Methodological Reflections on the Theoretical Turn in the Critique of Use-Value

Contemporary Western left-wing social critical theory—scholars such as Lefebvre, Sohn-Rethel, and Kojin Karatani—is generally fascinated by the identity logic of “abstraction becoming domination” constructed by “exchange value.” However, the critical effect on capitalist society manifested through the concept of use-value has not received adequate and systematic study. We note that even if some scholars, such as Jean Baudrillard, have attempted to excavate the social critical effect of use-value, extending from this “usefulness” a critical theory of the alienation of use-value mediated by exchange value, their interpretations of use-value mostly do not go beyond the natural attribute of “usefulness.” At most, they move from a natural usefulness to an “alienated” usefulness, as if this alone suffices to capture the social critical effect of use-value. In Marx’s critique of political economy, however, the concept of use-value does not merely signify the natural attribute of the commodity; it itself possesses rich social critical connotations. Although it always appears as one of the two contradictory factors—use-value and value—it has a special theoretical function and social critical effect independent of the concepts of value and exchange value, playing an indispensable and important role in the overall theory of Marx’s political economy. We even hold that it is precisely the emphasis on the special social-historical content of the concept of use-value and on the contradictory relation between use-value and value—rather than focusing only on exchange value and value—that constitutes an important feature distinguishing Marx’s political economy from bourgeois political economy. From this, we can grasp the important difference between the above two approaches in explaining the social critical effect of economic categories: Marx’s approach grounds the social critical effect of economic categories in the overall theory of historical materialism, whereas Western left-wing social critical theory reduces it to a critique of alienated power, thereby moving toward a purely philosophical critique. Systematically sorting out the social critical significance of the concept of use-value, especially articulating the methodological turn in use-value research from Marx to contemporary Western left-wing social critical theory, is of great importance for our comprehensive understanding of the philosophical effect of Marx’s critique of political economy and its contemporary value, as well as for accurately positioning the essential connotations of contemporary Western left-wing social critical theory.

当代西方左翼社会批判理论，如列斐伏尔、索恩-雷特尔、柄谷行人等学者普遍着迷于“交换价值”所建构的“抽象成为统治”的同一性逻辑，然而，通过使用价值概念所彰显出的资本主义社会批判效应并没有得到充分而系统的研究。我们关注到，即便有一些学者，如让·鲍德里亚（也译作让·波德里亚）等人也试图挖掘使用价值的社会批判效应，从这种“有用性”中延展出基于交换价值的中介而导致的使用价值异化权力批判理论，但他们对于使用价值的解读大多并没有超出“有用性”这种自然属性，至多只是从一种自然的有用性走向“异化”的有用性，似乎如此便完成了对使用价值社会批判效应的捕捉。而在马克思的政治经济学批判中，使用价值概念并不仅仅表征商品的自然属性，其本身就具有丰富的社会批判内涵。它虽然总是作为使用价值与价值的矛盾二因素之一出场，却具有独立于价值和交换价值概念的特殊理论功能与社会批判效应，在马克思的政治经济学整体理论中扮演了不可或缺的重要角色。我们甚至认为，重视使用价值概念的特殊社会历史内容、重视使用价值与价值的矛盾关系，而非只关注交换价值与价值，才是马克思政治经济学区别于资产阶级政治经济学的重要特征。由此，我们可以把握到上述两种思路对于经济范畴社会批判效应阐释思路的重要差别，马克思的思路是将经济范畴的社会批判效应奠基于唯物史观的整体理论之上，而西方左翼社会批判理论则将其归于一种异化权力批判，从而走向一种纯粹的哲学批判。从使用价值概念的角度系统梳理其社会批判意义，尤其是表述从马克思到当代西方左翼社会批判理论基于使用价值研究的方法论转向，对于我们全面理解马克思政治经济学批判的哲学效应及其当代价值、准确定位当代西方左翼社会批判理论的本质内涵，具有重要的意义。

I. The Critique of Use-Value in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy

一、马克思政治经济学批判中的使用价值批判

In some interpretive models of Marx’s labor theory of value, use-value is understood as the natural attribute of the commodity, while value or exchange value is understood as the social attribute of the commodity. But what we cannot overlook is that this assertion by Marx is merely a narrative strategy at the beginning of the “Chapter on the Commodity” in Volume I of *Capital*. Understanding use-value as the natural attribute of the commodity and value or exchange value as the social attribute of the commodity is only a fetishistic cognitive result based on the directness of the phenomenal level of capitalism. To break through this fetishistic cognition, Marx precisely reminds us that we cannot merely understand use-value as the natural attribute of the commodity. In fact, use-value in Marx’s theory possesses a special social connotation presented at the historical stage of capitalist society, and it also has a rich social critical effect. This has gradually been noticed and elaborated by foreign scholars such as David Harvey and domestic scholars such as Yang Haifeng. With regard to the research theme of this article, we hold that in Marx’s theory, the social critical effect of use-value, through the contradictory movement of the two factors of the commodity, is concentratedly manifested in the critique of fetishism and the theory of economic crisis. On this basis, we hold that the social critical effect of use-value (hereinafter “the critique of use-value”) both presents Marx’s critical interpretation of the concept of “use-value” as a positive category of bourgeois economics and indicates the way in which the concept of use-value is employed as a category of social critique in Marx.

在一些对于马克思主义劳动价值论的阐释模式中，使用价值被理解为商品的自然属性，价值或交换价值则被理解为商品的社会属性。但是我们所不能忽视的一点是，马克思的这一论断只是出于《资本论》第一卷“商品章”开始部分的一种叙事策略。将使用价值理解为商品的自然属性，而将价值或交换价值理解为商品的社会属性，仅是一种基于资本主义现象层面的直接性的拜物教式认知结果，而要突破这种拜物教式的认知，马克思恰恰提醒我们，不能仅仅把使用价值理解为商品的自然属性。事实上，使用价值在马克思的理论中具有在资本主义社会历史阶段所呈现出的特殊社会内涵，也同样具有丰富的社会批判效应，这一点已经逐渐为大卫·哈维等国外学者、仰海峰等国内学者所关注并加以阐发。就本文的研究主题而言，我们认为，在马克思的理论中，使用价值的社会批判效应通过商品二因素的矛盾运动，集中体现在拜物教批判与经济危机理论中。基于此，我们认为使用价值的社会批判效应（以下简称“使用价值批判”），既呈现了马克思对作为资产阶级经济学实证范畴的“使用价值”概念的批判性解读，也指示了使用价值概念在马克思那里作为社会批判范畴的运用方式。

(1) The Fetishism Dimension of the Critique of Use-Value

（一）使用价值批判的拜物教维度

In the “Chapter on the Commodity” in Volume I of *Capital*, Marx’s exposition of the concept of use-value proceeds progressively through three levels.

在《资本论》第一卷“商品章”中，马克思对于使用价值概念的论述主要通过三个层面层层递进铺展开来。

The first level: use-value, as the “usefulness” that satisfies human needs, is a natural attribute common to all products of labor: “Labor as the creator of use-values, as useful labor, is a condition of human existence independent of all forms of society, an eternal natural necessity through which the material exchange between man and nature, that is, human life, is realized.” In Marx’s view, this natural necessity is an attribute inherent to the product of labor itself; it does not contain the special social historicity of capitalism but belongs to the anthropological category of “production in general.” Bourgeois political economists merely employ use-value as an anthropological concept, so their theoretical analysis can hardly transcend this ideological stage of “natural necessity” and “directness.” Contemporary Western left-wing social critical theory continues this line of thought, also taking the dimension of “need/usefulness” as the fundamental connotation of the concept of use-value. Of course, their merit lies in deriving from this “usefulness,” through the mediation of exchange value, a new social critical effect. But Marx holds that the content of use-value as the “usefulness” of the commodity is not itself the object of study of political economy; rather, the social-historical dimension of use-value that political economy must attend to is manifested through its contradictory movement with the value of the commodity, as the deceptive feature of the “shell” of the thing.

第一个层面，使用价值作为满足人类需求的“有用性”，是任何劳动产品所共有的自然属性：“劳动作为使用价值的创造者，作为有用劳动，是不以一切社会形式为转移的人类生存条件，是人和自然之间的物质变换即人类生活得以实现的永恒的自然必然性。”在马克思看来，这种自然必然性是劳动产品本身所固有的属性，并不包含资本主义的特殊社会历史性，而隶属于“生产一般”的人类学范畴。资产阶级政治经济学家只是把使用价值作为一个人类学概念来运用，那么他们的理论分析就很难超越这一“自然必然性”的、“直接性”的意识形态阶段。当代西方左翼社会批判理论延续了这一思路，也将“需求/有用性”维度作为使用价值概念的根本内涵，当然，他们的可贵之处在于衍生出了这种“有用性”经由交换价值的中介，而产生新的社会批判效应。但是，马克思认为使用价值作为商品的“有用性”本身的内容，并不是政治经济学研究的对象，而政治经济学所要关注的使用价值的社会历史维度，是通过它在与商品的价值的矛盾运动中所呈现出来的，作为“物”的外壳的迷惑特征。

The second level: with regard to the dialectical relation between use-value and value in the individual commodity, the use-value of the capitalist commodity is the material bearer of exchange value. For a commodity to be successfully sold and realize its exchange value, it must have use-value, and indeed use-value that satisfies the needs of others. Owing to the universal division of labor and exchange in the capitalist commodity economy, Marx points out that the specificity of the use-value of the capitalist commodity lies in the fact that it is produced not to satisfy one’s own needs but to satisfy social needs: “Whoever satisfies his own needs with his own product produces use-value, but not a commodity. To produce a commodity, he must not only produce use-value, but use-value for others, that is, social use-value.” Under the conditions of the capitalist commodity economy, the use-value of the commodity possesses a special social-historical connotation: it is no longer merely a “thing” with natural attributes but itself carries a certain “social relation.” In other words, although the use-value of the capitalist commodity still appears in the image of a material shell, it does not merely reflect the relation with nature; it also becomes an internal factor of the commodity relation, one aspect of the social relation reflected by the commodity, and further, a factor in unity of opposites with the value of the commodity.

第二个层面，就单个商品的使用价值与价值的辩证关系而言，资本主义商品的使用价值是交换价值的物质承担者。商品若能顺利被卖出实现交换价值，就必须具有使用价值，并且是满足他人需求的使用价值。由于资本主义商品经济的普遍分工和交换，马克思指出，资本主义商品的使用价值的特殊性在于，它不是为了满足自己的需求，而是为了满足社会的需求而生产：“谁用自己的产品来满足自己的需要，他生产的虽然是使用价值，但不是商品。要生产商品，他不仅要生产使用价值，而且要为别人生产使用价值，即生产社会的使用价值。”资本主义商品经济条件下商品的使用价值具有特殊的社会历史内涵，它不再仅仅是一个具有自然属性的“物”，而且本身负载了某种“社会关系”。换言之，资本主义商品的使用价值，虽然依然以物质外壳的形象出现，却不只是反映与自然的关系，还成为商品关系的内在因素，成为商品所反映的社会关系的一个方面，进一步而言，成为与商品的价值对立统一的一个因素。

At the third level, use-value, as the material bearer of exchange-value, presents new characteristics in the theory of the "form of value," which reflects the value relation between two commodities. Marx holds that this is in fact quite perplexing. Although the value of a commodity is a spectral existence, it must acquire a material shell to express itself so that it can appear in actual exchange. Marx points out that value is "abstract objectivity" of general human labor, "a purely ideal thing... But commodities are things. They must express what they are either in their own materiality or in their own material relations." "Only Hegel's 'concept' can objectify itself without any external material." This is precisely the uncanniness of the capitalist commodity: it clearly possesses a material shell, yet in essence it is not this material shell itself; it possesses a spectral social attribute, yet it must appear in economic activity through a material shell. Furthermore, Marx further points out that value does not reflect itself in its own body. A commodity can recognize only its own use-value attribute, but cannot recognize its own value attribute. Only in exchange can a commodity, on the use-value of the other commodity with which it is exchanged, recognize the value attribute common to both, thereby obtaining a relative value expression. This "indirectness" of the commodity's value expression is the crux of the theory of the form of value. "A commodity cannot directly relate to itself, but it can directly relate to other commodities, and thus relate to itself indirectly... As soon as the use-value of a commodity becomes the form of expression of value in this way, it exists only for other commodities." This indirect and peculiar manner of the commodity's value expression endows the use-value of the commodity serving as the equivalent with new connotations: it exists neither to satisfy the needs of the producer, nor to satisfy the needs of others, but to become the value expression of other commodities. This in fact expresses, through the method of dialectics, the specifically capitalist social connotation that the commodity itself cannot directly realize universal exchange or express its own value, but must express value through exchange with other commodities.

第三个层面，使用价值作为交换价值的物质承担者，在反映两个商品之间价值关系的“价值形式”理论中呈现出新的特征。马克思认为，这一点事实上是颇让人费解的。商品的价值虽然是一种幽灵般的存在，但它必须获得一个物质外壳来表现自己，以便在实际的交换中现身。马克思指出，价值是一般人类劳动这种“抽象的对象性，是观念的物……但是，商品是物。它们必须在物上或必须在自己的物的关系上表示它们是什么”。“只有黑格尔的‘概念’才无需外界物质而自行客观化。”这正是资本主义商品的诡异之处，它明明有一个物质外壳，却在本质上并不是这个物质外壳自身；它具有幽灵般的社会属性，却必须通过一个物质外壳在经济活动中现身。此外，马克思进一步指出：价值并不会反映在自己的物体上。一种商品只能认出自己的使用价值属性，而无法认出自己的价值属性。只有在交换中，一种商品才能在与它相交换的另一种商品的使用价值上，认出其中与它共通的价值属性，从而获得相对价值表现。商品价值表现的这种“间接性”，是价值形式理论的关键之处。“商品不能直接同自身发生关系，但它能直接同其他商品发生关系，因而通过间接的办法同自身发生关系……商品的使用价值只要通过这种方式成为商品价值的表现形式，它就只是为别的商品而存在。”商品价值表现的这种间接的特殊方式，使得作为等价物的商品的使用价值获得了新的内涵：它既不是为了满足生产者的需要，也不是为了满足他人的需要，而是为了成为其他商品的价值表现而存在。这事实上通过辩证法的方式表达了商品自身无法直接实现普遍交换、表现自身价值，而必须通过与其他商品相交换才能表现价值的资本主义特殊社会内涵。

When the particular equivalent develops into the general equivalent and even money, the function of the commodity's use-value as the "material shell" for the value expression of other commodities assumes an even more mysterious character. It no longer accidentally serves as a particular equivalent, but is fixedly constituted by a use-value of a certain specific content as the form of value expression for all commodities. "The semblance that the equivalent form of a commodity seems to arise from its own material attributes, rather than merely reflecting the relations of other commodities, is strengthened as the individual equivalent evolves into the general equivalent." The entire secret of the theory of fetishism lies precisely here. On the one hand, they "transform material things into abstract value"; on the other hand, they objectify value in a fixed material shell, which seems to possess by nature some directly exchangeable social attribute. It is precisely through such a social-historical mechanism that capitalist society presents the inverted attribute of "reification": "the relations of private laborers to the total social labor confront them as objectified, and thus exist for them in the form of things."

当特殊等价物发展为一般等价物乃至货币的时候，商品的使用价值作为其他商品价值表现的“物质外壳”的功能，就呈现出更为神秘的性质。它不再是偶然地充当特殊等价物，而是固定地以某种特定内容的使用价值，充当所有一切商品的价值表现形式。“一个商品的等价形式似乎是从它自己的物的属性中产生的，而不是单纯反映其他商品的关系，这种假象随着个别等价物演变成一般等价物而加强起来”。拜物教理论的全部秘密就在于此。他们一方面“把物质的东西化成抽象物价值”；另一方面又把价值对象化在一个固定的物质外壳上，这个物质外壳似乎天生具有某种可以直接交换的社会属性。正是通过这样的社会历史机制，资本主义社会呈现出了“物化”的颠倒属性：“私人劳动者同社会总劳动的关系同他们相对立而对象化，因而对于他们来说存在于物的形式中。”

Marx holds that this inversion ultimately results from the contradiction between the capitalist private ownership of the means of production and socialized large-scale production. It is precisely because, under the system of division of labor and exchange, private labor is not directly social labor that the "indirectness" of value expression arises, and further produces the inverted structure in which the real social relations among people must be reflected in the "reified" form. From this, we can see that in the "chapter on the commodity," the concept of "use-value" reveals the inversion and paradox of capitalist society: in the capitalist world of commodities, the commodity, through the natural necessity of its use-value in satisfying human needs, conceals its true identity as a product of social labor; the use-value of money, which can be directly exchanged, is also misrecognized as a natural attribute, concealing its identity as a product of the movement of the form of value caused by the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. In the capitalist world of commodities, use-value, through the "anthropological" attribute of the eternal necessity of satisfying human needs, conceals its specific social-historical attribute. What Marx intends to convey through the concept of "use-value" is precisely not the anthropological connotation of "usefulness," but rather the paradoxical character of commodities and wealth in the specific social-historical stage of capitalism concealed by this anthropological "pseudo-naturalness," as well as the inverted character of the reified structure of capitalist society. This is also the philosophical implication of why Marx's study of political economy is a "critique" of political economy.

马克思认为，之所以出现这种颠倒，归根到底是由生产资料的资本主义私有制与社会化大生产之间的矛盾所导致的。正是因为在分工和交换体系下，私人劳动并不直接就是社会劳动，所以才导致了价值表现的“间接性”，并进一步产生了必须以“物化”的形式来反映人与人之间的真实社会关系这种颠倒的结构。由此，我们可以看到，在“商品章”中，“使用价值”概念揭示了资本主义社会的颠倒和悖论：在资本主义的商品世界里，商品以其能够满足人们需求的使用价值的自然必然性，掩盖了其作为社会劳动的产品的真实身份；货币可以直接交换的使用价值也被误认为是一种自然属性，掩盖了其作为由资本主义的基本矛盾而导致的价值形式运动的产物的身份。在资本主义的商品世界中，使用价值以其能够满足人类需求这种永恒必然性的“人类学”属性，掩盖其特殊的社会历史属性。马克思通过“使用价值”概念所要传达的含义恰恰不是“有用性”这种人类学维度的内涵，而是以这种人类学的“伪自然性”所掩盖的资本主义特殊社会历史阶段中商品及财富的悖论性，以及资本主义社会的物化结构的颠倒特征。这也是马克思政治经济学研究何以是一种政治经济学“批判”的哲学意蕴所在。

(II) The Dimension of Economic Crisis in the Critique of Use-Value

（二）使用价值批判的经济危机维度

If in the theory of commodities and money Marx presents the "reified" structural character of capitalist society through the contradictory relation between use-value and value, then in the theory of economic crisis Marx demonstrates the crisis-ridden destiny of capitalism through the contradictory movement of use-value and value. This contradictory relation between use-value and value manifests itself in the capitalist production process as the dialectical relation between the production process and the valorization process of capital (the logic of production and the logic of capital). The dimension of the production process is in fact the dimension of use-value in the concept of the "commodity." The following will present this critical dimension of use-value from two aspects: the contradiction between the production and realization of surplus value, and the unevenness of capitalist production.

如果说在商品与货币理论中，马克思通过使用价值与价值的矛盾关系呈现出资本主义社会的“物化”结构特征，那么在经济危机理论中，马克思则通过使用价值与价值的矛盾运动论证了资本主义的危机命运。而这种使用价值与价值的矛盾关系在资本主义生产过程中表现为生产过程与资本增殖过程（生产逻辑与资本逻辑）的辩证关系。生产过程的维度，实际上就是“商品”概念中使用价值的维度。下文将从剩余价值的生产与实现之间的矛盾，以及资本主义生产的不平衡性这两方面出发，呈现使用价值的这一批判维度。

In current domestic and international scholarship, many scholars cite the famous "Fragment on Machines" in the *Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858* as an example, pointing out that there exists here a line of reasoning that proceeds from the formal determination of capital as the subject of movement to demonstrate its logic of self-negation. This line of reasoning takes the logic of capital (the logic of valorization) as the subject of movement, while the logic of production (the production of use value) is merely a means through which the logic of capital operates, a stage that the logic of capital externalizes and then sublates. On the surface, there does indeed seem to be such textual evidence here. We see that Marx points out in this passage that the machine system, as the capitalist application of fixed capital, makes capital truly the "subject" of the labor process, which is what Marx refers to in the *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863* as the "real subsumption of labor under capital." [3]3 "Real subsumption of labor under capital" (劳动对资本实质上的从属) refers to the stage in capitalist production where the worker's labor is formally and substantively organized according to capital's requirements, in contrast to formal subsumption, where pre-existing labor processes are merely placed under capitalist command. "The worker is no longer the principal agent of the production process but stands alongside it." This implies the inherent tendency toward the dissolution of the capitalist mode of production: "Once direct forms of labor cease to be the great source of wealth, labor time ceases to be, and must necessarily cease to be, the measure of wealth, and hence exchange value ceases to be the measure of use value." Marx further argues: "Capital itself is the contradiction in process, because it strives to reduce labor time to a minimum, while on the other hand it makes labor time the sole measure and source of wealth... productive forces and social relations... appear to capital merely as means, merely as means through which capital produces from its limited foundation. But in reality, they are the material conditions for blasting this foundation apart." From this line of argument, it seems that when the logic of capital develops to the stage of large-scale machine industry, it completely absorbs the logic of production as a "means" into its formal determination. However, these two logics themselves—one demands the extension of direct labor time, the other demands its reduction. When these two logics merge into one at the stage of large-scale machine industry, this manifests as the logic of capital demanding both the extension and the reduction of direct labor time, which leads to the collapse of capital's own production based on exchange value. We note that the above line of argument is entirely based on the dimension of "exchange value—logic of capital," while the dimension of "use value—material production" seems to exist only as a "means" absorbed by the logic of capital. Therefore, the collapse of the logic of capital lies in the self-negating character of this production based on exchange value as it develops to the stage of large-scale machine industry. But we believe that this is not Marx's actual historical line of reasoning for demonstrating the collapse of capital, but rather only a prospect for future social trends. We see that in a later part of this same passage, Marx points out: "The most developed machine system now compels the worker to labor longer than the savage does, or longer than he himself did with the simplest and crudest tools." In the section on "Machinery and Large-Scale Industry" in *Capital*, Marx more directly points out the "economic paradox" of the capitalist application of machinery: "The most powerful means for shortening labor time becomes the most reliable means for transforming the entire lifetime of the worker and his family into labor time at capital's disposal for the valorization of capital." The capitalist application of machinery instead extends direct labor time, which shows that the above line of reasoning demonstrating the logic of capital's collapse is not Marx's final conclusion. In *Capital*, we find that Marx does not proceed from the single formal determination of capital based on exchange value and valorization to expound the law of the inevitable demise of capitalism, but rather develops this exposition from the contradictory movement of use value and value, which is centrally embodied in Marx's theory of economic crisis.

在当今国内外学界，很多学者以《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中著名的“机器论片断”为例，指出在这里存在一种从资本作为运动主体的形式规定出发论证其自否性逻辑的思路。这一思路将资本逻辑（价值增殖逻辑）作为运动的主体，而生产逻辑（使用价值的生产）则只是资本逻辑运作的手段，是资本逻辑外化并扬弃的一个阶段。表面看来，这里似乎确实存在这种文本依据。我们看到，马克思在此处指出，机器体系作为固定资本的资本主义运用，使得资本真正成为劳动过程的“主体”，即马克思在《1861—1863年经济学手稿》中指出的，“劳动对资本实质上的从属”。“工人不再是生产过程的主要作用者，而是站在生产过程的旁边。”这就蕴含了资本主义生产方式解体的内在趋势：“一旦直接形式的劳动不再是财富的巨大源泉，劳动时间就不再是，而且必然不再是财富的尺度，因而交换价值也不再是使用价值的尺度。”马克思进一步论证：“资本本身是处于过程中的矛盾，因为它竭力把劳动时间缩减到最低限度，另一方面又使劳动时间成为财富的唯一尺度和源泉……生产力和社会关系……对于资本来说仅仅表现为手段，仅仅是资本用来从它的有限的基础出发进行生产的手段。但是，实际上它们是炸毁这个基础的物质条件。”从这种论证思路来看，似乎资本逻辑发展到机器大工业阶段，就完全把生产逻辑作为“手段”吸纳进其形式规定中。然而，上述这两种逻辑本身一方要求延长直接劳动时间，一方要求缩短直接劳动时间。当这两种逻辑在机器大工业阶段合二为一时，就表现为资本逻辑既要求延长直接劳动时间，又要求缩短直接劳动时间，这就导致了资本逻辑建立在交换价值基础上的生产自身的崩溃。我们注意到，上述论证思路完全是基于“交换价值—资本逻辑”维度，而“使用价值—物质生产”维度似乎只是作为被资本逻辑所吸纳的“手段”而存在。因此，资本逻辑的崩溃在于这种基于交换价值的生产发展到机器大工业阶段的自否性特征。但我们以为，这并不是马克思论证资本崩溃的现实历史思路，而只是对未来社会趋势的展望。我们看到，在这一段论述中稍后的部分，马克思就指出：“最发达的机器体系现在迫使工人比野蛮人劳动的时间还要长，或者比他自己过去用最简单、最粗笨的工具时劳动的时间还要长。”在《资本论》中“机器和大工业”部分，马克思更直接地指出了机器的资本主义运用带来的“经济学上的悖论”：“缩短劳动时间的最有力的手段，竟变为把工人及其家属的全部生活时间转化为受资本支配的增殖资本价值的劳动时间的最可靠的手段。”机器的资本主义运用反而延长了直接劳动时间，可见上文中的论证资本崩溃逻辑的思路并不是马克思的最终结论。在《资本论》中，我们发现马克思并非从资本基于交换价值和价值增殖的单一形式规定性出发，阐述资本主义必然灭亡的规律，而是从使用价值与价值的矛盾运动出发展开这一论述，这集中体现在马克思的经济危机理论中。

Marx's great transcendence of the classical political economists lies precisely in his distinction between labor power and labor, and in his pointing out the important difference between the use value and the value of the commodity of labor power, thereby achieving the theoretical construction of the critique of surplus value. Marx points out: "The past labor contained in labor power and the living labor that labor power can provide, the daily maintenance cost of labor power and the daily expenditure of labor power, are two completely different quantities. The former determines its exchange value, the latter constitutes its use value." And within the horizon of the critique of surplus value, the use value and the value of the commodity of labor power not only have a difference (and a differential), but also have a relation of opposition. The capitalist always hopes to lower the worker's wage while increasing the value of the commodities the worker creates, that is, the dimension of the use value of the commodity of labor power. According to the basic law of the exploitation of surplus value, which is the continuous raising of the rate of surplus value (m' = m/v), the opposition between the use value and the value of the commodity of labor power tends to become increasingly acute, manifesting as the contradiction between the production of surplus value and the realization of surplus value. On the one hand, the pursuit of surplus value and the rate of surplus value drives the capitalist to expand reproduction frantically, producing vast quantities of wealth; on the other hand, also under the operation of the law of surplus value, the proletariat is always in a position of relative poverty with limited consumption capacity, which leads to the inability to sell commodities completely, the inability to complete the realization of surplus value, and thus the inability of capital to circulate and turn over smoothly, and in extreme cases economic crises arise.

马克思对于古典政治经济学家的伟大超越正在于区分了劳动力与劳动，并指出劳动力商品的使用价值与价值之间的重要区别，从而实现了剩余价值批判的理论建构。马克思指出：“包含在劳动力中的过去劳动和劳动力所能提供的活劳动，劳动力一天的维持费和劳动力一天的耗费，是两个完全不同的量。前者决定它的交换价值，后者构成它的使用价值。”而在剩余价值批判的视域中，劳动力商品的使用价值与价值不仅具有差别（及差额），而且还具有对立的关系。资本家总是希望降低工人的工资，而增加工人所创造的商品价值，即劳动力商品的使用价值维度。按照不断提高剩余价值率（m'= m/v）这一剩余价值剥削的基本规律，劳动力商品的使用价值与价值之间的对立不断趋于尖锐化，表现为剩余价值的生产和剩余价值的实现之间的矛盾。一方面，对于剩余价值和剩余价值率的追求，使得资本家拼命扩大再生产，生产出大量财富；另一方面，也是在剩余价值规律的作用下，无产阶级总是处于相对贫困的地位，消费能力有限，这就导致商品无法完全卖出，剩余价值的实现无法完成，从而使得资本无法顺利循环周转，极端情况就会产生经济危机。

There is always a contradiction between the "anarchic character" of production in the process by which capital produces use-values (the logic of production) and the formal determination of the logic of capital based on "exchange-value—valorization." The latter cannot in fact fully absorb the former; on the contrary, the two are always in contradiction, and this contradiction does not manifest itself as that self-negation of "direct labor time" which is both shortened and lengthened discussed above, but rather as the unevenness of capitalist production. Ricardo and other classical economists subscribed to "Say's Law," holding that supply and demand under capitalism always naturally maintain equilibrium, and this is indeed the ideal state required by the development of the logic of capital itself. For only on the premise of such equilibrium can capital smoothly transform from one form to another, thereby completing circulation and turnover—this is the pure formal determination of capital's self-valorization. But Marx precisely points out that under capitalist conditions, the premise of this "equilibrium" does not exist. For capitalist production is production based on private property and the universal division of labor; it is not the production of pre-capitalist conditions in which "supply creates its own demand," that is, producing only what is needed. In criticizing Ricardo, Marx points out that the limit of capitalist production is not demand but profit. Tracing this logically, the separation in time and space of buying and selling brought about by the emergence of money potentially implies this imbalance between supply and demand, which Marx calls the possibility of capitalist economic crisis. Under the conditions of surplus-value production, this possibility becomes necessity, because the operation of the law of surplus value causes capitalists to expand production blindly, which ultimately leads to imbalance in production between the two major departments, the production of means of production and the production of means of subsistence. This "anarchic character" of production makes the "solidity" of the existence of "use-value" a real obstacle that shatters the ideal operation of the formal determination of capital's valorization, rather than a stage that can be sublated in the movement of the logic of capital. At this point, capital is no longer that "formal determination" which pays no attention to the concrete use-value of commodities or to what the concrete content of capital (the use-value of the means of production) actually is, but finally takes note that material production based on the dimension of use-value is the social-historical premise and operational foundation of its existence. After all, it is of crucial importance whether these means of production are rubber that the capitalist urgently needs but which is in short supply on the market, or linen that exists as a huge inventory but cannot be sold. Marx's argument here is precisely to point out that the economic crisis of capitalism does not lie in the self-negation of the logic of capital; the logic of capital as a formal determination is itself purely abstract, but in real material production it is transformed into a real contradictoriness of capitalist production. This is concentratedly expressed in the resistance of use-value to the self-operation of "exchange-value and valorization," and this antagonism ultimately erupts in economic crisis.

资本在生产使用价值过程（生产逻辑）中的生产的“无政府性质”，与基于“交换价值—价值增殖”的资本逻辑的形式规定之间总是存在矛盾。后者事实上无法将前者完全吸纳，相反，两者总是处于矛盾之中，这种矛盾并不表现为前文中那种“直接劳动时间”既缩短又延长的自我否定，而是表现为资本主义生产的不平衡。李嘉图等国民经济学家信奉“萨伊定律”，认为资本主义的供给与需求总是自然地保持平衡，这确实是资本逻辑自身发展所需要的理想状态。因为只有以这种平衡为前提，资本才能顺利从一种形态转化为另一种形态，从而完成循环与周转，这就是资本自我增殖的纯粹形式规定。但马克思恰恰指出，在资本主义条件下，这种“平衡”的前提是不存在的。因为资本主义生产是基于私有制和普遍分工基础上的生产，它不是前资本主义条件下“供给会创造自己需求”的生产，即需要什么才生产什么。马克思在批评李嘉图时就指出，资本主义生产的界限不是需求，而是利润。从逻辑上追溯，货币的产生所带来的买卖的时空分离就潜在隐含了这种供给和需求的不平衡性，马克思称之为资本主义经济危机的可能性。而在剩余价值生产的条件下，这种可能性成为必然性，因为剩余价值规律的作用，使得资本家盲目扩大生产，这最终会导致生产资料的生产和生活资料的生产这两大部类生产的不平衡，这种生产的“无政府性”使得“使用价值”存在的“坚实性”成为捣碎资本增殖的形式规定理想运作的现实障碍，而并非一个可以在资本逻辑运动中扬弃的阶段。此时的资本就不再是那个毫不关注商品具体使用价值、资本具体内容（生产资料的使用价值）究竟是什么的“形式规定”，而是终于注意到这种基于使用价值维度的物质生产才是其存在的社会历史前提与运作基础。毕竟，这种生产资料是资本家亟须而又在市场上短缺的橡胶，还是作为庞大库存却卖不出去的麻布，是至关重要的。马克思如此论述正是为了指出，资本主义的经济危机不在于资本逻辑的自否性，资本逻辑作为一种形式规定本身是纯粹抽象的，而在现实的物质生产中，它转化为一种资本主义生产的现实的矛盾性。这集中体现在使用价值对“交换价值和价值增殖”自行运转的抵抗中，这种对抗最终在经济危机中爆发。

It can thus be seen that in Marx's critique of political economy, the social-critical effect of the concept of use-value has rich theoretical layers. The anthropological dimension of "usefulness," which Western left-wing scholars regard as the fundamental attribute of the concept of use-value, is not the only dimension of use-value that Marx concerns himself with.

可见，在马克思的政治经济学批判中，使用价值概念的社会批判效应具有丰富的理论层次。被西方左翼学者视为使用价值概念根本属性的“有用性”的人类学维度，并不是马克思所关注的使用价值的唯一向度。

II. Three Aspects of the Critique of the Alienated Power of Use-Value in Contemporary Western Left-wing Social Critical Theory

二、当代西方左翼社会批判理论中使用价值异化权力批判的三重面向

With the new changes in the mechanisms of capital's domination in contemporary Western society, and the theoretical turn in the overall logic of Western Marxism, contemporary Western left-wing social critical theorists have abandoned the theoretical approach in Marx's critique of political economy that highlights the social-critical dimension of "use-value" through the contradictory movement of use-value and value, and have instead turned to a critique of alienated power that proceeds from use-value, mediated by exchange-value, being alienated into the "spectacle" and "sign-value," in order to carry out a critique of capitalist society.

随着当代西方社会资本统治机制的新变化，以及西方马克思主义整体逻辑的理论转向，当代西方左翼社会批判理论家已经抛弃了马克思政治经济学批判中，以使用价值与价值的矛盾运动而彰显“使用价值”之社会批判维度的理论思路，转而以使用价值由于交换价值的中介，异化为“景观”“符号价值”的异化权力批判思路展开资本主义社会批判。

In Debord's view, the use-value of commodities is alienated from satisfying people's life needs to satisfying the imaginary "pseudo-needs" constructed by capital. In this sense, the "spectacle" constructs a new religion of the capitalist commodity world. If Marx's reified society is an inverted society in which relations between things conceal relations between people, then today's society of the spectacle manifests itself as further separation and abstraction: people's real relations of intercourse and production are not only concealed by things, but are directly replaced by the imaginary relations constructed by the spectacle. "Reality emerges as spectacle, and spectacle is reality. This mutual alienation is the support and essence of the existing society." The spectacle directly impersonates reality—this is a second iteration of the capitalist reified society. Thus, commodity and money fetishism is upgraded to spectacle fetishism. In this society of the spectacle, exchange-value was formerly only the agent of use-value, but today it has finally succeeded in controlling use-value, and that dimension of use-value's natural attributes which remained outside the logic of capital has ultimately failed to escape the clutches of capital. "According to the validity of exchange-value, use-value becomes purely something to be looked at," no longer for the satisfaction of people's life needs. "In the spectacle, the totality of use-value has already been replaced by the totality of abstract representation." The essence of this spectacle is a satisfaction of the illusory "pseudo-needs" constructed by capital, as Debord puts it, "a gilded poverty." Through the construction and control of the spectacle, capital not only strengthens its function of economic exploitation but also exercises its ideological function and its power of domination over subjects.

在德波看来，商品的使用价值从满足人们的生活需求异化为满足资本所建构起来的想象性的“伪需求”。在这一意义上，“景观”建构起了资本主义商品世界新的宗教。如果说马克思的物化社会是一个以物的关系掩盖人的关系的颠倒的社会，那么今天的景观社会则显现为进一步的分离和抽象，人们真实的交往关系、生产关系不仅被物所掩盖，更被景观所建构的想象性关系所直接替代。“现实显现为景观，景观就是现实。这种彼此的异化乃是现存社会的支撑与本质。”景观直接冒充现实，这是对资本主义物化社会的二次迭代。由此，商品和货币拜物教升级为景观拜物教。在这一景观社会中，交换价值过去只是使用价值的代理人，而如今终于成功地控制了使用价值，使用价值那个游离在资本逻辑以外的自然属性的维度，也最终难逃资本的魔爪。“根据交换价值的有效性，使用价值变得纯粹是被观看的”，不再为了满足人们的生活需求。“在景观中，使用价值总体已经被替换为抽象表征的总体”。这种景观的实质就是一种对资本所建构起的虚幻的“伪需求”的满足，正如德波所说的“一种镀金的贫穷”。资本通过对景观的建构与控制，不仅强化了经济剥削功能，而且施行其意识形态功能与主体统治权力。

Baudrillard's profound insight lies in directly linking the economic concept of "use-value" with the power mechanism of "subject identification," thereby criticizing political economy—including Marx's critique of political economy—for its complicity with capitalist society. In *The Mirror of Production* (1972), Baudrillard identifies Marx's dialectic of use-value and exchange-value as a vast secondary design: "The discourse of production and the discourse of representation form a mirror in which the system of political economy reflects itself into the imaginary, and in the imaginary reproduces itself as the determining instance." According to Baudrillard's understanding, Marx criticized exchange-value but in turn affirmed the overdetermination of use-value. "Use-value—labor—productivity" becomes the unsurpassable boundary of the critique of political economy and the "destiny" from which humanity cannot escape. In Baudrillard's view, in the development of contemporary capitalism, what truly requires our vigilance is precisely a certain "subject identification" constructed by "use-value—labor—productivity." In consumer society, it constructs us as "consumers": "need—usefulness" is not an anthropological natural necessity; "needs exist only because the system itself requires them to exist." In production, it constructs us as "workers": "There is not only a quantitative exploitation of the person as labor power by the system of capitalist political economy, but also a metaphysical 'overdetermination' of the person as producer by the code of political economy." Thus, "use-value"—such an economic concept, one in fact constructed by "exchange-value"—has actually become the "generic" determination of human self-identification, namely, taking oneself entirely as a subject with the dual potential of needs and labor power.

鲍德里亚的深刻洞见，在于将“使用价值”这一经济学概念直接与“主体认同”的权力机制联系在一起，从而批评政治经济学，甚至包括马克思的政治经济学批判与资本主义社会的同谋属性。在1972年的《生产之镜》中，鲍德里亚将马克思的使用价值与交换价值的辩证法指认为一个庞大的二次设计，“生产的话语与表现的话语构成了一面镜子，在这面镜子中，政治经济学体系自行反射到想象之镜中，又在想象中自行重现为决定性机关”。按照鲍德里亚的理解，马克思批判了交换价值，却反过来肯定了使用价值的超级决定。“使用价值—劳动—生产率”成为政治经济学批判无法逾越的边界和人类无法走出的“命中注定”。在鲍德里亚看来，在当代资本主义的发展中，真正需要引起我们警惕的恰恰是“使用价值—劳动—生产率”所建构的某种“主体认同”。在消费社会中，它将我们建构为“消费者”，“需要—有用性”并不是人类学意义上的自然必然性，“需要的存在只是因为体系本身必需它们存在”。在生产中，它将我们建构为“劳动者”：“不仅存在一种资本主义政治经济学体系对作为劳动力的人所施行的数量上的剥削，还存在一种由政治经济学代码对作为生产者的人所作的形而上学的‘超级决定’。”从而，“使用价值”这样一个经济学概念，一个事实上是由“交换价值”所建构起来的概念，竟然成了人类自我认同的“种属”规定，即把自己完全当作具有需求和劳动力的双重潜力的主体。

If Debord revealed that use-value in the society of the spectacle assumes a new form of fetishism presented as "pseudo-needs," and Baudrillard announced the dual subject-identification mechanism of "need/labor" implicit in capitalism, then Agamben revealed that capitalism constructs an unprofanable sovereign power through consumption and the spectacle. In *In Praise of Profanation* from the 1990s, Agamben pointed out that the power mechanism of capitalism is to further universalize and purify the "separation" structure originating in Christianity, making profanation of this separation almost impossible. In the commodity, the act of consumption is in fact a declaration of the impossibility of "use." For "consumption, which necessarily destroys things, is precisely the impossibility of use or the negation of use, (because) use presupposes that the substance of the thing remains untouched." Just as the sacrificed, once consecrated, can no longer be used by mortals unless through the procedure of "profanation." In the commodity economy of capitalism, once a thing becomes a commodity, it is placed in the sphere of consumption or the spectacle and can no longer be "used." "They are stripped from themselves and placed in such a separated zone: this sphere no longer defines any substantive distinction, and here all use becomes impossible and will remain impossible. This sphere is consumption. If, as suggested earlier, we use the term 'spectacle' to denote the extreme phase of capitalism in which we now live—a phase in which everything is exhibited in its separation from itself—then spectacle and consumption are two sides of the same impossibility of use." Agamben believes that the reason the faithful of neo-capitalism always experience pain and misfortune in consumption is that in consumption and ownership, what they experience is only the impossibility of use, the impossibility of profanation. In other words, the use-value of the commodity as a thing in the anthropological sense—the satisfaction of real needs of life—cannot be realized under capitalist relations of ownership and in consumption. Agamben even emphasizes that in this sense, "today everything becomes a museum, because (the museum) this term refers merely to the exhibition of an impossibility of use, of dwelling, and of experience." At this point, Agamben raises a question: is this capitalist religion based on the mechanism of separation unprofanable? In other words, can we open up new dimensions of use for things beyond consumption?

如果说德波揭示了使用价值在景观社会中以“伪需求”形式所呈现的新型拜物教形态，鲍德里亚宣布了资本主义所暗含的“需求/劳动力”双重主体认同机制，那么阿甘本则揭示出资本主义通过消费与景观所建构起了不可亵渎的统治权力。在20世纪90年代的《渎神礼赞》中，阿甘本指出，资本主义的权力机制就是将肇始于基督教的“分隔”结构进一步普遍化和纯粹化，使得对于这种分隔的亵渎几乎不可能。在商品中，消费行为事实上就是一种对“使用”之不可能性的宣示。因为“必然损毁事物的消费，完全就是使用的不可能性或者说对使用的否定，（因为）使用的预设是，事物实质不被触动”。正如被献祭者一旦奉圣就不可再供凡人使用，除非经过“渎神”的程序。而在资本主义的商品经济中，物一旦成为商品，就被置入消费或景观的领域中，不可再被“使用”。“它们被剥离自身，并被置入这样一个分隔的区域：这个领域不再界定任何实质性的区分，在这里，一切使用都变得不可能并将一直不可能。这个领域就是消费。假如，正如先前暗示的那样，我们用‘景观’这个术语来表示如今我们生活在其中的资本主义的极端阶段——在此阶段，一切事物都在与自身的分隔中被展示——的话，景观和消费就是同一种使用之不可能性的两面。”阿甘本认为，新资本主义的信徒之所以在消费中总是体验到痛苦和不幸，就是因为在消费和所有权中，它们体验到的只是使用的不可能性，是亵渎的不可能性。换言之，商品作为人类学意义上的物的使用价值，那种对生活的真实需求的满足，在资本主义的所有权关系与消费中，是不可能实现的。阿甘本甚至强调，在这一意义上，“今天一切事物都变成了博物馆，因为（博物馆）这个术语指的仅仅是（对）某种使用的、寓居的和经验的不可能性的展出”。至此，阿甘本提出了一个问题，资本主义的这种基于分隔机制的宗教是否是不可亵渎的？换言之，我们能否打开物在消费以外的新的使用维度？

In Agamben's view, as a profanation of this separation, we might imagine a pure means detached from ends. In *The Glory of the Body* [n7], although Agamben is not discussing commodities, he similarly expresses appreciation for interrupting the connection between organs and functions and opening new ways of using organs through "inoperativity": "At this point, inoperativity removes the spell from the body, turning it toward a new possible common use," thereby excavating the potential once sealed off by specific separations. In *In Praise of Profanation*, he also mentions breaking the connection between ends and means through play, so that action becomes a pure means detached from established ends, such as the Neapolitans' reworking and reuse of discarded old objects. Yet this playful interruption is only temporary in capitalist society. What is more despairing is that "in its extreme phase, capitalism is nothing but a gigantic apparatus for capturing pure means, that is, an apparatus for capturing profanation. Pure means—means that represent/re-present the suspension and interruption of all separations—are in turn separated into a particular sphere." For example, when a commodity shifts from the sphere of consumption to the sphere of the spectacle and merely displays itself, this means of display is detached from its (consumption) end and points only to itself. This could originally have served as a kind of profanation resisting the original separation, but it points instead to idle spinning and nihilism: it has once again been captured by capitalism, which declares this new way of opening invalid. The spectacle is not a resistance to consumer society but its radicalization, a new power mechanism of capitalism. Agamben points out: "The goal of the religion of capitalism in its extreme phase is to create something absolutely unprofanable."

在阿甘本看来，作为对这种分隔的亵渎，我们也许可以想象一种脱离目的的纯粹手段。在《荣耀的身体》里，阿甘本虽然谈论的不是商品，但同样以“无功用性”表达了对通过中断器官与功能的联系，而打开器官新的使用方式的赞赏：“这时无功用性去除了身体上的魔咒，使它朝向一种新的可能的公共用途”，从而挖掘出曾经被特定的分隔所封禁的潜能。在《渎神礼赞》中，他也提及以游戏的方式打破目的和手段的联系，从而使行为成为一种脱离既定目的的纯粹手段，比如那不勒斯人对于废弃旧物的重新改造与使用。然而这种游戏般的打断在资本主义社会中只是暂时的。更令人绝望的是，“就其极端阶段而言，资本主义不过就是一架以捕捉纯粹的手段为目的，也就是说，为捕捉渎神行为（而设）的庞大装置。纯粹的手段——这些手段再现/表征了对所有分隔的停用和中断——反过来又被分隔到一个特别的领域”。比如当商品从消费领域转向景观领域，仅仅展示自身时，这种展示手段就脱离了它的（消费）目的而仅仅指向自身。这本来可以作为反抗原有区隔的某种亵渎，但却指向了一种空转和虚无：它已经再一次被资本主义所捕获，并宣布这种新的打开方式无效，景观不是对消费社会的抵抗，而是其极端化，是资本主义新的权力机制。阿甘本指出：“极端阶段的资本主义宗教的目标，就在于创造某种绝对不可亵渎的东西。”

If Debord's theory of the society of the spectacle revealed the new fetishistic form of use-value in its dimension of "usefulness" that captivates people in the new phase of capitalism, and Baudrillard further excavated the mechanism of capitalist subject-identification's sovereign power implemented through the concept of use-value, then Agamben, with his distinctive theory of "separation," declared the impossibility of profaning this capitalist power mechanism based on consumption and the spectacle, thereby indicating the failure of all efforts by subjects to resist the capitalist apparatus of power. The worship of "pseudo-needs" constructed by sign-value and display-value, the construction of consumer subject-identification, and the impossibility of "use" under capitalist ownership—these revelations of social-critical effects based on the dimension of "use-value"—have become important foundations for the critique of alienated power by contemporary Western left-wing thinkers. The use-value of commodities in contemporary capitalism has been alienated from the natural usefulness of things into an illusory usefulness based on the mechanism of capitalist power domination, and humanity's natural need for the use-value of things has also been alienated into the subject's "pseudo-needs." Use-value has acquired new social-critical effects within the harness of the alienated-power critical discourse of the "subject–power structure."

如果说德波的景观社会理论揭示了使用价值以其“有用性”维度在资本主义新阶段所表现出的让人痴迷的新型拜物教形式，鲍德里亚进一步挖掘出使用价值概念所贯彻的资本主义主体认同的统治权力机制，阿甘本则以其特别的“区隔”理论，宣告了对资本主义基于消费和景观的这种权力机制的亵渎之不可能性，从而指示了一切主体反抗资本权力装置的努力之失效。对于符号价值与展示价值所建构的“伪需求”的崇拜、对于消费者的主体认同之建构、对于资本主义所有权下之“使用”的不可能性这些基于“使用价值”维度社会批判效应的揭示，成为当代西方左翼思想家异化权力批判的重要基点。当代资本主义商品的使用价值从物的自然有用性异化为基于资本权力统治机制的虚幻的有用性，而人类对于物的使用价值的自然需求也异化为主体的“伪需求”。使用价值在“主体—权力结构”的异化权力批判话语的座驾中获得了新的社会批判效应。

III. Methodological Reflections on the Critique of Alienated Power through Use-Value

三、使用价值异化权力批判的方法论反思

Since the 1970s, the micro-power of capital (or through the mediation of the state) in disciplining and shaping the "subject" has been rapidly penetrating every pore of society. The theory of alienated power critique in this article refers mainly to this theoretical configuration. Power has transformed from a top-down oppressive force into a technical apparatus of discipline and governance that shapes the "subject" through micro-spheres of daily life such as the market, the factory, and education—in short, a "productive" mechanism of power. This is especially evident in the sphere of consumption, where everyone situated within it can feel this power technology in consumer society. In order to create new points of profit growth, capital on the one hand continuously manufactures new needs, and on the other hand, for the sake of "controllability and calculability," guides and disciplines human desires and needs, so that people's needs remain forever under capital's control. The collusion of contemporary technology and capital provides a further breeding ground for the upgrading of this alienated dominating power of use-value. Under the digital economy, everything in social life can have use-value, become spectacle, and thus be monetized, even things that in the past seemed completely useless; the statistics of consumption big data can precisely push needs based on people's shopping preferences, constructing the subject-identification of the "consumer man," as if consumption were the only possibility for us to realize freedom and the good life. Use-value can continuously unlock various new forms, yet this desiring/consuming subject model is disciplined into the "unprofanable" basic mode of our existence, so that we may be captured by capital at any time. The individual is shaped by the mechanism of "subjectivation," and their body, thought, desire, and even their entire life are hosts for capital to suck upon, connected in every dimension to the need/usefulness dimension. Through this power technology in the consumption process, capital not only obtains profit but, more importantly, continuously strengthens its ideology and sovereign power. In this sense, Debord, Baudrillard, and Agamben are all profound.

20世纪70年代以来，资本（或借由国家的中介）对于“主体”规训与形塑的微观权力正在迅速渗透进社会的每个毛孔，本文的异化权力批判理论主要指这种理论构型。权力由一种自上而下的压迫性的力量，转变为一种通过市场、工厂、教育等日常生活的微观领域而展开“主体”塑型的规训与治理的技术装置，概言之，一种“生产性”的权力机制。这一点在消费领域中表现尤甚，置身其中的每一个人都可以感受到消费社会中的这种权力技术。为了制造新的利润增长点，资本一方面不断制造着新的需求，另一方面为了“可控制可计算”，又引导、规训了人的欲望和需求，使得人们的需求永远处于资本的控制之下。而当代技术与资本的合谋，为这种使用价值的异化统治权力提供了进一步升级的温床。数字经济下，社会生活中的一切都可以具有使用价值，成为景观，从而变现，即便是在过去看来完全无用的东西；消费大数据的统计学可以根据人们的购物偏好，精准推送需求，建构了“消费人”的主体认同，仿佛消费是我们实现自由与美好生活的唯一可能。使用价值可以不断解锁各种新的形态，而这种欲望/消费的主体模式却被规训为我们存在的“不可亵渎”的基本方式，以便我们随时被资本捕获。个体被“主体化”机制形塑，其身体、思想、欲望，乃至整个生命都是供资本吮吸的寄主，都在各个维度上与需求/有用性维度相联结。通过这种消费过程中的权力技术，资本不仅获取了利润，更重要的是不断强化着它的意识形态与统治权力。在这个意义上，德波、鲍德里亚和阿甘本都是深刻的。

However, in the face of this theoretical turn in the discourse of capitalist social critique based on use-value, can we conclude that Marx's political-economic critique of use-value has today become invalid? There is no denying that capitalism has undergone many new changes since the 1960s, and the theoretical turn of contemporary Western left-wing theorists can indeed reflect, to a certain extent, these latest changes in capitalism; yet how we grasp such changes theoretically is another question. The flourishing of this discourse of power critique in fact signifies a certain retreat of position on the part of the leftist camp, even its degeneration into a new form of bourgeois ideology. Within this theoretical configuration:

然而，面对基于使用价值的资本主义社会批判话语的这种理论转向，我们是否就能认为马克思关于使用价值的政治经济学批判话语在今天已然失效？不容否认，20世纪60年代以来的资本主义发生了很多新变化，当代西方左翼理论家的理论转向确实能在一定程度上反映这种资本主义的最新变化，而我们如何从理论上把握这种变化，则是另一个问题。这种权力批判理论的勃兴，事实上意味着左翼阵营在一定程度上的立场退却，甚至沦为一种资产阶级意识形态的新形式。在这种理论构型中：

First, the scientific theory of the movement of contradictions is replaced by the discourse of power critique. In Marx's theoretical construction, use-value is one of the two factors of the commodity, and the contradictory movement of use-value and value plays an important role in the scientific narrative of capitalist economic crises, while also manifesting its social-critical significance on the basis of the objective logic of capital's movement. In the power critique of consumer society and the society of the spectacle, however, the dimension of use-value is in essence the dimension of productive forces, detached from the contradictory movement with relations of production, and in a technological narrative it highlights capitalism's novel structures of power and technologies of power. When productive forces are detached from the dimension of the contradictory movement with relations of production, and use-value is detached from the dimension of the contradictory movement with value, its criticality can only be expressed through the intuitively perceived surface of capitalist society and through the alienated phenomena of use-value mediated by exchange-value. For instance, use-value is alienated in its dimension of need/usefulness into spectacle, signs, and mechanisms of power. Is the critique of this accomplished merely by revealing such alienation, or by studying the operation of such technologies of power? The revelation of the historical-essential logic behind this alienation and the revelation of the laws of capital's operation are both labeled "grand narrative" and "essentialism." They believe that remaining at the empirical level of technological narrative can avoid every form of "reductionism," yet is this critical theory based on empirical research itself not also a kind of "reductionism"? Within the discursive configuration of power critique, Marxist scientific theory regresses once again to a "critique of religion" that reveals the alienated phenomena of capitalism.

第一，矛盾运动的科学理论被权力批判话语所取代。在马克思的理论建构中，使用价值是商品的二因素之一，使用价值与价值的矛盾运动在资本主义经济危机的科学叙事中发挥了重要作用，同时也基于这种资本运动的客观逻辑而彰显其社会批判意义。而在消费社会和景观社会的权力批判中，使用价值的维度实质上是生产力的维度，脱离了与生产关系的矛盾运动，在一种技术学的叙事中，凸显资本主义崭新的权力结构和权力技术。当生产力脱离与生产关系的矛盾运动维度、使用价值脱离与价值的矛盾运动维度时，其批判性就只能通过直观到的资本主义社会表面、使用价值因为交换价值的中介而呈现出的异化现象表现出来。比如使用价值在其需求/有用性维度上异化为景观、符号、权力机制。对此的批判是否仅仅停留在揭示这种异化，或者研究这种权力技术的运作，就已经完成了呢？对于这种异化背后的历史本质逻辑的揭示、资本逻辑运行规律的揭示，却都被贴上“宏大叙事”“本质主义”的标签。他们认为只停留于技术学叙事的实证层面就可以避免一切形态的“还原论”，而这种基于实证经验研究的批判理论本身难道就不是一种“还原论”？在权力批判的话语构型中，马克思主义的科学理论，又退回到揭示资本主义异化现象的“宗教批判”。

Second, class analysis is replaced by "subject identification." The revolutionary subject is no longer the proletariat, but rather people shaped by various mechanisms of "subjectivation," such as the "debtor," the "mediatized person," the "surveilled person," and the "represented person" identified by Negri, as well as the "consumer" and the "laborer" in Baudrillard's writings. The various "subjects" and their corresponding mechanisms of power—or rather, the power relations manifested in the sphere of reproduction between capital and the subjects it constructs—are the focus of analysis and critique, while the labor-capital relation in the production process and its law of exploitation of surplus value tend to become invisible. The proletariat is not only further concealed in the surface phenomena of contemporary capitalist social life, but has also completely disappeared in the theories of Western left-wing thinkers; the proletariat has been replaced by various "subjects" captured by apparatuses of power.

第二，阶级分析被“主体识别”所取代。革命主体不再是无产阶级，而是被各种“主体化”机制所形塑的人，比如奈格里所指出的“债务人”“被媒介化的人”“被监控的人”“被代表的人”等，以及鲍德里亚笔下的“消费者”与“劳动者”。各种“主体”及其相应的权力机制，或者说资本与其所建构的主体之间在再生产领域所表现出的权力关系是分析与批判的重点，而生产过程中的劳资关系，及其剩余价值剥削规律则趋于不可见。无产阶级不仅在当代资本主义的社会生活的表象中进一步隐匿，而且在西方左翼思想家的理论中也彻底消失了，无产阶级已经被代之以被权力装置捕获的各种“主体”。

Third, the classical discourse of alienation critique of "reality/ought" makes its reappearance. When we everywhere attend to and identify various technologies of power, and imagine escape from the mechanisms of "subjectivation" imposed on individuals, we retreat once again to a romantic imagination of the innocent, original, pure atomic individual. Examples include Lefebvre's imagination of "appropriation," Agamben's imagination of "inoperativity," and Baudrillard's imagination of "symbolic exchange." This critical structure of alienation theory appears on the surface to be a critique of capitalism, but in reality it is a deeper identification with the illusory subject constructed by capitalism. The breaking of the false subject implies a return to a primordial individual. Just as Marx's critique of Feuerbach shows, the critique of the religion of capitalism ultimately reconstructs a religion of the "human." Behind the mechanisms of subjectivating power there is not some spotless individual, but rather the illusion of the atomic individual shaped by capitalist relations of production—this "subject presupposition" that exists in the unconscious of the everyday agents of capitalist life. Even the declaration of the "death of the subject" (Foucault and others) still turns in circles within the phantasm of the bourgeois "atomic individual" without any way out—it erases the real attributes of social relations and the stamp of class that actually adhere to the person, awaiting capture once again by mechanisms of power. In Foucault's words, this game of capture and free escape is endless.

第三，“现实/应该”的经典异化批判话语再度出场。当我们到处关注和识别各种权力技术，并想象对于个体的“主体化”机制之逃逸时，便又退回到对于无辜的、原始的、纯粹的原子式个体的浪漫主义想象中。比如列斐伏尔对于“取用”的想象，阿甘本对于“无功用性”的想象，鲍德里亚对于“象征交换”的想象。这种异化批判理论结构，表面上看起来是一种资本主义批判，实则是对于资本主义所建构的虚幻主体的更深层次的认同。对于虚假主体的破除，意味着复归于一个原初个体。正如马克思对费尔巴哈的批判那样，对于资本主义宗教的批判最终又重新建构了一种属“人”的宗教。主体化权力机制的背后不是某种一尘不染的个体，而是资本主义生产关系所塑造出来的原子式个体的假象，这个存在于资本主义日常生活当事人无意识中的“主体假设”。即便宣告“主体之死”（福柯等），也还是在资产阶级的“原子式个体”的幻象中打转而毫无出路——他抹除了身上真实存在的社会关系属性和阶级烙印，等待着被权力机制的再度捕获。用福柯的话说，这场捕获与自由逃脱的游戏，永无止境。

To escape this endlessly spinning and despairing "critical theory," we must return to the overall logic of Marx's political-economic critique, return to the scientific discourse of the contradictory movement of productive forces and relations of production, and re-examine the real socio-historical process of genesis of these "new forms" of use-value. Since the 1960s, capitalism has developed into a new stage "based on overconsumption." The consumption investment in goods and services is both its core driving force and the cause of its contradictions and crises. "Since the 1970s, the dominant mode of capital accumulation has shifted from pursuing profit through productive efficiency to pursuing profit through financial manipulation, which is more accurately termed speculation. The key mechanism of speculation is to encourage consumption through indebtedness." From this perspective, the principal contradiction and conflict of consumer society lies not in the mechanisms of power of use-value, but in the more essential contradiction of the mode of production. The substance of this contradiction is the imbalance between production and consumption that originates in the essence of capitalism. Owing to the law of exploitation of surplus value, the proletariat is always in a state of relative poverty and can only maintain a temporary balance with the ever-expanding scale of capitalist production through financial borrowing and consumption on debt. But this mode itself cannot fundamentally resolve capitalism's inherent imbalance; it only deepens the accumulation of crises, for resources, markets, and consumption capacity can by no means grow without limit—on the contrary, under the laws of capitalism they always exist in a contradictory, self-limiting manner. In this sense, the alienated power relations deployed in the sphere of consumption can only belong to the intuitive domain of the critique of everyday life; revealing them has a certain significance, but it itself also carries the ideological limitations arising from its intuitiveness. When capitalist economic crises erupt, the class relation between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie will replace the alienated power relation between subject and apparatus (structure), moving from behind the scenes of everyday life to the front of the stage.

要走出这种无限空转的令人绝望的“批判理论”，我们还需要回归马克思的政治经济学批判的整体逻辑，回归马克思生产力与生产关系矛盾运动的科学话语，重新审视这种使用价值“新形态”的真实社会历史发生过程。20世纪60年代以后的资本主义正发展到“以过度消费为基础”的新阶段。物品和服务的消费投资既是它的核心动力，同时也是矛盾和危机的原因。“1970年代以来，积累资本的主要模式从通过生产效率追求盈利转到了通过金融操纵追求盈利，后者更准确的说法就是投机。投机的关键机制就是通过鼓励欠债进行消费。”从这一角度看来，其实消费社会最主要的矛盾与冲突并不在于使用价值的权力机制中，而在于更为本质的生产方式的矛盾之中。这种矛盾的实质，是资本主义源于其本质的生产与消费的不平衡性。由于剩余价值剥削规律，无产阶级总是处于相对贫困状态，而只能通过以金融借贷、欠债消费的方式与资本主义生产的不断扩大的局面保持暂时的平衡。但是这种方式本身并不能彻底解决资本主义的内在不平衡性，而只会使得危机积累的程度日益深刻，毕竟资源、市场、消费能力都不可能是无限增长的，恰恰相反，在资本主义规律下它总是以矛盾的方式、自我限制的方式存在。在此意义上，由消费领域布展的异化权力关系，只能隶属于日常生活批判的直观领域，对其的揭示有一定意义，但它本身也存在由其直观性带来的意识形态局限性。当资本主义的经济危机爆发之后，无产阶级与资产阶级之间的阶级关系就会取代主体与装置（结构）之间的异化权力关系，而从日常生活的幕后走向台前。

Therefore, we especially emphasize a dialectical perspective combining contemporary Western left-wing power critique with Marx's political-economic critique: when we are lost amid capitalism's ever more refined, complex, and concealed mechanisms of power, identifying these new mechanisms of power time and again certainly has its significance, but we must more importantly locate precisely the status and function of these mechanisms of power within the inner logic of capitalist social development, and construct a critical theory of contemporary capitalist power based on the overall Marxist theory. This is especially important in the current upsurge of critique of digital capitalism.

因此，我们尤其强调一种当代西方左翼权力批判与马克思政治经济学批判的辩证视域：当我们迷失于资本主义越发精致、复杂又隐蔽的种种权力机制时，一次次识别这些新型权力机制固然有其意义，但我们更要从资本主义社会发展的内在逻辑中，准确定位这些权力机制的地位与作用，建构一种基于马克思主义整体理论的当代资本主义权力批判理论，这一点在当今对于数字资本主义的批判的热潮中也尤为重要。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心