How to Slay the Greedy Capitalist Ogre – Reading Nancy Fraser’s *Cannibal Capitalism*

Nancy Fraser’s 2022 new book *Cannibal Capitalism* indeed bears a rather alarming title. Etymologically, “cannibal” is not a standard English word but originated from the Spanish encounter with the Taíno people in the Caribbean during the Age of Sail. The Spanish found that the Taíno practiced cannibalism; when they ate people, the pronunciation was *caniba*. This word was transformed by the Spanish into Spanish *caníbal*, and finally evolved into English *cannibal*, meaning animals eating their own kind, and when applied to humans, it becomes “man-eating.” But for the reader, why in Nancy Fraser’s eyes is contemporary capitalism, especially capitalism after the COVID-19 pandemic, “cannibal capitalism”? How does contemporary capitalism “eat people”? This is the question Nancy Fraser’s book needs to answer for us.

2022年南希· 弗雷泽的新书《食人资本主义》(Cannibal Capitalism)的确起了一个十分骇人的标题。从词源学来看，cannibal并不是标准的英文单词，而是西班牙人在大航海时期，遇到了加勒比海上的泰诺人，西班牙人发现泰诺人会同类相食，他们吃人的时候，发音是caniba, 这个词被西班牙人转化为西班牙语中的caníbal, 最后演变成英语中的cannibal, 意思是动物的同类相食，当然，用在人身上的时候就变成了食人。但是，对于读者来说，为什么在南希· 弗雷泽眼中，当代资本主义尤其是新冠疫情之后的资本主义是“食人资本主义”?当代资本主义如何“食人”?这便是南希· 弗雷泽这本书需要向我们解答的问题。

In one interview, Nancy Fraser expressed great satisfaction with the cover designed by Verso Press. The cover features the image of an ouroboros, representing a snake devouring its own tail, meaning it is devouring its own body. In other words, through the image of the ouroboros, Nancy Fraser wants to convey to us that capitalism’s greedy appetite, from one crisis point to another, from ecological destruction to democratic collapse, from racial violence to the devaluation of care work, all these crisis points reached their peak during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Nancy Fraser’s own words: “For a system, it is devouring its own social, political, and natural foundations – these devoured things are also the foundations of our society.”

在一次采访中，南希· 弗雷泽表示对Verso出版社设计的封面非常满意。封面上是一个衔尾蛇(ouroboros)的形象，代表着一条蛇正在吞噬自己的尾巴，也意味着它在吞噬着自己的身体。换言之，通过衔尾蛇的形象，南希· 弗雷泽想给我们表达的意思是：资本主义的贪婪欲望，从一个危机点到另一个危机点，从生态破坏到民主崩溃，从种族暴力到护理工作的贬值，这些危机点都在新冠疫情发生中达到了顶点。用南希· 弗雷泽自己的话来说：“对于一个系统来说，它就是在吞噬自己的社会、政治和自然基础——被吞噬的这些东西也是我们社会的基础。”

Clearly, through the images of cannibalism and the ouroboros, Nancy Fraser tells us that in the face of enormous financial and social crises, and before the immense social problems brought to Western capitalist societies by the raging COVID-19 pandemic, she must once again pick up the abandoned critical edge of capitalism critique. The idealism that once sought to correct the inequality and injustice of capitalist society through feminist identity politics has ultimately given way to using the weapon of critique to aim its edge at the capitalist system itself. And behind her stand the masters of capitalist critique: Marx, Engels, the Frankfurt School, Karl Polanyi. Today, she once again uses capitalist critique to penetrate the symptoms of the capitalist crisis, namely that capitalism is an ouroboros constantly devouring its own body and foundations. If we continue to rely on this cruel and inhumane system, all of humanity will perish along with it. However, to clarify the basic thread of Nancy Fraser’s *Cannibal Capitalism*, we must return to the history of her own intellectual development.

显然，南希· 弗雷泽通过食人和衔尾蛇的形象告诉我们，在巨大的金融危机和社会危机面前，在新冠疫情肆虐为西方资本主义社会带来巨大的社会问题面前，她必须重新拾起曾经被遗弃的资本主义的批判的锋芒。曾经从女性主义的身份政治来进行修正资本主义社会不平等和不公正的理想主义，最终让位于用批判的武器来将其锋芒对准资本主义体制本身。而在她身后，矗立着马克思、恩格斯、法兰克福学派、卡尔· 波兰尼这些资本主义批判的大师。而在今天，她重新用资本主义批判穿透了资本主义危机的症候，即资本主义是一条不断吞噬着自己身体和根基的衔尾蛇，如果我们继续依赖于这个残忍而不人道的制度，整个人类也会随之灭亡。不过，为了厘清南希· 弗雷泽在《食人资本主义》的基本脉络，我们必须回到她自己的思想发展史。

I. From Recognition to Redistribution

一、从承认到再分配

Born in 1947, Nancy Fraser is first and foremost a feminist thinker. The era in which she lived and studied coincided with the popularity of feminist theories by figures such as Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva; even in the United States, Fraser’s contemporaries included feminist thinkers like Judith Butler and Iris Marion Young. At the same time, Nancy Fraser also considers herself an inheritor of the critical theoretical spirit of the Frankfurt School. Although she never went to Frankfurt, in Fraser’s books, critical theorists of the Frankfurt School such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, and Axel Honneth have long served as her spiritual guides. It is precisely for this reason that Nancy Fraser’s early unique writing style was shaped. She adhered to a distinct feminist standpoint, insisting on rethinking issues of political philosophy and economic systems from the perspective of women’s equality and justice. Thus, she responded to the neoliberal political philosophy represented by figures like John Rawls, arguing that the establishment of women’s equality is a refutation and attack on Rawls’s principle that “the right is prior to the good.” As Nancy Fraser herself critically pointed out: “The result is a new phase of feminist politics, in which gender justice is reconstituted. In this phase, one important aspect is challenging the interconnected injustices of maldistribution and misrecognition.” [1]1 Nancy Fraser, “Feminist Politics in the Age of Recognition: A Two-Dimensional Approach to Gender Justice,” *Studies in Social Justice* 1, no. 1 (2007): 23–35. From this space, Nancy Fraser discovered that under the framework of neoliberal political philosophy, there is a natural discrimination against and bias toward gender justice, leading inevitably to inequality in women’s status under the framework of neoliberal multiculturalism.

出生于1947年的南希· 弗雷泽当然首先是一位女性主义思想家。在她生活和学习的那个年代，正赶上波芙娃、伊利格雷(Irigaray)、克里斯蒂娃(Kristeva)等人的女性主义理论的流行；即使在美国，与弗雷泽同行的也有朱迪斯· 巴特勒(Judith Butler)、伊丽丝· 马里翁· 杨(Iris Marion Young)这样的女性主义思想家。但与此同时，南希· 弗雷泽也认为自己是法兰克福学派的批判理论精神的承袭者，尽管她并没有去过法兰克福，但在弗雷泽的书中，早已将霍克海默、阿多诺、本雅明、哈贝马斯、霍耐特等法兰克福学派的批判理论家作为自己的精神向导。正因为如此，才塑造了南希· 弗雷泽早期独特的写作风格。她秉承了女性主义的独特立场，坚持从女性的平等和公正角度来重新思考政治哲学和经济制度的问题，所以她对罗尔斯等人为代表的新自由主义政治哲学进行了回应，提出女性地位的平等，是对罗尔斯提出的“自由优先于善”原则的驳斥和抨击。正如南希· 弗雷泽自己曾批判指出的：“结果是出现了女性主义政治的新阶段，在其中，性别正义被重新建构。在这一阶段中，一个重要方面是挑战分配不公和错误承认的互相联结的不公正。”由此空间，南希· 弗雷泽发现新自由主义的政治哲学框架下，天然存在着对性别正义的歧视和偏差，从而导致在新自由主义多元文化的框架下，势必带来女性地位的不平等。

In this regard, Nancy Fraser has a clear interlocutor: Axel Honneth, the third-generation representative of the Frankfurt School, who is a student of Jürgen Habermas, the advocate of merging with Rawlsian neoliberal political philosophy. Relative to Habermas’s concept of communicative rationality, Honneth realized that while the model of communicative rationality and intersubjectivity is good, before participating in dialogue and negotiation within intersubjectivity, there is a prerequisite: what kind of person can participate in dialogue and negotiation, what kind of subject can become one of the subjects of intersubjectivity? By rereading Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit*, Honneth explicitly proposed the concept of identity politics centered on “recognition” (*Anerkennung*). He pointed out: “In order to reveal that subjects, even under conditions of hostile competition, can independently resolve conflicts on the basis of law (as social contract theories claim), the theoretical focus must shift to the communicative relations of intersubjectivity, which often already guarantee a minimum of normative consensus, because only in these pre-contractual relations of mutual recognition (which determine the relations of social competition) can the moral potential in the individual will, which limits each other’s spheres of freedom through reciprocal restriction, be positively expressed.” [2]2 Axel Honneth, *The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts*, trans. Joel Anderson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 40. Honneth’s meaning is clear: before we participate in dialogue and negotiation to reach agreement, there is a necessary condition: we must mutually recognize each other as subjects. Only with the identity of a subject can we enter into dialogue and resolve conflicts and contradictions between subjects. However, in the long process of historical development, the recognition of subject identity is not a natural process. As Nancy Fraser sees it, for a long time, Black people were not subjects, only white plantation owners were subjects; women were long not recognized as subjects, because only adult males in the household qualified as subjects. Therefore, humans are not born with subject identity; only when a subject becomes a certain identity, representing the political group interests behind that identity, do they qualify for intersubjectivity.

在这个方面，南希· 弗雷泽有一个明确的对话对象，这就是法兰克福学派的第三代代表人物霍耐特(Honneth),而霍耐特正是主张和罗尔斯新自由主义政治哲学合流的哈贝马斯的高足。相对于哈贝马斯的交往理性概念，霍耐特意识到，交往理性和主体间性模式固然是好的，但是，在参与对话和协商的主体间性之前，还有一个先决条件，就是什么样的人可以参与对话和协商，什么样的主体可以成为主体间性的主体之一呢?通过重读黑格尔的《精神现象学》,霍耐特明确提出了以“承认”(Anerkennung)为中心的身份政治的概念，他指出：“为了揭示主体甚至在敌对竞争的条件下也能够在法的基础上独立解决冲突(如生活契约论说陈述的那样),理论焦点就必须转向主体间性的交往关系，这种关系常常已经预先保证了最低限度的规范共识，因为只有在这些契约之前的相互承认关系中(这种相互承认关系决定了社会竞争关系),通过互惠限制各自自由领域的个人意志中的道德潜能才能积极表现出来。”3霍耐特的意思很明确，即在我们参与对话协商达成协议之前，有一个必要条件，就是我们彼此互相承认对方为主体，我们只有具有主体的身份才能进入到对话中，解决主体间的矛盾冲突。但是，在漫长的历史发展过程中，对主体身份的承认不是自然而然的过程，正如南希· 弗雷泽所看到的，在很长一段时间里，黑人就不是主体，只有那些白人庄园主才是主体，女人长期以来不被承认为主体，因为只有家里的成年男性才能有主体的资格。因此，人并非天生就具有主体的身份，只有当主体成为某种身份，代表某种身份背后的政治团体利益时，他们才具有主体间性的资格。

However, once Black people or women are recognized as subjects, is inequality in the field of political philosophy resolved? Nancy Fraser clearly sees a chronic ailment in Honneth’s theory of recognition. On the surface, Honneth attempts to resolve the problem that Black people, women, LGBT+ people, and other ethnic minorities lack rights and cannot participate in genuine political dialogue through the issue of recognition. But the identity politics of recognition simultaneously triggers another problem. In a dialogue collection written in direct opposition to Honneth, *Redistribution or Recognition?*, Nancy Fraser incisively points out: “Let me explain. To view recognition as a matter of justice is to treat it as an issue of social status. This means examining the institutionalized patterns of cultural value and their effects on the relative standing of social actors. If, in these patterns, participants are recognized as peers capable of participating on a par with one another in social life, then we can speak of reciprocal recognition and status equality. When, in contrast, institutionalized patterns of cultural value constitute some actors as inferior, excluded, wholly other, or simply invisible, hence as not full partners in social interaction, then we should speak of misrecognition and subordinate status.” In short, Nancy Fraser believes that recognition depends on institutionalized patterns of cultural value. This mode of mutual recognition does not construct participants as equal individuals, but rather has them participate in the pattern through a certain cultural identity. Certain identities, such as Black people, women, LGBT+, etc., even if they can be recognized as participating in dialogue and consultation, already carry a certain symbolic “mark”—for example, Black people as “savage,” women as “passionate” or “hysterical.” They enter dialogue and action not so much as subjects but as wearing a certain symbolic identity mask. A female legislator entering the assembly hall must speak for women, and a Black interlocutor naturally cannot say anything beyond the Black standpoint. On the surface, recognition theory grants various different individual identities, allowing them to participate in dialogue and consultation, and in intersubjective social interaction, through their identities. But in reality, they are not themselves; they are merely their identities. Identity politics, on the one hand, grants them political rights, and on the other hand, imprisons their soul and body within that symbolic identity.

但是，一旦将黑人或女性承认为主体，在政治哲学领域中的不平等就解决了吗?南希· 弗雷泽显然看到了霍耐特承认理论中的一个痼疾。表面上，霍耐特试图通过承认问题，解决了黑人、女性、LGBT+、其他少数族裔没有权利，无法参与到真正的政治对话之中的问题，但是承认的身份政治也随之引发了另一个问题，南希· 弗雷泽在一本与霍耐特针锋相对的对话集《再分配，还是承认?》(Redistribution or Recognition?)中入木三分地指出：“让我来解释。把承认看作是一个正义的问题，就是把它当作一个社会地位的问题。这意味着要考察文化价值的制度化模式，以及这种模式对社会参与者的相对地位的影响。如果以这种模式承认参与者为同伴，能够在社会生活中彼此平等地参与，那么我们就可以谈论互惠的承认和地位平等。相反，当文化价值的制度化模式将一些行为者构成为低等的、被排斥的、完全是另类的，或者干脆是不可见的，因此在社会互动中不完全是伙伴，那么我们就应该说是错误的承认和低劣的地位。”简言之，南希· 弗雷泽认为，承认依赖于中文化价值的制度模式，这种相互承认的模式并不是将参与者建构为平等的个体，而是以某种文化身份参与到模式之中。某些身份如黑人和女性、LGBT等，即便可以被承认参与对话和协商，但是他们已经带上某种象征化的“标记”,比如黑人是“野蛮的”,女性是“激情的”或“歇斯底里的”。与其说参与对话和行为是主体，不如说他们是带着某种象征化的身份面具进入到对话之中的。一位女性议员进入到会场，就必须为女性说话，而黑人对话者自然说不出除了黑人立场之外的任何事情。表面上，承认理论赋予了各个不同个体身份，允许他们以身份参与到对话与协商中，参与到主体间性的社会交往之中，但实际上，他们不是他们自己，而仅仅只是他们的身份。身份政治一方面赋予他们政治权利，也将他们的灵魂和肉身禁锢在那个象征化的身份之上。

However, Nancy Fraser at this period does not negate the political value of recognition. She still acknowledges that identity politics under recognition theory is progressive. But this identity politics of recognition easily degenerates into a reductionism, reducing living individuals to the projection of a fixed identity within a given institutionalized pattern of cultural value. To avoid this bad reductionism, a so-called critique of recognition is necessary. In Nancy Fraser’s view, the most important thing is not to completely overturn the public reason of dialogue and consultation shaped by recognition politics, but to use the critique of recognition to correct the unequal patterns of cultural value behind recognition. That is, recognition itself is not the problem; the problem lies in the patterns of cultural value behind it. These patterns of cultural value create inequality in various identity statuses. If there were a more equal pattern of cultural value, distributing various values equally and justly, then recognition theory would play a greater role. In other words, before recognition theory, a more equal mode of distribution must be established—a more just institution of cultural value. This is redistribution. In Nancy Fraser’s own words: “As I have said, the normative core of my conception is the notion of parity of participation. According to this norm, justice requires social arrangements that permit all (adult) members of society to interact with one another as peers. I claim that, for participatory parity to be possible, at least two conditions must be satisfied. First, the distribution of material resources must ensure participants’ independence and ‘voice.’ I call this the objective condition of participatory parity. It precludes forms and levels of economic dependence and inequality that impede equal participation. … The second condition requires that institutionalized patterns of cultural value express equal respect for all participants and ensure equal opportunity for achieving social esteem. I will call this the intersubjective condition of participatory parity. It precludes institutionalized norms that systematically depreciate some categories of people and the qualities associated with them.” That is to say, if recognition is the precondition for intersubjective interaction, then the redistribution of more equal institutionalized patterns of cultural value is the precondition for recognition. Recognition is always recognition under the distribution of material resources and the distribution of cultural value. Because once recognition is obtained, the subject participates in the capitalist system with a certain identity. But if this system itself is problematic, then the identity politics of recognition only deepens the suffering fate of grassroots democracy.

不过，这个时期的南希· 弗雷泽并非否定承认的政治价值，她仍然承认理论下的身份政治是进步的，但是这种承认的身份政治很容易堕入到一种简化主义(reductionism),即将活生生的个体还原为某种在既定的文化价值模式中的固定身份的投影。为了避免这种坏的简化主义，就必须进行所谓的承认批判(critique of recognition),在南希· 弗雷泽看来，最重要的事情并非彻底推翻承认政治塑造起来的对话和协商的公共理性，而是需要通过承认批判，实现对承认背后的不平等的文化价值模式进行修正。也就是说，承认本身没有问题，有问题的是背后的文化价值模式，这种文化价值模式造成了各种身份地位的不平等，如果有一个更为平等的文化价值模式、平等而公正地分配各种价值，那么承认理论就会发挥更大的作用。换言之，在承认理论之前，必须建立一个更为平等的分配模式，更为公正的文化价值的制度，这就是再分配(redistribution)。用南希· 弗雷泽自己的话来说：“如前所述，我的概念的规范性核心是平等参与的概念。根据这一规范，正义要求社会安排允许所有(成年)社会成员作为同龄人彼此互动。我声称，为了使参与的平等性成为可能，至少必须满足两个条件。首先，物质资源的分配必须确保参与者的独立性和‘话语权’,我称之为参与性平等的客观条件。它排除了阻碍平等参与的经济依赖性和不平等的形式和程度。……第二个条件要求文化价值的制度化模式对所有参与者表示平等的尊重，并确保实现社会尊重的平等机会。我将把这称为参与性平等的主体间性条件。它排除了系统地贬低某些类别的人和与之相关的品质的制度化规范。”也就是说，如果承认是主体间性交往的前提，那么更为平等的文化价值的制度模式的再分配就是承认的前提，承认总是一种物质资源分配和文化价值分配下的承认。因为一旦获得承认，主体就以某种身份参与到资本主义的体制中；但如果这个体制存在问题，那么承认的身份政治反而加深了底层民主的苦难命运。

In other words, the critique of recognition directed at Honneth necessarily leads to a critique of redistribution directed at the capitalist system. The early Nancy Fraser did not realize this problem. She initially only wanted to use the concept of “redistribution” to supplement Honneth’s theory of recognition, just as Habermas believes that the modernity system of capitalism is not yet finished, and that through the repair of discourse ethics and deliberative politics, a modern capitalist civilization based on intersubjective communicative rationality can still be established. Honneth’s theory of recognition is a revision and supplement to communicative rationality theory, and Nancy Fraser herself only uses redistribution theory to revise and supplement Honneth’s theory of recognition. At this point, Nancy Fraser did not anticipate that her redistribution would inevitably plant the seed for a thorough critique of the capitalist system. Because when her “redistribution” directs the theoretical spearhead toward more equal institutionalized patterns of cultural value, it already implies that capitalism cannot resolve this problem within itself. Capitalism’s greed and profit-seeking are increasingly destroying the social foundations that allow it to exist. This is a problem that Nancy Fraser only gradually recognized after experiencing the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, and also a problem she realized after publishing the *Feminist Manifesto* in 2018. That is to say, only by returning to the class question, returning to the expositions of Marx and Polanyi, and thoroughly criticizing the capitalist system, can a more equal “redistribution” be found. Recognition theory cannot solve this problem. Only the most thorough critique of capitalism can find a hopeful future for humanity.

换言之，对霍耐特的承认批判，必然走向对资本主义制度的再分配批判。早期的南希· 弗雷泽并没有意识到这个问题，她起先只想用“再分配”概念来补充霍耐特的承认理论，正如哈贝马斯认为资本主义的现代性制度并没有完结，通过商谈伦理和协商政治的修复，仍然可以建立以主体间性交往理性为基石的现代资本主义文明。霍耐特的承认理论是交往理性理论的修正和补充，而南希· 弗雷泽自己也只是用再分配理论来修正和补充霍耐特的承认理论。在这个事情上的南希· 弗雷泽没有想到，她的再分配势必种下彻底批判资本主义制度的种子，因为当她的“再分配”将理论的矛头指向更为平等的文化价值制度模式时，实际上已经隐含了资本主义不可能在自身内部解决这个问题。资本主义的贪婪和逐利正在日益摧毁让其得以存在的社会基础，而这是之后南希· 弗雷泽在经历了金融风暴和新冠疫情才逐渐认识到的问题，这也是她在2018年发表了《女性主义宣言》之后意识到的问题。也就是说，只有回到阶级问题，回到马克思和波兰尼的论述，彻底批判资本主义的制度，才能找到一个更为平等的“再分配”;承认理论解决不了这个问题，只有对资本主义进行最彻底的批判，才能为人类找到有希望的未来。

II. Farewell to Identity Politics, Toward a Critique of Capital

二、告别身份政治，走向资本批判

Opening the flyleaf of *Cannibal Capitalism*, Nancy Fraser writes: “For Rahel Jaeggi.” Generally, a book’s dedication is to the most important family members and teachers, or to figures who have had a major impact on one’s thought. Rahel Jaeggi is a full twenty years younger than Nancy Fraser, and moreover is a student of Honneth, with whom Fraser had debated. Why would Nancy Fraser dedicate such a new book to an academic and generational junior? Below the dedication is another line: “Indispensable interlocutor and dear friend.” What made Nancy Fraser and Jaeggi friends across the generation gap was perhaps a dialogue. It was this dialogue that changed Nancy Fraser’s previous thinking. Toward Jaeggi’s teacher Honneth, Nancy Fraser was sharply confrontational, using a capitalist critique of redistribution to revise Honneth’s critique of recognition. But toward Rahel Jaeggi, Nancy Fraser completely lacks this sharp edge. Instead, she uses a gentle dedication to express her thanks to Jaeggi. At the same time, in *Cannibal Capitalism*, Fraser repeatedly mentions Jaeggi’s contributions. So what influence did Jaeggi have on Fraser?

翻开《食人资本主义》的扉页，南希· 弗雷泽写道：“献给拉合尔· 耶齐(Rahel Jaeggi)。”一般来说，书的致辞是献给最重要的亲人和恩师，或者对自己的思想产生重大影响的人物，而拉合尔· 耶齐比南希· 弗雷泽整整小20岁，而且是曾经与自己对话的霍耐特的弟子。南希· 弗雷泽这样一本新书，为什么会献给一个学术上和年龄上的晚辈?在致辞下面，还有一句：“她是不可或缺的对话伙伴和密友。”让南希· 弗雷泽与耶齐成为忘年交的或许是一次对话，正是这次对话改变了南希· 弗雷泽之前的思考，对于耶齐的老师霍耐特，南希· 弗雷泽与之针锋相对，用资本主义再分配批判来修正霍耐特的承认批判。但对于拉合尔· 耶齐，南希· 弗雷泽完全没有这种锐利的刀锋，而是用温柔的致辞向耶齐表达了感谢，同时在《食人资本主义》中，弗雷泽也多次提及了耶齐的贡献，那么耶齐对弗雷泽产生了什么样的影响?

In 2016, given that both Rahel Jaeggi and Nancy Fraser had backgrounds in critical theory and Western Marxist theory, John Thompson, an editor at Polity Press in the UK, invited the two to hold a dialogue on “capitalism under critical theory.” The fruits of this dialogue, after editorial compilation, were published in 2018 under the title *Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory*. Although Jaeggi is a student of Honneth, unlike Honneth, who inherits Habermas’s turn toward communicative rationality and attempts to use recognition theory to revise the intersubjective theoretical foundations of discourse ethics, Jaeggi does not seem intent on continuing to entangle herself in the fields of communicative rationality and neoliberal political philosophy. Instead, through a reinterpretation of the concept of “alienation,” she returns to the critical tradition of the first generation of the Frankfurt School; she is closer to Horkheimer, Adorno, and Benjamin than to Habermas and Honneth. Consequently, Jaeggi continues this intellectual tradition of capitalist critique in her dialogue with Nancy Fraser. For example, Jaeggi points out: “This is precisely my definition of alienation; I believe alienation is a certain powerlessness and unfreedom, and this powerlessness and unfreedom is caused by the ‘displacement’ and subjugation of the humans who created alienation and set it in motion. But we should also discuss the ‘structuring power’ exerted by the market in capitalist society. This may be another distinctive feature that distinguishes capitalist from non-capitalist societies. I am thinking in particular of the claim that under capitalism, the structure of commodity exchange is deeply injected into social life. There are different versions of this claim, but the basic idea is that treating something as a commodity produced for sale changes our relationship with it and with ourselves. This involves depersonalization or indifference, and determining one’s relationship to the world in terms of instrumental, rather than intrinsic, value. In this way, the market exercises a qualitative structuring power: it shapes the ‘worldview,’ the ‘grammar’ of our lives.” To such a view, Nancy Fraser also praised: “That’s a very Frankfurt School view!” In other words, Jaeggi proposes a critique of forms of life, meaning she no longer focuses on the communicative model between individuals and their intersubjectivity, but rather on the institutionalized model of capitalism centered on economy and production. Regarding the shaping of our worldview and way of life, Habermas’s intersubjective communicative rationality still takes the commodity exchange structure of capitalism as its prototype. To a certain extent, this determines that Habermas’s and Honneth’s critique of communicative rationality, intersubjectivity theory, and recognition theory cannot truly break free from the framework of capitalism. At best, they count as revisionist theories under capitalism; they cannot see the global disasters brought by capitalism’s greed and hegemony, nor can they see the plundering and devouring of other non-capitalist entities by the capitalist mode of production.

在2016年，鉴于拉合尔· 耶齐和南希· 弗雷泽都有批判理论和西方马克思主义理论的背景，英国Polity出版社的编辑约翰· 汤普森(John Thompson)便邀请二人就“批判理论下的资本主义”进行了一次对谈。这次对谈的成果，于2018年经编辑整理之后，以《资本主义：一次批判理论下的对话》(Capitalism:A Conversation in Critical Theory)为标题公开出版。尽管耶齐是霍耐特的学生，但与霍耐特秉承哈贝马斯的交往理性转向，试图用承认理论来修正商谈伦理的主体间性理论的根基不同，耶齐似乎没有打算在交往理性和新自由主义政治哲学领域中继续纠缠下去，反而她通过对“异化”概念的重新解读，重新回到第一代法兰克福学派的批判传统，她更接近于霍克海默、阿多诺、本雅明，而不是哈贝马斯和霍耐特。因此，耶齐在与南希· 弗雷泽的对话中延续了这种资本主义批判的思想传统。例如，耶齐指出：“这正是我的异化定义，我认为异化是某种无力感和不自由，而这种无力感和不自由正是由创造了异化并使之运转起来的人类的‘流离’和臣服所导致的。但我们也应该讨论资本主义社会中市场所施加的‘结构化力量’。这可能是资本主义区别于非资本主义社会的另一个独特特征。我特别想到的是，在资本主义下，商品交换的结构被深深地注入社会生活中的说法。这种说法有不同的版本，但基本的想法是，把某种东西当作销售而生产的商品，就是改变我们与它和与我们自己的关系。这涉及去个人化或漠不关心，并以工具性的，而不是内在的价值来确定与世界的关系。通过这种方式，市场行使了一种定性的结构化力量：它塑造了‘世界观’,我们生活的‘语法’。”对于这样的观点，南希· 弗雷泽也称赞道：“这是非常法兰克福学派的观点!”换言之，耶齐提出了自己的生活形式批判，这意味着她不再关注个体与个体的主体间性的交往模式，而是关注资本主义以经济和生产为中心的制度化模式。对我们的世界观、生活方式的塑造问题，哈贝马斯的主体间性的交往理性仍然以资本主义的商品交换结构为原型，在一定程度上决定了哈贝马斯和霍耐特的交往理性批判、主体间性理论和承认理论，不可能真正挣脱资本主义的框架，他们顶多算是资本主义下的修正理论，他们看不到资本主义贪婪和霸权带来的全球性的灾难，也看不到资本主义的生产模式对其他非资本主义的掠夺和吞噬。

Nancy Fraser was clearly deeply moved in her dialogue with Jaeggi. Here, some of her remarks already foreshadow the later germination of *Cannibal Capitalism*. For example, Fraser states: “Marx was insightful on this point. He said that in a capitalist society, capital itself becomes the subject. Humans are its pawns, reduced to figuring out how to get what they need in the cracks while feeding the beast.” Like Jaeggi, Fraser no longer regards all people as subjects. Under the capitalist system, capital becomes a monster; it needs to survive, it needs to expand, it needs to spread its power across the globe. Therefore, this capital-as-subject must necessarily ceaselessly devour whatever it can devour. Later, even those things that cannot be devoured, including itself, will inevitably be devoured by capital. Before capital, human subjectivity is feeble; the human subject and the capital subject are fundamentally not on the same level. Humans are the pawns of the capital subject, and this beast called capital is cruel and ruthless, casually devouring any object and life, turning humans into the food that nourishes capitalism. In this regard, Jaeggi clearly also recognizes the cannibalistic logic of capitalism: “Economic practices are always already embedded in forms of life. Taking this into account, the effort to define capitalism as a system that can be independent of them becomes complicated – especially if we want to avoid the strict distinction you yourself have criticized between an innocent ‘lifeworld’ and the free-flowing ‘system’ of economic dynamics. This division treats capitalism as a self-perpetuating ‘machine’ that feeds on humans, but is by no means driven by humans.”

南希· 弗雷泽在与耶齐的对话中显然深受触动。在这里，她的一些发言已经预示了后来的《食人资本主义》的萌芽。例如，弗雷泽谈道：“马克思在这一点上很有见地。他说，在一个资本主义社会，资本本身成为主体。人类是它的棋子，沦落到通过喂养野兽来弄清他们如何在夹缝中获得他们所需要的东西。”弗雷泽和耶齐一样，不再将所有人看成主体，在资本主义制度下，资本变成了一个怪兽，它需要生存，它需要扩张，它需要将自己的力量布满全球，因此这个作为主体的资本，必然需要不断地吞噬它所能吞噬的东西，到了后来甚至那些不能被它吞噬的东西，包括它自己在内，都必然被资本吞噬掉。在资本面前，人类的主体性是孱弱的，人类主体与资本主体根本不在同一个层次上，人类是资本主体的棋子，而资本这个野兽残忍无情，随意地吞噬着任何物体和生命，让人类成为滋养资本主义的食物。在这个方面，耶齐显然也认可资本主义食人的逻辑：“经济实践总是已经嵌入到生活形式中，考虑到这一点，将资本主义定义为一个可以独立于它们的系统的努力就变得复杂了——特别是如果我们想避免你自己批评过的在无辜的‘生活世界’和经济动态的自由流动的‘系统’之间的严格区分。这种划分将资本主义视为一台自我延续的‘机器’,它以人为食，但决不是由人驱动。”

This is precisely the new direction of thought that Jaeggi imparted to Nancy Fraser in their dialogue. To a certain extent, it allowed Fraser to step out of traditional identity politics critique. Because this kind of identity politics critique (even if it is a revised redistributive identity politics) cannot truly touch the capital monster lurking behind, devouring human life and creativity. Even if one conceptually creates an institutional model that equalizes various identities, it cannot be implemented on a practical level. What truly drives the real problems of capitalism is precisely a kind of hidden force of capitalist realism. This is the “capitalist realism” of the American left-wing critic Mark Fisher. In Fisher’s words: “Capitalism is a hyper-abstract impersonal structure, which would be nothing without our cooperation. Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie-maker; but the living flesh it converts into dead labor is our flesh, and the zombies it makes are our zombies. In a sense, the political elite are our servants; the miserable service they provide us is to cleanse our libido, to obligatorily re-present our unacknowledged desires to us, as if they had nothing to do with us.” When such a gluttonous capital monster looms over us, true liberation (no matter what kind of negotiation or agenda is adopted) is impossible. This may be one of the reasons Nancy Fraser chose to awaken. Therefore, at the beginning of *Cannibal Capitalism*, she cries out: “Where capital depends on plundering wealth, what is threatened is the system’s universality – and therefore its legitimacy – and the capacity of its ruling class to exercise hegemonic rule through a mixture of consent and force. In each case, the system has an inherent tendency toward self-stabilization. Failing to compensate or repair its hidden abodes, capital ceaselessly devours the supports on which it depends. Like a snake eating its own tail, it devours the conditions that make itself possible.” As Fraser repeatedly emphasizes, capitalism is a system whose roots do not lie in a stable and balanced structure. Capitalism has only one real rule: to let the insatiable capital monster ceaselessly devour everything it can devour. Today’s ecological crisis, crisis in relations of production, gender crisis, and political crisis are not abnormal states of capitalism; on the contrary, they are the inevitable result of the development of the capitalist system. Politics, class, gender, and ecology are all food it can devour. Before the greedy, gluttonous snake of capital is eliminated, all kinds of human crises cannot be eradicated. Therefore, we need the most thorough critique of capitalism and its gluttonous capital beast.

这正是在对话中耶齐赋予南希· 弗雷泽的新的思考方向，在一定程度上，让弗雷泽从传统的身份政治批判中走出来。因为这种身份政治批判(即便是经过修正的再分配身份政治)不可能真正触及那个背后吞噬着人类生命和创造力的资本怪兽，即便在观念上创造出让各个身份平等的制度模式，也不可能在现实层面上得以实施。一位真正驱动资本主义现实问题的，恰恰是一种隐秘的资本主义实在论的力量，这就是美国左翼批判家马克· 费舍(Mark Fisher)的“资本主义实在论”(capitalism realism),用费舍的话来说就是：“资本主义是一个超抽象的非个人结构，没有我们的合作，它将一无是处。资本是一个抽象的寄生虫，一个贪得无厌的吸血鬼和僵尸制造者；但它转化为死劳动的活肉体是我们的肉体，而它制造的僵尸是我们的僵尸。在某种意义上，政治精英是我们的仆人；他们从我们这里提供的悲惨服务是清洗我们的性欲，为我们义务性地重新呈现我们不被承认的欲望，好像他们与我们无关。”当这样的饕餮式的资本怪兽盘踞在我们之上的时候，真正的解放(无论采用何种协商和议程)都是不可能的，这或许是南希· 弗雷泽选择觉醒的原因之一，因此，在《食人资本主义》的开头，她就大声疾呼：“在资本依赖掠夺财富的情况下，受到威胁的是这个系统的普遍性——因此也是它的合法性——以及它的统治阶级通过包括同意和武力在内的混合方式实施霸权统治的能力。在每一种情况下，这个系统都有一种内在的自我稳定的倾向。由于未能补偿或修复其隐秘场所，资本不断吞噬它所依赖的支撑。就像一条吃自己尾巴的蛇，它吞噬了让自己成为可能的条件。”正如弗雷泽反复强调，资本主义是一种制度，这种制度的根源并不在于稳定和平衡的结构，资本主义的真正规则只有一个，让不知餍足的资本怪兽不断地吞噬能吞噬的一切。今天的生态危机、生产关系危机、性别危机、政治危机并不是资本主义的异常状态，恰恰相反，这是资本主义制度发展的必然结果，政治、阶级、性别、生态都是它所能吞噬的食物，在没有解决掉资本这条贪婪的贪吃蛇之前，人类各种各样的危机不可能根除。所以，我们需要对资本主义及其资本饕餮巨兽进行最彻底地批判。

III. Returning to Marx and Karl Polanyi

三、回到马克思和卡尔· 波兰尼

For the critique of capitalism, if it cannot remain at the level of identity politics, then critique must return to the most original weapons. For left-wing critical theory, the most effective weapons are two: one is Marx’s critique of political economy, and the other is Karl Polanyi’s argument in *The Great Transformation* about the embedding of the economy in society. Let us examine separately how Nancy Fraser returns to Marx and to Karl Polanyi.

对于资本主义的批判，如果不能停留在身份政治上的原因，那么批判需要回到最原始的武器。对于左翼批判理论来说，最有效的武器有两个，一个是马克思的政治经济学批判，另一个就是卡尔· 波兰尼(Karl Polany)在《大转型》一书中提到的经济嵌入社会的问题。我们分别看看南希· 弗雷泽是如何回到马克思和卡尔· 波兰尼的。

In fact, in her dialogue with Arruzza and Bhattacharya, Nancy Fraser has already re-recognized the importance of Marx for the contemporary critique of capitalism. In the 2018 *Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto*, she realized that the tragedy of identity politics lies in selecting certain elite individuals as representatives of a given identity, allowing them to participate in politics as if everyone possessing that identity were thereby liberated. For example, in the 2016 election, when Hillary Clinton ran against Trump, liberal feminism seemed to believe that Clinton’s becoming President of the United States represented the liberation of all women. But even when Obama became president, the dire situation of Black Americans did not improve in the slightest; similarly, if Hillary Clinton became president, the situation of women at the bottom, especially Hispanic women and female workers at the grassroots, would not improve at all. Hence Fraser emphasizes: “The aim of liberal feminism is meritocracy, not equality. It does not seek to abolish social hierarchy but to propose a feminized version of hierarchy, ensuring that women at the top belong to the same noble class as men at the top. Very clearly, its beneficiaries are those who already possess a fairly noble social, cultural, and economic status. Consistent with vast inequalities in wealth and income, liberal feminism provides a gradually shining gloss for neoliberalism, masking the increasing degeneration of their policies in the pursuit of liberation. Liberal feminism is a fellow traveler of European Islamophobia and the global financial hegemony of the United States.” In this sense, Fraser realizes that the class question or the question of equality takes priority over the gender issue, because among women and Black people there are also elites and the bourgeoisie, also servants of capital. But people at the bottom, regardless of race, color, or gender, cannot make their voices heard in the public sphere. Therefore, solving the problem of the exploitation and oppression of the bottom by capitalism is not identity politics, not a cultural politics of political correctness, but Marx’s critique of political economy.

实际上，在与耶齐的对话中，南希· 弗雷泽已经重新意识到马克思对于当代资本主义批判的重要性。在2018年的《女性主义宣言》中，她就意识到身份政治的悲哀在于选择了部分精英人物作为某个身份代表，让她们参与政治，就仿佛拥有该身份的人都得到解放一样。譬如说，在面对2016年大选的时候，希拉里与特朗普竞选，自由女性主义仿佛认为希拉里当上了美国总统就代表着全体女性的解放，但是，即便奥巴马当了总统，美国黑人的糟糕境地也没有丝毫改善；同样，希拉里当了美国总统，那些底层女性尤其是西班牙裔和底层女工的状况也不会有任何好转。所以，弗雷泽强调说：“自由女性主义的目的是精英统治，而不是平等。她们不是为了摒弃社会等级制，而是提出一个女性化版的等级制，保证顶层的女人和男人同属于那个高贵的阶级。十分明确，其受益人是那些已经拥有相当高贵的社会、文化和经济地位的人。与在财富和收入上的巨大不平等相一致，自由女性主义为新自由主义提供了一个逐渐闪耀的光辉，掩盖了她们在寻求解放上的政策越来越退化。自由女性主义是欧洲伊斯兰恐惧症和美国全球金融霸权的同路人。”在这个意义上，弗雷泽意识到阶级问题或平等问题优先于性别议题，因为女性和黑人中也有精英和资产阶级，也有资本的仆从，但底层地位的人，无论何种种族、肤色、性别，他们在公共领域中都无法发出自己的声音。所以，解决底层被资本主义剥削和压迫的问题，不是身份政治，不是讲究政治正确的文化政治学，而是马克思的政治经济学批判。

In *Cannibal Capitalism*, Nancy Fraser devotes a chapter to discussing Marx’s theory of exploitation and oppression, and extends from Marx’s critique of political economy to propose the plundering position of the major Western capitalist countries toward non-Western colonies and peripheral countries. The latter we can fully regard as Nancy Fraser’s extension of Marx’s critique of political economy within the Marxist framework. After analyzing Marx’s *Capital*, Fraser offers an interpretation: capitalist equal exchange is built on a foundation of unequal exchange. This is a trick of the capitalist exchange system: using the price after exploitation as wages to exchange for the worker’s labor power. Hence Fraser argues: “Marx’s theory has many strengths, among which one is beyond doubt. By viewing capitalism from the perspective of exploitation, it exposes what is concealed under the perspective of exchange: the structural basis of class domination over (doubly) free workers in capitalist society.” However, this is not the reason Nancy Fraser discusses Marx’s political economy in *Cannibal Capitalism*. What she cares more about is that the exploitation of workers’ labor power inside capitalism presupposes the plundering of the world outside the capitalist system. That is, when capitalist production begins, it needs not only to exploit domestic workers but also resources plundered from various non-capitalist systems. These resources include direct plunder of colonies and peripheral frameworks, plunder of the domestic labor of ethnic minorities and women in care work, and plunder of natural resources that capitalism regards as lifeless existence. In short, only through plunder can workers produce in the factories of the great machines; only through plunder can the financial mechanisms of Wall Street operate without cease; only through plunder can Western capitalist countries establish a hegemonic imperialist order, thoroughly legitimizing capitalism’s plunder of the Third World or peripheral countries. Nancy Fraser writes in a tone of deep distress:

在《食人资本主义》中，南希· 弗雷泽用了一章篇幅，讨论了马克思的剥削和压迫理论，并从马克思的政治经济学批判延伸提出了主要的西方资本主义国家对非西方的殖民地和外围国家的掠夺地位。后者我们完全可以视为南希· 弗雷泽在马克思主义的框架下对马克思政治经济学批判理论的延伸。在对马克思的《资本论》进行分析之后，弗雷泽给出了一个解读，即资本主义平等交换是建立在一个不平等交换基础上的，这是资本主义交换体系的一个花招，即用剥削之后的价格作为工资来交换工人的劳动力。因此，弗雷泽提出：“马克思的理论有许多优点，其中有一个优点毋庸置疑。通过从剥削的角度来看待资本主义，它揭露了在交换视角下所掩盖的东西：在资本主义社会中对(双重)自由工人的阶级统治的结构性基础。”不过，这并不是南希· 弗雷泽在《食人资本主义》中讨论马克思的政治经济学的理由，她更关心的是，资本主义内部对工人劳动力的剥削，是以外部对非资本主义体系世界的掠夺为前提的。也就是说，当资本主义生产开始时，它们不仅需要剥削国内的工人，也需要从各种非资本主义体系中掠夺而来的资源，这些资源包括了对殖民地和外围构架的直接掠夺，对内在的少数族裔和女性家务护理劳动的掠夺，也包括被资本主义认为是无生命存在的自然资源的掠夺。总而言之，只有通过掠夺，才能让工人在大机器的工厂里进行生产；只有通过掠夺，华尔街的金融机制才能不停歇地运转；只有通过掠夺，西方资本主义国家才能建立霸权的帝国主义秩序，将资本主义对第三世界或外围国家的掠夺彻底合法化。南希· 弗雷泽带着痛心疾首的腔调写道：

Plunder is the expropriation of others’ powers and natural resources, and their incorporation into the circuit of capital’s self-expansion. This may be openly violent expropriation, such as slavery in the New World; or it may be cloaked in commercial guise, such as predatory lending and debt foreclosure in the present era. The subjects of plunder may be rural or indigenous communities on the capitalist periphery, or members of subordinate groups at the capitalist center. Once plundered, these groups may eventually become exploited proletarians, or, if lucky—or rather, if unlucky—may sink into the ranks of the poor, slum-dwellers, tenant farmers, “natives,” or slaves, becoming the persistent objects of plunder beyond the wage contract. The assets expropriated may be labor power, land, animals, tools, mineral deposits, or energy, but also people, their sexual and reproductive capacities, their children and bodily organs. Crucially, however, the expropriated capacities are incorporated into capital’s valorization process. Simple theft is not enough. Unlike the plunder that preceded the rise of capitalism, what I call plunder here is expropriation plus the use of the expropriated for capital accumulation.

掠夺是通过没收他人的力量和自然资源，并将它们掠夺到资本扩张循环之中。这或许是公然暴力的没收，如新世界的奴隶制；也可能披着商业外衣的，如当今时代的掠夺性贷款和债务赎回权。被掠夺的主体可能是资本主义外围的农村或原住民共同体，或者是资本主义中心区的主体或从属群体的成员。一旦被掠夺，这些群体可能最终成为被剥削的无产者，如果够幸运，或者说如果不够幸运，可能沦为贫民、贫民窟居民、佃农、“土著人”或奴隶，成为薪资合同之外的被持续掠夺对象。被没收的资产可能是劳动力、土地、动物、工具、矿藏或能源，但也可能是人、他们的性和生殖能力、他们的孩子和身体器官。然而，重要的是，被掠夺的能力被纳入资本的价值增殖过程。简单偷窃不够用。与资本主义兴起之前的那种掠夺不同，我在这里所谓的掠夺是没收+掠夺并用之于资本积累。

That is to say, although Nancy Fraser agrees with Marx’s analysis of the form of exploitation within capitalism and also agrees with the basic conclusions of Marx’s critique of political economy, she believes that the critique of political economy and the critique of capitalism cannot stop at the interior of capitalism alone. Hence in *Cannibal Capitalism*, she proposes the need for an “expanded” (expanding) perspective of capitalist critique, one that extends the purely political-economic critique to encompass capitalism’s plunder of the non-capitalist systems within social life. This means that the political-economic system of capitalism and the non-capitalist systems actually belong to two systems, and capitalism not only achieves capital valorization through exploitation and oppression inside the political-economic system of capitalism, but also maintains and develops capitalism through the continuous plunder of external non-capitalist social systems. But in reality, these so-called external non-capitalist social systems are the necessary preconditions that make the capitalist political-economic system possible. Once capitalism greedily devours these social systems, it means that capitalism is devouring its own body and foundation, becoming the ouroboros metaphor on the cover of *Cannibal Capitalism*.

也就是说，南希· 弗雷泽尽管认同马克思在资本主义内部的剥削形式，也认同马克思的政治经济学批判的基本结论，但南希· 弗雷泽认为政治经济学批判和资本主义批判仅仅停留在资本主义内部是不够的，所以在《食人资本主义》中，她提出需要一种率“扩展版”(expanding)的资本主义批判视角，即将纯粹的政治经济学批判扩大到资本主义经济体系，对社会生活之中的非资本主义体系进行掠夺。这表示资本主义的政治经济学系统与非资本主义系统实际上属于两个体系，而资本主义不仅在资本主义的政治经济学体系内部通过剥削压迫实现资本增殖，也通过不断掠夺外部的非资本主义社会体系而维持和发展资本主义。但实际上，这些所谓的外部的非资本主义社会体系，是让资本主义政治经济学体系成为可能的必要前提，一旦资本主义贪婪地吞噬了这些社会体系，意味着资本主义正在吞噬自己的身体和根基，成为《食人资本主义》封面上的衔尾蛇隐喻。

In fact, Nancy Fraser’s distinction between the capitalist economic system and the social system owes less to Marx than to the Hungarian-born, later British, thinker Karl Polanyi. Polanyi did not produce a large body of work in his lifetime, but he left behind an important book, *The Great Transformation*. In it, Polanyi points out that capitalist society contains not only an economic system but also a social system. Polanyi uses the concept of embeddedness to critique the neoliberal school of economics led by Hayek, which holds that the government need only play the role of night watchman, while the market, under the invisible hand, can achieve the optimal allocation of society. But Polanyi insists that this idealized market society has never existed. Contrary to Hayek’s judgment, Polanyi argues that before the nineteenth century, human economic activities, including markets, were always embedded in the social system. However, after the transition to capitalist society, this underwent a fundamental transformation: “Ultimately, that is why the control of the economic system by the market is of overwhelming consequence to the whole organization of society: it means no less than the running of society as an adjunct to the market. Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system. The vital importance of the economic factor to the existence of society precludes any other result. For once the economic system is organized in separate institutions, based on specific motives and conferring a special status, society must be shaped in such a manner as to allow that system to function according to its own laws.” In short, unlike Hayek, who advocates letting the economy and the market control every aspect of social life, Karl Polanyi advocates using social values and systems to resist the devouring of the economic system and the market, ensuring that the social system is not completely digested by the market.

其实，南希· 弗雷泽在资本主义经济体系和社会体系之间做出的区分，与其说来自马克思，不如说来自出生于匈牙利后来到英国的思想家卡尔· 波兰尼。波兰尼一生的著述不算多，但留下了一本重要的著作《大转型》(The Great Transformations)。在书中，波兰尼指出资本主义社会不仅存在着经济体系，也存在着社会体系。波兰尼使用了嵌入(embeddedness)的概念来批判以哈耶克为首的新自由主义经济学派，这种学派认为政府只需要当好守夜人的角色，而市场可以在看不见的手的作用下，实现社会的最佳配置。但波兰尼坚持认为这种理想化的市场社会从未存在过。与哈耶克的判断相反，波兰尼认为在19世纪之前，人类的经济活动包括市场在内，一直都是嵌入在社会体系之中的。但是，在走向资本主义社会之后，这一切都发生了根本性的转变，即“从根本上讲，这正是由市场控制经济体系会对整个社会组织产生致命后果的原因所在：它意味着要让社会的运转从属于市场。与经济嵌入社会关系相反，社会关系被嵌入经济体系之中。经济因素对社会存续所具有的生死攸关的重要性排除了任何其他的可能结果。因为一旦经济体系通过分立的、以特定动机为基础并被授予特殊地位的制度来运转，社会就必须以使该体系得以根据自身的法则运转的方式来形塑自身”。简言之，与哈耶克主张让经济和市场来控制社会生活中的方方面面不同，卡尔· 波兰尼主张用社会价值和体系来抵抗经济体系和市场的吞噬，保证社会体系不被市场彻底消化掉。

In *Cannibal Capitalism*, another influence of Karl Polanyi on Nancy Fraser is reflected in the historical periodization of *The Great Transformation*. In fact, Nancy Fraser establishes a complete coordinate axis of cannibal capitalism in her book. There is a horizontal axis, which involves the various social systems and non-capitalist systems devoured by the capitalist economic system, including the plunder of colonies, the Third World, and peripheral countries; the plunder of the domestic labor and care work of women and other family members; the wanton exploitation of so-called inanimate nature; and the discursive hegemony over the traditional public political sphere. But on the vertical axis, Fraser clearly directly adopts Polanyi’s historical periodization, dividing the stages of capitalist development into three periods: (1) commercial capitalism or mercantile capitalism from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the budding stage of capitalism; (2) liberal-colonial capitalism in the nineteenth century, a period that began external plunder and had already “internally colonized” women, children, and other minority groups; and (3) state capitalism after World War II. In fact, Karl Polanyi’s *The Great Transformation* only goes up to this stage, after all, Polanyi’s struggle with Hayek’s market theory also occurred at this stage. However, if Nancy Fraser merely imitated Polanyi mechanically [8]8 “Handan toddler learning to walk in Handan” (邯郸学步) – a classical Chinese idiom from *Zhuangzi*, meaning to imitate others mechanically and lose one’s own ability. and only discussed the stage of state capitalism, *Cannibal Capitalism* would not be able to demonstrate its specific value. Fraser has, to a certain extent, extended Polanyi’s conclusion, namely, that today we face a new stage of capitalism, which Fraser names the stage of “financial capitalism.”

在《食人资本主义》中，卡尔· 波兰尼对南希· 弗雷泽的另一个影响体现在《大转型》的历史分期。实际上，南希· 弗雷泽在书中建立了一个完整的食人资本主义坐标轴，有一个横轴，这些横轴涉及被资本主义经济体系吞噬掉的各个社会体系和非资本主义体系，包括对殖民地和第三世界、外围国家的掠夺，对女性和其他家庭成员家务劳动和护理工作的掠夺，对所谓的无生命的自然的恣意开采，对传统的公共政治领域的话语霸权等。但纵轴上，弗雷泽明显直接采用了波兰尼的历史分期，即将资本主义的发展阶段分成了三个时期：(1)16—18世纪的商业资本主义或重商主义资本主义的形式，这是资本主义萌芽阶段；(2)19世纪的自由主义—殖民资本主义时期，这个时期开始对外掠夺，已经对女性、儿童和其他少数群体“内在殖民”;(3)“二战”后的国家资本主义阶段。其实，卡尔· 波兰尼的《大转型》也只写到这个阶段为止，毕竟波兰尼的《大转型》与哈耶克的市场理论的斗争也出现在这个阶段。不过，如果南希· 弗雷泽如今邯郸学步式地只谈到国家资本主义阶段，《食人资本主义》就无法显现出其特定的价值，弗雷泽在一定程度上扩展了波兰尼的结论，即在我们今天，面对的是资本主义的一个新阶段，这个阶段被弗雷泽命名为“金融资本主义”阶段。

Why is this stage of “financial capitalism” so important? What is the main difference compared with the stage of state capitalism? For Nancy Fraser, the main difference lies not in the means by which capitalism profits and exploits, but in how it uses different methods to devour non-economic social systems. Take domestic care and nursing work as an example. In the stage of state capitalism, because wives were needed to perform domestic care and nursing work, women were shaped into the image of virtuous wives and good mothers in middle-class families. Wives raised children, did housework, cared for the elderly, and so on. That is to say, the husband’s exploitation in the capitalist economic system was premised on the wife’s sacrifice in taking on capitalism’s reproduction and care work. But in the stage of financial capitalism, on the surface, feminist struggles have given wives and other women the right to work alongside men, but this is precisely the type that financial capitalism needs. Family and care work have already been commodified by capitalism. Domestic service companies hire Latina and Black women, thereby allowing women from white middle-class families to strive for capitalist profits alongside their husbands. In addition, large corporations, in order to attract these excellent female employees, even attempt to replace previously irreplaceable services through commercialized services. In Nancy Fraser’s book, she lists companies like Apple and Meta, which, to retain female employees with strong technical skills, will reimburse them for surrogacy and egg-freezing services, so that they are not delayed by childbirth and raising the next generation from creating profits for capitalist high-tech enterprises. When capitalist big companies reimburse women for such expenses, it does not reflect the capitalists’ conscience awakening or their concern for female employees; rather, it is that after these previously non-commercializable and non-capitalizable fields have been devoured by capitalism (providing capitalized surrogacy services and egg-freezing services), women have no other reason to refuse their boss’s judgment, binding all aspects of their social life to the capitalist chariot, becoming part of the enormous body of the capitalist ogre. This is a crisis of capitalism, but not a temporary one, because this crisis is already established in the image of capitalism as an ouroboros devouring its own body, and it cannot be overcome within capitalism. Therefore, Nancy Fraser cries out: “At this stage, runaway financialization has flooded the social-political field, reducing its power to the point where it cannot solve pressing problems, including those that jeopardize the long-term prospects of capital accumulation.”

这个“金融资本主义”阶段为什么这么重要?相对于国家资本主义阶段有什么区别?对于南希· 弗雷泽来说，主要的区别并不在于资本主义通过何种手段来牟利和剥削，而是在于它们如何利用不同的方式来吞噬非经济的社会体系。以家庭护理和关怀来说，在国家资本主义阶段，由于需要妻子充当家庭护理和关怀的工作，因此，女性被塑造成中产阶级家庭的贤妻良母的形象，妻子养育孩子，做好家务，照顾老人等，也就是说，丈夫在资本主义经济体系中受剥削是以妻子牺牲自己承担资本主义的再生产和护理工作为前提的。但在金融资本主义阶段，表面上看女性主义斗争让妻子和其他女性拥有了和男性一起工作的权利，但这正是金融资本主义所需要的类型，家庭和护理工作业已被资本主义商品化，家政公司通过雇佣拉丁裔和黑人女性，从而让白人中产阶级家庭的女性可以和丈夫一样为资本主义的利润而奋斗。此外，大型公司为了吸引这些优秀的女性员工，甚至试图通过商业化服务取代原先不可能被取代的服务。在南希· 弗雷泽的书中，就列举了苹果和Meta等公司，为了留住那些具有较强技术能力的女性员工，他们可以为员工报销代孕和冷冻卵子的服务，让她们不至于为生育和抚养下一代而耽误为资本主义高科技企业创造利润。当资本主义大企业为女性报销这一类费用的时候，并不是体现了资本家的良心发现以及对女性员工的关心，而是这些原先不可被商业化和资本化的领域被资本主义吞噬之后(提供资本化的代孕服务和冷冻卵子服务),女性再没有其他理由拒绝老板的判断，将她们社会生活的一切方面都绑定在资本主义的战车上，变成资本饕餮巨大身躯的一部分。这是资本主义的危机，但不是暂时的危机，因为这个危机在作为吞噬自己身体的衔尾蛇式的资本主义形象中业已奠定了，无法在资本主义内部来克服这场危机。因此，南希· 弗雷泽高声呼喊道：“这个阶段，失控的金融化淹没了社会政治领域，使其权力减少到无法解决紧迫的问题，包括那些危及资本长期积累前景的问题。”

Conclusion: Beyond Cannibal Capitalism

结语：超越食人资本主义

Although *Cannibal Capitalism* is a new book published in 2022, only the “Afterword” was written after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as Nancy Fraser says, the pandemic itself is not the problem; when a society is healthy, the impact of the pandemic would not lead to the collapse of the entire society. However, in 2020, Nancy Fraser saw that, facing the COVID-19 crisis, the U.S. government did not handle it well. This COVID-19 crisis, rather than exposing human vulnerability to nature, exposed that cannibal capitalism itself has devoured the foundation on which it depends for survival, thereby dragging everyone under the capitalist system toward destruction. Therefore, the problems exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial crisis are not problems that can be solved within the capitalist system. These problems are, rather, problems brought about by the inherent nature of capitalism. Unless the capitalist system perishes, these problems cannot be truly resolved. In Nancy’s words, “The pandemic is the point of convergence of all the contradictions of cannibal capitalism: here, cannibal nature and care work, political capacity and marginalized populations, merge in a deadly carnival. It is a veritable carnival of capitalist dysfunction, and there is no doubt that COVID-19 has established the necessity of abolishing the capitalist social system once and for all.”

《食人资本主义》虽然是2022年上市的新书，但只有书的“后记”部分是在新冠肺炎疫情发生之后写的，但是正如南希· 弗雷泽所说，新冠疫情本身不是问题，当一个社会是健全的时候，新冠疫情的冲击不至于导致整个社会的崩溃。但是，在2020年的时候，南希· 弗雷泽看到，面对新冠疫情危机，美国政府没有处理好，而这次新冠危机与其说暴露的是人类面对自然的脆弱，不如说是食人资本主义本身吞噬了自己赖以生存的基础，从而裹挟着资本主义体制下的所有人走向灭亡。因此，新冠疫情以及金融危机所暴露出来的问题，并不是可以在资本主义体制下解决的问题，这些问题毋宁说是资本主义固有本质所带来的问题，除非资本主义制度灭亡，否则这些问题不可能真正得到解决。用南希的话来说，“这场疫情是所有食人资本主义矛盾的交汇点：在这里，食人的自然和护理工作，政治能力和边缘化的人口，在一场致命的狂欢中合并在一起。这是一场名副其实的资本主义功能紊乱的狂欢，毫无疑问，新冠疫情确立了一劳永逸地废除资本主义社会制度的必然性”。

In this sense, through *Cannibal Capitalism*, Nancy Fraser shows us that she has completely moved beyond her earlier reliance on feminist identity politics and the political philosophy of redistribution. She realizes that only by thoroughly discarding the capitalist system and establishing a more egalitarian institutional model of cultural value can the crisis of cannibal capitalism be transcended, and can we conceive of a more equal society. Perhaps we can conclude with the last sentence of *Cannibal Capitalism*:

在这个意义上，南希· 弗雷泽通过《食人资本主义》向我们表明，她已经彻底走出早年依赖于女性主义身份政治和再分配的政治哲学，她意识到彻底摒弃资本主义体制，建立一个更为平等的文化价值的制度模式，食人资本主义的危机才能被超越，才能思考一个更为平等的社会。或许，我们可以用《食人资本主义》的最后一句话来结尾：

It is time to starve the behemoth, to kill cannibal capitalism once and for all! (notes omitted)

现在是时候该饿死这头饕餮巨兽，一劳永逸地干掉食人资本主义!（注释略）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑