Towards a Critique of New Political Economy: From Surplus Value in the Broad Sense to Total Subordination

Within the theoretical framework of a “critique of new political economy,” all questions need to be re-discussed. This theoretical framework is clearly linked to Marx, coinciding with the title or subtitle of his revolutionary theoretical work on the capitalist mode of production. However, some critical theories also differ from Marx, or are even based on opposing assumptions, which is understandable. Today, the term “political economy” is given a more specialized connotation. Does this concept point toward a differentiation? We know that Marx distinguished and differentiated between “classical political economy” and “vulgar economy.” The former became the theoretical source of his own theory of capitalism, while the latter was in fact his foresight regarding the mainstream economic theories of the 20th century. If not a differentiation, then does this concept refer here to a political economy in general? In this case, Marxism itself may simultaneously become the subject and object of critique. This question can also be approached from different angles.

在“新政治经济学批判”的理论架构中，需要重新讨论所有问题。这一理论框架明显地与马克思相联系，与其提出的关于资本主义生产方式的革命性理论著作的标题或副标题不谋而合。但是，其中也有一些批判理论与马克思有一些差异，甚至是基于对立的假设，这也是可以理解的。今天，“政治经济学”一词被赋予更专业化的内涵。这一概念是指向一种辨析吗？我们知道马克思对“古典政治经济学”与“庸俗经济学”进行了区分和辨析。前者成为他自己的资本主义理论的理论来源，后者实际上是他对20世纪的主流经济理论进行的预见。如果不是辨析，那么这一概念在这里指的是一种总体上的政治经济学吗？在这种情况下，马克思主义本身可能同时成为批判的主体和客体。这个问题也可以从不同的角度来解决。

Although negated by Marx, “vulgar economy” has survived to this day. This is not only due to power relations within academia, but also because Marxism did not attach importance to studying the mechanisms of centralized regulation and control of the capitalist economy in real society. By observing the failed economic policies of Marxists, capitalism learned lessons from them. But here, once again, we should remember that the situation is far more complex than making a tendentious choice. For certain “heterodox” schools of Marxism actually studied the problems and categories raised by post-classical economists. This shows that mainstream economists responded to Marx in many respects, thus using Marxist theory in a dialectical manner. Therefore, some problems lurk behind the use of the adjective “new.” Is the critique of “new” political economy a critique of a “political economy” that Marx did not even know about? Or, because of the inherent ambiguity in Marx’s exposition, is it difficult for Marxists to precisely articulate certain capitalist structures and tendencies? Is such a new or updated critique, as a continuation of economic theoretical discourse, a continuation of Marxist critique? Finally, in the core theory of this “new” critique, where are the key points for critiquing various discourses? What are the dimensions for critiquing various institutions, social structures, and historical trends?

“庸俗经济学”虽然被马克思否定了，但还是幸存至今。这不仅是由于学术界权力关系的原因，而是由于马克思主义没有重视研究现实社会中资本主义经济的集中调控机制。通过观察马克思社会主义者失败的经济政策，资本主义吸取了其中的教训。但在这里，再一次，我们应该记住，情况远比做一个有倾向性的选择要复杂得多。因为马克思主义的某些“非正统的”流派实际上研究了后古典经济学家提出的问题和范畴。由此可以表明，主流经济学家在许多方面回应了马克思，因此以一种辩证的方式使用了马克思主义理论。因此，对“新”这一形容词的使用潜藏着一些问题。“新”的政治经济学批判是不是批判某种马克思都不了解的新的“政治经济学”？或者，因为马克思论述存在内在的模糊性，让马克思主义者很难确切地表述某些资本主义的结构和倾向？这样一种新的或经过更新的批判，作为经济理论话语的延续，是不是马克思主义批判的一种延续？最后，在这个“新”批判的核心理论中，批判各种论述的关键点在哪里？批判各种制度、社会结构、历史趋势的维度有哪些？

These dilemmas are abstract and not exhaustive. I will keep them in mind as I raise some of the content involved in the debate and conditions. I acknowledge that Marx’s theory of critique of political economy, as a critique of capitalism, has its own weaknesses or difficulties, and these weaknesses are always adjacent to its shining points or advantages that we might call “truth,” like the shadows of these truths, in many cases obscuring everything.

这些困境是抽象的，也不是详尽的。在我提出辩论和条件所涉及的一些内容时，我将牢记这些内容。我承认，马克思的政治经济学批判理论，作为对资本主义的批判，有其自身的弱点或难点，而且这些弱点总是和其闪光点或者我们可以称之为“真理”的优点比邻而居，好像这些真理的影子一样，在很多的情况下使一切内容都变得晦涩模糊。

This explains why I will first discuss the core category proposed by Marx in *Capital*, namely the category of surplus value, which links the analysis of exploitation with the analysis of accumulation. I will propose a concept of surplus value in the broad sense, freeing it from the limitations Marx set, derived from the theoretical foundations of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and addressing the issue of “total subordination.” I hope that through this issue, we can better understand how financial capital dominates daily life in the era of “neoliberal” globalization.

这就解释了为什么我首先要讨论马克思在《资本论》中提出的核心范畴，即剩余价值范畴，正是它将对剥削分析与积累分析联系在一起的。我将提出一个广义的剩余价值概念，解除了马克思设定的、来源于亚当•斯密和大卫•李嘉图理论基础的局限，涉及到“总体从属”的问题。我希望可以通过这一问题更好地了解金融资本在“新自由主义”全球化的时代是如何支配日常生活的。

01 Capital as a Social Relation

01作为社会关系的资本

As we know, among the various critical interpretations of Marx’s *Capital* in the 20th century, there is a “consensus”: the core of Marx’s critique lies in introducing the “structural” category of social relations, rather than the fetishistic analysis of commodities and people. “Capital” is not a “thing,” nor even something that capitalists and other agents handle and process. It is not a superficially “symbolic,” essentially social “thing” either; it is itself a “social relation,” and therefore, it is a relation among social subjects, individuals, and all classes. In this relation, capital plays specific roles, which are both interdependent and antagonistic. This directly indicates that the category of “social relation” is inseparable from process. Social relations are formed within a process, constituted by several interwoven processes, in which the process of exchange alternates with the processes of consumption and production. This process should be perpetual, or more strictly speaking, it involves the continuous reproduction of material, financial, and institutional social relations and all their conditions. However, as Marx revealed, reproduction, especially “expanded reproduction,” must also be a transformation. Capital is such a process; it can only realize itself socially and historically through its own transformation.

正如我们所知，20世纪对马克思的《资本论》的各种批判解读中有一个“共识”，马克思批判的核心在于引入了社会关系这一“结构性”范畴，而不是对商品和人的拜物教分析。“资本”不是“物”，甚至不是资本家和其他代理人处理和加工的东西。它也不是一件表面“象征性的”、本质上是社会性的“物”，它本身是一种“社会关系”，因此，它是一种社会主体、个人和所有阶级之间的关系。在这种关系中，资本扮演特定的角色，这些角色既是相互依存的也是相互对立的。这直接表明，“社会关系”这一范畴与过程是不可分割的。社会关系是在一个过程中形成的，由几个相互交织的过程构成，其中交换过程与消费和生产过程交替出现。这个过程应该是永续的，更严格地说是对应物质的、金融的、制度的社会关系及其所有条件进行不断地再生产。但是，正如马克思揭示的那样，再生产特别是“扩大再生产”也必须是一种转型。资本是这样一种过程，只有通过自身的转型，才能使自身社会地、历史地得到实现。

To study capital as this “process” and its goal orientation and driving force, we must clarify what kind of relation, what kind of “social effect,” we are talking about, so that everything can become clear. The goal of this process is accumulation, and this result is always presupposed as a precondition when the entire process begins again, manifested in the form of monetary capital seeking investment locations and methods. At the same time, the specific qualitative characteristic of capital relations is that, although they may appear widely at the level of multiple societies, the social dependencies controlled by the rule of accumulation are ultimately naturalized or simplified into a hostile exploitative relation. Although this exploitative relation will generate more or less dynamic conflicts, without it, the reproduction of life and society cannot be sustained. We also need to explain how we describe the “direct” form of social relations. In this form of social relation, the opposite of the wage laborer is the direct or indirect owner and manager of capital, a social stratum with global connections. The “direct” form of this social relation manifests as relations between classes, the distribution of total property and income, and the distribution of power. In these manifestations, there are many social functions and distinctions: it no longer appears as an “intersubjective” relation of exploitation and domination, but as an “objective” relation of an evolving “society” to itself.

为了研究资本这一“过程”及其目标导向和驱动力，我们必须明确我们所谈论的那种关系、那种“社会效应”，这样所有的一切才能变得清晰起来。这一过程的目标是积累，而这一结果在整个过程再次开始时总是被设定为先决条件，其表现的形式是货币资本寻找投资地点和投资方式。同时，资本关系的具体性质特点是，虽然它们可能广泛地出现在多个社会的层面上，受积累规则控制的社会依赖关系最终归化为或简化为一种敌对的剥削关系。虽然这种剥削关系会或多或少产生动态冲突，但是没有这种剥削关系就无法维持生活和社会的再生产。我们还需要解释我们如何描述社会关系的“直接”形式。在这种社会关系中，雇佣劳动者的对立面是资本直接或间接的所有者和管理者，这种社会阶层是具有全球联系的。这种社会关系的“直接”形式表现为阶级之间的关系、总体财产和收入的分配形式、权力的分配形式。在这些表现形式中，存在许多社会功能和区别：它不再表现为剥削和支配“主体间”的关系，而是不断演变的“社会”与其自身的一种“客观”关系。

I agree with Louis Althusser’s assertion that this is the philosophical core of Marx’s epistemological break [1]1 Kaushik Sunder Rajan: An anthropologist and scholar of science and technology studies, known for his work on the political economy of biomedicine and globalization.. This “break” is a ruptural negation of previous ideological representations of capital. In Marx’s dialectical theory, this negation explains why these ideological representations are necessary, even useful under certain conditions. In other words, they are part of the social relations themselves. This “break” is more of a breakthrough; the problems it points to cannot be solved merely by developing the premises. This set of theories expresses the same innovation. However, in the antagonistic process of the actual historical transformation of capitalism, the obstacles contained within this set of theories gradually become apparent. This reflects the necessity of a deconstructive strategy. Since the deconstructive strategy traces the origins of obstacles by deconstructing the definitions of their “basic concepts,” it identifies the obstacles and difficulties contained within the core of theoretical innovation.

我同意路易•阿尔都塞的说法，他认为这是马克思认识论决裂点的哲学核心。这种“决裂”是对以往资本意识形态表征的决裂性否定。在马克思的辩证理论中，这种否定解释了为什么这些意识形态表征是必要的，甚至在一定条件下是有用的。换句话说，它们是社会关系本身的一部分。这种“决裂”更是一种突破，它所指向的问题不可能仅仅通过发展前提来解决。这一套理论表达了同样的创新。但是在资本主义实际历史变革的对抗过程中，这一套理论包含的障碍逐渐明显起来。这里体现了解构策略的必要之处，由于解构策略是通过解构障碍“基本概念”的定义方式来追溯它们的起源，它确定了理论创新的核心内容中所包含的障碍和困难。

02 A Study of Marx’s Epistemological Interference Factors

02关于马克思认识论干扰因素的研究

Marx defines the concept of "capital" in two great ways. From our contemporary point of view, the main source of interference in Marx's epistemology is precisely the intersection of these two ways. Marx believed they were complementary, in fact two aspects of the same model: capital is a process of exploitation, which ordinarily depends on the hiring of labor power. Marx sometimes borrowed Hegel's terminology, calling this relationship a "relationship of essence." On the other hand, capital is also a process of accumulation, an infinite cycle expressed through the monetary form, in which profit must be maximized by reconstituting its own principal. In a sense, they refer to different "social relations," or different aspects of the social mechanism, but in Marx's view they are strictly correlated. Why does a problem arise at their intersection? The sources of the problem are as follows: first, Marx believed that "capital" is ultimately nothing but capitalized labor, and therefore "labor" is not merely one factor of production among many, as described by mainstream economic theory; second, the way Marx links labor to the monetary form; third, the way Marx attributes "productive forces" to labor.

马克思通过两种伟大的方式定义“资本”这一概念。从我们当代的观点来看，关于马克思认识论的主要干扰因素正是这两种方式的交汇点。马克思认为，这两者是互补的，实际上是同一模式的两个方面：资本是一个剥削的过程，这个过程通常依赖于对劳动力的雇佣。马克思有时会借用黑格尔的说法，称这种关系为“本质关系”。另一方面，资本又是一个积累过程，这一无限循环的过程是通过货币形式表现出来的，在这一过程中，利润必须通过重建其自身的主要部分才能实现最大化。在某种意义上，它们指的是不同的“社会关系”，或社会机制的不同方面，但在马克思看来，它们是严格相关的。为什么在二者的交汇点会出现问题？问题的来源有以下几点：第一，马克思认为，“资本”最终不过是资本化的劳动，因此，“劳动”并不是主流经济理论所描述的那样仅仅是众多生产要素中的一个；第二，马克思通过何种方式把劳动与货币形式联系起来；第三，马克思通过何种方式将“生产力”归因于劳动。

In *Capital*, Marx's exposition of the exploitation and accumulation of capital relies entirely on the core concept of "valorization." [1]1 Kaushik Sunder Rajan: An anthropologist and scholar of science and technology studies, known for his work on the political economy of biomedicine and globalization. But if we return to the German text, we see that this word corresponds to two concepts with different connotations. Of course, they are interwoven, but the question is how they are combined. One connotation literally means "the formation of value." The implied concept is that, in a society where the products of production all take the form of commodities, the exchange value of these products must be determined by some common "substance," and this common "substance" is expressed through the exchange value of the products. Following the classical economists, Marx believed this substance to be labor power, but he further specified that this labor power is "abstract social labor": its quantity cannot be directly observed, but is implied or "internalized" in the "equilibrium" formed behind or in the interstices of the market, as a result of exchange itself. Thus, there is a circularity here: abstract labor exists because the proportions of commodity exchange directly depend on the quantity of abstract labor they embody. However, the main difficulty arises in how to elucidate "valorization" from the perspective of the formation of value, while simultaneously elucidating "valorization" from the capitalist perspective. Exploitation represents the "augmentation of value." [2]2 Gary Becker: An American economist (1930–2014) who applied economic analysis to social issues like education, discrimination, and the family, and is a key figure in the development of human capital theory. The capitalist invests and measures value or calculates prices precisely because they want to maximize "surplus," thereby obtaining surplus value. Superficially, value is "formed" in the market. In reality, the correct process is the opposite. From the first sense of value formation, augmentation already exists, because it also exists from the second sense, i.e., the sense of producing surplus value. It is wage labor, i.e., capitalism, that homogenizes and "equalizes" labor.

在《资本论》中，马克思关于资本剥削和积累的论述完全依赖于“价值增殖”这一核心概念。但是，如果我们回到德文文本，就会看到该词对应两个不同内涵的概念。当然，它们是相互交织的，但问题是结合方式是怎样的。一种内涵得字面意思是“价值的形成”。其隐含的概念是，在一个社会中，如果生产的产品都采取商品的形式，那么这些产品的交换价值必须由某种具有共性的“物质”来决定，而共性“物质”通过产品的交换价值来得到表现。马克思延续古典经济学家的理论，认为这种物质是劳动力，但他进一步限定，这里的劳动力是“抽象的社会劳动”：其数量不能被直接观测到，而是作为交换本身的结果，隐含于或“内化于”市场背后或空隙间形成的“均衡”之中。因此，这里存在一种循环，抽象劳动之所以存在，是由于商品交换的比例直接取决于它们所体现的抽象劳动的数量。然而，主要的难点，出现在如何在从价值形成的角度阐明“价值增殖”的同时，从资本主义角度来阐明“价值增殖”。剥削代表着“价值的增殖”。资本家投资并测算价值或计算价格，只是因为他们想要将“剩余”进行最大化，从而获得剩余价值。表面看起来，价值是在市场上“形成”的。实际上，正确的过程恰恰相反。从第一重价值形成的意义上看，增殖已经存在，因为从第二重含义即产生剩余价值的意义上看，增殖同样存在。正是雇佣劳动，也就是资本主义，使劳动同质化和“均等化”。

Other difficulties relate to this axiomatic circularity. To explain how "surplus" arises, Marx must explain that the value of the means of production already exists. The "secret" of labor productivity has two conditions: first, as "concrete" labor, it preserves or recreates the value of the machinery and raw materials used in the labor process; second, as "abstract" labor, it creates measurable new value. But in fact, none of this is certain: everything only makes sense when the expectation of value is "realized" in the market, i.e., when the product is sold and converted into money in a completely contingent manner. Thus, a considerable difficulty arises here: Marx asserts that value is only expressed through the monetary form, while simultaneously tending to neutralize the function of money and revert to a "real" representation of the economic circuit. Contrary to capitalist logic, in this circuit, it is not money that controls the circulation of commodities; rather, commodities relate and express their own relationships through the fetishistic form of money's operation. This ultimately leads to the fact that, in the unfinished Chapter 25 of Volume 3 of *Capital*, Marx refers to the operation of credit and the entire financial process as "fictitious capital."

其他困难与这个公理循环有关。为了解释“盈余”如何产生，马克思必须解释生产资料的价值已经存在。劳动生产率的“秘密”有两个条件：一是作为“具体”劳动，它保留或重新创造了在劳动过程中使用的机器和原材料的价值；二是作为“抽象”劳动，它创造可衡量的新价值。但事实上，这一切都不是确定的：只有当对价值的预期在市场上得到“实现”以后，也就是说当产品以一种完全随机的方式出售并转换成货币时，一切才有意义。因此，这里遇到相当大的难题：马克思主张价值只通过货币形式表现，同时他也倾向于将货币的功能中性化，并回归对经济循环的“真实”表现。与资本主义逻辑相反，在经济循环中，并不是货币控制商品的流通，商品以货币运作的拜物教形式联系和表达它们本身之间的关系。这最终导致了这样一个事实：马克思在《资本论》未完成的第三卷第25章中，将信贷的运作以及整个金融过程称为“虚拟资本”。

When discussing the development of contemporary financialized capitalism, this raises a huge difficulty, which could potentially lead us into the opposite discourse: viewing capitalism as a purely financial process, or more broadly, as completely detached from the social relations that facilitate the orderly transformation of value from the monetary form into the commodity form. Without this orderly transformation, augmentation in either sense cannot be achieved. For value to be augmented, value must undergo a transformation of form.

当讨论当代金融化资本主义的发展时，这引发一个巨大的难点，它有可能把我们引入相反的论述：即将资本主义视为一个纯粹的金融过程，或者更广泛地说，完全脱离促使价值从货币形式有序转型为商品形式的社会关系。没有这种有序转型蜕变，就无法实现两重意义上的增殖。要实现价值的增殖，价值必须实现形式转换。

The same difficulty exists on the side of labor. The "dual character of labor" explains the duality of "augmentation." From the perspective of the "dual character of labor," there are still two ways of identifying "labor" in Marx's argument. This sense of constraint becomes apparent through the polysemic use of the category "productive forces." On the one hand, "productive labor" describes all activities that are transformed into the sphere of capital investment: as I have argued previously, by transforming monetary value into its opposite, i.e., the material or immaterial expression of the commodity's use-value, surplus value will be generated. On the other hand, "productive labor" refers to specific activities carried out in the material sense of the sphere of production, such as industry and agriculture. As Marx mentioned in Volume 2 of *Capital* when discussing the interpenetration of the circuits of production and circulation in the "turnover" of capital, we can certainly include transportation, communication, etc., in the sphere of production. However, this does not change the fact that "formally" linked to the various spheres of monetary capital investment, "productive labor" here is understood in a narrow sense.

劳动方面也有同样的难点。“劳动的二重性”解释了“增殖”的双重性。从“劳动的二重性”的观点出发，马克思的论证中仍然存在两种对“劳动”的认定方式。这种局促之感通过对“生产力”这一范畴的多义性使用而变得明显。一方面，“生产性劳动”描述的是转化为资本投资领域的一切活动：在我之前的论述中可以看出，通过将货币价值转变为它的对立面，即商品使用价值的物质或非物质的表达形式，都将产生剩余价值。另一方面，“生产性劳动”是指在工业和农业这些物质意义上的生产领域中进行的具体活动。正如马克思在《资本论》第二卷中讨论资本“周转”过程中生产与流通之循环的相互渗透时所提到的那样，我们当然可以把运输、通讯等纳入生产领域。但是，这并没有改变这样一个事实：“正式地”与货币资本投资的各种领域相联系的含义，这里的“生产性劳动”是狭义的。

Here, I will experimentally discuss some examples, rather than deducing anything purely from conceptual argumentation. I will examine two such processes, which, of course, may depend on the exploitation of labor power, but more importantly, they "confer value" on other aspects of human life and consumption, which also generate surplus value in a "broad sense." In discussing these examples, we must remember that if money is not transformed into a "productive" commodity in the capitalist sense, then capital cannot exist, nor can there be the value of money.

在这里，我将通过实验的方式讨论一些例子，而不是从纯粹的概念论证中推导出任何东西。我将研究两个这样的过程，当然，它们可能依赖于对劳动力的剥削，但更重要的是，给人类生活和消费的其他方面“赋予价值”，这些方面在“广泛的意义”上也产生了剩余价值。在讨论这些例子时，我们必须记住，如果货币不转变为资本主义意义上的“有生产力”的商品，那么资本就不能存在，也就没有货币的价值。

03 Surplus Health and the Accumulation of Biological Capital

03剩余健康与生物资本的积累

The first example proposed here is "surplus health." I believe this term was coined by Joseph Dumit in a series of studies and summarized in his book *Drugs for Life*. [3]3 David Harvey: A prominent contemporary Marxist geographer and social theorist known for his work on capitalist urbanization, neoliberalism, and the interpretation of Marx's *Capital*. This concept is modeled on "surplus value" and "surplus labor," shifting the research perspective from production to a certain sphere of consumption. This sphere of consumption is crucial because it determines the individual's capacity for survival, the ability to enjoy an "acceptable" life in a given environment, a capacity that is currently precarious. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce a capacity for "survival" analogous to the Marxist concept of labor power, a capacity to obtain drugs and medical services.

这里提出的第一个例子是“剩余健康”。我认为该词是约瑟夫•杜米特在一系列的研究中创造出来的，并在其著作《生命之药》中做了总结。这个概念仿照了“剩余价值”和“剩余劳动力”，将研究角度从生产转到某种消费领域，这一消费领域是至关重要的，因为它决定着个人生存的能力，决定着是否可以在给定的环境中享受“可接受”生活的能力，这种能力目前岌岌可危。因此，需要引入一种与马克思主义的劳动能力相类似的“幸存”能力，一种能够获取药物和医疗服务的能力。

First, the definition of "disease" is gradually changing. Disease, as a lived experience, can also become an object of exploitation. Second, the diseases people face are shifting from a discontinuous state to a continuous state. Most diseases today are chronic. Moreover, statistics show an inherent tendency: as age increases, individuals tend to consume the maximum number of different drugs as frequently and for as long as possible. The third aspect is that, according to the "free" laws of the market, supply precedes demand, in fact creating demand.

第一方面，“疾病”的定义逐渐在变化。疾病作为一种生活的体验，也可以成为某种被剥削的对象。第二方面，人们面临的疾病从一种不连续状态进入持续状态。现在大多数的疾病是慢性疾病。而且统计学表明，存在一种内在的趋势，随着年龄增长，个人倾向于尽可能频繁、尽可能长时间地消费最大数量的、不同的药物。第三个方面是，根据市场的“自由”法则，供给先于需求，实际上创造了供给。

Marx believed that profit originates from the process of valorization in production, but here profit in essence does not come solely from the production process. Profit also arises from a different kind of valorization, which directly links innovation with increased consumption. This is precisely "surplus health," which we can also call a generalized form of surplus value. Kaushik Sunder Rajan adds another dimension, which elucidates a new law of population at the level of the global economy, and is therefore very important for understanding the connection between globalization and financialization. Through this series of important new analyses, we learn that generalized surplus value is a social relation that simultaneously acts upon local market functions and global systemic conditions.

马克思认为利润来自生产过程中的增殖过程，但这里的利润本质上不仅仅来自生产过程。利润还来自另一种不同的增殖，即直接将创新与增加的消费联系起来。这正是“剩余健康”，我们也可以称之为剩余价值的一种广义形式。考希克•桑德尔•拉詹增加了另一个维度，它阐明了一种新的、全球经济层面上的人口法则，因此这对于理解全球化与金融化的关联非常重要。通过这一系列重要的新分析，我们了解到，广义剩余价值是一种同时作用于本地市场功能和全球系统条件的社会关系。

04 The concept of human capital is an inversion of the "labor theory of value"

04人力资本概念是“劳动价值论”的倒置

The second example I raise is the concept of "human capital," which functions differently. Gary Becker established interrelated models that, on the one hand, study which key individual abilities enable a person, after being employed, to achieve maximum profitability for the employer, and on the other hand, study how the cost formula for producing these key abilities, by amortizing costs across society and within the worker's family, allows the employer to maximize income while minimizing costs as much as possible. The research evaluates the economic correlation between investment and return, demonstrating that economic strategies can achieve "rational expectations." Through this research, an optimal strategy can be specified, by which the following three variables are considered: the time required to form labor capacity; the costs borne by individuals or collectives; and the returns reflected in an individual's lifetime income. I am not discussing here whether these models are truly "effective" or "predictive." However, I want to insist on three aspects that I believe should be clarified.

我举的第二个例子是“人力资本”概念，它的作用不同。加里•贝克尔建立了相互关联的模型，一方面研究了哪些个人能力中的关键能力可以使人在受雇佣后为雇主实现最大盈利程度，另一方面也研究了生产这些关键能力的成本公式，是如何通过向社会和劳动者家庭内部摊销成本，从而使雇主在获得最大化收入的同时，尽量缩减成本。研究评估了投资和回报之间的经济相关性，证明经济战略可以实现“理性期望”。通过这项研究，可以指定一种最优策略，通过这种策略考量以下三个变量：形成劳动能力的耗时；个人或集体耗费的成本；通过个人一生收入反映的收益。我并不是在这里讨论这些模型是否真的“有效”或“具有预测性”。但是，我想坚持我认为应该阐明的三个方面。

First, it needs to be emphasized that the category of "human capital" did not arise from an individualistic perspective. In fact, it emerged in the 1950s, its emergence accompanied by discussions and plans for how newly independent colonies should develop.

首先，需要强调的是“人力资本”这一范畴并不是在个人主义的视角下产生的。事实上，它出现在20世纪50年代，其产生伴随着对于新独立的殖民地如何发展的讨论和计划。

Second, a major goal of Becker's theory was to provide a theoretical tool for quantitatively evaluating various merits when calculating costs and benefits for "elite" individuals, as well as to provide optional educational strategies for achieving "equality." In reality, his so-called "elite" are predicted to excel more precisely because more investment has been made in them; his so-called "equality" is large-scale investment in educational institutions so that they can offer differentiated services to everyone, enabling individuals to obtain varying degrees of "valorization" according to their personal abilities, ambition, or determination. This is clearly a political confrontation, and on a global scale, the result—that elitist systems are more effective than egalitarian systems—is not surprising.

其次，贝克尔的理论的一个主要目标，是为“精英”个人计算成本和收益时，提供定量评价各种优点的理论工具，以及为实现“平等”提供可选的教育策略。实际上，他所谓的“精英”，之所以被预测能更加出类拔萃，是因为进行了更多的投资；他所谓的“平等”就是向教育机构进行大规模的投资，使其能向所有人提供不同的服务，根据个人能力、野心或坚定程度不同，使个体获得不同程度的“增殖”。这显然是一场政治对抗，在全球范围内其结果是，精英主义制度比平等主义制度更有效，这并不令人意外。

Finally, such a theory, along with the trends accompanying capitalist society, has a paradoxical yet very understandable relationship with the Marxist discourse on the exploitation of labor and the accumulation of capital. Marx believed that "capital" could ultimately be reduced to productive labor, or another different form of labor. In contrast, the theory of human capital calls labor "human capital," arguing that labor can be transformed into a kind of capital and can operate in the manner of capital, such as credit, investment, and profitability. Of course, the underlying ideology here is to view the individual as a self-employed person or an entrepreneur themselves.

最后，这样的理论以及与资本主义社会伴随的趋势，同马克思主义关于劳动力剥削和资本积累的论述有着一种有悖常理却非常容易理解的关系。马克思认为，“资本”最终可以缩减为生产性劳动，或者另一种不同形式的劳动。与此相反，人力资本的理论则将劳动称为“人力资本”，认为劳动可以转化为一种资本，并可以采取信贷、投资和盈利能力这些资本的方式来进行运行。当然，这里潜在的意识形态，是将个人视为自我雇佣者或者企业家本人。

05 Capitalist reproduction or "total subordination"

05资本主义再生产或“总体从属”

As I moved toward defining "absolute capitalism," a turning point emerged: a steady process of commodification, or the creation of new "fictitious commodities," is key to maintaining the accumulation process. It leads to the incorporation of reproduction processes—including biological, knowledge-based, or symbolic ones—into the valorization process. This valorization process "transforms" human activities into numbers measurable by money, and this process also leads to a massive increase in credit and debt borne by individuals and society as a whole. Consequently, the production process and the valorization process must be incorporated into the very definition of capital.

在我向尝试定义“绝对资本主义”的方向展开研究时，出现一个转折点：一个稳定的商品化过程，或者创造新的“虚拟商品”的过程，这是维持积累过程的关键。它导致将包括生物、知识或符号在内的再生产过程纳入增殖过程之中。这一增殖过程将人的活动“转变”为能通过货币衡量的数字，这一过程也使得个人和社会作为一个整体所承担的信贷和债务大幅提升。由此，须将生产过程和增殖过程纳入资本本身的定义之中。

I have already discussed the issue of valorization, a process that includes both the formation of value and the addition of new value to existing capital. The valorization process includes the processes of accumulation, commodification, and financialization. Marx pointed out that this process does not rely purely on the exploitation of labor power; it also includes the exploitation of a certain capacity for living. I agree with what David Harvey insists on: this does not mean that valorization involves no exploitation or expropriation, and thus no latent or open antagonism. On the contrary, the tendency toward unlimited accumulation drives capitalism more than ever: this is why every investment must plan for the realization of value in advance.

我已经讨论了增殖的问题，这一过程即包括价值的形成过程，也包括向现有的资本中增加新价值的过程。增殖的过程包括积累、商品化、金融化的过程。马克思指出，这一过程不是纯粹依赖于对劳动力的剥削，它更包含了对某种生活能力的剥削。我同意如大卫•哈维所坚持的，这并不是说增殖不涉及剥削或剥夺，就没有潜在或公开的对抗。恰恰相反，无限积累的趋势比以往任何时候都更能推动资本主义：这就是为什么每项投资都必须事先计划价值的实现。

This is why I insist on emphasizing the importance of the steady process of commodification. Ultimately, "commodification" is a commodification of life, achieved by commodifying its goals, behaviors, or hobbies. This process began long before capitalism, even before the Industrial Revolution; but it continues to exist within capitalism, overcoming many difficulties.

这就是为什么我坚持强调稳步进行商品化过程的重要性。最终，“商品化”是一种对生命的商品化，通过将其目标、行为或爱好商品化实现的。这个过程早在资本主义之前就开始了，甚至在工业革命之前；但它在资本主义内部克服重重困难继续存在。

It is the combination of these objective and subjective dimensions that prompted me to propose a quasi-Marxist category of "total subordination." Most importantly, I want to extend an idea initiated by Marx, although he left behind some obscure unpublished texts. In English, "subordination" is an ancient legal and philosophical category. But what is most striking is when we introduce a third ontological category, one that is neither "thing" nor "person," nor can it encompass both, but rather "action" or "agency." This is the way Marx, in *Capital*, describes the transition from "formal subordination" to "real subordination." It is precisely the worker's activity being deformed by capitalist production and the Industrial Revolution into a partial operation within a collective process, the content and rhythm of which are seen as belonging to the machinery itself. Thus, the worker can only produce or have "activity capacity" within the factory environment; they are completely subordinated to the "laws" of capitalist valorization. When the "formal subordination" expressed legally in the form of wages is fully "realized" or transformed into "real subordination," exploitation is not merely a means of domination but is integrated into the human body and mind, or thoroughly individualized.

正是这些客观和主观维度的结合，促使我提出了一个“总体从属”的准马克思主义范畴。最重要的是，我想延伸一个由马克思开创的思想，尽管他留下了一些未出版的晦涩文本。在英文中，“从属”是一个古老的法律和哲学范畴。但是，最引人注目的是，当我们引入第三个本体论范畴时，这个范畴既不是“物”也不是“人”，也不能包含两者，而是“行为”或“代理”。这是马克思在《资本论》中描述从“形式上的从属”到“实际上的从属”的转变时所使用的方式。正是工人的活动被资本主义生产和工业革命变形为一种集体过程中的一个部分操作，而这一集体过程的内容和节奏则被视为机械本身。所以工人只有在工厂的环境下才可以生产或才有“活动能力”，他们完全服从于资本主义增殖的“法则”。当法律上以工资形式表现出来的“形式上的从属”充分“实现”或转化为“实际上的从属”时，剥削就不仅仅是一种支配手段，而是被整合到人类身体和思想之中，或者被彻底地个体化。

However, at the same time, another thing happens, which I call "total subordination." There are indications that, in Marx's view, capitalism always seeks to exploit in two ways: not only exploiting labor power in the production process, but also exploiting in the reproduction process. As I mentioned earlier, there exists the fact that within a reproduction process that concretely links the family with market conditions, an additional form of unpaid domestic labor arises. But Marx did not ignore the fact that market constraints or market logic will increasingly control the quality and quantity of workers' consumption, making it more profitable for capital.

然而，与此同时，发生了另一件事，我称之为“总体从属”。有迹象显示，在马克思看来，资本主义总是想从两方面进行剥削：不仅在生产过程中剥削劳动力，而且在再生产过程中进行剥削。正如我之前提到的，存在这样一个事实：在这样一个将家庭与市场条件具体地联系起来的再生产过程中，会产生一种额外形式的无报酬的家庭劳动。但马克思并没有忽视这样一个事实：市场约束或市场逻辑将越来越多地控制工人消费的质量和数量，以使其对资本来说更加有利可图。

This clearly implies two things: (1) the anthropological boundary between work and life, between production and reproduction, has disappeared, because the reproduction process itself is becoming a "productive" domain in the capitalist sense; (2) the dimension of individuality unaffected by commodification has disappeared, meaning there is no inter-subjectivity, vulnerability, or dependency between individuals. Any form of life, as a participant, whether active or passive, even in pain or dying, cannot exist apart from its commodity form and value form, and this value form is in fact merely a moment in the process of capital's valorization. This is not a reduction of individual life to what Giorgio Agamben calls "bare life." In a sense, it is the opposite: although every human culture is a kind of "second nature," the transfiguration of life, or the "second nature" that results from it, is a purely capitalist form. This is what I call total subordination (which appears after "formal" and "real" subordination), because it leaves nothing external (it leaves no space for "natural" life). Or, anything not included must appear as a residue, a domain awaiting further integration. Must it be so? The entire question is of course this, the moral question just like the political question: is there a limit to commodification? Are there internal and external obstacles? A Lacanian might say: every such totalization contains an element of the impossible, which belongs to the "Real"; it must be "not-all," or incomplete. If that is the case, the heterogeneous element—the internal surplus of total subordination—may appear in many different forms. Some manifestations are clearly individual acts, such as pathological or anarchistic resistance activities; some are mass acts, and others even take the form of governmental acts. Or, they may become a demonstration, expressed in certain difficulties in implementing the neoliberal agenda, for example, once a medical insurance system is legalized, it is difficult to abolish it.

这显然意味着两件事：（1）工作与生活之间、生产与再生产之间在人类学意义上的界限已然消失，因为再生产过程本身正在成为资本主义意义上的“生产性”领域；（2）不被商品化影响的个性的维度已然消失，即个体之间没有了主体间性、脆弱性或依赖性。任何形式的生命作为参与者，不论是积极还是被动，甚至痛苦或濒死，都不能脱离其商品形式和价值形式而存在，而这种价值形式实际上只是资本增殖过程中的一个瞬间。这并不是将个人的生活缩减为吉奥乔•阿甘本所说的“赤裸生命”。从某种意义上说，它恰恰相反：虽然每一种人类文化都是某种“第二天性”，但是生命的变性，或由此产生的“第二天性”都是纯粹的资本主义形式。这就是我所说的总体从属（它出现在“形式上的”和“实际上的”从属之后），因为它没有留下任何外在的东西（没有给“自然的”生命留出任何的空间）。或者，任何未包括在内的东西必须表现为一个残余物，一个有待进一步整合的领域。必须如此吗？整个问题当然如此，道德问题就像政治问题一样：商品化有限度吗？是否存在内部和外部障碍？拉康主义者可能会说：每一种这样的总体化都包含一种不可能的元素，它属于“实在界”；它必须是“并非全部的”，或不完整的。如果是这样的话，异质的元素——总体从属的内在剩余——可能会以许多不同的形式出现。有些表现形式明显是个人行为，如病态的或无政府主义的抵抗活动；有些表现形式则是大众行为，还有一些甚至采取政府行为。或者，它们可能会成为一种展示，在实施新自由主义议程的某些困难中表现出来，例如，一旦一种医疗保险制度被合法化，就很难废除它。

(Author Étienne Balibar, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Paris Nanterre University, France, Anniversary Chair in Contemporary European Philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, UK; Translator Wang Zhen, Assistant Researcher at the Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

（作者艾蒂安•巴里巴尔，法国巴黎第十大学哲学名誉教授，英国金斯顿大学现代欧洲哲学研究中心当代欧洲哲学周年纪念特聘教授；译者王珍，中国社会科学院马克思主义研究院助理研究员）

Online Editor: Zhang Jian

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