The Triple Limits of Marginalism from the Perspective of Historical Materialism

In 1884, Philip Henry Wicksteed published an article titled “Das Kapital: A Criticism,” in which he used William Stanley Jevons’s marginal utility theory to critique Marx’s labor theory of value. In 1885, the young socialist Bernard Shaw wrote an article defending Marx, but was soon forcefully refuted by Wicksteed; shortly thereafter, Shaw became a staunch advocate of marginal utility theory. Over the following century and more, figures such as Isaak Illich Rubin, Rudolf Hilferding, and Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin all criticized marginal utility theory. However, these scholars primarily directed their critiques at later marginalists like Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. Even the few scholars who responded to Wicksteed’s critique of Marx’s labor theory of value did so from perspectives that were neither comprehensive nor thorough. In light of this, this article takes historical materialism as its theoretical horizon, analyzing and critiquing Wicksteed’s views from three dimensions—the form of thought, methodology, and conception of history—thereby demonstrating the scientific nature of Marx’s labor theory of value.

1884年，菲利普·亨利·威克斯蒂德（Philip Henry Wicksteed）发表了一篇题为《〈资本论〉：批评》（Das Kapital: A Criticism）的文章，用威廉姆·斯坦利·杰文斯（William Stanley Jevons）的边际效用理论对马克思的劳动价值理论进行了批判。1885年，年轻的社会主义者萧伯纳（Bernard Shaw）撰文为马克思辩护，但很快遭到了威克斯蒂德的有力驳斥，不久萧伯纳转而成了边际效用理论的坚定拥护者。在之后的一百多年间，伊萨克·伊里奇·鲁宾（Isaak Illich Rubin）、鲁道夫·希法亭（Rudolf Hilferding）和尼古拉·伊万诺维奇·布哈林（Николай Иванович Бухарин）等人都对边际效用理论进行过批判。然而，这些学者主要将批判的矛头指向欧根·冯·庞巴维克（Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk）等后期边际主义者。即便有少数学者回应威克斯蒂德对马克思劳动价值理论的批判，其回应和批判的视角也不全面、彻底。有鉴于此，本文以历史唯物主义为理论分析地平，从思维形式、方法论和历史观三个维度对威克斯蒂德的观点进行剖析和批判，进而证明马克思劳动价值理论的科学性。

I. The Fetishistic Form of Thought and the Misplacement of the Value Form

一、拜物教的思维形式与价值形式错置

The methodological principle of historical materialism is to proceed from existing facts, not from pre-existing ideas and principles. “Principles are not the starting point of investigation, but its final result.” [1]1 Friedrich Engels, “Anti-Dühring,” in *Marx & Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1987), p. 34. When Wicksteed claimed that marginal utility theory was more universal than Marx’s labor theory of value, he violated this methodological principle, primarily manifested in his “forgetting” of being, his adoption of a fetishistic form of thought, and his misapplication of a universal method of calculation. In short, he embedded the value form, which exists mainly in capitalist society, into a society without commodity exchange.

历史唯物主义的方法论原则是，从既有的事实出发，而不是从已有的观念和原则出发。“原则不是研究的出发点，而是它的最终结果”。威克斯蒂德自诩边际效用理论比马克思的劳动价值理论更具普适性时违背了这一方法论原则，主要表现在他对“存在”的遗忘、采用拜物教的思维形式以及错用普遍计算方法。概言之，他把主要存在于资本主义社会的价值形式嵌入了无商品交换的社会中。

First, concepts such as “abstract utility” and “utility equilibrium” have specific social-form presuppositions, and Wicksteed precisely forgot the presupposition of the existence of capitalist society. Rubin pointed out, “If anyone constructed a theory of value on the basis of analyzing exchange acts abstracted from a specific social environment, that person was Böhm-Bawerk, not Marx.” [2]2 Isaak Illich Rubin, *Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value*, trans. Miloš Samardžija and Fredy Perlman (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1973), p. 178. Rubin’s critique of Böhm-Bawerk applies equally to Wicksteed. Wicksteed argued that a family Bible and a dozen bottles of brandy can be exchanged because their abstract utilities are equal. “The ‘common feature’ possessed by exchanged articles is nothing more nor less than abstract utility.” [3]3 Philip Henry Wicksteed, “Das Kapital: A Criticism,” in *The Common Sense of Political Economy and Selected Papers and Reviews on Economic Theory*, ed. Lionel Robbins (London: Routledge, 1933), p. 718. Furthermore, in the example of Robinson Crusoe, Wicksteed noted that Crusoe can deliberate on how to allocate his labor, always applying it where it yields the greatest immediate utility. He will expand production of the product he most desires until a limit is reached, beyond which each additional unit of that product brings him less utility than an additional unit of another product requiring the same time to obtain. He continues this process until, regardless of where he applies the same amount of labor, it yields him the same utility—that is, a state of equilibrium is reached. In the example of a community without commodity exchange, Wicksteed assumes that the discomfort from lacking a hat and lacking a coat is the same—that is, their utilities are equal. Since producing a hat takes only one-eighth the time of producing a coat, everyone tends to produce hats. Suppose that, as hat production reaches a certain quantity, the community’s demand for hats decreases, and the utility of a hat is only half that of a coat. Since the utility gained from producing a hat is still four times that of producing a coat in the same time, people continue to produce hats. Suppose further that demand for hats decreases so that their utility is only one-eighth that of a coat. At this point, the utility gained from producing a hat equals that from producing a coat in the same time: although producing a coat takes eight times as long as producing a hat, the coat produced brings eight times the utility of a hat. He then emphasizes: “When the quantities of coats and hats reach a point where the ratio of the utility of an additional coat to the utility of an additional hat equals the ratio of the time required to produce a coat to the time required to produce a hat, equilibrium is achieved.” [4]4 Wicksteed, “Das Kapital: A Criticism,” p. 724.

首先，“抽象效用”“效用均衡”等概念有具体的社会形式前提，而威克斯蒂德恰恰遗忘了资本主义社会这一存在前提。鲁宾指出，“如果说有人在分析脱离具体社会环境的交换行为的基础上构建价值理论，那这个人就是庞巴维克，而不是马克思”。鲁宾对庞巴维克的批判同样适用于威克斯蒂德。威克斯蒂德认为，之所以一本家庭《圣经》与一打白兰地能够进行交换，是因为它们的抽象效用相等。“交换物品所拥有的‘共同特征’不多也不少地等同于抽象效用”。另外，威克斯蒂德在鲁滨逊的例子中指出，鲁滨逊能够自行斟酌分配自己的劳动，他总是会将他的劳动用于当前能够带来最大效用之处。他会针对自己最想要的产品，扩大生产，直至一个限度，超出这个限度，每增加一份该产品，给他带来的效用将会比增加一份需要相同时间获得的其他产品带来的效用少。他一直这样做，当不管他将相同的劳动消耗量用于何处，均能为他带来相同效用时，即达到平衡状态。在无商品交换的社团的例子中，威克斯蒂德假定没有帽子和没有大衣令人感到不适的程度相同，也就是说效用相同时，由于生产前者需要的时间只是生产后者的八分之一，所以每个人都倾向于生产帽子。假设，随着帽子的生产达到一定数量，这个社团对帽子的需求减少，帽子的效用只是大衣的一半时，由于生产帽子获得的效用仍是相同时间内生产大衣效用的四倍，所以人们仍然会继续生产帽子。再假定，人们对帽子的需求减少导致其效用只是大衣的八分之一，此时生产帽子获得的效用与相同时间内生产大衣的效用相同：虽然生产一件大衣的时间是生产一顶帽子所需时间的八倍，但是生产的这件大衣会给他带来八顶帽子的效用。他随即强调：“当大衣和帽子的产量达到一定数量，额外大衣的效用与额外帽子的效用的比值等于生产大衣所消耗时间与生产帽子所消耗时间的比值时，均衡就达到了。”

Wicksteed’s above views ignore the historicity of the value form, offering a transhistorical interpretation of it. From the perspective of the four stages of the value form analyzed by Marx in Volume I of *Capital*, the value form can exist in different historical periods. Because the concrete basis of exchange differs, the value form in each period has distinct characteristics. In terms of content, the value form, such as x quantity of A = y quantity of B, can express the exchange of product A and product B, or the exchange of commodity A and commodity B, or, of course, the exchange of a product (or commodity) with a certain quantity of money. The key is under what conditions of production the exchange takes place.

威克斯蒂德的上述观点忽略了价值形式的历史性，对价值形式进行了超历史的解读。从马克思在《资本论》第一卷中所分析的价值形式的四个阶段看，价值形式可以存在于不同历史时期，由于交换的现实基础不同，所以各时期的价值形式具有不同的特征。从内容上看，价值形式，如x量A=y量B，既可以表达产品A和产品B交换，也可以表达商品A和商品B交换，当然也可以表达产品（或商品）与一定量的货币之间的交换，关键看交换处于怎样的生产条件下。

By understanding value and exchange value from the perspective of demand and abstract utility, Wicksteed clearly anchors exchange in the stage of simple commodity circulation in the pre-capitalist period. For in this stage, two items (or commodities) are exchanged to satisfy personal consumption, not to pursue value and exchange value. In Marx’s view, the fundamental difference between the pre-capitalist period and modern capitalism is that the latter is oriented toward valorization. [5]5 “Valorization” (Verwertung) refers to the process by which capital increases its value through the extraction of surplus value, a central concept in Marx’s critique of political economy. Marx analyzed in *Capital* and its manuscripts that the form of commodity circulation aimed at valorization is M—C—M′; in simple commodity circulation, the representative form of exchange is C—M—C. In other words, in the former’s formal movement, the multiplication of money is the goal, and commodity exchange appears as the means; conversely, in the latter’s formal movement, commodity exchange is the goal, and money appears to function only as a medium of circulation. Thus, it can be said that in a society where exchange is aimed at direct consumption—whether of products or simple commodities—the commodity as exchange value, the social-labor substance of value, and money as the external expression of value (measure of value) have not yet fully manifested themselves. It is in this sense that Marx wrote to Engels in June 1867: “Only when the value expression has already appeared in its developed form, that is, as the money expression, do I undertake the proper analysis of the value expression, thereby avoiding difficulties in exposition.” [6]6 Karl Marx, “Letter to Engels, 22 June 1867,” in *Marx & Engels Collected Works*, vol. 42 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1987), p. 382. That is, before the money form of the value form is fully developed, since commodities manifest more in their natural form—the aspect of use value and consumption—the true meaning of their value and exchange value is difficult to grasp. Nevertheless, even so, the value and exchange value of commodities remain products of social labor. Therefore, when Wicksteed defines value as utility, he, on the one hand, pays more attention to the characteristics of exchange in simple commodity circulation, but, on the other hand, fails to notice the essence of modern capitalist production, which is the pursuit of valorization.

威克斯蒂德从需求和抽象效用的角度理解价值和交换价值，显然是将交换锚定在了前资本主义时期的简单商品流通阶段。因为在这一阶段，两种物品（或商品）交换是为了满足个人消费，而不是为了追求价值和交换价值。而在马克思看来，前资本主义时期和现代资本主义的根本区别就是后者以价值增殖为导向。马克思在《资本论》及其手稿中分析道，以价值增殖为目标的商品流通的形式为G—W—G′；在简单商品流通中，交换的代表形式为W—G—W。换言之，在前者的形式运动中，货币增殖是目标，商品交换显示为手段；相反，在后者的形式运动中，商品交换是目标，货币似乎只具有流通手段功能。因此可以说，在以直接消费为目标的产品交换或简单商品交换的社会中，商品作为交换价值、价值的社会劳动实质，以及货币作为价值的外在表现（价值尺度）等，还未充分显示出来。正是在这个意义上，马克思在1867年6月给恩格斯的信中写道：“只是当价值表现已经以发展的形式即作为货币表现出现时，我才对价值表现作应有的分析，从而避免了阐述中的困难。”也就是说，在价值形式的货币表现形式充分发展以前，由于商品更多地展现为其天然形式的方面，即使用价值和消费的方面，所以其价值和交换价值的真正含义很难被捕捉到；然而，即便如此，商品的价值和交换价值依然是社会劳动的产物。所以，当威克斯蒂德将价值界定为效用时，他一方面更多地注意到了简单商品流通中的交换特征，另一方面却没有注意到现代资本主义生产追求价值增殖的实质。

At the same time, with the increasing development of commodity exchange, the monetary form (material) gradually evolved into a form more capable of facilitating commodity exchange. “As commodity exchange increasingly breaks through local restrictions … the money form increasingly shifts to those commodities that are naturally suited to perform the social function of a universal equivalent, that is, to precious metals.” [7]7 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 44, p. 108. Although the material of money constantly changes, the fact that money serves as the form of manifestation of value does not change. The constant change in the material of money indicates that its formal determination takes precedence over its matter, “this determination means that it cannot undergo any physical change with the passage of time.” [8]8 Alfred Sohn-Rethel, *Intellectual and Manual Labor: A Critique of Epistemology* (Chinese edition), p. 56. This makes it possible to imagine money apart from sensory experience; in other words, money can exist in a non-empirical or “pure” conceptual form, providing a further basis for moving from the abstraction of non-material reality to conceptual abstraction. Sohn-Rethel points out that although abstract thought existed in Pythagoras and Parmenides, they could not develop the concept of “abstract utility” because they lacked the content-based support of the social structural conditions of commodity exchange. He emphasizes: “In commodity exchange, there is an act that transcends the entire realm of the incommensurable and is marked solely by thoroughgoing abstraction; … but this unique act can produce its social results only when it radiates (ausstrahlt) onto all the human relations that bear this synthesis.” [9]9 Alfred Sohn-Rethel, *Intellectual and Manual Labor: A Critique of Epistemology* (Chinese edition), p. 56.

同时，随着商品交换的日益发展，货币形式（材质）逐渐发展为更能促进商品交换的形式。“随着商品交换日益突破地方的限制……货币形式也就日益转到那些天然适于执行一般等价物这种社会职能的商品身上，即转到贵金属身上。”尽管货币的材质不断发生变化，但是货币作为价值的表现形式这一点并没有发生变化。货币材质的不断变化，说明其形式规定优先于质料，“这个规定也就是说，它不能随着时间的流逝有任何物理上的变化”。这为脱离感官经验想象货币提供了可能，换言之，货币可以存在于非经验的或“纯粹”的概念形式中，为从非物质的现实抽象走向思维抽象提供了进一步的基础。索恩-雷特尔指出，虽然在毕达哥拉斯和巴门尼德那里也有抽象思维，但他们无法发展出“抽象效用”的概念，因为缺乏商品交换的社会化结构条件这一内容上的支撑。他强调：“在商品交换中，有一种行为超越不可通约的整个领域，并且只以彻底的抽象性为其标志特征；……但是，这种独特的行为，只有当它辐射（ausstrahlt）到所有承载着这个综合的人类关系上时，才能产生其社会结果。”

Second, Wicksteed’s marginal utility theory forgets the existential premise of capitalist society, which is closely linked to his fetishistic thinking. Rubin pointedly notes, “All attempts to separate value theory from the theory of the capitalist economy are incorrect, whether they limit the scope of value theory to an imaginary society (Croce) or a simple commodity economy, or even reduce the labor theory of value to a purely logical category.” [10]10 I. I. Rubin, *Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value* (Chinese edition), p. 117. After this sentence, Rubin specifically emphasizes that on this point, please refer to “Studies in the Theory of Fetishism.” [11]11 I. I. Rubin, *Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value* (Chinese edition), p. 117. Wicksteed’s theory is no exception; the first aspect of his fetishistic thinking is “producer fetishism,” i.e., the reification of value relations. He does not explain value from the perspective of social form, but rather from the commodity as a “thing-in-itself.” “What we must do is set aside the concrete, specific, qualitative utilities that distinguish commodities, and consider only the abstract, general, quantitative utility that commodities share.” “But it is precisely the abstract utility of commodities that gives them value.” [12]12 Philip H. Wicksteed, *The Common Sense of Political Economy* (Chinese edition), Vol. 1, p. 35. In Marx’s view, this approach of seeking value in the natural attributes of commodities is precisely a manifestation of commodity fetishism.

其次，威克斯蒂德的边际效用理论遗忘资本主义社会这一存在前提，与其拜物教思维有着紧密的联系。鲁宾一针见血地指出，“所有将价值理论从资本主义经济理论中分离出来的尝试都是不正确的，无论它们是否将价值理论的活动范围局限于想象社会（Croce）或简单的商品经济，甚至局限于将劳动价值转化为纯逻辑范畴”。在这句话后面，鲁宾还特意强调，关于这一点请参见“拜物教理论研究”。威克斯蒂德的理论也不例外，其拜物教思维的第一个面向是“生产者拜物教”，即价值关系的物化。他不是从社会形式的角度阐释价值，而是从商品这一“事物自身”说明价值。“我们必须做的就是抛开商品所不同的具体、特殊的质上的效用，而仅仅考虑商品所相同的抽象、一般的量上的效用。”“但正是商品的抽象效用才使得商品具有价值。”在马克思看来，这种在商品的天然属性上寻求价值的做法，正是商品拜物教的表现。

According to Marx, in a society where products universally take the commodity form, the specific social character of labor determines that the private labor of producers must be transformed into social labor in exchange, i.e., into a part of total social labor, before it can command the labor products of others. Correspondingly, the concrete labor of producers becomes the form of manifestation of abstract human labor, and the use-value of the useful things produced by producers becomes the form of manifestation of value, i.e., value must be manifested in use-value. “The equality of human labors takes on the physical form of an equal value objectivity of the products of labor.” [13]13 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 44, p. 89. The objectivity of value determines that all commodities must simultaneously be bearers of value and must become universal equivalents. When commodities separate from money and money achieves the exclusive position of universal equivalent, i.e., when the value form transforms from the general value form to the money form, the social relations between people are homogenized by the form of manifestation of value—money. “In the eyes of the producers, the social relations between their private labors appear as what they are, i.e., not as direct social relations between persons in their labor, but rather as material relations between persons and social relations between things.” [14]14 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 44, p. 90. That is to say, the social relations between people are cloaked in the outer garment of social relations between things, i.e., between labor products. In this way, the social relations of production between people are obscured by relations between things. In other words, commodities assume the appearance of “independent social relations,” and the “social relations” established through the free exchange of commodities seem to be independent of the production relations behind them. According to the Japanese scholar Hiromatsu Wataru’s distinction between Sache (thingification) and Ding (reification), Wicksteed commits two errors here: first, at the ontological level, he inverts relations between people into relations between things, i.e., thingification (Sache); second, at the epistemological level, he inverts relations between things into the natural essence inherent in the things themselves, i.e., reification (Ding). [15]15 Hiromatsu Wataru, *The Philosophy of Thingification* (Chinese edition), pp. 1–3.

依据马克思，在产品普遍采取商品形式的社会里，劳动所特有的社会性质决定了生产者的私人劳动必须在交换中转化为社会劳动，即转化为社会总劳动的一部分，才可以支配他人的劳动产品。相应地，生产者的具体劳动变成了抽象人类劳动的表现形式，生产者生产的使用物的使用价值变成了价值的表现形式，即价值必须在使用价值中表现出来。“人类劳动的等同性，取得了劳动产品的等同的价值对象性这种物的形式”。价值对象性决定了所有商品都必须同时是价值承担者，都必须成为一般等价物。当商品与货币分离，货币取得独占一般等价物的地位时，即价值形式由一般价值形式转化为货币形式时，人与人之间的社会关系就被价值的表现形式——货币——同一化了。“在生产者面前，他们的私人劳动的社会关系就表现为现在这个样子，就是说，不是表现为人们在自己劳动中的直接的社会关系，而是表现为人们之间的物的关系和物之间的社会关系。”也就是说，人们之间的社会关系披上了物之间即劳动产品之间的社会关系外衣。这样一来，人与人之间的社会生产关系，便被物与物之间的关系遮蔽了。换言之，商品采取了“独立的社会关系”的外观，由商品自由交换建立起的“社会关系”好像独立于其背后的生产关系了。根据日本学者平子友长对Sache（物象化）和Ding（物化）的区分，威克斯蒂德在这里犯了两个错误：一是在本体论层面，将人与人的关系颠倒为物与物的关系，即物象化（Sache）；二是在认识论层面，将物与物的关系颠倒为物本身所固有的自然本质，即物化（Ding）。

Finally, Wicksteed projects the universal computational method and quantitative thinking of mathematizing reality onto other social forms, which is a further manifestation of his fetishistic thinking. As Wicksteed himself admits, his theory is consistent with Jevons’s marginal utility theory. As an important representative of marginalism, Jevons emphasizes that economics is a mathematical science. “The application of the differential calculus to the concepts of wealth, utility, value, demand, supply, capital, interest, labor, and various other quantitative concepts in everyday industrial life … because economics deals with quantities, it must be mathematical.” [16]16 W. Stanley Jevons, *The Theory of Political Economy* (Chinese edition), p. 3. However, as Jevons himself verifies, the widespread application of mathematical methods to economics, especially to utility theory, only occurred in the 19th century. Husserl, in *The Origin of Geometry*, explores the constitution of mathematical meaning using geometry as an example, elucidating from the perspective of historical phenomenology that the origin of geometric concepts is related to the life-world. [17]17 Edmund Husserl, *The Origin of Geometry* (Chinese edition), pp. 175–176. Engels, in *Dialectics of Nature*, points out that the development of natural science provided the basis for the real abstraction that gave rise to the calculus, “the infinite in mathematics is borrowed from reality.” [18]18 Friedrich Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 26, p. 604. In Marx’s view, capital provides the internal driving force and constructive social form for applying “precise” thinking and universal calculation to economics. “Science becomes an independent force serving capital, opposed to labor.” [19]19 Karl Marx, *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 47, p. 570. Moishe Postone expresses this even more thoroughly: “The modes of social general science, technology, and organizational knowledge and practice that emerge in the course of capitalist development are historically constructed within a certain social context. What defines this context is an abstract, homogeneous, quantitative social dimension.” [20]20 Moishe Postone, *Time, Labor, and Social Domination* (Chinese edition), p. 374.

最后，威克斯蒂德把现实数学化的普遍计算方法和量化思维投射到其他社会形式中，这是其拜物教思维的进一步表现。正如威克斯蒂德自己承认的，他的理论同杰文斯的边际效用理论是一致的。作为边际主义的重要代表，杰文斯强调经济学是一种数学的科学。“应用微分法来说明财富、效用、价值、需要、供给、资本、利息、劳动的概念，以及日常产业生活上其他各种量的概念。……只因经济学所讨究的是量，所以它必须是数学的。”然而，正如杰文斯自己考证的，将数学方法广泛应用到经济学，尤其应用到效用理论，是到了19世纪才发生的事情。胡塞尔在《几何学的起源》中以几何学为例探讨了数学的意义构成，从历史现象学的角度阐明了几何学观念的起源与生活世界有关。恩格斯在《自然辩证法》中指出，自然科学的发展为微积分的创立提供了现实抽象的基础，“数学的无限是从现实中借用的”。在马克思看来，资本为将“精确”思维和普遍计算应用到经济学中提供了内驱力和建构性的社会形式。“科学成为与劳动相对立的、服务于资本的独立力量”。莫伊舍·普殊同（Moishe Postone）则表达得更加彻底：“在资本主义发展过程中出现的社会一般科学、技术和组织知识与实践的模式，是在某种社会背景中被历史地建构起来的。规定了这一背景的，是一种抽象的、同质的、数量性的社会维度。”

Lukács believed that the method of universal calculation is related to the ideological manifestation of money fetishism: “Quantification is a reifying and already reified cloak draped over the true essence of objects.” Marx analyzed: “It is precisely this finished form of the world of commodities—the money form—that conceals, rather than revealing, the social character of private labor and the social relations between private laborers, by clothing them in the form of things.” In this way, the social relations between people are not only reflected as relations between things, as the natural social attributes of things, but also as quantitative relations of the homogeneous money form. People’s consciousness has been “monetized” into a schema. “Objects have already been endowed with the money form, whether present or future.” That is to say, when one perceives the world through the tinted glasses of the “money schema” bestowed by the social form of capitalism, objects are not only reified, but heterogeneous things also become commensurable and measurable. People’s understanding of time illustrates this well. In his book *The Nature of Time*, G. J. Whitrow proposed a concept of abstract time distinct from concrete time and cyclical time, arguing that abstract time is uniform, continuous, homogeneous, and empty, independent of events, and can be divided into equal, quantitative, qualityless units, and should be understood in terms of the social reality constructed through the spread of commodity-based social relations. Drawing on Jacques Le Goff’s study of the work-bell system in the medieval garment industry, Moishe Postone emphasized: “It is a form of production based on wage labor, relatively large-scale, privately controlled, and carried out for exchange (i.e., for profit), which presupposed and promoted the monetization of certain social spheres in the Middle Ages.” John Holloway referred to this homogenized abstract labor time as “clock time.” Furthermore, with the development of productive forces driven by the logic of capital, the socially necessary labor time required to produce a given commodity continuously shrinks. In other words, the social labor hour is constantly reconstituted by the development of productive forces. Therefore, in an “accelerated society,” in order to “keep up with the times,” producers are forced to produce according to abstract time and must consider the “abstract utility” per unit of time. However, Wicksteed concealed the relations of production behind the unit hour, which is a further manifestation of his fetishistic thinking.

卢卡奇认为，普遍计算的方法与货币拜物教在意识形态层面上的表现有关，“数量化是一种蒙在客体的真正本质之上的物化着的和已物化了的外衣”。马克思分析道：“正是商品世界的这个完成的形式——货币形式，用物的形式掩盖了私人劳动的社会性质以及私人劳动者的社会关系，而不是把它们揭示出来。”这样一来，人与人之间的社会关系不仅被反映为物与物之间的关系，反映为物的天然的社会属性，而且被反映为同一性货币的数量关系。人们的意识被“货币图式”化了。“对象已经被赋予货币形式，无论是现存的还是未来的。”也就是说，戴上资本主义社会形式赋予的“货币图式”这一有色眼镜认知世界时，对象不仅被物化了，异质性的事物也变得可以通约和计量了。人们对时间的认识能很好地说明这一点。惠特罗（G. J. Whitrow）在《时间的本质》一书中提出了不同于具体时间和循环时间的抽象时间概念，认为抽象时间是均一的、连续的、同质的、空洞的时间，独立于各种事件，可以被分割为等同的、定量的、无性质的单位，应当依据商品性社会关系形式的传播而建构的社会现实来理解。普殊同根据雅克·勒高夫（Jacques Le Golff）对中世纪制衣业工作铃制度的考察强调，“它是一种以雇佣劳动为基础的、相对大规模的、私人控制的、为了交换（也即为了利润）而进行的生产形式，它以中世纪部分社会领域的货币化为前提，并促进了这一货币化过程”。约翰·霍洛威（John Holloway）将这种同质化特征的抽象劳动时间称为“时钟时间”。另外，随着资本逻辑推动的生产力的发展，生产某种商品的社会必要劳动时间将不断缩减。换言之，社会劳动小时是由生产力的发展不断重构的。因此，在一个“加速社会”里，为了“紧跟时代”，生产者将被迫按照抽象时间进行生产，不得不考虑单位时间的“抽象效用”。然而，威克斯蒂德掩盖了单位小时背后的生产关系，这是其拜物教思维的进一步表现。

Based on the theory of marginal utility, Wicksteed analyzed the economic activities of producers in primitive societies represented by Robinson Crusoe and in associations of free individuals according to time, labor expenditure, and utility magnitude. He not only embedded mathematical methods on the basis of “clock time,” but also grasped the real world through the identity of the value form or the “money schema.” However, in this form of consciousness that thinks reality through the value form or “money schema,” the object of cognition has already been obscured by capital as the “all-illuminating light,” that is, endowed with the social form of capitalism. Taking this form of thought as an a priori premise, theorists of marginal utility inevitably mistake the capitalist mode of production for the eternal natural form of social production, ignoring the historicity and specificity of the value form. The result is that the homogenization of the heterogeneous world by money is taken as natural. In fact, Wicksteed was not only obscured by the value form—obscuring his understanding of capitalist society—but also by the violence of the identity of conceptual categories—obscuring his understanding of other social forms. Therefore, his introduction of marginal utility theory into primitive societies and societies without commodity exchange represents a misappropriation of the universal mathematical methodology and a misplacement of the value form. As Engels emphasized, placing the political economy of Tierra del Fuego and that of modern England under the same law reveals nothing.

威克斯蒂德以边际效用理论为基础，根据时间、劳动消耗和效用大小分析以鲁滨逊为代表的原始社会和自由人联合体中的生产者的经济活动，不仅嵌入了数学方法，以“时钟时间”为基础，而且以价值形式的同一性或“货币图式”把握现实世界。然而，以价值形式或“货币图式”思考现实的意识形式，其认识客体已经被资本这一“普照的光”遮蔽，即被赋予了资本主义社会形式。以这一思维形式为先验前提，边际效用理论者们必然会将资本主义生产方式误认为是社会生产的永恒的自然形式，忽略价值形式的历史性和特殊性，其结果是货币对异质性世界的同一化被看作是自然而然的。实际上，威克斯蒂德不仅被价值形式遮蔽了——遮蔽了其对资本主义社会的认识，而且还被概念范畴同一性的暴力遮蔽了——遮蔽了其对其他社会形式的理解。因此，他将边际效用理论引入对原始社会和无商品交换的社会形式中，是对普遍数学方法论的僭用和价值形式的错置。正如恩格斯强调的，如果把火地岛的政治经济学和现代英国的政治经济学置于同一规律之下，其结果是什么也揭示不了。

Wicksteed used the examples of Robinson Crusoe and societies without commodity exchange to argue that his theory had greater explanatory power than Marx’s labor theory of value. However, in fact, like the classical political economists and vulgar economists, he treated the value form and the various economic categories based on it as natural, failing to understand the social historicity of the value form. Marx used the examples of “Robinson’s island” and the “association of free individuals” to illustrate, from the opposite side, that he was discussing a specific, historical capitalist society, “not abstract social ‘relations.’” In Marx’s view, the reason Robinson “calculates meticulously” is that the social form of capitalism endowed him with an objective form of thought. As is well known, ancient societies were more characterized by a self-sufficient natural economy or a gift economy; in an association of free individuals, universal commodity exchange also does not exist. Wicksteed judged the capitalist mode of production as an eternal natural form, replacing the specific historical context of exchange with an abstract general concept of exchange, ignoring the historical specificity of the value form. That is to say, for him, history became a homogeneous process.

威克斯蒂德用鲁滨逊和无商品交换社会的例子证明自己的理论比马克思的劳动价值理论更具解释力。然而，事实上，他与古典政治经济学家和庸俗经济学家们一样，以自然的态度对待价值形式以及基于其形成的各种经济范畴，不能理解价值形式的社会历史性。马克思用“鲁滨逊的孤岛”“自由人联合体”的例子，是为了从反面说明他讨论的是具体的、历史的资本主义社会，“而非抽象的社会‘关系’”。在马克思看来，鲁滨逊之所以“精打细算”，是因为资本主义社会形式赋予了他客观的思维形式。众所周知，在古代社会中更多的是一种自给自足的自然经济形式或礼物经济形式；在自由人联合体中也不存在普遍的商品交换。威克斯蒂德把资本主义的生产方式判定为永恒的自然形式，用抽象的交换概念一般取代了特殊的交换历史情境，忽略了价值形式的历史特殊性。也就是说，在他那里，历史变成了同质性的过程。

Therefore, Wicksteed gladly accepted Marx’s “invitation” to demonstrate the universality of marginal utility theory. Its essence is to surreptitiously transpose the “objective modes of thought” such as “meticulous calculation” and “utility equilibrium” bestowed by the capitalist social form onto other social forms, tailoring the actual movement of social history with abstract concepts, thereby violating the principle of historical materialism in methodology.

因此，威克斯蒂德欣然接受马克思的“邀请”，论证边际效用理论的普适性，其实质是以隐蔽的方式将资本主义社会形式赋予的“精打细算”“效用均衡”等“客观思维方式”穿越到了其他社会形式中，以抽象的观念剪裁社会历史的现实运动，在方法论上违背了历史唯物主义原则。

II. Methodological Individualism and the Paradox of Abstract Utility

二、方法论的个人主义与抽象效用悖论

Wicksteed’s attack on Marx’s *Capital* is mainly manifested in his attempt to replace Marx’s abstract labor with “abstract utility,” thereby dismantling the Marxist theoretical system and substituting it with a marginalist theoretical scheme.

威克斯蒂德对马克思《资本论》的攻击主要体现在：用“抽象效用”取代马克思的抽象劳动方面，以图瓦解马克思主义理论体系，代之以边际主义的理论方案。

Wicksteed believed that the reason two commodities can be exchanged is that they possess both heterogeneity and homogeneity. Regarding heterogeneity, he agreed with Marx: “Each commodity’s respective use-value (*Gebrauchswerth*) leads to the heterogeneity of commodities, or, to express it in the following sentence: commodities are distinguished from each other by their particular utilities.” However, regarding what constitutes homogeneity, Wicksteed diverged from Marx. He noted Marx’s argument attributing this homogeneity to abstract labor. He summarized: “Various different commodities are products of various different kinds of labor… If we still regard commodities as products of labor, then this labor must be ‘abstract homogeneous human labor,’ without any particular individuality or different directions of use, merely the expenditure of a certain amount of brain and muscle. It is precisely because all commodities are products of abstract human labor that the homogeneity of commodities arises. The basis on which the equation x of commodity A = y of commodity B can hold is that the production of commodity A and commodity B used an equal amount of abstract human labor…”

威克斯蒂德认为两种商品之所以能够交换，原因在于二者之间既具有异质性又具有同质性。就异质性而言，他同意马克思的观点，“每种商品各自的使用价值（Gebrauchswerth）导致了商品的异质性，或者，我用下面这句话来表达：商品由于它们各自的特殊效用而彼此区别”。但对同质性的东西是什么，威克斯蒂德同马克思产生了分歧。他注意到了马克思将这种同质性归于抽象劳动的论证。他概括道：“各种不同商品是各种不同种类的劳动的产品……如果我们仍然认为商品是劳动的产物，那么，这种劳动就必须是没有任何特殊个性和不同使用方向，仅仅是消耗了一定脑力和体力的‘抽象的同质的人类劳动’。正是因为所有商品都是抽象人类劳动的产物，才产生了商品的同质性。商品A的x=商品B的y，这一方程能够成立的基础就是商品A和商品B的生产使用了同等数量的抽象人类劳动……”

However, Wicksteed believed that Marx’s reasoning contained a certain leap. “Afterwards, we find the following important statement: only useful labour constitutes value… This is the foundation of all preceding analysis, because if only useful labour constitutes value, then when we strip from a commodity all the specific attributes produced by various particular labours, we cannot strip away the abstract utility produced by abstract useful labour. If only useful labour constitutes value, then when a commodity is reduced to a mere undifferentiated product of abstract labour, it is still useful from an abstract perspective, so that ‘the commodity is merely a product of labour, with no other attributes’… this statement is wrong, because the commodity still retains the attribute of usefulness. In this respect, all commodities are alike.” He argued that what corresponds to Marx’s concept of abstract labour is precisely the abstract utility of the commodity; the “common characteristic” possessed by exchanged commodities is precisely abstract utility, i.e., the property of satisfying human needs. He then reasoned: “When Marx moves from the different (use-values) of exchanged commodities to their common characteristic (exchange-value), he discards the utility of the commodity and regards the commodity merely as a conglomeration of abstract labour. This view is mistaken. In fact, what we must do is discard the specific, particular qualitative utility that distinguishes commodities, and consider only the abstract, general quantitative utility that they share.” Therefore, Wicksteed believed that the equation appearing in normal exchange, such as x quantity of commodity A = y quantity of commodity B, is not an equation of labour, but an equation of abstract utility (value); the useful labour or concrete labour of a commodity produces its use-value, but it is the abstract utility of the commodity that gives it value. He concluded: “At the same time, he must also admit that when the revised or supplemented interpretation accepts abstract utility as the measure of value, the discussion provided by Marx is only formally correct.”

然而，威克斯蒂德认为，马克思的推理有些跳跃性。“之后，我们发现了如下这句重要的阐述：只有有用的劳动才构成价值……这是前面所有分析的基础，因为如果只有有用劳动才构成价值，在剥去商品所有的由各种特殊劳动所产生的特殊属性时，我们不能剥去那些由抽象的有用劳动所产生的抽象效用。如果只有有用劳动才构成价值，那么当商品被归结为仅仅是抽象劳动的无差异产品时，它们从抽象的角度来讲还是有用的，这样‘商品仅仅是作为劳动的产物，此外别无其他属性’……这句话就是错的，因为商品依然保留着有用的属性。在这一点上，所有商品都是一样的。”他认为，对应着马克思抽象劳动概念的，正是商品的抽象效用，交换商品拥有的“共同特征”正是抽象效用，即满足人们需求的性质。接着，他论证道：“马克思从交换商品的不同（使用价值）转向商品的共同特征（交换价值）时，抛开了商品的效用，仅仅认为商品是抽象劳动的集合体。这一观点是错误的。事实上，我们必须做的就是抛开商品所不同的具体、特殊的质上的效用，而仅仅考虑商品所相同的抽象、一般量上的效用。”因此，威克斯蒂德认为，在正常交换中出现的诸如x量商品A=y量商品B的等式并不是劳动的等式，而是抽象效用（价值）的等式；商品的有用劳动或具体劳动生产出商品的使用价值，但正是商品的抽象效用才使得商品具有价值。最后他总结道：“同时，他也得承认，当修正或补充后的解释接受抽象效用是价值的衡量标准时，马克思所提供的讨论仅仅从形式上讲才是正确的。”

Wicksteed’s interpretation of value as “abstract utility” not only subjectivizes value, but also replaces Marx’s “real individuals” with abstract individualism in terms of argumentative method. For Marx, value is first and foremost embodied in the objective structure of things, i.e., the value of one commodity can only be expressed in the form of another use-value: “the commodity is the appropriate form of value only as something materially other, or as something equated with something else.” [28]28 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 3. Taking 20 yards of linen = 1 coat as an example, this means that the relative value of 20 yards of linen is expressed in the use-value of 1 coat, or “expressed as” the use-value of 1 coat. That is, the natural form of the coat becomes the value-form of the linen. Marx illustrated this objective structure: “Since he comes into the world neither with a mirror nor, like a Fichtean philosopher, with the proposition ‘I am I,’ man first sees and recognizes himself in another man. The man named Peter regards himself as a man only because he considers the man named Paul to be like himself. Thus, for Peter, this entire Paul, with his Paul’s body, becomes the form of appearance of the species ‘man.’” [29]29 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 3. According to Marx, this external opposition between value and use-value arises from their internal opposition: “the opposition between use-value and value latent in the nature of the commodity develops… this opposition is expressed externally.” [30]30 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 3. In other words, the reason linen can express its value in the use-value of a coat is that linen internally contains the dual attributes of use-value and value. For Marx, a commodity is directly a unity of use-value and value, rooted in labour within a specific social form, labour that is internally split into private labour and social labour. This labour within a specific social form is precisely the scattered individual labour in the world of commodities. In this form of labour, “the individual labour time of the individual directly presents itself as general labour time, and this generality of the individual labour directly presents itself as the social character of the individual labour. … As general labour time, it presents itself in a general product, a general equivalent, a definite quantity of objectified labour time; this definite quantity of objectified labour time … can be arbitrarily exchanged for any other use-value form it possesses as the product of anyone else.” [31]31 Karl Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, Chapter 2. In the world of commodity exchange, Marx outlines a chain of proof from value objectivity to the dual character of labour, and then to the specific social form. In this way, the subject of value is the real individual situated within a definite social form; every commodity producer is a consumer seeking to control the labour products of others, i.e., “producer” and “consumer” are unified, forming a structure that Hegel expressed as “I that is We.” [32]32 G.W.F. Hegel, *Phenomenology of Spirit*, Chapter IV, on self-consciousness.

威克斯蒂德将价值解释为“抽象效用”，不仅意味着将价值主观化，还意味着在论证方法上用抽象的个人主义取代马克思的“现实的人”。在马克思那里，价值首先体现为物的对象性结构，即一种商品的价值只能用另一种使用价值的形式来表示，“商品作为某种从物质上看的他物，或者作为和某种他物相等同的东西，才是价值的适当的形式”。以20码麻布=1件上衣为例，其意为20码麻布的相对价值表现在1件上衣的使用价值上，或“表达为”1件上衣的使用价值。也就是说，上衣的自然形式成了麻布的价值形式。马克思举例说明了这一对象性结构：“因为人来到世间，既没有带着镜子，也不像费希特派的哲学家那样，说什么我就是我，所以人起初是以别人来反映自己的。名叫彼得的人把自己当作人，只是由于他把名叫保罗的人看作是和自己相同的。因此，对彼得说来，这整个保罗就以他保罗的肉体成为人这个物种的表现形式。”依据马克思，价值和使用价值的这种外部对立源于其内部的对立，“商品本性中潜伏着的使用价值和价值的对立发展起来……这一对立在外部表现出来”。换言之，之所以麻布可以把自己的价值表现在上衣的使用价值上，是因为麻布内在地包含了使用价值和价值的双重属性。在马克思看来，商品直接是使用价值和价值的统一，其根源在于特有社会形式中的劳动，这种劳动内在地分裂为私人劳动和社会劳动。这种特有社会形式中的劳动正是商品世界中的分散的个人劳动，在这种劳动形式中，“个人的劳动时间直接表现为一般劳动时间，而个别劳动的这种一般性直接表现为个别劳动的社会性。……作为一般劳动时间，它在一个一般产品、一般等价物、一定量的对象化劳动时间中表现出来；这个一定量的对象化劳动时间……可以任意换成它作为任何别人的产品时所具有的任何别的使用价值形式”。在商品交换世界，马克思勾勒了一个从价值对象性到劳动二重性，再到特殊的社会形式的证明脉络。这样一来，价值的主体就是处在一定社会形式中的现实的人，每个商品生产者都是为了支配他人劳动产品的消费者，即“生产者”和“消费者”是统一的，是一种黑格尔所表达的“我就是我们”的结构。

Wicksteed’s argument concerning value relations does not take the objective value relation between things as its starting point, but rather the “utility relation” between persons and things. As noted above, what he calls value is “abstract utility,” i.e., the property of something satisfying some human need; in fact, “abstract utility” is merely another expression of Jevons’ concept of “utility.” [33]33 William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882), British economist and logician, a founder of the marginal utility theory of value. His argument is based on the “principle of indifference” and the “principle of variety of utility” from Jevons’ marginal utility theory. The former principle means that for commodities of the same quality on the current market, there is always a single price, and all quantities of it can be exchanged for any other commodity in some proportion; the latter principle means that each successive unit of a commodity yields less utility than the previous one. According to these two principles, the utility of the last added unit determines the value of the commodity. Taking the example of a community’s demand for coats, he pointed out that if everyone in the community owns two coats, then if the number of coats increases further, the degree to which coats satisfy demand decreases, the utility they possess diminishes, and consequently the exchange-value of coats falls. The underlying logic is that exchange-value is equivalent to utility. In this way, value relations are interpreted as sensory relations between persons and things (or subject and object). According to this logic, A, who possesses x quantity of commodity A, chooses to exchange with B, who possesses y quantity of commodity B, because A and B believe that x quantity of commodity A and y quantity of commodity B bring them the same degree of subjective feeling. Thus, the “=” in the equation “x quantity of commodity A = y quantity of commodity B” signifies a “subjective psychological” connection. In other words, the objective economic exchange relation between the commodity-exchanging subjects A and B is reduced to a “consumer psychology” relation between them; the result is that the objective value relation between commodity A and commodity B is severed, while the “consumer psychology” connection between A and B also obscures the objective production relation between them. That is, the exchanging subjects A and B relate to each other only as isolated consumers, and their other social determinations are “abstracted” away. On this point, Marx had already provided a correct analysis: “The principle of utility was not Bentham’s invention. He merely repeated in a dull way what Helvétius and other Frenchmen of the 18th century had said with spirit. If we want to know what is useful for a dog, we must investigate the nature of dogs. This nature itself cannot be deduced from the principle of utility. If we want to apply this principle to man, and to evaluate all human actions, movements, relations, etc., according to the principle of utility, we must first study human nature in general, and then study the historically modified human nature in each epoch. But Bentham does not bother with this. He naively and tediously takes the modern philistine, especially the English philistine, as the standard man.” [34]34 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 24, Section 5, footnote. Starting from abstract individualism, Wicksteed’s view of “abstract utility” inevitably falls into a twofold dilemma.

威克斯蒂德关于价值关系的论证，其切入点不是物与物之间的价值对象性关系，而是人与物之间的“效用关系”。如前所述，他所谓的价值就是“抽象效用”，即某物满足人们某种需求的性质，事实上，“抽象效用”不过是杰文斯关于“效用”概念的另一种表达。他的论证以杰文斯边际效用理论中的“无差异原则”和“效用多样性原则”为基础。前一条原则是指对于当前市场质量相同的商品总存在唯一的价格，它的所有数量可以按照某种比例交换任何其他商品；后一条原则是指每下一件该商品的效用均比前一件的少。根据这两条原则，最后增加商品的效用决定了该商品的价值。他以社团里每个人对大衣的需求为例指出，社团中所有人都拥有两件大衣，如果大衣数量再增加，那么大衣满足需求的程度降低，拥有的效用减少，随之大衣的交换价值降低。其潜在的逻辑是，交换价值就是效用等值。这样，价值关系就被解释成了人与物（或主体与客体）之间的感觉关系。按照这种逻辑，拥有x量商品A的甲选择与拥有y量商品B的乙进行交换，原因在于甲乙认为x量商品A与y量商品B给自己带来的主观感受程度相同。这样一来，等式“x量商品A=y量商品B”中的“=”就意味着“主观心理”联系。换言之，商品交换主体甲乙之间的客观的经济交换关系被还原成了二者的“消费心理”关系，其结果是割裂了商品A与商品B之间的客观的价值对象性关系，同时甲和乙的“消费心理”联系也遮蔽了二者之间的客观的生产关系。也就是说，交换主体甲乙只是作为独立的消费者发生联系，二者其他方面的社会规定性被“抽象”掉了。对此，马克思早已有正确的分析，“效用原则并不是边沁的发明。他不过把爱尔维修和18世纪其他法国人的才气横溢的言论平庸无味地重复一下而已。假如我们想知道什么东西对狗有用，我们就必须探究狗的本性。这种本性本身是不能从‘效用原则’中虚构出来的。如果我们想把这一原则运用到人身上来，想根据效用原则来评价人的一切行为、运动和关系等等，就首先要研究人的一般本性，然后要研究在每个时代历史地发生了变化的人的本性。但是边沁不管这些。他幼稚而乏味地把现代的市侩，特别是英国的市侩说成是标准人”。从抽象的个人主义出发，威克斯蒂德的“抽象效用”观必然陷入两方面的困境。

First, the confusion of value and use value leads to the confusion of money’s “external measure” and “internal measure” (or substance). Wicksteed’s interpretation of “abstract utility” as “degree of satisfaction” is in fact still a definition of the concept of “use value”; it makes no substantive distinction between the concepts of “value” and “use value.” Although Wicksteed uses the word “abstract” to explain the degree of satisfaction, common sense tells us that people’s degree of satisfaction with a thing is obviously concrete. Therefore, Marx opposed seeking the substance of value from the relationship between an object as a natural thing and human needs, “because it is not the degree of utility of an article that determines the quantity in which articles are exchanged for one another.” [35]35 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 1. Treating the degree of utility of an article as value inevitably leads to the obscuring of the question “what is value?” For example, 1 lb. of coffee = 4 lbs. of cotton. Then what is the value of 1 lb. of coffee? The utility of 4 lbs. of cotton. What is the value of 4 lbs. of cotton? The utility of 1 lb. of coffee. Since the value of 1 lb. of coffee is the utility of 4 lbs. of cotton, and the value of 4 lbs. of cotton is the utility of 1 lb. of coffee, it can be deduced that the value of 1 lb. of coffee = the utility of 1 lb. of coffee (because a = b, b = a, so a = a). On the one hand, this means tautology; on the other hand, it means the suspension of the value problem and the raising of the problem of the “third term” in the measurement of value, i.e., according to Wicksteed’s theory of “abstract utility,” how should the “abstract utility” of commodity A and commodity B in the equation x quantity of commodity A = y quantity of commodity B be measured. In the subsequent case, Wicksteed “naturally” gives the answer: pounds sterling, i.e., money. But the problem is that using money as the measure of value, or using money to “purchase” commodities, already presupposes value and its development. “But in order that commodities may express their exchange-value independently in money, in a third commodity, in the only commodity, the value of commodities is already presupposed.” [36]36 Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Chapter 2, Section 3. That is to say, Wicksteed not only does not understand that money is merely the form of appearance of value, but also cannot distinguish between money as the external “measure of value” in terms of quantity and as the transformed form of the internal “measure of value” in terms of quality. On this point, Marx’s critique of the vulgar economist Samuel Bailey applies equally to Wicksteed: “But if he himself had analyzed money as a ‘measure of value,’ not only as a measure of quantity, but as the qualitative transformation of commodities, he would himself have arrived at a correct analysis of value.” [37]37 Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part 3, Chapter 20, Section 4. “Mr. Bailey, with his peculiar mode of thinking which only grasps the surface of phenomena, draws the opposite conclusion: it is only because money exists outside commodities that we are accustomed to consider the value of commodities not from their mutual relation, but to regard the value of commodities as a relation to a third thing … In Bailey’s view, it is not the determination of products as values that leads to the formation of money and manifests itself as money, but the existence of money that leads to the fiction of the concept of value.” [38]38 Ibid. Wicksteed, like Bailey, does not understand that money can “purchase” commodities and serve as the quantitative “measure of value” of commodities as a “third thing” only on the premise that money is first of all a commodity, a universal equivalent, and a manifestation of socially necessary labor. Why can Wicksteed not understand money (or commodities) as abstract labor (or social labor) and distinguish between money as the external “measure of value” in terms of quantity and as the transformed form of the internal “measure of value” in terms of quality? The reason is that Wicksteed cannot understand people as historical, concrete, real individuals existing within certain social forms and possessing various social determinations, but instead understands people as abstract consuming individuals.

其一，价值和使用价值的混淆导致货币的“外在尺度”和“内在尺度”（或实体）的混淆。威克斯蒂德将“抽象效用”解释为“满足度”实际上仍是对“使用价值”概念的界定，并未对“价值”和“使用价值”这两个概念作出实质性的区分。虽然威克斯蒂德冠以“抽象”一词解释满足度，但就常识而言，人们对某物的满足度显然是具体的。所以，马克思反对从把物品作为自然物同人的需要的关系出发探寻价值实体，“因为不是物品的效用程度决定物品互相交换的量”。把物品的效用程度看作价值，必然导致“什么是价值”的问题被遮蔽。例如，1磅咖啡=4磅棉花，那么什么是1磅咖啡的价值呢？4磅棉花的效用。什么是4磅棉花的价值呢？1磅咖啡的效用。既然1磅咖啡的价值是4磅棉花的效用，而4磅棉花的价值是1磅咖啡的效用，那么可以推出1磅咖啡的价值=1磅咖啡的效用（因为a=b,b=a，所以a=a）。这一方面意味着同义反复，另一方面意味着价值问题的悬置和价值衡量的“第三者”问题的提出，即按照威克斯蒂德的“抽象效用”论，等式x量商品A与y量商品B中商品A和B的“抽象效用”应该如何衡量。威克斯蒂德在后面的案例中，很“自然”地就给出了答案：英镑，即货币。但问题是，用货币作为价值尺度，或用货币“购买”商品，就已经以价值及其发展为前提。“但是要使商品能把它们的交换价值独立地表现在货币上，表现在第三种商品，即唯一的商品上，就已经要以商品价值为前提。”也就是说，威克斯蒂德不仅不懂得货币只是价值的表现形式，而且不能把货币作为量的外在“价值尺度”与作为质的内在“价值尺度”的转化形式区分开来。就这一点来说，马克思对庸俗经济学家赛米尔·贝利的批判同样适用于威克斯蒂德，“但是，如果他本人把货币作为‘价值尺度’，不只是作为量的尺度，而且作为商品的质的转化来分析，那么他本人就会对价值作出正确的分析”。“贝利先生用他那种只抓住现象表面的古怪的思维方法，得出了相反的结论：只是因为在商品之外存在货币，于是我们习惯于不是从商品的相互关系来考察商品的价值，而是把商品的价值看成和第三物的关系……在贝利看来，不是产品作为价值的规定性，导致货币的形成，并表现为货币，而是货币的存在导致价值概念的虚构。”威克斯蒂德同贝利一样不明白，货币能够“购买”商品，作为“第三物”成为商品的量的“价值尺度”，其前提是货币首先是商品，是一般等价物，是社会必要劳动的表现。威克斯蒂德为什么不能把货币（或商品）理解为抽象劳动（或社会劳动），并在货币作为量的外在“价值尺度”和作为质的内在“价值尺度”的转化形式之间作出区分呢？原因就在于，威克斯蒂德不能把人理解为历史的、具体的、处在一定社会形式中的、具有各种社会规定性的现实的个人，而是把人理解为抽象的消费个体。

Second, substituting “abstract utility” for “abstract labor” prevents the establishment of a necessary connection between the “cause of value” and the “measure of value.” Wicksteed regards money as the quantitative “measure of value” of other commodities, but the problem is: what determines the value (abstract utility) of money itself? Or, to put it another way: is the “abstract utility” of money the cause of money’s role as the external quantitative “measure of value” of other commodities? This again involves two deeper issues: first, how can the “heterogeneous sensory experiences” (abstract utility) of different individuals regarding money determine the “identical measure of value” (the value of money)? In other words, how can the “abstract utility” (sensory experience) of all individuals regarding money determine the value of the total quantity of money (the value of the total social product) as a dialectical totality? Second, can “abstract utility” be measured?

其二，用“抽象效用”替代“抽象劳动”，导致“价值原因”与“价值尺度”之间不能建立起必然联系。威克斯蒂德把货币看作其他商品价值的量的“价值尺度”，但问题是货币的价值（抽象效用）又是由什么决定的。或者换个问法：货币的“抽象效用”是货币作为其他商品的量的外在“价值尺度”的原因吗？这里又涉及两个深层次问题：一是不同个体关于货币的“异质性感性经验”（抽象效用）如何能够决定“同一性价值尺度”（货币价值），或者说，所有个体关于货币的“抽象效用”（感性经验）如何能够决定货币总量的价值（社会总产品的价值）这一辩证总体；二是“抽象效用”是否可以度量。

As for the former, it is structurally similar to Kant’s problem of how synthetic a priori judgments are possible, i.e., how to unify the manifold of sensibility into universally necessary propositions. The dilemma Kant faced is in fact also the dilemma Wicksteed faces, a dilemma that cannot be resolved within the framework of the “subject-object” dualism of modern epistemology. To resolve this dilemma properly, it is necessary to introduce the intermediary of practice; in other words, the social dimension must be incorporated. From the perspective of daily life, “the entrepreneur who wins in competition or the bankrupt bank capitalist, although they were once famous and active figures, the ‘creators’ of the social process, that social process ultimately turns against them, and they are all forced to withdraw from the battlefield.” [39]39 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 3, Chapter 15, Section 3. In other words, if the subjective feelings of a single individual about money could truly determine the value of money, then what would occur in financial markets or stock markets would be stories where everyone is happy. Anyone with even a little knowledge of modern economics knows that the “cause of value” of money is not determined by the subjective factor of its “abstract utility,” but is more influenced by various objective factors such as the total social product and exchange rates between countries.

就前者而言，其在结构上类似于康德的先天综合判断何以可能的问题，即如何将感性杂多统摄为普遍必然性命题。康德面临的困境实际上也是威克斯蒂德面临的困境，这一困境在近代认识论的“主体-客体”二元关系框架下是不可能得到解决的。要想合理解决这一困境，就必须引入实践这一中介，换言之，必须纳入社会的维度。从日常生活来看，“在竞争中获胜的企业家或破产的银行资本家，虽然他们以前曾是有名望的活跃人物，是社会过程的‘创造者’，但该社会过程最终会反过来反对他们自己，他们都得被迫退出战场”。换言之，如果单个人关于货币的主观感受真能决定货币的价值，那么在金融市场或股票市场发生的就都是皆大欢喜的故事了。只要拥有一点现代经济学常识的人都知道，货币的“价值原因”不是由其“抽象效用”这一主观因素决定的，而是更多地受社会总产品和国与国之间的汇率等各种客观因素的影响。

As for the latter, like Bentham’s “felicific calculus,” Wicksteed’s proposed “abstract utility” faces the difficulty of calculation, because pleasure and pain differ not only in quantity but also in quality, and are incommensurable. “When we estimate the value of everything else, we consider both quality and quantity; it would be absurd to suppose that pleasure should be estimated only by quantity.” [40]40 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, Chapter 2. Obviously, the subjective feelings of the working class and the bourgeoisie about money are qualitatively different. “If one admits that the individualistic method of the Austrian school is correct, and seeks to calculate value from ‘subjective value,’ i.e., from the personal valuations of a few individuals, one must also note that in the psychology of the modern ‘producer’ and in the psychology of the producer under a natural economy (especially in the psychology of ‘the man sitting by the stream’ or the man starving in the wilderness), there are completely different materials. The modern capitalist, whether a representative of industrial capital or commercial capital, is completely uninterested in the use value of the product: he works only for profit with the help of hired ‘hands,’ and is interested only in exchange value.” [41]41 V. I. Lenin, “A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism,” Chapter 1, Section 1. Jevons also noted that human feelings are difficult to measure directly, but he believed they could be calculated based on the effects of the quantity of feeling. However, here there is the difficulty of proving that the pleasure actually desired is equal to the pleasure worth desiring. In fact, the problem of the difficulty of calculating subjective feelings has always been a hurdle that utilitarianism cannot overcome. When the “abstract utility” of money for individuals is difficult to estimate, it cannot constitute the internal cause of money as a measure of value. In other words, the “cause of value” and the “measure of value” lose their internal causal relationship.

就后者而言，如同边沁的“苦乐计算法”，威克斯蒂德提出的“抽象效用”面临着难以计算的困难，因为苦乐不仅有量的差别，而且有质的不同，具有不可公度性。“我们估计一切其他东西的价值的时候，都把品质与分量同加考虑；偏偏以为快乐只按分量估价，这就未免荒谬了。”显然，工人阶级和资产阶级关于货币的主观感受有着质的不同。“如果承认奥地利学派的个人主义方法是正确的，并力求从‘主观价值’即从几个人的个人估价中算出价值，那也应当注意这样一种情况，即在现代‘生产者’的心理和在自然经济条件下生产者的心理中（尤其是在‘坐在小溪旁的那个人’或在荒原挨饿的那个人的心理中），具有完全不同的材料。现代资本家无论是产业资本的代表者还是商业资本的代表者，都对产品的使用价值完全不感兴趣：他借助于雇佣的‘人手’仅仅是为利润而‘工作’，他感兴趣的只是交换价值。”杰文斯也注意到人的感情难以直接测量，但他认为可以根据感情之量的效果计算。然而，这里又存在着无法证明实际所欲求的快乐等于值得所欲求的快乐的困难。实际上，主观感受难以计算的问题始终都是功利主义难以逾越的难题。当个体关于货币的“抽象效用”难以估计的时候，它也就不能构成货币作为价值尺度的内在原因了。换言之，“价值原因”与“价值尺度”之间失去了内在的因果关系。

Clearly, starting from the methodology of individualism, it is impossible to grasp objective social laws. Werner Sombart pointed out, “Marx simply never thought of studying the personal motives of exchangers or starting from the calculation of production costs. No. His line of thought was this: price is formed by competition, but how it is formed goes unnoticed. Yet competition is likewise regulated by the rate of profit, the rate of profit by the rate of surplus value, and this latter in turn by value, which is itself an expression of socially conditioned forces and of social productive forces. This appears in the system as the reverse sequence: value—surplus value—profit—competition—price. If we want to express it in one sentence, we can say: Marx never talked about motives, but always only about constraints, in this case constraints that limit the personal will of economic agents.” That is to say, he believed that Marx studied the objective regularity constructed from the results of individual subjective wills, not the individual will itself. “He studies the regularity of social phenomena regardless of how social phenomena relate to phenomena on the level of individual consciousness.” Since Wicksteed could not scientifically reveal how value (so-called “abstract utility”) is produced, he naturally could not scientifically reveal the true sources of economic forms such as wages, profit, interest, and rent, let alone reveal the structural essence of economic phenomena such as the opposition between labor and capital and the periodically erupting capitalist economic crises.

显然，从个人主义的方法论出发，无法把握客观的社会规律。威尔纳·桑巴特指出，“马克思根本就没有想到要研究交换者的个人动机或从计算生产费用出发。没有。他的思路是这样的：价格是竞争形成的，而如何形成则未受人注意。但竞争同样受利润率调节，利润率则由剩余价值率调节，这后者又受本身是社会制约因素的表现和社会生产力表现的价值来调节。这在体系中表现为相反的序列：价值—剩余价值—利润—竞争—价格。如果我们想用一句话表述，那我们可以说：马克思从来没谈过动机，却总是只讲限制，在这种情况下是指限制经济主体的个人意愿。”也就是说，他认为马克思研究的是单个人主观意志结果所建构的客观规律性，而不是个人意志本身。“他研究社会现象的规律性而不管社会现象与个人意识方面的现象有何联系。”威克斯蒂德既然不能科学地揭示价值（所谓的“抽象效用”）是如何生产出来的，当然也就不可能科学地揭示工资、利润、利息和地租等经济形式的真正来源，更不可能揭示劳动与资本的对立以及周期性爆发的资本主义经济危机等经济现象的结构性本质。

III. The Unhistorical Viewpoint and the “Clumsy” Theory of Supply and Demand

三、非历史主义观点与“蹩脚”的供需理论

Engels, in criticizing marginalist theory, hit the nail on the head: “The most fashionable theory here now is that of Stanley Jevons, according to which value is determined by utility, i.e., exchange value = use value, and on the other hand value is determined by the limit of supply (i.e., production costs), which is nothing but a roundabout way of saying, in confused terms, that value is determined by demand and supply. Vulgar political economy is everywhere to be found!” Although Wicksteed replaced Jevons’s concept of “utility” with the concept of “abstract utility,” what he essentially developed was still a superficial theory of supply and demand. Therefore, Engels’s criticism of Jevons applies equally to Wicksteed.

恩格斯在批评边际主义理论时一针见血地指出：“现在这里最时髦的理论是斯坦利·杰文斯的理论，按照这种理论，价值由效用决定，就是说，交换价值=使用价值，另一方面，价值又由供应限度（即生产费用）决定，这不过是用混乱的说法转弯抹角地说，价值是由需求和供应决定的。庸俗政治经济学真是比比皆是！”尽管威克斯蒂德用“抽象效用”概念替代了杰文斯的“效用”概念，但他本质上发展的仍然是一种肤浅的供需理论，因此恩格斯对杰文斯的批评同样适用于威克斯蒂德。

“We know that for a member of a community, the value of a coat may not be eight times that of a hat, although it takes eight times as long to produce a coat as to produce a hat (this is always the case, even when the value of a coat equals that of a hat). But the labor force of this community is still willing to spend eight times the time producing a coat as it spends producing a hat, because once produced, the value of the coat is eight times the value of the hat.” This statement by Wicksteed shows that the marginal utility of a commodity is the cause of production, while the labor expended is the result. In Wicksteed’s view, the exchange value of a certain type of commodity is determined not only by its marginal utility but also by the marginal utility within the range of supply. “Now the value of a watch coincides with the quantity of labor it contains; its value is £7 10s., neither more nor less. The labor force is willing to devote 9 days to producing watches, and will not increase the input of labor time any further, because at the margin of supply the utility of a watch equals £7 10s.” Clearly, no matter how Wicksteed changed the formula, what he expounded was still a theory that determines the value of commodities by the relationship between supply and demand. On the basis of this theory, Wicksteed believed that the value of labor power is also determined by its utility at the margin of supply, not by the quantity of labor required to produce labor power. Thus he openly opposed Marx’s theory of surplus value.

“我们知道，对社团成员来说，一件大衣的价值可能未必是一顶帽子的八倍，尽管生产大衣的时间八倍于生产帽子的时间（总是如此，甚至当一件大衣的价值等于一顶帽子时亦如此）。但是，这个社团的劳动力还是愿意将生产帽子的八倍时间用来生产大衣，因为一旦生产出来，大衣的价值就是帽子价值的八倍。”威克斯蒂德的这句话表明，商品的边际效用是生产的原因，而耗费劳动是结果。在威克斯蒂德看来，某类商品的交换价值不仅由其边际效用决定，还由供给范围内的边际效用决定。“现在手表的价值与它所包含的劳动数量相一致，它的价值是7英镑又10先令，不多也不少。劳动力愿意投入9天的时间生产手表，而不会再增加劳动时间的投入，因为在供给边际上手表的效用等于7英镑10先令。”显然，无论威克斯蒂德怎样翻新花样，他阐述的仍然是一种由供需关系决定商品价值的理论。在这一理论的基础上，威克斯蒂德认为劳动力的价值也是由其在边际供给上的效用决定的，而不是由生产劳动力所需的劳动量决定的，由此他公开反对马克思的剩余价值理论。

However, what determines the marginal utility of demand and supply? On this question, Wicksteed remained silent. When discussing the marginal utility on the supply side of watches, Wicksteed mentioned technological changes in watch production, but for him technological changes in production were merely a premise and an assumption; he did not clarify the subject or the internal logic of technological change. Following his logic, he might think that as the quantity demanded for watches increases, through technological change more watches can be produced in the same amount of time, thereby obtaining more “abstract utility.” But the problem is that producers could completely increase watch production by expanding the scale of investment, without resorting to technological change. According to Marx’s analysis, individual capitalists in the same sector are willing to adopt new production techniques in order to lower production costs and thereby obtain a share above the social average profit, i.e., to obtain more relative surplus value. “As a fanatical pursuer of valorization, he ruthlessly forces humanity to produce for production’s sake, thereby to develop social productive forces and to create the material conditions of production.” What serves as an important driving force for the valorization of capital is here accepted by Wicksteed uncritically as a given “social fact.” In this way, the relationships between the development of productive forces and the acquisition of surplus profit, between production price (or production costs) and the average rate of profit, and between the law of value and changes in supply and demand, are all obscured. In fact, supply and demand presuppose the transformation of value into market value, and market value regulates the relationship between supply and demand. In response to the vulgar economists’ erroneous view that the natural price of a commodity depends on the proportion of supply to demand, Marx analyzed and pointed out: “In the case under consideration here, it is precisely changes in production costs, and hence changes in value, that cause changes in demand, and thereby changes in the proportion of supply to demand; and this change in demand can also cause changes in supply; this would prove precisely the opposite of what our thinker wants to prove; that is, it would prove that changes in production costs are in no way regulated by the proportion of supply and demand, but on the contrary, changes in production costs regulate the proportion of supply and demand.” This criticism applies equally to Wicksteed’s theory of marginal utility.

然而，需求和供给的边际效用又是由什么决定的呢？威克斯蒂德在这个问题上缄默不语。在论述手表的供给方面的边际效用时，威克斯蒂德提到了生产手表的技术变革，但在他那里生产手表的技术变革只是一种前提和假设，他并没有阐明技术变革的主体和内在逻辑。按照他的逻辑，也许他会认为手表的需求量增多，通过技术变革，相同时间内可以生产出更多的手表，从而会获得更多的“抽象效用”。但问题是，生产者完全可以通过扩大投资规模增加手表的生产，而不必通过技术变革。根据马克思的分析，相同部门的单个资本家愿意采用新的生产技术，是为了降低生产成本，从而获得超过社会平均利润的份额，即获得更多的相对剩余价值。“作为价值增殖的狂热追求者，他肆无忌惮地迫使人类去为生产而生产，从而去发展社会生产力，去创造生产的物质条件”。作为资本增殖重要动力的东西，在威克斯蒂德这里却被当作既定的“社会事实”未加批判地就接受了。这样一来，生产力的发展与超额利润的获得、生产价格（或生产费用）与平均利润率、价值规律与供求变化等之间的关系便被遮蔽了。实际上，供求以价值转化为市场价值为前提，市场价值调节供求关系。针对庸俗经济学家认为的商品的自然价格依存于供求比例的错误观点，马克思分析指出，“在这里所说的情况下，正好是生产费用的变化，因而正好是价值的变化，引起需求的变化，从而引起供求比例的变化，并且需求的这种变化，也能够引起供给的变化；这正好会证明我们这位思想家想要证明的事情的反面；就是说，这会证明，生产费用的变化，无论如何不是由供求比例来调节的，而是相反，生产费用的变化调节供求比例”。这一批评，同样适用于威克斯蒂德的边际效用理论。

Wicksteed used the premise of the development of productive forces without reflection, which doomed his entire argument to remain superficial and untenable. In his discussion of whether the labor force in the watch-producing sector would transfer to other production sectors, he believed that this mainly depended on whether the supply utility of watches was higher than the supply utility of producing other commodities. Specifically, it depended on whether a greater quantity of money or higher purchasing power could be obtained. But the problem is: why does a certain quantity of money, after going through the process of buying and selling investment, yield a greater quantity of money than originally invested? The money owner buys commodities at their value and sells commodities at their value, but at the end of the process obtains a value greater than he invested; that is, the form G—W—G′ appears. Why? Wicksteed took this proposition of mercantilism for granted and did not delve into it. Yet for Marx, the secret of the capitalist mode of production lies precisely in this magical formula. In Marx’s view, this change cannot occur in the movement of money itself, because Ricardo had already correctly pointed out that capital in the form of money yields no profit; nor does it occur in the W—G′ stage, because the act occurring in this stage is merely the reconversion of the commodity from its natural form into the money form. According to Marx’s analysis, this change can only occur in the G—W stage. In this stage, the use value of the commodity purchased by the money owner itself possesses the unique attribute of being a source of value; this unique commodity is labor capacity or labor power.

威克斯蒂德未加反思地使用了生产力发展这一前提，这就注定了他的整个论证必然流于表面，难以成立。他在讨论生产手表部门的劳动力是否转移到其他生产部门中时，认为其主要取决于手表的供给效用是否比生产其他商品的供给效用高。具体讲，就是看是否可以获得更多的货币数量或者更高的购买力。但问题是，为什么一定量的货币经过买和卖的投资销售的过程后会获得比原来更多的货币量。货币占有者按照商品的价值购买商品、出卖商品，但在过程终了时获得的价值大于他投入的价值，也就是说，出现了G—W—G′这样的形式，为什么呢？威克斯蒂德想当然地接受了重商主义的这一命题，并没有深入探究。然而，对马克思来说，资本主义生产方式的秘密恰恰就藏在这一充满魔法的公式中。在马克思看来，这一变化不可能发生在货币本身的运动中，因为李嘉图早已正确地指出，在货币形式上，资本是不产生利润的；也不是在W—G′阶段发生的，因为这一阶段发生的行为只不过是商品从自然形式再转化为货币形式。根据马克思的分析，这一变化只能发生在G—W阶段。在这一阶段中，货币占有者购买的一种商品的使用价值本身具有成为价值源泉的独特属性，这种独特的商品就是劳动能力或劳动力。

Wicksteed’s discussion of the supply utility of labor power neither examined the motive of producers in the same sector to adopt labor-saving new technologies, nor delved deeply into why “abstract utility” would increase (the quantity of money would increase). He crudely severed the unified overall process of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. This determined that his critique of Marx’s theory of surplus value was not only logically inconsistent but also powerless when confronting real problems.

威克斯蒂德讨论劳动力的供给效用，既没有考察相同部门生产者采用节约劳动力的新技术的动力，也没有深入研究为什么“抽象效用”会提高（货币量会增多），粗野地割裂生产、分配、交换和消费同一性的整体过程，这就决定了他对马克思剩余价值理论的批判不仅在逻辑上难以自洽，而且在面对现实问题时也苍白无力。

Wicksteed’s “clumsy” supply-and-demand theory is closely related to his ahistorical mode of argumentation. “The economists have a singular method of procedure. There are only two kinds of institutions for them, artificial and natural. The institutions of feudalism are artificial, those of the bourgeoisie are natural. In this they resemble the theologians, who likewise establish two kinds of religion. Every religion which is not theirs is an invention of men, while their own is an emanation from God. … Thus there has been history, but there is no longer any.” [46]46 Karl Marx, *The Poverty of Philosophy*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 166. [Translator’s note: This is a standard English translation of the passage cited by the author.] Just as Marx criticized the classical political economists and vulgar economists, Wicksteed and other marginalists likewise treat commodity exchange relations as natural, merely circling within the surface connections of the capitalist mode of production. Wherever Marx saw economic categories as shaped by specific social forms, Wicksteed abstracts away their historical factors and treats them as eternal; wherever Marx saw social-historical relations between people, Wicksteed naturalistically treats them as universal forms of the relation between people and things. He falls not only into commodity fetishism but also into concept fetishism. As noted earlier, Wicksteed focuses primarily on the exchange of commodities as useful things (including money as an external quantitative measure of commodity value), that is, on the level of the “expression” of the social relations of private labor (the relation between things). In this way, the social relations between producers that are expressed are obscured, and his attention remains fixed on “usefulness” (utility) between people and things, while ignoring the social-historical relations between people. On the basis that social relations are regarded as the natural attributes of commodities, universal commodity exchange becomes even more “natural.” Thus, like the classical political economists and vulgar economists, Wicksteed treats concepts such as “exchange,” “money,” and “value” as “eternal” economic categories, and the historical real movements contained within these categories are further flattened out. Using these concepts, from which “historical factors” have been abstracted, to analyze alienated empirical phenomena, Wicksteed can in no way penetrate the essential structure of economic laws.

威克斯蒂德这一“蹩脚”的供需理论与其非历史主义的论证方式紧密相关。“经济学家们的论证方式是非常奇怪的。他们认为只有两种制度：一种是人为的，一种是天然的。封建制度是人为的，资产阶级制度是天然的。在这方面，经济学家很像那些把宗教也分为两类的神学家。一切异教都是人们臆造的，而他们自己的宗教则是神的启示。……于是，以前是有历史的，现在再也没有历史了。”就像马克思对古典政治经济学家和庸俗经济学家的批判一样，威克斯蒂德等边际主义者也是将商品交换关系看作天然的，只在资本主义生产方式的表面联系中兜圈子。凡是马克思认为被特定社会形式赋形的经济范畴，威克斯蒂德都将其历史因素抽象掉，看作永恒的；凡是马克思视为人与人之间的社会历史关系，威克斯蒂德都以自然的态度将其看作人对物的普遍关系形式。他不仅陷入了商品拜物教思维，而且陷入了概念拜物教思维。如前所述，威克斯蒂德主要着眼于商品作为有用物的交换（包括货币作为商品价值的量的外在尺度）层面，也就是在私人劳动的社会关系的“表现”（物与物的关系）层面，这样被表现的生产者之间的社会关系便被遮蔽了，他的注意力也就停留在了人与物之间的“有用性”（效用）上，而忽略了人与人之间的社会历史关系。在社会关系被视为商品的天然属性的基础上，普遍的商品交换就变得更加“自然”了，因此就像古典政治经济学家和庸俗经济学家一样，威克斯蒂德将“交换”“货币”“价值”等概念都看作“永恒”的经济范畴，这些范畴之中包含的历史性现实运动被进一步抹平。威克斯蒂德用这种被抽象掉“历史因素”的概念分析异化了的经验现象，无论如何都无法深入经济规律的本质性结构中。

Marx’s critique of political economy is precisely about establishing an intrinsic connection between abstract economic categories and the historical real movement of the capitalist mode of production. As the most important achievement of the critique of political economy, one of the key aims of *Capital* is to investigate the real premises and modes of emergence of each economic category, revealing the way in which capitalist society, as a unique social form, shapes ideas. “The categories which express its relations, and the understanding of its structure, allow us at the same time to penetrate the structure and production relations of all extinct social forms.” [47]47 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy*, trans. Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin, 1973), p. 105. In *Capital*, corresponding to the dialectical movement of concepts such as “commodity,” “value,” “money,” and “capital,” is the self-negating real movement of capitalism. Therefore, for Marx, political economy is essentially a historical science; the economic laws of each historical period have their own uniqueness. “As soon as life has passed through a given period of development and moves from one stage to another, it begins to be governed by different laws.” [48]48 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (London: Penguin, 1976), p. 433, n. 2. “Even the most abstract categories, although precisely because of their abstraction they are valid for all epochs, are nevertheless, in the specific character of this abstraction, themselves likewise a product of historical conditions.” [49]49 Marx, *Grundrisse*, p. 104. Thus, in Marx’s view, not only do economic categories bear the characteristics of a specific historical epoch, but economic laws are also concrete and historical, and must be examined with the critical and transcendent theoretical perspective of historical materialism.

马克思的政治经济学批判正是要在抽象的经济范畴与资本主义生产方式的历史现实运动之间建立内在关联。作为政治经济学批判最重要成果的《资本论》，其要旨之一就是探寻各经济范畴的现实前提和给出方式，揭示资本主义社会这一独特的社会形式对观念的赋形方式。“那些表现它的各种关系的范畴以及对于它的结构的理解，同时也能使我们透视一切已经覆灭的社会形式的结构和生产关系。”在《资本论》中，与“商品”“价值”“货币”“资本”这种概念辩证运动相对应的，是自否性的资本主义现实运动。因此，对马克思来说，政治经济学本质上是一门历史的科学，每个历史时期的经济规律都有其独特性。“一旦生活经过了一定的发展时期，由一定阶段进入另一阶段时，它就开始受另外的规律支配。”“哪怕是最抽象的范畴，虽然正是由于它们的抽象而适用于一切时代，但是就这个抽象的规定性本身来说，同样是历史条件的产物”。因此，在马克思看来，不仅经济范畴具有特殊历史时代的特征，而且经济规律也是具体的、历史的，必须以历史唯物主义的批判性和超越性的理论视野进行审视。

However, like all vulgar economists, Wicksteed’s entire wisdom lies in demonstrating the permanence and harmony of existing social relations. First, Wicksteed, situated in a reified world, has his ideology and mode of thinking constructed by the objective social force of the capitalist mode of production, making it inevitable that his thought is consistent with the structure of commodity society. This makes it difficult for him to maintain sufficient reflection and critique of abstract economic categories and theories, and thus he loses basic sensitivity to the concrete totality of the real movement of capitalism, as well as the capacity for historical reflection and critique. Second, in commodity exchange, the behavior and thinking of the exchanger are separated. The abstraction of exchange behavior is a direct result produced through action; it does not directly present itself to thought. In other words, thought is not directly influenced by exchange abstraction; rather, it is only after exchange behavior has stripped away the heterogeneous materiality of commodities that thought is influenced by exchange abstraction. At this point, the different characteristics of abstraction, which no longer bear the mark of origin, are transmitted to thought, and historical specificity is lost here. “The construction of categories, the philosophical reflection of exchange abstraction, requires setting aside (forgetting) their social origin, forgetting origin in general.” [50]50 Alfred Sohn-Rethel, *Intellectual and Manual Labour: A Critique of Epistemology* (London: Macmillan, 1978), p. 57. Wicksteed clearly lacks the awareness and ability to question the origin of the economic categories he uses, whereas historical materialism is precisely the recollection of origin. Finally, from Wicksteed’s individualist methodology, consumerist standpoint, and his critique of Marx’s theory of surplus value, it can be seen that he is not only the “one-dimensional man” depicted by Marcuse, lacking the ability to think about reality from a diversity of perspectives, but also that the bourgeois nature of his theory determines his inevitable opposition to the historical principle of political economy.

然而，与所有庸俗经济学家一样，威克斯蒂德的全部智慧都是在论证现存社会关系的永存与和谐。首先，身处物化世界之中的威克斯蒂德，其意识形态和思维方式也是被资本主义生产方式这一客观性的社会力量建构的，与商品社会的结构具有一致性是难以避免的，这使得他难以对抽象的经济范畴和理论保持足够的反思和批判，因而也就失去了对资本主义现实运动这一具体总体的基本敏感，以及历史性的反思和批判的能力。其次，在商品交换中，交换者的行为与思维是分离的。交换行为的抽象性是一种通过行为而产生的直接结果，它根本不会直接呈现给思维。换言之，思维不是直接受到交换抽象的影响，而是只有思维在交换行为抽掉商品的异质性的质料后，才受到交换抽象的影响，而这时不再具有起源性标记的抽象的不同特性就传递给了思维，历史性特质在这里就遗失了。“范畴的建构，即交换抽象的哲学反映，要求撇开（遗忘）它们的社会起源，撇开一般的起源。”。威克斯蒂德显然缺乏对他使用的经济范畴进行起源追问的意识自觉和能力，而历史唯物主义恰恰就是对起源的回忆。最后，从威克斯蒂德个人主义的方法论、消费主义的立场以及对马克思剩余价值理论的批评来看，他不仅是马尔库塞描绘的“单向度的人”，缺乏一种从多样性视角思考现实的能力，而且其理论的资产阶级性质决定了他必然反对政治经济学的历史性原则。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗