An Examination of Hegel’s Concept of Labor from the Perspective of Historical Materialism

Although Hegel’s concept of labor is essentially idealist in nature, as Marx commented: Hegel stood on the ground of modern political economists and grasped the essence of labor; Hegel was “the only one who knew and recognized labor as abstract spiritual labor.” Based on the historical reality of the 19th-century French and British economies and societies, Hegel conducted an in-depth investigation of modern civil society, using labor as the entry point to depict the mode of production of modern industrial society and its consequences. Hegel’s explorations of issues such as labor and division of labor, tools and machines, value and money, and dialectics under the modern industrial system clearly exhibit a tendency toward historical materialism. Although Hegel’s practical philosophy never transcended the bounds of objective idealism from beginning to end, as Lenin and Lukács pointed out, it nonetheless laid the foundation for Marx’s social critique theory and the birth of his political economic thought.

虽然黑格尔的劳动思想在本质上具有唯心主义的性质，但正如马克思所评论的：黑格尔站在现代国民经济学家的立场上，抓住了劳动的本质，黑格尔是“唯一知道并承认的劳动是抽象的精神的劳动”。基于19世纪法国和英国经济社会的历史现实，黑格尔深入考察了现代市民社会，以劳动为切入点刻画了现代工业社会的生产方式及其后果。黑格尔关于现代工业体系下的劳动与分工、工具与机器、价值与货币、辩证法等问题的探讨，明显具有历史唯物主义的倾向。虽然黑格尔的实践哲学自始至终都没有超出客观唯心主义的范围，但正如列宁和卢卡奇曾指出的，它仍为马克思的社会批判理论和政治经济学思想的诞生奠定了基础。

Labor and the Division of Labor

劳动与分工

Drawing on Adam Smith’s theory of the division of labor, Hegel recognized that the economic organizational system of modern civil society is a system of social cooperation based on the division of labor. As needs and the means of satisfying needs develop, labor and the division of labor generate a close reciprocal interaction: the diversification of needs gives rise to the refinement of production and the abstraction of labor, thereby producing the division of labor, and the development of the division of labor in turn further intensifies the abstraction of labor. We can summarize the abstraction of labor under Hegel’s system of the division of labor as follows.

借助亚当·斯密的分工理论，黑格尔认识到，现代市民社会的经济组织体系是以分工为基础的社会合作体系，随着需要和满足需要的手段的发展，劳动与分工产生紧密的交互作用：需要的多样化产生生产的细致化和劳动的抽象化，从而产生分工，分工的发展反过来进一步导致劳动的抽象化。我们可以将黑格尔的分工体系下劳动的抽象化作如下概括。

(1) With the development of the division of labor, labor transforms from purposive activity into increasingly abstract labor. Labor is originally purposive activity: individuals engage in labor out of their own needs, according to the setting of their own purposes. In it, the object of labor is negated and transformed so that it can satisfy individual needs. At the same time, because in labor one is subject to the causal regularities inherent in the labor process and the object, the laboring subject sublates its own subjective desires and preferences, forming universality. However, due to the formation of the division of labor, workers do not engage in labor to directly satisfy their own needs, but for exchange, satisfying their own needs through the labor products of others. The dependency relationship between labor and the satisfaction of needs manifests as: each person, while acquiring, producing, and enjoying for themselves, also produces and acquires for the enjoyment of all other people. This reciprocal relationship possesses formal necessity, because the abstraction of labor means that the individual’s labor is for the satisfaction of social needs, i.e., universally existing needs, rather than for the direct satisfaction of individual needs. This also causes needs, like labor, to become abstract; “abstraction thus becomes the determination of the reciprocal relations among individuals.” This leads to the separation of labor from the purpose of labor, and of needs from the means of satisfying needs.

（一）随着分工的发展，劳动由合乎目的的活动转变为越来越抽象化的劳动。劳动本来是合乎目的的活动，个人出于自身的需要，根据自己的目的设定来从事劳动。在其中，劳动对象被否定和改造，使其能够满足个人需要。同时，由于在劳动中受制于劳动过程和对象中固有的因果规律性，这使得劳动主体扬弃了自身主观的欲求和偏好，形成了普遍性。但由于分工的形成，工人从事劳动并不是为了直接满足自己的需要，而是为了交换，通过他人的劳动产品来满足自己的需要。劳动与满足需要的依赖关系表现为，每个人在为自己取得、生产和享受的同时，也是为了其他一切人的享受而生产和取得。这种相互关系具有形式的必然性，因为劳动的抽象化使得个人的劳动是为了满足社会需要，即普遍存在的需要，而不是为了直接满足个人的需要。这也就使得需要和劳动一样成为抽象的，“抽象也就成为个人之间相互关系的规定”。这就导致了劳动与劳动的目的、需要与满足需要的手段的分离。

(2) Labor is abstracted from the holistic labor that encompasses the entire set of procedures, becoming a monotonous, simple labor that is confined to one or a few actions of the individual. For example, in Smith’s example of pin production, labor manifests as the single labor each worker participates in during the pin-making process within the factory. Hegel points out that abstract labor further intensifies the increasing complexity of the division of labor. This division of labor possesses three notable characteristics: (a) the increasing simplification of labor; (b) the elevation of labor skill and the degree of specialization; (c) the increase in the quantity of labor output. Because the division of labor is introduced into the production process, the skill level and degree of specialization of labor continuously improve, which inevitably leads to an increase in the quantity of labor output. At the same time, supply and demand influence each other; the increase in output resulting from a higher degree of division of labor impacts the multiplication and abstraction process of demand, which further drives the increase in the quantity of labor output. Hegel not only understood the division of labor as the division among individuals engaged in specific labor within a pin factory, as Smith did, but also more broadly viewed the division of labor as the division among the various trades and manufacturing sectors within civil society. Of course, he had not yet reached Marx’s mature understanding of the division of labor, i.e., the production and exchange processes of completely different commodities by the various labor branches of society’s total labor.

（二）劳动从涵盖整套工序的整体性劳动中抽象出来，变成一种单调的、简单的劳动，它仅仅局限于个人的一种或几种行为，如在斯密的制针生产的例子中，劳动就表现为工厂中每个工人在制针过程中所参与的单一劳动。黑格尔指出，抽象劳动进而加剧了分工的日益复杂化。这种分工所具有的三个显著特征表现为：（1）劳动的日益简单化；（2）劳动技能及专业化程度的提高；（3）劳动生产量的增加。由于生产过程中引入了分工，导致劳动的技能水平和专业化程度不断提高，而这必然会导致劳动生产量的提高。同时，需求与供给之间相互影响，分工程度的提高所导致的产出量增加对需求的倍增和抽象化过程产生影响，这进一步推动了劳动生产量的增加。黑格尔不仅将分工理解为斯密的那种在制针工厂中从事特定劳动的个人之间的分工，而且已经更加广泛地将分工看作市民社会中各种贸易和制造业之间的分工。当然，他尚未达到马克思对分工的成熟理解，即社会总体劳动的各个劳动部门对完全不同的商品的生产及交换过程。

(3) Hegel not only provided an empirical description of the division of labor in civil society but also attended to the shaping of human subjectivity by the division of labor. Like Smith and Ferguson, Hegel recognized the dual impact of labor on human subjectivity: on the one hand, through the division of labor, individual labor becomes efficient and skilled, which both cultivates the individual’s labor capacity and makes labor output more abundant; on the other hand, labor becomes the basis of the formal necessity of social relations, and the division of labor places individuals in a state of mutual dependence within social relations, where each person, acting out of self-interest, prompts the satisfaction of the needs of all.

（三）黑格尔不仅对市民社会中的分工做了经验性的描述，而且关注到劳动分工对人的主体性的塑造。黑格尔像斯密和弗格森一样，认识到劳动对人的主体性产生的双重影响：一方面，通过分工个人的劳动变得高效和熟练，这既培养了个人的劳动能力，也使得劳动产出更加丰富；另一方面，劳动成为社会关系的形式必然性的基础，分工使个人彼此之间处于相互依赖的社会关系中，每个人出于自我利益的目的而促使所有人的需要得到满足。

Labor and the Machine

劳动与机器

The progression from the division of labor to the emergence of tools and machines is an inevitable process of historical development. In the *System of Ethical Life*, the *Jena System Drafts I*, and the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, Hegel had already pointed out that the division of labor in modern production arises because humans can create needs and continuously increase the means of satisfying these needs. He believed that the division of labor leads to the increasing simplification and mechanization of labor, which creates the conditions for the emergence of tools and machines and their replacement of individual labor. Within the system of the division of labor, labor manifests merely as one link in the labor production process, thus transforming into monotonous, repetitive, simple, and tedious mechanized labor. In mechanized labor, the purpose and object of labor are external to the human being; the individual regards themselves merely as an active “thing.” In other words, the individual sees themselves as an existence capable of labor only by adapting to the natural regularities of labor. This leads to two situations: (a) the alienation of labor; (b) the emergence of tools and machines becomes possible.

从分工到工具和机器的诞生是历史发展的必然进程。在《伦理体系》《耶拿体系草稿I》和《法哲学原理》中，黑格尔已经指出，在现代生产中分工之所以形成，是由于人能创造出需求并不断增加满足这些需求的手段。他认为，分工导致劳动日益简单化和机械化，这给工具和机器诞生并替代个人劳动创造了条件。在分工体系中，劳动仅仅表现为劳动生产程序中的一个环节，因而转变为单调重复而简单乏味的机械化劳动。在机械化劳动中，劳动的目的和对象是外在于人的，个人仅仅将自身视为具有主动性的“物”。换言之，个人将自己看作通过适应劳动的自然规律性而具有劳动能力的存在。这其中导致了两种情况：（1）劳动的异化；（2）工具和机器的出现成为可能。

Hegel regards the alienation of labor as an essential characteristic of modern society. The use of machines makes workers increasingly mechanized and dulled, reducing them to technical equipment accompanying the machine, like parts on a spring; it further leads to the separation of mental and manual labor. At the same time, the change in the mode of production further leads to a change in social relations, transforming relations between people into relations between things. Hegel vividly described the scene of alienated labor in his early works, bearing a striking resemblance to Marx’s exposition in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*.

黑格尔将劳动的异化看作现代社会的一个本质特征。机器的使用使得劳动者日益机械化和迟钝化，使劳动者沦为与机器相伴的技术设备，犹如发条上的零件，它还进一步导致脑力劳动和体力劳动的分离。同时，生产方式的改变进一步导致社会关系的改变，使得人与人的关系变成了物与物的关系。黑格尔曾在其早期的著作中形象生动地描述了劳动异化的场景，与马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中的论述具有惊人的相似。

Hegel points out: “In his activity of destroying natural objects, man uses the tool to posit his reason as a sublated reason, setting it apart from himself; this tool becomes a machine.” The tool is initially a small device operated by the human hand to transform nature; it gradually develops into an advanced device independent of humans, possessing automation and continuity. Hegel believes that the tool is a mediator between humans and nature. By means of the tool, humans do not have to directly confront external nature but instead achieve the utilization of nature in a mediated way. The tool, as a means, stands higher than human purposes, higher than humans’ direct enjoyment and desire. In the tool, human activity transforms from particular activity into universal and formal labor, because anyone can make a tool and use it to labor. In the machine, however, humans themselves sublate this formal activity of theirs, making the machine labor entirely for them; human labor is replaced by the external natural activity of the machine. In Hegel’s view, the process from the emergence of the tool to the machine makes labor increasingly universal and abstract, while in the machine, labor becomes absolutely “dead.”

黑格尔指出：“人在他的毁灭自然对象的活动中，用工具把他的理性设定为一种被扬弃的理性，使它离开自己，这种工具变成了机器。”工具最初是由人手操作用以改造自然的小型设备，它逐渐发展成为独立于人的具有自动化和连续性的高级设备。黑格尔认为，工具是人与自然之间的中介物。借助工具，人不用直接面对外部自然，而是以中介的方式实现了对自然的利用。工具作为手段高于人的目的，高于人的直接享受和欲求。在工具中，人的活动从特殊性活动转变为普遍的和形式的劳动，因为任何人都能制造工具并用它来劳动。而在机器中，人本身扬弃他的这种形式性活动，使机器完全为他劳动，人的劳动被机器的外部自然活动所取代。在黑格尔看来，从工具到机器诞生的过程使得劳动越来越普遍化、抽象化，而在机器中，劳动变得绝对地“僵死”。

Hegel expounded the principle of the machine in the movement of natural matter. In the sections on “Mechanics” and “Chemical Process” in his *Jena System Draft I*, he analyzed the movement of natural matter. In his view, natural matter manifests as the opposition and unity of the abstract forms of space and time. When space and time combine in opposition, the movement of matter is formed. The production process of the machine thus manifests as the movement process of natural matter. In machine production, human labor is replaced by the movement of natural forces, such as water, wind, and steam. Hegel had already discovered that in the machine production process, the laborer is reduced to a mere living appendage of the machine system, whereby the subjectivity of the laborer and the wholeness of labor are devoured by the machine system, even leading to extreme impoverishment and the emergence of a rabble. However, Hegel held an optimistic attitude toward the future replacement of human labor by machines; he believed that machines could provide people with more free time to solve the pathological problems of society. It can be seen that Hegel was more concerned with the ethical issues arising from the division of labor, tools, and the birth of the machine. Admittedly, Hegel did not, as Marx did, deeply distinguish between the machine in general and the capitalist application of the machine, nor did he view the machine problem from the perspective of the contradictory movement of labor and capital under the capitalist mode of production. For Marx, the machine system materially confronts the worker as constant capital, making the worker’s labor the source of the valorization process of capital.

黑格尔在自然物质的运动中阐释了机器的原理。他在《耶拿体系草稿I》的“力学”和“化学过程”部分对自然物质的运动进行了分析。在他看来，自然物质表现为空间和时间的抽象形式的对立和统一。当空间和时间在对立中结合起来，就形成了物质的运动。机器的生产过程就表现为自然物质的运动过程。在机器生产中，人的劳动被自然力，如水、风、蒸汽等的运动所取代。黑格尔已经发现，在机器生产过程中，劳动者沦为了机器体系上的单纯的、活的附件，这使劳动者的主体性及劳动的整全性被机器体系所吞噬，甚至导致极端贫困化和贱民的出现。不过黑格尔对未来机器取代人的劳动持有乐观主义的态度，他认为机器能为人们提供更多的自由时间，以解决社会病理性问题。可以看到，黑格尔更加关注与劳动分工、工具和机器的诞生相关的伦理问题。诚然，黑格尔还没有像马克思那样深入地区分一般机器与机器的资本主义应用，从资本主义生产方式下劳动和资本的矛盾运动来看待机器问题。对马克思来说，机器体系在物质上作为不变资本同工人相对立，使得工人的劳动成为资本价值增值过程的源泉。

Value as Abstract Labor

作为抽象劳动的价值

In Hegel’s view, abstract labor is a mediation; individual labor can only be equated with one another when it manifests as abstract labor in commodity exchange. In other words, through the mediation of abstract labor, all individual labors can be exchanged with one another. Inspired by Smith’s labor theory of value, Hegel regarded generally undifferentiated abstract labor as the source of value. But his argument was made from the standpoint of objective idealism, namely, that labor is a form of expression of “spirit.” Labor, as spirit, must overcome particularity and rise to universality, that is, become abstract labor. Abstract labor, as “a universal rule,” is value. He pointed out: “The labor of any individual, from the point of view of its content … is a universal labor, that is, it has a value.” In the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, Hegel conducted a thematic discussion of value. He clearly distinguished between use-value and value, and derived value from the use-value of the commodity, noting that we cannot simultaneously possess both the use-value and the value of a thing. In Hegel’s view, the use-value of a commodity manifests as quality for the subject, while the value of a commodity manifests only as quantity for the subject. He said, “The quantitative determination that arises from the qualitative determination is value.” On the basis of comparing different use-values, value itself can be determined. In the exchange of commodities, commodities, as magnitudes of value, achieve abstract equivalence in exchange. On this, Hegel pointed out, “Value is the abstraction from this equality between this thing and that thing.”

在黑格尔看来，抽象劳动是一种中介，个别劳动只有在商品交换中表现为抽象劳动，才能彼此之间等同。换言之，通过抽象劳动这一中介，所有的个别劳动都能彼此交换。黑格尔受到斯密劳动价值论的启发，把一般无差别的抽象劳动当作价值的来源。但他的论证是基于客观唯心主义的立场做出的，即劳动是“精神”的表现形式。劳动作为精神必须克服个别性上升到普遍性，即成为抽象劳动。抽象劳动作为“一种普遍的规则”，就是价值。他指出：“任何一个人的劳动从其内容来看……都是一种普遍的劳动，也就是说，具有一种价值。”在《法哲学原理》中，黑格尔对价值进行了主题化的探讨。他明确区分了使用价值和价值，并从商品的使用价值推导出了价值，而且我们不能同时拥有物的使用价值和价值。在黑格尔看来，商品的使用价值对主体而言表现为质，而商品的价值对主体而言，仅仅表现为量。他说，“由质的规定性所产生的量的规定性，便是价值”。在不同的使用价值比较的基础上，就可以确定价值本身。在商品的交换之中，商品彼此之间作为价值量，在交换中实现了抽象的等同。对此，黑格尔指出，“价值则是对此物和彼物间这个平等性的抽象”。

Further, Hegel did not regard value as an inherent attribute of the commodity itself, as in commodity fetishism, but rather as the exchange relationship of private labors with one another, a social form imposed upon the product. Specifically, because value, as a mediation, enables all private labors to be compared, and each kind of labor can be directly transformed into it, value thus expresses the social relation between private labors; it manifests in the exchange relation of one commodity with another.

进一步讲，黑格尔并未像在商品拜物教中那样将价值视为商品本身固有的属性，而是将价值视为私人劳动的彼此交换关系，是被强加在产品之上的一种社会形式。具体来说，由于价值作为中介使得所有私人劳动得以进行比较，并且每一种劳动都能直接地转化为它，因而，价值就表达了私人劳动之间的社会关系，它表现在商品与另一商品的交换关系中。

Value must manifest in the real form of money. In Hegel’s view, although money appears as a tangible thing, as something abstract it merely represents value. Value, manifested in the external incarnation of money, can then serve as the mediating function in the exchange between products. On the one hand, he emphasized the objectivity and reality of money; on the other hand, he also saw that money is, in its essence, a social relation between people. On this point, Lukács pointed out, “Hegel at least anticipated the problem that Marx later called ‘fetishism.’ Hegel saw that money is a social relation, but it manifested in a form of idealist mystification (of the self).” Hegel also pointed out that, in the modern production system, the impulse to increase wealth will drive people to continuously convert the commodities they possess into money (value), this universal thing, ultimately making wealth an alien power above and beyond human control, which in turn dominates people. This brings great destruction to the ethical relations in the state and civil society, leading to social inequality, extreme impoverishment, and the differentiation of economic classes (property owners and labor owners). To address this, Hegel proposed a solution of the state overseeing civil society, such as through a tax system to obstruct the boundless pursuit of wealth.

价值必须以货币的现实形式表现出来。在黑格尔看来，虽然货币表现为实物，但它作为抽象的东西，仅仅表现价值。价值表现在货币的外在化身中，就可以起到产品之间交换的中介作用。他一方面强调货币的客观性和实在性，另一方面也看到，货币从其本质上是人与人的社会关系。对此，卢卡奇指出，“黑格尔至少已预见到了马克思后来称之为‘拜物教’的问题。黑格尔看到了货币是一种社会关系，但它是以一种唯心主义神秘化的形式表现出来的（自我）”。黑格尔还指出，在现代生产体系中，增加财富的冲动将使人们不断地将其所占有的商品转化为货币（价值）这一普遍物，最终使财富成为一种在人之上、不受人控制的异己的力量，反过来支配人。这对国家和市民社会中的伦理关系带来巨大的破坏，导致了社会的不平等、极端贫困化及经济阶层（财产所有者和劳动所有者）的分化。对此，黑格尔以国家统筹市民社会的方案来解决，如通过税收制度来阻碍对财富的无度追求。

Lenin gave a positive evaluation of Hegel’s theoretical contribution: “Historical materialism is an application and development of the genius idea—the seed—that was in its embryonic state in Hegel.” But compared with Marx, the limitations of Hegel’s thought on labor are also evident. While Hegel certainly had a profound insight into the alienation of labor in capitalist society and revealed and criticized it, because he never truly entered the context of political economy to deeply explore the relationship between concrete labor and abstract labor, as well as use-value and value, he thus never truly grasped the meaning of alienated labor, but merely provided an empirical description of it. He did not, as Marx did, regard all labor under the conditions of the commodity economy as alienated labor in essence, but rather stopped at a superficial level; still less did he grasp the essence of capitalist production from the perspective of capital’s domination over labor. Nor did he understand labor as a mode of production, and thereby grasp social formations and historical laws through the mode of production.

列宁对黑格尔的理论贡献作了积极的评价：“历史唯物主义，是在黑格尔那里处于萌芽状态的天才思想——种子——的一种应用和发展。”但与马克思相比，黑格尔劳动思想的局限性也是显而易见的。黑格尔固然深刻地洞察到了资本主义社会的劳动异化，并对其进行了揭示和批判，但由于他始终没有真正进入政治经济学的语境，深入探讨具体劳动与抽象劳动以及使用价值与价值的关系，所以他也就从未真正把握异化劳动的含义，而是仅仅对其做了经验性的描述。他没有像马克思那样把商品经济条件下的任何劳动都在本质上视为异化劳动，而是浅尝辄止，更没有从资本对劳动的统治角度把握资本主义生产的本质。他也没有把劳动当作生产方式来理解，进而通过生产方式来把握社会形态和历史规律。

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