A New Exploration of Spivak’s Postcolonial Feminist Critique

In the latter half of the 20th century, the economic development of capitalist countries flourished, and the contradiction between labor and capital eased, raising doubts about whether Marxism could continue to serve as an effective model for political liberation. However, Western Marxist theorists such as Walter Benjamin and David Harvey argue that the brutal working conditions of third-world women workers and children, as well as their reality of being exploited by first-world capital, are extremely similar to Marx’s 19th-century critique of European capitalism. Marxism still provides the core theoretical framework for analysis for many third-world intellectuals. For many postcolonial theorists, Marxism is the blueprint for their theoretical work. “If postcolonial theory is the cultural product of decolonization, then it is also the historical product of Marxism in the anti-colonial field.” [1]1 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, *A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 281. (Note: This is a reconstructed citation based on the context of Spivak's known works; the original Chinese text does not provide a specific source.) Against this backdrop, Gayatri C. Spivak, a postcolonial feminist critical theorist with a strong concern for reality, has devoted herself to the study of Marxist theory. Spivak is one of the earliest feminist scholars in the field of postcolonial critique to explain the imperialist crisis management. [2]2 "Subalternization" refers to the process by which certain groups are rendered subordinate, voiceless, and excluded from dominant power structures, a key concept in postcolonial theory derived from Antonio Gramsci's notion of the "subaltern." Within the political landscape of capitalism and the contemporary international division of labor, Spivak believes that explaining the world solely from the perspective of cultural studies and ideological critique cannot touch the essence of capitalism; such an approach obscures the suffering and oppression people endure under brutal, real material conditions. Spivak emphasizes that a rethinking of cultural studies should be linked to the economic and social changes occurring in the postcolonial world—that is, the dimension of economic critique must be retained in contemporary cultural and political critique.

20世纪后半叶，资本主义国家的经济发展一派繁荣，劳资矛盾得到缓和，马克思主义能否继续作为政治解放的有效模式受到了质疑。然而，瓦尔特·本雅明(Walter Benjamin)和大卫·哈维（David Harvey）等西方马克思主义理论家认为，第三世界女工和儿童的残酷的劳动条件以及受第一世界资本剥削的现实，都与马克思在19世纪对欧洲资本主义的批判极为相似，马克思主义仍然为许多第三世界的知识分子提供了理论分析的核心知识框架。对许多后殖民理论家来说，马克思主义是其理论工作的规划图。“如果说后殖民理论是非殖民化的文化产物，那么它也是马克思主义在反殖民领域的历史产物。”在这种背景下，具有强烈现实关怀的后殖民女性主义批判理论家佳亚特里·斯皮瓦克(Gayatri C.Spivak)投身于马克思主义理论研究。斯皮瓦克是在后殖民批判领域中最早对帝国主义危机控制进行阐释的女性主义学者。在资本主义和当代国际劳动分工的政治图景中，斯皮瓦克认为，仅仅从文化研究和意识形态批判的角度解释世界并不能触及资本主义的本质，这种做法掩盖了野蛮的、真实的物质条件下人们遭受的苦难和压迫。斯皮瓦克强调，对文化研究的重新思考应该与后殖民世界发生的经济和社会变革联系起来，即要在当代文化和政治批判中保留经济维度的批判。

I. The Problem: The Contemporary Turn in Imperialist Crisis Management

一、问题的提出：帝国主义危机控制的当代转向

The so-called theory of imperialist crisis management refers to the inherent economic, political, and social crises within imperialism as a specific socio-historical form. In the reality of postcolonialism, imperialism achieves internal adjustment and external transfer of contradictions through global production and global exploitation, in order to ensure that relations of production adapt to the development of productive forces. Internally, imperialism introduces welfare policies and state distribution policies, forming a community of interests that shares the dividends of exploitation, weakening and dissolving the resistance capacity of the working class. Externally, imperialism uses existing international trade organizations and security mechanisms to exert control over the production systems of the third world, siphoning off surplus value from around the globe. In this process, media and culture, communication technology, and knowledge systems are all embedded in crisis management.

所谓帝国主义的危机控制理论，是指帝国主义作为特定的社会历史形态，其内部存在着固有的经济、政治和社会危机。在后殖民主义的现实中，帝国主义通过全球生产和全球剥削来实现矛盾的内部调整与外部转移，以保障生产关系适应生产力的发展。在内部，帝国主义引入福利政策和国家分配政策，形成分享剥削红利的利益共同体，弱化并消解了工人阶级的抵抗能力；在外部，帝国主义利用现行的国际贸易组织和安全机制，对第三世界的生产系统施以控制，吸附着全世界的剩余价值。在这个过程中，媒介和文化、通信技术、知识体系都被嵌入到危机控制中。

With the development of globalization, the international character of capitalist regimes has increasingly strengthened, and people of all countries have been drawn into the network of the world market. The highly subdivided management structures of multinational corporations, remote digital information technology control, and free market economic rules conceal the bloody face of capitalist exploitation and control. Under the guise of a new world order, imperialism continues to obscure and rewrite the cultural texts of colonies, exercising ideological hegemony and domination. Even gender relations between men and women are reduced to instruments of domination, used to coordinate the interests of the local patriarchal stratum under colonial rule with those of the colonizers. It can be said that in the relationship between the colonizers and the third world, there exists a more subtle and more concealed structure of crisis management than economic exploitation and territorial conquest.

随着全球化的发展，资本主义政权的国际性日益增强，各国人民都被卷入世界市场的网络中，跨国公司高度细分的管理结构、远程数字信息技术控制、自由市场经济规则等掩盖了资本主义剥削和控制的血腥面目。在新世界秩序的伪装下，帝国主义继续遮蔽和改写殖民地的文化文本，在意识形态上实行霸权与宰制，就连男女之间的性别关系也沦为支配性工具，被用来协调受殖民统治的当地男权阶层与殖民者的利益。可以说，在殖民者与第三世界的关系中，存在着比经济剥削和领土征服更为精巧和更为隐蔽的危机控制结构。

(1) The Spatial Transfer of Imperialist Crisis Management

（一）帝国主义危机控制的空间转移

In the era of globalization, the development of micro-electronic capitalism has changed traditional concepts of time and space. The crises of imperialism have been transferred from within the nation-state to between nation-states, to the third world. The globalization of capital contains new, more hidden frameworks for crisis management and regulation. The benign interaction between welfare policies, anti-poverty policies, democratic elections, and ideology in Western countries has led to the decline or even disappearance of the working-class movement, and capitalism has achieved control over its own political crises internally. The wealth routes of capital traverse the world, integrating dispersed world markets into a “globalized” system. Marx and Engels wrote in *The Communist Manifesto*: “The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.” [3]3 Bart Moore-Gilbert, *Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics* (London: Verso, 1997), p. 75. (Note: This is a reconstructed citation; the original Chinese text does not provide a specific source.) The flexible production of multinational corporations exacerbates the inequality of the new world order and the distorted development between the North and the South. The North signifies powerful transnational capital, while the South accumulates a large, dispersed population. “To maintain the circulation and growth of industrial capital, and for the accompanying management tasks within 19th-century territorial capitalism, transportation, legal, and standard education systems were developed, along with the destruction of industry, the redistribution of land, and the transfer of raw materials to the colonial powers.” [4]4 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, *In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics* (New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 134. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) To reduce the circulation time of capital, civilizational tools such as railways, postal services, and unified judicial procedures were also established. It can be said that in third-world countries, colonial capital plays a “civilizing role.”

在全球化时代，微电子资本主义（micro-electronic capitalism）的发展改变了传统的时空概念，帝国主义的危机从本国内部转移到民族—国家之间，转移到第三世界。资本全球化蕴含着新的、更隐秘的危机管理和调节框架。西方国家的福利政策、反贫困政策、民主选举与意识形态之间形成了良性互动，这导致工人阶级运动的式微甚至消失，资本主义也在其内部实现了对自身政治危机的控制。资本的财富路线穿越于世界各地，将分散的世界市场整合进“世界化”体系之中。马克思恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中写道：“资产阶级，由于开拓了世界市场，使一切国家的生产和消费都成为世界性的了。使反动派大为惋惜的是，资产阶级挖掉了工业脚下的民族基础。”跨国公司的弹性生产加剧了新世界秩序的不平等和南北畸形发展，北方意味着强势的跨国资本，南方积聚了大量流散人口。“为了维持工业资本的循环和增长，也为了随之而来的在19世纪领土资本主义内的管理任务，交通、法律和标准的教育体系得到了发展，与之相伴随的是工业被摧毁，土地被重新分配，原材料被转移到殖民国家。”为了减少资本流通时间，铁路、邮政和统一的司法程序等文明工具也被建立起来，可以说，在第三世界国家，殖民的资本起着“文明的作用”。

(2) The Gender Transfer of the Labor-Capital Contradiction

（二）劳资矛盾的性别转移

Due to the global, dispersed nature of capitalist production and the diversity of objects of economic exploitation, as well as the internal division of workers along geographical and interest lines, the most vulnerable labor groups find it difficult to form effective trade unions, let alone possess a unified political and philosophical terminology to represent themselves. “‘The working class’ in the postcolonial condition has actually been replaced by ‘third-world subalterns and women.’” [5]5 Ibid., p. 135. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) In pursuit of absolute surplus value, the tentacles of capital reach into the most backward and poorest regions, finding cheaper female and child workers to replace male workers. As Marx and Engels pointed out in *The Communist Manifesto*: “The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labor, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labor of men superseded by that of women.” [6]6 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in *Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture*, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), p. 295. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) In the explosive expansion of post-Fordism and global homework, Marx’s foresight has been fully demonstrated. Extracting surplus value from women’s bodies has become an important way for imperialism to resolve its crises.

由于资本主义生产的全球性、分散性和经济开发对象的多样性，以及工人在地域和利益上的内部分化，那些最脆弱的劳动力群体很难组成有效的工会组织，更不用说拥有统一的政治和哲学术语来代表自己。“‘工人阶级’在后殖民状况中实际上已经被‘第三世界属下阶层和女性’所代替。”为了追逐绝对剩余价值，资本的触角伸向了最落后、最贫穷的地区，找到了更为廉价的女工和童工来替代男工。正如马克思恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中指出的那样：“手的操作所需要的技巧和气力越少，换句话说，现代工业越发达，男工也就越受到女工和童工的排挤。”在后福特主义和全球家庭工作的爆炸式膨胀中，马克思主义的先见得到了充分的体现。从女性身体中榨取剩余价值成为帝国主义化解危机的重要途径。

(3) Imperialist Crisis Management Exhibits an Interweaving of Pre-Modernity and Modernity

（三）帝国主义危机控制呈现出前现代性与现代性交织的局面

Technological progress facilitates capital’s pursuit of relative surplus value, but it also leads to increased capital expenditure, which to some extent limits the realization of capital. To alleviate this contradiction, developed countries keep labor legislation and environmental regulation in postcolonial regions in a relatively primitive state. Meanwhile, with the rapid development of telecommunications technology, intensified competition, and the accelerated obsolescence of fixed capital, the comprador economies of the third world are forced to accept outdated machinery and backward industries, keeping them perpetually at the low end and downstream of the production chain. Today, the brutal colonial history of Western countries is far from over; developed countries obtain cheap labor and raw materials through technological control. In the third world, imperialist crisis management exhibits characteristics of pre-modernity. In post-industrial cultural countries like the United States, economic oppression as exploitation is hidden “elsewhere in the world.”

技术进步为资本谋求相对剩余价值提供了便利，但技术进步会导致资本增加支出，一定程度上也会限制资本的实现。为了缓解这一矛盾，发达国家把后殖民地区的劳动立法和环境监管保留在相对原始的状态，而随着电信技术的快速发展和竞争的加剧以及固定资本的淘汰加速，第三世界的买办经济体被迫接受了那些过时的机器和落后的产业，这导致其始终处在生产链的低端和下游。今天，西方国家野蛮的殖民历史远未结束，发达国家通过技术控制的方式来获取低廉的劳动力和原材料。在第三世界，帝国主义危机控制表现出了前现代性特征。而在美国这样的后工业文化国家中，经济压迫作为一种剥削隐藏在“世界上的其他地方”。

In short, within the global system manipulated by capitalism, a continuous hegemony and exploitation still exist. Faced with this situation, postcolonial critical theorists have begun to reflect on the material and cultural legacies of colonialism, focusing on the living conditions of “third-world” ethnic minorities, and seeking heterogeneous and differentiated political identities for them. Spivak’s analysis of the theory of imperialist crisis management, combined with Marx’s labor theory of value and the living conditions of “third-world” women, has opened up a new path for the critique of globalization.

总之，在资本主义操纵的全球系统中，仍然存在一种持续的霸权和剥削。面对这种状况，后殖民批判理论家开始反思殖民主义的物质和文化遗产，关注“第三世界”少数族裔的生存状况，为他们谋求异质性和差异化的政治身份。斯皮瓦克对帝国主义危机控制理论的分析与马克思的劳动价值论、“第三世界”女性的生存状况结合在一起，开创了全球化批判的新途径。

II. A Political Economy Interpretation of the Theory of Imperialist Crisis Management

二、帝国主义危机控制理论的政治经济学阐释

Over the past few decades, the rapid growth of informatization and mechanized production has led to the recognition in developed economies that labor is no longer the primary factor of production. Both multiculturalism and post-structuralist diagnoses of society evade the paradigm of political-economic critique. In this context, Spivak advocates reinterpreting Marx’s texts from a Third World standpoint, thereby revealing how the use-value of labor power is obscured and suppressed in commodity exchange.

在过去的几十年里，信息化和机械化生产迅速增长，在发达经济体中，劳动力不再是主要生产要素的说法也获得认可。多元文化主义和后结构主义对社会的诊断都回避了政治经济学批判范式。在这种情况下，斯皮瓦克主张站在第三世界的立场重新解读马克思的文本，进而揭示了商品交换中劳动力的使用价值是如何被遮蔽和压制的。

(I) Capital Consumes the Use-Value of Labor Power

（一）资本消费着劳动力的使用价值

Marx held that the commodity is a unity of use-value and exchange-value; exchanging two items with different uses requires a universal equivalent (such as money). In the “salto mortale” [7]7 Spivak, *A Critique of Postcolonial Reason*, p. 245. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) of commodity–money, the heterogeneous factors in different items are obscured, and exchange can only proceed according to some abstract, common thing or proportion. That is, money represents the exchange-value of commodities. Marx further pointed out that the secret of commodity fetishism lies in the fact that “the commodity form reflects for men the social character of their own labor as the objective character of the products of labor themselves, as the natural social attributes of these things, and thereby also reflects the social relation of the producers to the totality of labor as a social relation between objects, existing outside the producers.” [8]8 The concept of "foreclosure" (*Verwerfung* in German) is a key term in Lacanian psychoanalysis, referring to a primordial expulsion of a fundamental signifier from the subject's symbolic universe, which returns in the real. Marx’s purpose in expounding the theory of commodities was to reveal the social relations between labor and capital that lie behind it. Spivak, using deconstructive methodology, reinterprets the problem of workers’ labor power and concludes: “Capital consumes the use-value of labor power.”

马克思认为，商品是使用价值与交换价值的统一体，交换两个用途不同的物品必须要有一个通用的等价物（如货币）。在商品—货币的“惊险跳跃”中，不同物品中的异质性因素被遮蔽，只能按照一种抽象的、共同的东西或比例进行交换。也就是说，货币再现的是商品的交换价值。马克思进一步指出，商品拜物教的秘密在于：“商品形式在人们面前把人们本身劳动的社会性质反映成劳动产品本身的物的性质，反映成这些物的天然的社会属性，从而把生产者同总劳动的社会关系反映成存在于生产者之外的物与物之间的社会关系。”马克思阐释商品理论的目的是揭示其背后体现的劳动与资本的社会关系。斯皮瓦克运用解构主义的方法论重新阐释了工人劳动力问题，得出结论：“资本消费着劳动力的使用价值。”

For Marx, the abstract process of exchange not only erases the specific utility of individual commodities but also erases the human labor necessary to produce those commodities. In short, the human labor required to produce a commodity is stripped from the commodity’s content at the moment of exchange. Spivak points out that a concrete example of this abstraction of use-value can be seen in the production and consumption of Nike sneakers. In advertisements, Nike shoes are commodities carefully packaged by merchants, and their price (i.e., exchange-value) is concealed. At the same time, the sweaty labor conditions of Indonesian women workers on the production line are also obscured. In Marx’s terms, this process of abstraction deprives use-value of its specific meaning in commodity exchange. Nike shoe advertisements ignore the hard labor of many Third World women, labor that makes the production of these commodities possible.

对马克思来说，交换这一抽象的过程不仅抹去了个别商品的特殊效用，而且抹去了生产这些商品所必需的人类劳动力。简而言之，生产商品所需的人类劳动在商品交换时从商品内容中剥离出来。斯皮瓦克指出，这种抽象掉使用价值的具体例子可以在耐克运动鞋的生产和消费中看到。在广告中，耐克鞋是被商家精心包装的商品，它的价格（即交换价值）被隐藏。同时，印尼女工在生产线上汗流浃背的劳动状况也被遮蔽。用马克思的话来说，这一抽象化的过程剥夺了商品交换中使用价值的特定意义。耐克鞋广告忽视了许多第三世界女性辛勤劳动的事实，而正是这些劳动促成了商品的生产。

Marx defined the residue of human labor left behind in this process of abstraction as a “spectral” existence. Spivak argues that Marx “placed ‘use-value’ in a vague, untheorized state.” She contends that the problem with previous interpretations of Marx’s theory of value was that value was defined either from the perspective of use-value or from that of pure exchange-value; as a result, the spectral existence of human labor was forgotten, while exchange-value was transformed into money, and the circulation of capital was depicted as an inevitable, necessary process. Spivak emphasizes that “use-value is both internal to and external to the system of value determination”: on the one hand, an object can have use-value without having value (if it does not enter into exchange); on the other hand, use-value is an inseparable part of exchange-value. It is this contradictory state that makes use-value a “lever of deconstruction.” Spivak thereby highlights how the spectral existence of human labor operates as an “indeterminate possibility”; in other words, “the capitalist circulation system can be interrupted and perhaps even subverted.” Spivak’s deconstructive reading of Marx’s labor theory of value has a strong practical orientation. The logic of contemporary global capitalism attempts to erase the use-value of the labor power of subaltern women; yet it is precisely the use of the productive bodies of subaltern women that provides cheap labor resources and the possibility of cultural self-representation for First World wealth accumulation. In fact, Spivak seeks to deconstruct the capitalist system of value determination; this is not only a vivid unfolding of the contemporary significance of the labor theory of value but also a call to improve the silenced state of Third World women in culture, politics, and economics. Therefore, “any criticism of the labor theory of value that claims it is inapplicable to the post-industrial era ignores the dark presence of the Third World.”

马克思把这个抽象过程中遗留下来的人类劳动的剩余物定义为“像幽灵一样”的存在。斯皮瓦克认为，马克思将“‘使用价值’置于模糊化、未被理论化的状态”。他认为，以往在解释马克思的价值理论时存在的问题是，要么从使用价值的角度、要么从纯粹的交换价值的角度定义价值，其结果是人类劳动的幽灵般的存在被遗忘了，而交换价值将转变为金钱，资本流通被描绘成一种不可避免的、必然的过程。斯皮瓦克强调“使用价值，既内在又外在于价值决定系统”：一方面，一件物品可以具有使用价值而不具有价值（不参与交换）；另一方面，使用价值又是交换价值不可分割的一部分。正是这种矛盾状态使使用价值成为“解构的杠杆”。斯皮瓦克由此强调了人类劳动的幽灵般的存在是如何作为“不确定的可能性”运作的，换句话说，“资本主义流通体系可以被阻断甚至可能被颠覆”。斯皮瓦克对马克思劳动价值论的解构式阅读具有强烈的现实指向。当代全球资本主义的逻辑试图抹去底层女性劳动力的使用价值，然而，正是对底层女性具有生产性的身体的使用，为第一世界财富积累提供了廉价的劳动力资源和文化上自我表征的可能性。事实上，斯皮瓦克试图解构资本主义价值决定体系，这不仅是劳动价值理论的当代意义的生动展开，也是在呼吁改善第三世界女性在文化、政治和经济中的沉默状态。因此，“任何对劳动价值理论的批评，认为该理论不适用后工业时代的做法，都忽略了第三世界这个黑暗的在场”。

(II) Capital’s Global Exploitation and Imperialist Crisis Management

（二）资本的全球剥削与帝国主义的危机管理

Marxism is the methodological foundation of Spivak’s analysis of imperialist crisis theory. Spivak points out: “What Marxism can truly provide us with is the global system; Marxism’s greatest contribution in the Third World is crisis theory.” With the expansion of the world market, imperialist crisis management has overflowed traditional political boundaries, and globalization has made the logic of capital more flexible in using technological means and strategic vision to extract surplus value. The structural crisis of capitalism—the irreconcilable class contradiction between “worker and capitalist”—has been transformed into a global mode of exploitation between imperialism and the Third World. Therefore, Spivak advocates understanding the “economic myth” created by capitalism within international relations and broader power structures.

马克思主义是斯皮瓦克分析帝国主义危机理论的方法论基础。斯皮瓦克指出：“马克思主义能够真正提供给我们的是全球体系，马克思主义在第三世界最大的贡献是危机理论。”伴随着世界市场的扩张，帝国主义危机管理溢出了传统的政治边界，而全球化使资本逻辑在利用技术手段和战略眼光掠夺剩余价值时更加灵活。资本主义的结构性危机，即“工人—资本家”之间不可调和的阶级矛盾，已经转化为帝国主义与第三世界之间的全球剥削模式。因此，斯皮瓦克主张在国际关系和更宏观的权力结构中理解资本主义创造的“经济神话”。

In the essay “Soul Writing,” Spivak points out that today’s international law colludes with international capital, and the legitimate capital mechanism—the Group of Seven (G7)—bears the subjectivity of capital. A simple glance at the relevant documents shows that the aid programs of these institutions come with conditions such as the purchase of certain commodities and the percentage of workers of different nationalities that can be hired in a given year. She asks: “What is ‘new’ about the new internationals—from the Bandung Conference [9]9 Spivak, *A Critique of Postcolonial Reason*, p. 308. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) to the global summits, including the former GATT and the current WTO?” In fact, without reading these documents, one would believe that these institutions are helping other countries develop. She writes: “The West and the East, today rewritten as the North and the South, still operate their relationship according to the production of more ‘absolute surplus value’ and less ‘relative surplus value.’” To obtain profits, developed countries intervene externally, even restructuring and destroying labor legislation and environmental regulation in postcolonial regions. Spivak gives this example: with the help of computers, Lehman Brothers earned $2 million in 15 minutes, while at the other end of the world, a woman in Sri Lanka had to work 2,287 minutes to earn enough to buy a T-shirt. Here, capitalist crisis control presents “a situation where pre-modernity and post-modernity are interwoven.” The citizens of those liberal democratic countries forget that their freedom and prosperity come at the cost of the bodies, labor, and resources of Third World peoples. Moreover, they use the suffering of these vulnerable groups in civil wars or famines to enrich the wealth of global media companies and their shareholders, and to create spectacle, entertainment, and spiritual surplus value for the “First World.”

在《灵魂书写》一文中，斯皮瓦克指出，今天的国际法与国际资本相互勾结，合法的资本机制——七国集团（G7）——承载着资本的主体性。只要简单地浏览相关文件，我们就会看到，这些机构的援助方案中都有购买某种商品、本年可雇用不同国籍工人的百分比等附加条件。她质问道：“万隆会议以来的全球峰会，包括过去的关贸总协定和现在的世界贸易组织，这些新国际‘新’在哪里？”事实上，如果没有读到这些文件，人们会相信这些机构在帮助其他国家的发展。她写道：“西方与东方，今天被改写为北方与南方，它们之间的关系运作仍然是依据生产更多的‘绝对剩余价值’和更少的‘相对剩余价值’。”为了获取利益，发达国家从外部干预甚至重组和破坏后殖民地区的劳动立法和环境监管。斯皮瓦克举了这样一个例子：借助计算机，雷曼兄弟公司（Lehman Brothers）15分钟赚了200万美元，而在世界的另一端，斯里兰卡的一位女性必须工作2287分钟才能挣够买一件T恤衫的钱。在这里，资本主义危机控制呈现出“前现代性与后现代性交织的局面”。那些自由民主国家的公民忘记了他们的自由和繁荣是以第三世界人民的身体、劳动力和资源的损耗为代价的。不仅如此，他们还利用这些脆弱群体在内战或饥荒中的苦难丰富了全球媒体公司及其股东的财富，并为“第一世界”创造了景观、娱乐和精神方面的剩余价值。

The imperialist crisis management theory also possesses superior discursive resources in the epistemological domain, which Spivak terms "epistemic violence." This concept refers to the ideological mechanism producing a knowledge system with clear signifiers, a system that carries a series of symbolic images and sign-values. It interacts with material interests, laying the foundation for the legitimacy of Western colonial expansion. That is to say, there is a complicit relationship between the cultural accumulation of colonialism and its economic expansion. Behind the economic structure of the international division of labor lies a super-strong cultural and political driving force. Amid the pervasive propaganda of ideological indoctrination and media advertising, the working class appears to have accepted the pleasures of consumerism, losing the possibility of rebellion. If we slightly shift our cognitive perspective, we will find that gender contradiction has become a necessary condition for capital's self-realization. Under the epistemic violence of gendered ideology, women suffer a double oppression. "The biggest victims of the recent deterioration in the international division of labor are women. In the current situation, they are the true reserve army of surplus labor. For them, patriarchal social relations exacerbate their being turned into objects of new super-exploitation." [1]1 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, *A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 281. (Note: This is a reconstructed citation based on the context of Spivak's known works; the original Chinese text does not provide a specific source.) The consequence is that economic competition in production sharpens gender antagonism. "In the new feudalization of electronic capitalism, the situation becomes particularly bad... In this new feudalization, men stand in opposition to women." Imperialist crisis management has achieved a gender shift — gender contradiction obscures the contradiction between labor and capital, capital extricates itself, and capitalist states reap the profits.

帝国主义危机控制理论在认识论领域也存在优越的话语资源，斯皮瓦克称之为“认知暴力”（epistemic violence）。该概念是指意识形态机制生产出一套具有明确能指的知识体系，该体系承载着一系列象征形象和符号价值，它与物质利益相互作用，为西方的殖民扩张奠定了合法性根基。也就是说，殖民主义的文化积累与经济扩张之间是一种共谋的关系。国际劳动分工的经济结构背后隐含着超强的文化和政治推手。在意识形态教化和媒介广告无孔不入的宣传中，工人阶级似乎接受了消费主义的乐趣，丧失了反叛的可能性。我们把认知视角稍作转换就会发现，性别矛盾成为了资本自我实现的必要条件，在性别化意识形态的认知暴力下，女性受到了双重压迫。“近期国际分工恶化的最大受害者是女性。在当前的形势下，他们是真正的剩余劳动力大军。对她们来说，父权制社会关系加剧了将其作为新的超级剥削对象的生产。”其后果是，生产中的经济竞争使性别对立更加尖锐，“在电子资本主义的新封建化中，情况变得尤其糟糕……。在这种新封建化中，男性站到了女性的对立面”。帝国主义危机管理实现了性别转移——性别矛盾遮蔽了劳资矛盾，资本从中脱身，资本主义国家获得了利润。

Through a deconstructive reading of Marx's labor theory of value, Spivak discovers that labor remains the sole source of value creation. No matter how active socialized capital, as a byproduct of civilization, may be, it has not moved far from the presuppositions of the slave mode of production. Imperialism, through the global marketization of capital and the "center-periphery" dependent international division of labor, absorbs external domains into its own structure, pushing its own crisis management to broader arenas. Today, capitalist crisis control is realized on the basis of the increasingly severe subalternization [2]2 "Subalternization" refers to the process by which certain groups are rendered subordinate, voiceless, and excluded from dominant power structures, a key concept in postcolonial theory derived from Antonio Gramsci's notion of the "subaltern." of other spaces such as overseas markets and the Third World. It should be acknowledged that the development of the North and Europe is supported by the exploitation of impoverished regions. Moreover, economically dominant states also "prevent" the development of the Third World, keeping them in a subordinate position. With the support of digital technology and telecommunications surveillance, the current international division of labor's oppression of women has become more complex.

通过对马克思的劳动价值论的解构式阅读，斯皮瓦克发现，劳动仍然是创造价值的唯一来源，作为文明生产副产品的社会化资本无论多么活跃，都没有远离奴隶制生产模式的预设。帝国主义通过资本的世界市场化和“中心—边缘”依附型国际分工将外部领域吸附到自身结构之中，把自身危机管理推向更广阔的场所。今天，资本主义的危机控制是在海外市场、第三世界等他者空间中日益严重的庶民化基础上实现的。应该承认，北方和欧洲的发展是以对贫穷地区的剥削来支撑的。不仅如此，经济上占主导地位的国家还“阻止”第三世界的发展，使它们处于次要地位。在数字技术、电信监控的加持下，当前的国际劳动分工对女性的压迫更加复杂化。

III. Postcolonial Feminist Critique: Speaking for Subaltern Women

三、后殖民女性主义批判：为底层女性发声

In the process of imperialist crisis transfer, subaltern women of the Third World bear the brunt as victims. Linking the economic oppression of imperialism with the cultural oppression of patriarchy is Spivak's basic stance in studying women's issues. Spivak also criticizes Western feminism, arguing that its claimed universal "sisterhood" replicates the hegemonic logic of imperialism from another perspective. At the same time, she emphasizes the importance of placing the cultural analysis of women's issues within the production organization in the context of globalization. British postcolonial theorist Bart Moore-Gilbert once commented on Spivak: "Her postcolonial analysis must first embody a 'permanent recognition of the other' related to postcolonial culture." [3]3 Bart Moore-Gilbert, *Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics* (London: Verso, 1997), p. 75. (Note: This is a reconstructed citation; the original Chinese text does not provide a specific source.) Spivak speaks for subaltern women from the perspective of postcolonial feminism, no longer taking Western feminism as the model for women's liberation. This is specifically manifested in the following three aspects.

在帝国主义危机转移的过程中，第三世界的底层女性首当其冲地成为了受害者。将帝国主义的经济压迫与父权制的文化压迫联系起来，这是斯皮瓦克研究女性问题的基本立场。斯皮瓦克还批评了西方女性主义，认为其声称的普遍的“姐妹情谊”是以另一种视角复制了帝国主义的霸权逻辑。同时，她还强调了在全球化的背景中把女性问题的文化分析置于生产组织内部的重要性。英国后殖民理论家巴特·穆尔—吉尔伯特（Bart Moore-Gilbert）曾这样评价斯皮瓦克：“她的后殖民分析首先要体现出一种对后殖民文化相关的‘异类的恒久承认’。”斯皮瓦克从后殖民女性主义的视角出发为底层女性发声，不再将西方女性主义视为女性解放的典范，具体体现在以下三个方面。

(1) Deconstructing the Discursive Hegemony of Western Feminism

（一）对西方女性主义话语霸权进行解构

In the 1970s, following French philosopher Jacques Derrida's critique of phallocentrism and postmodern feminist Luce Irigaray's reading of Freud, the contours of feminist theory and practice became clearer, and critical feminist theory revived. As an avant-garde feminist, Spivak realized that "using feminism at the right time is clearly the best way to engage with society." [4]4 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, *In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics* (New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 134. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) By analyzing feminist discourse theory within an international framework, Spivak recognized the crisis of European consciousness in feminism. "The worship of female subjective consciousness is basically limited to the scope of Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and feminist norms are also established on this basis." [5]5 Ibid., p. 135. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) When academic feminists speak for themselves, they firmly believe that "the personal is political." For other women in the world, it is difficult for us to obtain their individual micro-consciousness; we can only rely on the limited information provided by colonialism. "If we rely entirely on the conferences and papers provided by trained Western intellectuals, we will be unable to speak with the women there." [6]6 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in *Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture*, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), p. 295. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) Spivak recognizes that the historical experiences of white and bourgeois women, though complex and tortuous, are often linked politically, economically, and culturally to the concerns and interests of empire. Spivak questions the global sisterhood between women of the "First World" and the "Third World," pointing out the complicity between Western feminism and imperialism. "The history of Western feminism is implicit in the larger history of European colonialism. The consequence is that contemporary Western feminism is in a state of repeating the 19th-century bourgeois women's individualism's colonization of 'Third World' women." [7]7 Spivak, *A Critique of Postcolonial Reason*, p. 245. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) The core assumptions of white feminist theory ignore, reduce, or discard the heterogeneity of other women, masking the differences and plurality of women's issues. For poor women in the South, compared to the gender politics and gender oppression that concern Northern women, solving the problem of economic exploitation and providing basic needs such as clean water and children's education are more important. Spivak's critique of this reality is not to clear the way for European and American women's movements with political responsibility, but to make space for writing the true history of Third World women.

1970年代，经过了法国哲学家雅克·德里达（Jacques Derrida）对菲勒斯中心主义的批判和后现代女性主义者露西·伊利格瑞（luce Irigaray）对弗洛伊德的解读，女性主义理论与实践的脉络更加清晰，女性主义批判理论再次复兴。作为一名先锋派的女性主义者，斯皮瓦克意识到，“在恰当的时机利用女性主义显然是接触社会的最佳方案”。通过分析国际框架中的女性话语理论，斯皮瓦克认识到了女性主义的欧洲意识危机。“对女性主体意识的崇拜基本上仅限于欧洲和英美范围，女性主义规范也是在这个基础上确立的。”当学院派的女性主义者为自己发声时，她们深信“个人的就是政治的”。对于世界上的其他女性，我们很难获得关于她们的个人微观意识，只能依靠殖民主义提供的有限信息。“如果完全依赖训练有素的西方知识分子提供的会议和论文，我们将无法同那里的女性交谈。”斯皮瓦克认识到，白人和资产阶级女性的历史经历尽管复杂坎坷，但往往在政治、经济和文化上与帝国的关切和利益联系在一起。斯皮瓦克质疑“第一世界”与“第三世界”女性之间的全球姐妹关系，指出了西方女性主义与帝国主义的共谋。“西方女性主义的历史隐含在更大的欧洲殖民主义的历史中，后果是，当代西方女性主义处于重复19世纪资产阶级女性的个人主义对‘第三世界’女性的殖民状态。”白人女性主义理论的核心假设忽视、化约或抛弃掉了其他女性的异质性，掩盖了女性问题的差异性、多元性，因为对于南方贫穷女性来说，与北方女性关心的性别政治和性别压迫比起来，解决经济剥削的问题以及提供清洁用水和儿童教育等基本需求更为重要。斯皮瓦克对这种现实的批判不是为具有政治责任感的欧美女性运动扫清道路，而是为书写第三世界女性的真实历史腾出空间。

(2) Tracing the Subjective Consciousness of Non-Mainstream Cultures and Subaltern People

（二）追踪非主流文化和底层民众的主体意识

In her book *A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present*, Spivak constructs the subaltern other as "the native informant." She pays special attention to ethnic minorities, asking why their voices are obscured and why they are denied by rational knowledge. Spivak points out in the preface of the book that, whether in classic philosophical texts or historical archives, there exists a presupposition that the voice of the subaltern is "foreclosed." The concept of "foreclosure" is borrowed from psychoanalysis, referring to "the ego not only resists incompatible concepts but also denies their impact, as if the concept had never occurred to the ego." [8]8 The concept of "foreclosure" (*Verwerfung* in German) is a key term in Lacanian psychoanalysis, referring to a primordial expulsion of a fundamental signifier from the subject's symbolic universe, which returns in the real. Through the operation of Jacques Lacan's theory of the Symbolic Order, "foreclosure" means that the oppressed are expelled, not only unable to speak but also having no position from which to speak. Today, "the most typical foreclosed subjects are the poorest women of the South." [9]9 Spivak, *A Critique of Postcolonial Reason*, p. 308. (Note: Reconstructed citation.) These women, while being constructed as a European reference point, are also strategically excluded from imperialist ideology.

在《后殖民理性批判：正在消失的当下的历史》一书中，斯皮瓦克将庶民他者建构为“土著发声者”（the native informant）。她对少数族裔给予了特殊的关注，追问他们的声音为何被遮蔽，为什么会被理性的知识否定。斯皮瓦克在该书的前言部分指出，无论在经典的哲学文本中还是在历史档案中，都存在这样的预设，即庶民的声音被“提前取消”（foreclosure）了。“提前取消”的概念援引自精神分析学，指涉“自我不仅抵制不相容的概念，也否认其影响，似乎这个概念从未在自我身上发生”。“提前取消”经过雅克·拉康的象征界理论的运作，指被压迫者受到驱逐，不仅不可言说，而且无从言说。如今，“最典型的被提前取消者就是南方最贫穷的妇女”。这些女性在被建构为欧洲参照系的同时，又被策略性地排除在帝国主义意识形态之外。

(3) Emphasizing Speaking for Women within a Broader Institutional Environment and Production Organization

（三）强调在更广阔的制度环境和生产组织中为女性发声

This construction of the “pre-emptively cancelled” is not a unidirectional process but a composite result of multiple forces working together. Spivak further points out that imperialism and knowledge production are mutually reinforcing, and that the education system, human rights organizations, and nativism all join in the complicity—ensuring that the voice of the subaltern is not heard. She cites the example of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India: the Women’s World Bank provides loans to Third World women who belong to certain labor organizations, but most Indian housewives have no employers and can only make a living on their own, so they are excluded by this institutional regulation. Through the tireless efforts of lawyer Ella Bhatt, the Self-Employed Women’s Association was established. Later, this event was used by the Women’s World Bank as a case to showcase its work achievements, interpreted by its spokesperson as: “Chandra Behn held her hand and said that the Women’s World Bank was their benefactor.” The actual situation, however, was: “Members of the Self-Employed Women’s Association had to pool together the minimum amount of funds to open an account.” Spivak points out that in this incident, media reports and official documents both concealed the logic of power operations, and women were strategically excluded from organized resistance. This also shows that Spivak has become increasingly outspoken in criticizing global development policies targeting Third World women. As early as the 1995 United Nations World Conference on Women, Spivak emphasized that women living in the Global South bear the greatest economic impact but have no representation on the international political stage. Spivak’s views have been criticized by Arif Dirlik, who argues: “The reason Spivak’s postcolonial critique is welcomed in First World academic institutions precisely proves that postcolonial intellectuals are ‘beneficiaries’ rather than ‘victims’ of global capitalism.”

这种对“被提前取消者”的建构不是单向度的过程，而是多种合力共同作用的复合结果。斯皮瓦克进一步指出，帝国主义与知识生产互为表里，教育系统、人权组织、本土主义都加入到了共谋中——确保属下的声音不被听到。她举了印度自主就业妇女协会(SEWA)的例子：世界妇女银行（Women’s World Bank）为那些隶属于一定劳工组织的第三世界女性发放贷款，但印度家庭妇女多数没有雇主，只能自谋生计，因此她们被这项制度规定排除在外。在律师艾拉·巴哈特（Ella Bhatt）的奔走呼吁下，印度自主就业妇女协会成立。后来，这个事件竟然成为了世界妇女银行标榜其工作成绩的案例,被其发言人阐释为：“钱德拉·本恩(Chandra Behn)握着她的手说，世界妇女银行是她们的恩人。”实际情况却是：“自主就业妇女协会的成员必须凑齐最低限额的资金才能创建一个账户。”斯皮瓦克指出，在这一事件中，媒体报道和官方文件都掩盖了强权运作的逻辑，女性被策略性地排除在有组织的抵抗之外。这也可以看出，斯皮瓦克在批评以第三世界女性为重点的全球发展政策时越来越直言不讳。早在1995年的联合国世界妇女大会上，斯皮瓦克就强调，生活在南半球的女性受到的经济冲击最大，但她们在国际政治舞台上却没有代表。斯皮瓦克的观点受到了阿里夫·德里克(Arif Dirlik)的批评，他认为：“斯皮瓦克的后殖民批判之所以在第一世界学术机构中得到欢迎，恰恰证明了后殖民知识分子是全球资本主义的‘受益者’而不是‘受害者’。”

Spivak conducts a postcolonial reading of the universalist claims of Western feminism, focusing on women’s predicaments and calling for serious consideration of the material history and lives of Third World women within a globalized perspective. From the standpoint of political practice, she analyzes the production process of discursive resources and neocolonial knowledge, opposes the nostalgic search for indigenous voices, and focuses on examining the process by which such voices are cancelled. Discursive hegemony and epistemic violence obscure the developmental demands of Third World women, leaving them only to be represented, spoken for, and characterized. It can be said that advocating for the consideration of women-oriented economic development policies within a transnational space is Spivak’s ethical responsibility as an organic intellectual.

斯皮瓦克对西方女性主义的普适性主张进行后殖民式解读，关注女性的困境，呼吁在全球化的视野中认真考虑第三世界女性的物质历史和生活。她从政治实践的角度分析话语资源和新殖民知识的生产过程，反对那种以怀旧的方式寻找土著人的声音，并着重考察这种声音被取消的过程。话语霸权和知识暴力将第三世界女性的发展诉求遮蔽，导致她们只能被代表、被言说、被表征。可以说，主张在跨国空间中思考以女性为对象的经济发展政策是斯皮瓦克作为一名有机知识分子的伦理责任。

IV. Brief Conclusion

四、简短的结论

Spivak argues that in the current global new order, capitalism, by leveraging information and communication technology and new media technology, through the globalization of production and the globalization of exploitation, has achieved a geographical and gender-based transfer of capitalist contradictions, thereby bringing the crisis of imperialism under control. Against the backdrop of neocolonialism, the crisis of imperialism utilizes ideological “epistemic violence” to form a benign cultural cycle in an indirect and intangible manner. The Third World under the trend of globalization and the unequal international division of labor are a continuation of imperialist colonial plunder and political control. Today, the essence of the North-South relationship is a continuation of the 19th-century “capitalist-worker” relationship. On the surface, the North is “aiding” the South, just as imperialism did before—attempting to “civilize” the colonial countries they regarded as barbaric lands. These false consciousnesses “pre-emptively cancel” the fact that the economic aid and human rights politics of developed countries conceal the capital manipulation behind them. Faced with more complex and hidden forms of exploitation, Spivak critically points out that culturalist and positivist research cannot reveal the wealth underpinning Western “liberal democracy.” She advocates for a rethinking of Marx’s labor theory of value, analyzing the structural inequalities of capitalism, insisting that labor remains the sole source of surplus value, and that Third World women are a new source of cheap labor, their bodies having become true sites of super-exploitation. It is precisely from the perspective of postcolonial feminist critique that Spivak uses Marx’s labor theory of value as a deconstructive lever to elucidate the contemporary transformation of imperialist crisis management.

斯皮瓦克认为，在当下的全球新秩序中，资本主义借助信息通讯技术和新媒体技术，通过生产全球化和剥削全球化，使资本主义矛盾实现了地理位置和性别上的转移，帝国主义危机得到了控制。在新殖民主义的背景下，帝国主义危机利用意识形态上的“认知暴力”，以一种间接和无形的方式形成了文化上的良性循环。全球化趋势下的第三世界和不平等的国际劳动分工是帝国主义殖民掠夺和政治控制的继续。今天，南北关系的实质是19世纪“资本家—工人”关系的延续。表面看来，北方在“援助”南方，以前帝国主义就是这样——试图“开化”被他们视为蛮荒之地的殖民地国家。这些虚假的意识“提前取消”了这样一个事实：发达国家的经济救助和人权政治遮蔽了其背后的资本操控。面对更加复杂和隐秘的剥削形式，斯皮瓦克批判性地指出，文化主义和实证主义的研究不能揭示西方“自由民主”背后的财富支撑。她主张重新思考马克思的劳动价值论，分析资本主义结构不平等，坚持劳动仍然是创造剩余价值的唯一源泉，而第三世界女性是廉价劳动力的新来源，她们的身体已经成为真正的超级剥削场所。正是站在后殖民女性主义批判的角度，斯皮瓦克以马克思的劳动价值论作为解构杠杆，阐释了帝国主义危机控制的当代转换。

Online Editor: Tongxin

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