Capitalist Society

The last social formation in human history based on the exploitation of one individual by another. This society is based on the capitalist private property of means of production, and the capitalists exploit and employ the workers and the bourgeoisie holds the state power.

Capitalist relations of production emerged within the feudal society. Capitalist production germinated in some cities along the Mediterranean coast in the 14th and 15th centuries, but the capitalist era did not begin until the 16th century. At the end of feudal society, the development of commodity economy promoted the disintegration of natural economy in feudal society and caused the polarization of petty commodity producers. This process was accelerated by the intensification of the primitive accumulation of capital. Capitalism has developed rapidly in Western European countries. On this basis, the bourgeois revolutions broke out in Netherlands, England and France one after another, and finally the capitalist society was established.

The basic feature of the capitalist society is that the development of commodity production has become the universal form of production and the form of domination of society. Labor-power has turned into a commodity; the capitalists hold the means of production of society and exploit the proletarians in the form of wage-labor; the capitalists’ exploitation of the surplus-value created by employing labor is the purpose of production. The fundamental contradiction in the capitalist society is the contradiction between the socialization of production and the capitalist private appropriation. This fundamental contradiction runs through the development of capitalist society from beginning to end. Economically, it manifests itself as the contradiction between the organization of production in the individual workshop and the anarchy of production in society generally; politically, it manifests itself as the contradiction and struggle between the two antagonistic classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie holds the means of production of society and controls the state power, and is the ruling class of capitalist society. The proletariat, opposed and antagonistic to it, is the ruled and oppressed class. Economically, it is subjected to the brutal exploitation of the bourgeoisie, and politically in a powerless position. But the proletariat is the child of the modern large-scale mechanical industry, the representative of advanced productive forces, the most advanced and revolutionary class, and the gravedigger of the capitalist system. On the basis of capitalist economy, the bourgeoisie established the state power of bourgeois dictatorship, abolished the feudal system of estates and theocratic rule of the church, and introduced the bourgeois democracy and electoral system, which was a historical progress compared to feudal society. However, whether it adopts a constitutional monarchy or a parliamentary republic, its essence is the embodiment of the will of the bourgeoisie who hold the state power, the function of which is “a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” and a “national war engine of capital against labor”. The integration of these two aspects is to maintain the capitalist employment system, so that “the master has no time for anything but money, the servant has no time for anything but labor”, and to guarantee the capitalist’s unpaid appropriation of the surplus-value created by the worker. The backing of this “guarantee” is a whole set of power of the state machinery such as the standing army, police, gendarmerie, the courts, etc. The bourgeoisie also consolidates this function and power through the constitution and the law. Engels once pointed out clearly that in France the rule of the bourgeoisie is “sanctioned through the courts of trade, the factory courts, the bourgeois jury and the entire body of material legislation”. Lenin also said: “In the final analysis, it is one single sentence: private property is sacred and inviolable.” The interests and the will of the bourgeoisie are paramount. Once the rule of the bourgeoisie is legalized, its functions can be carried out on a national scale in a legitimate manner. The British Bill of Rights (1689), Constitution of the United States (1787) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) are constitutions representative of the capitalist society. As for the so-called bourgeois democracy, it “always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor.”

In capitalist society, alongside the dominant capitalist mode of production, there are still remnants of old modes of production. For example, if there are no feudal privileges or only very few privileged land-owners, they usually rent their land to agricultural capitalists and participate in the exploitation of wage-laborers in the form of rent; some rent their land to peasants or engage in capitalist production by using wage-labor. For example, individual peasants and craftsmen also account for a certain proportion of the total population, and they are the allies of the proletariat. They will continue to differentiate with the development of capitalism, and the vast majority will fall into poverty and bankruptcy, joining the ranks of the proletariat.

Capitalist society has a historical process of development. Before the late 19th century and early 20th century, capitalism was in a rising liberal phase; since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, capitalism has developed into the phase of monopoly capitalism. The general economic laws of capitalism operate in both phases of capitalism and at the same time, monopoly capitalism is distinguished by and attains whole series of important special features. At this point, monopoly became the basis of all capitalist economic life. Industrial and bank capital interpenetrated and merged with each other to form finance capital. As a concentrated reflection of monopoly capitalist relations of production, finance capital is the latest form and purest form of the development of capital. The personified representatives of the category of finance capital is the financial oligarchy who controls industrial enterprises and banks. The total and absolute domination of economic and social life by the financial oligarchy is the essence of finance capital and the essence of monopoly. It includes both the domination of production and the control of distribution as well as the manipulation of society as a whole. Its fundamental purpose is to make monopoly profits that exceed average profits. That’s why Lenin said: “Finance capital strives for domination, not freedom.” Lenin also said: “Imperialism is the epoch of finance capital and of monopolies, which introduce everywhere the striving for domination, not for freedom. Whatever the political system, the result of these tendencies is everywhere reaction and an extreme intensification of antagonisms in this field.” The two world wars were the product of extreme intensification of antagonisms in this field. Now, monopoly capitalism has developed into state monopoly capitalism and even international monopoly capitalism. The virtualization of finance capital has further propelled the rule of the financial oligarchy, and the historical trend of imperialism becoming parasitic, decaying and moribund has become even more pronounced. Of course, the all-round political reaction of imperialism is more profound and unprecedentedly prominent than in the times in which Lenin lived. Since the birth of capitalist society, the above-mentioned inherent irreconcilable contradictions have existed. The development of these contradictions will eventually lead to the overthrow of the capitalist system of exploitation by the proletarian revolution and the establishment of a new socialist system. It is an inevitable historical trend for capitalist society to be replaced by socialist and communist society.