Recently, Marx's Das Kapital has become a best seller in Europe. It is reported that in 2008, the sales volume of this book in Berlin was three times that of last year, and 1990 was 100 times. The revival of Das Kapital also gives us profound enlightenment. Don't we know enough about this classic work of Marx? How many young people with higher education in China have read or read this masterpiece?
Das Kapital has regained people's favor because of its profound exposure of capitalism. German Finance Minister Steinbrü ck said: "On the whole, we must admit that some Marxist views are good." William, Archbishop of Canterbury, England, said: "A long time ago, Marx spied the way capitalism works." The Pope also said something nice to Marx who advocated atheism and praised Marx for his "excellent analytical ability". The British "Daily Mirror" is even more outspoken. Capitalism is like a football match without referees, full of corruption and shady deals, deceiving fans.
Therefore, the outbreak of the world financial crisis makes people doubt the economic operation mechanism of capitalism again, and the wonderful description in Das Kapital not only makes them see the essence of capitalism clearly, but also points out the future development direction for them. The fundamental reason for the cyclical crisis in capitalist society is that capitalism is a decentralized decision-making operation system based on capital privatization. When the mistakes caused by decentralized decision-making accumulate to a certain extent, the whole society will inevitably have an economic crisis. Aware of this, Marx called loudly in Das Kapital that to overcome the deep defects of capitalism, a social system dominated by laborers must be established.
In China, more people talk about Das Kapital than read it. Many people learned a part of the brilliant work Das Kapital through others' paraphrases. Some people who have read Das Kapital often look for their own theoretical basis from Das Kapital according to the established value orientation, and sometimes take it out of context. Das Kapital was not a simple economic work from the beginning, but an encyclopedia guide to social development. After China's reform and opening up, some people once looked down on the significance of this classic book and thought that the analysis made in Das Kapital was completely wrong. Others saw the extreme color of Das Kapital from Lenin's classic exposition, and thought that this classic work was only a revolutionary declaration, not a real academic work.
There are few courses or lectures on Das Kapital in universities in China. Young students' understanding of capitalism is either a conceptualization of dogma or a vague extreme, so that some students and even young teachers have a very shallow understanding of capitalism, and some even think that "China should practice capitalism". If these people can read Capital, I'm afraid they won't like capitalism so much.
In fact, when Marx wrote Das Kapital, it was through his incisive analysis of the capitalist mode of production that he reminded those who had illusions about capitalism that they must meet the new mode of production with full enthusiasm. However, Marx was so cautious when discussing socialism that any detail design of the basic mode of production of socialism was accompanied by many basic assumptions. Unfortunately, the later practitioners did not see these assumptions, they only had a rough understanding of the socialism described by Marx, thus making undue mistakes in practice.
This once-in-a-century world financial crisis originated in capitalist countries and has spread to developing countries. Re-studying the operation mode of capitalism is not only for criticizing, but also for better coping with this financial crisis and minimizing its losses. In this sense, China people should also re-study Das Kapital to discover the economic secrets of capitalism.
Domestic policy priorities in response to the financial crisis. To deal with this financial crisis, the most fundamental problem is to solve the problem of correct understanding of this international financial crisis by leading cadres, policy makers and theoretical workers at all levels. Only with a correct understanding can we design and adopt correct countermeasures. We still need to observe the evolution of this international financial crisis and the depth and breadth of its actual impact. However, judging from the current development trend, not only the financial crisis itself is spreading and spreading in developed countries and some developing countries such as the United States, Western Europe and Japan, but also the impact on its real economy is happening and expanding. In fact, in the United States and other related countries, the financial crisis is intertwined with the oil crisis and the food crisis either explicitly or implicitly. In the face of this financial crisis and the possible all-round economic crisis, we must take the maintenance and development of Socialism with Chinese characteristics as our fundamental purpose and task. First of all, we should be vigilant and protect ourselves, so that the economic and social development of China will be affected and dragged down by the financial crisis as little as possible. In other words, our focus should be on self-defense and self-help, instead of generously saving western capitalism with China's extremely limited financial resources and the hard-earned money of the people of China. The financial resources and strength of the monopoly bourgeoisie in the western world, especially in the United States, are much stronger than those in China. They cherish their own money, but they want to calculate others and drag them down. Si Mazhao's heart is well known. Participants believed that we must always put national sovereignty, national security and national interests first, and proceed from the fundamental interests of the people of China.
We should theoretically ask: Why did this international financial crisis happen? Obviously, it is useless to turn to neoliberalism, adopt the so-called "mainstream economics" in the west or return to Keynesianism to reflect on and deal with this international financial crisis. Only by adhering to the Marxist stand, viewpoint and method can we correctly observe, analyze and respond to this international financial crisis and solve various economic and social problems caused by it. This international financial crisis has given us a vivid Marxist education. It makes people realize more clearly that Marxism is a scientific truth and a scientific theory and method for observing and analyzing contemporary capitalism. This international financial crisis has also sounded the alarm for us. It makes people see: "America is not everything" and the capitalist world is not a paradise on earth; The cyclical economic crisis of capitalism (whether it is a short cycle once in 78 or a long cycle once in 50 or 60 years) shows the exhaustion and decline of its vitality; It declared the bankruptcy of some people who deified the so-called "freedom and democracy" of capitalism into "universal values of mankind". In fact, only socialism replaces the capitalist system is the historical way to eliminate the antagonistic contradiction of capitalist mode of production; Only capitalism is the ideal society for mankind in the future. As a new form of combining scientific socialism with China's practice, Socialism with Chinese characteristics's basic system is the fundamental guarantee for us to prevent and overcome the negative impact of the international financial crisis on China's economy and society.