Critique and Reflection on the Theory of Spatial Justice

I. The Noisy Study of Spatial Justice

一、喧嚣的空间正义研究

Some Western scholars have raised the topic of spatial justice studies, even under the banner of Marxism, and many domestic scholars have followed suit. As of September 18, 2020, a search on CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) yields 457 Chinese academic journal articles, 152 graduate theses (including 25 doctoral dissertations), 26 domestic conference papers, 16 newspaper articles, 15 academic serials, and 25 special-feature periodicals on the theme of spatial justice.

一些西方学者挑起了空间正义研究的话题，甚至打着马克思主义的旗号，国内也有不少学者跟风而去。截止2020年9月18日，在中国知网上检索，以空间正义为主题的中文学术期刊文章有457篇，研究生学位论文有152篇，其中博士学位论文有25篇，国内会议文章26篇，报纸文章16篇，学术辑刊15篇，特色期刊25篇。

Some propose that Western scholars “conduct spatial research with the aim of practical, concrete exploration of feasible paths to transform the real world, construct a more rational spatial life, and establish spatial justice, ‘reducing oppression and inequality arising from class, race, gender, and other sources of social power.’” They also argue that “under conditions where inequalities in wealth, class, etc., are increasingly reproduced and expressed through spatial differences such as housing segregation, the weak in the social-spatial structure can realistically change the spatial inequality and spatial injustice of this society only through organized collective action.” In response, some hold that “as globalization and urbanization unfold with unprecedented intensity, breadth, and depth, a large number of social fairness and justice issues continuously converge on space, giving rise to universal theoretical calls and practical demands for spatial justice, driving people to explore and analyze them from multiple angles.” However, since these social fairness and justice issues are merely focused on space as a result of historical development, spatial justice issues are the outcome of the development of these social fairness and justice issues, not the cause of their emergence. Thus, appealing to spatial justice is precisely putting the cart before the horse—attempting to eliminate the result without eliminating the cause. Moreover, if the weak can change spatial inequality through organized collective action, can they not equally change class inequality? And if class inequality is eliminated, can spatial inequality still exist? If the organized collective action of the weak cannot eliminate class inequality, can spatial inequality be changed?

有人提出，西方学者“进行空间研究的目的，是实践性的具体探索改造现实世界、建构更合理空间生活、确立空间正义的可行路径，‘减少阶级、种族、性别以其他不同社会权力源泉的压迫和不平等。’”并认为，“在财富、阶层等不平等日益通过住宅等空间差异、空间隔离得以再生和表现的情况下，社会空间结构中的弱者只有通过有组织的集体行动，才可能现实地改变这个社会的空间不平等、空间不正义等现象。”对此，有人认为，“随着全球化、城市化以前所未有的强度、广度、深度展开，大量社会公平正义问题不断聚焦于空间，形成了普遍性的空间正义理论呐喊和实践诉求，驱使人们多角度深入探讨和解析它们。”但是，既然这些社会公平正义问题只不过是由于历史的发展而聚焦于空间，那么空间正义问题就只是这些社会公平正义问题发展的结果，而不是这些社会公平正义问题出现的原因，从而诉求空间正义恰恰是本末倒置，是妄图在不消灭原因的前提下消灭结果。另外，如果弱者可以通过有组织的集体行动改变空间不平等的现象，那么他们就不能同样改变阶级间的不平等的现象吗？而如果阶级间的不平等消除了，还有可能存在空间不平等吗？如果弱者的有组织集体行动不能消除阶级间的不平等，那么空间不平等能够改变吗？

The American scholar and world-renowned urban thinker Soja (also translated as Su Jia or Suo Jie) proposes: “The justice of space means that geography can be unjust and unfair; you can say that one geography is more just than another. For example, Suzhou’s geography is much more just than Beijing’s (because Beijing is more congested than Suzhou). This is the justice of space.” According to this reasoning, grinding wheat into flour, fermenting it, and baking bread is much more troublesome than boiling wheat grains directly into porridge, so wheat porridge would be more just than bread, and eating bread instead of directly eating wheat porridge would fall into food injustice. If someone finds food justice absurd, then the above spatial justice is equally absurd. If someone thinks they can acknowledge spatial justice while also acknowledging food justice, they would probably agree with capitalists using the name of food justice to feed workers cheap potatoes instead of bread in order to lower wages.

美国学者世界著名城市思想家索亚（又译苏贾、索杰）提出：“空间的正义性是说，地理可能是不正义、不公正的，你可以说这个地理比那个地理更正义些，比如，苏州的地理就比北京的要正义的多（因为北京比苏州拥堵）。这就是空间的正义性。”按照这种说法，麦粒磨粉再发酵烤面包比直接煮麦粒饭麻烦得多，麦粒饭也就比面包正义了，从而吃面包而不直接吃麦粒饭就陷入食物不正义了。如果有人觉得食物正义荒唐的话，那么上述空间正义同样荒唐；如果有人认为，可以在承认空间正义的同时承认食物正义，那么他大概就会赞同资本家以食物正义的名义给工人吃价廉的马铃薯而不吃面包以压低工资了。

Soja also proposes: “Justice is a legal term. If a person does something bad, how can we say he is just? That would be a travesty of justice. Legal scholars, in a broad sense, speak of justice as fairness, equality, and honesty in judgment.” But who judges whether a matter is good or bad, who judges equality, and thus who judges justice? Historically, the working class, in defiance of legal provisions, went on strike to demand a shorter working day. From the perspective of the law at that time, they were indeed doing something bad, and from the capitalists’ viewpoint, it was certainly not just. Yet the law eventually gave way: not only was the Ten Hours Act passed, but later the Eight Hours Act was also enacted. Can it be said that the law’s concession, and thus the new legal provisions, were unjust? On spatial issues, Marx mentioned in *Capital*, Volume I: “English doctors unanimously declared that each person needed at least 500 cubic feet of space to work continuously.” However, because of the fear that “legal mandatory provisions on the necessary space each worker should occupy in the workshop would shake the foundations of the capitalist mode of production,” “factory legislation hit a wall at the 500-cubic-foot mark. Health authorities, industrial investigation commissions, and factory inspectors repeatedly emphasized the necessity of 500 cubic feet and repeatedly stated that it was impossible to force capital to accept this. In doing so, they effectively declared that workers’ tuberculosis and other lung diseases were a condition of capital’s survival.” Is the law’s retreat before capital also just? How much significance can the spatial justice derived from Soja’s such naive view of justice have?

索亚还提出：“正义是一种法律术语。如果一个人做了坏事，我们怎么可能说他是正义的呢？那是对正义的抹杀。法学学者在很广泛的意义上谈论的正义就是在评判的时候要公平、平等、诚实。”但是，谁来评判事的好坏，谁来评判平等，从而谁来评判正义呢？历史上工人阶级不顾法律的规定举行罢工要求缩短工作日，从当时的法律上讲正是做了坏事，从资本家的角度来看也的确不是正义的。但是，法律最后还是让了步，不仅十小时工作日法案通过了，后来还通过了八小时工作日法案，能够说法律的让步从而法律的新规定是不正义的吗？就空间问题而论，马克思在《资本论》第一卷中曾经提到：“英国的医生曾异口同声地宣布，每人起码要有500立方英尺的空间才能持续地工作。”但是，由于担心“法律关于工场中的每个工人应占有必要空间的强制规定”会“会动摇资本主义生产方式的根基”，“因此，工厂立法在500立方英尺的空间面前碰壁了。卫生机关、工业调查委员会、工厂视察员，都一再强调500立方英尺的必要性，又一再述说不可能强迫资本接受这一点。这样，他们实际上就是宣布，工人的肺结核和其他肺部疾病是资本生存的一个条件。”难道法律在资本面前的这种退缩也是正义的吗？从索亚的如此幼稚的正义观引伸出来的空间正义，又有多大的意义呢？

Moreover, in the workers’ workplace, cramped space is not the only problem. Marx also pointed out in *Capital*, Volume I: “The saving of social means of production matures only under the mild and favorable climate of the factory system; in the hands of capital, this saving simultaneously becomes a systematic robbery of the workers’ living conditions during labor—that is, a robbery of space, air, sunlight, and of the equipment for protecting workers’ personal safety and health in the production process, not to mention workers’ welfare facilities.” Therefore, if spatial justice theorists can propose spatial justice for cramped spaces, and even derive Marx’s spatial justice thought from this, then they should equally propose air justice, sunlight justice, personal safety justice, health justice, and welfare justice. But please, let them not propose Marx’s air justice thought, sunlight justice thought, etc., just as with spatial justice thought—let them not attribute words Marx never uttered to him.

而且在工人的工作场合，空间狭小并不是唯一的问题。马克思在《资本论》第一卷中还指出：“社会生产资料的节约只是在工厂制度的温和适宜的气候下才成熟起来的，这种节约在资本手中却同时变成了对工人在劳动时的生活条件系统的掠夺，也就是对空间、空气、阳光以及对保护工人在生产过程中人身安全和健康的设备系统的掠夺，至于工人的福利设施就根本谈不上了。”因此，如果空间正义论者可以针对空间狭小提出空间正义，甚至由此提出马克思的空间正义思想，那么他们同样应当提出空气正义、阳光正义、人身安全正义、健康正义和福利正义，但是，请他们千万不要提出马克思的空气正义思想、阳光正义思想等等，如同空间正义思想一样，请他们不要把马克思没有说出的字眼扣到马克思的头上。

Western spatial justice theorists believe they have made a major discovery, even one that can surpass Marx. “Lefebvre believed that Marx’s critique of capitalism was based on economic determinism, lacking attention to the issue of spatial domination. Therefore, he pushed Marx’s historical liberation of humanity toward the spatial liberation of humanity, advancing his spatial theory into practice, and proposed the ‘right to the city’ as a way to realize his spatial revolution—‘the right to the city should advocate open and fair participation in all activities that produce urban space; utilize the advantages of urban life, especially the advantages of the city center, to avoid spatial segregation and restrictions; provide various urban services that meet basic needs (targeting not only workers but also immigrants, marginalized people, and even the privileged).’” Here, the various objects of urban services—workers, marginalized people, and the privileged—are essentially objects divided into different classes. Is it not absurd to talk about liberation, even spatial liberation, in a society where classes exist? Even setting aside class, focusing only on the openness and fairness of the right to the city while ignoring the existence of the urban-rural divide, and not striving to eliminate it, how can this surpass Marx’s “historical liberation of humanity,” which demands the elimination of the “three major differences” [n]? As for the spatial justice theorists’ view that “the way our daily urban life operates produces unequal power relations, which in turn indicate that we live in cities where social resources are unequally and unjustly distributed in space. Numerous socially disadvantaged groups caused by spatial inequality and injustice demand more social resources and social power,” this is entirely an idealist view of history. Socially disadvantaged groups are not caused by spatial inequality and injustice but by the capitalist mode of production. Modern cities are products of capitalist development, and the primitive accumulation of capital originates from the direct expropriation of laborers, some of which even occurred outside cities. Unequal power relations are determined by unequal possession of means of production and means of subsistence, not by the mode of operation of urban life. Do unequal power relations not exist outside cities?

西方空间正义论者自以为有了重大发现，甚至可以超越马克思了。“列斐伏尔认为马克思对资本主义的批判是建立在经济决定论的基础之上的，这种批判缺乏对空间统治问题的关注。因此，他将马克思的人的历史解放推向人的空间解放，把自己的空间理论推向实践，提出‘城市权’的主张来实践自己空间革命的思路——‘城市权应该主张公开公平地参与所有生产城市空间进程的活动；利用城市生活的优势，尤其是市中心的优势，避免空间上的隔离与限制；提供满足基本需求的各种城市服务（其对象不仅包括工人，也包括移民、边缘人甚至特权者）。’”这里，城市服务的各种对象如工人、边缘人和特权者实际上就是划分为不同阶级的对象，在存在阶级的社会里谈解放哪怕是空间解放难道不是荒唐的吗？即便撇开阶级不提，这里只关注城市权的公开公平而漠视城乡差别的存在，不致力于消灭城乡差别，又如何能够超越要求消灭“三大差别”的马克思的“人的历史解放”呢？至于空间正义论者认为，“我们每天城市生活的运行方式产生了不平等的权力关系，这些关系依次表明我们身处社会资源在空间上不平等和不公正分配的城市之中。众多由空间不平等和不公正造成的社会弱势群体要求获得更多的社会资源和社会权力”，这完全是历史唯心主义的观点。社会弱势群体不是由空间不平等和不公正造成的，而是由资本主义生产方式造成的。现代城市是资本主义发展的产物，而资本的原始积累来源于对劳动者的直接剥夺，一些原始积累甚至是在城市之外完成的。不平等的权力关系是由不平等的生产资料和生活资料占有决定的，而不是由城市生活的运行方式产生的。难道在城市之外，就没有不平等的权力关系存在吗？

Some Western scholars, such as Marcuse, have recognized that “merely focusing on space is very dangerous: the roots of many spatial problems lie in the economic, social, political and other fields, and space is only one part of them.” In fact, space has its material carriers. The space on an open wilderness takes land as its direct carrier; the space inside a building takes the building as its carrier. Without occupying the corresponding material, one cannot occupy the corresponding space. Therefore, rather than speaking of spatial justice, it would be better to speak of justice in the occupation of the carriers of space. As for Harvey’s claim that “those who dominate space can always control the politics of place, even if control of a place first requires control of space,” this is merely a clumsy expression of the historical materialist view that those who possess the means of production, i.e., who are economically dominant, are also politically dominant.

也有西方学者如马尔库塞认识到，“仅仅关注空间是非常危险的：很多空间性问题的根源在于经济、社会、政治等领域，空间只是其中的一部分内容。”其实，空间有它的物质载体。空旷的原野上的空间以土地为直接载体，楼房里的空间以房屋为载体，不占有相应的物质就不能占有相应的空间。因此，与其讲空间正义，不如谈空间载体占有方面的正义。至于哈维所谓“那些支配着空间的人可能始终控制着地方的政治，即使对某个地方的控制要首先控制空间”的说法，不过是对占有生产资料即在经济上占统治地位的人也在政治上占统治地位这一唯物史观的蹩脚表述。

Some people propose that to revive spatial justice, one must do this or that, but has spatial justice ever existed? If it never existed, what is there to “revive”? This same person also selectively excerpts a classic Marxist text — “the world must be arranged so that man can recognize and comprehend what is truly human in it, so that he can recognize himself as a human being… the environment must be made human” — and then declares, “This is the criterion of the Marxist view of spatial justice!” Here, he first reduces the world to the environment, and then reduces the environment to space. But the complete passage, which he has truncated, reads: “Since man’s character is created by the environment, the environment must be made human.” Clearly, if the environment is reduced to space, then man’s character is created by space — could anything be more absurd? The cap of spatial justice cannot be so absurdly pinned on the heads of the classical Marxist writers.

有人提出，要复兴空间正义，必须如何如何，但是，空间正义曾经存在过吗？如果不曾存在过，谈何“复兴”呢？此人还如此截取马克思主义经典著作即“必须这样安排周围的世界，使人在其中能认识和领会真正合乎人性的东西，使他能认识到自己是人。……必须使环境成为合乎人性的环境”，然后提出“此为马克思主义空间正义观的圭臬！”在这里，他先把世界缩减成环境，再把环境缩减成空间。而被他截断的完整的话语是这样的，“既然人的性格是由环境造成的，那就必须使环境成为合乎人性的环境。”显然，如果把环境缩减成空间，那么人的性格就是由空间造成的，还有比这更荒诞的吗？空间正义的帽子是不能这样荒诞地扣到马克思主义经典作家的头上的。

Proponents of spatial justice argue that “developed capitalist countries occupy the core position in the global layout of spatial production, while developing countries are at the periphery of the global spatial layout, and therefore inevitably suffer exploitation and oppression by developed countries.” However, Marx once pointed out: “The capitalist is a capitalist not because he is an industrial manager; on the contrary, he becomes an industrial commander because he is a capitalist.” Similarly, developing countries suffer exploitation and oppression by developed countries not because they are at the periphery of the global spatial layout; on the contrary, developing countries are at the periphery of the global spatial layout because they suffer exploitation and oppression by developed countries. It can be seen that the mode of thinking of spatial justice theory is one that puts the cart before the horse.

空间正义论者认为，“发达资本主义国家处在全球空间生产布局的核心位置，相反发展中国家处于全球空间布局的边缘地位，因而必然受到发达国家的剥削与压迫。”但是，马克思曾经指出：“资本家所以是资本家，并不是因为他是工业的管理者，相反，他所以成为工业的司令官，因为他是资本家。”同样地，发展中国家所以受到发达国害的剥削与压迫，并不是因为发展中国家处于全球空间布局的边缘地位，相反，发展中国家所以处于全球空间布局的边缘地位，因为发展中国家受到发达国家的剥削与压迫。可见空间正义论的思维方式是一种本末倒置的思维方式。

Some people quote Harvey: “The more universal pursuit of differential rent produces geographical differences in the intensity of capital investment, often ensuring that well-funded regions become richer while capital-poor regions become relatively poorer. In any case, the differential process is purely economic, and at the same time ecological and social.” They then argue that “the result of this spatial capitalization operation inevitably makes the original owners of real estate property even richer, while new urban workers who have migrated to the city must pay a higher price for living space, even becoming lifelong debt slaves of property rights.” However, differential rent belongs to the landowner, not the capitalist. There is no question of capitalists pursuing differential rent; at most, one can say that there is a portion of surplus profit not captured as differential rent by the landowner that capital can pursue, and the competition among various capitals can only result in driving up rent, eliminating surplus profit, or converting all surplus profit into rent. Clearly, Harvey does not understand that in capitalist society there are three major classes — landowners, capitalists, and workers — nor how the surplus value created by workers is distributed between the first two. The views of these Western scholars, whose level of Marxist theory is questionable, simply cannot serve as a theoretical basis.

有人引用哈维的话：“对级差地租的更加普遍的追求产生了资本投资强度上的地理差异，常常会确保资金充足的地区越来越富，而资金贫乏的地区则相对越来越穷。不管怎样，级差过程是纯经济的，同时又是生态的、社会的。”进而提出“这种空间资本化运作的结果，必然使原来房地产产权的拥有者更加暴富，让进城务工的新增市民须以更高昂的代价求得栖居空间，甚至一辈子成为房产权的债奴。”但是，级差地租属于土地占有者而不属于资本家，不存在资本家追求级差地租的问题，至多只能说存在一部分没有作为级差地租落入土地占有者手中的超额利润可供资本追求，而各路资本竞相追求的后果只能是抬高地租，消除超额利润或者说将超额利润尽数转化为地租。显然，哈维不理解资本主义社会存在土地占有者、资本家和工人三大阶级以及工人创造的剩余价值是如何在前两者之间分配的，这些马克思主义理论水平堪忧的西方学者的观点根本不能作为理论依据。

Furthermore, in the preface to the second edition (1887) of *The Housing Question*, Engels pointed out: “The core of the big and petty bourgeoisie’s solution to the ‘housing question’ is that the worker should own his own house. But the industrial development of Germany in the last twenty years has given a very peculiar interpretation to this question.” Engels noted that the very idea that workers should buy their own houses “is based on that reactionary fundamental viewpoint of Proudhon’s which we have already indicated.” Regarding the proposal to “redeem rental housing and transfer ownership to the original tenants,” Engels stated that this “cannot touch the capitalist mode of production at all,” and that “to propose this under the current conditions of development of large-scale industry and cities is both absurd and reactionary; to reintroduce individual ownership of one’s own house is a step backward.” This shows that the spatial justice advocated in indignation at the plight of housing debt slaves is merely Proudhonism, i.e., a petty-bourgeois position. The focus of Marxism has always been “the seizure of the means of production in the name of society by the proletariat, which has risen to political dominance.” The actual abolition of the capitalist mode of production would naturally put an end to so-called spatial capitalization. But proponents of spatial justice do not even oppose capitalism: “Whether we engage in social movements or urban movements, the ultimate goal is not the pursuit of profit, but the construction of an environment suitable for living, and profit is merely a means to achieve this goal. This requires that our urban theory develop a more general principle around the right to the city, thereby expressing the more universal majority’s desire and demand for spatial justice.” Here, “profit” represents capital. It is evident that proponents of spatial justice expect capital to serve as a means of achieving spatial justice. Soja even said to Chinese scholars: “You will create a new capitalism. Maybe you will make it more just.”

另外，恩格斯在《论住宅问题》1887年第二版序言中指出，“大资产阶级和小资产阶级解决‘住宅问题’的办法的核心就是工人拥有自己住房的所有权。但是，近20年来德国的工业发展，对这一问题作了一个十分独特的解说。”恩格斯指出，工人应当购买自己的住房这种思想本身，“是建立在我们已指出的蒲鲁东的那个反动的基本观点之上的”。针对“赎买出租住房并把住房所有权转交给原来的承租人”的主张，恩格斯指出，这“根本不能触动资本主义生产方式”，“在大工业和城市的当前发展情况下提议这样做是既荒谬又反动的；重新实行各个人对自己住房的个人所有权，是一种退步。”这表明，愤慨于房奴处境而主张的空间正义只是蒲鲁东主义即小资产阶级的主张。马克思主义的关注点始终是“由上升到政治上独占统治地位的无产阶级以社会的名义占有全部生产资料”，事实上消灭了资本主义生产方式也自然就不会有所谓的空间资本化运作了。但是空间正义论者甚至并不反对资本主义，“无论我们进行社会运动还是城市运动，终极目标都不是为了追求利润，而是为了建设适合生活的环境，而利润只是为了实现这一目标的手段。这就需要我们的城市理论围绕城市权发展出一种更为一般的原则，由此表达出更具普遍性的多数人对空间正义的渴望和要求。”这里的利润代表的就是资本，可见，空间正义论者指望资本可以作为实现空间正义的一个手段，索亚甚至对中国学者说：“你们将创造一个新的资本主义。可能你们会让它更正义。”

II. Appealing to Justice Is Not a Marxist Approach

二、诉诸正义不是马克思主义的做法

Some people argue that Marx and Engels’ “critique of the industrialization of urban construction and the capitalization of spatial production has left us with a scientific and profound line of thought for studying and clarifying the issue of spatial justice under the new circumstances.” However, appealing to justice is not a Marxist approach, and certainly not the approach of the classical Marxist writers. Engels pointed out in *Socialism: Utopian and Scientific*: “The ultimate causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in the minds of men, in their increasing insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the mode of production and exchange; they are to be sought, not in the philosophy, but in the economics of the epoch concerned. The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that ‘reason has become nonsense and good deeds a torment,’ is only a symptom that changes have taken place, unnoticed, in the methods of production and exchange, and that the social system, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no longer in harmony with these changes.” Spatial justice is likewise merely a symptom — a symptom indicating that in capitalist society the relations of production are no longer suited to the development of the productive forces. It is by no means a “scientific and profound line of thought.” Moreover, similar symptoms — such as the adulteration of food for the poor mentioned in Volume I of *Capital* (from which one could obviously derive something like “food justice”) — were already revealed many times in the works of Marx and Engels.

有人认为，马克思和恩格斯“对城市建设工业化、空间生产资本化的批判，为我们在新形势下研讨与澄明空间正义问题，留下了科学而深刻的致思理路。”但是，诉诸正义不是马克思主义尤其不是马克思主义经典作家的做法。恩格斯在《社会主义从空想到科学的发展》中指出：“一切社会变迁和政治变革的终极原因，不应当到人们的头脑中，到人们对永恒的真理和正义的日益增进的认识中去寻找，而应当到生产方式和交换方式的变更中去寻找；不应当到有关时代的哲学中去寻找，而应当到有关时代的经济中去寻找。对现存社会制度的不合理性和不公平、对‘理性化为无稽，幸福变成苦痛’的日益觉醒的认识，只是一种征兆，表示在生产方法和交换形式中已经不知不觉地发生了变化，适合于早先的经济条件的社会制度已经不再同这些变化相适应了。”空间正义同样只是一种征兆，一种表明资本主义社会里生产关系已经不适合于生产力的发展的征兆，根本谈不上“科学而深刻的致思理路”，而且同类征兆比如《资本论》第一卷中提到的生产供穷人消费的食物时的掺假问题（显然可以从中引出食物正义之类说法）等等，在马克思恩格斯的著作中就已经揭示过很多了。

In a letter to Engels, Marx, discussing his revisions to the International Working Men’s Association’s Preamble and Provisional Rules, pointed out: “I was obliged to insert in the Preamble the words ‘duties’ and ‘rights,’ and also ‘truth, morality and justice,’ but I have so arranged them that they cannot do any harm.” [1]1 The “three major differences” (三大差别) refer to the differences between industry and agriculture, between urban and rural areas, and between mental and manual labor, a classic formulation in Marxist theory on the path to communism. Clearly, when some Chinese scholars and journals today follow Western scholars in loudly discussing justice, and even absurd spatial justice, they only allow the word “justice” to cause harm. For example, some believe that “the essence of the principle of social justice, in spatial production, is to safeguard the majority and protect the minority, to emphasize harmonious unity and respect for individual freedom as a dialectical unity.” However, in a class society, the exploited and oppressed are the majority, while the exploiters and oppressors are the minority. So-called safeguarding the majority and protecting the minority is in fact advocating class conciliation, and so-called respect for individual freedom is respect for the exploiters’ freedom to exploit.

马克思在致恩格斯的信中谈到他对国际工人协会的原则宣言和临时章程的修改时指出：“我必须在章程导言中采纳‘义务’和‘权利’这两个词，以及‘真理、道德和正义’等词，但是，对这些字眼已经妥为安排，使它们不可能造成危害。”显然，今天中国的一些学者和期刊跟着西方学者大谈正义，甚至荒诞的空间正义，只会使“正义”这个字眼造成危害。例如，有人认为，“社会正义原则的本旨，在空间生产中，是维护多数和保护少数、强调和谐一致与尊重个性自由的辩证统一。”但是，在阶级社会里被剥削被压迫的是多数，剥削和压迫的是少数，所谓维护多数和保护少数，其实就是鼓吹阶级调和，所谓尊重个性自由就是尊重剥削者的剥削自由。

Some propose that “Marx’s view of justice holds that ‘as long as it corresponds to, and is consistent with, the mode of production, it is just; as long as it contradicts the mode of production, it is unjust.’ Based on this principle of justice, Marx and Engels, in the domain of spatial justice, whether in their critique of unjust phenomena or in their analysis of their causes, firmly base themselves on consideration of whether the mode of production has progressed, to reveal the positive correlation or isomorphism between the state of spatial justice and the mode of production, paying particular attention to explaining the issue from the relationship between spatial human rights and spatial factor property rights.” There are two problems here. First, it is a misunderstanding of the sentence Marx wrote. Second, even if that sentence were unproblematic, justice is only related to the mode of production, and has no direct connection to human rights and property rights; one cannot derive a special emphasis on human rights and property rights from it. In fact, the sentence preceding Marx’s quote reads: “To speak of natural justice, as Gilbart does [see note], is nonsense.” [2]2 The phrase “理性化为无稽，幸福变成苦痛” (reason has become nonsense, good deeds become a torment) is a quotation from Goethe’s *Faust*, used by Engels in *Socialism: Utopian and Scientific* to describe the disillusionment with bourgeois rationality under capitalism. The sentence following it reads: “On the basis of the capitalist mode of production, slavery is unjust.” This latter sentence actually means that on the basis of the capitalist mode of production, the wage-labor system is just, and therefore the polarization inevitably resulting from this wage-labor system, consistent with the capitalist mode of production, is also just. This is not a critique of capitalism but a praise of it, and it negates the earlier criticisms by some of the spatial injustice of workers’ cramped living spaces in capitalist society. At the same time, it also shows that on the basis of the slave mode of production, the capitalist system is also unjust, just as the Southern slave plantation owners viewed the North during the American Civil War. Clearly, the above view of justice is by no means Marx’s view of justice; in fact, it is merely Marx’s objective description of “the justice of the transactions between agents of production,” that is, the view of justice held by the agents of production themselves, because “these transactions arise naturally from the relations of production.” More importantly, this person earlier took “the environment must be made humane” as the “guiding principle of the Marxist view of spatial justice,” without any mention of the issue of “corresponding to the mode of production.” Does this not create a conflict or mutual exclusion within the so-called Marxist view of spatial justice?

有人提出，“马克思的正义观认为，‘只要与生产方式相适应，相一致，就是正义的；只要与生产方式相矛盾，就是非正义的。’基于这样的正义原理，马克思、恩格斯在空间正义论域无论是对非正义现象的批判，还是对其成因分析，都牢牢立足于生产方式进步与否的考量，去揭示空间正义状况与生产方式的正相关性或同构性，尤其注重从空间人权与空间要素产权的关系展开问题的解释。”这里存在两个问题，首先是对马克思写下的那句话的误解，其次，即便那句话没有问题，那么正义只是跟生产方式相关，而跟人权和产权没有直接关系，无法从中引伸出对人权和产权的特别注重。事实上，马克思那句话的上文写的是“同吉尔巴特一起（见注）说什么天然正义，这是毫无意义的。”其下文写的是“在资本主义生产方式的基础上，奴隶制是非正义的”。这句下文实际上就是说在资本主义生产方式的基础上，雇佣劳动制是正义的，从而这一雇佣劳动制必然导致的与资本主义生产方式相一致的两极分化的结果也是正义的。这不是在批判资本主义而是在赞美资本主义，并且否定了前面一些人对资本主义社会里工人生活空间狭小的空间不正义的批评。同时，它也表明，在奴隶制生产方式的基础上，资本主义制度也是非正义的，正如美国南北内战时，南方奴隶种植园主对于北方的看法一样。显然，上述正义观决不是马克思的正义观，事实上，它只是马克思对“生产当事人之间进行的交易的正义性”即生产当事人的正义观的一个客观描述，因为“这种交易是从生产关系中作为自然结果产生出来的。”更重要的是，此人在前面把“必须使环境成为合乎人性的环境”作为“马克思主义空间正义观的圭臬”，那里并没有提到“与生产方式相适应”的问题，这岂不是让所谓的马克思主义的空间正义观互相冲突或者说互相排斥了？

Marx pointed out: “To demand equal or even fair remuneration on the basis of the wage-labor system is the same as demanding freedom on the basis of the slave system. What you think is just and fair is irrelevant to the question. The question is: what is necessary and inevitable given a particular system of production?” In contrast, this person believes that “the rights and interests of spatial production and enjoyment unidirectionally gather toward the capital-strong; while the obligations of spatial production and the responsibility for the negative effects of spatial enjoyment multidirectionally spread to the whole society, making the broad non-beneficiaries bear them together, forming an unjust fact of spatial rights and obligations being unequal. This pattern of spatial rights and interests deviates from the principle of justice that tilts toward the ‘least advantaged,’ forming an injustice that concentrates toward the ‘most advantaged.’” This view is also “irrelevant to the question.” In a capitalist society where workers are exploited, and even in the earlier slave and feudal societies where laborers were also exploited, did there ever exist a principle of justice that tilted toward the “least advantaged”? Was the exploitation and suffering of laborers not inevitable in exploitative societies? Engels once wrote in the article “The Wage-Labor System”: “In the East End of London there are many trades where the severity of the labor and the required skill are exactly the same as for bricklayers and their helpers, yet they earn less than half the wages. Why? Only because a strong organization enables one part of the workers to maintain a higher standard of living as the measure of their wages, while another part of the workers, lacking organization and strength, must not only endure the inevitable encroachments of the employer but also his arbitrary encroachments; their standard of living gradually declines, they learn to live on less and less wages, and so their wages naturally fall to the level they have learned to put up with.” Here, Engels does not say that the East End of London is a marginalized space, does not consider the pattern of spatial rights and interests in the East End as unjust, does not appeal to spatial justice, but instead proposes organizing the workers, emphasizing the significance of trade unions for the workers: “Without the resistance of the trade unions, the workers would not even get what they are entitled to under the rules of the wage-labor system. The capitalist only pays the full market value of his workers’ labor power out of fear of the trade union before his eyes. Need evidence? Look at the wages paid to members of the big trade unions, and then at the wages paid in the countless small trades in the East End, that stagnant pool of poverty.”

马克思指出：“在雇佣劳动制度的基础上要求平等的或仅仅是公平的报酬，就犹如在奴隶制的基础上要求自由一样。你们认为公道和公平的东西，与问题毫无关系。问题就在于：一定的生产制度所必需的和不可避免的东西是什么？”相比之下，此人却认为，“空间生产和享用的权益单向度地朝资本强势者聚集；而空间生产义务及空间享用的负效应担责却多向度地朝全社会扩散，让广大非受益者一并承担，形成空间权利与义务不对等的非正义事实。此类空间权益格局背离了向‘最不利者’倾斜的正义原则，形成向‘最有利者’集中的非正义性。”这种看法也是“与问题毫无关系”，在工人受剥削的资本主义社会里，甚至在此前的劳动者同样受剥削的奴隶社会和封建社会里，难道存在过向“最不利者”倾斜的正义原则吗？难道劳动者受剥削和承受苦难不是剥削社会里不可避免的么？恩格斯曾经在《雇佣劳动制度》一文中写道：“在伦敦东头有许多行业，劳动的繁重程度和所要求的熟练程度同瓦工及其下手完全一样，但是他们挣的工资还不到后者的一半。为什么呢？只是因为一个强有力的组织，使一部分工人能够保持较高的生活标准作为衡量他们的工资的尺度，而另一部分工人由于没有组织、没有力量，不但必须忍受雇主的不可避免的侵夺，而且还要忍受雇主的任意的侵夺，他们的生活标准逐渐降低，他们学会了怎样靠越来越少的工资生活，于是他们的工资就自然而然地降低到他们自己学会了将就的那个水平。”在这里，恩格斯没有说什么伦敦东头处于边缘空间，没有认为伦敦东头这个空间权益格局具有非正义性，没有诉诸空间正义，而是提出把工人组织起来，强调工联对于工人的意义：“如果没有工联的抵抗手段，工人甚至连按照雇佣劳动制度规则应得的也得不到。资本家只是由于害怕他眼前的工联，才会不得已而付出他的工人的劳动力的全部市场价值。这需要证据吗？请看看付给大工联会员的工资，再看看伦敦东头这个贫困的死水坑中的无数小行业所付的工资吧。”

In the preceding analysis, we have already found that spatial justice theorists, especially Western spatial justice theorists, do not demand the overthrow of the capitalist system, but rather seek to alleviate some phenomena of inequality and unfairness within the capitalist system, hence their entanglement with spatial justice. This reformist stance also reflects the spatial justice theorists’ fear of the collapse of capitalism. In “The British Financial System.—The Disturbances in Preston,” Marx, discussing how the capitalists of Preston used tricks, mobilized the police and military, and enacted repressive laws to lower workers’ wages, thereby triggering workers’ protest meetings, wrote: “Most of the London press condemns the conduct of the Preston employers, not out of a sense of justice, but out of [fear] of the possible consequences. These papers fear that the working class is now beginning to understand that the individual capitalist who oppresses them is backed by the whole [state] machine, and that to strike at the former, the working class [must] punish the latter.” Clearly, if spatial justice theorists truly wanted to speak of justice, they should, like the classical Marxist writers, call on the proletarians of the world to unite, overthrow the capitalist system, seize state power, and thoroughly resolve the problem that under the capitalist system the relations of production have become incompatible with the development of the productive forces.

在前面的分析中，我们已经发现空间正义论者特别是西方空间正义论者并不要求推翻资本主义制度，而是想在资本主义制度下缓解一些不公平不平等的现象，从而才会纠结于空间正义，这种改良主义的主张也反映出空间正义论者对资本主义崩溃的恐惧。马克思在《不列颠的金融。——普雷斯顿的骚动》中谈到普雷斯顿的资本家运用诡计，动用警察和军队以及颁布镇压法令来压低工人工资，进而引发工人集会抗议时写道：“伦敦大多数报刊都谴责普雷斯顿企业主的行为，但不是出自正义感，而是出自对可能发生的后果［的恐惧］。这些报刊担心工人阶级现在开始明白，压迫他们的单个资本家是以整个［国家］机器为后盾，为了打击前者，工人阶级［一定］要惩处后者。”显然，空间正义论者如果真的要讲正义，那就应当像马克思主义经典作家一样号召全世界无产者联合起来，推翻资本主义制度，夺取政权，彻底解决在资本主义制度下生产关系已经不适应生产力发展的问题。

III. Classical Marxist Writers on Space

三、马克思主义经典作家论空间

Classical Marxist writers also mentioned space. It is very instructive to collect these discussions and compare them with the views of spatial justice theorists.

马克思主义经典作家也曾经提到过空间，把这些论述汇集起来与空间正义论者的观点加以对比是十分有益的。

In his essay “Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction,” Marx wrote: “What new element could suddenly transform the representatives of provincial interests into representatives of national interests, and give their particular activity the character of universal activity? Clearly, only the element of a common meeting place. But can abstract space itself endow a man of character with a new character, and cause a chemical decomposition of his spiritual essence? If we expect space itself to possess this organizing soul, especially since the existing separation of the estates is also spatially acknowledged and expressed in the committee meetings, then we are extolling an extreme mechanistic materialism.” Evidently, to suppose that abstract space itself can bear values such as justice is like supposing that space itself possesses a soul; it is at most an extreme mechanistic materialism, not the dialectical materialism of Marxism.

马克思在《评奥格斯堡〈总汇报〉第335号和第336号论普鲁士等级委员会的文章》中写道：“有哪种新要素能使省的利益的代表突然变成全国利益的代表，并且使他们的特殊活动具有普遍活动的本质呢？显然，只有集会的共同地点这种要素。但是，难道抽象的空间本身能够给具有性格的人以新的性格，并且使他的精神本质发生化学分解吗？如果我们指望空间本身具有这种起组织作用的灵魂，特别是因为各等级现存的分离状态在委员会会议上也从空间上得到承认和表现，那么，我们就是推崇极端唯物的机械论。”显然，以为抽象的空间本身能够承受正义这样的价值观，就像以为空间本身具有灵魂一样，至多不过是一种极端唯物的机械论，而不是马克思主义的辩证唯物主义。

Apart from the question of workers’ working space that we mentioned earlier, the classical Marxist writers also took note of the question of workers’ living space. In Volume I of *Capital*, Marx wrote: “Any unbiased observer can see that the greater the concentration of the means of production, the more workers are correspondingly crowded into the same space, and therefore the more rapidly capitalist accumulation proceeds, the more wretched are the housing conditions of the workers.” On this basis, some argue that this is “Marx’s demonstration, in the course of his deep excavation of the roots of the injustice of spatial production, of the intuitive and acute character of this phenomenon’s violation of human rights”; “in other words, in capitalist society, the more thoroughly spatial resources such as real estate are turned into property rights and the more forcefully they are capitalized, the worse the human rights situation of the working class and the laboring masses with regard to their living space.” However, above this sentence Marx wrote: “The intimate connection between the pangs of hunger of the most industrious strata of the workers and the extravagant consumption, whether coarse or refined, of the rich, which is based on capitalist accumulation, can only be revealed when we understand the economic laws. This is not the case with housing conditions.” Therefore, the most fundamental problem is the workers’ pangs of hunger, not the housing problem. And in the footnote just before this sentence, Marx cited Dr. Simon’s sanitary report: “It should be remembered that lack of food is extremely hard to bear, and severe lack of food is usually followed by deficiencies in other respects. … Clothing and fuel are even more lacking than food. There is not enough protection against the cold; living space is so cramped as to cause or aggravate disease; furniture and utensils are almost entirely absent; even maintaining cleanliness becomes too costly and difficult to manage.” We can see that the housing, i.e., spatial problem, comes after food, clothing, and fuel. Workers can only sacrifice living space in order to ensure their consumption of food, clothing, and fuel. Even if the theorists of spatial justice could, through spatial justice, enable workers to live rent-free in larger rooms, the workers would still lack sufficient food, clothing, and fuel, and maintaining cleanliness in that larger space would be even more costly and difficult, so that it would only become a dirty space. Clearly, if the theory of spatial justice holds, then it is far from sufficient to speak only of spatial justice without also speaking of cleanliness justice, furniture justice, fuel justice, and clothing justice.

除了我们在前面提到的工人的工作空间问题，马克思主义经典作家也注意到了工人的生活空间问题。马克思在《资本论》第一卷中写道：“任何一个公正的观察者都能看到，生产资料越是大量集中，工人就相应地越要聚集在同一个空间，因此，资本主义的积累越迅速，工人的居住状况就越悲惨。”有人据此认为，这是“马克思在深刨空间生产非正义性祸根过程中，展示了这一现象侵害人权的直观性、尖锐性特征”，“换言之，在资本主义社会，房地产等空间资源产权化越彻底、资本化越强势，工人阶级和劳苦大众栖居空间的人权状况就越糟糕。”然而，马克思在这句话的上头是这样写的：“最勤劳的工人阶层的饥饿痛苦和富人建立在资本主义积累基础上的粗野的或高雅的奢侈浪费之间的内在联系，只有当人们认识了经济规律时才能揭露出来。居住状况却不是这样。”因此，最根本的问题是工人们的饥饿痛苦而不是居住问题。而就在这句话的前面的脚注中，马克思引用西蒙医生的卫生报告指出：“应该记住，缺乏饮食是极难忍受的，而饮食的严重缺乏通常总是跟随在其他方面的不足发生之后。……衣服和燃料比食物还缺。没有足够的抗寒能力；居住面积狭小到了引起疾病或者加重疾病的程度；家具器皿几乎一无所有；甚至保持整洁也成了过于破费和难于办到的事。”我们看到，居住即空间问题排在饮食、衣服和燃料之后，工人们为了保证食物、衣服和燃料的消费，只能牺牲居住空间。即便空间正义论者通过空间正义能够让工人们免费居住较大的房间，但是，工人们同样没有足够的食物、衣服和燃料，而在这个较大的空间里保持整洁会更加破费和难于办到，从而它只会是一个肮脏的空间。显然，如果空间正义论成立，那么只讲空间正义而不讲整洁正义、家具正义、燃料正义和衣服正义是远远不够的。

Some, citing Marx’s statement that “capital by its nature drives beyond every spatial barrier. … it strives to expand the market ever more in space, and to annihilate more space by time,” argue that “the ‘space’ annihilated here refers to the independent regional natural spaces that have not been artificially transformed.” But in the part they omitted, Marx wrote: “Thus, the creation of the material conditions of exchange—the means of communication and transport—is an absolute necessity for capital: to annihilate space by time.” Clearly, understood from the perspective of improving means of transport, the “space” here cannot be “the independent regional natural spaces that have not been artificially transformed.” In fact, according to Marx’s statement in Volume II of *Capital*: “With changes in the means of transport, old production centers decline and new ones arise. (Moreover, long-distance transport is relatively cheaper than short-distance transport.) Along with the development of the means of transport, not only does the speed of spatial movement increase, but spatial distance is also shortened in terms of time.” From this we can understand that the so-called “annihilating more space by time” refers to “spatial distance being shortened in terms of time,” not to the artificial transformation of independent regional natural spaces.

有人引用马克思的话即“资本按其本性来说，力求超越一切空间界限。……力求在空间上更加扩大市场，力求用时间去更多地消灭空间”时认为，“此处被消灭的‘空间’，指的是没有被人为改造过的各自独立的地域性自然空间。”但是，在他所省略的部分里，马克思写道，“因此，创造交换的物质条件——交通运输工具——对资本来说是极其必要的：用时间去消灭空间。”显然，从改善交通运输工具的角度去理解，那么这里的“空间”就不会是“没有被人为改造过的各自独立的地域性自然空间”。实际上，根据马克思在《资本论》第二卷中的说法：“随着交通运输工具的变化，旧的生产中心衰落了，新的生产中心兴起了。（此外，远距离运输比近距离运输相对地说要便宜得多。）在运输工具发展的同时，不仅空间运动的速度加快了，而且空间距离在时间上也缩短了。”我们可以从中理解到，所谓“用时间去更多地消灭空间”指的就是“空间距离在时间上缩短了”，而不是要人为地改造各自独立的地域性自然空间。

The classical Marxist writers approved of capital’s role in “annihilating more space by time” and regarded it as a positive function of capital. For example, the young Engels once wrote in his “Bremen Correspondence”: “It is already within sight that one can travel from any place in Germany to New York in two weeks, tour the sights of the United States from New York in two weeks, and return home in another two weeks. A few trains and a few steamships can accomplish this. Ever since Kant separated the categories of time and space from the intuitive forms of the thinking spirit, humanity has striven to liberate itself materially from these limitations as well.” Consequently, after socialism replaces capitalism, socialist society will also inherit this powerful productive force in transport and communications. Since the inevitable consequence of this powerful productive force is that human production and life will be relatively concentrated in certain cities or regions that are at some distance, or even a considerable distance, from one another, and will not be evenly distributed across every square kilometer of space, this uneven distribution is a state compatible with the development of the productive forces and cannot be negated by invoking spatial injustice. The problem lies only in how to eliminate the urban-rural differences and the differences between industry and agriculture that this state would create under the capitalist system. On this point, Lenin once pointed out: “Social Democrats know how to value the historical achievements of large centers full of vitality and culture. Their firm opposition to tying all the population, especially peasants and agricultural workers, to one place is proof of this. … But the full affirmation of the progressive nature of large cities under capitalism in no way prevents us from taking the abolition of the antithesis between town and country as our ideal (and including it in our action program—let the unrealizable ideals be left to Messrs. Struve and Berdyaev). To say that this would mean abandoning the treasures of science and art is incorrect. On the contrary, to make these treasures accessible to the entire people, to eliminate the isolation of millions of rural people from culture—that is, to eliminate what Marx correctly called ‘the idiocy of rural life’—is absolutely necessary. Now that it is already possible to transmit electric power over long distances, and transport technology is so highly developed that passengers can be carried at speeds of over 200 versts per hour at relatively low (compared to the present) cost, there is no longer any technical difficulty in making the treasures of science and art accumulated over centuries in a few central cities available to the entire population, roughly evenly distributed across the country.”

对于资本在“用时间去更多地消灭空间”上的作用，马克思主义经典作家是赞同的，是把它看作资本的积极作用的。例如，恩格斯青年时曾经在《不来梅通讯》写道：“用两周时间可以从德国的任何一个地方到达纽约，从纽约出发用两周时间可以游览合众国的名胜，再用两周时间又可以返回家园，这已是指日可待了。有几列火车、几艘轮船，事情就可以办到。自从康德把时间和空间范畴从思维着的精神的直观形式中独立出来，人类便力图在物质上也把自己从这些限制中解放出来。”那么，在社会主义取代资本主义之后，社会主义社会也会继承下来这种在交通运输上强大的生产力。由于这种强大的生产力的后果必然是人类的生产生活会相对集中在一些互相之间存在一定距离甚至较长距离的城市或区域里，而不会在空间上平均分布到每一平方公里的土地上，从而这种不平均的分布状态是与生产力的发达相适应的状态，不能用空间不正义来否定它的。问题只是在于如何消除这种状态在资本主义制度下会造成的城乡差别和工农业差别。对此，列宁曾经指出：“社会民主党人是善于珍视充满朝气和文化发达的大中心的历史功绩的。他们坚决反对把一切人口特别是农民和农业工人束缚在一个地方，这就是明证。……但是，完全肯定资本主义社会大城市的进步性，丝毫不妨碍我们把消灭城乡对立当做我们的理想（并且列入我们的行动纲领，至于无法实现的理想，还是让给司徒卢威和别尔嘉耶夫先生吧）。说这样做就是抛弃科学艺术的宝藏，是不对的。恰恰相反，为了使这些宝藏为全体人民所享用，为了消灭千百万农村人口同文化隔绝的现象，即消灭马克思所正确指出的‘乡村生活的愚昧状态’，这样做是完全必要的。现在，已经有可能把电力输送到遥远的地方，运输技术已经非常发达，只须花较少的（同现在相比）费用就能以每小时200多俄里的速度载运旅客，因此，要让大体上平均分布于全国各地的全体居民共同享用几世纪来在少数中心城市积聚起来的科学艺术宝藏，在技术上已经没有任何困难了。”

Some critics argue that “the homogenization of spatial forms, the one-dimensionalization of spatial patterns, the uniformity of spatial functions, the homogenization of spatial culture, and so forth, have made the production methods of spatial products such as high-rise buildings in global financial and business centers, residential buildings for ordinary citizens, square buildings for mass cultural life, and public activity venues increasingly convergent.” This issue must also be viewed dialectically. The so-called “moderate differences among different social subjects in spatial production and habitation are a manifestation of the plurality of social ontology, a expression of the diversity of social consciousness, a multi-directional unfolding of social axiology, and a multi-dimensional demonstration of social existentialism, and thus constitute a solemn demand for spatial justice on the integration of the subjective and objective.” Such a demand, before the abolition of capitalist private ownership, can only be a demand to preserve class differences and urban-rural differences, and to refuse to allow all residents to share the fruits of scientific, technological, and cultural development.

有人批评，“空间形塑的同态化，空间格局的单面化，空间功能的齐一化，空间文化的均质化等，让全世界金融商务中心的高层建筑、一般市民栖居的住宅建筑、群众文化生活的广场建筑、公共活动的场所建筑等空间产品的生产方式日益趋同。”这个问题同样要辩证地来看。所谓“不同社会主体在空间生产和栖居中的适度差异，是社会存在论的多元性体现，社会意识论的多样性表达，社会价值论的多向性展开，社会生存论的多维性彰显，因而是空间正义在主客观结合上的庄严诉求”，这种诉求在消灭资本主义私有制之前只能是一种要求保留阶级差别和城乡差别，拒绝让全体居民共享科技和文化的发展成果的诉求。

We have seen earlier that the classical Marxist writers had already noted the suffering capital inflicts on workers by economizing on their production space: “It is well known that the economizing of space, and therefore of buildings, makes the crowding of workers into small spaces extremely severe. In addition, there is the economizing of ventilation. These two things, together with excessively long working hours, cause a great increase in respiratory diseases, thereby increasing the death rate.” However, the classical Marxist writers also noted the positive significance of “the greater concentration of the means of production and, correspondingly, the greater aggregation of workers”: “Even if many workers are merely assembled together in space without cooperating in labor, these means of production, unlike the scattered and relatively costly means of production of the independent individual laborer or small master, acquire the character of conditions of social labor or social conditions of labor.” “On the one hand, cooperation can expand the spatial scope of labor, and therefore certain labor processes require cooperation due to the spatial connection of the objects of labor; for example, drainage, dike building, irrigation, canal digging, road building, railway laying, and so on. On the other hand, cooperation can, relative to the scale of production, spatially reduce the production area. This reduction in the space of labor while the sphere of labor’s action expands saves non-productive expenses, and this reduction is brought about by the concentration of workers, the convergence of different labor processes, and the accumulation of means of production.”

我们在前面看到马克思主义经典作家已经注意到资本在节约工人的生产活动空间时带给工人的痛苦：“大家知道，空间的节约，从而建筑物的节约，使工人拥挤在狭小地方的情况多么严重。此外，还有通风设备的节约。这两件事，再加上劳动时间过长，使呼吸器官的疾病大量增加，从而使死亡人数增加。”但是，马克思主义经典作家同样注意到“使生产资料在更大程度上集中起来，并与此相适应，使工人在更大程度上集结起来”的积极意义：“即使许多工人只是在空间上集合在一起，并不协同劳动，这种生产资料也不同于单干的独立劳动者或小业主的分散的并且相对地说花费大的生产资料，而取得了社会劳动的条件或劳动的社会条件这种性质。”“一方面，协作可以扩大劳动的空间范围，因此，某些劳动过程由于劳动对象空间上的联系就需要协作；例如排水、筑堤、灌溉、开凿运河、修筑道路、铺设铁路等等。另一方面，协作可以与生产规模相比相对地在空间上缩小生产领域。在劳动的作用范围扩大的同时劳动空间范围的这种缩小，会节约非生产费用，这种缩小是由劳动者的集结、不同劳动过程的靠拢和生产资料的积聚造成的。”

Marx once noted that in ancient states, due to insufficient development of productive forces, only a small amount of production could be achieved within a given space, making it impossible to support a larger population, leading to population pressure on productive forces and thus forced migration: “This pressure of population on productive forces drove the barbarians from the highlands of Asia to invade the Old World. Here, the same cause is at work, though in a different form. To remain barbarians, they could only maintain a small population. These were tribes engaged in pastoralism, hunting, and war, whose mode of production required each member of the tribe to have a large expanse of space, much like the present-day Indian tribes of North America. The growth of population among these tribes caused them to compress the territory necessary for each other’s production. Hence, the surplus population was forced to undertake those adventurous great migrations that laid the foundation for the ancient and modern nations of Europe.” Therefore, since “space is an element of all production and all human activity,” economizing on space, or improving the efficiency of space use, is to expand the element of human production and activity, and is a positive factor in spatial issues, provided, of course, that it does not oppress workers. Of course, to bring out the positive factors and overcome the negative ones, it is only possible to do so by abolishing capital and evolving capitalist society into a socialist society.

马克思曾经提到古代国家由于生产力不够发展，在一定的空间里只能有少量的生产成果，从而不能养活更多的人口，导致人口压迫生产力而不得不强迫移民：“这种人口对生产力的压力，迫使野蛮人从亚洲高原侵入旧大陆。在这里，仍旧是同一个原因在起作用，虽然表现形式不同。为了继续作野蛮人，他们就只能保持少量的人口。这是一些从事畜牧、狩猎和战争的部落，他们的生产方式使部落的每一个成员都需要有大片的空间，就像现在北美的印第安部落那样。这些部落的人口的增长，使它们相互压缩生产所必需的地盘。因此，过剩人口就不得不进行那种为古代和现代欧洲各民族奠定基础的冒险大迁徙。”因此，既然“空间是一切生产和一切人类活动的要素”，那么节约使用空间或者说提高空间的使用效率就是扩展人类生产和活动的要素，就是空间问题上的积极因素，当然其前提是不能压迫工人。当然，要发挥积极因素，克服消极因素，只有消灭资本，使资本主义社会向社会主义社会进化才能做到。

IV. Summary

四、小结

Although appealing to justice is not a Marxist approach, after harmless treatment—that is, not allowing it to divert people’s attention from the main issues—terms like “justice,” “truth,” and “morality” are not entirely unusable by Marxists.

虽然诉诸正义不是马克思主义的做法，但是在做无害化处理之后，也就是不让它使人们的注意力从主要问题上偏离之后，“正义”和“真理、道德”这样的字眼也不是不可以被马克思主义者使用的。

Marx once pointed out: “Time is the space for human development.” The “space” here is not physical space or what some call natural space. It indicates that time is more important than space: “A person who does not have free time at his own disposal, whose entire life, apart from purely physical interruptions such as sleep and meals, is spent serving the capitalist, is worse off than a beast of burden. He is merely a machine for producing wealth for others, his body broken down and his mind brutalized. The entire history of modern industry also shows that if capital is not restricted, it will, regardless of everything and without mercy, plunge the entire working class into this extreme state of degradation.” In history, the working classes of various countries have waged strike struggles to shorten the working day, but they have rarely fought for spatial justice. This is not because they are less “enlightened” than Western intellectuals, but precisely because they have grasped the root of the matter. Today, China’s vast working people are also painfully and powerlessly resisting the 996 workday [7]7 The 996 workday refers to a work schedule from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, common in some Chinese tech companies and widely criticized as exploitative. imposed on them in violation of labor law provisions. Clearly, temporal justice is far more meaningful than spatial justice. It is time to extricate ourselves from the clamorous study of spatial justice.

马克思曾经指出：“时间是人类发展的空间。”这里的“空间”不是物理上的空间或一些人所说的自然空间。它表明，时间比空间更重要：“一个人如果没有自己处置的自由时间，一生中除睡眠饮食等纯生理上必需的间断以外，都是替资本家服务，那么，他就还不如一头载重的牲畜。他不过是一架为别人生产财富的机器，身体垮了，心智也犷野了。现代工业的全部历史还表明，如果不对资本加以限制，它就会不顾一切和毫不留情地把整个工人阶级投入这种极端退化的境地。”在历史上各国工人阶级都曾经为缩短工作日而进行过罢工斗争，但他们很少为空间正义而斗争，这不是因为他们不像西方知识分子那样“明事理”，而恰恰在于他们抓住了事物的根本。今天中国的广大劳动者也在痛苦而无力地抵御违犯劳动法的规定而强加给他们的996工作日。显然，时间正义要比空间正义有意义得多。是时候从喧嚣的空间正义研究中脱身了。

(The author is a research fellow at the Institute of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

（作者系中国社会科学院马克思主义研究院研究员）

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗