In October, Zhongxiu widely released news about a so-called breakthrough in controllable nuclear fusion, claiming it would be built by 2028 and generate electricity by 2030. Many people online have started saying that infinite energy is about to appear, and society will move into communism, adding fuel to the theory of productivity supremacy. Can it really be so mysterious?
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It’s not that mysterious.
It’s like how people initially used coal for power generation, and later used ores for heating and electricity generation—it’s the same principle.
Ore power generation, which means using radioactive elements to generate electricity, is originally sufficient for a very long time.
However, whether nuclear fusion is stable or not—that is, whether it can be contained—is a difficult issue that hinders the transformation of the energy structure.
Nuclear fission power plants were established long ago, and although they are quite clean themselves, they still do not account for a large proportion of energy consumption. The United Nations is promoting clean energy, but the goal is still far away.
The so-called entry into a “communist society” is nonsense. Poor farmers still use firewood for cooking their whole lives, and fourth-tier cities still rely on thermal and hydropower generation.
It just seems like the problem of energy shortage is about to be solved.
Here it only says that the base of the nuclear fusion device has been installed, but it doesn’t mention how long it can operate. It is estimated that the distance to sustained controllable nuclear fusion application is still unknown. Moreover, even if such technology exists, as long as the Nazi government remains, energy prices cannot come down; otherwise, where would the Nazis make their huge profits?
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Actually, even if it is built, so what? Ordinary people still have to pay for electricity, whether they buy it or not. The State Grid and electric power capitalists are not going to give you electricity for free. How is this any different from thermal power generation? Moreover, this technology is far from successful. Previous news even said it could only run stably for so many seconds, which means it can only be turned on for that short time. What can you do in such a short time? At this rate, let alone mature application, how much longer will it take?
Capitalists only prioritize profit. Given their greedy nature, even if they truly develop nuclear fusion, they will only use it to strengthen their monopoly position, controlling and oppressing a broader sector of production and workers to seek high profits for themselves.
It’s all just exaggerated news; in reality, the true realization is still a long way off. Whether it’s China or other capitalist countries, there is simply no motivation to invest a large amount of capital in developing something that no one knows when it can be commercialized on a large scale. Moreover, from a technical standpoint, bourgeois science is becoming increasingly decadent, with idealism and metaphysics spreading more and more. The so-called scientists are either lazy students who produce meaningless papers, or academic cliques who lack ability but greedily take credit, or capitalists who use the title of scientist but do no real research and are more interested in running companies. Relying on these useless people to research such things is probably hopeless.
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When I was in elementary school, bourgeois popular science books said, “Humanity will probably need another 50 years to master controlled nuclear fusion technology.” Now, after working for two years, bourgeois scientists are still saying, “Humanity will probably need another 50 years to master controlled nuclear fusion technology.” In today’s capitalist society, productive forces do advance, but this advancement is suppressed by the bourgeoisie’s desire to exploit surplus value. The more the bourgeoisie monopolizes and the higher the concentration of capital, the less they want emerging productive sectors to appear and devalue the capital they already have.
Of course, there are also examples of rising imperialist countries developing faster by utilizing new sector productive forces to surpass older imperialist powers, such as when electricity developed and the United States and Germany surpassed the old-established Britain and France to become rising imperialist powers. However, this kind of development does not prove that capitalism promotes new technological development, especially during the period of monopoly capitalism when monopoly and decay dominate the main aspects.
Moreover, China’s current power generation is actually relatively excessive. Even Nazi China is trying every possible way to store the surplus electricity. Using controlled nuclear fusion for power generation? To make electricity even more excessive?
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That’s how it is.
The foolish Chinese repair works, just like the World War II Japanese headquarters battle reports, spread fake news every day to deceive the common people. They can’t even build a single nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, yet they boast about being able to develop controlled nuclear fusion.
I recall a very famous argument that all wars and conflicts among humans are caused by insufficient energy resources. Because the “cake” is not big enough, various classes and struggles arise, as well as conflicts between countries. Therefore, as long as the cake is made big enough, infinitely large, the ruling class would have no need to possess the cake, because possession would become meaningless. In this way, the world would enter communism. The only way to achieve such a result is marked by a symbolic event: mastering controlled nuclear fusion and using it to produce energy.
But in reality, this pseudo-production theory is extremely reactionary and shameless. Because the contradictions in the world today, the contradictions between the exploiting class and the exploited class, have never been about underdeveloped productive forces or the cake not being big enough. The problem lies in the decayed capitalist relations of production that hinder the development of productive forces. Isn’t the cake big enough now? Countless buildings have been constructed, but due to capitalist economic crises, they simply cannot be sold. People are extremely poor and cannot afford houses. So on one side, many people are homeless, while on the other side, there are many ghost cities and empty buildings with no residents. BYD is frantically producing electric vehicles, and many electric vehicles have been manufactured, but the vast majority of people, especially the proletariat, simply cannot afford cars. These overproduced cars are sent one by one to automobile graveyards to rot and be scrapped just after they come off the production line. This is exactly the same as capitalist countries dumping milk into rivers 100 years ago.
The same goes for electricity. China currently does not suffer from a shortage of electricity but rather an excess. In many places, electricity is so abundant that the Chinese government needs to consider how to store it. Not to mention that the Chinese government is currently far from actually achieving controlled nuclear fusion. Even if they did, at best it would only make the economic crisis more severe. The people would still be poor, and the bourgeoisie would still live in extreme luxury and excess. It is not that the cake is not big enough now, because in fact, the ruling class itself is constantly destroying the “new cake” they create! Cars are produced only to be scrapped, milk is produced only to be dumped—these are all great destruction and waste of productive forces! From a historical perspective, the problem now is not about “making the cake,” but that the capitalist system obstructs the development of human history. The issue is how to overthrow the capitalist system and allow human society to enter the next stage of development, namely the socialist stage.
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What kind of cake is never enough? The bourgeoisie always takes as big a slice of the cake as there is. Moreover, the bourgeoisie even destroys the “cake”; no matter how many products are produced, they will not be distributed and would rather be destroyed. Suppose the revisionists manage to develop nuclear fusion and have unlimited electricity, then ask: will the electricity price drop? If it does, will the electric power capitalists accept it? For example, if one kilowatt-hour originally sells for a few cents, but now it can’t even be sold for a penny, if that really happens, the capitalists would be desperate. It is estimated that after a few years of trial operation, it would be “seriously unprofitable” and forced to shut down.
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