialism, not about ownership, but only about conditions. As long as the ownership meets the two conditions of liberation and development of productive forces without exploitation, whether it is public ownership or private ownership, it is socialist ownership.Therefore, we now also very much need to emancipate our minds a little bit more, and to take a bigger step in reform and opening up.