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China claims Marx as prophet of globalisation

China claims Marx as prophet of globalisation

Author: Oliver August, in Beijing
Publication: The Times, UK
Date: October 31, 2000

Diehard Chinese Communists have decided that globalisation, the new buzz word of the modern economy, is old hat.  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, they say, invented the concept more than 150 years ago.

In a desperate attempt to marry their flagging ideology to modern economics, experts at a Beijing University conference suggested that there was no inherent contradiction between China´s market reforms and the continued worship of Marxism.

Now the theme has been taken up in the media.  A report by Xinhua, the official news agency, headlined ''Marx, Engels predict globalisation in Communist Manifesto'' endorsed the academics´ views.  It stated that Marx and Engels had seen globalisation as ''the inevitable outcome of production and contacts in the world'', adding that the experts thought it ''will not alter the destiny of capitalism''.

Chinese reformers yesterday derided the idea that Beijing was still following Marxist ideas.  One online entrepreneur said: ''If that´s true, then Al Gore really did invent the Internet.''

Foreign observers see the Chinese globalisation debate as a sign of internal Communist Party strife.  Reforms, including the creation of stock markets, have undermined Communist dogma and alienated many party members.

In coming months, China is expected to become a full member of the global community by joining the World Trade Organisation -- bringing an influx of foreign capital long opposed by ideological purists.

This week´s conclusion that Marxism incorporated globalisation all along may help China´s transition to a market economy, but its diehard Communists have by no means given up.  They now argue that globalisation is one more step on the dialectic path mapped by Marx.  Fully- fledged communism is still their aim.

One expert is quoted as saying: ''Globalisation does not change the nature of capital.  It is not a solution to the exploitation problem in the capitalist society, either.''

The experts failed to mention that Marx and Engels never used the word globalisation.  Their picture of an inter- connected world may adequately describe late 20th-century economics, but it fails to explain globalisation as a wider cultural phenomenon.

Vernon Bogdanor, the Oxford University political scientist, recently suggested that globalisation was first envisaged by Norman Angell, who wrote his classic work, The Great Illusion, in 1910 -- 62 years after the Communist Manifesto.
 


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