RELEVANCE OF COMMUNISM !

So many strange things are happening in the Cosmos ! One of them is Communism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and China's Leap Forward into capitalism, communism appears to be faded into the quint back-drop. It appears that the class conflict that Marx believed determined the course of history seemed to  have melt away in the so called prosperous era of free trade and free enterprise. The Times Finance commented, " the far reaching power of globalisation, linking the most remote corners of the planet in lucrative bonds of finance, outsourcing and border less manufacturing, offered everybody from Silicon valley tech gurus to Chinese farm girls ample opportunities to get rich. But the global economy in a protracted crisis, and workers around the world burdened by joblessness, debt and stagnant incomes, Marx's biting critique of capitalism--that the system is inherently unjust and self-destructive-----cannot be easily dismissed. Marx theorised that the capitalists system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world's wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few.  "Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery , ignorance, brutality, mental degradation at the opposite pole", according to Marx.

Notwithstanding like any form of government,Communism actually evolved over many years but the two philosophers , who captured and codified the basic concept of communism of a form of government that treated everyone equally, were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Their ground breaking publication was "The Communist Manifesto" and it may surprise you to find that it has lot of ideas that are popular to our democracy (like schooling of children, not just the rich). More surprisingly Marx felt that there was natural evolution of political systems and that totalitarianism and imperialism naturally evolved into capitalism and that capitalism and that capitalist just a step along the way to an even, egalitarian society form of government, that was communism. Karl Heinrich Marx was a Prussian-German philosopher and revolutionary. His ideas played a significant role in the establishment of the social sciences and the development of socialist movement.

Karl Marx is dead and buried but his philosophies of Communism and socialism have great relevance. With the new liberalised economic policy throughout the globe, particularly America, China, a big  gap between the rich and poor has been created. Rich are getting richer while middle class and poor are getting poorer. Exploitation of poor is at its zenith."The income gap is producing a level of tension that I have never seen in my life time," says Richard Wolff, a Marxist economist at New School of New York. Tensions between economic classes in the US are clearly on the rise. Society has been perceived as split between 99 percent (the regular folk, struggling to get by ) and the one percent (the connected and privileged super rich getting richer every day). Throughout the world strong to very strong conflict between rich and poor, particularly In China and India are taking explosive shape.

The Times Finance says, " a SEP study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington noted that the medium annual earnings of a full time, male worker in the US in 2011, at $48,202 were smaller than in 1973. Between 1983 to 2010, 74 percent of the gains in wealth in the US went to richest five percent while the bottom 60 percent suffered a decline, the EPI calculated. No wonder some have given the 19th century German philosopher a second look. In China, the Marxist country that turned its back on Marx. Yu Rongjun was inspired by world events to pen a musical based on Marx's classic Das Kapital, "you can find reality matches what is described in the book, says the playwright. One classic example of the US-"Trickle Down economics", which claims that the success of one percent will benefit the 99 percent. Such  rhetoric of America has come under heavy scrutiny.

If one considers these inequality throughout the planet countries, he will have to say Marx was entirely correct. His "dictatorship of proletariat" did not quite work as planned. But the consequences of of widening inequality is just what Marx had predicted:class struggle is back. The Times Finance writes, "Workers of the wold are growing angrier and demanding their fair share of the global economy. It seems that from the floor of U S Congress to the streets of Athens to the assembly lines of southern China, political and economic events are being shaped by escalating tensions between capital and labour, a degree unseen since the communist revolutions of 20 th century. How this struggle plays out will influence the direction of global economic policy, the future of welfare state, political stability in China and who governs from Washington to Rome. "

Ferocity of new class struggle has penetrated deep with more revolution-type movement in France. and financial crisis and budget cuts for poor made the situation worse in France and the rich-poor divide widened to such an extend that citizens of France voted the Socialist Party's Francois Hollande, who had once proclaimed: "I do not like the rich".. In China, Mao Zedong might have insisted that " political power grows pout of barrel of guns" but in word here Das Kapital is more and more mobile, the weapons of class struggle has changed. Rich-poor divide is perhaps most volatile in China.. Newly installed President of China Xi Jinping faces challenge. Even in rapidly expanding emerging markets, tension between rich and poor is becoming a primary concern for policy makers. The Times Finance commented, " contrary to what many disgruntled American and Europeans believe, China has not been a workers' paradise. The ' iron rice bowl-the Mao-era practise of guaranteeing workers jobs for life-faded  with Maoism and during the reform era, workers have had few rights. Even though wage income in China's cities is growing substantially, the rich -poor gap is extremely wide." Another Pew study revealed that nearly half of the Chinese surveyed consider the rich-poor divide a very big problem, while eight out of ten agreed with the proposition that the rich-just get richer while the poor get poorer in China..The report has also mentioned, " resentment is reaching a boiling point in China's factory towns and they say people from outside see our lives as very bountiful but the real life in the factory a is very different. Facing long hours, rising cost, indifferent managers and often late pay, workers are beginning to sound like true proletariat. Workers are organising and uniting themselves to protest atrocities. Experts believe it has been on the rise, workers have become outspoken in their demand for better wages and working condition. Such tactics have left China's proletariat distrustful of their proletariat dictatorship.. Social unrest is bound to creep in China to protest liberalised economic policy.

That is the ultimate fall-out in China  . Class interest brings class struggle. by forcibly overthrow of existing social condition. Marx wrote: " the proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains" World labourers are increasingly inpatients with their feeble prospects. Ten  of thousands have taken their streets of cities like Madrid, Athens, Delhi etc, protesting stratospheric unemployment and the austerity measures that making matter worse. Despite such volcanic situation throughout the world, the current economic policy , however, continues to fuel tension. In China, lip services have been adopted to narrow the income gap amid huge corruption.  India government by its new economic policy not only growing rich-poor gap but encouraging rampant corruption.In Europe debt burdens have slashed welfare programmes even as joblessness has risen and growth sagged.

Thus communism, diagnosed by Marx, getting deeper to ameliorate the deplorable condition of poor and middle classes. If the policy makers do not discover new methods of ensuring fair economic opportunity, the workers of the wold may unite, and Marx will have last laugh !