If we look at the history of economic thoughts, Karl Marx was the one that forcefully challenge the view of capitalism if not the first one. His opinion towards the failure of capitalism exactly suit in explaining the economic situation in Malaysia. Marx‘s The Communist Manifesto (1848) says “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
Marx concerns a lot with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labor power. Capitalism mediates social relationships of production (such as among workers or between workers and capitalists) through commodities, including labor that are bought and sold on the market. For Marx, the possibility that one may give up ownership of one's own labor—one's capacity to transform the world—is tantamount to being alienated from one's own nature; it is a spiritual loss. Marx described this loss as commodity fetishism, in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and movement of their own to which humans and their behavior merely adapt.
Marx concerns a lot with how people relate to that most fundamental resource of all, their own labor power. Capitalism mediates social relationships of production (such as among workers or between workers and capitalists) through commodities, including labor that are bought and sold on the market. For Marx, the possibility that one may give up ownership of one's own labor—one's capacity to transform the world—is tantamount to being alienated from one's own nature; it is a spiritual loss. Marx described this loss as commodity fetishism, in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and movement of their own to which humans and their behavior merely adapt.
Commodity fetishism provides an example of what Engels called "false consciousness", which relates closely to the understanding of ideology. By "ideology", Marx and Engels meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which contemporaries see as universal and eternal. For instance, Malaysian students are being taught on the rightfulness of Parliamentary Democracy and Constitutional Monarchy. Likewise, the secondary history subject brainwashes the students about the evilness of communist (in fact, Malayan Communists fought Japanese during WWII and never got their deserved emphasis on textbooks) and the glory of capitalism in reducing poor. I would say “No. World economy wasn’t saved by capitalism but Keynesianism.” In fact, it is the government spending or frankly, the tax money from the wealthy Chinese that saved the hungry one in this country.
Most importantly, Marx and Engels' point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve a killing political function. In other words, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). “Malays should be the true rulers of Malaysia”, “Chinese told their sons to be as rich as possible”.
Thus, while such ideas may be false, they also reveal in coded form some truth about political relations. For example, although the belief that the things people produce are actually more productive than the people who produce them is literally absurd, it does reflect (according to Marx and Engels) that people under capitalism are alienated from their own labor-power. In Malaysia, large-scale capital are being flowed and increased in the same community (capitalists, business tycoons, political leaders) again and again. The whole economy and the fate of 27 million people depends on the hands of just few hundred powerful and wealthy people.
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