Avoiding the Delusions of Today’s Capitalism with a Thorough Understanding of Marxism as the Key

ABSTRACT

Between the early 1970s, when neoliberalism was in full swing and became the dominant rhetoric of the time, and the 2008 global economic crisis, capitalism as a result of its inherent nature entered a fundamental crisis with unavoidable consequences. Many in-depth analyses of the economic crisis from a Marxist viewpoint have revealed that in the area of wealth appropriation, capitalism has now exacerbated inequality to absurd levels. This is not to mention other challenging issues such as the parasitic nature of increasingly digitized finance capital, uncontrolled inflation leading to rampant financial deficits, the worsening ecological crisis with mounting environmental costs that erode profits, escalating political manipulation by monopoly capitalists, and the mounting by developed countries of inappropriate military interventions in the developing world, to name just a few. Today, the fundamental characteristics and specific manifestations of contemporary capitalism are exerting significant impacts on the process of building socialism worldwide. Faced with today’s capitalism, China and Vietnam while exercising due caution must put forward and consistently highlight the need to examine the direction the system is taking. Thorough research on this subject is critical for a correct scientific understanding.

KEYWORDS:

• Capitalism
• financialization of capitalism
• neoliberalism
• crisis of capitalism
• socialism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Washington Consensus is a term that emerged in the early 1990s to describe a set of ten different economic policy prescriptions, considered to constitute the “standard” reform package, which Washington-based institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the United States Department of the Treasury, promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries.

2 The term “Military Keynesianism” was first coined by the Polish economist Michał Kalecki in 1943 to explain the economic achievements of Nazi Germany during the Great Depression.

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Notes on contributors

Minh Hoan Nguyen

Minh Hoan Nguyen is Associate Professor and Director of the Department of Philosophy, Academy of Journalism and Communication, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, Hanoi, Vietnam. He has long been engaged in research in the areas of Marxist theory, Western Marxism, scientific socialism, ancient Chinese philosophy, sinicized Marxism, and the theory and practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics. He is the author of Social Equity in Social Progress (in Vietnamese, National Political Publishing House, 2009), and has published more than 100 articles in major Vietnamese academic journals such as Philosophy, Political Theory Journal, and Political Theory and Communication. Some of his publications have been translated into English, Chinese, and Lao.