A popular theme surrounding the social-political sphere in Hong Kong at present is the so called “hatred of the rich” or 仇富 in Chinese. Recently, Hong Kong society has realised the monopoly powers of real estate developers. Accumulating mass profit from the property sector, it has turned to other industries for further profiting. Today, these developers control everything from supermarkets to transport to telecommunications. Therefore, the house you live in, the internet and phone you use, the food you buy at supermarket to the transport you take to work, are all owned by real estate developers. The working class has even joked at the fact that they all work for them as every bit of their lives revolves around consuming goods and services produced and hence generating revenues for them.
This strikes me of the similarity to Marx’s theory on class struggles and the evolution of the political economy. The phenomenon in Hong Kong has led to an increase of hatred against the rich (i.e. Bourgeois) and resembles the exploitation of the working class (i.e. the proletariats) whom are the real producers of wealth. As capitalism evolves, the rich will get richer and poor get poorer to which at the point the monopolist controls all means of production. With Hong Kong being the most capitalist economy in the world, it will be at the forefront of any political economic development and this phenomenon seems to coincide with Marx’s theory on class struggle and the evolution of capitalism.
5 comments:
Are you suggesting then that the class struggle in Hong Kong will perpetuate to the point of revolution? Or will the overseers in Beijing step in before things get out of hand?
I am not close to suggesting a revolution will happen. I'm just stating the similarities between his take on economic history and its development. But the government does need to take a step in the right direction to diffuse the inequality and hatred for the rich.
Very interesting piece. It's too bad Karl couldn't think of a good solution to a problem he so accurately pinpointed! Very interested in seeing what Beijing's solution to this will be..
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to selfishness;
From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
"
Marx's solution to the vicious cycle of rise an fall of economies was communism. Too bad, it works in theory but not so much in reality. During my studies, many Marxist scholars claimed that the so called ex-communist countries weren't really communist in nature. As the very fact that they did not go through capitalism before their "communism", it automatically disqualify them as being a communist economy. (They went from a quasi feudalism/capitalism to their self-proclaimed communism)
The Russians really tarnished Marx's reputation of communism in my opinion!
Nice quote by the way!
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