[Part 9]The cabinet reshuffle of 8 September 2025, which saw the replacement of Sri Mulyani and Budi Arie, should be understood not merely as an act of abrupt presidential authority but as a response to long-standing public pressures. Sri Mulyani had been criticised for policies that appeared overly technocratic and burdensome, while Budi Arie had been embroiled in parliamentary friction. Their departures were, therefore, not entirely surprising to domestic observers who had long demanded fresh leadership in these posts.Internationally, foreign media highlighted Sri Mulyani’s exit as a blow to Indonesia’s fiscal credibility. She was portrayed as a respected technocrat whose sudden removal unsettled markets and raised doubts about policy continuity. Investors, in particular, expressed unease at losing a figure seen as a guarantor of fiscal prudence. Domestically, however, the mood is: some citizens welcomed her removal as overdue renewal.Politically, the reshuffle strengthened the president’s position and his inner team, demonstrating his capacity to respond to both public demands and coalition dynamics with decisiveness. At the same time, the cabinet changes opened opportunities for new actors within the coalition, creating space for redistribution of influence in a manner that could stabilise the government moving forward. The move thus signalled both firmness at the centre and flexibility towards partners.Economically speaking, the markets got jittery straight away. The rupiah and the Jakarta Composite Index took a bit of a dip, but nothing too dramatic—no need to fetch the smelling salts just yet.On the matter of protocol, the president acted fully within his constitutional authority, as ministerial appointments and dismissals require only his decree and formal swearing-in. The compressed timeline of notification, however, drew attention. While it was legally permissible, it raised questions about administrative courtesy. Yet one plausible explanation for the short notice is strategic: by limiting advance leaks, the palace may have sought to prevent external interference or lobbying.Now, back to our topic.
Throughout the history of the world, political and economic thought has given birth to a wide range of ideologies beyond socialism and communism, each claiming to hold the key to justice, order, or prosperity. Liberalism, for example, emerged as a powerful intellectual force during the Enlightenment, advocating individual rights, free markets, and the limitation of state power. Conservatism, in contrast, arose as a response to revolutionary upheavals, stressing the importance of tradition, authority, and continuity to preserve social harmony. Nationalism, which took shape in the nineteenth century, emphasised the sovereignty of a people united by culture, language, or history, often becoming both a unifying and a destructive force.In parallel, Fascism appeared in the twentieth century as an authoritarian creed rooted in ultranationalism, glorification of the state, and the rejection of liberal democracy. Closely tied to it, Nazism added a racial dimension that led to some of the darkest chapters in human history. Meanwhile, Capitalism evolved into the dominant economic system of modern times, built on private ownership, competition, and the pursuit of profit, though it has been challenged repeatedly by crises and calls for regulation. Anarchism also found its place in history, proposing a radical dismantling of state power and the creation of societies based on voluntary cooperation.Alongside these, there are hybrid or less frequently discussed ideologies, such as Social Democracy, which attempts to reconcile capitalism with welfare policies, and Libertarianism, which pushes the liberal belief in freedom to its furthest limits by seeking minimal interference from the state. Each of these ideologies has travelled across continents, shaped revolutions, inspired reforms, and at times plunged nations into conflict. They represent not only systems of governance but also competing visions of what it means to live a good and meaningful life in society.In the modern world, nations often carry labels of ideology, though in practice their systems are usually a blend rather than a pure doctrine. The United States is widely associated with liberal democracy and capitalism, where the creed of free markets and individual rights is celebrated, even as the state intervenes in times of crisis. China declares itself a socialist state under the leadership of the Communist Party, yet its embrace of market reforms has created an unusual hybrid of state control and capitalist dynamism. Russia, inheriting the legacy of Soviet communism, has shifted towards authoritarian nationalism mixed with oligarchic capitalism.Across Europe, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are famous for their social democracy, balancing market economies with strong welfare states. Germany is rooted in a model often called the “social market economy,” blending capitalist productivity with social protections. France, though also capitalist, retains a strong tradition of state intervention in economic and cultural life. In contrast, the United Kingdom, long the heartland of liberal capitalism, now navigates between free market ideals and populist tendencies following Brexit.Elsewhere, Iran stands as a theocratic republic grounded in Islamic ideology, combining religious authority with republican institutions. Saudi Arabia embodies an absolute monarchy tied to Wahhabi Islam, though it has recently opened itself to selective modernisation. India declares itself the world’s largest democracy, but nationalism plays an increasingly prominent role in its politics. Meanwhile, Cuba holds firmly to its communist identity, while North Korea maintains the peculiar doctrine of Juche, an extreme form of self-reliance wrapped in authoritarianism. At the same time, many African nations—from South Africa to Nigeria—struggle with blends of democratic aspirations, nationalist rhetoric, and developmental state policies.In Asia, the ideological spectrum is strikingly diverse. China continues to present itself as a socialist state under Communist Party rule, but its economic policies are deeply infused with capitalist practices. North Korea clings fiercely to Juche, its doctrine of self-reliance, though in reality it is an authoritarian dictatorship with extreme central control. India is a democratic republic with a federal structure, yet Hindu nationalism has increasingly coloured its political discourse. Japan remains a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy, firmly committed to liberal capitalism, while countries such as Vietnam maintain their one-party communist structures but have opened markets in practice.In Europe, one finds the laboratories of social democracy, particularly in Scandinavia. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have perfected models of capitalism softened by generous welfare systems and egalitarian principles. Germany is often cited as the home of the “social market economy,” where private enterprise coexists with robust social protections. France sustains its proud tradition of a strong state role in both economy and culture. The United Kingdom, once the epicentre of liberal capitalism, now mixes market liberalism with populist politics in the aftermath of Brexit. Eastern Europe, including Poland and Hungary, shows a shift towards conservative nationalism under democratic façades.Africa is home to a wide range of post-colonial experiments in governance and ideology. South Africa declares itself a democratic republic, yet its politics are marked by tensions between liberal aspirations and socialist legacies. Nigeria struggles with democratic forms, but corruption and patronage politics undermine its effectiveness. Ethiopia has long flirted with developmental state ideology, while many smaller African nations continue to balance tribal loyalties, nationalist agendas, and fragile democratic institutions.In the Middle East, the ideological landscape is dominated by religion and monarchy. Iran presents itself as an Islamic Republic, blending clerical rule with republican forms, while Saudi Arabia remains an absolute monarchy rooted in Wahhabi Islam. Israel stands apart as a parliamentary democracy infused with Zionist ideology. Turkey, once seen as a secular republic, is now increasingly shaped by a blend of nationalism, Islamism, and authoritarianism. The region as a whole illustrates how faith, identity, and power interact to define states.In the Americas, the United States embodies liberal democracy and capitalism, though with strong undercurrents of populism and culture wars. Canada combines liberal capitalism with stronger welfare protections, resembling Europe more closely. Latin America is a patchwork of ideological experiments: Cuba remains communist; Venezuela clings to its version of “socialism of the twenty-first century” despite economic collapse; Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico oscillate between populist nationalism and liberal democracy depending on the political cycle.Before we continue discussing Communism by opening Karl Marx's book "Das Kapital", let's first look at the narrative of the history of world ideologies based on a timeline per century, so that we can see the development from the Enlightenment era to the present era.
In the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment brought forth liberalism as a revolutionary idea, insisting on individual rights, constitutional government, and free markets. Alongside it, conservatism rose as a reaction, stressing stability, tradition, and respect for authority in the wake of revolutions. Nationalism also began to stir, as people across Europe and beyond imagined themselves as unified nations rather than subjects of monarchs.In the nineteenth century, socialism emerged in response to the inequalities of industrial capitalism, proposing collective ownership and workers’ rights. Communism, especially through Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, took socialism further, calling for a classless society after the overthrow of capitalism. Anarchism gained ground as well, rejecting all forms of state authority and dreaming of voluntary cooperation. At the same time, nationalism grew stronger, driving the unification of Germany and Italy and sparking independence movements worldwide.The twentieth century witnessed ideologies harden into extremes. Fascism rose in Italy, glorifying the state, authoritarianism, and militarism, while Nazism in Germany combined fascism with racial ideology, leading to catastrophic war and genocide. Liberal democracy and capitalism, meanwhile, spread as the dominant system in the West, especially after the Second World War. The Cold War pitted the capitalist United States against the communist Soviet Union, dividing the world into rival camps. Social democracy, particularly in Europe, flourished as a middle path, combining capitalist economies with welfare protections.In the twenty-first century, ideology has become more fragmented and fluid. Globalisation has reinforced capitalism as the world’s economic engine, though often accompanied by populist backlash and nationalist resurgence. Environmentalism has risen as a new force, insisting that climate change and sustainability must reshape political and economic priorities. Digital-age libertarianism pushes for radical freedom in cyberspace, while authoritarian capitalism, as seen in China and Russia, challenges the liberal democratic model. Identity politics, too, has transformed the ideological landscape, making questions of culture, race, gender, and religion central to global debates.Looking into the next century, the ideological landscape of the world is unlikely to return to neat divisions like those of the Cold War. Instead, it will resemble a shifting terrain where capitalism, technology, identity, and ecological survival intersect in unpredictable ways. Capitalism will remain dominant, but its forms will fragment. Some regions will pursue “green capitalism,” marrying markets with sustainability, while others will lean into “authoritarian capitalism,” where states harness markets for power rather than liberty.Socialism may re-emerge in new clothes, not as the industrial-age ideology of factories and workers, but as digital socialism, where data, platforms, and automation become collective resources. With artificial intelligence and robotics transforming labour, the demand for universal basic income and collective ownership of digital infrastructure could bring socialist ideas back to the centre of global politics.Nationalism will not disappear; in fact, it will likely intensify as climate change drives mass migration and competition for resources. Borders, culture, and sovereignty will become rallying cries for politicians seeking to consolidate power. Yet alongside it, globalist movements centred on climate cooperation and planetary governance may rise, creating a tension between the politics of walls and the politics of survival.Environmentalism could become the most powerful ideology of the twenty-first century’s latter half. Unlike the grand narratives of capitalism or communism, environmentalism is rooted in necessity: the climate crisis does not wait for elections. If ecological collapse worsens, politics itself may reorganise around sustainability as the single unifying value.Finally, identity politics and digital libertarianism will reshape how communities define themselves. With virtual spaces rivalling physical nations, people may pledge loyalty not to states but to networks, platforms, or digital tribes. This raises the possibility of “post-national ideologies,” where sovereignty belongs less to governments and more to decentralised systems of belonging. The future, therefore, will not belong to one ideology, but to a fluid battlefield of capitalism, socialism, nationalism, environmentalism, and digital-age tribes, constantly colliding and recombining.Socialism and Communism are often spoken of in the same breath, yet their fundamental differences lie in both method and ultimate vision. Socialism is essentially an economic and political system that seeks to regulate or redistribute wealth and resources within a society, while still maintaining room for private property and democratic institutions. It imagines a society where inequality is reduced through progressive reforms, social welfare, and collective ownership of key industries, but without necessarily abolishing the market or the existence of different social classes altogether. Communism, on the other hand, is a more radical and absolute doctrine that seeks to completely eradicate private property, markets, and class divisions, envisioning a stateless, classless society where all means of production are communally owned and governed. Where Socialism sees gradual reform and coexistence with democratic structures as a path forward, Communism pushes for a revolutionary break from capitalism and the complete reconstruction of human society. In this sense, Socialism is pragmatic and reformist, whereas Communism is utopian and revolutionary.Socialism, as practised in many European countries, has often taken the form of social democracy. For instance, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have embraced systems where capitalist markets still exist, yet they are heavily regulated by the state, and citizens benefit from generous social welfare, free education, and universal healthcare. These nations did not abolish private property or free enterprise, but they introduced redistributive mechanisms to reduce inequality and to protect vulnerable groups. Communism, by contrast, found its most notable embodiment in the former Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, and later in Maoist China. In these cases, private ownership was completely eliminated, central planning replaced market activity, and the state dominated every aspect of life, from food production to cultural expression. While Communism promised equality, in practice it often led to authoritarian regimes and widespread shortages, whereas Socialism, though imperfect, has proved adaptable to democratic governance and market dynamics.Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital in the nineteenth century, and the background of that monumental work was profoundly shaped by the turbulent political, economic, social, and cultural conditions of his time. Europe in the mid-1800s was undergoing the full force of the Industrial Revolution. Factories sprang up across Britain and the Continent, drawing peasants into cities where they became industrial workers, living in cramped housing and working punishing hours for meagre wages. This new capitalist order generated immense wealth for factory owners and financiers, but it also produced stark inequality, child labour, and widespread social misery. Politically, the continent was restless: the failed revolutions of 1848 had shown both the yearning for democratic rights and the brutal capacity of ruling elites to suppress dissent. Culturally, the Enlightenment had left a legacy of rationalism and faith in human progress, but Romanticism had also begun to shape critiques of industrial modernity. Into this maelstrom, Marx applied a rigorous critique of capitalism, arguing that its very structure was exploitative, that workers were alienated from their labour, and that periodic crises were inevitable. Das Kapital was not simply an economic text but also a revolutionary manifesto, intended to expose the inner workings of capitalism and to lay the intellectual groundwork for its eventual overthrow.
Karl Marx’s personal circumstances were as decisive in shaping Das Kapital as the broader social upheavals of the nineteenth century. After his involvement in revolutionary politics during the 1840s, Marx was forced into exile, moving from Germany to France, then Belgium, and eventually settling in London in 1849. London became both his refuge and his crucible. Politically isolated and financially destitute, Marx lived in poverty with his wife Jenny and their children, often unable to pay rent or afford basic necessities. Several of his children tragically died in infancy, a hardship that only sharpened his anger at social inequality. Yet it was in these bleak conditions that Marx immersed himself in the reading rooms of the British Museum, spending years poring over economic reports, parliamentary debates, and statistical data. His meticulous research was driven by an obsessive determination to uncover the laws of motion that governed capitalism. Supported financially and emotionally by his lifelong friend Friedrich Engels, Marx channelled both his personal struggles and his intellectual rigour into crafting Das Kapital. In a sense, the book was not merely a product of theory, but also a reflection of Marx’s lived experience of hardship, exile, and relentless resistance to the injustices he saw all around him.
When Das Kapital was first published in 1867, its reception was complex and somewhat muted, reflecting both the density of Marx’s arguments and the political atmosphere of the time. Among intellectuals and economists, the book was recognised as a formidable piece of scholarship, yet many dismissed it as overly theoretical or impractical, given that its language was rigorous, filled with dialectical analysis, and often challenging even for trained readers. Still, it found a dedicated audience within the growing socialist and workers’ movements across Europe, who regarded it not merely as an economic treatise but as a weapon of critique against the injustices of capitalism. Politically, the ruling classes and conservative press largely ignored or ridiculed the work, unwilling to legitimise Marx’s ideas by engaging too deeply. Over time, however, Das Kapital became a central text for socialist organisations, trade unions, and later Communist parties, particularly after Marx’s death and Engels’ subsequent editing and publication of the later volumes. Its eventual impact was immense, inspiring revolutions, guiding political theory, and cementing Marx’s place as one of the most influential thinkers of the modern era, even though its initial release was far from a bestseller.
The influence of Das Kapital on international labour movements and the great revolutions of the twentieth century cannot be overstated. Marx’s central ideas—particularly the concept of class struggle, the exploitation of labour, and the inevitability of capitalist crises—became rallying cries for workers across Europe and beyond. His theory of surplus value, which argued that profit was extracted from the unpaid labour of workers, offered a powerful explanation for the inequality experienced by the industrial proletariat. The idea of alienation, too, resonated deeply: Marx described how workers under capitalism were estranged from the products of their labour, from their own creative potential, and from one another, a condition that many factory workers instinctively recognised. Politically, Marx’s vision of a proletarian revolution—where the working class would overthrow the bourgeoisie and eventually establish a classless society—provided both inspiration and justification for radical movements.In the early twentieth century, these ideas fuelled the rise of socialist parties and trade unions, shaping policies that demanded better wages, shorter hours, and safer working conditions. More dramatically, the Russian Revolution of 1917 was explicitly carried out under the banner of Marxist theory, with Lenin adapting Das Kapital’s critique into a revolutionary programme. Later, Mao Zedong in China drew heavily on Marx’s theories, though he adapted them to a largely agrarian society rather than an industrial one. Across the globe, from Cuba under Castro to anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia, Marx’s critique of capitalism became both a diagnostic tool and a revolutionary guide. Even in non-revolutionary contexts, Marx’s insights pushed governments to adopt reforms, fearing unrest if workers’ grievances were left unaddressed. In short, the intellectual architecture of Das Kapital provided both the compass and the fuel for labour struggles and revolutionary upheavals throughout the twentieth century.Among the many layers of thought contained in Das Kapital, a handful of Marx’s core ideas became the most influential for international labour movements and revolutionary struggles of the twentieth century. First and foremost was the notion of class struggle, the idea that history itself is driven by conflict between those who own the means of production and those who are forced to sell their labour. Closely tied to this was the theory of surplus value, which exposed how profit arises from the exploitation of workers, thereby making inequality not an accident of capitalism but its very foundation. Equally powerful was Marx’s analysis of alienation, the claim that under capitalism workers become estranged from the products of their labour, from their own humanity, and from each other, a condition that generated both misery and resistance. In addition, his insistence on the inevitability of capitalist crises—booms and busts that could never be permanently solved—gave labour movements the conviction that capitalism was unsustainable in the long run. Finally, his vision of a proletarian revolution, where workers would unite, overthrow the bourgeoisie, and construct a classless society, served as both a dream and a blueprint for revolutions from Russia to China to Cuba. Together, these ideas became the intellectual backbone of the century’s most dramatic transformations.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Marx’s intellectual legacy is how his ideas, initially set out with scientific precision in Das Kapital, were reinterpreted, adapted, and at times distorted by political leaders who claimed to act in his name. The most famous example is Vladimir Lenin, who transformed Marx’s call for proletarian revolution into a theory of the vanguard party. Marx had imagined workers themselves, once conscious of their exploitation, would rise collectively, but Lenin argued that a disciplined party of intellectuals and revolutionaries had to lead the masses, effectively centralising power in ways Marx had never explicitly prescribed. Joseph Stalin later pushed this even further by instituting an authoritarian regime in the Soviet Union. While Marx envisioned the eventual withering away of the state in a classless society, Stalin entrenched the state as an instrument of control, turning Marx’s emancipatory vision into a machinery of repression, purges, and forced collectivisation.In China, Mao Zedong offered another dramatic reinterpretation. Marx’s theory was rooted in industrial society, with the urban proletariat at the centre of revolution. Mao, however, placed peasants at the heart of his revolutionary strategy, reshaping Marxism into a doctrine suited to an agrarian country. This adaptation allowed Marxism to spread in rural Asia, but it also meant shifting the focus away from the industrial working class Marx had emphasised. In Cuba, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara likewise adapted Marx’s theories to Latin American realities, often mixing them with nationalism and guerrilla warfare rather than the class-conscious industrial proletariat Marx highlighted. In each of these cases, Marx’s writings were not simply applied but bent to fit local contexts and political agendas, sometimes in ways that contradicted his original intention. As a result, while Marx provided the theoretical architecture, the revolutions of the twentieth century often bore little resemblance to the society of free, equal, and non-repressive human beings he had imagined.
[Part 7]
