Past, Present and Future of World Socialism

ABSTRACT

This essay first describes the evolutionary logic of world socialism as an anti-chrematistic civilizatory paradigm. It briefly analyzes the two preeminent civilizatory projects or attractors of modernity—capitalism and socialism—as a result of the general law of the evolution of modern society since 1648/1789. The construction of twentieth-century socialism—the second attractor of modernity—by Lenin and Mao and the respective communist parties in Russia and China, is the topic of the following sections. The demise of the second attractor in Russia and the discussion of the transitional perspectives of China’s revolution close the analysis of “The Past and Present of World Socialism.” The second part, “The Future of World Socialism,” studies the inherent evolutionary logic of the world system and the potential for the appearance of collective transitional subjects, capable of achieving a trans-capitalist phase change towards a non-chrematistic political economy and a participatory democracy. The third part examines the potential of China to become the new liberating socialist subject of mankind and the last one poses the question of whether a cyber-socialist evolution of Marx’s paradigm is necessary, due to the revolution of productive forces of the industrial age towards those of the twenty-first-century digital civilization.

KEYWORDS:

• October Revolution
• world socialism
• twenty-first-century socialism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Heinz Dieterich is Professor of methodology and sociology and Director of the Center for Transition Sciences (CTS) at the Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico City, Mexico, Coordinator of the World Advanced Research Project (WARP), Vice President of the World Association for Political Economy, and Co-editor for the journal World Review of Political Economy. He holds a PhD in economics and social science.

Notes

1 See, http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-12/26/content_31015643.htm.

2 See, http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-12/26/content_31015643.htm.

3 See, https://www.sipri.org/ … military-spending/military-expenditure.

4 See “An Economy of the 99%.” https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/economy-99.

5 See, https://www.credit-suisse.com/ … /en/ … /global-wealth-report.htm.

6 See China Daily, October 30, 2015. http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2015-10/30/content_36935303.htm.

7 See, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2017-02/23/content_28320400.htm.

8 See, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/24/china-has-more-billionaires-than-us-report.html.

9 The WARP group, a progressive global think tank for participatory democracy, consists of the following members: Dr. Heinz Dieterich (social sciences, Germany/Mexico), Dr. Raimundo Franco (physics/mathematics, Cuba), Lic. Rodrigo Ortiz (economics, México), M.Sc. Juan Carlos Olguín (artificial intelligence, México), Ing. Iván Limon (computer science, México), Klaus Bartsch (econometrics, statistics, Germany), Carsten Stahmer (input-output analysis, Germany), Paul Cockshott (mathematics/economics/computer science, Great Britain), Dr. T. Phong (philosophy, Vietnam), Hans Modrow (politician, Germany), Stefan Rehfus (environment engineering, Germany), Dr. Gernot Ernst (neuroscience, Norway), Dr. Cheng Enfu (economics, China), Dr. Konstantin Sivkov (military sciences, Moscow).

10 See, https://www.rt.com/viral/386512-hawking-ai-fears-humanity/.