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Marxist-Leninist Economics as an irrefutably theoretical foundation for industrialization and modernization (Part 1)

1/9/17
Theoretical issues concerning industrialization and modernization were thoroughly examined by founders of scientifc socialism from every conceivable angle. This lays a theoretical foundation for Vietnam’s socialist-oriented industrialization and modernization, thereby refuting the claim that Marxist-Leninist Economics is outdated.
Beginning to examine capitalism with commodity, Karl Marx pointed out that the law of value is an economic precondition for the advent of capitalism. By analyzing value and the law of value, Karl Marx proved that value relationships enabled people to be separated from self-dependence and to stick together in social relations, driving economic development. The law of value is equated with  economic power, explicitly indicating that only by answering the call of the market can economic development occur. It suggests a mentality concerning utilized comparative advantages, enhanced competiveness and prioritized growth poles that have been on the table in Vietnam’s strategy for industrialization and modernization.
Karl Marx’s “Capital” presents not only his theory of surplus value, one of his two seminal inventions, but also categories and laws of market economies. It is the biggest publication on the market economy on which reviewing the reality of the modern market economy is grounded by contemporary Marxist economists. Its principles remain irrefutable pertaining to commodity production, market, law of value, law of supply and demand, law of competition, capital market, credit, capital accumulation, rotation and circulation of capital, law of currency circulation. The publication also refutes the claim that Marxist-Leninist Economics is of no avail to the market mechanism that Vietnam pursues towards industrialization and modernization.
Karl Marx devoted much of “Capital” to analysing the movement of capital (both social and particular one) under the market mechanism. His central argument suggests  the growth of capital through the mechanism of constant conversion of surplus value into additional capital (accumulation). Speeding up the process of capital circulation and rotation is a matter of life and death to capitalists in particular, whose top priority is surplus value, and the capitalist economy as a whole. Not counting elements of capitalism, we can see that it is a true mechanism for economic development. It also indicates that increased capital accumulation and investment as well as technical change in production structure  drives economic growth. Promoting industrialization and modernization associated with developing a knowledge-based economy in Vietnam is equated with switching from an economy without accumulation (simple reproduction) to the one with accumulation (expanded reproduction in breadth and depth) on a larger scale. The Marxist theory on reproduction also provides quite a few suggestions on the relationship between accumulation and consumption, between capital accumulation and concentration as well as on great balances in the national economy. As a result, the claim that Marxist-Leninist Economics has nothing to learn from in order to serve our national construction is beyond comprehension.
In order to examine the advent of capitalism (that is to say capitalist industrialization), Karl Marx focused on 3 stages of capitalist development, namely simple cooperation, manufacture and large-scale industry. The historical starting point of capitalist production was a crowd of people working at the same time and at the same place under the control of a capitalist. As such, the production process witnessed a change in the organization of labour, which was direct social labour and cooperation. Cooperation and division of labour in manufacture represents 2 consecutive phases of labour revolution as production was still by hand. They directly socialized the labour process and created the social productive power. The specialization of labour helped to increase productive power of individuals and bode well for a change in instruments of labour. Both of these phases could be considered preparatory to the “take off” phase. The industrial revolution (industrialization) enabled capitalism to shift to the third development phase –large-scale mechanical industry. By this time, mechanical engineering was in the hands of the contemporary production system, thanks to which productive power of individuals was released from humans’ physical limitations, facilitating the introduction of science to production to gradually become a direct productive force. With industrialization, the economy was industry-based alongside the transfer of production structure whereby industry was detached from agriculure to become an independent production sector. It was a boom with a domino effect in the process of industrialization seen in a number of infant industries with the concomitant advent of other industries.
That relations of production shall match the development of productive forces requires that economic development be attributable to productive forces. Amidst Vietnam’s existing industrialization and modernization, it is necessary that the country’s production system undergo quite a few phases, from mechanical engineering to the 4th industrial revolution with great importance attached to the latter’s achievements in order to facilitate the development of productive forces.
Based on historical materialism, Karl Marx determined the relationship between base and superstruture, the former’s decisive role and the latter’s positives. This suggests the idea about the State management over the economic development, that is to say Vietnam’s ongoing process of industrialization and modernization.
It should be noted that Karl Marx’s classical industrialization model was production change-based whereby growth was mainly derived from accumulation and investment. Today, Vietnam shall inherit and develop Marxist-Leninist Economics when it comes to the country’s ongoing process of industrialization and modernization associated with development of a knowledge-based economy. Inheriting Marxist-Leninist Economics without critical thinking runs counter to wishes of Marxian economics’s founders.

V.I. Lenin was chosen by history to undertake a special mission, that is to say directly leading the building of socialism in Russia. While Tsar-ruled Russia had seen capitalism thrive on its soil and achieve Europe’s fifth fastest industrial growth, V.I.Lenin-led nascent Soviet government faced incredible odds, including anti-Soviet forces at home and abroad, a hungry and war-weary Russia. Against this backdrop, V.I.Lenin repeatedly underlined industrial development at all costs, taking heavy industry as a material-technical basis for socialism. In  essence, it was an industrial revolution whereby mechanization and electrification effected production restructuring. Under V.I.Lenin’s leadership, financial, material and intellectual resources were concentrated to prioritize the building of power plants under the slogan “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country”.
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