Re-examining Marx's Historical Materialism: An Investigation Based on *The German Ideology*

Among the classical works of Marxism, *The German Ideology* (hereinafter referred to as *The Ideology*) undoubtedly occupies a special position. According to the general view in academic circles, in contrast to his earlier ideas, Marx here, together with Engels, developed a historical science in the true sense, namely historical materialism. It is a thorough rejection of the idealist tradition. This idealism reached its zenith in Hegel and, after his death, was revived in one form or another among the Hegelian Left. However, if we consider that Marx himself was once a member of the Hegelian Left, then the writing of *The Ideology* was both a "settling of accounts" with them and at the same time a self-criticism by Marx. In this self-criticism, Marx called his "former philosophical faith" an ideology opposed to science, and its basic meaning was precisely false ideas.

在马克思主义的经典著作中，《德意志意识形态》（以下简称《形态》）毫无疑问占据着一个特殊的地位。按照学界的一般看法，与他更早时期的想法相反，马克思在这里和恩格斯一起发展了一种真正意义上的历史科学，即唯物史观。它是对观念论传统的彻底拒斥。这种观念论在黑格尔那里臻于极致，并在他去世后，在黑格尔左派身上以这样或那样的形式复活。然而，如果我们考虑到马克思曾经也属于黑格尔左派中的一员，那么《形态》的写作，既是对他们的“清算”，同时也是马克思的一个自我批判。在这种自我批判中，马克思将自己“从前的哲学信仰”称作与科学相对立的意识形态，而其基本含义正是虚假观念。

However, for some scholars, the claim that Marx, after becoming a Marxist, had completely stood on the ground of science and achieved a separation from all ideology is an untenable assertion. For example, the French thinker Baudrillard held that Marx, in his worship of productivism, fell back into the trap of Western metaphysics, and that "the analytical tools he used against the capitalist order were precisely the most ingenious ideological illusions elaborated by capital." [1]1 Reference to Jean Baudrillard's critique of Marxism in *The Mirror of Production* (1973), where he argues that Marx's analysis of capital remains trapped within the categories of political economy and Western metaphysics. Then how exactly should we view the historical materialism developed in *The Ideology*? On this question, the author will answer specifically from the perspective of the history of thought, including Marx's own intellectual development, so as to clarify the nature of historical materialism as a historical science, draw a clear line between it and ideologies such as productivism, and at the same time deepen people's understanding and knowledge of classical texts.

然而，对于一些学者而言，声称成为马克思主义者之后的马克思已经完全站在科学的地盘上，实现了与一切意识形态的分道扬镳，这是一个不实的主张。比如，法国思想家鲍德里亚认为，马克思在对生产主义的崇拜中重新进入西方形而上学的圈套，“他用来反对资本秩序的分析工具，正是资本精心阐述的最巧妙的意识形态幻象”。那么，我们究竟应该如何来看待在《形态》中发展起来的唯物史观？对于这一问题，笔者将专门从思想史，包括马克思自己的思想发展过程这一角度来回答，以澄清唯物史观的历史科学性质，划清其与生产主义等意识形态的真正界线，同时深化人们对经典文本的理解和认识。

I. Historical Materialism as Practical Materialism

一、作为实践唯物主义的唯物史观

As is well known, *The Ideology* has always been regarded as the birthplace of historical materialism. This assertion is not entirely groundless; one important reason is that, similar to the Copernican revolution in astronomy, Marx likewise introduced a shift of perspective in the field of history. He not only moved from the traditional focus, namely ideas and concepts, to "crude matter," but, crucially, he explained the former on the basis of the latter. As Marx himself said, "German philosophy descends from heaven to earth; here it is the exact opposite, we ascend from earth to heaven." [2]2 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology* (1845–46), contrasting the Young Hegelians' descent from heaven to earth with their own ascent from earth to heaven. One radical consequence of this change in the mode of cognition is that those transcendent moral ideas in human society are degraded into disguises of secular material interests, thereby losing their lofty cloak. For example, in his critique of the "true socialists," Marx said that these German writers severed the communist ideas they had plagiarized from England and France from their "real movement," [3]3 "True socialism" (German: *wahrer Sozialismus*) was a trend among German intellectuals in the 1840s that translated French socialist ideas into abstract philosophical phrases, detached from actual class struggle; Marx and Engels attacked it in *The German Ideology* and the *Communist Manifesto*. thereby preaching a sacred discourse on the universal essence of man that transcends any class, when in fact its substance was nothing more than the feeble act of the German petty bourgeoisie protecting its own class interests in the nineteenth century when faced with the dual threat of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

众所周知，《形态》一直以来都被看作唯物史观的诞生地。这一断言并非毫无根据，其中一个重要的理由便是：类似于哥白尼的天文学革命，马克思同样在历史学领域引入了一个视野的转换。他不仅从传统的关注点即思想观念转移到“粗鄙的物质”上来，而且尤为关键的是，从后者出发来解释前者。正如马克思本人所言，“德国哲学从天国降到人间；和它完全相反，这里我们是从人间升到天国”。这一认识方式的变化带来的一个激进后果是，人类社会中那些超越性的道德观念被贬低为世俗的物质利益之冒充，从而失去了崇高的外衣。例如，在对“真正的社会主义者”的批判中，马克思就说道，这些德国作家把从英法剽窃过来的共产主义思想同其“现实运动割裂开来”，从而宣扬一种超越任何阶级的、有关人的普遍本质的神圣话语，而其实质不过是德国小市民在19世纪面对资产阶级和无产阶级的双重威胁时保护自身阶级利益的软弱举动。

But can we say that all Marx did was merely to complete an inversion of the relation between "thought" and "being," that is, to explain and account for the emergence of ideas from the standpoint of matter? If we know that, long before Marx, Feuerbach had already completed the "inversion of subject and predicate" with respect to Hegel's philosophy, then the "inversion thesis" clearly cannot capture the full scope of the philosophical revolution that Marx and Engels achieved in *The Ideology*. For instance, in his *Preliminary Theses for the Reform of Philosophy*, Feuerbach said: "We need only always make the predicate into the subject, and the subject into the object and principle, that is to say, only invert speculative philosophy, and we have the unconcealed, pure, and manifest truth." [4]4 Feuerbach, *Preliminary Theses for the Reform of Philosophy* (1843), his programmatic text for inverting Hegel's speculative philosophy. In his view, it was far from enough merely to reduce theology to anthropology and to express the essence of God as an alienation of the essence of man. For "Hegel's philosophy is the last refuge and the last rational pillar of theology"; [5]5 Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future* (1843), §19, where he argues that Hegel's philosophy is the last refuge of theology. the inverted relation between God and man in theology survives in Hegel's philosophy in a more abstract philosophical form, namely the relation between thought and being. Therefore, the next step must be to invert speculative philosophy as well, to place being in a position of priority over thought, to make ideas subordinate to matter, and to derive ideas from matter. From this it can be seen that the "inversion thesis" merely reduces Marx to the general level of Feuerbachian materialism, and the more substantive difference between the two cannot be brought out here.

但是，我们是否能够说，马克思所做的工作仅仅只是完成一个“思维”与“存在”的关系颠倒，即从物质的角度来解释、说明观念的产生？如果我们知道，早在马克思之前，费尔巴哈就已经完成了对黑格尔哲学的“主谓颠倒”，那么，“颠倒说”显然无法概括马克思恩格斯在《形态》中所实现的哲学革命之全貌。比如，在《关于哲学改造的临时纲要》中，费尔巴哈就说：“我们只要经常将宾词当作主词，将主体当作客体和原则，就是说，只要将思辨哲学颠倒过来，就能得到毫无掩饰的、纯粹的、显明的真理。”在他看来，如果仅仅把神学还原为人本学，把神的本质表达为人的本质的一个异化，是远远不够的。因为“黑格尔哲学是神学最后的避难所和最后的理性支柱”；在神学中被颠倒的神人关系，还以一种更为抽象的哲学形式即思维和存在的关系，在黑格尔哲学中存活下来。因此，下一步还必须颠倒思辨哲学，将存在置于思维的优先地位，使观念从属于物质，并从物质中引出观念来。从这里可以看到，“颠倒说”只是把马克思降低到费尔巴哈式唯物主义的一般水平，而二者更为实质性的区别在这里是无法被凸显出来的。

To resolve this problem, some scholars often appeal to another text Marx wrote in the same period, namely the *Theses on Feuerbach* (hereinafter referred to as the *Theses*). For it is precisely in this text that Marx, a former member of the "Feuerbach school," for the first time turned around to openly question Feuerbach. It must be admitted that, in terms of content, this text does reflect the places where Marx surpassed Feuerbach on a series of theoretical questions. For example, the first thesis of the *Theses* already shows the two men's fundamentally different understandings of matter. In Feuerbach's view, matter is the empirical, perceptible object directly presented before people, and "the real thing as something real, or the real as the real, is the real as an object of the senses, is the sensuous." [6]6 Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future* (1843), §28, defining the real as the sensuous object. Therefore, when speaking of the essence of man, Feuerbach held that this refers first of all to a "flesh-and-blood" human being, a "sensuous being," a "being of intuition," a "being of love." Feuerbach even said that a human being in this sense differs hardly at all from an animal, except that the former's sensory capacities are more universal and free. In contrast, Marx did not regard matter as a direct object of experience, but rather as the object of "human sensuous activity," or, in other words, a product of practice. "The chief defect of all previous materialism—including Feuerbach's—is that the object, reality, sensuousness is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, not as human sensuous activity, not as practice, not subjectively." [7]7 Marx, *Theses on Feuerbach* (1845), Thesis 1, criticizing all previous materialism for conceiving reality only as an object of contemplation rather than as human sensuous activity or practice. In this passage, Marx both opposes the view of matter as a "thing-in-itself" unrelated to human beings and external to us, and opposes the view of matter as an object of cognition relative to a knowing subject, that is, an object of passive contemplation. On the contrary, by introducing the concept of "praxis," Marx transforms ostensibly neutral matter into a thing-for-us, a product of practice, or a product of objectification, stamped with the imprint of the human will. Thus, with respect to the human being as well, in Feuerbach the human being is a natural being, while in Marx it becomes a "socialized" human being, the latter being "the ensemble of all social relations." [8]8 Marx, *Theses on Feuerbach* (1845), Thesis 6, defining the human essence as the ensemble of social relations, against Feuerbach's abstract conception of the individual.

为了解决这一问题，一些学者经常诉诸马克思在同一时期写作的另一个文本，即《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》（以下简称《提纲》）。因为正是在这个文本中，作为曾经的“费尔巴哈派”的马克思首次转过头来公开质疑费尔巴哈。必须承认的是，从内容上来看，这一文本的确反映了马克思在一系列理论问题上超越费尔巴哈的地方。比如，《提纲》第一条就展现了两人对于物质的迥然不同的理解。在费尔巴哈看来，物质就是直接呈现在人们面前的经验性的、可感知的对象，“具有现实性的现实事物或作为现实的东西的现实事物，乃是作为感性对象的现实事物，乃是感性事物”。因此，谈到人的本质时，费尔巴哈认为，这首先指的是“有血有肉的”人，一个“感性的存在”“直观的存在”“爱的存在”。费尔巴哈甚至说道，这个意义上的人与动物几乎没有什么差别，只不过前者的感官能力更加普遍和自由。与之相反，马克思并没有把物质看作直接的经验对象，而是将其视为“人的感性活动”的对象，或者说，实践产物。“从前的一切唯物主义——包括费尔巴哈的唯物主义——的主要缺点是：对对象、现实、感性，只是从客体的或者直观的形式去理解，而不是把它们当做人的感性活动，当做实践去理解，不是从主体方面去理解。”在这段话中，马克思既反对把物质看作一种与人无关的、在我们之外的“自在之物”，也反对把物质当作相对于认识主体而言的认识客体，或者说，一种静观的对象。相反，通过引入“实践”（praxis）这个概念，马克思把表面上中立的物质变成一种为我之物，一种打上了人类意志之烙印的实践产物，或者说对象化产物。因此，同样是人，在费尔巴哈那里是自然人，在马克思这里则变成“社会化的”人，后者是“一切社会关系的总和”。

As for the specific content of this category of practice, *The Ideology* further supplements it with a social-historical dimension. Here Marx gives a very interesting example. He says that the cherry trees along the Isar River, in Feuerbach's view, are merely a natural thing, "something that has existed directly since the beginning of time and remains always the same." [9]9 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology* (1845–46), on the cherry trees along the Isar River near Munich, transplanted by commerce, as an example of nature mediated by history. However, in fact, these cherry trees available for Feuerbach's "intuition" were transplanted to this region only because of the development of commerce several centuries earlier. On this basis, Marx pointed out sharply that, before an object appears as an object of consciousness (in Feuerbach's case, of course, first of all sensuous consciousness), it has already been mediated by human historical activity and therefore contains rich content of social relations. Hence, compared with the more fundamental practice, consciousness does not enjoy priority. Thus Marx condemned Feuerbach's naturalistic view, namely that nature precedes history, and the opposition between history and nature resulting from it. On the contrary, in Marx's view, a nature not "contaminated" by human activity can only originate in human imagination; strictly speaking, history is logically prior to nature, or, more precisely, nature itself is a historicized "humanized nature."

关于这种实践范畴的具体内涵，《形态》进一步为之补充了社会历史的维度。在这里，马克思举了一个非常有趣的例子。他说，伊萨尔河畔的樱桃树，在费尔巴哈看来，只是一种天然的事物，“某种开天辟地以来就直接存在的、始终如一的东西”。然而，事实上，这种可供费尔巴哈“直观”的樱桃树，只是由于几个世纪之前商业的发展才被移植到这个地区。据此，马克思一针见血地指出，在对象作为一个意识（在费尔巴哈那里，当然首先是感性意识）对象显现之前，它们本身就早已被人的历史活动所中介，因而包含了丰富的社会关系内容。因此，相比于更加本源的实践来说，意识并不具有优先地位。由此，马克思谴责了费尔巴哈的自然主义观点，即自然先于历史，以及由此造成的历史和自然的对立。相反，在马克思看来，一种没有被人的活动所“污染”的自然界只能来源于人的想象，真正说来，历史在逻辑上先于自然，或者更准确地说，自然本身就是历史化了的“人化自然”。

It is precisely in this sense that some scholars designate Marx’s “new materialism” as “practical materialism” or “philosophy of praxis,” thereby distinguishing it from Feuerbach’s “old materialism.” It should be said that, in defining the theoretical nature of historical materialism, the term “practice” indeed captures the emphasis this historical science places on human subjectivity. It is precisely by incorporating the factor of practice into the understanding of social history that Marx ultimately discovered the direct driving role of class struggle in social history. Therefore, to dismiss historical materialism as a philosophy of the “last man” [10]10 “Last man” (末人) is a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the *letzter Mensch*, the final, mediocre, and contented human type who has abandoned all striving and higher values, as critiqued in *Thus Spoke Zarathustra*. that sees things but not people and knows only eating and enjoyment is clearly absurd.

正是在这个意义上，一些学者把马克思的“新唯物主义”命名为“实践唯物主义”“实践哲学”，以此来区别于费尔巴哈的“旧唯物主义”。应该说，在关于历史唯物主义的理论性质的界定上，“实践”一词的确切中了这种历史科学对于人的主体性的强调。正是由于把实践因素纳入对社会历史的理解中来，马克思最终发现阶级斗争之于社会历史的直接推动作用。因此，把唯物史观贬低为一种见物不见人、只知道吃喝享乐的“末人”哲学，显然是荒谬的。

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that, in order to accurately grasp the theoretical nature of historical materialism, this “subjectivizing” interpretive approach still presents certain problems. By unilaterally highlighting the factor of practice to manifest human subjective initiative, and even moving toward a new philosophy of subjectivity, this leads to a dangerous theoretical tendency: the neglect of the objective dimension of historical materialism. On the contrary, in many places, Marx mentions that although practice is the active activity through which the subject acts upon the object, this activity is nonetheless carried out under pre-given preconditions and is thus always limited and constrained by specific historical circumstances. For example, in *The Poverty of Philosophy*, humans are considered both the “authors” and the “actors” of history. In *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*, Marx points out: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” And in *Capital*, Marx even regards the evolution of economic social formations as “a process of natural history.” All these examples show what misunderstandings arise if Marx’s historical materialism is understood only from the subjective dimension and reduced to a philosophy of praxis! Once the objective dimension of historical materialism is neglected, the significance of the philosophical revolution Marx achieved will remain obscure.

尽管如此，值得注意的是，要想准确把握历史唯物主义的理论性质，这种“主体化”的解读思路仍然存在一定的问题。由于一味突出实践因素以彰显人的主观能动性，甚至走向一种新的主体性哲学，这就导致了一个危险的理论倾向，即对历史唯物主义的客体维度之忽视。相反，在许多地方，马克思提道，实践虽然是主体见之于客体的能动性活动，但是，这种活动又是在预先给定的前提条件之下展开的，因而总是被一定的历史境况所限定和制约的。比如，在《哲学的贫困》中，人类被认为既是历史的“剧作者”，又是“剧中人”。在《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》中，马克思指出：“人们自己创造自己的历史，但是他们并不是随心所欲地创造，并不是在他们自己选定的条件下创造，而是在直接碰到的、既定的、从过去承继下来的条件下创造。一切已死的先辈们的传统，像梦魇一样纠缠着活人的头脑。”而在《资本论》中，马克思更是把经济社会形态的演进看作“一种自然史的过程”。所有这些例子表明，如果仅仅从主体维度来理解马克思的唯物史观，将其降低为一种实践哲学，这会造成怎样的误解！一旦忽视历史唯物主义的客体维度，马克思所实现的哲学革命之意义将是晦暗不明的。

In contrast, in *The German Ideology*, we see that Marx neither favors the subjective dimension, turning his historical theory into a secularized version of Kantian philosophy as some scholars believe, nor favors the objective dimension, sliding into so-called historical determinism or fatalism. Instead, he consistently describes the development process of human society from the perspective of the interaction between subject and object in historical activity—in other words, from the holistic perspective of the dialectics of subject and object. Within such a holistic perspective, the binary opposition and split between voluntarism and historical determinism are reunified. For instance, Marx points out that, on the one hand, human activity in material production is indeed constrained by “the material, funds, and productive forces handed down by previous generations”; on the other hand, humans, on this material basis, “change the old environment through completely altered activity.” Thus, productive forces are both a result, the creation of humans, and a cause, the precondition that limits, constrains, and determines their further development. The oppositional relationship between humans and the environment is thus eliminated through Marx’s dialectics. The two will continuously achieve new reconciliations with the development of history. It is precisely because this dialectical perspective is introduced to view the development process of human society that *The German Ideology* marks the birth of a “new worldview.” Therefore, regarding the concept of “practical materialism” advocated by some scholars, we might understand it as follows: here, the real emphasis is not on the word “practice,” but on the “materialism” of practice, or rather, on the understanding of practical materialism. It is from this starting point that Marx opens the door to historical science for us.

与之相反，在《形态》中，我们看到，马克思既没有偏向主体维度，将自己的历史理论，像一些学者所认为的那样变成康德哲学的一种世俗化版本，也没有偏向客体维度，滑向所谓的历史决定论或宿命论。相反，他始终从历史活动中主体和客体的相互作用，换言之，主客体的辩证法这样一个整体视角来描述人类社会的发展进程。在这样一个整体性视角中，自由意志论与历史决定论的二元对立和分裂被重新统一起来。比如，马克思指出，一方面，人类从事物质生产的活动固然受制于“以前各代遗留下来的材料、资金和生产力”；另一方面，他们又在这个物质基础上，“通过完全改变了的活动来变更旧的环境”。因此，生产力既是结果，是人类的创造物；又是原因，是限制、约束和决定他们进一步发展的前提条件。人与环境的对立关系，就这样通过马克思的辩证法被取消了。二者将随着历史的发展而不断获得新的和解。正是因为引入了这样一种辩证法的视角来看待人类社会的发展过程，《形态》标志着一种“新世界观”的诞生。因此，对于某些学者所推崇的“实践唯物主义”这一概念，我们或许可以这样来理解：在这里，真正的重点不在于“实践”一词，而在于实践的“唯物主义”，或者说，对实践的唯物主义的理解。正是以此为起点，马克思为我们打开了历史科学的大门。

II. The Dialectics of Material Production and Freedom

二、物质生产与自由的辩证法

However, when further examining Marx’s specific determination of practice, some scholars find that the originally rich concept of practice is narrowed in *The German Ideology* to a single dimension, namely material production; or, to put it more cautiously, although Marx also mentions other types of practice, such as ideological practice (“thought activity”), political practice (“revolution”), and so on, because he overemphasizes the determining role of material production over other social elements, his historical theory inevitably falls back into a kind of productivist ideology, or production worship.

然而，当进一步考察马克思关于实践的具体规定时，一些学者发现，原本内涵丰富的实践概念在《形态》中却被窄化为一个单一的维度，即物质生产；或者退一步讲，尽管马克思也提到其他的实践类型，比如意识形态实践（“思想活动”）、政治实践（“革命”）等，但是，由于过分强调物质生产对其他社会要素的决定性作用，他的历史理论不免重新陷入一种生产主义的意识形态，或者生产崇拜。

Take “real individuals” as an example. Marx uses this phrase, of course, primarily to oppose Feuerbach’s abstract concept of “man,” which is a fiction derived from some unchanging notion of human nature. When Marx uses the adjective “real” to qualify “individuals,” he means that individuals are not something given or pre-existing, but products shaped by real social relations. What the essence of an individual is is not a transcendental question but a real one. It depends on how the individual acts and how they express themselves. That is, the key lies not in the individual, but in individuation; not in following some essentialist definition to ask what an individual is, but in examining the various ways in which individuals are generated. These real mechanisms of effect are precisely the objects of investigation for Marx’s historical science. Yet, in *The German Ideology*, Marx unilaterally emphasizes the dimension of material production. Marx and Engels point out: “As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production—both with what they produce and with how they produce. Hence what individuals are depends on the material conditions of their production.” Here, the important mode of individuation is the mode of production. Whatever the mode of production is, correspondingly, so are the individuals. What individuals are like depends on what they produce and how they produce. Labor and its mode determine the essence of the individual.

以“现实的个人”为例。马克思使用这一短语，当然首先是为了反对费尔巴哈抽象的“人类”概念，后者乃是从某种不变的人性观念出发进行的一个虚构。当马克思用“现实的”这一形容词来限定“个人”时，他表达的意思是，个人并非某种既定物或现存物，而是由一些现实的社会关系塑造出来的产物。个人的本质是什么，这不是一个先验的问题，而是一个现实的问题。它取决于个人如何行动、如何表现。也就是说，关键不在于个人，而在于个体化；不在于依循某种本质主义的界定去追问什么是个人，而在于考察个体被生成的种种方式。这些现实的作用机制，正是马克思的历史科学所要考察的对象。然而，在《形态》中，马克思却单独强调了物质生产这一维度。马克思恩格斯指出：“个人怎样表现自己的生命，他们自己就是怎样。因此，他们是什么样的，这同他们的生产是一致的——既和他们生产什么一致，又和他们怎样生产一致。因而，个人是什么样的，这取决于他们进行生产的物质条件。”在这里，个体化的重要方式是生产方式。有什么样的生产方式，相应地就有什么样的个人。个人是什么样子的，这取决于他生产什么，以及如何进行生产。劳动及其方式决定了个人的本质。

In *The German Ideology*, this image of the individual as producer or worker leaves a deep impression. This inevitably calls to mind the famous Hegelian aphorism in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* that labor creates man. Although in that text, Marx is constrained by Feuerbach’s humanist discourse system and still follows an essentialist way of defining man (“species-being”), without interrogating humanism itself as an ideological mechanism or episteme, and thus scientifically falls far short of the theoretical depth achieved in *The German Ideology*, at the level of underlying logic, insofar as both articulate a philosophy of the worker, they actually share the same theoretical presupposition.

在《形态》中，这一作为生产者或劳动者的人的形象给人们留下了深刻的印象。这不禁让人联想到《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中那个著名的黑格尔式格言，即劳动创造了人。虽然在该文本中，马克思受制于费尔巴哈的人本主义话语体系，仍然依循某种本质主义的方式来界定人（“类本质”），而没有把人道主义本身作为一种意识形态机制或认识型提问出来，因而在科学方面远远没有达到《形态》所具有的理论深度，但是在底层逻辑上，就二者均阐发了一种有关劳动者的哲学来说，它们其实又共享着同样的理论预设。

It is on this basis that a group of scholars, including Baudrillard, argue that such a one-sided determination of man—merely viewing man as a worker or producer—will lead to at least two consequences:

正是基于此，包括鲍德里亚在内的一众学者认为，对于人的这样一个片面规定，即仅仅把人看作劳动者或生产者，至少会造成这样两个后果：

First, because the goal of the socialist movement is seen merely as the liberation of labour of a particular nature—not as emancipation from the general burden of labour, but as the elimination of the wage character of labour, so that labour is directly organised by the workers themselves, or, in the words of the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, a transition from alienated labour to non-alienated labour—all contradictions and problems then appear in the commodification of labour-power. Yet does this mean that, once wage labour is cast off—that is, a retreat from abstract labour to concrete labour, from the production of exchange-value to the production of use-value—people can attain genuine freedom? For example, the noted political philosopher Hannah Arendt draws attention to the historical fact that in ancient Greece, labour was performed mainly by slaves rather than by free men, not only because slaves were subjugated and thus obedient to their masters, but, more crucially, because in the Greek conception, slaves also represented an absolute passivity and negativity of the human body—that is, submission to natural necessity. To put it concretely, for the reproduction of the species, human beings had to toil in order to obtain from nature the means of subsistence to sustain their own lives. In Christian metaphor, this was seen as a punishment from God for humanity’s fall: that humans no longer enjoyed eternal life like God, and as finite beings, to stay alive they had to labour painfully. Hence Arendt concludes that labour cannot contain any element of freedom; genuine freedom means transcending the *animal laborans*. In Marx’s vision of the emancipation of labour, such a perspective of transcending labour is considered absent.

第一，由于社会主义运动的目标仅仅被视为某种特殊性质的劳动解放，不是从劳动的一般重负中解脱出来，而是消除劳动的雇佣性质，由劳动者自己直接组织劳动，或者用《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中的话来说，从异化劳动转到非异化劳动，于是，所有的矛盾和问题便出现在劳动力的商品化上。然而，这是否就意味着，一旦摆脱了雇佣劳动，即从抽象劳动退回到具体劳动，从交换价值生产退回到使用价值生产，人们就能够获得真正的自由呢？比如，著名政治哲学家汉娜·阿伦特就提醒注意这样一个历史事实：在古希腊，劳动之所以主要由奴隶而非自由人来完成，这不仅是因为奴隶臣服因而听命于他的主人，更为关键的是，在古希腊人的观念里，奴隶还代表着人类身体的一种绝对的被动性、消极性，即对自然必然性的屈从。具言之，为了物种生命的繁衍，人类不得不进行劳作，以从自然界中获取维持自身生命的生活资料。在基督教的隐喻中，这被看作神对人的堕落的一个惩罚，即人不再像神一样享有永恒的生命，作为有限的存在，要想活命，他们就必须辛苦地劳作。因此，阿伦特得出结论，劳动中不可能包含自由的因素，真正的自由意味着对劳动动物的超越。而在马克思有关劳动解放的设想中，这样一个超越劳动的视野被认为是缺失的。

Second, and more dangerously, the productivist tendency revealed in *The German Ideology* can easily be transformed into a supporting force for capitalism. Since Max Weber wrote his famous work *The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism*, we know that the development of capitalism is closely linked to a Protestant ethic that glorifies work and sanctifies it. If the goal of socialism is merely to eliminate wage labour, without transforming labour itself and its ethical value, then in some respects it merely replicates the features of capitalist society, far from offering an attractive alternative. “The praise of proletarian labour and the progress of productive forces replicates the fundamental attributes of capitalist society.” [11]11 Jean Baudrillard, *The Mirror of Production*, trans. Mark Poster (St. Louis: Telos Press, 1975), p. 17. Therefore, in today’s globalised world, anti-capitalism requires not only the abolition of the system of private property, but also the rejection of the ideological propaganda machine’s celebration and promotion of work, and the rejection of labour and the work ethic associated with it. For instance, the autonomist Marxists represented by Antonio Negri have raised the revolutionary slogan “refuse work” and argue that “any meaningful transformation of capitalism requires a substantial change in the organisation of work and in the social value placed upon it.” [12]12 Antonio Negri, *The Politics of Subversion: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century*, trans. James Newell (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), p. 74. Similarly, within the tradition of critical theory, when envisioning the value orientation or foundation of a future society, some thinkers appeal to non-labour values, such as pleasure or play, and strictly distinguish them from labour. For example, in *Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud*, Herbert Marcuse replaces the central role of labour in future society with pastime or play: “toil (labour) is transformed into pastime, repressive production into performance.” [13]13 Herbert Marcuse, *Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud* (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), p. 195.

第二，更加危险的是，《形态》中流露出来的这种生产主义倾向很容易转化为资本主义的一种支持性力量。自马克斯·韦伯写下他的著名作品《新教伦理与资本主义精神》之后，我们知道，资本主义的发展与一种鼓吹工作、对工作进行神圣化的新教伦理息息相关。如果说社会主义的目标仅仅是消除雇佣劳动，而不对劳动本身及其伦理价值进行改造，那么，在某些方面，它不过是复制了资本主义社会的面貌，而远非提供一个具有吸引力的替代性选项。“对于无产阶级劳动和生产力进步的赞美复制了资本主义社会的根本属性。”因此，在全球化的今天，反资本主义，不仅要废除私有财产制度，还要拒绝意识形态宣传机器对工作的颂扬和推广，拒绝劳动以及与之相关的劳动伦理。比如，以安东尼奥·奈格里为代表的自治主义马克思主义者们就喊出“拒绝工作”这一革命口号，并认为“对资本主义任何有意义的改造都要求在工作的组织和社会价值方面的实质转变”。同样地，在批判理论传统中，在设想未来社会的价值取向或基础时，一些思想家纷纷诉诸非劳动价值，比如享乐或者游戏，并使之与劳动严格区分开来。比如，在《爱欲与文明：对弗洛伊德思想的哲学探讨》中，马尔库塞就用消遣或游戏来取代劳动在未来社会中占据的核心地位，“苦役（劳动）变为消遣，压抑性生产变为表演”。

So how should this criticism be understood? Has Marx’s theory of history really fallen, as these scholars claim, into the trap of productivist ideology? A careful analysis reveals that all these critiques implicitly presuppose the premise that labour contains no freedom, that a society of labourers is undesirable, and that for a human being there should be higher value pursuits to realise their excellence. In other words, they all tacitly accept the view of an opposition and conflict between labour and freedom. This is especially evident in Arendt. By distinguishing labour, work, and action, Arendt places labour at the lowest level of value, and holds that human excellence can only be manifested in political action. Yet from Marx’s perspective, this claim about freedom is still too general and ambiguous. The question is: in what sense is freedom being spoken of here?

那么，究竟应该如何来看待这一批评？马克思的历史理论真的像这些学者所说的，掉入了生产主义意识形态的陷阱之中吗？仔细分析可以发现，所有这些批判潜在地都默认了这一前提观念，即劳动中不包含任何自由，一个劳动者的社会是不可欲的，对于一个人来说，应该有更高的价值追求，以实现他们的卓越品性。换言之，它们都潜在地接受了劳动与自由之间的对立和冲突的观点。这一点在阿伦特那里表现得尤为明显。通过区分劳动、工作和行动，阿伦特便把劳动置于一种最低的价值序列，并认为，人的卓越性只能体现在政治性的行动之上。然而，从马克思的角度来看，关于自由的这一说法还是过于笼统和暧昧不清了。问题在于，这里的自由究竟是在何种意义上来进行言说的？

To answer this question, let us examine the concept of freedom in Marx’s texts. There, freedom is seriously distinguished into different levels, grades, and ranks. First, Marx acknowledges a freedom from interference by others. It refers to the fact that, within the bounds permitted by law, each person acts independently according to their own will, and others may not impose their will or coerce me. This kind of freedom is defined mainly in a negative sense, and is therefore a formal freedom. For example, Marx regards wage labour as “free labour,” because the labourer voluntarily, on the basis of equality and negotiation, sells the right to use their individual labour-power to the employer in the market. Second, we must also see that Marx equates wage labour with a modern form of “hidden” “slavery.” Hence arises a second concept of freedom: a non-dominating relationship as opposed to servitude. Marx points out that capital, as a social relation of production, “is the power to command labour and its products.” [14]14 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, trans. Martin Nicolaus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 157. Therefore, abolishing the capitalist relations of production means regaining the autonomy of labour. Freedom in this sense implies autonomy, self-governance. What Arendt fails to see is that in modern capitalist society, due to the universal commodification of labour-power, the fate of the slave has become the fate of the majority of workers. Hence labour is not “already liberated,” but rather not yet liberated. Finally, in a passage in the third volume of *Capital*, Marx mentions the distinction between the “realm of necessity” and the “realm of freedom,” and holds that genuine freedom “begins only where labour determined by necessity and external expediency ends”; it “lies beyond the sphere of actual material production.” [15]15 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 3, trans. David Fernbach (London: Penguin, 1991), p. 958. Freedom in this sense is precisely what Arendt calls “freedom from natural necessity.” From this it can be seen that Marx is far from being accused by Arendt of wanting to turn humans into labouring animals; on the contrary, he too envisions the possibility of a “post-work society.” However, even here, Marx does not consider such freedom to be rootless or suspended in mid-air, but points out that “this realm of freedom can flourish only on the basis of the realm of necessity.” [16]16 Ibid., p. 959. This formulation compels us to note the uniqueness of Marx’s concept of freedom. That is, just as Hegel criticised Kant’s “transcendental freedom” as abstract and empty, Marx also holds that freedom is concrete and conditional. For humans are not Robinson Crusoes on an island, but are always situated within definite social-historical conditions; they are “real individuals.” [17]17 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 31. And these real conditions first of all include the mode of production of material life. Therefore, material production (or nature) is by no means the opposite of freedom; on the contrary, the actualisation of freedom depends precisely on this material guarantee. We say that this profound understanding and grasp of the dialectical relationship between labour and freedom is precisely where Marx surpasses Arendt and others.

为了回答这一问题，我们来看一下马克思文本中的自由概念。在那里，自由被严肃地区分为不同的层次、等级和位阶。首先，马克思承认，有一种不受他人干涉的自由。它指的是，在法律允许的范围内，每个人按照自己的意志独立行事，他人不得将其意志强加、强迫于我。这种自由主要是从消极的意义上来加以界定的，因而又是一种形式上的自由。比如，马克思把雇佣劳动看作是一种“自由劳动”，因为劳动者是根据自愿、平等和协商的原则，在市场中向企业主自由地出售个人的劳动力使用权的。其次，我们也要看到，马克思又把雇佣劳动等同于一种现代形式的、“隐蔽的”“奴隶制”。于是，从这里产生了第二种意义上的自由概念，即相对于奴役而言的非支配性关系。马克思指出，资本作为一种社会生产关系，“是对劳动及其产品的支配权力。因此，消灭资本主义的生产关系，意味着重新获得劳动的自主权。该种意义上的自由，意味着自主、自治。阿伦特没有看到的是，在现代资本主义社会，由于劳动力的普遍商品化，奴隶的命运事实上已经成为大多数工人的命运。因此，在这里，劳动不是“已经解放”，而是还没有解放。最后，在《资本论》第三卷的一个段落中，马克思提到“必然王国”和“自由王国”的区分，并认为，真正的自由“只是在必要性和外在目的规定要做的劳动终止的地方才开始”，“它存在于真正物质生产领域的彼岸”。这个意义上的自由，正是阿伦特所说的“摆脱了自然必然性”的自由。从这里可以看出，马克思远没有像阿伦特所指责的一样，要将人变成劳动动物，相反，他同样设想了一种“后工作社会”的可能。然而，即使是在这里，马克思也不认为，这样一种自由是无根的、悬浮在空中的，而是指出，“这个自由王国只有建立在必然王国的基础上，才能繁荣起来”。这样一个论述不得不让我们注意到马克思的自由概念之独特性。也就是说，就像黑格尔批判康德的“先验自由”概念的抽象和空洞一样，马克思也认为，自由是具体的、有条件的。因为人不是孤岛上的鲁滨孙，而总是处在一定的社会历史条件之下，“是一些现实的个人”。而这些现实的条件首先就包括了物质资料的生产方式。因此，物质生产（或者自然）绝不是自由的对立面，相反，自由的现实化恰恰依赖于这种物质的保障。我们说，对劳动与自由之间的这种辩证关系的深刻认识和把握，正是马克思超越阿伦特等人的地方。

Therefore, to summarise, Marx distinguishes three concepts of freedom. Although they differ from one another, they progressively advance, forming an ascending sequence that becomes increasingly rich and substantial in content. The reason Baudrillard, Arendt, and others oppose labour to freedom and set up Marx’s goal of emancipation as a “road to serfdom” [18]18 “Road to serfdom” is a reference to Friedrich Hayek’s *The Road to Serfdom* (1944), a classic critique of central planning and collectivism, here used ironically to characterise the critics’ view of Marx’s vision. of a producer society is precisely that they fail to understand Marx’s complex and profound view of freedom, especially the dialectical understanding Marx introduces between material production and freedom.

因此，总结来说，马克思区分了三种意义上的自由概念，三者虽各不相同，但逐次递进，构成了一个内容上逐渐丰富和厚重的上升序列。鲍德里亚、阿伦特等人之所以将劳动与自由对立起来，并将马克思的解放目标树立为一个“通往奴役之路”的生产者社会，恰恰是因为他们没有理解马克思复杂而深刻的自由观，尤其是马克思在物质生产和自由之间引入的一种辩证法理解。

III. The True Object of Historical Materialism

三、唯物史观的真正对象

In this way, we can continue to pursue the question: what, precisely, is the object of historical materialism? According to the analysis above, in some people’s view, because *The German Ideology* emphasizes material production and, more importantly, reduces politics and ideology to this level for explanation, the object of historical materialism can only be the economy or economic structure. Consequently, the practice of equating Marxism with economic determinism has become widespread. For instance, Lafargue, the leader of the French Workers’ Party during the Second International period, held that “economic determinism or historical materialism, historical materialism, economic materialism are all synonymous expressions.” [19]19 Paul Lafargue, *The Economic Determinism of Karl Marx* (1884). Lafargue (1842–1911) was a French Marxist theorist and son-in-law of Marx. It must be said that this stereotype exists, as Engels later acknowledged, because he and Marx themselves were not blameless. For example, as early as when *The German Ideology* discusses the characteristics of ideology, Marx points out that ideology lacks independence; “they have no history, no development,” and what truly possesses reality is only material production. Furthermore, regarding the basic principles of historical materialism, Marx here for the first time summarizes them as: “starting from the material production of immediate life to expound the real process of production, comprehend the form of intercourse connected with and created by this mode of production—i.e., civil society in its various stages—as the foundation of all history, describe civil society in its activity as the state, and at the same time from civil society explain all the various theoretical products and forms of consciousness, such as religion, philosophy, morality, etc., and trace their process of emergence.” [20]20 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology* (1845–46), Chapter 1, “Feuerbach.” Here, the economic base is regarded as fundamental, while the superstructure exists only as an appendage. Any explanation of the latter must be reduced to the former.

这样，我们也就能够继续追问这样一个问题，即唯物史观的对象究竟是什么？根据前文的分析，在一些人看来，由于《形态》强调物质生产，而且，更为重要的是，把政治和意识形态都还原到这个层面上来进行解释，所以，唯物史观的对象只能是经济或经济结构，由此，将马克思主义等同于经济决定论的做法也便流行开来。比如，第二国际时期的法国工人党领袖拉法格就认为，“经济决定论或唯物史观、历史唯物主义、经济唯物主义都是意义相同的说法”。应该说，之所以有这样一个刻板印象，正如恩格斯后来所承认的，他和马克思本人是难辞其咎的。比如，早在《形态》论述意识形态的特征时，马克思就指出，意识形态不具有独立性，“它们没有历史，没有发展”，而真正具有实在性的只是物质生产。此外，关于历史唯物主义的基本原理，马克思在这里也第一次总结为：“从直接生活的物质生产出发阐述现实的生产过程，把同这种生产方式相联系的、它所产生的交往形式即各个不同阶段上的市民社会理解为整个历史的基础，从市民社会作为国家的活动描述市民社会，同时从市民社会出发阐明意识的所有各种不同的理论产物和形式，如宗教、哲学、道德等等，而且追溯它们产生的过程。”在这里，经济基础被看作是根本性的，而上层建筑只是一种附属性的存在。对于后者的任何解释，都必须还原到前者那里去。

However, on the other hand, we also see that as Marx’s (and Engels’s) research deepened and their later thought developed, this reductionist tendency was gradually corrected in subsequent works. There, while Marx still emphasizes the determining role of economic factors, he also holds that, whether false or not, ideology, as a basic social structure, likewise possesses its own reality. For example, in *Capital*, Marx discusses commodity fetishism, arguing that its basic definition is that relations between people are concealed as relations between things. Does this mean that, by recognizing this through rational concepts, we can eliminate such a false notion from our minds? Or is commodity fetishism merely a false notion awaiting scientific recognition and replacement? In *Capital*, Marx’s answer is that this false notion necessarily grows out of the economic process and thus has a tangible materiality. Unless we first transform the commodity economic structure, the fetishistic notion cannot be eradicated. Moreover, when addressing the relationship between ideology and other social elements, Marx’s thinking also reveals a more complex side, far from that of a simple reductionist. For instance, in the *Grundrisse*, he uses Greek art as an example to illustrate that the development of ideology and the development of material production are not strictly in one-to-one correspondence. [21]21 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (1857–58), “Introduction,” section on “Uneven Development of Material Production and Art.” This reveals why, even though old modes of production have disappeared, past ideologies can still function as “remnants” in history. Marx vividly summarizes this effect as “the dead seizing hold of the living.” [22]22 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. I (1867), Preface to the First Edition: “The dead seizes hold of the living.” Here, Marx clearly recognizes that different elements within the historical structure may operate on different temporal scales, making it impossible to measure historical development with a unified temporal scale. Historical time is not linear but composite. It is precisely because of this phenomenon that we can independently discuss the determining role of ideology itself, apart from the determining role of the economy.

然而，另一方面，我们又看到，随着马克思（和恩格斯）研究的深入以及后期思想的发展，这样一种还原论倾向在后来的著作中逐渐被纠正过来。在那里，马克思虽然同样强调经济因素的决定性作用，但是又认为，无论虚假与否，意识形态作为一种基本的社会结构，同样有其现实性。比如，在《资本论》中，马克思谈到商品拜物教，认为其基本定义是人和人之间的关系被掩盖为一种物和物之间的关系。那么，这是否就意味着，只要凭借理性观念认识到这一点，我们就能在头脑中清除掉这样一种虚假观念呢？或者说，商品拜物教仅仅是一种有待被科学认识并予以取代的虚假观念吗？在《资本论》中，马克思给出的答案是，这种虚假观念必然会从经济过程中生长起来，因而有着实实在在的物质性。除非我们首先对商品经济结构加以变革，否则，拜物教观念是无法被根除的。此外，在涉及意识形态和其他社会要素的关系时，马克思的思考也展现出更复杂的一面，而远非一个简单的还原论者。比如，在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中，他就以希腊艺术为例来说明意识形态的发展与物质生产的发展并非严格的一一对应关系。正是这一点揭示了，为什么旧有的生产方式已经消失了，但是，过去的意识形态却仍然可以作为一种“残余”在历史上发挥着它们的作用。马克思把这样一种作用十分形象地概括为“死人抓住活人”。在这里，马克思明显意识到，历史结构内部的不同要素之间可能存在着不同的时间尺度，因此根本无法用统一的时间尺度来衡量历史的发展。因为历史时间不是线性的，而是一种复合时间。正是由于这一现象，我们才能够在经济的决定作用之外，独立地来谈论意识形态本身的决定作用。

Similarly, to refute some attacks on Marxism, Engels in his later years also conducted an in-depth discussion of this issue in his correspondence on historical materialism. For example, in a letter to Franz Mehring on July 14, 1893, Engels argues that when describing the relationships among economic, political, and ideological elements in the social-historical structure, people often mistakenly treat one element as the cause and another as the effect, viewing the relationship as a linear determination, while completely ignoring “interaction.” [23]23 Friedrich Engels, Letter to Franz Mehring, July 14, 1893, in *Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence*. Furthermore, in further explanation, to illustrate the weight and effect of each level of social structure in history, Engels creatively limits the determining role of the economy to “in the last instance” and uses the terms “relative independence” and “reaction” to summarize the position and function of politics and ideology within the social unity. [24]24 Friedrich Engels, Letter to Joseph Bloch, September 21–22, 1890, in *Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence*. In short, all this shows that, as a genuine historical science, the object of historical materialism is by no means the so-called economic factor, but rather the social unity encompassing the economy, politics, and ideology. All these parts are both interdependent and interactive, together forming a complex social whole.

同样地，为了驳斥一些人对马克思主义的攻击，恩格斯在晚年关于历史唯物主义的通信中也对这一问题展开了深入的探讨。比如，在1893年7月14日致弗兰茨·梅林的信中，恩格斯就认为，在描述社会历史结构中经济、政治和意识形态等要素之间的关系时，人们通常错误地把一个要素看作原因，把另一个要素看作结果，认为二者之间是一种线性的决定与被决定的关系，而完全忽略了“相互作用”。同时，在进一步的解释中，为了说明社会结构各层次在历史中的作用指数和效果，恩格斯更是创造性地把经济的决定作用限制在“归根到底的意义上”，并采用“相对独立性”和“反作用”这两个术语来概括政治和意识形态在社会统一体中的地位和作用。总之，所有这些表明，作为一门真正意义上的历史科学，唯物史观的对象绝不是所谓的经济因素，而是包含了经济、政治和意识形态在内的社会统一体。所有这些部分既相互依赖，又相互作用，共同形成了一个复杂的社会整体。

But does this mean that Marx has returned to Hegel’s old path? After all, in the latter’s view, to understand any social-historical stage, we can proceed neither from its economy alone, nor from its politics or ideology alone; in other words, we cannot isolate any of these elements to discuss the others, but must start from the organic whole formed through their mutual mediation. For example, as a Hegelian Marxist, Lukács argues that the decisive difference between Marxism and bourgeois positivist science is not economism, but the totality perspective inherited from Hegel. [25]25 Georg Lukács, *History and Class Consciousness* (1923), especially the essay “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat.” It must be said that on the question of the object of historical materialism, Lukács has articulated some elements of truth. However, in his judgment concerning the nature of this totality, he has lost the correct direction. Although Hegel also holds a holistic view of history, for him, the whole can always be reduced to an inner spiritual essence, and the parts exist only as phenomena or external manifestations of this essence. Therefore, in his view, original external differences are only temporary; in the play of dialectics, they are ultimately cancelled and absorbed as internal constituent elements unified within spirit. In stark contrast, Marx does not cancel these differences within unity, but instead attempts to give them their proper positions and places within social space. For instance, in the *Grundrisse*, when discussing the relationships among elements within the social structure, Marx uses a metaphorical expression. He says that, for example, within the economic structure, besides the dominant mode of production, there exist other, marginal modes of production. The relationship between the former and the latter is like a “general illumination” that bathes all other colors. [26]26 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (1857–58), “Introduction,” section on “The Method of Political Economy.” Here, we see that the relationships among various economic structures are not, as Hegel thought, expressive relationships, but rather unbalanced structural relationships. Moreover, and crucially, this imbalance is only temporary. For as soon as conditions are ripe, one side can change its originally weak position and occupy the dominant one. This is what Marx means by the time of social revolution.

但是，这样一来，马克思是不是又回到黑格尔的老路子上了呢？毕竟，在后者那里，我们要认识任何一个社会历史阶段，既不能单独从它的经济，也不能单独从它的政治或者意识形态出发，换言之，我们不能隔绝这些要素中的任何一个来谈论其他要素，而要从它们彼此中介而形成的有机整体出发。例如，作为黑格尔主义的马克思主义者，卢卡奇便认为，马克思主义与资产阶级的实证科学之间的决定性区别不是经济主义，而是从黑格尔那里继承过来的总体观点。应该说，在唯物史观的对象这一问题上，卢卡奇道出了某些真理成分，然而，在关于这种总体的性质的判断上，他却迷失了正确的方向。虽然黑格尔同样持有一种整体史观，但是，对于他来说，整体总是可以被还原为某一内在的精神本质，而诸部分只是作为这一本质的现象或外在表现。因此，在他那里，原来的外在差异只是暂时的，在辩证法的游戏中，它们最后又被取消，被吸收为内在的组成要素而统一在精神之内。与之构成鲜明对比的是，马克思却没有在同一之中取消这些差异，反而试图在社会空间中给予它们应有的位置和处所。比如，在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中，马克思在谈到社会结构内部各要素之间的关系时，曾经使用过这样一种比喻的说法。他说，例如在经济结构中，除了占主导地位的生产方式之外，还存在着其他的、边缘的生产方式。前者与后者的关系，就像一种“普照的光”掩盖着其他一切色彩。在这里，我们看到，各种经济结构之间并非像黑格尔所认为的那样，是一种表现性的关系，而是一种不平衡的结构性关系。而且，尤为重要的是，这种不平衡性只是暂时性的。因为只要时机成熟，一方就可以改变原来所处的弱势地位，而占据主导地位。这也就是马克思所说的社会革命的时候。

At this point, we have thus understood that the true object of historical materialism is in fact not the economy, but society as a whole. Yet this is not a homogeneous whole, but an uneven whole with a complex structure. This unevenness lies in the fact that it by no means cancels differences within identity, but rather preserves a terrain for struggle and counter-struggle among these differences. Only after clarifying this can we then say that the object of political economy, as a specific branch of historical science, is the economy. And this is precisely the field of research to which Marx devoted the full force of his efforts in the latter half of his life. In a certain sense, the movement from historical materialism (methodology) to political economy (a specific disciplinary category) is also a research process from the abstract to the concrete. Of course, one must be alert to the fact that the economy as the object of political economy is not the economy in the sense of general economics. The latter usually excludes political and ideological factors and is committed to defining a pure domain composed entirely of economic behaviors triggered by human needs. In contrast, the economy in Marx’s eyes is first and foremost subordinate to a social unity, and therefore is always in a state of mutual interaction and mutual constraint with other elements such as the political and the ideological; it is fundamentally impossible to discuss the former while setting aside the latter. For example, in *Capital*, when discussing the capitalist labor process, Marx specifically devotes a certain amount of ink to the special role of the “overseer.” In his view, without the exercise of this disciplinary or disciplinary power in the factory, it would be impossible to smoothly complete the labor process by relying solely on the “silent compulsion of economic relations.”

至此，我们也就明白了，唯物史观的真正对象事实上并非经济，而是社会整体，但是这并不是一个同质性的整体，而是一个有着复杂结构的不平衡的整体。这种不平衡性就在于，它绝没有在同一中取消差异，而是为这些差异保留着斗争和反斗争的地盘。只有厘清了这一点，我们才能够接着说，作为历史科学的一个特定部门的政治经济学，其对象才是经济。而这正是马克思后半生倾尽心血所从事的研究领域。从某种意义上来说，从历史唯物主义（方法论）到政治经济学（具体的某一学科门类），也是一个从抽象到具体的研究过程。当然，必须警醒的是，作为政治经济学之对象的经济，并非一般经济学意义上的经济，后者通常把政治、意识形态的因素排除在外，而致力于确定一个完全由人的需求所引发的经济行为构成的纯粹领域。与之相反，马克思眼中的经济首先从属于一个社会统一体，因而始终处于与政治、意识形态等其他要素的相互作用、相互制约之中；撇开后者来谈论前者，是根本不可能的。比如，在《资本论》中，在讲到资本主义的劳动过程时，马克思特地花费一定的笔墨论述“监工”这一特殊角色。在他看来，如果没有工厂中的这一规训或纪律权力的运用，仅仅凭借“经济关系的无声强制”，是无法顺利地完成劳动过程的。

IV. Conclusion

四、结语

The experience of the history of science tells us that the great theoretical revolutions in history are not always smooth sailing; they are often full of difficulties and reversals, and therefore are always protracted. Viewing *The German Ideology* from such a complex perspective, we must both affirm the theoretical revolution Marx initiated in the field of history — as Althusser said, it is only because of Marx’s emergence that we have a genuine historical science — but at the same time, we must also recognize that this revolution was not accomplished overnight. On the contrary, it underwent a rather lengthy process, full of back-and-forth, struggle, and conflict.

科学史的经验告诉我们，历史上那些伟大的理论革命并不总是一帆风顺的，往往充满了艰难和反复，因而总是漫长的。从这样一个复杂的视角来看待《形态》，我们既要肯定马克思在历史领域掀起的这场理论革命，正如阿尔都塞所言，甚至只是由于马克思的出现，我们才有了一门真正意义上的历史科学；但是与此同时，我们也必须看到这一革命并不是一蹴而就的，相反，它经历了一个相当漫长的过程，其中充满了往复、挣扎和斗争。

In this article, the author attempts to re-examine the theoretical status of *The German Ideology* from the perspective of intellectual history, and to analyze and respond to some of the criticisms this text has encountered. From this, we can see that the theoretical contributions of *The German Ideology* are mainly manifested in: reconstructing the meaning of matter on the basis of the concept of practice (but in understanding practice, one must be careful to avoid a “subjectivizing” interpretive approach, and instead take into account the dialectical unity of subject and object); and, even more importantly, preliminarily outlining the overall picture of the structure of social history (even though it initially gives the impression of economic determinism). This, for the first time, called into question the legitimacy of the philosophy of history and announced the establishment of a genuine historical science, which is a “genuine positive science.”

在本文中，笔者试图从思想史的角度来重新审视《形态》的理论地位，并就这一文本所遭受的一些质疑进行辨析和回应。从中我们可以看到，《形态》的理论贡献主要表现在：在实践概念的基础之上对物质的含义进行了重构（但是对于实践的理解，必须注意避免“主体化”的解读思路，而兼顾主、客体的辩证统一），同时，更加重要的是，为人们初步勾勒了社会历史结构的整体面貌（尽管一开始给人留下经济决定论的印象），这就使得历史哲学的合法性第一次受到了质疑，并且宣告了一门真正的历史科学之建立，后者乃是一门“真正的实证科学”。

(Author’s bio: Ma Canlin, Research Fellow at the Center for Marxist Theoretical Innovation and Communication, Zhejiang University; Council Member of the Innovation Philosophy Research Branch of the Chinese Society for Dialectical Materialism)

（作者简介：马灿林，浙江大学马克思主义理论创新与传播研究中心研究员、中国辩证唯物主义研究会创新哲学研究分会理事）

(This article is a phased result of the National Social Science Fund Youth Project “A Comparative Study of Marx’s and Spinoza’s Political Philosophy” (Project No. 24CZX002))

（本文系国家社会科学基金青年项目“马克思和斯宾诺莎的政治哲学比较研究”（项目号：24CZX002）的阶段性成果）

Online editor: Tongxin

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