God I wish I lived in a country like Vietnam where the leaders are Marxist-Leninist professors lol. He’s one smart guy, great section:
We concur that capitalism has never been more global as it is today, and has achieved immense accomplishments, especially in liberating and developing the productive capacity and advancing science and technology. Many developed capitalist countries, building on their advanced economic foundation and also thanks to the struggle of the working class and working people, have made adjustments and set up considerable social welfare schemes that are more progressive than before. Since the mid-1970s, and particularly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, international capitalism spared no effort to adjust itself and promoted neo-liberalism at the global scale in order to adapt to new conditions. For this reason, it is still able to grow further. Yet capitalism still cannot address its innate and fundamental contradictions. Crises continue to break out. Most notably, in 2008 and 2009 we witnessed a financial crisis and economic recession starting in the United States. It then rapidly spread to other centres of capitalism and affected nearly every country in the world. Capitalist states and governments in the West injected huge amounts of money into their system to save transnational corporations, industrial, financial and banking complexes, and security markets, but they only gained limited success. And today we witness a multi-faceted health, social, political and economic crisis unfolding under the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. An economy in recession has unmasked social injustice within capitalist societies. The living standard of the majority of working people is falling dramatically while unemployment rises. The rich-poor gap grows larger, exacerbating antagonism and conflict among ethnicities. Instances of “bad development” and “anti-development” paradoxes have spilled over from the economic and financial domain into social life, igniting social conflicts. In many places, economic incidents became political ones, where waves of demonstrations and strikes would shake the entire regime. Reality has shown us that the “free market” of capitalism itself cannot help solve these problems, and in many cases even causes serious harm to poor countries and deepens the conflict between global labour and global capital. This reality also rips apart economic theories or development models that have long been considered as “in vogue”. They were praised by bourgeois politicians and viewed as “optimal” and “sensible” by bourgeois experts.
The economic and financial crises are accompanied by the energy and food crises, the exhaustion of natural resources and the degradation of the environment and ecosystem. These are posing monumental challenges to the existence and development of mankind. They are the consequences of a process of economic and social development that crowned profit as its supreme end, that esteemed the possession of wealth and consumption of material as the yardstick of civilization, and that upholds individual interest as the pillar of society. Such are the core characteristics of the capitalist mode of production and consumption. The ongoing crises once again prove the economic, social and ecological unsustainability of capitalism. According to many scientists, the present crises are impossible to be fully resolved within the framework of a capitalist regime.
Recent social protest movements flaring up in many developed capitalist countries have further exposed the truth about the nature of capitalist polities. In fact, democratic institutions in the mould of “freedom and democracy” that the West spares no effort to promote and impose upon the world at large not at all guarantee that power shall truly be of the people, by the people and for the people - what democracy means at its core. This system of power still belongs mainly to the wealthy few and serves the interest of large capitalist cartels. A tiny minority, even just about 1% of the population, possesses the vast majority of wealth and means of production, controls three quarter of financial and knowledge resources and the mainstream mass media, and accordingly dominates the entire society. This is the root cause of the “99% versus 1%” movement in the United States in early 2011, which has since spread like wildfire into other capitalist countries. The claim of “equal rights” detached from “equal opportunities” to exercise these rights led to democracy in name only - emptiness and without substance. In political life, once the power of money dominates, the power of the people shall be overpowered. This is why in developed capitalist countries, “free” and “democratic” elections, as they claim, may change governments, but may not change the ruling power. Behind the multi-party system in fact remains the dictatorship of capitalist cartels.
We need a society in which development is truly for humans, not for exploitation and dehumanization for the sake of profit. We need economic development accompanied by social progress and equality, not an increase in the gap between the rich and the poor or greater social inequity. We need a society of compassion, solidarity and mutual assistance towards progressive and humanistic values, not unfair competition where “the weak are meat, and the strong do eat” to satisfy the selfish interest of a few individuals and cliques. We need sustainable development in harmony with nature to secure a clean living environment for present and future generations, instead of unlimited exploitation and possession of resources, unrestrained consumption and destruction of the environment. And we need a political system where power truly belongs to the people, is enforced by the people and serve the people, not merely in the interest of the wealthy few. Such beautiful ideals are the true values of socialism, aren’t they? And, are they also the goal and the path that President Ho Chi Minh and our Party and people had chosen, the path upon which we persevere, aren’t they?
As we all know, the Vietnamese people have undergone a long, arduous and sacrifice-filled revolutionary struggle against colonialist and imperialist domination and invasion in order to defend the sacred national independence and sovereignty and for the freedom and happiness of our people, in the spirit of “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom”.
National independence associated with socialism is the fundamental guideline of Vietnam’s revolution and at the same time the quintessence in the theoretical legacy of President Ho Chi Minh. Through his wealth of practical experience, combined with the revolutionary and scientific theories of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh came to a profound conclusion that only socialism and communism may fully answer the question of national independence and bring about freedom, wellbeing and happiness to everyone and every nation.
