Three Dimensions of Contemporary Western Left-Wing Scholars’ Critique of Capitalist Modernity

For a long time, the theoretical reflections of Western left-wing scholars on the practical problems of capitalist society have constituted a mirror of the self for the critique of capitalist modernity, providing us with a stone from another mountain to deeply grasp the laws of capitalist development and its inherent contradictions. The full-scale advent of the digital age and the sudden outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic have profoundly changed people’s modes of production and life. Facing new historical conditions and objective realities, contemporary Western left-wing scholars continue the tradition of critiquing capitalist modernity, carrying out social critique theory research with distinctive characteristics in areas such as the problem of alienation, the problem of the revolutionary subject, and the problem of the path of liberation, forming new insights on “new alienation,” “new subject,” and “new path.” Dissatisfied with the current decaying capitalist order, they spare no effort in criticizing the capitalist system and the various crises of modernity it causes, striving to draw nourishment from classical Marxist theory and seek effective remedies. However, they display a compromising posture in recognizing the historical identity and subject status of the proletariat and in judging the path of liberation that transcends capitalist modernity, failing to adhere to the basic positions, principles, and methods of Marxism. This is an important reason why they cannot find a scientific path of liberation for the crisis of capitalist modernity. This shows that an incomplete theory cannot become a material force that grasps the masses to change the world.

长期以来，西方左翼学者对资本主义社会现实问题的理论反思，构成对资本主义现代性批判的自我之镜，为我们深入把握资本主义发展规律及其固有矛盾提供他山之石。数字时代的全面开启和全球新冠肺炎疫情的突发而至，深刻改变了人们的生产生活方式。面对新的时代条件与客观现实，当代西方左翼学者延续资本主义现代性批判传统，在异化问题、革命主体问题、解放道路问题等方面继续展开具有鲜明特色的社会批判理论研究，形成关于“新异化”“新主体”“新道路”的新见地。他们不满于现行腐朽的资本主义秩序，不遗余力地批判资本主义制度及其造成的各类现代性危机，努力从马克思主义经典理论中汲取养分，探求良方。然而，他们在认识无产阶级的历史身份和主体地位、研判超越资本主义现代性的解放道路方面表现出妥协的姿态，没有坚持马克思主义的基本立场、原则方法，这是其无法为资本主义现代性危机求得科学解放道路的重要原因。这说明，不彻底的理论无法成为掌握群众以改变世界的物质力量。

I. The Manifestation of New Alienation: From Apparent Alienation to the Legitimacy Alienation of Accelerated Deepening

一、新异化的显现：从表象性异化到加速深化的合法性异化

Inspired by Marx’s theory of alienated labor and the critique of commodity fetishism, contemporary Western left-wing scholars’ critique of capitalist modernity often takes the new forms of manifestation of alienation phenomena under new historical conditions as an entry point, thereby reflecting on the pathological mechanism of the entire capitalist modernity. Entering the digital age, contemporary Western left-wing scholars keenly grasp the accelerated transformation of people’s living conditions, believing that technological progress has not brought a new path of liberation but has instead intensified the crisis of alienation, making alienation phenomena more universal and more concealed.

受马克思异化劳动理论与拜物教批判理论的启发，当代西方左翼学者的资本主义现代性批判理论往往以异化现象在新时代条件下的新表现方式为切入点，进而反思整个资本主义现代性的病症机理。进入数字化时代，当代西方左翼学者敏锐地把握人们生存境遇的加速变革，认为科技的进步并未带来解放的新道路，反而愈发加剧了异化危机，使异化现象更为普遍、更为隐蔽。

First, accelerationism and the deepening of alienation. Marx’s theory of alienated labor profoundly reveals the unreasonable situation of the inversion of subject status between the worker and the object of labor under the capitalist system. From the alienated reality where people are dominated by things and producers are possessed by the objects of production, it criticizes the alienated reality where the relationships between man and nature, man and man, and man and self are in a state of disharmony, anti-ecology, and antagonistic opposition under the capitalist mode of production. Alienation spreads and permeates from relations of production to extensive relations of intercourse, from commodity relations to general social relations. The theory of alienated labor profoundly reflects the inherent contradictions of the capitalist mode of production from the phenomena of social crisis. It is precisely the contradiction between private ownership of the means of production and socialized production that leads to the separation of the worker from labor, the worker being possessed by the object of labor, the worker being reduced to a slave of the capitalist, and further reduced to a slave of the commodity, this thing, completely losing human dignity and value. Marx regarded labor as the true need and inner essence belonging to man. He pointed out that under the capitalist system, labor, which should meet the needs of the production and reproduction of the material means of subsistence for real individuals, is reduced to a tool for the valorization of capital, becoming an independent force external to man and a hostile force dominating the worker. This idea inspired contemporary Western left-wing scholars’ critique of the ills of capitalist modernity. From Lukács to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, they have all firmly grasped the crisis of alienation in capitalist society to carry out multi-angle critiques.

其一，加速主义与异化的深化。马克思异化劳动理论深刻揭示了资本主义制度下劳动者与劳动对象之间主体地位倒错的不合理状况，从人受物的支配、生产者被生产对象占有的异化现实，批判资本主义生产方式下人与自然、人与人、人与自我之间的关系处于不和谐、反生态、对抗对立的异化现实。异化从生产关系到广泛的交往关系、从商品关系到普遍的社会关系弥散蔓延。劳动异化理论从社会危机现象中深刻反映出资本主义生产方式的内在矛盾，正是生产资料私有制与社会化大生产之间的矛盾导致劳动者与劳动的分离，劳动者被劳动对象占有，劳动者沦为资本家的奴隶，进而沦为商品这一物的奴隶，彻底丧失作为人的尊严与价值。马克思将劳动视为属人的真实需求与内在本质。他指出，在资本主义制度下，本应满足现实的个人物质生产生活资料生产与再生产需要的劳动沦为资本增殖的工具，成为外在于人的独立力量和支配劳动者的敌对力量。这一思想启发了当代西方左翼学者对资本主义现代性之弊的批判，从卢卡奇到法兰克福学派批判理论，都紧紧抓住资本主义社会的异化危机展开多角度的批判。

With the gradual normalization of new forms of contemporary capitalism such as digital capitalism and platform capitalism, contemporary Western left-wing scholars continue to give theoretical attention to the alienated situation of contemporary people and carry out cultural critique. Hartmut Rosa, a German scholar and one of the representative figures of contemporary critical theory, points out: “Social actors in modernity are not merely helpless victims in the face of an uncontrollable dynamic of acceleration. They are not simply forced to adapt to an acceleration game in which they have no stake. On the contrary, I want to suggest that the driving mechanisms of acceleration are also empowered by cultural promises.” He uses a closed “acceleration cycle system” (technological acceleration – acceleration of social change – acceleration of the pace of life) to profoundly reveal to us the five types of “new alienation” that human society is constantly suffering from, namely “spatial alienation,” “thing alienation,” “action alienation,” “social alienation,” and “self-alienation and social alienation.” His critique of contemporary capitalist society’s complete fall into the crisis of alienation directly targets the self-enclosed system of capitalist modern civilization. Its deeper meaning lies in the fact that the inherent paradox of the logic of capital sweeps everything in human society into the vortex of capital, continuously infiltrating every element of the social organism. That is to say, capital expands to every corner of society, occupies every space of society, incorporates everything into the capitalist system, and provides a legitimacy basis for capitalist modern civilization through cultural forms that conform to capitalist values. Contemporary alienation is not only manifested as the production alienation of the intensification of alienation through the refinement of the division of labor, but also means that this labor alienation is wrapped by cultural value forms such as consumerist culture, mass entertainment culture, and hedonistic culture, as well as their cultural products and cultural industries, which are conducive to maintaining the operation mechanism of capitalism, forming a social alienation that spreads to all fields and absorbs every individual. Among them, the alienated situation suffered by people no longer distinguishes class, identity, race, or group, but is deeply trapped in a universal state of self-paradox: the more one indulges in enjoying external pleasure, the more one must endure internal pain. People often exist in a contradictory state of existence, dwelling in the “iron cage” of capitalist modern civilization devoid of value and meaning. This mode of alienation has already penetrated the marrow of social and cultural customs and is difficult to eradicate. This is the top priority of contemporary Western left-wing scholars’ cultural critique of the accelerationist crisis of alienation in contemporary society. In the period of free competition capitalism, labor alienation could be captured through the obvious miserable situation of the proletariat and clear class antagonism. However, after entering the period of monopoly capitalism, labor alienation has been submerged in the capitalist flexible accumulation model with blurred class boundaries and decentralized labor, and social alienation has become universal throughout the entire capitalist acceleration system and cultural system. Capital makes people both busy with making a living and addicted to pleasure, making it difficult for them to distinguish whether they are in a state of alienation, even deceiving themselves under the lie of freedom and autonomy. Therefore, in the critical theory of contemporary Western left-wing scholars, the critique of alienation often points to dissatisfaction with social and cultural values, yet it is difficult to see a scientific analysis that delves into the inherent contradictions of the capitalist mode of production.

随着数字资本主义、平台资本主义等当代资本主义新形式的渐趋常态化，当代西方左翼学者对当代人的异化境遇持续给予理论关切，并展开文化批判。当代批判理论代表人物之一、德国学者哈特穆特·罗萨指出：“现代社会行动者在面对无法掌控的加速动力时，并不只是无助的受害者而已。他们并不单纯仅是被迫去适应他们毫无筹码的加速赌局。相反的，我想指出，加速的推动机制也会由文化应许赋予力量。”他以一个封闭的“加速循环系统”（科技加速—社会变迁加速—生活步调加速）向我们深刻揭示了人类社会正不断遭受的五种“新异化”，即“空间异化”“物界异化”“行动异化”“社会异化”“自我异化与社会异化”。他对当代资本主义社会全面陷入异化危机的批判直指资本主义现代性文明的自我封闭系统，其深意在于，资本逻辑的内在悖论将人类社会中的一切卷入资本漩涡，不断渗透到社会机体的每个元素之中。也就是说，资本扩张到社会任何角落，侵占社会每个空间，将一切纳入资本主义体系，并以符合资本主义价值观的文化形式为资本主义现代性文明提供合法性根据。当代的异化不但体现为劳动分工精细化加速劳动异化的生产异化，更意味着这种劳动异化被有利于维持资本主义运行机制的消费主义文化、大众娱乐文化、享乐主义文化等文化价值观形式及其文化产品、文化工业包裹，形成扩散至各个领域、吸纳每个个体的社会异化。其中，人们所遭受的异化境遇已经不分阶级、身份、种族、群体，而是深陷普遍的自我悖谬状态，越是沉溺于享受外在的快感，就越要经受内在的痛苦的折磨。人们常常处于矛盾的生存状态，寄居在价值意义缺失的资本主义现代性文明“铁笼”下，而这种异化模式已经深入社会文化习俗的骨髓，难以剔除。这是当代西方左翼学者对当代社会加速主义异化危机进行文化批判的重中之重。在自由竞争资本主义时期，劳动异化可通过无产阶级显而易见的悲惨境遇和分明的阶级对立加以捕捉，而进入垄断资本主义时期后，劳动异化已经隐没于阶级界线模糊、劳动分散化的资本主义弹性积累模式之中，社会异化已经普遍存在于整个资本主义加速体系和文化系统之中。资本使人们既忙于生计又耽于享乐，从而使之难以分辨是否处于异化状态，甚至在自由、自主的谎言下自欺欺人。因此，在当代西方左翼学者的批判理论中，异化批判往往指向对社会文化价值观的不满，却难见其深入资本主义生产方式内在矛盾的科学分析。

Second, technological progress and the systematization of alienation. In the view of contemporary Western left-wing scholars, the mechanism through which social alienation becomes a universal fact lies in the logic of capital valorization, with science and technology as its intermediary. Technology itself is neutral; when applied to different orders of domination and constrained by different systems, it produces different effects and impacts on society. Under the capitalist system, technology serves the ruling class and becomes a medium that abets alienation. As contemporary high-tech fields such as digital communication technology, artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing gradually mature and undergo rapid technological iteration, once they are harnessed by capitalism, they become the crucial technical support for the systematization of alienation. For example, digital production could originally serve to reduce carbon emissions and promote green production and consumption. However, the acceleration mechanism of capitalist modernity, leveraging digital communication technology, vigorously propagates consumerist culture, constantly fabricates false needs, and expands the digital capital market. This leads to the consumption of more raw materials in the production process to maintain the abundance and diversity of commodities and the richness of profit and surplus value, causing a massive increase in energy consumption and carbon emissions, thereby exacerbating the ecological crisis. British political economist Graham Murdock points out: “Digital media platforms spare no effort in promoting a culture of excessive consumption, which not only consumes vast amounts of non-renewable natural resources but also causes some ecological disasters to erupt periodically. The recent COVID-19 pandemic that has plagued humanity is the latest and most powerful example.” The accelerationist evolution of the logic of capital valorization absorbs high-tech to serve capital’s accelerated expansion, accelerated accumulation, and accelerated concentration, reducing digital technology to a “framework” [Gestell] for exporting consumerist cultural values. Through new consumption mechanisms, it constantly creates and renews commodity consumption, resolves commodity overstock and inventory, persuades people to purchase more goods beyond their expected scope, thereby leading to excessive resource consumption and deep ecological crises. Rosa emphasizes that accelerationism causes the “attitudes and values, fashions and lifestyles, social relations and obligations, forms of groups, classes, environments, social vocabularies, practices and habitus” in the capitalist world “to change at a continuously increasing rate.” Under the regulation of capitalist modernity, this change does not lead to a more ideal good life; it merely serves to ensure the more rational and rapid operation of the new consumption mechanism born in acceleration—that is, additional investment in resources, continuous expansion of production, and renewed threats to ecology. At the same time, digital technology can perform a concealment function by codifying social elements, allowing unreasonable factors in society to be masked by codes, and making content that aligns with the interests of the ruling class visible. “Reality, referents, and the substance of value cannot escape the shadow of the sign; only the SYMBOLIQUE remains.” When social existence becomes digital symbols, when social relations are completely replaced by digital codes, and even become programmable, the alienating situation encountered by people becomes even more severe. Digital alienation reflects a new mode of social alienation. Within the technological rationalization of digitalization, it conceals the crisis of deepening alienation, obscures the catastrophic phenomenon of original labor alienation, and makes the division of labor and capital exploitation more covert. Contemporary society has not only failed to resolve the crisis of alienation through technological progress but, under the capitalist system, has even turned alienation into a systematized project with clear goals, high-tech intermediaries, and efficient operational mechanisms and methods. At this point, alienation is no longer merely an “invisible” state of subject-object inversion that requires theoretical insight; it has also become a system that gains value recognition from the entire society, exacerbating the overall crisis of capitalist society.

其二，技术进步与异化的系统化。在当代西方左翼学者看来，社会异化成为普遍事实的作用机制在于资本增殖逻辑，其中介是科学技术。科技本身是中立的，当应用于不同的统治秩序、受不同制度规约时，会对社会产生不同的作用和影响。在资本主义制度下，科技为统治阶级服务，成为异化的助推媒介。随着数字通信技术、人工智能、大数据、云计算等当代高新技术的渐趋成熟及其飞速的技术迭代，一旦为资本主义所用，就成为异化系统化的重要技术支撑。比如，数字化生产本可以为降低碳排放、绿色生产与消费服务，但资本主义现代性的加速机制则借助数字通信技术大肆宣扬消费主义文化，不断制造虚假需求，扩大数字资本市场，导致生产过程中需要消耗更多原材料，以维持商品的丰富性和多样性、利润与剩余价值的丰厚性，造成能源消耗量和碳排量的巨幅上涨，加剧生态危机。英国政治经济学家默多克指出：“数字媒体平台不遗余力地宣扬过度消费的文化，不仅消耗了大量不可再生的自然资源，而且让一些生态灾难开始周期性地爆发。近来困扰人类的新冠肺炎疫情，就是最新也是最有力的例证。”资本增殖逻辑的加速主义进化，吸纳高新科技为资本加速扩张、加速积聚、加速积累服务，使数字科技沦为消费主义文化价值观输出的“座架”，通过新的消费机制不断制造与更新商品消费，消解商品积压与存量，说服人们购买更多预期范围之外的商品，从而导致资源的过度消耗和深层生态危机。罗萨强调，加速主义导致资本主义世界的“态度和价值，时尚和生活风格，社会关系与义务，团体、阶级、环境、社会语汇、实践与惯习（habitus）的形式，都在以持续增加的速率发生改变”。在资本主义现代性的规制下，这种改变没有导向一种更加理想的美好生活，而仅仅是为了确保在加速中诞生的全新消费机制更加合理快速的运转，也就是对资源的追加投入、对生产的不断扩大以及对生态的再度威胁。同时，数字技术能够通过对社会元素的符码化而发挥隐身性功能，使社会中的不合理因素被符码掩盖，让符合统治阶级利益的内容显现。“真实性、指涉物，以及价值的实体都不能摆脱符号的阴影，只有大写的象征性（SYMBOLIQUE）。”当社会存在成为数字符号，当社会关系完全被数字编码替代，甚至可被编程化，人所遭遇的异化境遇更为严峻。数字异化反映出社会异化的新模式，在数字化的技术合理化中掩盖了异化深化的危机，遮蔽了原初劳动异化的灾难性现象，使劳动分工、资本剥削更隐秘。当代社会不仅没有通过技术进步消解异化危机，甚至在资本主义制度下使异化成为一个具有明确目标、高科技中介、高效运行机制与方式的系统化工程。这时，异化已经不仅仅是一个需要理论去透视的“看不见”的主客易位状态，更成为一个获得全社会价值认同的系统，加剧资本主义社会的整体危机。

Third, disciplinary control and the legitimization of alienation. The ability of the alienation system to achieve stable self-renewal amidst uncertainty is inseparable from capitalism’s subtle disciplinary and control over social members. By leveraging digital communication technology, this contemporary political discipline can permeate the entire society. Canadian accelerationist thinker Nick Srnicek points out: “As platforms further embed themselves into digital infrastructure, and as society becomes increasingly dependent on platforms, understanding how platforms operate and what they can do is crucial for us.” Faced with a new capitalist world enveloped and dominated by data, social members have no choice but to compromise with reality and conform to the rules set by the social control system. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, in *Negotiations*, states: “Societies of control are in the process of replacing disciplinary societies. ‘Control’ is the name Burroughs proposes for the new monster, and that Foucault recognizes as our immediate future.” “We are entering control societies that no longer operate by confinement but by continuous control and instant communication.” Some contemporary Western left-wing scholars hold a pessimistic view of the alienation crisis in contemporary Western capitalist societies, recognizing that the collusion between digital communication technology and capital will produce the side effect of one-dimensional control over the entire society. For instance, in the digital age, “we should regard data as raw materials that must be extracted; user activities are the natural source of this raw material. Like oil, data is a substance that is extracted, refined, and used in various ways.” Nature and humanity are disciplined and calculated by data and numbers, existing merely as usable raw materials labeled within capitalist control, fixed as symbols of resources capable of creating value. This new identity does not arise for freedom and liberation but for the convenience of exploitation and control; thus, numbers and platforms become boosters of new alienation.

第三，规训管控与异化的合法化。异化系统能够在不确定性中实现平稳的自我更新，少不了资本主义对社会成员进行潜移默化的规训与控制。借用数字通信技术，在当代这种政治规训得以渗透至整个社会。加拿大加速主义思想家尼克·斯尔尼塞克指出：“随着平台进一步深入数字化基础设施，随着社会越来越依赖平台，了解平台是如何运作的以及能做什么对于我们至关重要。”面对被数据包裹与统治的资本主义新世界，社会成员无从选择，只能向现实妥协，迎合社会控制系统给出的规则。法国哲学家德勒兹在《哲学与权力的谈判》中提出，“控制的社会正在取代惩戒社会。‘控制’一词是伯勒用来指新魔鬼的，福柯认为此词指明了我们最近的未来”。“我们正在进入控制社会，这样的社会已不再通过禁锢运作，而是通过持续的控制和即时的信息传播来运作。”一些当代西方左翼学者对当代西方资本主义社会异化危机持悲观态度，意识到数字通讯技术与资本的合谋将会产生对整个社会进行单向度控制的副作用。比如，在数字时代，“我们应该把数据作为必须提取的原材料，用户的活动是这种原料的天然来源。就像石油一样，数据是一种被提取、被精炼并以各种方式被使用的物质”。自然与人类受数字和数据规训与计算，在资本主义的控制之中仅仅作为一个可用的原材料而被标签化存在，作为一个可创造价值的资源而被符号式固化，新的身份并非为自由解放而来，而是为方便剥削与控制而生，数字与平台因而成为新异化的助推器。

Taking the digital management during the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, many contemporary Western left-wing scholars critique this subtle disciplinary and control mechanism of capitalist modernity. German ecological Marxist Benjamin Bratton, on the one hand, reflects on the relationship between humans and ecology, and on the other hand, seeks possible ways out of the pandemic by following the methods of the control society. In *The Revenge of the Real*, he points out: “When reality—in the form of the virus, our vulnerability to it, and our inadequate governance responses to it—shatters those comforting fantasies and ideologies, we must learn these most difficult lessons.” Here, he explicitly indicates the inadequacy of the control society’s pandemic management. In *The Stack*, he further states: “Clouds, networks, regions, social graphs, ecologies, megacities, formal and informal violence, weird theologies—they all stack on top of each other. This vast composite machine, according to the attributes and boundaries of spatial order, is generating a super-systemic technology.” Relying on technology to control and manage the pandemic is an inevitable choice for this era and society. It is precisely because of the singularity of this choice that the entire society faces the risk of falling into a manipulated surveillance capitalism. This is also the truth revealed by Israeli new historian Yuval Noah Harari in *21 Lessons for the 21st Century*: “After the fusion of the biotechnological revolution and the information technology revolution, big data algorithms may be better able than me to monitor and understand my feelings, and the authority that controls everything may shift from human hands to computers.” Thus, the contemporary ecological crisis, marked by the global COVID-19 pandemic, profoundly reflects what Habermas calls the “legitimation crisis” of capitalist society—that is, the inherent irrationality of the capitalist system itself. By relying on capital absorption of society and ideological control, it maintains a self-enclosed order with inherent contradictions, and the inevitable result is self-destruction. Contemporary Western left-wing scholars focus more on the critique of cultural values, thereby weakening the scientific grasp of the inherent contradictions of capitalist relations of production provided by Marx’s historical materialist methodology.

以新冠肺炎疫情下的数字化管理为例，很多当代西方左翼学者批判资本主义现代性这种潜移默化的规训与管控机制。德国生态学马克思主义者布拉顿一方面对人与生态的关系进行反思，另一方面沿着控制社会的方式寻找走出疫情的可能方案。他在《真实的复仇》中指出，“当现实——以病毒、我们对病毒的脆弱性、我们对病毒不充分的治理反应的形式——冲破那些令人欣慰的幻想和意识形态时，我们要吸取这些最困难的教训”。在这里，他明确表示控制社会对疫情管理的不力。他在《堆栈》中进一步指出，“云、网络、区域、社会图表、生态、大城市、正式和非正式的暴力、怪异的神学，它们都相互叠加在一起。这种巨大的复合机器根据空间秩序的属性和界线，正在生成为一种超级系统的技术。”依靠技术对疫情进行控制与管理是这个时代与社会的必然选择，正是因为选择的唯一性，也使得整个社会面临陷入被操控的监控资本主义的风险。这也正是以色列新锐历史学家尤瓦尔·赫拉利在《今日简史：人类命运大议题》中揭示的道理：“生物技术革命与信息技术革命融合之后，大数据算法有可能比我更能监测和理解我的感受，而掌控一切的权威也可能从人类手中转移到计算机手中。”由此可见，以全球新冠肺炎疫情发生为标志的当代生态危机，深刻反映出哈贝马斯所谓的资本主义社会的“合法化危机”，即资本主义制度自身的不合理性。它依靠对社会的资本吸纳和意识形态控制，维持存在固有矛盾的自我封闭秩序，其结果必然是走向自我毁灭。当代西方左翼学者更关注文化价值观批判，而弱化了马克思历史唯物主义方法论对资本主义生产关系固有矛盾的科学把握。

Although contemporary Western left-wing scholars have keenly captured the arrival of the digital surveillance society and the new crises of alienation it brings—such as “accelerated alienation,” “alienation dominated by digital control,” and “alienation under surveillance”—they have erred in their judgments on the path to liberation by abandoning the basic positions, principles, and methods of Marxism. For example, in the view of Western accelerationist scholars, the universal social alienation in a state of continuous acceleration is both an indispensable part of the capitalist system of domination and the switch for its self-destruction. Therefore, on the path to liberation, they tend to prefer letting acceleration intensify until capitalism reaches the point of self-destruction, thereby achieving a natural transition from capitalism to socialism.

虽然当代西方左翼学者敏锐地捕捉到数字监控社会的到来及其带来的“被加速的异化”“被数字宰制的异化”“被监控的异化”等新的异化危机，但在解放道路的判断上出现背弃马克思主义基本立场、原则、方法的错误。比如，在西方加速主义学者看来，处于持续加速过程中的普遍社会异化既是资本主义统治体系不可或缺的一环，也是其自我毁灭的开关。因此，他们在解放道路上更倾向于选择让加速愈演愈烈，直到资本主义达到自我毁灭的程度，从而实现从资本主义向社会主义的自然过渡。

II. The Emergence of a New Subject: From the Proletariat to the “New Proletariat”

二、新主体的出场：从无产阶级到“新无产阶级”

In the view of contemporary Western left-wing scholars, with the deepening development of capitalism, alienation is no longer the alienation of a single class or stratum but has become a condition of existence and a historical-cultural condition for all members of society. Therefore, the subject tasked with overthrowing the state of alienation and carrying out the struggle for liberation cannot be limited to a single class or stratum. Instead, it is necessary to reanalyze the structure of the socio-historical subject, re-recognize the identity of the subject of the social liberation movement, and redefine the role and function of the socio-historical subject. This is the theoretical background for the widespread discussion among Western left-wing scholars in the post-industrial era about whether the proletariat is still the subject of labor, whether it still exists and plays a historical role as a class. Whether based on the contemporary capitalist model of flexible accumulation, which argues that a labor subject in the sense of the proletariat no longer exists in contemporary society, or based on the general crisis of capitalist modernity characterized by the universalization of social alienation, which raises the tone of a cultural “Great Refusal,” contemporary Western left-wing scholars have all denied the contemporaneity of the Marxist concept of the proletariat and redefined the subject of the social liberation movement. From their various radical critiques of the problems of capitalist modernity, we can glimpse their new understanding of the socio-historical subject.

在当代西方左翼学者的视界中，随着资本主义的深入发展，异化已不单是某个阶级或阶层的异化，而是已成为社会全体成员的一种生存境遇与历史文化境遇。因此，担负推翻异化状态、进行解放斗争任务的主体也不能仅限于某个阶级或阶层，而要重新分析社会历史主体的结构，重新认识社会解放运动的主体身份，重新定义社会历史主体的角色职能。这是后工业时代西方左翼学者掀起关于无产阶级是否仍是劳动主体、是否仍然以阶级为单位存在并发挥历史作用之广泛讨论的理论背景。无论是基于当代资本主义弹性积累模式认为当代社会已不存在无产阶级意义上的劳动主体，还是基于社会异化普遍化的资本主义现代性总危机提出文化“大拒斥”的论调，当代西方左翼学者都否定了马克思主义无产阶级概念的当代性，重新定义社会解放运动的主体。我们可以从他们对资本主义现代性问题的各种激进批判中管窥其对社会历史主体的新理解。

The prominent ecological crisis of the contemporary capitalist world poses unprecedented challenges to the entire human ecosystem. Based on changes in the objective environment and the contemporary transformation of the capitalist mode of production, contemporary Western left-wing scholars believe that the concept of the subject should also be adjusted. The “proletariat,” which bears the historical task of breaking the old capitalist world and building a new communist world, should also have new connotations and identities. They name it the “new proletariat.”

当代资本主义世界突出的生态危机为整个人类生态系统提出前所未有的挑战。基于客观环境的变化与资本主义生产方式的当代变迁，当代西方左翼学者认为主体概念也应进行调整，承担打破资本主义旧世界、建立共产主义新世界历史任务的“无产阶级”也应具有新的内涵与身份，他们以“新无产阶级”为之冠名。

First, the “new proletariat” should possess radicality. Contemporary Western left-wing scholars believe that the previous concepts of the proletariat and the working class were defined primarily by ownership of the means of production. As a simple and intuitive conceptual category, they inevitably suffered from the infiltration of capitalist value-neutral ideas. Moreover, “working class” is even less clear in its conceptual definition than “proletariat,” and under certain conditions, it is a variant of the concept of a neutral social stratum, leaving vast space for the legitimization of capitalist exploitation and oppression. The “new proletariat” must cast aside any tendency toward compromise; radicality is its essential attribute. They argue that although Marx often used proletariat and working class as synonyms, there are significant differences between the two: the working class is a descriptive term belonging to the field of knowledge, whereas the proletariat signifies the operator of truth, that is, the driving force of revolutionary struggle. They believe that the capitalist private ownership of intellectual property rights unjustly strips “general intellect” from the subject, and combined with bio-genetic technology, which makes the subject an object more easily manipulated, the various conflicts and antagonisms in the process of capitalist development have severely threatened the foundation of human existence. The subject is reduced to an abstract, empty subject in the Cartesian sense, a “subjectivity without substance” that has lost its entity and content. Slovenian scholar Slavoj Žižek proposes the image of the “new proletariat” as a “subject reduced to the Cartesian ‘cogito,’ approaching the zero point.” Its essence is to demand that the “new proletariat” start anew from the zero point where it possesses nothing materially or spiritually, maintaining a radicality that rebels against all existing frameworks, in order to reshape its own subjective connotation.

首先，“新无产阶级”应具有激进性。当代西方左翼学者认为，以往的无产阶级和工人阶级概念主要是根据生产资料所有权定义自身，作为一个简单直观的概念范畴，不免遭受资本主义价值中立观念的渗透。而“工人阶级”比“无产阶级”在概念界定上更不清晰，甚至在一定条件下是中立社会阶层概念的变种，这为资本主义剥削压迫的合法化留下巨大的空间。“新无产阶级”必须抛却任何妥协倾向，激进性是其本质属性。他们认为，尽管马克思通常把无产阶级与工人阶级作为同义词使用，但两者存在显著差异：工人阶级是属于知识领域的描述术语，而无产阶级意指真理的运作者，即革命斗争的动力源。他们认为，资本主义不合理的知识产权私有制将“一般智力”从主体中剥离，加之生物基因技术使主体沦为更易操纵的对象，所以资本主义发展过程中的诸种冲突与对抗已经严重威胁人的存在根基，主体被还原为笛卡尔意义上的抽象、空洞的主体，即丧失实体和内容的“无物质的主体性”。斯洛文尼亚学者齐泽克提出“被还原到笛卡尔式‘我思’的趋近于零点的主体”的“新无产阶级”形象，其实质是要求“新无产阶级”在物质与精神都一无所有的零点重新出发，保持反叛一切既有框架的激进性，以重塑自身的主体内涵。

Second, the “new proletariat” is a collection of the broad “excluded.” The reason contemporary Western left-wing scholars emphasize the radicality of the “new proletariat” so strongly is mainly that they believe the contemporary oppressed at the bottom are people excluded from politics. Politics should play the role of providing a public space for equal participation in public affairs, enabling social members to enjoy equal civil rights, and maintaining social fairness and justice. This is the functional orientation that modern Western democratic politics has always touted. However, under the capitalist system, politics has increasingly become a tool for privileged strata to suppress resistance forces and whitewash peace. Contemporary Western left-wing scholars criticize this regressive politics of privilege, arguing that to change the unfair public order, a community of the “new proletariat” must be forged. In their view, the poor, refugees, and immigrants are all victims and sacrifices of this game of political exclusion. They are deprived of the right to obtain public goods, exist outside the control of state power, cannot be included in the legitimate space of citizenship, and thus become the “living dead” under the capitalist order of domination. Yet it is precisely this type of “new proletariat” that possesses revolutionary potential. They are expected to become both the revolutionary subject of political liberation and a new type of leading group capable of eliminating the crisis of capitalist alienation and constructing a new social order. French theorist Jacques Rancière points out that “politics exists where the count of parts and parties of society is troubled by the inscription of the part of those who have no part.” [1]1 “Great harmony” (大同, datong) is a classical Chinese Confucian concept referring to an ideal, utopian society of universal peace and harmony, often invoked in modern Chinese political discourse to describe a future communist ideal. The social beings whom Rancière calls the “part of those who have no part,” excluded from politics, always possess the possibility of resisting and challenging the existing political order. In the view of contemporary Western left-wing scholars, they do not acquiesce to and endure capitalist rule over society; rather, they establish a new territory within the homogenizing, totalizing control of existing society, existing in a negative, universal, and developmental posture. This means they have no fixed, “legitimized specific characteristics,” but appear as “the excluded” in the posture of resisters. Therefore, they are a universally existing force of direct resistance.

其次，“新无产阶级”是广泛的“被排斥者”的集合。当代西方左翼学者之所以如此强调“新无产阶级”的激进性，主要在于其认为当代底层受压迫者是被政治排斥的人。政治应发挥提供平等参与公共事务的公共空间、使社会成员享受平等公民权利、维护社会公平正义的作用，这是现代西方民主政治始终标榜的功能取向。但是，在资本主义制度下，政治却日益成为特权阶层打压反抗力量、粉饰太平的工具。当代西方左翼学者批判这种特权化的倒退政治，认为要改变不公平的公共秩序，必须打造“新无产阶级”的共同体。在他们看来，贫民、难民、移民都是这一政治排斥游戏的受害者与牺牲品，他们被剥夺了获得公共物品的权利，处于国家政权控制之外，不能纳入公民的合法空间，从而沦为资本主义统治秩序下的“活死人”。而恰恰是这一类“新无产阶级”具有革命的潜能，既有望成为政治解放的革命主体，又可以成长为消除资本主义异化危机、建构新社会秩序的新型领导群体。法国理论家朗西埃指出，“政治存在于，社会的部分（parts）与组成分子（parties）的计算被那些无分者之分的算入打乱的地方”。被朗西埃称为被排斥于政治之外的“无分者之分”的社会存在者，时刻具有反抗与挑战现存政治秩序的可能性。在当代西方左翼学者看来，他们不是默认与忍受资本主义对社会的统治，而是要在现存社会的同质化、整体化操控中确立一片新的领地，以一种否定性、普遍化、发展性的姿态而存在。这意味着他们没有固定化、“合法化的特定特征”，而是以反抗者的姿态出现的“被排斥者”。因此，他们是普遍存在的直接反抗力量。

Finally, the “new proletariat” should possess a full sense of community. Contemporary Western left-wing scholars such as the French scholar Alain Badiou, the Italian scholar Antonio Negri, and the American scholar Mike Davis all emphasize the importance of the “new proletariat’s” sense of community, arguing that whether the “new proletariat” is radical is primarily manifested in whether it has a distinct value identification with the community. The “new proletariat” is no longer the proletariat that, in Lukács’s sense, has lost its class consciousness, but rather one that is already able to recognize the crisis of capitalist modernity and consciously participate in a value-identification community of “new communism” that leads humanity out of the crisis. They do not distinguish themselves from one another by political identity or social identity, but gather together solely due to shared value identification, achieving the reorganization and reconstruction of the entire social order. Negri points out: “What is a strike? A strike is the destruction of the production system that poses objective obstacles. Because these new capitalist machines are dirty, they are machines that shut down desire; but once these machines are destroyed, it is necessary to reawaken the desire for solidarity, the desire for production.” Therefore, “when I say ‘production,’ I am not only referring to the factory; I am talking about the production of society, and especially reproduction, which is very important.” He is clearly aware that the “new proletariat,” called the “multitude,” reappropriates the importance of production in the form of a community; only the “new proletariat” as a community is the main force capable of resolving the crisis of capitalist modernity. Methods that vainly attempt to overcome the general crisis of capitalist society through bourgeois leadership and internal adjustments within capitalism all reveal the role of political lies in the wretched evolution of actual life. When criticizing the falsity of Western democratic politics, Badiou points out that, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the practice of capitalist countries leaving better medical resources and survival opportunities to the rich while disregarding the lives of the poor thoroughly punctured the lies that the bourgeoisie vigorously promotes, such as “everyone is equal before the virus” and “we stand with you.”

最后，“新无产阶级”应具有充分的共同体意识。法国学者巴迪欧、意大利学者奈格里、美国学者迈克·戴维斯等当代西方左翼学者都强调“新无产阶级”共同体意识的重要性，认为“新无产阶级”是否具有激进性主要体现在其是否具有鲜明的共同体价值认同。“新无产阶级”不再是卢卡奇意义上丧失了阶级意识的无产阶级，而是已经能够意识到资本主义现代性危机并自觉参与到带领人类走出危机的“新共产主义”的价值认同共同体。他们不因政治身份、社会身份而彼此区分，只因共同的价值认同而聚集在一起，实现整个社会秩序的重组重构。奈格里指出：“什么是罢工？罢工是对带来客观阻碍的生产系统的破坏。因为这些新资本主义的机器是肮脏的，是关闭欲望的机器；但是，一旦摧毁了这些机器，就需要重新唤起团结的欲望，生产的欲望”。所以，“当我说‘生产’的时候，我指的不仅是工厂；我说的是生产社会，尤其是再生产，这很重要”。他清楚地意识到，被称为“诸众”的“新无产阶级”以共同体的方式重新占有生产的重要性，只有作为共同体的“新无产阶级”才是解决资本主义现代性危机的主体力量。妄图通过资产阶级领导与资本主义内部调整来克服资本主义社会总危机的方式，都在实际生活的糟糕演化中彰显出政治谎言的作用。巴迪欧在批判西方民主政治的虚假性时指出，新冠肺炎疫情发生后，资本主义国家将更好的医疗资源、生存机会留给富人而不顾穷人死活的做法彻底戳穿了资产阶级极力宣扬的“病毒面前人人平等”“我们与你同在”的谎言。

The understanding of the proletariat among contemporary Western left-wing scholars has already shifted in context, initiating new social movements that advance political struggle or the construction of a new order in a radical manner. Although they still regard the proletariat as the backbone force for achieving social change and civilizational progress, the connotation of this socio-historical subject is already far removed from the Marxist definition and understanding of the proletariat. They tend more to recognize the new constituent elements and organizational forms of the proletariat from the perspectives of differences in political identity and cultural values. They lean more towards continuing the tradition of Western political philosophy, striving to find equality within difference, or to find a standard that balances difference and equality. It is not difficult to find that, in the process of this theoretical exploration, contemporary Western left-wing scholars either fall into a bottomless abyss of rootless definition of the subject’s political identity amidst endless metaphysical pursuits; or sink into the quagmire of antinomies, finding no way to change; or drift into utopian reverie, remaining only in theoretical debates about the rationality of the “new proletariat,” “new social movements,” and “new communism,” while making no progress in practice regarding the innovation of social governance models and the overthrow of power politics and hegemonic politics. Tracing this to its root, it is nothing other than their lack of firm belief in communism, their incomplete adherence to the basic positions, principles, and methods of Marxism, and their treatment of Marxist theory merely as an object of academic research rather than as a scientific guiding ideology for promoting social change.

当代西方左翼学者们关于无产阶级的理解已经变换了语境，开启了以一种激进的方式来推进政治斗争或新秩序建构的新社会运动。虽然他们仍然将无产阶级视为实现社会变革与文明进步的中坚力量，但这种社会历史主体的内涵已经与马克思主义对无产阶级的界定与理解相去甚远。他们更多地是站在政治身份差异、文化价值观差异等方面认识无产阶级新的构成要素与组织形式。他们更多地延续西方政治哲学传统，力图在差异中寻找平等，或寻找平衡差异与平等的标准。不难发现，在这一理论探索的过程中，当代西方左翼学者或者在无穷无尽的形而上学追索中陷入对主体政治身份无根界定的无底深渊；或者深陷二律背反的泥潭，变法无门；或者流于乌托邦的遐思，只能停留在关于“新无产阶级”“新社会运动”“新共产主义”之合理性的理论争辩中，而在革新社会治理模式与推翻强权政治、霸权政治的实践方面却原地踏步。究其根本，无外乎是他们对共产主义信仰不坚定，坚持马克思主义基本立场、原则、方法不彻底，只是将马克思主义理论作为学术研究的对象，而非推动社会变革的科学指导思想。

III. Conception of a New Path: From Critiquing Neoliberalism to Revitalizing “Communism”

三、新道路的构想：从批判新自由主义到重振“共产主义”

Regarding the way out of the general crisis of contemporary capitalist society, contemporary Western left-wing scholars mainly propose the path of “new communism.” Through their critique of neoliberalism, they demonstrate that capitalism is approaching its end, and explain how “new communism” will be constructed in the new social movements of the “new proletariat.” In this regard, we take the ecological crisis as an example, and look back at the theoretical understanding and attitudes of contemporary Western left-wing scholars towards the global COVID-19 pandemic, to examine their choice of path in critiquing capitalist modernity and its limitations.

对于当代资本主义社会总体危机的出路，当代西方左翼学者主要提出“新共产主义”的道路。他们通过对新自由主义的批判彰显资本主义行将穷途，并说明“新共产主义”将如何在“新无产阶级”的新社会运动中得以建构。对此，我们以生态危机为例，回溯当代西方左翼学者对全球新冠肺炎疫情的理论认识与态度，来审视他们对资本主义现代性批判的道路选择及其局限。

As the main plan for capitalism to self-overcome and self-adjust within the capitalist system during its periodic crises, neoliberal policies achieved a certain effect of self-recovery and self-repair for a period. However, the “atavistic” free-market economy soon reaped the consequences in a new round of periodic economic crises, causing the myth of the “end of history” [1]1 “Great harmony” (大同, datong) is a classical Chinese Confucian concept referring to an ideal, utopian society of universal peace and harmony, often invoked in modern Chinese political discourse to describe a future communist ideal. to collapse without a fight. When facing major public health crises affecting the entire globe, regimes pursuing neoliberal policies were not only stretched thin but even caused the epidemic prevention and control situation to continuously deteriorate, drawing condemnation from the international community and criticism from theorists. David Harvey, a representative of British neo-Marxism, criticized in his article “Anti-Capitalist Politics in the Time of COVID-19” that neoliberalism was not a “good medicine” for self-redemption during the pandemic, but rather exposed the “toxicity” hidden within it completely. Governments tilted large amounts of fiscal and tax subsidies heavily towards big capitalists, private enterprises, and the rich, even delivering them directly into their hands; the proletariat, deprived of vaccines, medical resources, food, political rights, and even human rights, had nothing to rely on, constantly facing the danger of being ruthlessly cast into “bare life.” [2]2 “Bare life” (nuda vita) is a concept from Giorgio Agamben’s political philosophy, referring to a form of life stripped of all political and legal status and reduced to mere biological existence, which he argues is the hidden foundation of modern sovereignty. The Italian scholar Giorgio Agamben, when facing the pandemic, repeatedly emphasized that “everything indicates a fact: the foundation of our current society is no longer love; it has been replaced by distance, separation, suspicion, and even hatred.” “We are witnessing an era of demise, the demise of the era of capitalist democracy.”

作为资本主义周期性危机在资本主义体系内部进行自我克服、自我调节的主要方案，新自由主义政策在一定时期起到了自我恢复、自我修复的效果。然而，“返祖”式的自由主义市场经济很快便在新一轮的周期性经济危机中自食其果，使“历史终结论”的神话不攻自破。在面对波及全球的重大公共卫生危机时，奉行新自由主义政策的政权不仅捉襟见肘，甚至使疫情防控形势不断恶化，引起国际社会的谴责与理论家的批判。英国新马克思主义代表人物大卫·哈维在《新冠时期的反资本主义政治》一文中批判道，新自由主义不是疫情期间进行自我救赎的“一剂良药”，反倒使内在隐藏的“毒性”暴露得一览无余。政府将大量财税补贴向大资本家、私企与富人倾斜，甚至直接送到他们手中；无产阶级在疫苗、医疗资源、食物、政治权利乃至人权被剥夺时无所依靠，时刻遭遇着被无情抛进“赤裸生命”的危险。意大利学者吉奥乔·阿甘本在面对疫情时一再强调，“一切都表明了一个事实，我们现在的社会的根基已经不再是爱了，取而代之的是距离，是分离，是怀疑，甚至是仇恨”。“我们正在见证一个消亡的时代，资本主义民主时代的消亡”。

The capital logic and consumerist mechanism that have long sustained the operation of capitalism have been fully exposed under the heavy pressure of the global COVID-19 pandemic, gradually losing their internal momentum. The inability of the proletariat and the broad masses to make ends meet can no longer sustain the development model of “stimulating consumption”; whether “experiential consumption” or “compensatory consumption,” both have been dealt a blow amid inflation and soaring unemployment. The sharp decline in labor market demand, the unequal distribution of medical resources, the rapid widening of the gap between rich and poor, and the surge in class contradictions highlight the failure of neoliberal policies in responding to the pandemic and escaping the ecological crisis. American philosopher Noam Chomsky, from the perspective of the public health crisis, criticizes neoliberalism’s vulnerability in the face of the pandemic and ecological catastrophe. He points out that neoliberalism’s advocacy of the free market and its rejection of government intervention are two sides of the same coin. Neoliberalism demands a free and loose market environment to serve social development, regarding government intervention as the root of all evil. But the free market does not serve social development as it promises; it is not a place to solve public development problems, but merely a “private venue” and “economic advisor” for a few large financial groups and capitalists. Therefore, the free market cannot provide solutions for the poor and the proletariat to cope with the pandemic and ecological crisis. Under the dominance of neoliberalism, capitalism on the one hand declares that “the great failure of the market is the root of social problems,” while on the other hand vigorously asserts that “government cannot solve our problems; government itself is the problem and can do nothing,” ultimately failing and becoming ineffective under the叠加 of this double failure. American sociologist Karl Polanyi believes that neoliberalism has greatly damaged the survival rights and interests of the grassroots masses. The super-rich, big entrepreneurs, and financial magnates living at the pinnacle of the capitalist pyramid have long monopolized vaccines and medical supplies, and even fled the epidemic area in private jets at the first moment of the outbreak, exposing the vast number of proletarians and impoverished people to the pandemic. In his article “Is the Pandemic the Fault of Globalization?”, he criticizes how neoliberalism ruthlessly abandons “the foundation on which the various groups of civil society rely for their existence and activities” (people deprived of all property and the grade of direct labor, i.e., concrete labor) when a pandemic occurs; how, through the operation of the logic of surplus value, it deprives laborers of “all property and direct labor,” turning them into “one-dimensional” people; how, in the process of stimulating consumerist motives, it takes away the spiritual freedom of laborers; how, in the unlimited accumulation of capital, it drags individuals into the “satanic mill”; and how, by overemphasizing free market competition and allowing the free accumulation of capital, it causes market failure and pervasive crises. When contemporary Western left-wing scholars, through theoretical reflection on the COVID-19 pandemic and the ecological crisis, criticize the structural problems of neoliberalism, they see that the capitalist system is not the end of human history, nor is it the optimal model for leading out of the ecological crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, and they more actively raise the call to revitalize socialism/communism.

一直以来支撑资本主义运作的资本逻辑和消费主义机制在全球新冠肺炎疫情的重压之下原形毕露，逐渐丧失了内在动力。无产阶级与广大民众的入不敷出已经不足以维持“刺激消费”的发展模式，无论是“体验性消费”还是“补偿性消费”，都在通货膨胀与失业剧增中遭到打击。劳动力市场需求的急剧减少、医疗资源的不平等分配、贫富差距的急剧扩大、阶级矛盾的激增等，凸显了新自由主义政策在应对疫情与走出生态危机上的失败。美国哲学家乔姆斯基从公共卫生危机的视角，批判了新自由主义在疫情与生态灾难面前的不堪一击。他指出，新自由主义对自由市场的推崇与对政府干预的排斥是同一个过程的两个方面。新自由主义要求一个自由宽松的市场环境为社会发展服务，认为政府的干预是万恶之源。但自由市场并不像其所承诺的那样为社会发展服务，不是解决公众发展问题的地方，而仅仅是少数大财团与资本家的“私人场所”与“经济顾问”。所以，自由市场不能为穷人与无产阶级提供应对疫情与生态危机的解决方案。在新自由主义的支配下，资本主义一方面宣称“市场的巨大失败是社会问题的根源”，另一方面极力宣称“政府不能解决我们的问题，政府本身就是问题，什么都做不了”，最终在双重失败的叠加下失效失灵。美国社会学家波兰尼认为，新自由主义极大地损害了底层群众的生存权益，生活在资本主义金字塔顶尖的大富豪、大企业家、大财阀们早已垄断了疫苗与医疗物资，甚至在疫情发生第一时间驾驶私人飞机逃离了疫区，使广大无产者与贫困人民暴露于疫情之中。在《疫情大流行是全球化的错吗》一文中，他批判新自由主义如何在疫情发生时无情地抛弃他们的“市民社会各集团赖以安身和活动的基础”（被剥夺了一切财产的人们和直接劳动即具体劳动的等级），如何在剩余价值逻辑的运作中通过剥夺劳动者“一切财产和直接劳动”使其变成“单向度”的人，如何在刺激消费主义动机的过程中夺走劳动者的精神自由，如何在无限制的资本积累中将个体卷入“撒旦的机器”，以及如何因为过度强调市场自由竞争和放任资本自由积累引发市场失灵、危机四伏。当西方当代左翼学者通过对新冠肺炎疫情及生态危机的理论反思，批判新自由主义的结构性问题时，他们看到资本主义制度不是人类历史的终结，也不是引领走出生态危机与新冠肺炎疫情的最优模式，更积极地发出重振社会主义/共产主义的呼声。

Contemporary Western left-wing scholars have a clear definition of the use of concepts such as “implicit communism,” which is manifested through their critique of current pandemic response strategies. In his article “Is Tender Brutality Our Fate?”, Slavoj Žižek focuses on the Trump administration, pointing out that Trump, on the one hand, loudly ridicules the use of the term “communism,” while on the other hand, proposes that the government take over private enterprises, investing $2 trillion to help private enterprises under the support of the Defense Production Act. This approach of denigrating communism on one hand and implementing government intervention on the other is a complete self-contradiction. Based on this, Žižek believes that reviving “communism” to deal with the pandemic crisis, public security crisis, and ecological crisis is a necessary refutation of and response to neoliberal rhetoric and measures. Regarding Žižek’s critique of neoliberalism, American postmodernist thinker Judith Butler expressed support. She believes that under the pandemic, the capitalist system’s attitude towards “survival of the fittest” has clearly adopted a “double standard.” This “double standard behavior” has intensified class contradictions and also activated people’s “collective desire for radical equality.” It is precisely in the process of resisting inequality in medical distribution and life-saving treatment that a “socialist imagination” about ending the pandemic and ecological crisis has been rapidly awakened. American scholar Noam Chomsky points out: “Solidarity, justice, and internationalism are early signs of the rise of a new society. Now, the pandemic outbreak directly points to it. More than 150 years ago, Marx and Engels called it the ‘realm of freedom,’ that is, communism. That is its proper name.” Russian scholar Alexander Buzgalin points out: “Only by acting together can we overcome this disaster. Quarantine is not so much a means for us to save ourselves as a necessary means to save everyone.” Jacques Rancière emphasizes that escaping the ecological crisis and pandemic disaster requires rebuilding a future socialist framework, re-understanding that history will enter “post-communism” or “new communism,” and re-exploring and constructing “a new form once called communism.”

当代西方左翼学者对“隐含的共产主义”等概念的使用具有明确的界定，并借由对当下新冠肺炎疫情应对策略的批判得以彰显。齐泽克在《温情脉脉的野蛮行径乃是我们的宿命？》一文中聚焦特朗普政府，指出特朗普一方面大肆嘲笑使用“共产主义”一词，另一方面又提出建议政府接管私企，在《国防生产法》的支持下投入2万亿美元对私企提供帮助。这种一方面贬低共产主义、另一方面进行政府干预的手段，是彻头彻尾的自相矛盾。基于此，齐泽克认为，重提“共产主义”以应对疫情危机、公共安全危机和生态危机，是对新自由主义论调与举措的必要驳斥与回应。对于齐泽克对新自由主义的批判，美国后现代主义思想家巴特勒进行了声援。她认为，疫情之下资本主义制度对“适者生存”的态度明显地采取了“双重标准”。这一“双标行为”激化了阶级矛盾，也激活了人们“对激进平等的集体渴望”。正是在反抗医疗分配与生命救治不平等的过程中，一个关于终结疫情与生态危机的“社会主义想象”被迅速唤醒。美国学者乔姆斯基指出：“团结，正义和国际主义是新社会崛起的早期迹象。现在，疫情大爆发直接指向它。150多年前，马克思和恩格斯把它称为‘自由王国’，即共产主义。这是它应有的名称。”俄罗斯学者布兹加林指出：“只有共同行动，我们才能战胜这场灾难。隔离与其说是我们拯救自己的一种手段，不如说是拯救每个人的一种必要手段。”朗西埃强调，走出生态危机与疫情灾难需要重新构建一个未来的社会主义框架，重新理解历史将进入“后共产主义”或“新共产主义”，重新探索与构筑“一种曾经叫做共产主义的新形式”。

“New communism” is fundamentally different from scientific socialism. Because the results of contemporary Western left-wing scholars’ tracing of the root causes of the crisis of capitalist modernity deviate from the basic positions, principles, and methods of Marxism, their theoretical construction of a future social path cannot extend and develop the true meaning of scientific socialism. Although they hold correct theoretical aspirations for a future new form of international society that realizes ecological civilization, they mostly remain at the level of utopian descriptions of a community vision of what they call “great harmony” [1]1 “Great harmony” (大同, datong) is a classical Chinese Confucian concept referring to an ideal, utopian society of universal peace and harmony, often invoked in modern Chinese political discourse to describe a future communist ideal. and “common well-being.” They are unclear about the main force responsible for transcending capitalist modernity and constructing a “new communist” society, merely repeatedly emphasizing that these new subjects are neither the traditional proletariat nor generalized atomized individuals, but rather that common value identification should be sought among communities with differential cultural values, forming a new type of collective organization with a community consciousness that consciously resists the existing unjust ruling order. However, regarding how to reach consensus amidst differences in cultural values, how to sustain the imagined sense of solidarity until the established ruling order is overthrown, how to construct a new social order within pluralism, and how to determine the criteria for the legitimacy of the new social order, they are unable to provide adequate explanations. This is because they have abandoned the scientific worldview and methodology’s scientific understanding of the subject of social history, mistakenly entrusting the core force of social change to an interest community prioritizing inter-group interests, rather than a true community aiming for the “association of free individuals.” Their conception of future communism is merely a reactive utopia in the face of the overall crisis of capitalist modernity.

“新共产主义”与科学社会主义有根本不同。由于当代西方左翼学者对资本主义现代性危机追本溯源的结果偏离了马克思主义的基本立场、原则、方法，其未来社会道路的理论建构便无法延伸拓展科学社会主义的真意。虽然他们对未来实现生态文明的国际社会新形态持有正确的理论憧憬，但他们更多地停留在对其所谓“大同主义”“共同福祉”的共同体愿景进行乌托邦式的描述。他们对于承担超越资本主义现代性、建构“新共产主义”社会的主体力量并不明晰，只是反复强调这些新主体并非传统的无产阶级，又非泛化的原子式个体，强调在差异性文化价值观的共同体之间寻找共同的价值认同，组成具有自觉反抗既有不公正统治秩序的共同体意识的新型集体组织。而关于如何在文化价值观的差异中达成一致，如何使想象出来的团结意识持续存在直至推翻既定统治秩序，如何在多元主义中构建新社会秩序，如何确定新社会秩序的合法性标准等问题，他们都无法给出充分的说明。这是因为，他们抛弃了科学世界观方法论对于社会历史主体的科学认知，将社会变革的核心力量错付于群际利益优先的利益共同体，而非以“自由人的联合体”为目标的真正共同体，其关于未来共产主义的设想仅仅是在资本主义现代性总体危机面前的一种应激性乌托邦。

(Author’s bio: Han Qiuhong, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor, Faculty of Marxism, Northeast Normal University)

（作者简介：韩秋红，东北师范大学马克思主义学部教授、博士生导师）

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心