On July 19, 2023, an elderly person in a nursing home in Nantong, Jiangsu, removed the second-floor window and jumped to their death. Prior to this, on July 11, the elderly person was taken out of the nursing home by his son. The son transferred the elderly person’s only house to himself at a low price of 20,000 yuan, and on the same afternoon, he sent the elderly person back to the nursing home. Since then, he has been neglecting the elderly. When the elderly exhibited abnormal behavior and the nursing home contacted him to check on the elderly’s condition, he was even more indifferent. After the elderly’s death, the son directly demanded 430,000 yuan in compensation from the nursing home.
The son did not send the elderly into the nursing home with the purpose of caring for his physical and mental health from the beginning. He only saw the elderly as a tool to obtain money. After transferring the elderly’s house to his name at a low price, the elderly, who no longer had any money to be gained, became an irrelevant role, even a burden. Later, when the elderly showed abnormal behavior, he dismissed the news with his own busyness. After the elderly committed suicide, he further abandoned his previous indifference, using the death as a “justification” to demand compensation from the nursing home, viewing the elderly’s death as a means to profit financially. Why does the son care only about the elderly’s property and money, rather than the elderly themselves?
In capitalist society, “the bourgeoisie has torn off the veil of warmth and tenderness that covers family relations, turning these relationships into purely monetary ones.” (Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1972, China People’s Liberation Army Publishing House reprint, p. 26) The reality is exactly that. The bourgeois government vigorously promotes its set of the three guiding principles and five constant virtues—filial piety and ethics—claiming that children must obey their parents for a good, harmonious, and warm family relationship. But what they are really promoting is the obedience to hierarchy, hiding the core essence. Moreover, they avoid discussing that in Chinese capitalist society, not only the bourgeoisie itself but also a considerable portion of the petty bourgeoisie and proletariat see family members merely as objects to be controlled for monetary gain, rather than equals who should be respected. Once these objects no longer yield a penny, they are kicked aside—life or death, what does it matter? Sometimes, even the lives of family members become bargaining chips for profit. Isn’t the son in this news story exactly like that? Using the elderly’s death to claim compensation from the nursing home and earning 430,000 yuan effortlessly—why not?
Since the rise of revisionist and capitalist elements in China, a wave of privatization and private ownership has swept through society. The family relationships of equality, independence, love, and mutual respect during the socialist period have been replaced by purely monetary relations. Countless families are filled with violence and oppression. Families bound by monetary interests are tied to capitalist society; only by overthrowing capitalism can such distorted relationships between people be eliminated!
