The Critique of Fetishism in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*

Marx’s category of fetishism in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (hereinafter referred to as the *Manuscripts*) differs both from the idol-fetishism of 1842 in the *Rheinische Zeitung* — a natural idealism of the “religion of sensuous desire,” created by man yet deliberately forgotten by him — and from the systematic fetishism of *Capital* — a social ontology that acquires objective formal determinations, becomes an objective phenomenon, and represents man’s actual mode of behavior. Instead, it lies between the two, using the former’s religious and philosophical critique as an illustration while pioneering the latter’s critique of political economy. In Marx’s view, fetishism appears on the surface as the endowment of material wealth under the system of private property with a certain mystique and mysterious power, but in essence it is the separation of subjectivity and objectivity. To deepen this critique, Marx exposed the fetishistic logic concealed behind Hegel’s philosophy and explored a practical path to unify subjectivity and objectivity, restore man’s essential powers, and resolve theoretical mysteries such as fetishism.

马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》（以下简称《手稿》）中的拜物教范畴，既不同于1842年在《科隆日报》中的偶像拜物教——由人创造又被人刻意遗忘的、“感性欲望宗教”的自然观念论，也不同于《资本论》中的系统拜物教——取得客观形式规定的、成为客观现象的、代表人的现实行为方式的社会存在论，而是介于两者之间，既以前者的宗教批判和哲学批判为例证，又为后者的政治经济学批判开启先河。在马克思看来，拜物教表面上是私有财产制度下的物质财富被赋予了某种神秘性，具有神秘力量，实质上却是主体性与对象性的分离。为深化这一批判，马克思揭露了黑格尔哲学背后隐藏的拜物教逻辑，并探寻出一条统一主体性与对象性、复归人的本质力量、解答拜物教等理论之谜的实践进路。

The Worship of Private Property: The Political-Economic Dimension of the Critique of Fetishism

私有财产崇拜：拜物教批判的政治经济学维度

The critique of fetishism in the *Manuscripts* begins at the opening of Notebook III with an inquiry into the essence of private property. In Marx’s view, although the enlightened national economists represented by Adam Smith disparaged their predecessors (the monetarists and mercantilists) as “fetishists,” as long as they, like their predecessors, worshipped private property, they could not escape the confines of fetishism. Unlike the predecessors, who worshipped only the product of labor and regarded private property merely as man’s objective essence, the enlightened school advocated the supersession of this particular, pure, “external, thoughtless objectivity,” instead embracing the pure subjectivity of private property, “taking labor as its principle,” and holding that labor is the universal essence of private property. Hence “man himself is regarded as the essence of private property.” Since “man himself is taken as the determination of private property, just as in Luther he is taken as the determination of religion,” Marx agreed with Engels’ characterization of Smith as “the Luther of political economy.”

《手稿》中的拜物教批判思想始于笔记本Ⅲ开篇对私有财产本质的追问。在马克思看来，亚当·斯密所代表的启蒙国民经济学家虽然将先驱经济学家（货币主义者和重商主义者）贬称为“拜物教徒”，但是，只要其同先驱派一样崇拜私有财产，就无法逃脱拜物教的窠臼。与先驱派崇拜的只是劳动产品、认为私有财产仅仅是人的对象性本质不同，启蒙派主张扬弃这种特殊的、纯粹的、“外在的、无思想的对象性”，转而信奉私有财产的纯粹主体性，“以劳动为原则”，认为劳动就是私有财产的普遍本质，因而“人本身被认为是私有财产的本质”。由于“人本身被当成了私有财产的规定，就像在路德那里被当成了宗教的规定一样”，马克思认同恩格斯将斯密喻为“国民经济学的路德”。

Private property is the root cause of the alienation of labor and of alienation itself, and it is also the root cause of fetishism. Marx’s critique of private property is itself a critique of fetishism, an inquiry into the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity embodied in private property. In this regard, the defect of the predecessors lies in their neglect of human subjectivity, positing pure objectivity as the highest being. Conversely, the defect of the enlightened school lies precisely in their denial of human objectivity, positing pure subjectivity as the “self” existing. Marx pointed out incisively that, compared with the predecessors’ certain affirmation of man, the enlightened school “achieves a complete negation of man.” For the predecessors, after all, acknowledged that man is an objective being; the enlightened school, though raising the banner of pure subjectivity, in essence completely negated that man is an objective being and exalted a certain non-objective being. Since “a non-objective being is a non-being,” it must therefore completely negate man. That is to say, the predecessors at least did not directly negate man’s subjectivity, acknowledging the dual existence of man and the worshipped object; the enlightened school, however, completely stripped away man’s objectivity, fully abstracting man’s subjectivity — a fetishism truly hostile to man and opposed to him.

私有财产是导致劳动异化以及异化的根源，也是导致拜物教的根源。马克思对私有财产的批判本身就是对拜物教的批判，就是对私有财产所体现的主体性与对象性之间关系的探究。就此而言，先驱派的缺陷在于忽视人的主体性，将纯粹对象性设定为最高存在。相反，启蒙派的缺陷正在于否定人的对象性，将纯粹的主体性设定为“自我”存在。马克思一针见血地指出，相比于先驱派对人的某种肯定，启蒙派“彻底实现对人的否定”。因为，先驱派毕竟承认了人是对象性的存在物，启蒙派虽然打出了纯粹主体性的旗号，但实质上却全面否定了人是对象性的存在物，并推崇某种非对象性的存在物。由于“非对象性的存在物是非存在物”，因此，它必定会彻底地否定人。这就是说，先驱派至少没有直接否定人的主体性，承认人与被崇拜物的双重存在；启蒙派却彻底剥离人的对象性，将人的主体性完全抽象化，是一种真正敌视人的、与人对立的拜物教。

When subjectivity and objectivity are completely severed, the two fetishistic conceptions based on private property inevitably generate irreconcilable theoretical opposition. This opposition manifests itself in the human world as a war of the tearing apart of man’s subjectivity and objectivity, a war “between being-in-itself and being-for-itself, between consciousness and self-consciousness, between object and subject.” Since this war is an aggressive war waged by the world of things against the human world, its result must be that “the increase in value of the world of things is directly proportional to the devaluation of the world of men.”

当主体性与对象性被彻底割裂，基于私有财产的两种拜物教观念就必然会产生不可调和的理论对立。这种对立表现在人的世界就是人的主体性与对象性撕裂的战争，就是“自在和自为之间、意识和自我意识之间、客体和主体之间”的战争。由于这一战争是物的世界向人的世界发动的侵略战争，因此，其结果必定是“物的世界的增值同人的世界的贬值成正比”。

The Alienation of “Self-Consciousness”: The Philosophical Dimension of the Critique of Fetishism

“自我意识”异化：拜物教批判的哲学维度

In Marx’s view, like the national economists, Hegel did not truly understand man and his essential powers. Although Hegel “grasps labor as the essence of man, as man’s essence which is self-confirming,” and understands “real man as the result of his own labor,” in his dialectic “man appears only in the form of spirit,” and “labor is abstract spiritual labor.” Such a man is merely what Hegel calls self-consciousness, not a subject existing with sensuous life and essential powers. Man, as a subject existing with sensuous life and essential powers, is originally the unity of subjectivity and objectivity. Yet man’s subjectivity and objectivity are in a state of separation. The reason is that when man’s subjectivity and objectivity are separated, “subjectivity” becomes the “subject” of pure self-consciousness, while “objectivity” becomes the “thinghood” opposed to the “subject.” The opposition between the abstract world’s “subject” and “thinghood” ultimately manifests itself as the absolutization and fetishization of ideas, further intensifying the separation of man’s subjectivity and objectivity. Thus, Marx’s critique of Hegel’s dialectic and of his entire philosophy in the *Manuscripts* is primarily a critique of this “absolute knowledge” that “man = self-consciousness”; in essence, it is a critique of fetishism in philosophical form.

在马克思看来，同国民经济学家一样，黑格尔也没有真正理解人及其本质力量。虽然黑格尔“把劳动看作人的本质，看作人的自我确证的本质”，将“真正的人理解为人自己的劳动的结果”，但是，在他的辩证法中，“人只是以精神的形式出现”，“劳动是抽象的精神的劳动”，这样的人只是他所说的自我意识，而不是有感性生命的、具有本质力量的主体存在。人作为有感性生命的、具有本质力量的主体存在，本来就是主体性与对象性的统一。然而，人的主体性与对象性却处于分离状态。原因在于，当人的主体性与对象性分离后，“主体性”成为纯粹自我意识的“主体”，“对象性”则成为与“主体”对立的“物性”。抽象世界的“主体”与 “物性”的对立关系最终表现为观念的绝对化和拜物教化，从而进一步加剧了人的主体性与对象性的分离。于是，马克思在《手稿》中对黑格尔的辩证法及整个哲学的批判，主要就是对“人=自我意识”这种“绝对知识”的批判，其实质就是哲学形式的拜物教批判。

On the one hand, the abstract “subject” generated by the separation of subjectivity and objectivity differs from the real subject — man himself. First, subjectivity separated from objectivity = abstract “subject” = pure self-consciousness; conversely, subjectivity unified with objectivity = real subject = man himself. Clearly, the abstract “subject” posited by Hegel is not the real subject. Second, once man’s subjectivity and objectivity are separated, they lose their essential powers and immediately acquire an independent, alien power, becoming the “subjectivity” of pure self-consciousness. Furthermore, Marx agreed with Hegel that “every one of man’s essential powers has the character of selfhood in man,” but opposed his assertion that “man is self.” For selfhood is an exclusive characteristic of man possessing essential powers; once detached from the real subject, it becomes an inhuman abstract “self,” i.e., reified into “man as understood abstractly and produced through abstraction.” In short, in Hegel, self-consciousness, as the object of man, is understood as an abstract absolute opposed to man, just like the logic of fetishism.

一方面，因主体性与对象性分离而生成的抽象“主体”，不同于现实主体——人本身。首先，与对象性分离的主体性=抽象“主体”=纯粹自我意识；相反，与对象性统一的主体性=现实主体=人本身。显然黑格尔所设定的抽象“主体”并不是现实主体。其次，人的主体性与对象性一旦分离，就会丧失本质力量而立刻获得某种独立的异己力量，成为纯粹自我意识的“主体性”。此外，马克思认同黑格尔认为“人的每一种本质力量在人身上都具有自我性这种特性”的观点，却反对他的“人是自我的”的断言。因为，自我性是具有本质力量的人的专属特性，一旦脱离现实主体，便成为非人的抽象“自我”，即物化为“被抽象地理解的和通过抽象产生出来的人”。总之，在黑格尔那里，作为人的对象的自我意识，被理解为抽象的、与人对立的绝对者，正像拜物教的逻辑一般。

On the other hand, because he posits man = self-consciousness, Hegel is compelled to describe the overcoming of the “object of consciousness” in order to explain how self-consciousness externalizes itself and supersedes this externalization. Marx restates this logic in eight points, focusing particularly on “the externalization of self-consciousness posits thinghood.” Specifically: First, “the object itself proves to be a vanishing thing for consciousness”; that is, self-consciousness as pure activity has the significance of superseding objectivity, making itself a non-objective abstract “subject,” a spiritualistic being. Second, because consciousness itself “knows the object as itself through the indivisible unity of being-for-itself,” it again “externalizes” itself and posits an unreal “objectivity” conforming to the laws of “thinghood.” Marx points out that “this externalization also has a positive meaning”; without it, how lonely would be the god worshipped by believers, and the world of things that completely supersedes the human world would fall into pure nothingness. Third, the “thinghood” posited by the “externalization” of self-consciousness is a non-being, merely an abstract “thinghood” conforming to the laws of the world of things. Fourth, the positing of “thinghood” itself is merely a pure, “self”-related, momentary act, “fixing its own power as a product for a moment.” This abstract positing, a sleight of hand, achieves a purposive appropriation of real things through a momentary alien power; in essence, it is a plundering, usurpation, and domination of the human world, “an appearance, an act contradicting the essence of pure activity, so this positing must necessarily be superseded again, and thinghood must be negated.”

另一方面，由于设定人=自我意识，黑格尔不得不对克服“意识的对象”做出描述，以解释自我意识是如何将自己外化并扬弃这一外化的。马克思将其逻辑转述为八点，并重点考察了“自我意识的外化设定物性”。具体而言：第一，“对象本身对意识来说是正在消逝的东西”，就是说，纯粹活动的自我意识具有扬弃对象性的意义，使自身成为非对象性的抽象“主体”，成为唯灵论的存在物。第二，意识本身因“自为存在的不可分割的统一性而知道对象是它自身”，所以再次“外化”并设定符合“物性”规律的、非现实的“对象性”。马克思指出“这种外化也有肯定的意义”，没有它，没有信徒崇拜的神将会何等落寞，彻底扬弃人的世界的物的世界就会陷入纯粹的虚无。第三，自我意识“外化”所设定的“物性”是非存在物，仅是某种符合物的世界规律的抽象“物性”。第四，“物性”设定本身不过是一种纯粹的、“自我”的、瞬间的行动，“在一瞬间把自己的能力作为产物固定下来”，这种偷梁换柱的抽象设定以瞬间的异化力量实现对现实物的合目的性占有，本质上就是对人的世界的掠夺、侵占和宰制，就是“一种外观，一种与纯粹活动的本质相矛盾的行为，所以这种设定必然重新被扬弃，物性必然被否定”。

Sensuous Practical Activity: The Necessary Path to Superseding Fetishism

感性实践活动：扬弃拜物教的必然路径

The theoretical fog shrouding fetishism, produced by national economy [1]1 “National economy” (Nationalökonomie) is Marx’s term for classical political economy, the bourgeois economic theory he critiques. and Hegelian dialectics, is, in Marx’s view, merely a result of the disregard for the real human being, the essential powers of the human being, and actual human life. “It can be seen from fetishism how far the solution of theoretical riddles is a task of practice and mediated by practice, and how far true practice is the condition of a real and positive theory.” [2]2 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 302 (translation modified). Fetishism is a historical product generated and evolved in human practice, expressing the sensuous existence and sensuous consciousness of people in a specific historical period. Clearly, “the sensuous consciousness of the fetish-worshipper is different from that of the Greek, because his sensuous existence is still different from that of the Greek.” [3]3 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 302 (translation modified). In other words, fetishism is a “temporary necessity,” [4]4 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 302 (translation modified). a historical phenomenon in human history, which will inevitably be transcended.

被国民经济学和黑格尔辩证法所制造的笼罩在拜物教上的理论迷雾，在马克思看来，只是因为真正的人、人的本质力量和现实生活遭到了无视。“从拜物教就可看出，理论之谜的解答在何种程度上是实践的任务并以实践为中介，真正的实践在何种程度上是现实的和实证的理论的条件。”拜物教是在人的实践中生成与演化的历史产物，表现着特定历史时期人们的感性存在和感性意识，显然，“拜物教徒的感性意识不同于希腊人的感性意识，因为他的感性存在还不同于希腊人的感性存在”。换言之，拜物教是“暂时的必然性”，是人类历史中的历史现象，必然会被超越。

The truly human senses, as the sensuous existence of the essential powers of the human being, are the historical force for sublation of fetishism, the practical force for transcending fetishism, and are “created by the labor of the human being himself.” [5]5 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 301 (translation modified). Generally speaking: First, the senses are not a priori and given, but historically generated; “the formation of the five senses is a labor of the entire history of the world down to the present.” [6]6 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 301 (translation modified). Second, the senses do not exist in isolation but are dependent on their objects. “The human sense, the human character of the senses, comes to be only through the existence of its object.” [7]7 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 301 (translation modified).

真正人的感觉作为人的本质力量的感性存在，是扬弃拜物教的历史力量，是超越拜物教的实践力量，是由“人本身的劳动创造出来”的。总体而言：其一，感觉不是先验既定的，而是历史生成的，“感觉的形成是迄今为止全部世界历史的产物”。其二，感觉不是孤立存在的，而是依赖对象的。“人的感觉、感觉的人性，都是由于它的对象的存在。”

Third, the senses are not externally determined but self-determined. This self is the real subject, by and for the human being, a true existence that unites subjectivity and objectivity in accordance with human nature. Fourth, the senses are not self-sufficient but created by labor. Only sensuous objective labor can create the truly human senses.

其三，感觉不是外在规定的，而是自身决定的。这个自身是由人并为了人的现实主体，是主体性与对象性相统一的、合乎人性的本真存在。其四，感觉不是本自具足的，而是劳动创造的。只有感性对象性的劳动才能创造真正人的感觉。

Alienated labor runs counter to the human sensuous objective labor, leading to the antinomy of the abstract world through a certain kind of rationalized determination. On the one hand, alienated labor fabricates an alienated, inhuman objective existence, forcibly replacing the human sensuous existence, indirectly giving rise to the illusion of “having,” which becomes the consciousness of “sense.” On the other hand, alienated labor determines private property, directly stipulating an abstract, non-objective “absolute spirit,” which becomes the consciousness of “spirit.” The trouble lies in the fact that “sense” appears as existence, while “spirit” appears as non-existence, forming “the abstract hostility between sense and spirit,” [8]8 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 302 (translation modified). forming the opposition between materialism and idealism. Therefore, a substantive solution to this theoretical riddle “is possible only through a practical approach, only by means of the practical energy of the human being.” [9]9 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 302 (translation modified).

异化劳动与人的感性对象性劳动背道而驰，以某种合理化的规定性导致抽象世界的二律背反。一方面，异化劳动虚构出异化的、非人的对象性存在，强制取代人的感性存在，间接导致“拥有”的错觉，成为“感觉”的意识。另一方面，异化劳动决定私有财产，直接规定出抽象的、非对象性的“绝对精神”，成为“精神”的意识。麻烦在于，“感觉”表现为存在，“精神”表现为不存在，形成“感觉和精神之间的抽象的敌对”，形成唯物与唯心的对立。因此，实质性地解决这一理论谜题，“只有通过实践方式，只有借助人的实践力量，才是可能的”。

In Marx’s view, practice as sensuous activity is not only the truly effective way to sublate fetishism, but also enables the human being to “appropriate his comprehensive essence in a comprehensive manner, i.e., as a whole human being.” [10]10 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 299 (translation modified). Through his critique of fetishism, he reveals the historical process of the separation and theoretical opposition between subjectivity and objectivity, aiming to expose the essence of the “self”-alienation of private property and alienated labor, and thereby making the unity of subjectivity and objectivity a task of practice. To this end, Marx creatively proposes two internally related practical propositions: “objective activity” and “the subjectivity of objective essential powers.” [11]11 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 336 (translation modified). “Objective activity” is sensuous activity; it can both comprehensively confirm the truth of the principle of sensuous objectivity and confirm the reality of the human being’s objective relations. What it posits is not an abstract subject or “self,” but “the subjectivity of objective essential powers,” i.e., selfhood. Only when the two conditions of practice are unified does the sublation of self-alienation “follow the same road as self-alienation.” [12]12 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 294 (translation modified). The “same road” (i.e., practice) is not a one-way street of the one-dimensional “self,” nor a historical retrograde path, but the road of the real object’s return to the true self, the practical road of the real subject’s re-appropriation of the sensuous object, the historical road of the human being’s comprehensive mastery of his own essential powers.

在马克思看来，作为感性活动的实践，不仅是扬弃拜物教的真正有效的方式，而且可以使人“作为一个完整的人，占有自己的全面的本质”。他通过对拜物教进行批判来揭示主体性与对象性分离与理论对立的历史进程，旨在揭露私有财产和异化劳动的“自我”异化实质，进而将主体性与对象性的统一作为实践的任务。为此，马克思创造性地提出了“对象性活动”与“对象性的本质力量的主体性”两个内在相关的实践命题。“对象性活动”就是感性活动，既能总体确证感性对象性原则的真理性，也能确证人的对象性关系的现实性。它设定的不是抽象的主体或“自我”，而是“对象性的本质力量的主体性”，即自我性。只有实现了两个实践条件的统一，自我异化的扬弃才“同自我异化走的是同一条道路”。“同一条道路”（即实践）不是单向度“自我”的单行道，更不是历史逆行道，而是现实对象向真正自我的复归之路，是现实主体重新占有感性对象的实践之路，是人全面掌握自身本质力量的历史之路。

Marx’s purpose in the dual critique of fetishism in the *Manuscripts* is not to solve the theoretical riddle of fetishism, nor to analyze the essence of fetishism, but to expose the roots of fetishism in private property and ideology, to negate private property, and to overturn the world of the human being that has been inverted by national economy and Hegelian philosophy, “the genuine appropriation of the human essence by and for the human being; this is therefore the return of the human being to himself as a social, i.e., truly human, being.” [13]13 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW 3: 296 (translation modified).

马克思在《手稿》中对拜物教进行双重批判的目的不在于解答有关拜物教的理论之谜，也不在于分析拜物教的本质，而在于揭露拜物教产生的私有制根源和思想根源，否定私有制，将被国民经济学和黑格尔哲学所颠倒了人的世界再颠倒过来，“通过人并且为了人而对人的本质的真正占有；因此，它是人向自身、向社会的即合乎人性的人的复归”。

This process of return is both a process of eliminating the enslavement or alienation of the human being by “things” such as private property, and primarily a process in which the human being, through his own practice, consciously appropriates all his essential powers in a comprehensive manner—a process of human self-emancipation.

这一复归的过程，既是消除私有财产等“物”对人的奴役或者异化的过程，又主要是人通过自己的实践以全面的方式自觉地占有自己的全部本质力量的过程，是人类自我解放的过程。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗