Who bears the cost for the modernization of Western countries?

Today, in the academic community, many scholars narrow down the understanding of modernity and interpret its essence as the combination of two elements: science and democracy. Historians often ask why some societies developed the spirit of science and democracy while others did not. As a result, modernity has often been regarded as being exclusive to particular races or cultures.

Such interpretation is ahistorical, and it overlooks the decisive role of the global movement of materials and resources in promoting the emergence of the spirit of modernity. Most importantly, this way of explaining does not address a crucial question: In these seemingly positive advancements, who or what is paying the price?

Modernity is characterized by industrialization. We often talk about the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where great geniuses, driven by the spirit of science, invented the steam engine and the spinning machine. However, the use of machinery in mass production required specific conditions that were tied to globalization.

The most essential condition was that India had been colonized by Britain, allowing it to obtain extremely cheap cotton as raw material. Britain then transported these materials through maritime routes under its control to industrial cities like Liverpool and Manchester, where spinning machines were used to produce high-quality and affordable cotton textiles. These textiles then were dumped back into the colonies. The Industrial Revolution was made possible by the cost paid by the cotton workers in British India and Egypt, as well as by enslaved laborers in the fields of the American South.

With the formation of the working class in capitalist countries, the political landscape began to change, and many thinkers started pondering new issues of power distribution.

As a result, we witnessed the emergence of notable works, such as Democracy in America by French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, Two Treatises of Government by British philosophers John Locke, and Government and On Liberty by James Mill and John Stuart Mill (son of James Mill).

However, we must not forget that while Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America, he also vigorously advocated for the French colonization of Algeria to address France's own political identity issue. Similarly, the three British philosophers actively participated in Britain's colonial endeavors. These principles and ideologies are intertwined with the global capitalist production system, and we should not separate the colonial aspect from our understanding of its democratic significance.

Modernization as a global system

Modernization does not simply refer to a straightforward path toward science and democracy. It is a specific historical context, representing a global network of interconnected human societies that has emerged since the Age of Exploration.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties in China (1368-1911), the circulation of American silver stimulated the commodification of Chinese society. Many Chinese goods also made their way to the Americas and Europe, stimulating local production and consumption. In terms of ideas, there was both the eastward movement of Western learning and the westward movement of Chinese learning. When Chinese ideas and culture were transmitted to Europe through Jesuit missionaries, they stimulated the rise of humanism and the development of new European ideas.

Once we change our perspective, we will realize that the idea of modernity did not solely originate and develop in Europe and then spread to the rest of the world. People from different parts of the world have participated in the making of modernity in different ways. For example, for enslaved people in West Africa, their experience of being trafficked was their part of modernity; for native Americans in the Americas, their lands were occupied, and they were subjected to massacres, which constituted their contribution to modernity; for Indians under colonization, it was also their modernity. When interpreting modernity, it is important for us to note that different people have participated, played different roles, and fulfilled different functions within the concept of modernity.

I refer to the modernity that has dominantly shaped the basic power structure of human society as colonial modernity. Over the past 500 years since Columbus' geographical discovery in 1492, modernity has been a trinity of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. Capitalism serves as the purpose, while colonialism is the means for endless capital accumulation. Under capitalist control, nations engage in imperialistic struggles to secure colonial privileges, resulting in a hierarchical and monopolistic power structure of imperialism.

How is Chinese modernization different from the colonial modernity?

Can China break free from the development path of colonial modernity? From the perspective of industrialization alone, China has indeed successfully found a different path. China may be the only major industrialized country in the world that has achieved industrialization independently without relying on colonialism as a means.

Has China pursued modernization with the aim of establishing an imperialistic hegemonic monopoly as its power base? It is clear that China does not aspire to pursue a unipolar hegemonic power structure. So, who or what pays the price for this pursuit? The answer is the people of China.

In the first 30 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, our predecessors achieved social accumulation through long-term low-income and low consumerism, using the surplus value for social development. One of the reasons why China was able to achieve this was that the socialist system guaranteed people's basic rights to healthcare and education on a relatively widespread basis. As a result, we saw a significant increase in life expectancy and population during those three decades. It can be said that China's path toward modernization was built upon the sacrifices made by its own people. China's development is not based on colonialism as a means or the pursuit of imperialism as a quest for power. Its goal is not unlimited capital accumulation. In my view, this kind of modernization points to a new possibility in history.

Therefore, when discussing China's modernization, I personally do not like to use terms like "civilization" or "culture" because in Western and English contexts, "civilization" often implies a dichotomy between civilization and barbarism, suggesting the need to "civilize barbaric peoples." China's modernity or modernization does not aim to establish a hierarchy of civilizations and then seek to educate or oppress others.

Of course, this statement is not meant to oppose the West or start a new paradigm. Many progressive elements of Western countries have already been internalized within China's modern experiences since the 15th-16th centuries. Moreover, apart from China and the West, there are vast other communities in human society. The elements of modernity proposed by China cannot ignore the demonstration effects in the Third World and the Global South. What we anticipate is for China to contribute to the holistic development of human society through exploration and provide valuable insights for others to learn from.

The author is Song Nianshen, professor at Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, Tsinghua University.

Liu Xian /Editor    Zhang Rong /Translator

Yang Xinhua /Chief Editor    Ren Qiang /Coordinator

Liu Li /Reviewer

Zhang Weiwei /Copyeditor    Tan Yujie /Image Editor

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