Marx and Engels’ Critique of Capitalist Modern Civilization and Its Implications

Alongside humanity’s exploration of modernization, the historical development of human society has given rise to distinct stages of civilization that differentiate the benighted from the rational and the traditional from the modern. From a temporal perspective, modern civilization is the sum total of civilizational achievements formed in the process of modernization, distinct from traditional civilization. From a spatial perspective, although modern civilization originated in Western Europe and took capitalist modern civilization as its typical form, this is by no means the universal standard for human modern civilization; different countries and nations have their own paths to modern civilization based on their specific conditions and historical cultures.

伴随人类对现代化的探索，人类社会历史发展形成了蒙昧与理性、传统与现代相区别的不同文明阶段。从时间维度看，现代文明是与传统文明相区别、在现代化进程中形成的文明成果的总和。从空间维度看，现代文明虽然起源于西欧，以资本主义现代文明为典型形态，但是这并非人类现代文明的普遍标准，不同国家、民族具有立足自身条件和历史文化的现代文明之路。

I. Capitalist Modern Civilization and Its Value Core

一、资本主义现代文明及其价值内核

Regarding capitalist modern civilization, Schumpeter held that “all the features and achievements of modern civilization are, directly or indirectly, the products of the capitalist process.” In *The Spirit of the Chinese People*, Gu Hongming took “modern European civilization” as a sample for understanding modern civilization. He argued: “All civilization begins with the conquest of nature—for example, by conquering and controlling the terrifying forces of nature so that they can no longer harm humanity. Today, modern European civilization has succeeded in conquering nature in many respects, and it must be admitted that no other civilization has yet achieved this.” Rousseau criticized that capitalist modern civilization, marked by science and art, had not only failed to improve social mores but had instead become a source of inequality among people. “Finally, with the establishment of private property and laws, inequality became deeply entrenched and legalized.”

关于资本主义现代文明，熊彼特认为：“现代文明的全部特色和成就都是（直接地或间接地）资本主义过程的产物。”辜鸿铭在《中国人的精神》中把“现代欧洲文明”作为理解现代文明的样本。他认为：“所有的文明都始于对自然的征服，比如通过征服和控制自然中令人恐怖的力量，使得它们不能再危害人类。今天，现代欧洲文明已经在许多方面成功地征服了自然，而且必须承认，至今没有任何其他文明能够达到这一点。”卢梭批判了以科学和艺术为标志的资本主义现代文明非但没有改善社会风气，反而成为人与人不平等的来源。“最终，由于私有制和法律的建立，不平等变得根深蒂固并且合法化了。”

Every civilization contains a stable value core that sustains its development. An evaluation of a civilization objectively implies a judgment of its value core—that is, an assessment of the ideological principles and values it embodies. The value core of modern civilization represents the sublation and transcendence of traditional civilizational values. Since the Industrial Revolution, concepts such as science, openness, freedom, anti-authoritarianism, and anti-tradition, inherited from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, have become the spiritual symbols and value markers of capitalist modern civilization, breaking through the rigid, conservative, and authoritarian obstacles that constrained its development. Weber argued that the spirit of modern capitalism was deeply influenced by Protestant ethics; early capitalists were mostly Protestants who took the acquisition of greater wealth through legitimate market-oriented economic activities as their life goal, differing in many respects from the “adventurer capitalism” of pre-capitalist societies, which obtained wealth through military conquest or piracy. Western modern civilization is rooted in Protestant ethics, developing capitalism and modern science under the shelter of Christian faith, and has become a very powerful cultural force in the world. The development of capitalism gradually diluted the spiritual strength once provided by Protestant faith; the motive of pursuing private gain grew increasingly intense, and at its root, civilization was built on individualism and material interests, inevitably leading to and falling into the predicament of modern civilization. Since the Enlightenment, modern Western manifestations of conquest, hegemony, and enslavement have deviated from the rational track of the Enlightenment, advancing endlessly toward “material progress” and seeking without restraint to break free from the past and conquer nature. These views reveal the value-illuminating role of Protestant ethics and the Enlightenment on capitalist modern civilization, but their assessments are mostly confined to exposing value deviations and value predicaments, without yet systematically elucidating how the value core acts on modern civilization or how capitalist modern civilization, constrained by its value core, falls into civilizational predicament. Answering this question is of great significance for reflecting on and exploring the proper path of human civilization.

每一种文明都内蕴着稳定的、支撑文明发展的价值内核。对一种文明的评价客观上隐含着对其价值内核的评判，即对其所蕴含的思想原则和价值观念的评价。现代文明的价值内核是对传统文明价值的扬弃和超越。工业革命以来，承袭自文艺复兴和启蒙运动的科学、开放、自由、反权威、反传统等理念，成为资本主义现代文明的精神符号和价值标识，打破了制约其发展的僵化、保守、权威的阻力。韦伯认为，现代资本主义精神深受新教伦理的影响，早期的资本家多是新教徒，他们以通过市场化的正当经济活动获取更多的钱财为生活目标，与前资本主义社会通过军事征服或海盗行为获取财物的“冒险者资本主义”有着诸多不同。西方现代文明植根于新教伦理，在基督教信仰的庇护下发展了资本主义和现代科学，并且成为世界上非常强大的一支文化力量。资本主义的发展逐步淡化了当初新教信仰提供的精神力量，追逐私利的动机日趋强烈，在根源处把文明建立在个人主义和物质利益之上，必然导致和陷入现代文明的困境。现代西方自启蒙运动后所表现出来的征服、霸权和奴役偏离了启蒙运动的理性轨道，无休止地向“物质进步”进军，毫无节制地寻求摆脱过去和征服自然。这些观点揭示了新教伦理、启蒙运动等对资本主义现代文明的价值启蒙作用，但是对其评判多拘泥于揭示其价值偏离和价值困境，尚未系统地阐明价值内核如何作用于现代文明，资本主义现代文明又如何受制于价值内核而陷入文明困境，这一问题的解答对于反思和探索人类文明的应然路径具有重要意义。

II. Marx and Engels’ Critique of Capitalist Modern Civilization

二、马克思恩格斯对资本主义现代文明的批判

Grounded in historical materialism, Marx and Engels both recognized the “flourishing scene” of capitalist modern civilization and profoundly revealed the predicaments it inevitably leads to and the crises from which it cannot escape. From the perspective of the historical evolution of human civilization, capitalist modern civilization possesses epoch-making historical significance, laying the foundation for entering a higher level of human civilization.

马克思恩格斯立足唯物史观，既看到了资本主义现代文明的“繁荣景象”，又深刻揭示了资本主义现代文明所必然导致的困境和无法摆脱的危机。从人类文明历史演进看，资本主义现代文明具有划时代的历史性意义，为进入更高水平的人类文明奠定基础。

First, at the level of material civilization, Marx and Engels affirmed the immense productive achievements created by large-scale capitalist industry. “The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.” An important reason why the material civilization created by the bourgeoisie so markedly surpassed that of previous civilizations lies in the value orientation and pursuit of material interests above all else and the maximization of capital interests, which drove the bourgeoisie to use science and technology, the world market, and the power of workers’ labor in every possible way to continuously promote production changes and revolutionize the relations of production and all social relations. This unceasing transformation could, for a time, meet the requirements of the development of new productive forces, especially the accumulation and expansion of capital, but it could not overcome the backlash that such change and upheaval brought to the relations of production. Amid the material civilization and social wealth created by the vast proletariat, the bourgeoisie “in all civilized countries now almost exclusively possesses all means of subsistence and the raw materials and tools (machinery, factories) necessary for producing them,” so that production is only for the sake of capital, the minority bourgeoisie become the possessors and beneficiaries of material civilization, and the proletariat are reduced to appendages and the dispossessed of material wealth. Under the conditions of the capitalist mode of production, the development of material civilization is based on the bourgeoisie’s exclusive possession of all factors—means of production, labor power, markets, technology, and so on. The bourgeoisie uses advanced technology, machinery, and the division of labor to replace and suppress the creative labor in which workers freely exercise their physical and intellectual abilities; it replaces workers’ control over labor time, labor conditions, and the fruits of labor with excessively long working hours, excessively high labor intensity, and meager wages, turning the “use of labor power within the limits permitted by normal endurance and healthy development” into “the plundering of labor power.” In capitalist material civilization, “the devaluation of the human world increases in direct proportion to the increase in value of the world of things”; the growing impoverishment of the proletariat in terms of production conditions, labor income, and social status stands in stark contrast to the immense abundance of commodities, the rapid expansion of capital, and the full possession of social wealth by the bourgeoisie, leading to an irresolvable tension and antagonism in the relations between people and capital and between people themselves.

其一，从物质文明层面看，马克思恩格斯肯定了资本主义大工业所创造的巨大生产成就。“资产阶级在它的不到一百年的阶级统治中所创造的生产力，比过去一切世代创造的全部生产力还要多、还要大。”资产阶级所创造的物质文明之所以显著超越以往文明，一个重要原因在于物质利益至上、资本利益最大化的价值取向和价值追求，促使资产阶级千方百计地利用科技、世界市场、工人劳动的力量来不断推动生产变革，对生产关系和全部社会关系进行革命。这种不停歇的变革在一段时间内能够适应新的生产力发展要求，特别是资本的积累和扩张，但同时也无法克服这种变革和动荡对生产关系所带来的反噬。在由广大无产阶级所创造的物质文明和社会财富中，资产阶级“在所有文明国家里现在已经几乎独占了一切生活资料和生产这些生活资料所必需的原料和工具（机器、工厂）”，从而使得生产只是为资本而生产，少数资产阶级成为物质文明的占有者和受益者，无产阶级沦为物质财富的附庸者和被剥夺者。在资本主义生产方式条件下，物质文明的发展建立在资产阶级对生产资料、劳动力、市场、科技等一切要素独自占有的基础上。资产阶级用先进技术、机器和分工取代和压抑劳动者自由发挥体力和智力的创造性劳动，用冗长的劳动时间、过高的劳动强度和低廉的工资替代了劳动者对劳动时间、劳动状态和劳动成果的支配，让本应在“正常耐力和健康发展所容许的限度内使用劳动力”变为“劫掠劳动力”。在资本主义物质文明中，“物的世界的增值同人的世界的贬值成正比”，无产阶级在生产条件、劳动所得和社会地位上的日益窘迫与商品的极大丰富、资本的高速扩张、资产阶级对社会财富的充分占有形成鲜明对比，导致人与资本、人与人的关系处于无法克服的紧张和对立状态。

The distribution order of capitalist society also reflects a value orientation centered on the maximization of capital interests, giving rise to a disorder in distributive justice where a tiny minority appropriates the wealth created by the majority. This inevitably conflicts with the immense abundance of material wealth and large-scale socialized production, intensifying the contradiction between the social character of production and the capitalist private appropriation of the means of production, thereby driving this production system and material civilization into periodic “loss of control”—that is, periodically erupting economic crises of overproduction. The root of overproduction lies in the essential attribute of capitalist production: capital-centeredness. “The motive and determining purpose of the capitalist process of production is the greatest possible self-expansion of capital”; all production serves the infinite self-expansion and boundless expansion of capital. Driven by this primal motive, “all people are afflicted with a mania for profit without engaging in production”; this speculative and excessive production and expansion inevitably leads capitalist material civilization into crisis, especially manifested as “the increasingly serious and widespread commercial crises that take the form of world market crises,” and thus toward “self-destruction.”

资本主义社会的分配秩序也反映了以资本利益最大化为核心的价值导向，形成了极少数人占有多数人所创造财富的分配正义失序现象，它同物质财富的极大丰富、社会化大生产必然形成冲突，加剧生产的社会化与生产资料的资本主义私人占有之间的矛盾，从而造成这种生产制度和物质文明走向周期性的“失控”，即周期性爆发的生产过剩的经济危机。生产过剩的根源在于资本主义生产的本质属性——以资本为中心，“资本主义生产过程的动机和决定目的，是资本尽可能多地自行增殖”，所有的生产都服务于资本无限增殖和无止境的资本扩张。在这种原始动机驱使下，“所有的人都患了一种不从事生产而专谋利润的狂热病”，这种投机性和过度生产、过度扩张必然将资本主义物质文明引向危机，特别是表现为“世界市场危机的那种日趋严重和日益普遍的商业危机”，进而走向“自我毁灭”。

Second, from the perspective of political civilization: after Columbus discovered the Americas at the end of the fifteenth century, the bourgeoisie, through the bloody plunder of colonies and unequal trade with emerging markets, completed the primitive accumulation of capital, laying the foundation for its replacement of feudal political civilization. With the capital accumulated through primitive accumulation, the bourgeoisie used large-scale industry to crowd out traditional handicrafts. Once it had achieved dominance in the economic sphere, it necessarily required the political superstructure as a safeguard to further consolidate its economic interests and ruling position. “After rising to become the first class in society, it also proclaimed itself the first class politically.” The bourgeoisie “crowded out the previously ruling classes—the nobility, the guild masters, and the absolute monarchy that represented them,” establishing a modern representative state power that represented bourgeois interests, and forming a political civilization that used the state apparatus as a means of control and representative democracy as its form. Marx and Engels pointed out: “The bourgeoisie has played a most revolutionary role in history.” It abolished the feudal status and hierarchical distinctions that had bound the masses, destroyed the authority of the feudal patriarchal system, eliminated the political exploitation brought by religious theocracy and feudal rule, and concentrated its political power through political changes such as “a unified government, unified laws, a unified national class interest, and a unified tariff within a unified nation.” This promoted the development of modern political civilization, removed the fetters of the feudal system that had constrained the development of productive forces, and established a political system that encouraged free competition and was conducive to maintaining the capitalist production order.

其二，从政治文明层面看，自十五世纪末哥伦布发现美洲以后，资产阶级通过对殖民地进行血腥掠夺，对新兴市场进行不对等贸易，完成了资本的原始积累，为其取代封建政治文明打下基础。借助原始积累的资本，资产阶级用大工业排挤了传统手工业，在经济领域取得统治地位以后，必然需要以政治上层建筑作为保障，进一步巩固其经济利益和统治地位。“在社会上上升为第一阶级以后，它也就在政治上宣布自己是第一阶级”，资产阶级“挤掉了以前的统治阶级——贵族、行会师傅和代表他们的专制王朝”，建立代表资产阶级利益的现代代议制国家政权，形成以国家机器为控制手段、以代议民主为形式的政治文明。马克思恩格斯指出：“资产阶级在历史上曾经起过非常革命的作用。”他们取消了束缚在大众身上的封建身份和等级区分，破坏了封建宗法的权威，消除了宗教神权和封建统治带来的政治剥削，用“统一的政府、统一的法律、统一的民族阶级利益和统一的关税的统一的民族”等政治变革来集中其政治权力，推动了现代政治文明的发展，清除了束缚生产力发展的封建制度桎梏，建立起鼓励自由竞争、有利于维护资本主义生产秩序的政治制度。

The innovation of the modern political system under the conditions of bourgeois rule could not lead to genuine freedom and democracy. Marx believed that the modern political system established by the bourgeoisie was merely an “illusory community,” in essence a “committee for managing the common affairs of the entire bourgeoisie” that served the value orientation of maximizing capital interests and spoke for bourgeois interests. The modern representative political system was merely a product born out of class conflict to control class antagonism and safeguard class interests. The bourgeoisie used representative democracy as a formal fairness to acquire new means of suppressing and exploiting the oppressed class in substance. Bourgeois political representatives, wielding public powers such as legislative power, taxation power, and judicial power, secured and maintained their special status as “sacred and inviolable,” placing themselves above the masses of society.

资产阶级统治条件下的现代政治制度革新并不能走向真正的自由和民主。马克思认为，资产阶级建立起来的现代政治体制不过是一种“虚幻的共同体”，实质上是服务于资本利益最大化的价值导向、为资产阶级利益代言的“管理整个资产阶级的共同事务的委员会”。现代代议制的政治体制不过是在阶级冲突中产生的为了控制阶级对立、维护阶级利益的产物，资产阶级以代议制为形式公平，来实质获取镇压和剥削被压迫阶级的新手段。资产阶级的政治代言人凭借手中的立法权、征税权、司法权等公共权力，取得和维护其特殊地位“神圣不可侵犯”，凌驾于社会大众之上。

Beyond consolidating internal political power, the bourgeoisie, relying on its advantages in maritime technology, military strength, and modern industrial production, constructed a political hegemony worldwide based on colonial trade and emerging markets, changing the previously relatively closed state of world civilization. Capitalist large-scale industry “united all local small markets into a world market, everywhere prepared the way for civilization and progress, so that everything that happened in the civilized countries necessarily affected the rest,” and “made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on civilized ones, made peasant nations dependent on bourgeois nations, and made the East dependent on the West.” The bourgeoisie forced the laboring masses of the colonies to cede the ownership of their labor power and the extraction rights to raw material resources, forcibly demanded that emerging markets open their ports and trade, engaged in product dumping and unequal trade, continuously expanded the world market, promoted capital accumulation and expansion, and compelled other countries and markets to submit to the bourgeois civilizational order. “Those nations that are still engaged in production at the lower forms of slave labor or corvée labor, once drawn into the world market dominated by the capitalist mode of production, and where the external sale of their products becomes the primary interest, will have the civilized horrors of overwork added to the barbaric horrors of slavery, serfdom, etc.” The countries and nations forcibly drawn into the world market surrendered their economic control and paid the price of cheap labor and resources. Under this highly expansionary and aggressive civilizational control, “the social development of all civilized countries is roughly the same,” all submitting to the logic of bourgeois exploitation and the logic of capital accumulation.

除了巩固内部政治权力，资产阶级凭借航海技术优势、军事优势和现代工业生产优势，在世界范围内构建起以殖民贸易和新兴市场为基础的政治霸权，改变了世界文明原本相对封闭的状况。资本主义大工业“把所有地方性的小市场联合成为一个世界市场，到处为文明和进步做好了准备，使各文明国家里发生的一切必然影响到其余各国”，“使未开化和半开化的国家从属于文明的国家，使农民的民族从属于资产阶级的民族，使东方从属于西方”。资产阶级强迫殖民地的劳苦大众让渡劳动力的所有权和原材料资源的开采权，强行要求新兴市场开放口岸和贸易，进行产品倾销和不对等贸易，不断开拓世界市场，促进资本积累和扩张，也使得其他国家和市场被迫服从资产阶级的文明秩序。“那些还在奴隶劳动或徭役劳动等较低级形式上从事生产的民族，一旦卷入资本主义生产方式所统治的世界市场，而这个市场又使它们的产品的外销成为首要利益，那就会在奴隶制、农奴制等等野蛮暴行之上，再加上过度劳动的文明暴行。”被迫卷入世界市场的国家、民族交出了经济控制权，付出了廉价劳动力和资源的代价，在这种极其富有扩张性和侵略性的文明控制下，“所有文明国家的社会发展大致相同”，都服从于资产阶级剥削的逻辑和资本增殖的逻辑。

Third, from the perspective of cultural-ethical progress: the intellectual germination of modern civilization can be traced back to the European Renaissance of the 14th–16th centuries. The Renaissance raised the banner of humanism, advocating the replacement of Christian divinity with sensual, natural humanity, liberating human thought from religious fetters. During the Enlightenment, Europeans championed reason and freedom, advocated individualism, and these values also became important value factors influencing capitalist modern civilization. These modern capitalist concepts broke the feudal patriarchal thought that had bound people’s spirits and played a role in ideological emancipation. Marx and Engels pointed out: “The bourgeoisie, wherever it has achieved dominance, has destroyed all feudal, patriarchal, and idyllic relations.” Under capitalist conditions, “all fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away.” In terms of cultural values, people were on the one hand freed from the bonds of feudal hierarchy, but on the other hand placed in a new state of uncertainty.

其三，从精神文明层面看，现代文明在思想上的萌发可以追溯到14-16世纪欧洲文艺复兴。文艺复兴举起人文主义的大旗，主张用感性的、自然的人性取代基督教的神性，将人的思想从宗教束缚中解放出来。启蒙运动时期，欧洲人倡导理性与自由，主张个人主义，这些价值理念也成为影响资本主义现代文明的重要价值因素。这些资本主义现代观念打破了封建宗法思想对人们精神的束缚，起到了思想解放的作用。马克思恩格斯指出：“资产阶级在它已经取得了统治的地方把一切封建的、宗法的和田园诗般的关系都破坏了。”在资本主义条件下，“一切固定的僵化的关系以及与之相适应的素被尊崇的观念和见解都被消除了”，人们在文化价值观念上一方面摆脱了封建等级的束缚，另一方面也处于新的不确定性当中。

After the bourgeoisie consolidated its political rule through economic power, its ruling power inevitably extended into the ideological and spiritual-cultural sphere, forming a capitalist cultural-ethical progress characterized by bourgeois ideology. Historical materialism reveals the law of domination in the ideological sphere: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas… The class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” The bourgeoisie, dominating the material means of production and thereby controlling the state apparatus, necessarily on this basis dominated the intellectual means of production, using ideological tools and spiritual-cultural products to consolidate capital power. This spiritual civilization serving capital exhibited a high degree of materiality, creating an inherent tension and opposition between the material and the spiritual. Once the rapid expansion of material things occupied people’s life-world, it inevitably led to the materialization of the spiritual world and its extreme impoverishment. Marx and Engels criticized the “vulgarity” and “impoverishment” of capitalist spiritual civilization, arguing that the capitalist system, centered on capital, aimed at money, and dedicated to the material enrichment of a minority, “has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment’.” Starting from the fetishism of money, Marx criticized the alienation between people and money. Money, the intermediary for measuring commodity prices, became an object of worship in capitalist civilization, leading to human alienation and the actual domination of people. The bourgeoisie, taking the maximization of capital interests as its secular pursuit, endlessly devoted itself to the production and reproduction of capital, leaving the spiritual world impoverished. The working class, in order to maintain its survival, was endlessly bound to production activities under the domination of capital, and its spiritual world was equally impoverished. This immense spiritual emptiness imposed on all members of society could not supplement or consolidate the economic and political system, and could easily, under the impact of economic crises, accelerate the formation of a comprehensive spiritual collapse and cultural crisis.

资产阶级凭借经济实力巩固政治统治以后，其统治权力必然延伸到意识形态和精神文化领域，形成以资产阶级意识形态为鲜明特征的资本主义精神文明。唯物史观揭示了思想领域的支配规律，“统治阶级的思想在每一时代都是占统治地位的思想。……支配着物质生产资料的阶级，同时也支配着精神生产资料”。资产阶级支配了物质生产资料，进而掌控了国家机器，必然在此基础上，支配精神生产资料，借由意识形态工具和精神文化产品来巩固资本权力。这种服务于资本的精神文明表现出高度的物质性，造成了物质与精神之间的内在张力和对立。一旦物质的快速扩张占领了人们的生活世界，就必然导致精神世界的物质化和高度贫乏。马克思恩格斯批判了资本主义精神文明的“庸俗性”和“匮乏性”，认为以资本为中心、以金钱为目的、以少数人物质富足为宗旨的资本主义制度“使人和人之间除了赤裸裸的利害关系，除了冷酷无情的‘现金交易’，就再也没有任何别的联系了”。马克思从货币拜物教出发批判了人与货币之间的异化现象，货币这一衡量商品价格的中介物成为被资本主义文明顶礼膜拜的对象，导致人的异化和对人的实际支配。资产阶级以资本利益最大化作为世俗的追求，无止境地投入于资本的生产和再生产中，精神世界是匮乏的。工人阶级为了维持生存无止境地被束缚于资本支配下的生产活动中，精神世界同样是匮乏的。这种给所有社会成员带来的精神上的巨大空虚，不可能对经济政治制度起到补充和巩固作用，而且极易在经济危机的冲击下加速形成整体性精神溃散和文化危机。

Fourth, from the perspective of social civilization: the capitalist system liberated people from the constraints of the traditional, conservative, and rigid feudal social system, broke the hierarchical order of feudal society and the traditional division of labor, drove large numbers of laborers living in the countryside away from the land and the means of production, and concentrated large numbers of originally independent and self-reliant workers in urban factories, turning them into so many “cogs” in a vast production system. Under the drastically changed social division of labor, the development of capitalist modern civilization made the originally unproblematic questions “What is man? Why does he exist?” increasingly perplexing. People fell into social relations that were more rootless and drifting, where they could only survive by selling their labor power, as if trapped in a cage.

其四，从社会文明层面看，资本主义制度把人们从传统的、保守的、固化的封建社会制度禁锢中解放出来，打破了封建社会的等级秩序和传统的生产分工，让大批在乡村生活的劳动力脱离土地和生产资料，让大量原本独立自主的劳动者集中到城市工厂中，成为庞大生产体系的一个个“螺丝钉”。在剧变的社会分工下，资本主义现代文明的发展使本来不成问题的“人是什么？为什么而存在？”越来越令人困惑，人们陷入到更加漂泊无依、只能靠出卖劳动力来求得生存的社会关系中，犹如身处牢笼一般。

Populations deprived of land and means of production continuously gathered from the countryside into the cities, selling their only remaining labor power to capital, which held absolute economic and political power, and were forced to drive the value of that labor power down to the level of minimum subsistence, so that in the cities they “sink wholesale into the same state of decay, desolation and destitution.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, ch. 25, section 4. The phrase describes the condition of the rural population displaced by capitalist agriculture. Capital not only replaced adult male workers with machinery but also replaced them with women and child workers, plunging the whole society into a tragic situation in which a tiny handful of capitalists controlled the fate of the vast majority of its members. “The social combination of labour appears as an organized suppression of the worker’s own vitality, freedom and independence.” [2]2 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, ch. 14, section 5. Workers were compelled to engage in mechanically repetitive labor, losing their freedom and creativity under the comprehensive social control based on capital’s economic and political control, and were at any moment liable to be replaced and discarded by capital through machinery. The value orientation centered on capital and the maximization of capital’s interests turned the relations of production of the vast majority of social members into tense social relations, and the social relations among people were transformed from mutual dependence and cooperation into alienated relations of intense competition and high tension. Marx believed that only when the proletariat recognized its own revolutionary and thoroughgoing character and united to organize itself as a political and social force could it liberate itself from the shackles of this capitalist social civilization.

失去土地和生产资料的人口不断从乡村向城市聚集，把仅有的劳动力出卖给在经济和政治上占有绝对权力的资本，不得不把劳动力价值压低到维持最低生活成本的水平，在城市中“整批地陷入同样衰败、荒凉和穷困的境地”。资本不但用机器替代成年男工，而且用女工和童工替代成年男工，整个社会陷入一种由极少数资本家掌握大多数社会成员命运的悲惨境地。“劳动过程的社会结合同时表现为对工人个人的活力、自由和独立的有组织的压制。”工人被迫从事机械重复的劳动，在资本的经济控制、政治控制为基础的全方位社会控制中失去了自由和创造力，并且随时可能被资本用机器所替代和抛弃。以资本为中心、资本利益最大化的价值导向使得绝大多数社会成员由生产关系紧张演化为社会关系紧张，人与人之间的社会关系从互相依赖、互相合作转变为高度紧张、高度竞争的异化关系。马克思认为只有当无产阶级认识到自身的革命性和彻底性，并联合起来组织为政治力量和社会力量的时候，才能够从这种资本主义社会文明桎梏中解放出来。

Fifth, from the perspective of ecological civilization, modernization changed not only the relations between people and between people and production, but also the relations between people and nature. Capitalist industrial production greatly enhanced humanity’s ability to utilize and transform nature. The use of the spinning jenny, trains and various machines, the mining of mines, the digging of canals, and so on, greatly stimulated people’s enthusiasm for exploring nature, raised the efficiency of humanity’s use of natural resources, and thereby increased the production efficiency of large-scale industry.

其五，从生态文明层面看，现代化不但改变了人与人、人与生产的关系，而且改变了人与自然的关系。资本主义工业生产极大地提升了人类利用和改造自然的能力，珍妮纺纱机、火车和各种机器的运用，矿山的开采、运河的开凿等等，极大地激发了人们对自然的探索热情，提高了人类利用自然资源的效率，进而提升了大工业的生产效率。

The rapid advance of capitalist large-scale industry fostered the bourgeoisie’s greed to conquer nature. The value orientation of putting material interests above all else made the bourgeoisie turn a blind eye to nature, cease to revere it, and exploit it without limit. Marx held that “nature is the inorganic body of man,” that “man lives on nature,” and that “without nature, without the sensuous external world, the worker can create nothing.” [3]3 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, “Estranged Labour.” Engels exposed the boundless plunder of nature by capitalist large-scale industry, criticizing the ecological degradation caused by clearing forests for farmland, the soil erosion caused by indiscriminate logging, the discharge of factory waste gases and wastewater, the accumulation of garbage, the pollution of rivers, and the famines and other ecological and social consequences of the reckless introduction of new species. He criticized the bourgeoisie’s fantasy of dominating nature under the swelling of material desires, exposed the error of a view of nature centered on capital and dominated by a minority, and called for “not to be too intoxicated with our human victories over nature,” [4]4 Friedrich Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.” warning that otherwise nature would inevitably take its “revenge.” He emphasized that humanity is subordinate to nature and must “recognize and correctly apply the laws of nature,” [5]5 Ibid. rather than habitually “interfering” with it. He argued that we must consider not only the immediate effects of production on nature but also its more distant effects, and that we cannot stop at recognizing these effects but must thoroughly overthrow the system itself that leads to ecological consequences, carrying out a thorough transformation of the capitalist social system to achieve a harmonious and unified relationship between humanity and nature.

资本主义大工业的突飞猛进滋长了资产阶级征服自然的贪欲，物质利益至上的价值观让资产阶级一叶障目地罔顾自然、不再敬畏自然、无限度地利用自然。马克思认为，“没有自然界，没有感性的外部世界，工人什么也不能创造”，“人靠自然界生活”，自然界是“人的无机的身体”。恩格斯揭示了资本主义大工业对自然的无度掠夺，批判了毁林种地导致的生态退化、随意砍伐导致的水土流失、工厂废气废水排放、垃圾堆积、河流污染和随意推广新物种导致的饥荒等生态和社会后果。他批判资产阶级在物欲膨胀下支配自然界的臆想，揭示以资本为中心、以少数人为主宰的自然观的错误，呼吁“不要过分陶醉于我们人类对自然界的胜利”，否则必然遭到自然界的“报复”。他强调人类从属于自然界，必须“认识和正确运用自然规律”，而不是习惯于“干预”自然界，既要看到生产对自然较近的影响，又要预见对自然较远的影响，同时我们不能止步于认识这种影响，而要彻底地推翻导致生态恶果的制度本身，对资本主义社会制度进行彻底变革进而实现人与自然的和谐统一关系。

III. Exploring a New Path of Human Civilization with the Free and Comprehensive Development of the Individual as Its Aim and Manifesting the Value of Community

三、探索以人的自由全面发展为旨趣、彰显共同体价值的人类文明新路径

Marx and Engels profoundly revealed the underlying logic, structural predicament, and decaying tendency of capitalist modern civilization, and put forward a program of more thorough institutional change and revolutionary movement for the self-liberation of the proletariat, bringing profound implications for exploring a path of human civilization more in line with the laws of socio-historical development. Capitalism initiated human modern civilization, but the antinomy of the logic of capital and the limits and predicaments it generates determine that it can neither achieve the free and comprehensive development of the individual nor take the liberation of all humanity as its value pursuit. Humanity is the most dynamic and active force in creating civilization; the process by which people create civilization is the process by which they make history in a community where they develop themselves comprehensively. Only a civilization truly centered on people can unite countless dynamic and active individuals into a genuine community, achieving a comprehensively developed self, forming fully interactive social relations, and creating a comprehensively progressive civilization. The free and comprehensive development of the individual must be taken as the aim of civilization, fully manifesting the will and value of community, thereby achieving the comprehensive development of the individual and the overall progress of society.

马克思恩格斯深刻揭示了资本主义现代文明的底层逻辑、结构性困境和衰朽趋势，提出了实行更彻底的制度变革和无产阶级自我解放的革命运动方案，为探索更符合社会历史发展规律的人类文明路径带来了深刻启示。资本主义开启了人类现代文明，但资本逻辑的二律背反及其衍生的发展限度和困境，决定了它既不能实现人的自由全面发展，也不会将解放全人类作为价值追求。人是创造文明的最能动、最活跃的力量，人创造文明的过程就是人在全面发展自身的共同体中创造历史的过程。真正以人为核心的文明才能把无数个能动的、活跃的人联合为一个真正的共同体，达成全面发展的自我、形成全面交往的社会关系、创造出全面进步的文明。必须把人的自由全面发展作为文明的旨趣，充分彰显共同体意志和共同体价值，进而实现人的全面发展和社会全面进步。

First, material civilization is the unity of the immense abundance of material products and the comprehensive development of the individual; it is the process by which the vast majority of people create the fruits of civilization and develop themselves comprehensively within a genuine community. The question of “for whom, by whom, and to develop whom” is a key issue reflecting the essence and value of a civilization, and also the core issue determining its vitality and sustainability. The development outlook of a civilization, i.e., its developmental aim, mainly addresses the question of “for whom” and “by whom” the accumulation of the fruits of civilization is achieved. The distribution outlook of a civilization, i.e., its distributive value orientation, mainly addresses the question of “to develop whom” with the fruits of civilization and according to whose will and interests distribution is carried out. Whether under slavery, feudal autocratic monarchy, or the capitalist system, history has repeatedly proven that when a minority owns the means of production and enjoys the fruits of civilization while the vast majority are reduced to ceding those fruits and being deprived of their rightful benefits, such a system is inevitably unsustainable. Capitalist modern civilization, dominated by capital, has formed a development logic of “for capital, relying on the working people, and developing capital,” generating an injustice in distribution where “the contribution of the human subject” is subordinated to and serves “the interests of capital.” Capital endlessly and maximally utilizes labor power, using technology, management, and other means to squeeze the maximum surplus labor from each individual. Each social unit exhibits a self-organizing tendency of profit-seeking and capital supremacy, and the entire social production easily falls into a state of disorder, leading to imbalances between supply and demand in material production, overproduction, economic crises, and causing the loss of control and bubbleization of material production, resulting in a situation of “the expropriation of the many by a few usurpers” [6]6 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, ch. 32, “Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.” that turns back on civilization itself.

其一，物质文明是物质产品的极大丰富和人的全面发展的统一，是绝大多数人在真正的共同体中创造文明成果并全面发展自身的过程。“为了谁、依靠谁、发展谁”的问题，是反映一种文明本质和价值的关键问题，也是决定该文明生命力和可持续性的核心问题。一种文明的发展观即发展旨趣，主要是解决“为了谁”和“依靠谁”来实现文明成果的积累。一种文明形态的分配观即分配价值旨归，主要是解决文明成果“发展谁”、根据谁的意志和利益进行分配的问题。无论是奴隶制、封建君主专制还是资本主义制度，历史都已经反复证明了由少数人占有生产资料、享受文明成果，绝大多数人沦为文明成果的让渡者和应得权益的被剥夺者，必然难以为继。资本主义现代文明以资本为主导，形成了“为了资本、依靠劳动人民、发展资本”的发展逻辑，生成了“人的主体贡献”从属和服务于“资本利益”的分配不正义现象，资本无止境地极限化使用劳动力，用技术、管理等手段最大化地榨取每个人的剩余劳动，每个社会单元表现出唯利是图、资本至上的自组织性，整个社会生产极易陷入无序状态，导致物质文明生产的供需失调、生产过剩、经济危机，引发物质文明生产的失控和泡沫化，造成“少数掠夺者剥夺人民群众”的反噬文明局面。

One of the basic functions of civilization is to create the fruits of material civilization that satisfy humanity’s needs for survival. The value attribute of material civilization determines the value foundation of civilization as a whole. Humanity is the subject of civilizational activity and also the creator and beneficiary of material production. Only by unifying the development outlook and distribution outlook of material civilization, achieving the unity of civilizational value as “for people, by people, and to develop people,” and realizing the organic unity of the essence and value of a people-centered civilization—that is, achieving a high degree of consistency between the subjective driving force of civilizational development and the subjective interests of that development—can the immense abundance of material products and the comprehensive development of the individual be coordinated and mutually reinforcing. By establishing and perfecting the ownership of the means of production, the distribution system, and the social division of labor that are conducive to safeguarding the interests of the vast majority, and by constructing mechanisms to prevent and correct the boundless expansion and disorderly development of capital, capital will no longer stand “outside labour” in the posture of a master, but will combine with labor in a posture that stimulates and develops the subjective capacities of people. This will ensure that material production is no longer the profit-seeking, capital-supremacist production of a minority who own the means of production, but rather, through the organic combination of an effective market and a capable government, empowers workers within a united community to integrate the relations between people and things, subject and object. Through a rational production mechanism, distribution mechanism, and division of labor order, the innovative and creative capacities of workers are transformed into the productive forces of material civilization and into a fair and reasonable distribution for each worker, allowing workers to jointly create and share the fruits of material civilization. This truly reflects the subjective will of people at the level of the civilizational system, fully safeguards their subjective rights, fully unleashes their subjective creative capacities, enhances their ability to handle the relations between subject and object, and truly realizes the principle that “the increase in the value of the world of things is directly proportional to the devaluation of the world of men” [7]7 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, “Estranged Labour.” in reverse, achieving the unity of the immense abundance of the fruits of civilization and the comprehensive development of the individual.

文明的基本功能之一是创造满足人类生存需要的物质文明成果。物质文明的价值属性决定着整体文明的价值底色。人是文明活动的主体，也是物质文明生产的创造者和受益者，只有使物质文明的发展观和分配观统一起来，实现“为了人、依靠人、发展人”的文明价值合一，实现以人为核心的文明本质和价值的有机统一，即文明发展的主体动力和主体利益达成高度一致，才能实现物质产品的极大丰富和人的全面发展协调同步、相辅相成。通过确立和完善有利于维护绝大多数人利益的生产资料所有制、分配制度、社会分工等，构建对资本无度扩张和无序发展的防范和纠偏机制，使资本不再以主人的姿态“站在劳动之外”，而是以激励和发展人的主体能力的姿态同劳动相结合，使得物质文明生产不再是少数人占有生产资料的唯利是图、资本至上的生产，而是通过有效市场与有为政府的有机结合，赋能劳动者在联合起来的共同体中统合人与物、主体与客体关系，通过合理的生产机制、分配机制和分工秩序，把劳动者的创新创造能力转化为物质文明生产力，转化为每个劳动者的公平合理的分配，让劳动者共同创造、共同分享物质文明成果，真正从文明制度层面充分反映人的主体意志，充分维护人的主体权利，充分发挥人的主体创造能力，提升人处理主客体关系的能力，真正实现“物的世界的增值同人的世界的增值成正比”，达成文明成果的极大丰富和人的全面发展相统一。

Second, political civilization is the sum total of a modern political system and a civilizational interaction order that, internally, manages and regulates society through a genuine political community and, externally, advocates civilizational harmony and shared governance. The narrative of modern political civilization under capitalist conditions deviates from the basic principles of historical materialism, treating the state as an independent force liberated from religious theocracy and feudal autocratic monarchy and trumpeting it as a “Leviathan-like” [8]8 A reference to Thomas Hobbes’s *Leviathan* (1651), which depicts the state as a sovereign power that ensures peace and security. great power that seeks peace internally and resists external enemies externally. Yet the capitalist state “was always primarily and above all the guarantor of capitalist property relations. … it remains to this day the instrument of the capitalist class.” [9]9 Friedrich Engels, *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State* (1884), Chapter 9. The bourgeoisie deliberately obscures the relationship of determination between the political superstructure and the economic base, internally shaping a “illusory political community.” It uses the state apparatus and so-called “democracy” to guarantee the ruling position of the bourgeoisie, excludes the people from the real subject of power through forms such as representative democracy, and turns political power, which belongs to the people and serves the people, into a force externalized and opposed to them. This renders the people’s subject position in the political community abstract and plunges their subject identification into nothingness. Beyond dominating the people internally, the world history opened up externally by the logic of capital is in essence the expansion of the capitalist mode of production on a global scale. The community constructed by the capitalist form of civilization is called an “illusory community” by Marx precisely because the logic of capital, in world history, maintains and consolidates the hierarchical order of “center-periphery” in class society. Through this set of political civilization discourse, the bourgeoisie constructs a civilizational order of subordination and dependency favorable to itself, forcing other civilizations to submit to the unidirectional logic of capital civilization.

其二，政治文明是对内以真正的政治共同体管理和调节社会、对外倡导文明和合共治的现代政治体制和文明交往秩序的总和。资本主义条件下的现代政治文明叙事偏离了唯物史观基本原理，把国家视为从宗教神权和封建君主专制中解放出来的独立力量，将其标榜为“利维坦式”的对内谋求和平、对外抗御外敌的巨大力量，然而资本主义国家“向来首先是、而且主要是资本主义财产关系的保证人。……它至今分明是资本家阶级统治的工具”。资产阶级刻意模糊政治上层建筑与经济基础之间的被决定和决定的关系，对内塑造了“虚幻的政治共同体”，利用国家机器和所谓“民主”制度保障资产阶级的统治地位，用代议制民主等形式把人民排除于真实的权力主体以外，让本属于人民、服务于人民的政治权力成为外化并同自身相对立的力量，让人民在政治共同体中的主体身份抽象化，主体认同陷入虚无。除了对内凌驾于人民之上，资本逻辑对外开辟的世界历史，实质是资本主义生产方式在世界范围的拓展，资本主义文明形态构建的共同体之所以被马克思称为“虚幻的共同体”，正是因为资本逻辑在世界历史中维护和巩固的是阶级社会“中心-边缘”的等级秩序。通过这样一套政治文明话语叙事，资产阶级构建起有利于自身的文明从属和文明依附秩序，迫使其他文明服从于单向度发展的资本文明逻辑。

A political civilization with people as the value subject is the product of meeting people’s needs for political ideas and practices that safeguard the fundamental interests of the vast majority. A political community characterized by people’s democratic politics transcends the “illusory community,” transforming “illusory, abstract people” into “real people.” It is a “real community” capable of eliminating class antagonisms, reflecting the democratic will of the people, and safeguarding their democratic political rights. A modern state characterized by people’s democratic politics efficiently manages and regulates society internally, attaches great importance to the objective material foundation for promoting people’s political emancipation, and, by implementing a system of ownership of the means of production that safeguards the interests of the vast majority rather than a minority, fundamentally prevents privileged groups representing minority interests from rising to become the “first class” in politics. It effectively channels the boundaries of capital’s activities, prevents capital from interfering in the political community, and preserves the purity of the people’s democratic will. By advocating substantive democracy rather than formal democracy, it forms a democratic system that broadly covers the masses, enabling the vast majority to genuinely express their democratic demands through effective democratic political mechanisms, to coalesce the broadest and most universal democratic will of the people, to allow the will that truly represents the people’s need for political emancipation to be fully manifested, and to enable the people to achieve political emancipation and comprehensive emancipation within the “real community.”

以人为价值主体的政治文明是满足人们对维护绝大多数人根本利益的政治理念和实践需要的产物。以人民民主政治为特征的政治共同体是对“虚幻的共同体”的超越，使“虚幻、抽象的人”向“现实的人”转变，是能够消灭阶级对立、反映人民民主意志、维护人民民主政治权利的“真实的共同体”。以人民民主政治为特征的现代国家对内高效管理和调节社会，高度重视促进人的政治解放的客观物质基础，通过实行能够维护绝大多数人而不是少数人利益的生产资料所有制，从根本上避免代表少数人利益的特权集团上升为政治“第一阶级”，有效疏导资本的活动边界，避免资本对政治共同体的干预，保持人民民主意志的纯粹性。通过倡行实质民主而非形式民主，形成广泛覆盖广大人民群众的民主制度，让绝大多数人能够依托有效的民主政治机制来真正表达人民民主诉求，凝聚最广泛、最普遍的人民民主意志，让真正代表人民的政治解放需求的意志得到充分展现，让人民在“真实的共同体”中获得政治解放以及全面解放。

The development of world history overlaps with the development of the history of modern civilization; the development of modern civilization shapes the face of world history. “The more the original isolation of separate nationalities is destroyed by the developed mode of production and intercourse and the division of labor between various nations naturally brought forth by these, the more history becomes world history.” [10]10 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology* (1845-46), Part I. The development of world history has broken the previous path of civilization formation based on specific regional units, opening up a co-constructive development path of comprehensive interaction among various nations and civilizations. The free and comprehensive development of the individual is embedded in the process of world historical development. As “the local individual is replaced by the world-historical, empirically universal individual,” [11]11 Ibid. “individuals can then free themselves from various national and local limitations, enter into practical connection with the production of the whole world (including intellectual production), and acquire the capacity to enjoy this all-sided production of the whole earth (the creations of mankind).” [12]12 Ibid. Universal intercourse based on the mutual dependence of all humanity transcends individualism, nationalism, and regionalism, abandons Western-centrism, and surpasses the theory of civilizational conflict and the theory of civilizational superiority and inferiority. It promotes each individual’s conscious reconciliation of the relationship between self and other, individual and species, region and globe, and realizes the free and comprehensive development of the individual within the universal interaction of civilizations, the manifestation of civilizational diversity, and the guarantee of civilizational equality.

世界历史的发展与现代文明史的发展是重叠的，现代文明的发展塑造着世界历史的面貌。“各民族的原始封闭状态由于日益完善的生产方式、交往以及因交往而自然形成的不同民族之间的分工消灭得越是彻底，历史也就越是成为世界历史。”世界历史的发展打破了以往文明以一定的区域为单元的生成路径，开辟了各民族、各文明全面交往的互构式发展路径。人的自由全面发展内嵌于世界历史发展进程中，随着“地域性的个人为世界历史性的、经验上普遍的个人所代替”，“单个人才能摆脱种种民族局限和地域局限而同整个世界的生产发生实际联系，才能获得利用全球的这种全面的生产(人们的创造)的能力”。以全人类互相依赖为基础的普遍交往，扬弃了个人主义、民族主义和区域主义，摒弃了西方中心主义，超越了文明冲突论和文明优劣论，促进每个个体自觉地调和自我与他者、个体与类、区域与全球之间的关系，在文明普遍交往、文明多样性得以彰显、文明平等性得以保障中实现人的自由全面发展。

Third, cultural-ethical progress is the sum total of achievements in the spiritual sphere that are coordinated with and adapted to the level of material civilization development. It is also the process by which people truly grasp their own essential powers, exert the subjective dynamism of life’s innovation and creativity, receive dual nourishment in material and spiritual dimensions, and achieve comprehensive physical and mental development. The capital-centered modern civilization of capitalism is a reflection of the logic of capital’s infinite self-expansion in the production of cultural-ethical progress. Its public and commonweal nature is maximally dissolved, leading to the high commercialization, excessive packaging, and vulgarization of cultural works and services. This triggers the comprehensive penetration and control of people’s lives by money fetishism, commodity fetishism, and capital fetishism, leading people into a social value predicament characterized by inflated material desires and nihilistic spirituality, and sparking a cultural crisis of “utilitarianism and the total destruction of the meaning of life caused by utilitarianism.” [13]13 A reference to the critique of utilitarianism and cultural crisis found in the works of thinkers such as Max Weber or in the broader Western Marxist tradition; the specific phrasing echoes critiques of capitalist modernity. Under the tide of globalization, many other civilizational systems suppressed by Western civilization possess intellectual resources to correct and supplement the predicament of modern civilization, pointing a new direction for resolving the predicament of modern civilization, returning to the essence of civilization, and promoting the diversity, nationality, and historicity of civilizations.

其三，精神文明是与物质文明发展水平相协调、相适应的精神领域成果的总和，也是人真正掌握自身的本质力量、发挥生命创新创造的主体动能，在物质和精神维度获得双重滋养，实现身心全面发展的过程。以资本为中心的资本主义现代文明是资本无限增殖的逻辑在精神文明生产中的反映，其精神文明的公共性和公益性被最大限度地消解，导致文化作品和服务高度商业化、过度包装化、内容低俗化，引发货币拜物教、商品拜物教和资本拜物教对人的生活的全面渗透和控制，导致人盲从以膨胀的物欲和虚无的精神为特征的社会价值困境，引发“功利主义和由功利主义造成的人生意义的全部毁灭”的文化危机。在全球化浪潮下，被西方文明压制的许多其他文明体系，具备矫正和补足现代文明困境的思想资源，为化解现代文明困境，回归文明本质，发扬文明的多样性、民族性和历史性指引了新的发展方向。

The spiritual world points to the meaning of human existence. It includes not only individual-level intellectual, emotional, and volitional elements of thought and feeling but also encompasses collective cultural-psychological structures, manifesting collective spiritual features such as social mentality and social culture. This reflects both the subject’s conscious autonomy and creative vitality and is a concentrated reflection of the vitality and creativity of a nation or country. The richness of the human spiritual world is the value yardstick for the generation of the subject of modern civilization. The human spiritual world is a more essential and deeper dimension of comprehensive human development. Only by truly treating people as the subjects of creation and the sharers of the fruits of cultural-ethical progress can the constraints of material dependence on comprehensive human development be overcome, and the spiritual and cultural shackles imposed on people by the expansion of capital and the rule of things be broken. Historical materialism holds that cultural-ethical progress does not exist independently of material civilization; the comprehensiveness of material production determines the richness of social relations and spiritual production. “The common union of all members of society, which will jointly and systematically utilize the productive forces; develop production to a scale sufficient to meet the needs of all; put an end to the situation where the interests of some are sacrificed to meet the needs of others; … and enable the talents of all members of society to be fully developed” [14]14 Friedrich Engels, *Principles of Communism* (1847), Section 18. — thereby fully realizing people’s comprehensive development of their own labor capacity, social interaction capacity, and innovation capacity in the collective, social process of material production. Consequently, they are able to create and enjoy the fruits of cultural-ethical progress and comprehensively develop their physical and intellectual capacities. At the same time, cultural-ethical progress in the collective sense necessarily requires overcoming and transcending the overly commercialized and utilitarian mechanisms of spiritual and cultural production, taking people’s need for a more comprehensive and nobler spiritual and cultural life as the value standard for the production of cultural-ethical progress, guiding and encouraging cultural producers to form a people-centered orientation in the production of cultural-ethical progress, and producing more spiritual and cultural works that possess both historicity and contemporaneity, reflect the historical and cultural traditions of the nation, and integrate the spirit of the times with modern aesthetic pursuits. This meets people’s need for national, historical, and contemporary spiritual identification, allows people to obtain essential confirmation through the consumption of high-quality cultural products, and enables all members of society to fully manifest their subjective vitality and creativity in a rich spiritual world.

精神世界既指向人的存在意义，既包括个体层面的理智、情感、意志等思维和情感要素，又涵盖集体文化心理结构，彰显社会心态、社会文化等集体精神面貌。这既反映人的主体性自觉和创造性活力，又是一个国家、民族生命力和创造力的集中反映。人的精神世界的丰富性是现代文明主体生成的价值标尺，人的精神世界是人的全面发展更本质、更深层的维度，只有真正把人作为精神文明创造主体和成果分享主体，才能克服物的依赖性对人的全面发展的钳制，破除资本的扩张和物的统治给人带来的精神文化枷锁。唯物史观认为，精神文明不是独立于物质文明的存在，物质生产的全面性决定着社会关系和精神生产的丰富性。“由社会全体成员组成的共同联合体来共同地和有计划地利用生产力；把生产发展到能够满足所有人的需要的规模；结束牺牲一些人的利益来满足另一些人的需要的状况；……使社会全体成员的才能得到全面发展”，由此充分实现人在集体的、社会的物质生产过程中全面发展自身的劳动能力、社会交往能力和创新能力，进而有能力创造和享有精神文明成果并全面发展自身的体力和智力。同时，集体意义上的精神文明必然要求克服和超越过度商业化和功利化的精神文化生产机制，把人对更全面更高尚的精神文化生活需要作为精神文明生产的价值标准，引导和鼓励文化生产者形成以人民为中心的精神文明生产导向，形成更多兼具历史性与时代性、反映本民族历史文化传统、融合时代精神和现代审美追求的精神文化作品，满足人们对民族的、历史的、时代的精神认同需求，让人在高品质文化产品消费中得到本质确认，让全体社会成员在丰富的精神世界中充分彰显主体生命力和创造力。

Fourth, social civilization is the civilizational achievement in which human beings, through creative labor in transforming the world, develop themselves in an all-round way, develop social relations comprehensively, and form an active yet orderly social community. Capitalist modern civilization uses capital, technology, and the division of labor as means to conceal and suppress human subjectivity, creating “an inversion of dead labor and living labor, of value and the force that creates value,” artificially producing the reversal and opposition of subject and object. This leads to highly strained social relations and the consequence of vicious competition, giving rise to the modern social crisis of the split between the individual and the community and the conflict between individual development and community development. Capitalism follows the value core of material interests above all else and the maximization of capital interests, which inevitably causes social development to fall into the predicament where the development of things dominates the development of human beings and the greed for the infinite multiplication of capital suppresses the realization of human subjectivity. At the same time, it prepares the conditions for human beings to liberate themselves from social control mechanisms such as capital, technology, and the division of labor, and to realize the all-round development of human beings and the comprehensive liberation of social relations.

其四，社会文明是人在改造世界的创造性劳动中全面发展自己、全面发展社会关系，形成活跃有序的社会共同体的文明成果。资本主义现代文明以资本、技术和分工等为手段掩盖和压抑人的主体性，造成“死劳动和活劳动、价值和创造价值的力之间的关系的倒置”，人为地制造了主客体颠倒和对立，导致社会关系高度紧张和恶性竞争的后果，造成个体与共同体相分裂、个体发展与共同体发展相冲突的现代社会危机。资本主义遵循物质利益至上、资本利益最大化的价值内核决定社会发展不可避免地陷入物的发展统治人的发展、资本无限增殖的贪欲压抑人的主体实现的困境，同时也为人从资本、技术和分工等社会控制手段中解放出来，实现人的全面发展和社会关系的全面解放准备了条件。

Human civilization, whose purpose is the free and all-round development of human beings, must necessarily shake off the shackles that dependence on things imposes on all-round human development, return the relationship between human beings and things, subject and object, in the course of modernization to human beings themselves, and realize the modernization of human social relations. Social civilization from a modern perspective is a civilization of comprehensive social progress; the all-round development of each individual is the prerequisite for the comprehensive development of society. The all-round development of human beings has a social-historical character; it is a process in which human beings manifest their social subjectivity through social production. On the one hand, labor creation is the primary fulcrum of Marxism’s “changing the world” and the general basis for the existence and development of human society. Every person with the capacity for labor has an essential need to participate in labor and will embed themselves in the social production structure in some form, developing themselves in an all-round way by utilizing factors of production such as capital, land, and technology and exerting their labor-creative abilities. It is necessary to perfect the modern social production structure with human beings as the main body, create a division-of-labor order conducive to bringing out human all-roundness and innovative-creative capacities, break the old division of labor that segments and suppresses people, avoid the dissolution of human all-roundness and creativity by mechanical, fragmented division-of-labor structures, and cast off the stranglehold of capital supremacy over human individuality and creativity. “By eliminating the old division of labor, through industrial education and the change of jobs,” people should be enabled to labor according to social needs and personal interests, freeing them from repetitive, mechanical labor divisions while also enabling them to master modern technology, so that technology better serves people, and then further embedding them into more creative division-of-labor structures. In this way, the way people develop themselves in an all-round way through social production is once again placed under their own control; through productive practice, labor autonomy, active creativity, and the sharing of results are realized, so that accumulated labor becomes a means of expanding, enriching, and improving people’s lives, and labor becomes the primary need for people’s free and all-round development rather than a means of subsistence. On the other hand, social civilization is a civilization that progresses comprehensively through comprehensive social interaction, and also a civilization that realizes the all-round development of all people within overarching social relations. That is, people engage in social interaction and cooperation not in isolation but in close connection with one another; they realize the free and all-round development of each individual not one-sidedly but through the overall progress of the community. It is necessary to regulate the order of social interaction and competition, forming a social culture that values people’s subjective contributions, encourages people’s developmental potential, and emphasizes win-win cooperation among social members, so that people develop their capacities socially rather than atomistically, and each person actively seeks their value of existence within the community. In the comprehensive interaction and win-win cooperation among people, the unity of individuality and sociality is realized, the free and all-round development of the individual is harmonized with the comprehensive progress of society, and an active yet orderly social community is built by activating the all-roundness and creativity of all social members.

以人的自由全面发展为旨趣的人类文明必然要摆脱物的依赖性对人的全面发展的束缚，把现代化发展中的人与物、主体与客体的关系还给人本身，实现人的社会交往关系的现代化。现代视域下的社会文明是社会全面进步的文明，每个人的全面发展是社会全面发展的前提条件。人的全面发展具有社会历史性，是在社会生产中彰显人的社会主体性的过程。一方面，劳动创造是马克思主义“改变世界”的第一支点，是人类社会存在和发展的总根据。每一个具备劳动能力的人都有参与劳动的本质需求，都会以一定的形式嵌入到社会生产结构中，通过利用资本、土地、技术等生产要素，发挥人的劳动创造能力来全面发展自身。要完善以人为主体的现代社会生产结构，创造有利于发挥人的全面性和创新创造能力的分工秩序，打破区隔人、压抑人的旧式分工，避免机械式、碎片化的分工结构对人的全面性和创造性的消解，摆脱资本至上对人的个性和创造力的钳制，“通过消除旧的分工，通过产业教育、变换工种”，让人能够根据社会需要和个人兴趣进行劳动，既让人从重复性、机械性的劳动分工中解放出来，又能促进人掌握现代技术，让技术更好为人服务，再进一步嵌入更有创造性的分工结构中，让人在社会生产中全面发展自身的方式重新受自身的支配，通过生产实践实现劳动自主性、能动创造性、成果共享性，使得积累起来的劳动成为扩大、丰富和提高人们生活的手段，让劳动成为人自由全面发展的第一需要而不是谋生手段。另一方面，社会文明是在社会全面交往中全面进步的文明，也是在总体性的社会关系中实现所有人全面发展的文明，即每个人不是孤立地而是彼此紧密联系地进行社会交往和合作，不是片面地而是在共同体的整体进步中实现每个人自由全面的发展。要调节社会交往和竞争秩序，形成重视人的主体贡献、鼓励人的发展潜力、重视社会成员合作共赢的社会文化，让人社会化而不是原子化地发展自身的能力，让每个人积极寻求个体之于共同体的存在价值，在人与人的全面交往和合作共赢中实现人的个体性和社会性相统一，个人的自由全面发展与社会全面进步相和谐，在激活全体社会成员的全面性和创造性中构建活跃有序的社会共同体。

Fifth, ecological civilization is the civilizational achievement in which human beings continuously deepen their understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature and, guided by the value of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, regulate and transform nature. The process by which human beings transform nature and create civilizational achievements inevitably humanizes nature, confirming the essential capacity of human beings to understand and master the laws of nature, to follow and apply them, triggering the dual transformation of “the humanization of external nature” and “the humanization of internal nature,” and achieving the dual change of external nature and one’s own nature. Capitalist modern civilization ignores the essence of human beings as beings of nature, “dominating nature as if standing outside it,” forming a distorted ecological view in which human beings are placed above nature. It vainly attempts to transcend the constraints of natural necessity, transforming and conquering nature arbitrarily, carrying out unrestrained modernizing transformations of nature, causing nature to be excessively humanized, subverting the rational mode of material exchange between humanity and nature, and leading to the continuous accumulation of many irreparable ecological consequences in the course of modernization, resulting in highly strained relations between humanity and nature and an ecological crisis.

其五，生态文明是人类不断增进对人与自然关系的认知，以人与自然和谐共生为价值导向来调节、改造自然的文明成果。人改造自然、创造文明成果的过程必然使自然人化，确证人类认识和掌握自然规律、遵循和运用自然规律的本质能力，引发“外在自然的人化”与“内在自然的人化”的双重变换，实现外部自然和自身自然的双重改变。资本主义现代文明无视人作为自然界的存在物的本质，“像站在自然界之外的人似的去支配自然界”，形成了人凌驾于自然之上的扭曲生态观，妄图超越自然必然性的制约去随心所欲地改造和征服自然，对自然界进行毫无节制的现代化改造，使自然过度人化，颠覆了人与自然之间进行物质变换的合理方式，导致了现代化进程中不断累积诸多不可修复的生态后果，形成人与自然关系的高度紧张和生态危机。

Marxist philosophy, through “the humanization of nature” and “the naturalization of human beings,” demonstrates the dialectical unity of humanity and nature, scientifically revealing that human beings come from nature and belong to nature, and that human beings need to confirm their essential existence through the labor process of material exchange with nature. This not only clarifies the social-historical character of nature’s constraint on the practical activities through which human beings make history, but also points out that human beings must control and regulate their own mode of production to overcome their destructive impact on nature. It is necessary to grasp the scale and boundary between “nature-in-itself” and “humanized nature,” fully recognize the mutual subject-object relationship between humanity and nature, and avoid treating nature as a pure object and instrumental existence. Through the labor practice of material exchange with nature, human beings must return to nature, follow natural laws, transform nature within limits, reduce excessive intervention in nature, handle the relationships between the present and the long term, between governance costs and development benefits, and between partial development achievements and the overall situation of human development. They must overcome the contradiction between blind expansion of development and the finiteness of ecological resources, and the contradiction between the pursuit of short-term returns and the long-term nature of ecological restoration, promoting ecological priority, conservation and intensive use, green and low-carbon development, and realizing the dialectical unity of using and protecting nature. Adhere to the continuity and integrity of ecological governance and protection, achieve the unity of the regularity and purposiveness of human actions, satisfy people’s own reasonable needs on the basis of following natural laws and ecological principles, and realize the true reconciliation of the contradictory relationship between humanity and nature.

马克思主义哲学以“自然的人化”和“人的自然化”论证了人与自然的辩证统一，科学揭示了人来自于自然并从属于自然，人需要在同自然界进行物质变换的劳动过程中确认自身的本质存在。这不仅阐明了自然制约人类创造历史的实践活动的社会历史性，而且指出人要控制和调节自身的生产方式来克服对自然的破坏影响。要把握好“自在自然”和“人化自然”的尺度和边界，充分认识人与自然互为主客体的关系，避免把自然视为纯粹的客体和工具性存在。要通过人与自然界进行物质变换的劳动实践来重返自然，顺应自然规律，有限度地改造自然，减少对自然的过度干预，处理好当下与长远、治理成本与发展效益、局部发展成效与人类发展全局之间的关系，克服盲目发展扩张与生态资源的有限性之间的矛盾、追求短期回报与生态恢复的长期性之间的矛盾，推进生态优先、节约集约、绿色低碳发展，实现利用自然和保护自然的辩证统一。坚持生态治理和保护的持续性和整全性，实现人类行为的合规律性和合目的性的统一，在遵循自然规律和生态准则的基础上满足人自身的合理需求，实现人与自然矛盾关系的真正和解。

In short, civilization is the process of disenchanting the traditional world, casting off previous mysterious, transcendental bonds, and moving toward rationalization and intellectualization. With the development of a multipolar world and the spiral ascent of civilizational evolution, capitalist modern civilization is itself being continuously “disenchanted,” exposing its structural predicament and civilizational decline under the constraints of its civilizational values. Capitalist modern civilization, which prioritizes material interests and capital above all else, has sounded an alarm for the development of human civilization. This inspires a return from “thing-centeredness” to “people-centeredness” as the fundamental value of civilization, making human beings truly the most dynamic and active force in creating civilization, enabling people to develop material civilization, political civilization, cultural-ethical progress, social civilization, and ecological civilization within a community where they develop themselves in an all-round way and engage in comprehensive interaction, embedding and unifying the all-round development of human beings in civilizational practice, and forging a new path for human civilization that bridges the dispute over civilizational values, resolves the crisis of civilizational conflict, and promotes the sustainable development of humanity.

总之，文明就是对传统世界祛魅，摆脱以往神秘的、超验的束缚，趋于理性化和理智化的过程。随着世界多极化发展和文明演化的螺旋上升，资本主义现代文明也正在不断地被“祛魅”，暴露出其文明价值制约下的结构性困境和文明衰朽趋势。物质利益至上、资本至上的资本主义现代文明为人类文明发展敲响了警钟。这启示从“物本”回归到“人本”的文明价值本位，让人真正成为创造文明的最能动、最活跃的力量，让人在全面发展自身、全面交往的共同体中发展物质文明、政治文明、精神文明、社会文明和生态文明，把人的全面发展内嵌和统一于文明实践中，走出一条弥合文明价值之争、化解文明冲突危机、促进人类可持续发展的人类文明新路径。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗