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A discussion on the theme of “Collapsing Capitalism and the Shining Prospects of Socialism” was held on 21^st September, 2020 via online medium of Zoom meeting app. Prof Dr. Yubaraj Sangroula presented his paper on the same theme and there were numerous expert commentators from various fields, in home and abroad, to comment on his paper. The three-hour long discussion was addressed by Former Prime Minister Hon. Jhalnath Khanal on capacity of the Chief Guest. Other speakers/commentators were: Nepalese Politician and an expert on infrastructure policy Dr. Surya Raj Acharya, Sociologist and Marxist thinker Dr. Khagendra Prasai, Nepal Communist Party Leader and Parliamentarian Hon. Ramkumari Jhakri, NCP leaders Lekhnath Neupane and Thakur Gaire, Chinese Political Analyst Zhang Lee, and Prominent Young scholar and activist Kundan Jha. Similarly, advocate Swecchya Sangroula and Assistant Professor of Kathmandu School of Law Ms. Amritha Shenoy offered participatory remarks.

The discussion was moderated by Associate Professor (Dr.) Atindra Dahal and was broadcasted through Namaste Khowpa TV.

A brief summary of the comments passed by all the speakers of the discussion is as follows:

Professor Dr. Yubaraj Sangroula

Dr. Sangroula started his presentation by putting forward a message that there is an ongoing unexpected pause globally due to Corona-virus; and claimed furtherance that the public health situation and socio-economic ramifications it has had now has timely and adequately prompted the need for debates related to socialism. Basically there is a connection between development and socialism that needs to be focused and the relevant policies must be carefully chosen, otherwise we may risk inviting destruction in the name of development.

The agricultural revolution took place in the world about 15,000 years ago. This revolution when gradually changed into industrial revolution took very long period of time. Between these two revolutions, various types of colonies were established and various others were destroyed too, various diseases and pandemics occurred. Despite all these issues, the human population increased and so did the process of origin of nation-states.

China, South Asian countries and so on leaped into the process of development before 4000 years from now. Philosophies, both eastern and western, and pertaining to, inter-alia, mathematics, technology were resurrected in Europe and industrial revolution brought colonization forward in a massive way. In Europe, class society began and colonization was set up. Along with it, slavery, laborers exploitation, selling and buying of women’s body were legitimized and the European colonies were established throughout the world including China and India. Although Nepal was not under any colonies, Dr. Sangroula claimed that it nevertheless carries an insulted history regarding mass drain of youth population as mercenaries and non- regain of its defeated land from the British East India Company even after the decolonization of India.

After having given a brief backdrop on global cum national history, Dr. Sangroula focused more on the socialist movement in Nepal. He stated that Nepal has had 70 years long socialist movement which we can directly see and analyze.

According to Dr. Sangroula, we can observe that China and Nepal underwent communist movement almost at the same time. The communist movement started in China in 1927 and few years later in Nepal. Now, there are instances where a number of communist governments have ruled the country, quite a few movements and revolutions took place but the achievements are null which means that the country is still under the grasp of capitalism ideology. Whatsoever, there lies huge wave of opportunities that socialism could bring to this country and debates related to these matters should thus be highly prioritized.

Dr. Sangroula then again jumped to history, but this time engaged in focusing on global communist history. The Communist manifesto was released on 12^th February, 1848; 178 years before from today. Looking at this era of revolution, it can be analyzed that the communist manifesto has put forward a clear political guidance for the salvation of omnipotent class of society. Its principle was not only focused on the ideal of a classless society but most importantly it was against colonialism and imperialism. It played a great role in advocating for suppressed and exploited workers and citizens all around the globe.

According to Dr. Sangroula, communist manifesto has institutionalized four major achievements for the establishment of socialism. They are:

The means of production subjected under the capitalist was brought to an end and the subjection of power and production under working class took place.
The renouncement of existence of class-based society and imperialist power.
Brought forward a principle that expulsed the bourgeois/elitist ideology.
Analyzing different political power or parties, including those that opposed communism, the establishment of leadership of working class was announced.

Dr. Sangroula said that it is important to ponder over which strategy among these has Nepali communist compartment adopted? Or in other words, what ideology has communist movement adopted and up to what extent? The civil society discourse should be centered on these issues and also regarding the achievements that communist movements have yielded. He further said that even after such long communist movement, we still have not reached anywhere so it’s high time that we ought to accept our mistakes and focus on rectifying the weaknesses.

Without considering the essentiality of the movement of working class, the theory and recognition of scientific socialism seems impractical. As we agree that every working class faces the similar problem of exploitation of their work and life around the world then it cannot be argued that a different form of exploitation exists in our Nepalese society. Contemplating from this vantage point, we must take socialist movement as it is and should not divert anywhere else, and we must also make sure that class society problem is not transmuted to ethnic movement. Discourses related to these matters should come to highlight. If socialism accepts internationalism as an ideological strategy then it is important for Nepal, as a socialism aspiring state, to understand where it stands on this matter? It is equally important to figure out how Nepal could connect itself with the socialist countries for the movement and what stance it ought to take regarding socialism? Questions as such should be made subject of intense discussions.

Dr. Sangroula engrossed the idea of “new economic policy” put forward by Lenin and its theories of certain freedom of market and society’s development to illustrate the revolution that took place in China, where the former policy was considered as a base. Explaining this new economic policy, the communist party in China was established in 1927. After Mao Zedong’s rise as the leader of the communist party of China, he clearly mentioned that country like China, which has not undergone any industrial revolution or industrial development, the communist movement has to take place under the leadership of farmers and they are the vanguard of revolution. Gradually adopting the ideologies of Marx and Lenin, the Mao led revolution in China that prioritized role of farmers and establishment of military posts soon became an exemplary form of revolution for Asia.

Returning back to Nepali context, Dr. Sangroula said that the relation between agriculture and industry, between communist leadership and political parties, communist leadership and citizens, between ongoing colonialism induced globalization and constitution’s socialism oriented society are some fundamentals that every socialist should understand, but we have hardly attempted to understand such dual relations. Furthermore, we did not comprehend from Bolshevik revolution, nor from the communist manifesto and neither from revolution of farmers and working class created by Lenin nor from Chinese revolution. We did not learn anything regarding communism from socialist countries like Cuba, Vietnam and so on. Whatever we have learnt is a grasp from World Bank and IMF. It’s not that theories of World Bank and IMF aren’t to be learned, but we cannot establish then materialize our constitutional aspiration of a socialist state only by consuming theories of these institutions. We either have to learn from these and stop talking about establishing socialism or forget these institutions and learn the practices and ideology from socialist countries. We should have a vivid vista regarding this matter.

Towards the conclusion, Dr. Sangroula focused on the paucity of discussions that happen on socialist system despite Nepal being a country ruled by communist party, something he labeled as being ‘paradoxical’. In a context where even epitome advocates of neo liberalism, such as the USA have been talking about socialism, we have instead been fascinated by neo liberalism and have shown submissiveness towards other theories of World Bank. So where are we heading towards is a very important question. In the past, we did not tend to clear our vision, because of which we endorsed neo-liberalism and we still do, as a result of which our economic and political system are in the verge of irreparable collapse. So, discussions and debates regarding these issues should be held in various ways way so that we can find a better way for the future of the nation.

Dr. Surya Raj Acharya

According to Dr. Acharya, if we look at political economics, its analysis is usually static, unlike Marx who posed a dynamic analysis of economics making it an interesting read and feel. Marx was ‘unique’, for analyzing subjects like sociology, economics and politics as a whole. The narrative of Thomas Piketty, Joseph Stigltiz, and Paul Krugman have hugely contributed in shaping the structure of discourse started by Marx on social development, politics, law, socialism and politics. The major premise of Marx that physical objects created an ideology would also have changed had he himself written his ideas 172 years later. Therefore it is necessary that we create variation when trying to study Marx today. He said that it is important to revisit the notion of Social Engineering and that development of society is organic. Capitalism has internal conflict but every time capitalism is in crisis, it gives birth to a reformed Capitalism and not socialism. After the great depression of 1930, capitalism bore a different form. Similarly the 2007 financial crisis did not mark the fall of capitalism. He dynamically analyzed that until and unless an ‘alternative’ which fulfills the financial and social aspirations of people as efficiently as Capitalism is discovered, Capitalism will prevail in the society. It might change form but it will still prevail.

Market system and Capitalism are not the same. Market system itself is secular, and is neither left nor right. It is simply a scientific approach to efficient resource allocation. China today has made great utilization of the Market system within its socialist framework. Often the ideas of capitalism, neo- liberalism and market system are studied interchangeably but each of these ideas needs to be finely defined. Acharya also discussed how the market system has the capability of disclosing the information about private needs and utility to the public and how capitalism abused that information using the market system. Capitalism has two faces, one creates capital and another abuses it. Socialism is similar to Capitalism up to the process of capital formation. In a socialistic society, irrespective of a child’s social and economic background, the child has the possibility to fully nurture capabilities. Francis Fukuyama, who was known as the father of neo-liberalism, for many years, had whole heartedly lauded China’s development model and also defined Chinese Socialist model as the competitor of Western Capitalistic system. If we look at Japan, we can see how they never layoff their workers and how its system is not that different from socialistic assumption and philosophy. In 1993-94, after the fall of USSR, there even was an assumption that only one Communist state was surviving and that was Japan. Though Japan has a capitalistic parliamentary democracy, the country has incorporated the socialistic ideologies in the system. The commenter ended his comments by acknowledging the massive role Dr. Sangroula’s paper will play in guiding the Nepalese society and its politics. Providing an insightful comment on the paper, Surya Raj Acharya also lauded Dr. Sangoula’s initiative of a public discourse through his writing.

Dr. Khagendra Prasai

Dr. Prasai began by refuting couple of claims put by former commentator Suryaraj Acharya where Dr. Prasai contended that the concept of social engineering is relevant to all types of societies, including capitalist, socialist, and feudal and so on. He also added that the reason why Japan was called another communist state after USSR was because a huge part of Japanese economy would be invested in public welfare.

He then moved towards clearing the concept of socialism wherein he stated that socialism refers to the process of nationalization of means of production as well as the nationalization of profit yielded from the production. Quoting Noam Chomsky’s statement “Capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich”, Dr. Prasai denounced the research methodology of separating the concept of prosperity, good governance and development from class organization in the society.

Dr. Prasai also shed light on the development of socialist movement in Nepal, which he stated is in a crisis. To support his argument, Dr. Prasai recalled 1990s when Soviet and China were failing, thus leading to Nepal’s socialist movement lost the sense of its philosophical grounds; as a result of which, Nepalese politics shifted from class-based to identity and gender-based, all of which were in favor of capitalism since these matters didn’t raise the question of resource redistribution. Since the concept of identity was competed against the concept of class, issues of class conflict started fading in the socialist parties, ultimately giving space for capitalist cum tycoons’ invasion in party politics; and the situation remains the same even today, thus putting socialist movement in a state of crisis.

Lack of organized form of labor class in Nepal is another testimony which Dr. Prasai referred for making apparent example that the state of crisis of socialist movement in Nepal persists long.

Dr. Prasai asserted that the possibility of socialism should only be studied in context of global order, by finding answers to a question such as which one is the direction Nepal’s among the trend of capitalism or socialism functionally? Apart from this, Dr. Prasai repeatedly stressed on the importance of seeking answers to major questions such as: are Nepal’s material conditions suitable for socialism? In a context where more than 70% Nepalese farmers have ownership upon land, will they be ready to endorse socialism which calls for nationalization of all lands? Finding answers to these questions, according to him, is the main and topmost priority of today’s socialist movement; and for the matters of socialist organization, unity and movement start getting shape only after answering these questions.

Hon. Ram Kumari Jhakri

Hon. Jhakri started off with her statement that intellectual debates on socialism are rarely held in Nepal, even today. The political parties who follow the ideology and who have an aim to achieve socialism today barely follow the socialistic path. Political parties like NCP which made a promise to establish a socialist state through its manifesto has rather been working to establish neo-liberal policies. The socialist and Marxist ideology is cashed only to get votes.

Today, education and health have turned into the most profitable business; and despite this we have not left the promise of socialism. This is utterly inconsistent.

The role of parties has not been very proper when it comes to making socialist policies and passing such sort of laws. NCP has not brought this issue to light since the 9^th congress of the party. The discussion related to socialism has faded inside the NCP.

Capitalism is saved by the capital. It doesn’t fail easily but for socialism to succeed, it needs support of people. NCP has failed to draw and tell people about its policies on how a socialist state under NCP would look like. NCP has absolutely failed to give role to intellectuals and it has been favoring crony capitalism. Today, this party has gone into the hands of contractors and business persons.

There is no system of caucus in the parliament and even inside the parties thus, the difference of opinion and the progressive views hardly comes to the light. Parliamentarians are forced to vote on the whip, they rarely get to express their views. The individualistic views within the party have added to our plight.

Lekhnath Neupane

Neupane commenced his comment with a statement that the inputs given by the intellectuals are rarely heard by the ones who are responsible for driving nation into the track of socialism. Nepal’s track towards socialism has been diverted and we are, today, solely focused on the mega infrastructural projects like towers and stadiums. The track towards socialism and the track that we have been adopting are very different and capaciously controversial. We must make a special study on this issue. We must properly analyze the practice of socialism that we have been seeing in different parts of the world. The track adopted by China, Cuba, and Cambodia is all different thus; their system must be properly analyzed before commenting on the socialistic system.

We have failed to understand our aim. Whether, the aim is scientific socialism or the one that Bourgeoisies have been continuously opining about, which is totally different from the scientific socialism solely based on Marx’s view.

Neupane furthermore claimed that there is a huge confusion in Nepali society that the socialism is an economic idea very separate from politics and its base is fully constructed when the economic development reaches its peak; but he denounced this assertion telling that it’s partly true. Similarly, another basic question surrounding our aim of socialism is how will the different classes fit within that system? Will it be classless or will it accommodate people from every class. Scientific socialism cannot be achieved if people from different classes are accommodated in a system. Society must be classless to achieve scientific socialism. The method to scientific socialism, he asserted, is revolution and nothing else.

Furthermore, we don’t have a clear vision on the current status of Nepali society. Are we a capitalistic society or have we reached ahead than that is something? It must be seriously understood. Without properly assessing the situation, the revolution is almost impossible.

Not only NCP but numerous communist parties in Nepal have failed to lead the socialistic revolution in Nepal. People are very indifferent towards the idea of socialism though they belong to the working class. Neupane claimed this to be the failure of the communist parties and the frontline communist leaders.

Thakur Gaire

Gaire commenced his comments by saying that Prof. Sangroula’s paper was based on present world order, world-wide wave of capitalism and present condition of socialism. He stressed that today’s focus should be based on what will come after capitalism. Will we take our system towards a better capitalism or a better socialism? These questions should be addressed by us and our leaders as soon as possible. He also mentioned that we should analyze the factors which are stopping us from establishing socialism in our country. We should also find out classes involved in struggle in Nepal. Finding out the actors in class struggle is important. Mr. Gaire gave an example of China on how it developed and implemented its own model of socialism, learning from other countries. But, he asserted, taking the way of privatization in health, education and industry won’t lead us to socialism.

Gaire added that Marxism with Nepali characteristics and features is something which needs to be looked for very soon. There is no replacement to Marxism and socialist system. Capitalism won’t address the wants of people and lead us to equality based society. Is the policy we have adopted socialist? Will NCP leadership listen to the voice from the party cadres from the lower level or will it impose its own view in determining the goals and the policies of the party? These are the major questions that Nepal Communist Party should address. At last, he ended his comments by raising the question on whether we will be able to reach socialism by carrying the burden of crony capitalism.

Zhang Lee

Mr. Lee shed light on the Bourgeoisie’s cultural hegemony, analyzing how it has been influencing the life of working class people in the west. He argued that this was the main reason Marxist socialist movement didn’t flourish in Western Europe. He said that the west has built a big conspiracy to eliminate socialist movement from the world. According to the commentator, they especially, want to suppress the increasing Chinese influence in the world as China is advocating the concept of modern socialism. He forwarded the example of how the west played a role in the declination of the USSR in 1992 A.D. He also argued that the west wanted to suppress the socialist movement because they have a belief that Socialism is possible only in theory but practically is an impossible task.

Kundan Jha

Kundan Jha compared Marx’s socialist movement through the lens of Nepalese socialist movement. He said that we have been unable to identify the actual interest holder i.e. laborer class to lead this socialist movement in Nepal. According to him, without the leadership of these classes, socialist movement in Nepal is impossible. He also said that the geopolitical situation of Nepal has played a great role to influence capitalism in Nepal and it will keep playing in the future too. This is why it is a very difficult task to run socialist movement in Nepal. He also shed light on the pragmatic approach of Socialism in Nepal. If we become unable to advocate the pragmatic approach of socialism and keep talking about the theoretical aspects of socialism in the election manifesto then Socialist Nepal will only remain a dream.

Swechhya Sangroula

Swechhya Sangroula continued the discussion by providing insights on socialism and historical sanction against it in the United States of America. The commentator during her study at Harvard Law School, USA experienced the Socialist movement and its history in America. The left-leaning movement in America is rising from grass root level among the liberals in the USA whose figureheads are Senator Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. She explained that, for a long time, the American people have hatred and fear even against the word ‘socialism’ let alone the word ‘communism’. During the Second World War, after the death of President Franklin Roosevelt, Vice-President Henry Wallace was denied Presidency because he could uphold the concepts of the welfare of common people. This hatred towards socialism strengthened from the cultural and intellectual hegemony against socialism, branding it as disease and malignancy. Security Agencies in the USA have actively carried out persecution and surveillance to instill fear and hatred against socialism. The speaker presented that, in the USA, socialist leader Bernie Sanders and the socialist movement, which stands for better health and education system, has generated a positive perception of American people towards socialism.

Dr. Amritha V. Shenoy

Dr. Shenoy, a scholar from Kerala, clarified about the socialist model of development in Kerala. This model of development has been endorsed by Indian Economist Amartya Sen. The speaker provided that the Kerala model of development has been successful and also has positively handled the COVID crisis and that was even praised by the capitalists. The Kerala model focuses on the education and health sector resulting in higher literacy rate and higher life expectancy. The other factors of success of Kerala Model are the political consciousness and participation of citizens as well. Historically, Kerala has been a multicultural society and the Kerala Model accepts and respects pluralism which, according to the speaker, is an important factor for development. The Kerala culture historically has been compatible with socialism.

Another key factor for Kerala’s development is that the changes from the social movement led by various scholars and activists are being fully institutionalized. Kerala, contrary to the core communist belief, has been adopting new technologies which are aiding its development. The speaker asserts that Kerala Socialist movement self introspected its dynamics of society, like its caste problem, contrary to the Bengali Socialist Movement which focused on classical class dynamics. This also amounted to the success of the Kerala Socialist movement.

Hon. Jhalanath Khanal

The former PM, on capacity of chief guest, gave his comments on the paper by focusing on how socialism can become the future of the world. He talked about the history of socialism by mentioning the presence of socialism even in the time of primitive era. He stressed that we are now moving towards scientific socialism and have passed the phase of ancient socialism. In 1917, socialist revolution in Russia (the then USSR) became a platform to announce that capitalist evolution has come to end and now the world has moved towards socialist revolution. Around 70 years of socialism grew over the world. The USSR thought that its model should be used all around the world but it did not develop its model as dynamic and society oriented. Due to this, the socialist model used by the USSR collapsed in 1988. This collapse was advertised by the West as “end of socialism”. It was not the end of socialism but it was the end of USSR model of socialism. Now with many ups and downs, China has also grown as a developed socialist state. It has convinced its people, basically farmers and workers, that they have better future only in socialism. China adopted the policy of opening up and socialism ‘balancing with production’. With these dynamic policies, China is now competing with USA.

He also shed light in the context of Nepal, in which he mentioned how the country fought full 58 years against feudalism. Now we cannot find feudalism in practice but some of the people even now have the concept of feudalism in their thinking pattern. Not feudalism, but Nepal is practicing capitalist mode of production and slowly we will have to move towards socialist mode of production. Reaching socialism needs a lot of time. We won’t reach there in just a few years. To gain a prosperous socialism, we will have to open industries, start production and generate capitals; and to make socialism soil suited, we should continue our discussion and debate mostly among youngsters and students.

Closing remarks

At the end of the program, Prof. Dr. Yubaraj Sangroula put forward some closing remarks wherein he reiterated the importance of discussions as these on socialism, especially when communist parties are at power. He also gave a short reply to Dr. Khagendra Prasai’s statement where he had been skeptic on the willingness of land-owning farmers to endorse socialism, saying that if alternative of industrialization is set in the sight of farmers, they will be willing to leave their lands, thus paving the way for nationalization of lands. On an ending note, stating that the Nepal Communist Party faces bigger challenge than other political parties in terms of assuring socialism, Dr. Sangroula suggested the leaders of the NCP to be aware of dual relations and models of development relevant in Nepalese context. He furthermore assured the continuity of similarly themed discussions in upcoming series.

BRI Conference 2021

Program Details

Nepal-China BRI Framework Agreement

Webinar Session on Collapsing Capitalism and the Shining Prospects of Socialism

Introductory Session