Prof. Dr. Yubaraj Sangroula

Prof. Dr. Yubaraj Sangroula

Professor of International Law and Legal Philsophy at Kathmandu School of Law | Teaches as Visiting Professor in Indian, Bangladeshi and Chinese Universities | Author of the Best-Seller books, “South Asia-China Economics and Decolonizing Jurisprudence”

"The Future of Socialism and Multilateral International Order in the Post-Covid 19 Era"

'Socialism is far more preferable to capitalism'—this is exponentially felt across the world during and after the pandemic of Covid-19. The deprived and marginalized masses of people have widely taken this message, both ontologically and essentially. The impacts of the Pandemic on Western Capitalism are as overwhelming and disastrous if we compare it with non-Western countries with strong social institutions and socialist systems. These countries have succeeded in maintaining or preserving grassroots social institutions and social security systems. Only those countries having their conventional social institutions and social dependence spoiled from hypes of neoliberalism suffered unwanted consequences, e.g., India. The People of China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba have shown a higher level of accountability, with the ability to combat the pandemic and take care of the general people by mobilizing all national health resources quickly and establishing the coordination of state apparatus efficiently. Countries like Russia and many other countries that succeeded in preventing corrupt neoliberal econmy and corporatist regimes performed well and succeeded in saving the lives of people. 

All socialist and non-liberalist countries coped with the situation with their better welfare system. Countries falling in the second category include Denmark, Norway,  Singapore, South Korea, Finland, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Kenya, only a few to mention. Nepal and Bhutan with their nascent economy, dealt with the crisis fairly, thus preventing the death of many people. In these countries, the family bond and integrated structure worked as insurance for each other. Parents' income supported children and vice versa. The grassroots social institutions promoting social solidarity in the neighbourhood provided a system of 'aid to people in need. This social solidarity manifested as neighbourly dealings with each other, thus showing that Capitalism is marred by the interests of a very limited number of elites and is unfit to face challenges like COVID-19.  

The panic and chaos in these countries have been seen as lesser in Socialist and socially integrated societies. The public at large has been caught behaving more cooperatively due to the high level of confidence demonstrated by the grassroots social institutions and the state apparatuses in these countries. The leadership role of socialist countries is particularly exemplary in this regard. Conversely, neoliberalist countries, plagued with Western intrigues and the menace of Multinational Corporations, manifested chaos that caused extreme levels of panic among the general public and the masses. Generally,  common people in the capitalist and developing neoliberalist countries felt psychologically afflicted and ignored. A tiny size of the population, approximately 2/3 percent, however, felt less affected as it could afford to buy services from technologically highly sophisticated private medical enterprises—the hospital and rehabilitation centres.

"Treating Coronavirus produced costs approximately $30,000 in private hospitals in the United States," said Christopher Hedge, a Pulitzer Award receiver, former correspondent of the New York Times and popular writer, in an interview with the XR-TV. This example offers us a concrete ground to observe the difference between Socialism and Capitalism, looking from the lens of the impacts the pandemic had. Opinions of Richard Wolff and Gene Epstein help us to encapsulate the contrast in a spectacular way. In his bestseller book Democracy at Work: a Cure of Capitalism, Prof. Richard Wolff encapsulates that: "Capitalism is unstable; capitalism is unable; and capitalism is fundamentally undemocratic." Gene Epstein, on the contrary, argues that Capitalism allows people to "make their choices about how they live their lives, the profession they lead, where they want to work and what they want to do." In his view, only' Capitalism may offer that potential.' Epstein is right, but only in the case of rich and middle-class people—it otherwise has failed to create a better society by offering equal distribution of wealth and development opportunities among people from all walks of life, what we have seen without fail since the era of Industrial Revolution that Capitalism, for its discriminatory approach in distribution of wealth and income, has relentlessly unleashed instability and chaos in the society. 

"The world's 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet's human population," Oxfam International reported just before the World Economic Forum began in Davos. The report was released on 20^th January 2020—a time when coronavirus had been at its inception, but it was still not noticed. Oxfam International continues: "Global economy is shockingly entrenched, and the number of billionaires has doubled their wealth in the last decade (1)." Over half of the planet's human population lives under a scarcity of livelihoods, and a huge part of that population, over 3.5 billion, lives under the bottom line of poverty—the overwhelmingly larger part of this economically deprived population lives in countries having been ruled by the liberal democratic polity and neo-liberalist economy. 

Hence, poverty has been a 'gift of capitalism nurtured and protected by the 'Anglo-American model of liberal democracy,' which has, after the Cold War, seen rigorous militarization for defence. The United States of America has the largest military spending, contrary to the ground reality of increasingly larger inequality in the distribution of wealth and income. This sad state of inequality in wealth and the constantly deteriorating life standard of common people, as well as the massive militarization of the world, are now visibly seen as the 'gifts of capitalism'—results of its imprudence and inhuman approaches to political economy. 

Capitalism has spanned over three centuries since the Industrial Revolution and has pretty much been shown by a host of problems the world is today forced to confront, such as 'capitalism is unable to create a global society of shared future and common destiny.' Capitalism in our time has transformed into 'corporatist monopoly capitalism—it can rather be argued that it has become a militarized capitalism, besides being a crony capitalism. The system of income, opportunity, and wealth distribution in this kind of Capitalism remains fully unjust and inhuman. As pointed out above, only a smaller segment of the population—less than ten percent as shown by Oxfam International's survey—has benefited from this, whereas the larger working class masses of people war willfully and deceitfully deprived and pushed to live in a condition of extreme marginalization of development. The masses of people are deprived of adequate standards and means of livelihood—they are deprived of housing, food, sanitation, Health, education and access to development opportunities. The severe impacts the deprived people across the world are forced to live today are victims of a system, in the words of Adam Smith' the vile maxim—"everything yours is ours (2)."

In the U.S.A., the leading capitalist-neoliberalist nation, for instance, during the 1980s, after the Vietnam War, the military spending rate was larger than that of inflation and the G.D.P. growth itself—the annual army spending growth rate remained around 6 percent. Very interestingly, in the same period, the income rate of the bottom-line population dropped by 11 per cent, whereas the income growth rate of the upper twenty percent scaled up by 5 percent. It is thus plain that either militarization missions or rich corporations are benefiting from Capitalism (3), hence posing a threat to international security as well as the lives of the working classes of people. 

Earlier, a number of capitalist economists claimed that the "democratization environment of political institutions causes to improve income distribution." This theory has now been proved wrong or unsupported by facts, looking both from perspectives of the falling income ratio of a larger number of the general population, particularly after COVID-19. These economists argued that there is a "strong correlation between smooth functioning of democratic institutions and higher wage rate and the decline of income inequality (4). This theory has been proved wrong. 

In the present State, the problems of inequality as well as militarization are starkly rising, thus pushing the general people to additional unlivable lives. Michael McCormack and Amanda Novello write: "Wages and incomes [in America] continue to stagnate as working Americans struggle to maintain living standards. Wage gaps between white workers and workers of colour persist; in fact, some gaps have even widened. Underemployment indicates that the economy is not providing enough jobs for the people who are willing and able to work. The current federal economic policies, which consist of poorly targeted tax cuts and deregulation, have done nothing of note to build broadly shared prosperity (5)". The situation in Europe is similar, as it has been forced to adopt a policy of austerity in some countries. The collapse of the economy in Greece was the typical example, though the big Banks of Germany and France, in the name of bailouts, gained terribly large benefits (6).

The crony capitalist countries like the U.S.A., U.K. and France use their military strength to maintain their politica hegemony all over the world and always benefit from their war industries—weapons manufacture. They support unilateral globalization and use international law, weapons, and international diplomacy for the sake of preventing the rise of multilateral globalization. While their economies have sharply declined, they are adamant about preserving the unilateral power bloc, and they practice national against their common population and international policies non-NATO countries. They have been keen to dismantle the rise of the multilateral globe, with the platform originated by the countries. Russia and China are prime targets for this drive. The following "Three Essentials" are the foundations of their neo-colonialist and imperialist approaches to international security and relationship: (a) the 'colonial Neoliberalism, (b) the Global Hegemony, and (c) the War Industry. These three 'essentials' are the deadly challenges to the rise of multilateralism and the shared future of humanity. 

Socialism vs. Liberalism and Capitalism: 

"A more accurate term for a system that erases the boundaries between "Big Government and Big Business" is not a liberal, conservative or capitalist system; it is, Naomi Klein writes, a corporatist system (7)". She continues, "Its main characters are the huge transfer of public wealth to private hands, often accompanied by exploding debt, an ever-widening chasm between dazzling rich and disposable poor and an aggressive nationalism that justifies bottomless spending on security” (8).

Today's Capitalism has already been transfigured into 'corporatism'—a system in which big multinational corporations have gained control over the political government in Western capitalist nations. The so-called liberal democracy, marked by elections, separation of powers and governance by means of the rule of law, has significantly been modified and reduced in accordance with the suggestions of the Trilateral Commission (9).   The populism or mass participation in politics by raising concerns and interests of various groups has been refused as "an excess of democracy": the goal behind this definition is to dissipate women, youths, elderly, labour, minorities, and other parts of the underlying population from active participation from politics. 

These normally passive and marginalized sectors began to participate in politics to press their demands in the 1930s. The so-called "crisis of democracy," as Chomsky writes, "was regarded as even more dangerous by the components of the elite spectrum…, the business world in general (10)". The Trilateral Commission, referring to American President Truman's instance of running administration with the cooperation of a small number of "Wall Street lawyers and bankers," suggested getting rid of the participation of people dubbed as the "excess of democracy’ (11). Agreeably responding to the commission's suggestions, the corporations and right-wing think tanks intensified lobbying to ensure control of legislative programs and institutions. This secret but widely launched attack against popular participation of people in politics in America, as well as all Western democracies, had a tremendous impact. In the 1970s, neo-liberal programs were intensified to achieve further advanced measures to control populism at the grassroots. This political conspiracy eventually led to, in the words of Walter Dean Burnham, a profound American historian, "the total absence of a socialist or a laborite mass party as an organized competitor in the political market (12)". Pursuing control of popular politics, keeping people out of State's affairs and giving the corporations and capitalists full control of the State machinery, President Reagan, after his victory in 1984, brought his infamously anti-common people program called "New Deal and Great Society Program" that severely cut off social security packages, Medicare and Medicaid programs, and public education programs against poplar expectation of cuts in military spending (13). 

The Western State structure turned out to be, thus, corporatist, controlled by MNCs, the war industry in particular. This fact determines the contemporary Western security and international relations policies. This State structure prefers hegemony, domination and neocolonialism. The NATO goal to expand its reach to Eastern Europe and Ukraine finally was ignited by these posliies, which eventually resulted in Russia's special military operation against Ukraine, which has now been a warzone of NATO against Russia. The Western capitalist countries are pouring billions of dollars into the war against it, which is aimed at disrupting the rise of multilateralism in vain. This imperialist policy, on the other hand, is snatching European common peoples' access to Health and social security (14). Marxian Economist Richard Wolff observes, "Corporations are there to make money. So their interest is profit. So they do not follow rules that affect their profit (15)” Common people matter nothing for this system. 

Socialism in China faced the problem in different ways. In 2017, the report of the 19^th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.) introduced a fundamental program for ensuring further improvement of the living standards of Chinese people as well as people of other countries through formulating sustainable development programs. As part of this program, President Xi Jinping introduced the 'idea of further reforming opening up of market' and encouraged Chinese enterprises to go out, especially in countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road (16). Addressing the delegates of the Congress, he said: Our vision of making development people-centred has been acted on, a whole raft of initiatives to benefit the people has seen implementation, and the people's sense of fulfilment has grown stronger. Decisive progress has been made in the fight against poverty: more than 60 million people have been lifted out of poverty, and the poverty headcount ratio has dropped from 10.2 percent to less than 4 percent. Employment has registered steady growth, with an average of over 13 million urban jobs created each year. The growth of urban and rural personal incomes has outpaced economic development, and the middle-income group has been expanding. A social security system covering both urban and rural residents has taken shape; both public Health and medical services have improved markedly (17)” Building "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" was the major thrust of the Congress, which endorsed the "Four Comprehensives" as interrelated narratives for achieving the goal of having Socialism materialized. These four comprehensives were encapsulated as  (i) Building a moderately prosperous society, (ii) Deepening reform, (iii) Governing the nation according to law, and (iv) Tightening party discipline. The "Four Comprehensives" have kept the people at counterpoint (18). These four 'Comprehensives' represent the fundamental essence of Xi Jinping's thoughts. Sustainable development is a key challenge to China henceforth. Not letting poverty revert or recur, the people's income needs to be stable and sustainable. 

Russa after the breakdown of the Soviet Union also moved towards revitalization of its economy and the life standard of the people. President Vladimir Putin did his best to integrate with Europe and promote a peaceful world through cooperation among all. He worked for the settlement of Ukrainian internal political disputes and stabilization of relationship between Europe and the former USSR region. However, Germany and Frnace betrayed. Russia was pushed to a corner against its security. NATO countries are actively engaged in dividing and containing Russia. However, Russia built its economy and revived its military and arm strength. Russia is a rapidly growing economy.

China's efforts to achieve the goal of building 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics' flourished rapidly, too. Equitable distribution of rural and urban services, better social welfare redistribution and marked improvements to public goods and services, elimination of corruption, and a fair and impartial legal and judicial system were major achievements of China (19).  The Communist Party viewed the construction of "Socialism" as a task to be fulfilled in accordance with the established system of laws democratically enacted by the Supreme People's Congress. The task of building Socialism, in connection with other 'goals', has to go forward by developing a stronger system of laws, the doctrine of socialist legality and the socialist rule of law. This process was charted out by the 2014 Plenum of the central committee of C.C.P. by adopting the five general principles guiding the reform of laws. They were (i) the leadership of the Party, (ii) the dominant position of the people—people as the masters of the country, (iii) equality before the law, (iv) the combination of ruling the country by law (yifa zhiguo) with the rule of virtue (dezhi), and (v) the need for China to chart its path. The 19th Congress of the C.C.P. had ensured this path through a policy and Party Constitution of undivided Party leadership. Without a doubt, the task of building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, as guided by the principles of socialist rule of law, is expected to be fulfilled under C.C.P. leadership with the State as a reflection of the will of the people (20).

Hence, China's policies on security and international relations focus on partnership and collaboration in economic development and globalized trade. In this context, China mooted a concept of collaboration for a shared future with its flagship concept of development called the Belt and Road Initiative. This model of cooperation relies on non-interference on the sovereignty and independence of the partner nation. This initiative thus promotes 'non-colonial and non-hegemonic' collaboration for the economic development of the world. The model of international cooperation determines China's relationship with other countries. 

Conclusion:     

The discussion above presents a contrast between Capitalism and Socialism in relation to the security of people as well as national security and international relations. In the post-COVID-19 situation, the contrast shows that Capitalism is rapidly decaying democratically and becoming hegemonic in order to safeguard its 'dying unilateral influence across the world.' Capitalism is authoritarian to its citizens and hegemonic to other nations. It has been aggressively moving in the direction of banning people's participation in politics at home and creating tension and hostility abroad. The capability of capitalist state intuitions to face economic crises has faded away, and, in such a situation, peoples' trust in Capitalism is diminished gravely. Socialism, on the other hand, demonstrated strong institutional and leadership capacity to face crises. It has been emerging as a mainstream international economic order. The Chain's vigour under 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics' showed a marked development in Marxist-Leninist doctrines. 

"Capitalism is seen surviving without rules", whereas 'Socialism has deepened its trust in the socialist legal system and cultural virtues. As pointed out by Fuwa Testuzo, a prominent leader of the Japanese Communist Party, economic depression is a characteristic feature of Capitalism (21). It is so because, as discussed above, Capitalism functions with the vile maxim of 'everything for the rich and nothing for the poor.'  The theory of depression is a kernel of the critique of Capitalism. From this perspective, the most serious impact of the post-Covid-19 world order is the rise of depression in the capitalist economy due to rapidly growing de-dollarization and the American debt-traped economy. The collapse of the American fiat money is growing severely. These facts may lead to the 'aggression of the West' to save its hegemony, thus creating a danger of global conflict between NATO and the Global South. The revival of the lost Socialism worldwide and the international conflict imposed by Capitalism are running parallel. 

When it broke down in 1991, even some communist parties issued statements welcoming the demise of the Soviet State, which was seen even by revolutionary communists as a "colossal evil"— socialist imperialism. It was even seen as a major obstacle to society's progress. The advocates of Capitalism were particularly overjoyed by the fall of the Soviet Union because they thought the collapse of the Soviet Union freed them from fear of Socialism or communism—they concluded that Capitalism would be everlasting. They maintained this view based on the illusion that the Soviet Union was the standard-bearer of the system of Socialism. In fact, they were ignorantly wrong. The demise of the USSR was the failure fo the Soviet State and its model Socialist System; it was not the collapse of Socialism itself. Many revolutionary communists, in fact, fought against the Soviet Regime, which stood as an obstacle to the mission of Socialist economic and social progress of the people of the world and caused serious harm to the growth of the Communist Movement in the world. 

The euphoric shouts of victory of capitalists, believing that they now had nothing to worry about the future of Capitalism, did not last long. The jubilation of Capitalism soon began to lose strength, and even the advocates of Capitalism sensed missing Marx as the rescuer of the crises facing the world. The profound importance of Socialism started to emerge after the 2008 depression of the U.S.A. The capitalist world seemed exhausted, unproductive and war-mongering. This crisis was fully uncovered after the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2002, incidents of regime change and the inhuman bombing of Serbia (22). Now, we can very clearly see an emerging trend of Socialism, with a new thrust put up by Xi Jinping and a new version of global collaboration under the Belt and Road concept.

Some examples can illustrate the trend. One of them is an opinion poll the B.B.C. conducted with its viewers in September 1999 (23). It asked, "Who do you think is the greatest thinker of the last millennium?" The findings of the poll showed that an overwhelming number of respondents said that Karl Marx was the greatest thinker of the last millennium. Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin were the other three, respectively. None of the economists or social scientists who advocated Capitalism ranked higher than Marx. "Survey was conducted by the state-run broadcasting corporation of a country that used to be referred to as the general headquarters of capitalism eight years after the collapse of the Soviet Union," said Tetsuzo.  Marx was the best analyst of the mechanisms of Capitalism as he said that it should definitely give way to Socialism. The second example was the description of David J. Rothkopf, deputy undersecretary for international trade under the Clinton administration, in the Washington Post. He wrote, "Whatever capitalism's fate, somebody's already working on an alternative." What he meant was that "someone was already preparing a new society replacing capitalism"(24). He was very critical of U.S. policies in international affairs and its economic performance. It is now evident that the system of Capitalism is dependent on invisible hands, the corrupt corporations, financers, bankers and corrupt politicians. 

In these perspectives, the Socialism rigorously pushed forward by China innovatively creates hope for a new socialist order in future. Its focus on the ecological development model, protection of the environment, emphasis on inclusive international cooperation to respond to climate change poverty and emphasis on working together for a new and equitable world order may herald a paradigm shift in the approach of global development. Most recently, the strategic relationship between China and Russia and the rise of BRICS provides a new hope for peace and the rise of Socialism. The only obstacle is the Indian position of 'marrying two husbands—BRICS and QUAD, led by America. If India clarifies its pro-East policies, the death of NATO hegemony is certain, and the rise of multilateral globalization is definitely achievable. These factors determine future international relationships. If BRICS Plus succeeds, international relationships will follow that way as Xi Jinping says: "We call on the people of all countries to work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind, to build an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity"(25).

 (1) Oxfam International, “World’s billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people” available on https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/worlds-billionaires-have-more-wealth-46-billion-people, retrieved on 3/6/2020

 (2) Adam Smith discussed invisible hands of the ‘masters of the world’—the dishonest capitalists. He observed that their greediness would turn the capitalism into a lax system, depriving general people of their stake. See, Noam Chomsky, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; London: Penguin Books, 2006, p.105.

(3) John D. Bell, “Military Spending and Income Inequality,” Journal of Peace and Research Vol. 31, no.1, 1994.

(4) For instance, M. Gradstein, B. Milanovic, and Y. Ying in a World Bank’s research came to this conclusion, according to which World Bank persisted on ‘structural adjustment policies’ in developing countries. This policy was, though implicit, to transplant Western concept of rule of law and democratic values in developing countries, as one of the strategies for uprooting socialism and welfare-based governance system across the world. For detail see, M. Gradstein et al, Democracy and Income Inequality: An Empirical Analysis; Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001.

(5) Michael McCormack and Amanda Novello, “The Economy is not Delivering Boardly Shared Prosperity,” The True State of American Economy, The Century Foundation, 2019, available at https://tcf.org/content/report/true-state-u-s-economy, retrieved on 3/6/2020

(6) For more information on the corrupt practices of European Union, see Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine; London: Penguin Random House UK, 2007.

(7) Ibid

(8) Id.

(9) This is a commission formed to deal with the populism seen during the period from 1940s to 1960s in Western Countries. Western countries witnessed number of movements for social security, welfare of workers, socialism, and trade unionism. These popular movements of people were seen as ‘crisis of democracy.’ The movements were seen as challenge to the freedom and free-market, a theory that was gaining momentum in name of Neo-liberalism. See, Ibid and also (n 5). The Commission was constituted to deal with this problem and comprised of intellectuals from North America, Europe and Japan.  

(10) Noam Chomsky (Note 3), p.216.

(11) ibid

(12) For detail information on destruction of American people’s participation in politics, see Walter Dean Burnham, Critical Elections and Mainsprings of the American Politics; New York: WW Norton and Co. 1970

(13) Noam Chomsky (note 11),  p. 215.

(14) Richard Woff, “Interview to ACT  TV, April 2020, available at https://www.twitch.tv/actdottv

(15) Ibid.

(16) Xi Jinping, “Secure a decisive Victory in Building a Moderately prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Greatest Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” speech deliveredat the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, 18 October 2017, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2017-11/03/c_136725942.htm. Retrieved on 3/6/2020

(17) Report Presented at the Xi Jinping, “19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China October 18, 2017,” http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/download/Xi_Jinping's_report_at_19th_CPC_National_Congress.pdfRetrieved on 3/6/2020.

(18) People’s Daily, 24 February 2015. Also see “China’s Xi Jinping Unveils New ‘Four Comprehensives’ Slogans,” BBC News on China, 25 February 2015.

(19) XU, Qiyuan, “Reform Directions for China’s Socialist Market Economy: A Macroeconomic Perspective,” in John Garrick and Yan Chang Bennett (eds.), China’s Socialist Rule of Law Reforms under Xi Jinping. London: Rutledge. 2016, p.74.

(20) For additional information on development of socialist rule of law, see ZHANG Xiaodan, “Rule of Law within the Chinese Party-State and Its Recent Tendencies.” Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 9(2) 2017: 373-400.

(21) Fuwa Tetsuzo, Capitalism and Socialism in the 21^st Century, Akhata, November, 13-14, 2002 Issues. 

(22) Chomsky (Note 5), 203, 66, 70 and 228. 

(23) See, Tetsuzo, (Note, 22).

(24) Cited by Tetsuzo, Ibid. 

(25) Xi Jinping, (Note, 18).