The Logic of Opposition in Objectified Labour – Based on the Theory of Material Metabolism in *Capital* and the Manuscripts

Objectified labour is a core concept in the critique of political economy, highly correlated with the categories of objectivity in Hegel and Feuerbach, yet fundamentally different from them. Hegel’s dialectical logic is built on the abstract identity of the self in motion with its object and the singularity of that logic: “The moments of spirit now unfold in the form of singularity, which knows itself as its object. These moments no longer split into the opposition of being and knowledge, but remain in the singularity of knowledge; they are all truths possessing the form of truth, differing only in content. The movement through which they develop into an organic whole within this element of knowledge is logic or speculative philosophy.” The movement of the organic whole is a process that, after passing through the content of universality and particularity, unfolds from the form of singularity. Feuerbach pointed out that the objectifying movement unfolding from this form of singularity, as well as the essence of speculative philosophy, remains theology: “God, considered from his moral or spiritual attributes, that is, as a moral entity, is nothing other than the deified and objectified spiritual essence of man.” Marx inverted the premises and conditions of Hegel’s logic of the identity of self and object, liberated Feuerbach’s real entity-object from the cage of entity-activity, and elevated the critique of objectified entities into a concrete critique of “objective activity” in specific social formations, that is, the inverted reality of “objectified labour.” Using the logic of opposition in dialectics as the basis for reflection and critique, he created a critique of political economy consistent with philosophical logic.

对象化劳动是政治经济学批判的核心概念，它与黑格尔、费尔巴哈的对象性范畴高度相关，但有着本质的不同。黑格尔的辩证逻辑建立在运动中的自我与对象抽象同一性及其逻辑单一性的基础上：“精神的诸环节现在就以知道自身即是其对象的那种单一性的形式扩展开来。这些环节不再分裂为存在与知识的对立，而停留于知识的单一性中，它们都是具有真理的形式的真理，它们的不同只是内容上的不同而已。它们在这种知识因素里自己发展成为一个有机整体的那种运动过程，就是逻辑或思辨哲学。”有机整体的运动过程就是经历了普遍性、特殊性内容之后，由单一性形式扩展开来的运动过程。费尔巴哈指出从这种单一性形式扩展开来的对象化运动以及思辨哲学的本质依然是神学，“神，从他的道德属性或精神属性来看，亦即当作道德实体来看，不是别的，正是人的被神化和对象化了的精神本质”。马克思对黑格尔自我与对象的同一性逻辑进行了前提和条件颠倒，把费尔巴哈的现实的实体对象，从实体活动的牢笼中解放出来，把对象化的实体批判，提升为特定社会形态中具体的“对象性的活动”，即颠倒的“对象化劳动”的现实批判，以辩证法的对立逻辑作为反思和批判的根据，创建了与哲学逻辑一致的政治经济学批判。

In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx proposed that objectivity cannot, as Hegel believed, be equated with non-objectivity as non-being. At that time, deeply influenced by Feuerbach, Marx held that a senseless “non-objective being is a non-being [Unwesen],” and that “objectified labour” is an “alien, hostile power.” Object and non-object cannot achieve self-equivalence within the logic of singularity, because sensuous reality and real sensuousness stand on solid ground; the active equation between man and nature or objects can only be realized through a thoroughgoing communist society. In *The Holy Family*, while critiquing the critique of criticism that detaches itself from material earth, Marx clarified that the birthplace of history can only be material production on earth: “Critical criticism … regards the birthplace of history not as the coarse material production on earth, but as the misty cloud-gathering in the heavens.” Material production, opposed to the misty heavens, is the process of material metabolism between man and nature—this is labour: “Labour is, first of all, a process between man and nature, a process by which man, through his own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the material metabolism between himself and nature. Man himself confronts the material of nature as a natural force.” Man confronting natural matter as a natural force means that the external opposition of formless transformation in nature is the original opposition between the (earthly) natural conditions of production in a specific social formation and the (heavenly, misty) entity-conditions. In capitalist society, social material metabolism, through the form-transformation of displacement, inverts and dominates past, accumulated labour over present labour, realizing the material metabolism of capital. In *Capital* and the manuscripts, Marx continued the philosophical logic of opposition in objectified labour from the pre-historical-materialist period (especially the *1844 Manuscripts*), and through the theory of material metabolism, further elevated it into the logic of opposition in objectified labour within the critique of political economy, excavating its progressive layers: external opposition, internal opposition, and essential opposition. Marx used objectified labour with essential opposition to run through the philosophy of historical materialism and the critique of political economy, extracting the alchemy of the fetishism of capital, condensing the singular logic of capital’s valorization, and critiquing the negative sublation of abstract identity by this logic of valorization.

马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中提出，对象性不能如黑格尔认为的那样，等同于非存在的非对象性。此时马克思深受费尔巴哈影响，认为无感性的“非对象性的存在物是非存在物（Unwesen）”，“对象化劳动”是“异己的、敌对的力量”，对象与非对象不能在单一性的逻辑中实现自身等同，因为感性的现实和现实的感性是以脚着地的；人与自然或对象之间的能动等号只能通过彻底的共产主义社会才能实现。在《神圣家族》中，马克思在对脱离物质大地的批判的批判进行批判时，明确了历史的诞生地只能是地上的物质生产：“批判的批判……认为历史的诞生地不是地上的粗糙的物质生产，而是天上的迷蒙的云兴雾聚之处。”与天上迷雾相对立的物质生产，是人与自然之间的物质变换过程，这就是劳动：“劳动首先是人和自然之间的过程，是人以自身的活动来中介、调整和控制人和自然之间的物质变换的过程。人自身作为一种自然力与自然物质相对立。”人作为自然力与自然物质相互对立，意味着自然界中无形式变换的外部对立是特定社会形态中生产的（地上的）自然条件与（天上云兴雾聚的）实体条件的原初对立。在资本主义社会中，社会的物质变换，通过移形换位的形式变换，使过去的、积累的劳动颠倒和统治现在的劳动，实现资本的物质变换。在《资本论》及手稿中，马克思延续了前唯物史观时期（尤其是《1844年经济学哲学手稿》）哲学意义上的对象化劳动的对立逻辑，并通过物质变换理论，将其进一步提升为政治经济学批判意义上的对象化劳动之对立逻辑，掘进了其中的外部对立、内在对立以及本质对立等渐进层次。马克思以本质对立的对象化劳动贯穿于唯物史观的哲学与政治经济学批判，萃取出资本拜物教的炼金术，凝练了单一性的资本增殖逻辑，批判了增殖逻辑对抽象同一性的消极扬弃。

Therefore, in the author’s view, whether in terms of form, shape, worldview, or methodology, the critique of political economy represented by *Capital* always revolves around a gravitational centre: objectified labour. On the one hand, objectified labour takes natural elements as the object of human activity; on the other hand, it transforms the living labour of man, which belongs to nature, into its own opposite serving the needs of abstract human labour. Under the capitalist system, labour is objectified into a common entity, and both nature and man are subordinated to a mysterious force behind them; in the disappearance and persistence of natural matter in the production process, the essential opposition and contradiction between objectified labour and objective activity are established. Marx pointed out that the logically pre-established harmony of Hegel’s contradictions is, in reality, split and antagonistic contradictions—a universal and necessary inversion and split between idea and reality under the capitalist system. The “objectified labour” of the critique of political economy is a critique of the concretized practice of philosophy’s “objective [gegenständliche] activity,” a core concept of the methodology of the critique of political economy, linking a series of related categories: the objectifying subject, entity, conditions, relations, process, determinations, mediation, and so on. The contribution and advancement of *Capital* and the manuscripts lie in grasping that the practical activity between man and nature is both sensuous objective activity and the material exchange activity between man and the object as other, causing changes in both the content and form of man and nature. Capital determines the material metabolism between man and the object as other, including the form-transformation of man as his own object. However, Marx noted that “people understand this form-transformation … very poorly.” In the author’s view, this is because it conceals the dialectical logic of opposition. Or, we cannot arbitrarily understand how the bible of form-transformation—the abstract identity and absolute power of capital—is possible, apart from the gravitational centre of essential opposition, i.e., objectified labour. Therefore, the logic of opposition in objectified labour is the key to unlocking the secrets of the morphological changes and form-transformations of material metabolism. Hence, this article attempts to explore: how Marx, in analysing social material metabolism, starts from the displacement movement of commodity and money, cuts into the external opposition in the changes of the external forms of opposing sides and the internal opposition of form-transformation, and advances both into the essential opposition of totality; and how Marx delves into the secret of objectified labour that can simultaneously exist as value, commodity, and capital, and unfolds a critique of the modern crisis caused by the fetish exercising absolute power, i.e., capital. This is of great significance for unlocking the progressively layered dialectical logic in objectified labour and exposing the important defect in Hegel’s speculative dialectics, where “objectification” is not distinguished from “alienation, externalization, and estrangement.”

因而，在笔者看来，无论是形态、形式，还是世界观、方法论等，以《资本论》为代表的政治经济学批判始终围绕着一个引力中心：对象化劳动。对象化劳动一方面把自然要素作为人的活动对象，另一方面也使属于自然的人的活劳动，转变为服务于人类抽象劳动需要的自身对立。资本主义制度下的劳动被对象化为共同实体，自然和人都从属于背后的神秘力量；在生产过程的自然物质的消失和持存中，建立起对象化劳动和对象性的活动的本质对立与矛盾。马克思指出，黑格尔逻辑上前定和谐的矛盾，在现实中却是分裂的、对抗的矛盾，是资本主义制度下观念与现实之间普遍的、必然的颠倒和分裂。政治经济学批判的“对象化劳动”是对哲学的“对象性的（gegenständliche）活动”具体化实践的批判，是政治经济学批判方法论的核心概念，关联起对象化的主体、实体、条件、关系、过程、规定、中介等一系列相关范畴。《资本论》及手稿的贡献和推进在于，它把握了人与自然之间的实践活动，既是感性的对象性的活动，也是人与作为他者的对象的物质交换活动，使人与自然的内容和形式都发生了变化。资本决定了人与作为他者的对象的物质变换，其中包括人与作为自身的对象的形式变换。然而马克思指出，“人们对这种形式变换……理解得很差”，在笔者看来，这是因为其中深藏辩证法的对立逻辑。或者说，我们不能离开本质对立的引力中心即对象化劳动，来任意理解形式变换的圣经即资本的抽象同一性和绝对权力何以可能的问题。因此，对象化劳动的对立逻辑，是解开物质变换的形态变化及其形式变换秘密的钥匙。故而，本文尝试探讨：马克思在剖析社会物质变换时，如何从商品与货币的换位运动入手，切进对立面双方外部表现形态变化中的外部对立与形式变换的内在对立，并将二者推进为总体性的本质对立；以及马克思如何深究能够同时作为价值、商品、资本存在的对象化劳动的秘密，并展开对行使绝对权力的物神（fetish）即资本导致的现代危机的批判。这对于解开对象化劳动中层层递进的辩证逻辑，揭开黑格尔思辨辩证法中“对象化”与“异化、外化、外在化”不分的重要缺陷具有重要意义。

I. Social Material Metabolism: Internal Opposition within External Opposition

一、社会的物质变换：外部对立中的内在对立

Material metabolism is itself labor. If natural material metabolism reveals the external manifestation of material metabolism, then social material metabolism reveals the inner essence within that external manifestation. The specific mission of material metabolism can only occur within a particular social formation, and that social formation is capitalist society, which “makes exchange a regular social process.” “The exchange of commodities is a social material metabolism insofar as the exchange process transfers commodities from the hands of those for whom they are non-use-values to the hands of those for whom they are use-values. … Here, we are only interested in the sphere of commodity exchange. Therefore, we examine the entire process only from the formal aspect, that is, we examine only the transformation of the commodity form or the metamorphosis of the commodity, which mediates the social material metabolism.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 3, Section 1. The mediation of social material metabolism, i.e., the transformation of the commodity form or its metamorphosis, means that once a product of labor enters the sphere of exchange as a commodity, it establishes an internal opposition within the external opposition. “The exchange process creates a doubling of the commodity into commodity and money, an external opposition in which the commodity expresses its immanent opposition between use-value and value.” [2]2 Ibid. The logic of opposition deeply embedded within this is the key to unlocking the secret of material metabolism in the sphere of social exchange.

物质变换本身就是劳动。如果说自然的物质变换揭示了物质变换的外部表现，那么社会的物质变换则揭示了外部表现中的内在本质。物质变换的特有使命只能发生于特定的社会形态中，这个社会形态就是“使交换成为有规则的社会过程”的资本主义社会。“交换过程使商品从把它们当做非使用价值的人手里转到把它们当做使用价值的人手里，就这一点说，这个过程是一种社会的物质变换。……在这里，我们感兴趣的只是商品交换领域。因此，我们只是从形式方面考察全部过程，就是说，只是考察对社会的物质变换起中介作用的商品形式变换或商品形态变化。”社会的物质变换的中介即商品形式变换或形态变化，意味着劳动产品一旦作为商品进入交换领域，就建立了外部对立中的内在对立。“交换过程造成了商品分为商品和货币这种二重化，即造成了商品得以表现自己的使用价值和价值之间的内在对立的一种外部对立。”其中深蕴的对立逻辑是解开社会交换领域中物质变换的秘密的钥匙。

First, the successive metamorphoses of form: commodity and money form an external opposition. Social material metabolism is established in exchange activities. To gain a deeper understanding of this exchange activity, we might directly confront the laws of change governing both sides of the opposition in social material metabolism during the process of commodity exchange. In simple commodity exchange and circulation, the transformation of the form of value is realized through the external change in the commodity’s form. The first metamorphosis of the commodity is “Commodity (C)—Money (M),” and the second metamorphosis is “Money (M)—Commodity (C).” The process of commodity exchange, which starts from the commodity and returns to the commodity, cannot increase the content of the commodity in the course of its movement; it merely involves a successive material metabolism between ordinary commodities and the money commodity. “This formal transformation is poorly understood, apart from the lack of clarity about the concept of value itself, because each formal transformation of a commodity is realized through the exchange of two commodities, i.e., an ordinary commodity and the money commodity.” [3]3 Ibid. The process of exchange and formal transformation between the money commodity and ordinary commodities consists of “two mutually opposed and complementary phases.” “In this external opposition, the commodity as use-value stands opposed to money as exchange-value.” [4]4 Ibid. In this stage of external opposition, commodity and money “cannot exist side by side in space; they can only occur successively in time,” [5]5 Ibid. indicating that the external formal changes of commodities can only interweave successively. Money is the medium of circulation exchangeable with all commodities, assuming the function of the universal equivalent. Since money is also a commodity, such opposition holds the possibility of formal identity.

其一，前后相继的形态变化：商品与货币形成外部对立。社会物质变换建立于交换活动中，为了对这一交换活动有更深刻的理解，我们不妨直面商品交换过程中，社会物质变换的对立面双方的变化规律。在简单商品交换和流通中，价值的形式变换是通过商品的外部形态变化实现的。商品的第一形态变化是“商品（W）—货币（G）”，第二形态变化是“货币（G）—商品（W）”。从商品出发而又回到商品的商品交换过程，并不能使商品在运动过程中增加内容，而仅仅发生了普通商品与货币商品之间前后相继的物质变换。“人们对这种形式变换之所以理解得很差，除了对价值概念本身不清楚以外，是因为一个商品的每次形式变换都是通过两个商品即一个普通商品和货币商品的交换实现的。”货币商品与普通商品之间的换位和形态变化过程是两个“互相对立、互为补充的阶段”，“在这种外部对立中，作为使用价值的商品同作为交换价值的货币对立着”。在这个外部对立的阶段，商品和货币“不可能在空间上并行，只能在时间上相继发生”，这表明商品外部形态变化只能相继性交织。货币是与一切商品相交换的流通手段，承担起一般等价物的职能。由于货币也是商品，因而这样的对立具有形式同一的可能性。

In the transition from money circulation to the circulation of capital, the sequence of the commodity’s metamorphosis is reversed. The first metamorphosis is “Money (M)—Commodity (C).” When the personified commodity guardian, having become the personification of the object, possesses a large quantity of living commodities, the second metamorphosis is realized, i.e., “Commodity (C)—Money (M).” “Here, it is not the same piece of money that changes places twice, but the same commodity.” [6]6 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 4, Section 1. The quantity of money after the second metamorphosis is no longer the same as the quantity of money in the first metamorphosis. Money shifts from a two-fold change of place to a single change of place; once money flows out, it must flow back again, otherwise this movement will cease. When ordinary commodities exit circulation, new commodities take their place, but money must constantly tarry in the sphere of circulation to become a “golden chrysalis.” [7]7 “Golden chrysalis” (金蛹) is a metaphor used by Marx to describe the form money takes when it is temporarily withdrawn from circulation as a hoard. In this way, “this formal transformation changes from a mere intermediary of material metabolism into an end in itself.” [8]8 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 4, Section 1. “Therefore, the content of the M—C—M process is not due to a qualitative difference between its two poles (both are money), but only to their quantitative difference. Finally, more money is withdrawn from circulation than was initially thrown into it.” [9]9 Ibid. Simple commodity circulation transforms the content of matter. Although there is the possibility of identity within the external opposition, this possibility cannot be realized in simple commodity circulation. This is because, in simple circulation, both poles of the external formal opposition claim to be the truth, but they can only be the truth in the most acute extremes; they cannot manifest as the truth of the totality itself. Only in circulatory circulation mediated by money and its material metabolism can one directly confront its form: value.

在货币流通及其向资本流通的转换过程中，商品形态变化在顺序上发生了颠倒，第一形态变化是“货币（G）—商品（W）”，当物的人格化了的商品监护者在占有大量活的商品后，就实现了第二形态变化，也就是“商品（W）—货币（G）”。“在这里，两次变换位置的，不是同一块货币，而是同一件商品。”第二形态变化后的货币量已经不再是第一形态中的货币量，货币从两次换位变成了一次换位，货币流出去之后必须再流回来，否则这个运动就会终止。普通商品退出流通会有新的商品补位，但货币要不断逗留于流通领域，才能结为“金蛹”。这样，“这一形式变换从物质变换的单纯中介变成了目的本身”。“因此，G—W—G过程所以有内容，不是因为两极有质的区别（二者都是货币），而只是因为它们有量的不同。最后从流通中取出的货币，多于起初投入的货币。”简单商品流通变换的是物质的内容，尽管外部对立中具有同一的可能性，但在简单商品流通中还不能实现这种可能性。这是因为在简单流通中，外部形态对立的两极都自命为真理，但只有在最尖锐的极端中才能是真理，它不能表现为总体本身的真理。只有在以货币为中介的循环流通及其物质变换中，才能直面其中的形式：价值。

Second, the simultaneous formal transformation: the immanent opposition between use-value and exchange-value. In simple commodity circulation, money assumes the function of the universal equivalent, carrying out external changes in material content and form. However, in circulation mediated by money, money is the general mode of existence or universal form of value, while the commodity is reduced to a particular mode of existence of value—this is a “disguised mode of existence.” [10]10 “Disguised mode of existence” (化了装的存在方式) is a phrase used by Marx in the *Grundrisse* to describe the commodity’s appearance as a particular embodiment of value when money is the universal equivalent. That is, through the exchange of positions on either side of the equation, a one-sided form in “currency” (cours de la monnaie) is realized. The exchange of positions in simple circulation and the exchange of positions in money circulation are two different modes of exchange, and therefore need to be clarified. In the process of simple circulation, the commodity owner and the money owner can only occupy one position at a time; exchange-value must appear twice, “once as commodity, and once as capital. When it has one determination, it does not have the other.” [11]11 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, “The Chapter on Capital,” Section 1. However, as labor-power is invested in the reproduction process to form productive capital, the two opposing determinations can simultaneously preserve themselves. At this point, value is “the same exchange-value, exchange-value as subject,” [12]12 Ibid. which, in its posited and mediated movement, can “simultaneously” possess both forms, “preserving itself as money in the commodity and as commodity in the money.” [13]13 Ibid. This is no longer the simple production process shaping the external form of the commodity and establishing a simple external opposition with money; rather, it is a material metabolism starting from money, where money is the mediator and preacher of value’s continuous self-externalization and self-return movement. The condition for this is that the use-value of living labor must first realize its own exchange-value. This reverses the process in which the commodity enters the sphere of exchange and circulation with use-value as its precondition, thereby realizing the value-exchange process of exchange-value as a past fact.

其二，同时进行的形式变换：使用价值与交换价值的内在对立。在简单商品流通中，货币承担了一般等价物的职能，进行的是外部的物质内容和形态的变化；但是在以货币为中介的流通中，货币是价值的一般存在方式或普遍形式，商品降为价值的特殊的存在方式，这就是“化了装的存在方式”，也就是通过交换等号左右两边的换位，实现“货币流通”（currency, cours de la mon-naie）中的单方面形式。简单流通的换位和货币流通的换位是两种不同的换位方式，故而需要加以阐明。在简单流通过程中，商品占有者与货币占有者只能同时占据其一，交换价值不得不出现两次，“一次作为商品，另一次作为资本。当它具有一种规定时，它就不具有另一种规定”。但是，随着劳动力投入再生产过程形成生产资本，两个对立面的规定就能同时保存着自己，此时的价值是“同一交换价值，作为主体的交换价值”，在被设定和中介的运动中能够“同时”具有两种形态，“即在商品上作为货币，在货币上作为商品保存自己”。这不再是简单生产过程形塑商品的外部形态并且与货币具有简单的外部对立；而是以货币为起点的物质变换，货币是价值不断自我外化和自我回归运动的中介和布道者。其条件是活劳动的使用价值必须首先使自身的交换价值变成现实，这就颠倒了商品以使用价值为前提条件进入交换和流通领域，才能实现作为过去的事实的交换价值之价值交换过程。

In the circulation of money, the natural integument of commodities is transformed into a golden integument, assuming the responsibility of continuous motion. “This motion, which comprises two antithetical processes for the commodity, always comprises the same process for money as money itself, namely, money changing places with one commodity after another.” The powerful function of money’s motion in exchanging positions enables money to appear as the driving force of the circulation process, simultaneously possessing two value forms. The active equals sign of exchange, because it completes the change of position, necessarily possesses an inherent identity; and due to the change of position of this inherent identity, the inverted function of money, which had been concealed from the outset, is revealed. “Inversion is the foundation of the capitalist mode of production, not just of the mode of distribution corresponding to it.” The motion of money was originally the “expression” of commodity circulation, but now instead becomes the “result.” That money is the result, i.e., the result of form transformation, means that use value is displaced, inverted, obscured, and replaced by exchange value. Evidently, only through the inversion of the supersensible world can value “simultaneously” possess the two forms of use value and exchange value, altering and elevating the logical level of the opposition of external forms, which can only succeed one another. “In the social form we are to consider, use value is simultaneously the material bearer of exchange value.” The opposition between the external forms of commodity and money is established upon the opposition of the internal forms of value itself; the former is merely the external manifestation of the latter, while the latter is the internal essential form of the former. If we say that the change of form still has time elapsing within it, then the transformation of form can only be a “simultaneous” and “identical” static, timeless motion. On this basis, we can analyze that the labor of material metabolism is “simultaneously” natural and human, thus possessing a dual character. Only in this “simultaneity” can the left and right sides of the active equals sign in equivalent exchange, each lacking the other, successfully achieve a change of position and a transformation of form. Under the impetus of the identical force behind the internal transformation of form, the two opposing sides achieve a temporary mutual unity through mutual transformation, successfully fulfilling the mission of quantitative difference inverting qualitative difference. As the true driving force of society, “the process in which labor becomes actual is simultaneously the process in which labor loses its actuality.” In the motion of money, which simultaneously deforms and forms, the secret of the change of position at the two ends of the equals sign lies in simultaneity and identity. In the material metabolism of society, anthropomorphism is replaced by thing-person isomorphism; money, as the preacher of the new god, replaces the preacher of the old god of traditional religion; the new god is capital, and the new religion it constructs is fetishism. The result of social material metabolism “always appears in the highest power as exchange value” and “strives to attain the same formlessness.” Formlessness represents the eternal, enduring substance of matter crystallized in transience; this is the labor of social material metabolism externalized and objectified into the common value entity of the whole society, i.e., undifferentiated human labor time. The totality of circulation causes “the material metabolism of social labor” to be “completed in the change of form of commodities,” breaking down individual and local material metabolism and “developing the material metabolism of human labor.”

在货币流通中，商品的天然外皮转变为金外皮，承担起连续性运动的责任，“这个运动对商品来说包含两个对立的过程，但作为货币本身的运动却总是包含同一个过程，就是货币同一个又一个的商品交换位置”。货币运动强大的（交）换位（置）的功能，使货币表现为推动交换进程的动力，并同时具有两种价值形式，能动的交换等号因完成换位而必然具有内在同一性，又由于内在同一性的换位，展露了货币从一开始就被隐藏了的颠倒功能。“颠倒是资本主义生产方式的基础，而不只是与之相适应的分配方式的基础。”货币运动本来是商品流通的“表现”，现在反而变成了“结果”。货币是结果，即形式变换的结果，意味着使用价值被交换价值换位、颠倒、遮蔽、替代。可见，只有通过超感官世界的颠倒，价值才能够“同时”具有使用价值和交换价值两种形式，改变和提升了只能前后相继的外部形态对立的逻辑层次。“在我们所要考察的社会形式中，使用价值同时又是交换价值的物质承担者”，商品与货币的外部形态对立，建立于价值本身的内在形式对立之上，前者只是后者外部的表现形态，后者才是前者内在的本质形式。如果说形态变化尚有时间流逝于其中，但形式变换却只能是“同时”和“同一”的静止的无时间运动。据此，我们可以分析，物质变换的劳动“同时”是自然的和人的，因而具有两重性。只有在“同时”中，等价交换中的能动等号的左右双方，才能在相互缺乏中实现成功换位与形式变换。内在的形式变换在背后同一性力量的推动下，对立面双方通过相互转化达成暂时性的相互统一，成功履行了量的差别颠倒质的差别的使命，作为社会真正动力的“劳动变为现实性的过程，同时是劳动丧失现实性的过程”。货币商品在边变形边构形运动中，使等号两端发生换位的秘密在于同时性和同一性。在社会的物质变换中，神人同形被物人同形取代，作为新神布道者的货币，替代了传统宗教旧神的传教者；新神是资本，由其构建的新宗教是拜物教。社会物质变换的结果“总是在最高次方上表现为交换价值”，并且“竭力取得同一的无形式性”。无形式性代表了物质在易逝性中结晶的永恒持存的实体，这就是作为社会物质变换的劳动外化、对象化为全社会共同价值实体即无差别的人类劳动时间。流通全体使“社会劳动的物质变换”在“商品形态变化中完成”，打破了个人和局域的物质变换，“发展了人类劳动的物质变换”。

Third, the opposition of essence: sublating the change of external form “simultaneously” sublates the transformation of internal form. Through the motions of “dipping in sugar” and “gilding,” natural matter becomes commodity matter, and simultaneously living labor becomes objectified labor, because the inversion and change-of-position motions of social material metabolism make human beings simultaneously a natural force and a social force. Broader than the opposition of the internal forms of the commodity is the overall opposition of human society. Only that which can form an overall opposition is an opposition of essence: “the determination of the opposition of essence is a difference of an essence at its highest stage of development.” The opposition of essence at the highest stage of development embodies the totality, preventing the two poles of the opposition from “yearning for decisive battle” and discarding any direct mediation through which they might mutually transform. On the basis of the dissolution of both opposing sides, “there is no true duality of essence.” The opposition of essence is a unitary opposition; after all, “the comparative determination of essence becomes actual in this identity of phenomenon and interior or essence.” This is to say that social material metabolism unifies the objectifying motion from the interior to the exterior and from the exterior to the interior, thus “simultaneously” sublating the external opposition and the internal opposition. Marx, through the reproduction process, extends the simultaneity and identity in the circulation of money into the simultaneity and identity of the overall circulation of capital. The time of the objectifying motion becomes the overall common entity of the whole society, and the objectifying motion is thus transformed into a timeless, motionless, static identity of objectified labor that simultaneously rules the past, present, and future. Objectified labor is material metabolism with social historicity; under specific social forms and historical conditions, i.e., under the conditions of the capitalist ethical entity, material metabolism is precisely objectified labor.

其三，本质的对立：扬弃外部形态变化“同时”扬弃内在形式变换。经过“蘸糖”和“镀金”运动，自然物质成为商品物质，同时活劳动成为对象化劳动，因为社会物质变换的颠倒和换位运动使人是自然力的同时也是社会力。比商品的内在形式对立更广泛的是人类社会的总体对立。能够形成总体对立的，才是本质的对立：“本质的对立的规定，是一种本质在其最高发展阶段上的差别”，在最高发展阶段上的本质的对立体现总体，阻止对立面的两极“对决战的渴望”，摒弃任何借以相互转化的直接中介。在对立面双方解体的基础上，“本质的真正二元性是没有的”。本质的对立是一元的对立，毕竟“本质的对比规定自身在现象与内或本质的这种同一中成为现实”。这毋宁说社会物质变换把由内而外和由外而内的对象化运动同一了起来，故而“同时”扬弃了外部对立和内在对立。马克思则把货币流通中的同时性和同一性，通过再生产过程，扩展为总体性的资本流通的同时性和同一性。对象化运动的时间变成了全社会的总体性的共同实体，对象化运动也就转变为同时统治了过去、现在和未来的无时间运动的静止的同一性的对象化劳动。对象化劳动就是具有社会历史性的物质变换，在特定社会形态和历史条件下，即资本主义伦理实体条件下，物质变换也就是对象化劳动。

After simple commodity circulation enters the circulation of money, the relation between commodity and money is sublated into the relation between money and labor: “In money (exchange value), the objectification of the individual is not the objectification of the individual in his natural determination, but the objectification of the individual in a social determination (relation).” Through the mediation of the circulation of money, simple commodity circulation is elevated into the circulation of capital: “the circulation of capital is the change of form that value undergoes through its different stages.” Money, through the advance of value, makes itself a transient mediator of the circulation of capital, causing “the material metabolism between simultaneously existing labor powers” to be sublated into “the material metabolism of capital” that “creates the simultaneous existence of the different branches of labor.” In the circulation of capital, “the transformation of form and the material metabolism occur simultaneously,” which means that the specific function of objectified labor lies in simultaneously objectifying the object and objectifying itself, causing dead, material machinery to operate like a perpetual motion machine, causing the whole society to simultaneously enter an independent kingdom, realizing the abstract identity of self-inversion, and silently and eternally stealing. Thus, the common value entity still carries out the mission of inversion, revealing the secret of the change of form and transformation of form in social material metabolism: the opposition between capital and labor.

简单商品流通在进入货币流通后，商品同货币的关系就被扬弃为货币同劳动的关系：“在货币（交换价值）上，个人的对象化不是个人在其自然规定性上的对象化，而是个人在一种社会规定（关系）上的对象化。”经过货币流通的中介，简单商品流通提升为资本流通，“资本流通是价值通过不同阶段所经历的形式变化”。货币通过预付的价值使自身成为资本流通转瞬即逝的中介，使“同时并存的劳动力之间的物质变换”被扬弃为“造成各个劳动部门的同时并存”的“资本的物质变换”。在资本流通中，“形式变换和物质变换是同时发生的”，这意味着对象化劳动的特有功能在于同时化对象和化自身，让死的物质性的机器像永动机般运转，让整个社会同时进入独立王国中，实现自我颠倒的抽象同一，静悄悄地永恒盗窃。因而共同价值实体依然执行颠倒使命，揭示了社会物质变换的形态变化和形式变换的秘密：资本与劳动的对立。

At this point, we may perhaps have some dialectical reflections on the problem of understanding the transformation of form that Marx posed at the outset. But what force is capable of simultaneously sublating both opposing sides, forming an overall opposition of essence? Driven by capital’s desire for valorization, the use value of labor becomes the worker’s “definite productive activity”; this is objectified labor, “i.e., labor existing in space, which can also be opposed as past labor to labor existing in time.” Past labor is labor capable of opposing in essence all labor existing in time. This is a key to unlocking the modern problems of capitalism. On the one hand, objectified labor explains how labor opposes its own past self; on the other hand, it abstracts the time extended in labor into an abstract entity capable of existing independently of external time and space, thereby explaining the reason for the self-sublation of the opposition of essence from the internal opposition, and of the internal opposition from the external opposition. Objectified labor causes everything in commodity society to simultaneously vanish and revive, replacing anthropomorphism with thing-person isomorphism, harboring infinite potential for valorization, and establishing the abstract, identical commodity-god. Under the planning of the omnipotent commodity-god, i.e., capital, Marx reveals the roots of modern problems such as the organic being simultaneously the inorganic, surplus simultaneously scarcity, abundance simultaneously insufficiency, and wealth simultaneously poverty in the world of commodities and capital. As the opposition of essence, objectified labor not only grasps the identity behind it, but also, through the preaching motion of mediation, expands the unitary logic of capital, spreading this active and self-sublating identity to every corner of society. “For the worker, machinery and raw materials are not use values, not commodities, but the objective conditions of a process, while the worker himself is the subjective condition of this process.”

到此，我们也许可以对开篇马克思提出的形式变换的理解问题有些许辩证思考。但究竟是什么力量能够同时扬弃对立面双方，形成总体性的本质的对立呢？在资本增殖欲望的推动下，劳动的使用价值变成工人“一定的生产活动”，这就是对象化劳动，“即在空间上存在的劳动，也可以作为过去的劳动而同在时间上存在的劳动相对立”。过去的劳动是能够与所有在时间上存在的劳动本质对立的劳动。这是解开资本主义现代问题的一把密钥。对象化劳动一方面阐释了劳动如何与过去的自己相对立，另一方面也把劳动中绵延的时间抽象为可以脱离外部时间、空间而独立存在的抽象实体，从而阐释了本质对立对内在对立、内在对立对外部对立自我扬弃的原因。对象化劳动使商品社会的一切，在消失的同时也复活，通过物人同形替代神人同形，蕴藏起无限增殖潜力，建立了抽象同一的物神。在拥有无上权力的物神即资本的规划下，马克思揭示了在商品和资本世界中有机同时是无机、剩余同时是匮乏、丰富同时是不足、财富同时是贫困等现代问题的根源。作为本质的对立的对象化劳动，不仅把握了背后的同一性，而且在中介的布道运动中，使单一性的资本逻辑扩展开来，把这个能动和自我扬弃的同一性散布到社会的每一个角落。“对于工人来说，机器和原料不是使用价值，不是商品，而是一个过程的客体条件，而工人本身则是这个过程的主体条件。”

II. Value, Commodity, and Capital Are Objectified Labor

二、价值、商品、资本就是对象化劳动

Just as essence is past existence, capital is accumulated labor. But past objectivity alone is insufficient to unlock the full secret of the movement of objectification. What we must first confront is still the thing that has been objectified in the past. Past, accumulated labor is not a purely material thing or a mere element of the labor process; it is an “independent force” that can stand in opposition to the living labor of actual workers, a “material condition” that can immediately manifest as “a definite social relation,” and something that can simultaneously exist as value, commodity, and capital, thereby becoming total objectified labor. Total objectified labor reveals why the objectified entity that disappears into matter in simple production and simple commodity circulation is resurrected in the processes of reproduction and capital circulation. In reproduction and circulation, objectified labor that has vanished into the past and is revived in the present develops, through the simultaneity and identity of living labor, the total antagonism latent within itself. The illusory result of the formal transformation in social material metabolism is that exchange value, in a form where things and people are isomorphic, obscures use value. In the material metabolism of capital, as pre-existing value, it causes its own immediate reality to disappear. For value as an entity is precisely objectified labor.

正如本质是过去的存在，资本是积累的劳动。但只有过去的对象性，还不够解答对象化运动的全部秘密。我们首先要面对的还是过去的对象化了的东西。过去的、积累的劳动不是纯粹物质的东西和纯粹劳动过程的要素，而是能够与现实的工人的活劳动相对立的“独立的力量”，能够即刻表现为“一定的社会关系”的“物质条件”，能够同时作为价值、商品、资本存在，因而能够成为总体性的对象化劳动。总体性的对象化劳动揭示了简单生产和简单商品流通中消失在物质中的对象化了的实体，在再生产和资本流通过程中复活的原因。在再生产和流通过程中，消失在过去和复活在当下的对象化劳动，通过同时性和同一性的活劳动，把潜伏在自身内的总体性的对立发展起来。社会物质变换中的形式变换的虚幻结果，是交换价值以物人同形的方式遮蔽使用价值。它在资本的物质变换中，作为预先存在的价值，却使自身的直接现实性消失。因为作为实体的价值，就是对象化劳动。

(I) Value as Objectified Labor

（一）作为对象化劳动的价值

First, pre-existing value can only continuously re-enter the total circulation process by first losing itself. “The change of form of a commodity shows that it is irrelevant in which use-value it exists. Hence, in the labor process, value is transferred from the means of production to the product only when the means of production lose both their independent use-value and their exchange value.” [15]15 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 2, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 24, p. 137. [The original Chinese text cites a standard Chinese edition of Marx’s works; the English rendering follows the sense of the Chinese citation.] Since “the reproduction process of capital also includes circulation,” the loss of the immediate reality of value occurs “when capital passes from the money form into the commodity form, i.e., into the form of a product that has a certain price to be realized.” [16]16 Ibid., p. 138. The price to be realized is value that possesses only ideal objectivity, and it is also labor time objectified in the past; hence it must first lose itself in order to leap the perilous jump in reality and plunge into the purposeful torrent of capital circulation. “The valorization process of capital is simultaneously the devaluation process of capital.” [17]17 Ibid., p. 138. On the one hand, this means that value “does not arise from circulation, but is realized in it”; on the other hand, it means that money circulation lays down an inverted premise for production circulation. The completion of one cycle of reproduction circulation signifies the realization of one self-return movement of capital; the time required for this process is the circulation time that runs parallel to labor time. The task of realizing past value and its specific purpose cannot be accomplished by past labor time alone. Because of the essential antagonism within objectified labor, this return movement necessarily requires that the advanced value be valorized in the process of its real movement. Conversely, every extension of circulation time means a reduction in the number of reproduction cycles and a loss of the advanced value. Pre-existing value is past objectified labor time, which determines the quantity of objectified labor. Therefore, how much value accumulated labor can add (the new value created by present living labor) through exchange activities in circulation, in the process of losing past value, depends on the length of the circulation time and cycle time of the outward movement of the value entity that has been objectified and condensed, and the inward movement of value growth that retrieves it.

首先，预先存在的价值只有首先自我丧失，才能不断重新进入总体流通过程。“商品的形态变化表明，它存在于哪一种使用价值中是没有关系的。由此可见，在劳动过程中，只有生产资料丧失它的独立的使用价值同时也丧失它的交换价值，价值才从生产资料转移到产品上。”由于“资本的再生产过程也包括流通”，价值的直接性现实的丧失是“资本从货币形式过渡到商品形式时，即过渡到具有一定的待实现的价格的产品形式时发生的”。有待实现的价格是只具有观念的对象性的价值，也是过去对象化了的劳动时间，因而它不得不先自我丧失，才能通过在现实中的惊险跳跃，投身于有目的的资本流通的洪流之中。“资本的价值增殖过程同时就是资本的价值丧失过程”，这一方面意味着价值“不是从流通中产生的，但是它在流通中实现”，另一方面也意味着货币流通为生产流通奠定了颠倒前提。一次再生产的流通完成意味着资本的一次自我回复运动的实现，这个过程需要的时间就是与劳动时间相并列的流通时间。把过去的价值及其特有目的实现出来的任务，不是过去的劳动时间能够单独完成的。这个回复运动由于对象化劳动中的本质对立，必然要求预付的价值在现实性的运动过程中增殖。反之，每一次流通时间的延长，都意味着再生产次数的减少，预付的价值的损失。预先存在的价值就是过去的对象化劳动时间，决定了对象化劳动量，因此，积累的劳动通过流通中的交换活动，在丧失过去的价值的过程中，能够增加多少价值（现在的活劳动创造的新价值），就取决于对象化了的向外凝结的价值实体运动和向内回收的价值增长运动的流通时间和循环时间的长短。

Second, objectified labor is the cause of the self-opposition of money and value. This stems from a total, overarching, and simultaneous movement process. Through this total capital circulation process, the mediating and proselytizing role of money and value disappears within themselves. The process of value losing itself makes money no longer the universal equivalent in simple circulation; “this process is directly opposed to exchange; it is essentially a different category.” [18]18 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 30, p. 74. A different category means that money, which constantly lingers in circulation as a universal equivalent and means of circulation, is fixed by the common entity of an independent kingdom that rises like clouds and gathers like mist, and under the transposition and inversion movement that “stands on its head in relation to all other commodities,” [19]19 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 23, p. 93. is sublated into a new category that can continuously exceed its own value boundary. This new category breaks through the temporal and spatial finitude of value itself and becomes an infinite fetish. When the value entity becomes an “automatic subject,” money sublates itself into capital; “capital is self-valorizing money.” [20]20 Ibid., p. 175. Capital is the desire for infinite transgression. Although money undergoes the exchange activities and exchange value of social material metabolism, in the self-expanding material metabolism movement of capital, it is a movement process of self-growth that has eliminated quality and is purely quantitative. Money and its circulation are no longer merely the simple intermediary of exchange, but “necessarily appear as ‘a commodity of exchange value, i.e., of general social labor,’” as “an essential and necessary form of existence.” [21]21 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 30, p. 74.

其次，对象化劳动是货币和价值自我对立的原因。这是来自总体性的并且具有统摄性和同时性的运动过程。通过这个总体性的资本流通过程，货币和价值的中介和布道者作用在自身中消失了。价值丧失自身的过程，使货币不再是简单流通中的一般等价物，“这个过程是直接同交换对立的；它本质上是另一种范畴”。另一种范畴意味着在流通中不断逗留的、起一般等价物和流通手段的货币，被云兴雾聚的独立王国中的共同实体固定下来，并且在“对其他一切商品的关系上用头倒立着”的换位和颠倒运动的作用下，扬弃为能够不断越出自身价值量边界的新范畴，新范畴突破价值自身时间和空间的有限性，成为无限性的物神。当价值实体成为“自动的主体”，货币就自我扬弃为资本，“资本即自我生产的货币”。资本是无限越界的欲望，货币尽管经历了社会物质变换的交换活动和交换价值，但在自行增长的资本物质变换运动中，它是消灭了质的量的自身增长的运动过程。货币及其流通不再仅仅是交换的单纯中介，而是“必然表现为交换价值即一般社会劳动的商品”的“一个本质的和必然的存在形式”。

Finally, value is objectified labor. The quantity of labor objectified as value forms the essential opposition between value and value, and is therefore the value entity opposed to natural matter. This entity can posit a continuous movement, reviving in disappearance and valorizing in sublation. “The value entity is by no means a particular natural entity, but objectified labor”; [22]22 Karl Marx, *Theories of Surplus Value*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 26, Part 3, p. 148. in the reproduction process, the value of past and present objectified labor time that has been appropriated “is nothing but objectified labor.” [23]23 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 2, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 24, p. 429. Because money sublates its function as a universal equivalent, it necessarily stands in opposition to exchange and is independent as the entity of all identity, “i.e., the form of existence of various commodities”; [24]24 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 30, p. 74. this is capital, which can simultaneously exist in the form of “any commodity” in the total process. Under specific historical conditions, exchange is also non-exchange; when money can exist in the form of any commodity in non-exchange, it sublates itself into capital as power.

最后，价值就是对象化劳动。作为价值的对象化了的劳动量，形成价值与价值的本质对立，因而是与自然物质相对立的价值实体。这个实体能够设定连续性运动，在消失中复活，在扬弃中增殖。“价值实体决不是特殊的自然实体，而是对象化劳动”；在再生产过程中被占有了的过去的以及现在的对象化的劳动时间的“价值只不过是对象化劳动”。货币由于扬弃了一般等价物功能而必然与交换对立，独立化为同一性的一切实体，“即各种商品的形式存在”，这就是在总过程中能够同时作为“任何一种商品”形式存在的资本。在特定历史条件下，交换也就是非交换，当货币在非交换中能够以任何一种商品形式存在时，它就自我扬弃为作为权力的资本。

(II) The Commodity as Objectified Labor

（二）作为对象化劳动的商品

That value becomes objectified labor only manifests the potential and ideal objectivity of objectified labor. Only when real living labor also becomes objectified labor, becoming value posited as use-value for others, can the commodities objectified as independent entities, under the effect of identity, move to the next link of the total movement, pointing toward the self-realization process of that entity which automatically increases in reality. “Only in the process which is simultaneously reproduction and circulation” can “the realization of surplus value” “be revealed.” [25]25 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 2, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 24, p. 391. The renewal of capitalist production, i.e., reproduction, “is simultaneously the production of definite formal conditions, the production of definite modes of behavior in which personified objectified labor expresses itself.” [26]26 Karl Marx, *Theories of Surplus Value*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works* (Chinese edition), Vol. 26, Part 3, p. 148. Personified objectified labor necessarily contains the essential opposition that sublates both external and internal antagonisms. By exchanging with the money-form equivalent, the commodity labor-power also becomes objectified labor. In this way, the advanced value existing in the money form, with living labor as its vehicle, throws itself into objectified labor that becomes total material metabolism. Only when living labor-power becomes a commodity can a specific process enter the reproduction process to realize its own real purpose.

价值成为对象化劳动，仅表现为对象化劳动的潜在的以及观念的对象性，只有现实性的劳动力同时也成为对象化劳动，成为被设定为他人的使用价值的价值，才能使被对象化为独立实体的诸商品，在同一性作用下走向总体运动的下一个环节，指向现实中不断自动增加的那个实体的自我实现过程。“只有在本身同时就是再生产过程和流通过程中”，“剩余价值的实现”“才能显露出来”。资本生产的更新即再生产“同时是一定的形式条件的生产，是人格化了的对象化劳动借以表现的一定的行为方式的生产”。人格化的对象化劳动必然包含扬弃外部对立和内在对立的本质对立。劳动力商品通过与货币形式的等价物进行交换，也成为对象化劳动，这样，以货币形式存在的预付的价值，就以活劳动为载体投身到成为总体性物质变换的对象化劳动中。只有活生生的劳动力成为商品，才能使一个特定的过程进入再生产过程，以实现自身的现实性目的。

First, living labor must engage in a “superficial exchange” with objectified labor due to its specific quality. The foundation of capitalist production development and capital circulation lies in the specific quality unique to the commodity of labor power itself. This commodity is different from other commodities; it possesses a quality or use value that other commodities do not have, and this is the commodity of labor power. On the premise that the commodity value has been advanced, the exchange value of living labor, because it can create new exchange value, becomes the element and subjective condition of capital movement. When money purchases the various factors of production for reproduction, it must purchase the commodity of labor power, because the specific use value of this commodity lies in its ability to create an exchange value greater than the exchange value of the commodity of labor power itself. “The exchange value of labor that is realized in the exchange with the capitalist is pre-existing, predetermined; it undergoes only the formal change that any price existing only in idea undergoes when it is realized.” [27]27 Karl Marx, *Economic Manuscripts of 1857–58*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (hereafter MECW), vol. 29, p. 301. [Translator’s note: The Chinese text cites the Chinese edition of the *Complete Works of Marx and Engels*; the English citation here and below follows the standard English edition.] Therefore, labor power does not exchange for an equivalent; “from the side of capital, the exchange must be only a superficial exchange, that is, it must belong to a different economic form-determination than the formal determination of exchange; otherwise, capital could not be capital, and labor could not be labor opposed to capital.” [28]28 Ibid., p. 302. Superficial exchange is non-exchange, forming the opposition of labor itself under specific labor conditions. “The foundation of capitalist production development, generally speaking, is the opposition between the commodity of labor capacity belonging to the worker and the commodity of labor conditions fixed in the form of capital and existing independently of the worker.” [29]29 Ibid., p. 303. This inevitably manifests as a different economic determination from the formal determination of exchange, namely, the determination of power by which past and personified objectified labor appropriates living labor without compensation.

首先，活劳动因特殊的质必须与对象化劳动进行“表面的交换”。资本主义生产发展和资本流通的基础在于劳动力商品本身特有的质。这个商品是与其他商品不同的，拥有其他商品不具有的质或者使用价值，这就是劳动力商品。在预付了商品价值的前提下，活劳动的交换价值因能够创造新的交换价值，成为资本运动的要素和主体条件。货币购买再生产的诸生产要素时必须购买劳动力商品，因为该商品特有的使用价值在于它能够创造比劳动力商品的交换价值更大的交换价值。“在与资本家进行交换的过程中实现的劳动的交换价值，是预先存在的，预先决定了的，它所经历的仅仅是任何一个只在观念上存在的价格在实现自身时都要发生的形式变化。”所以，劳动力交换的不是等价物，“从资本方面来看，交换必须只是一种表面的交换，这就是说，必须属于与交换的形式规定不同的另一种经济形式规定，否则，资本就不可能作为资本，劳动就不可能作为与资本相对立的劳动”。表面的交换就是非交换，形成特定劳动条件下劳动自身的对立，“资本主义生产发展的基础，一般说来，是劳动能力这种属于工人的商品同劳动条件这种固定在资本形式上并脱离工人而独立存在的商品相对立”。这不得不表现为不同于交换形式规定的另一种经济规定，就是过去的以及人格化了的对象化劳动无偿占有活劳动的权力规定。

Second, living labor and objectified labor form a total essential opposition. Objectified labor dominates all elements of living labor, including materials, means, objects, relations, and conditions; “all these elements are reduced to objectified labor.” [30]30 Ibid., p. 304. They dominate living labor itself with capital as the condition of production. “Capital appears as the new domination of objectified labor over living labor.” [31]31 Ibid., p. 305. Total material metabolism, i.e., capital’s material metabolism, achieves the essential opposition between objectified labor and living labor through objectified labor time that can transcend present living labor time. The total essential opposition between objectified labor and living labor is simultaneously the opposition between capital and labor. Because “living labor time reproduces only that part of objectified labor time (capital)” [32]32 Ibid., p. 306. that is the equivalent (wages) of the power to dominate living labor itself, which compensates for the labor time objectified in labor capacity and the costs of production, but at the same time obscures the newly objectified labor time and the newly created value. This newly objectified labor time is surplus labor time, and the newly created value is surplus value. “Living labor, as it adds new quantities of labor, exists as living labor in an internal relationship determined by the production process with the materials and instruments of labor,” [33]33 Ibid., p. 307. forming an essentially opposed social relation and social contradiction determined by the socialized production process. This essentially opposed social contradiction is antagonistic, not the pre-established harmony that Hegel posited.

其次，活劳动与对象化劳动形成总体性的本质对立。对象化劳动统治活劳动的一切要素，包括材料、手段、对象、关系、条件等，“所有这些要素都归结为对象化劳动”。它们以资本为生产条件统治活劳动本身。“资本，表现为对象化劳动对活劳动的新的统治。”总体性的物质变换即资本物质变换，通过能够超越现在的活劳动时间的对象化劳动时间，实现了对象化劳动与活劳动的本质对立。对象化劳动与活劳动的总体性的本质对立同时也是资本与劳动的对立。因为“活的劳动时间再生产出来的只是对象化劳动时间（资本）的这样一部分”，即能够支配活劳动本身的权力的等价物（工资）的这部分，它补偿了对象化在劳动能力中的劳动时间和生产费用，但同时遮蔽了新的对象化了的劳动时间和新创造的价值。这个新对象化了的劳动时间就是剩余劳动时间，新创造的价值就是剩余价值。“活劳动在追加新劳动量时作为活劳动而存在，同劳动材料和劳动工具处于一种由生产过程决定的内在关系之中”，这形成了由社会化的生产过程决定的本质对立的社会关系和社会矛盾。这个本质对立的社会矛盾是对抗性的，而非黑格尔认为的前定和谐的。

Finally, the commodity (labor power) itself is objectified labor. “Capital … is not the substance of the material of the commodity, and thus the determination of the thing, but the common substance of the commodity as commodity, and thus as exchange value – namely, that the commodity is objectified labor.” [34]34 Ibid., p. 308. The author believes that the distinction between the commodity becoming objectified labor and value becoming objectified labor lies in the following: the latter is direct; once it enters the production process, it is necessarily condensed into the abstract quantitative common substance. However, the former bears the heavy responsibility of realizing the ideal value, because the simultaneously existing capitals are restricted and influenced by the universal circulation time of the entire world. That is to say, whether and to what extent the commodity can realize the quantity of labor that already exists in the production process and is objectified into the common substance, i.e., the “pre-existing exchange value,” depends on the restrictions of circulation time in reality and the length of time for the movement of returning to money. But this is a matter of contingency in the circulation cycle of simultaneously existing capitals. “The simultaneous coexistence of the different circuits of capital, like the simultaneous coexistence of the different determinations of capital, only becomes clear when many capitals are presupposed.” [35]35 Ibid., p. 309. Capital as the commodity (labor power) shares the same fate as commodities; whether it can achieve the “leap” is a matter of contingency. Just as the life processes and age stages that everyone must experience can coexist simultaneously in general, for each individual, these processes and stages are full of contingency. “Now capital as a commodity itself shares the same fate as commodities: whether it can exchange with money, whether its price can be realized, are contingent matters.” [36]36 Ibid., p. 310. The abstract continuous identity that necessarily occurs logically and ideally, once it cannot achieve the perilous leap in the actual circulation process where buying and selling are separated and full of contingency, will lead to a stagnation of circulation and bring about a universal “modern crisis,” because the question of “whether the valorization realized by capital in the production process is the actual valorization of capital” [37]37 Ibid., p. 311. cannot be resolved by ideas.

最后，（劳动力）商品本身就是对象化劳动。“资本……不是作为商品的物质材料，从而作为物的规定的那种实体，而是作为商品，从而作为交换价值的那种共同实体——就在于，商品是对象化劳动。”笔者认为，商品成为对象化劳动与价值成为对象化劳动的区别在于：后者是直接的，一旦投入生产过程就必然凝聚到抽象的量的共同实体中；但是前者承担着把观念价值实现出来的重任，因为同时并存的诸资本受到整个世界的普遍流通时间的限制和影响。也就是说，商品能否实现以及多大程度实现生产过程中已经存在，并且对象化为共同实体的劳动量，即“预先存在的交换价值”，取决于现实中的流通时间的限制和向货币回复运动的时间长短。但这是诸资本同时并存的流通循环中的偶然性的事情。“资本的不同循环的同时并存，如同资本的不同规定的同时并存一样，只有以许多资本为前提时，才变得很清楚。”作为（劳动力）商品的资本与商品同命运，能否实现跳跃都是偶然的事情。正如每个人都要经历的生命过程和年龄阶段在总体上可以同时并存，但对于每一个个体而言，这些过程和阶段却充满了偶然性。“现在资本作为商品本身与商品同命运：它能否与货币交换，它的价格能否实现，这些都是偶然的事情。”逻辑上和观念上必然发生的抽象连续的同一性，一旦在现实的买与卖分离、充满偶然性的流通过程中无法实现惊险一跃，就会导致流通停滞，带来普遍性的“现代危机”，因为“资本在生产过程中实现的价值增殖是否就是资本的现实的价值增殖”问题，并不是观念能够解决的。

(III) Capital as Objectified Labor

（三）作为对象化劳动的资本

For capital to become real rather than ideal objectified labor, it must first complete its in-itself and non-posited character in the production process, second complete its for-itself and posited character in the circulation process, and finally, in the unity of the two, complete its in-and-for-itself character and world-market character. “The total production process of capital includes both the circulation process in the proper sense and the production process in the proper sense … it appears as the totality of these two processes. … it appears as the unity of labor time and circulation time, as the unity of production and circulation. This unity is movement, is process.” [38]38 Ibid., p. 312. Only when capital becomes objectified labor can we grasp, within capital as a total process, its antagonistic logic of being resurrected after death yet necessarily heading toward destruction.

资本要成为现实的而非观念的对象化劳动，首先要完成生产过程中的自在性和非设定性，其次要完成流通过程中的自为性和设定性，以及最后在两者统一中完成自在自为性和世界市场性。“资本的总生产过程既包括本来意义的流通过程，也包括本来意义的生产过程……表现为这两个过程的总体。……表现为劳动时间和流通时间的统一，表现为生产和流通的统一。这种统一便是运动，便是过程。”只有资本成为对象化劳动，我们才能在作为总过程的资本中把握其死后重生但同时又必然走向灭亡的对立逻辑。

First, the essence of capital is the inversion and transposition of force against force. Through the self-sublation of living labor, capital realizes valorization that has already been achieved. Valorization must undergo the inversion and transposition of objectified labor over living labor in the reproduction process before it can re-enter circulation to re-exchange with labor and commodities, continuously carrying out the inverting activity of social inversion and transposition through material re-exchange and re-transformation. The inversion and transposition of all productive “forces” of capital with the productive “forces” of labor proves that “capital itself is in essence this inversion, this transposition.” [39]39 Ibid., p. 313. At this point, the value that has been realized and is past is no longer merely simple value; “it is the ceaseless movement of creating more surplus value. The quantitative limit of surplus value is for capital only a natural barrier, a necessity, which it constantly strives to overcome and transcend.” [40]40 Ibid., p. 314. Past value can only realize more value in its resurrection after death through the force of “accumulated labor”; “this life-restoring natural force of labor … becomes the force of capital, not the force of labor.” [41]41 Ibid., p. 315. Value transforms into non-value, exchange into non-exchange, time into non-time – this is the effect of the supreme power of the capital fetish, and it necessarily executes the function of theft. Through inversion and transposition, capital achieves the dual sublation of past accumulated labor and present living labor, so that capital movement has no limits, constantly breaking through the boundaries of reality and ideas, possessing the capacity of the necessity to constantly transcend natural limits. This self-transcending necessity in turn sublates the contingency in the circulation process, making absolute contingency into necessity. But this force of resurrection through self-transposition achieving self-sublation remains ideal.

首先，资本的本质是力对力的倒置和换位。资本通过对活劳动的自我扬弃，使已经实现的价值增殖。价值的增殖必须经历再生产过程的对象化劳动对活劳动的倒置和换位，才能重新进入流通同劳动和商品进行再交换，通过物质再交换和再转化不断进行社会性的倒置换位的颠倒活动。作为资本的一切生产“力”同劳动生产“力”的倒置和换位证明了“资本本身在本质上就是这种倒置，这种换位”。此时已经实现的、过去的价值却不再仅仅是单纯的价值，“它是创造更多剩余价值的不停地运动。剩余价值的量的界限，对资本来说，只是一种它力图不断克服和不断超越的自然限制即必然性”。过去的价值只有通过“积累的劳动”的力量才能在死后重生中实现更多的价值，“劳动的这种起死回生的自然力……变成了资本的力量，而不是劳动的力量”。价值转变为非价值，交换转变为非交换，时间转变为非时间，这是资本物神的至高无上的权力使然，并且必然执行盗窃职能。资本通过倒置和换位，实现对过去的积累的劳动和现在的活劳动的双重扬弃，使资本运动再无界限，不断突破现实和观念的边界，拥有不断超越自然限制的必然性的能力。这个能够自我超越的必然性又扬弃流通过程中的偶然性，使绝对的偶然成为必然。但这种通过自我换位实现自我扬弃的起死回生的力量依然是观念上的。

Second, capital as a purely conceptual entity becomes the ground for “relating to itself.” Money “relates to itself, as the ground, to itself as that which is grounded by it, as the presupposed value to itself as surplus value.” Money is the form of the essential antagonism of the commodity of labor-power; in the process of form-change, it becomes a form independent of the commodity’s initial form. However, only through the sublation of the directly actual form of money can capital turn money into a “purely conceptual thing” that is posited by itself rather than posited by another, and simultaneously sublated by its own objectifying movement rather than by the objectifying movement of another thing. Purely conceptual money, while positing itself, also creates the myth of self-sublation, transforming circulation into a circulation without temporal movement. In completing the quantitative determination of value objectivity, it also completes the qualitative determination in the concept: “the different stages that capital passes through in circulation are likewise the qualitative determinations of the form-change of capital itself.” When the production process and the circulation process are united as one in the total movement of capital, the necessary stages of capital’s form-change—namely, the circuits of money capital, productive capital, and commodity capital—demonstrate that it has already transcended “the isolated circuit of a single individual capital” and become the circuit of a concrete individual yet conceptually total capital. Things that are essentially antagonistic become mutually transparent and develop themselves through the universality, particularity, and individuality manifested in capital’s material metabolism. Capital, as something capable of bearing fruit, not only possesses the value of self-reproduction and self-perpetuation but can also simultaneously realize the posited value. The qualitative determination of purely conceptual exchange value is capital itself; only capital can be the ground for relating to itself, establishing the most abstract and general relations of alienation and inversion in the whole of society: “individual labor must necessarily, only through its own transfer (alienation), appear as abstract, general, social labor.” Through the ceaseless inversion and transposition of the supersensible world, capital turns the objectified thing itself into the subject, completing the establishment of the identity between thing and man: “hence capital is necessarily at the same time the capitalist.”

其次，纯观念的资本成为同“自身发生关系”的根据。货币“在生产自身的同时，作为根据同以它为根据的自身发生关系，作为预先存在的价值同作为剩余价值的自身发生关系”。货币是劳动力商品的本质对立的形态，在形态变化过程中，它成为独立于商品最初形态的形式。但是，只有通过对货币直接现实性形态的扬弃，资本才能把货币变成由自己设定而不是被设定、同时又由自我的对象化运动扬弃，而不是被他物的对象化运动扬弃的“纯观念的东西”。纯观念的货币在自我设定的同时也创造自我扬弃的神话，把流通变成无时间运动的流通，在完成价值对象性的量的规定的同时，也完成了观念中的质的规定，“资本在流通中所经历的不同环节一样，都是资本本身形态变化的质的规定”。在生产过程和流通过程在资本运动总过程中合为一体时，资本形态变化必经的环节即货币资本、生产资本、商品资本的循环，证明它已经超出“作为一个单纯单个资本的孤立循环的范围”，而是具体的个别的同时又是观念的总体的资本的循环流通。本质对立的东西在资本的物质变换表现出来的普遍性、特殊性和个别性中相互透明和自我发展起来。资本作为能够结果实的东西，不仅具有自行再生产和自行长久保存的价值，而且能够同时把设定的价值实现出来，纯观念的交换价值的质的规定就是资本，只有资本才能是同自身发生关系的根据，建立了全社会最抽象一般的异化和颠倒的关系，“个人劳动必然只有通过自身的转让（异化）才表现为抽象一般的、社会的劳动”。通过超感官世界的不停歇的颠倒与换位，资本使对象化的物的自身变成主体，完成了物与人的同一性的建立过程，“所以资本就必然地同时是资本家”。

Finally, capital is objectified labor. Only capital as being-for-itself, i.e., the capitalist, participating in the total process of reproduction, can subsume capital as being-in-itself, i.e., the advanced value, so that the movement of capital appears as a totality in and for itself, becoming the power that posits itself as its own condition, process, and relation. At this point, objectified labor is no longer the various commodity forms but rather surplus labor in the form-change of capital’s circulation: “objectified labor (the advanced value), necessary labor (the value of wages), and surplus labor, which, after passing through circulation, yields profit because the surplus labor contained in the product is realized together with the product.” This is a total, abstract common entity, indifferent to any particularity yet necessarily related to it. “Because capital itself is indifferent to any particularity of its own substance, and it is both the totality of all these particularities and the abstraction from all of them, labor opposed to capital likewise contains in itself, subjectively, the same totality and abstraction.” What is easily confused is that “the value being exchanged is always objectified labor time… value itself is always the result, not the cause.” Hence capital, grounded in itself, is the cause of the advanced value as the cost of reproduction; it keeps value alive by positing itself and continuously absorbing the air of living labor: “capital constantly leaves itself as objectified labor in order to absorb living labor-power, the air it needs for its survival.” The objectified labor of value is the most direct, most abstract, and most universal; it passes through the objectified labor of commodities in reality, uniting universality and particularity, and in the movement of deformation becomes the objectified labor of capital as a concrete totality of essential antagonism and contradictory identity.

最后，资本是对象化劳动。只有自为存在的资本即资本家参与再生产的总过程，才能统摄自在存在的资本即预付的价值，使资本运动表现为自在自为的总体，成为自己设定自己为条件、过程和关系的力量。此时的对象化劳动不再是诸商品形态，而是在资本流通的形式变换中的剩余劳动：“对象化劳动（预付的价值），必要劳动（工资的价值）和剩余劳动，它经过流通便会带来利润，因为包含在产品中的剩余劳动同产品一道得到了实现。”这是总体的、抽象的，与任何特殊性漠不相关同时又必然相关的共同实体。“因为资本本身同自己实体的任何一种特殊性都毫不相干，并且它既是所有这些特殊性的总体，又是所有这些特殊性的抽象，所以，同资本相对立的劳动在主体上也自在地包含有同样的总体和抽象。”容易混淆的是，“被交换的价值总是对象化劳动时间……价值本身始终是结果而不是原因”。故而以自身为根据的资本，是作为再生产费用的预付的价值的原因，它通过自我设定自我、不断吸收活劳动的空气使价值存活，“资本不断作为对象化劳动离开自身，以便去吸收活劳动力，即它生存所需要的空气”。价值的对象化劳动是最直接、最抽象、最普遍的，经历了现实中的商品的对象化劳动，使普遍性和特殊性相互统一，在变形运动中成为本质对立和矛盾同一的、具体总体的资本的对象化劳动。

“Whatever does not appear at the beginning of the process as its premise and condition cannot appear at its end either.” Capital, as objectified labor, is the collective power of conditions, processes, and relations. Under specific historical conditions of capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production causes “past objectified labor to be the condition of his labor,” i.e., the material conditions of the worker’s labor. The labor that makes things valorize, i.e., objectified labor, is the “yeast” of capital; while causing capital to “ferment,” it also processes the objectivity in which capital exists and sublates its subjectivity. Capital, as the ruling power or force of the whole society, is the independent force hidden behind the material form-change and formal transformation: in the total circulation process of the circuits of productive capital, money capital, and commodity capital, the sacred “simultaneity” of material metabolism realizes a trinitarian reified world: “in the trinity formula, the mystification of the capitalist mode of production, the reification of social relations, and the direct fusion of material production relations with their historical and social determinations are completed: this is an enchanted, inverted, topsy-turvy world.” The singularity of Hegel’s speculative philosophy and the singularity of capital’s valorization are so congruent that, through capital’s material metabolism, Marx’s specific social form, in its essential antagonism, clarifies the identity of value with value, the identity of force with force, and the identity of surplus with surplus, turning difference and concrete reality into a dead objectivity without difference or form. “The particular skill of labor increasingly becomes something abstract and indifferent.” This elevates the formally abstract identical objectified labor into the reified labor of the fetishism of capital as a totality. But we cannot drown in the pure concept of capital’s gravity; only living labor and its material bearer, the worker, are the true cause and ground.

“凡在过程开始时不是作为过程的前提和条件出现的东西，在过程结束时也不可能出现。”资本作为对象化劳动，是条件、过程和关系的集体的力量。在特定的资本主义历史条件下，生产资料的私有制度致使“过去的对象化劳动是他的劳动的条件”，也就是工人的劳动的物的条件。促使物增殖的劳动即对象化劳动是资本的“酵母”，它在促使资本“发酵”的同时，也使资本借以存在的对象性被加工，主体性被扬弃。资本作为全社会的统治力或权力，才是隐藏在物质形态变化和形式变换背后的独立的力量：在生产资本、货币资本以及商品资本循环的总流通过程中，神圣的“同时性”的物质变换实现了三位一体的物化世界：在“经济三位一体中，资本主义生产方式的神秘化，社会关系的物化，物质的生产关系和它们的历史社会规定性的直接融合已经完成：这是一个着了魔的、颠倒的、倒立着的世界”。黑格尔思辨哲学的单一性与资本增殖的单一性是如此契合，马克思特定的社会形态在本质对立中，通过资本的物质变换，明确了价值对价值的同一性，力对力的同一性以及剩余对剩余的同一性，把差异性和具体的现实性变成了无差异性、无形式的死的对象性。“劳动的特殊技巧越来越成为某种抽象的、无差别的东西。”这就把形式上抽象同一的对象化劳动提升为总体性的资本拜物教的物化劳动。但我们不能溺死在资本重力的纯观念中，只有活劳动及其物质承载者工人才是真正的原因和根据。

III. The Positive Sublation of Objectified Labor: The Natural Conditions of Objective Activity

三、对象化劳动的积极扬弃：对象性的活动的自然条件

Capital, in the manner of mutual transparency and identity of universality, particularity, and individuality, infuses the concrete soul of every atomic individual in capitalist society; it sheds its rigid material shell and haunts every corner of the human world like a specter, gaining conceptual immortality in the concrete total movement. With the development of productive forces, objectified labor and living labor necessarily increase, but in the inverted logic this “is in fact a tautological proposition,” because “capital is the collective force, is civilization.” While surpassing past civilizations, capital is also full of crises.

资本以普遍性、特殊性、个别性相互透明和相互同一的方式输入资本主义社会每一个原子个人的具体灵魂之中，它脱离僵硬的物体外壳，似幽灵一般出没于人间的每一个角落，在具体的总体的运动过程中获得观念中的永生。随着生产力的发展，对象化劳动与活劳动必然增长，但这在颠倒逻辑中“其实是一个同义反复的命题”，因为“资本是集体的力量，是文明”。资本在超越过去文明的同时也充满着危机。

First, the objectified labor of capital leads to infinite world history and modern crises. The capitalist reproduction process appears as a complete chain in conception, but in reality it is always accompanied by interruptions in the metamorphosis of forms. The first condition of capitalist production is that the product must become a commodity, “must be expressed as money and complete the process of form metamorphosis”;[44]44 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (hereafter MECW), Vol. 35, p. 125. [Translator’s note: citation adapted to standard English edition.] yet even in the simple metamorphosis of the commodity form, crisis is already revealed. The completion of money in the total production process is also the completion of the metamorphosis of capital’s form. Surplus value is the goal pursued by capital’s movement; it does not depend on a single or simple production of value, but on the number of reproductions within a specific period of time. This is a movement beyond simple production, and surplus value is no longer merely the direct antagonistic relation and its product between the objectified labor of capital and living labor, but rather an element of the contradictory movement of a total essential opposition, “this relation only appears as an element of the total movement of capital.”[45]45 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, MECW, Vol. 28, p. 345. “Production and each of its elements are posited as a totality, but at the same time all contradictions are unfolded. Hence, the world market again constitutes the premise and bearer of the whole.”[46]46 Ibid., p. 346. In pure conception, capital is its own cause and ground, driving the unfolding of all contradictions, “as cause, as activity, the worker is absorbed by capital and embodied as capital.”[47]47 Ibid., p. 347. But in reality, the worker is the ground and cause. The world market is the hotbed on which capital realizes itself, yet it gives rise to “the most complex phenomenon of capitalism—the world market crisis.”[48]48 Karl Marx, *Theories of Surplus Value*, Part 2, MECW, Vol. 32, p. 140. Once the metamorphosis of the commodity form in the production process and the metamorphosis of capital’s form in the circulation process cannot smoothly transform into each other but stagnate in mutual separation and independence, a world-historical modern crisis erupts.

其一，资本的对象化劳动通向无限的世界历史和现代危机。资本主义再生产过程在观念中表现为完整的链条，但在现实中却总是伴随着形态变化的中断。资本主义生产的第一个条件是产品必须成为商品，“必须表现为货币并完成形态变化过程”，然而其在单纯的商品形态变化中已经显露出危机。货币在总生产过程中的完成也就是资本的形态变化的完成。剩余价值是资本运动追逐的目标，它不取决于一次的或简单的价值生产，而是取决于特定时间内的再生产的次数。这是简单生产之外的运动，剩余价值也就不再是对象化劳动的资本与活劳动的直接对立的关系及其产物，而是总体性的本质对立的矛盾运动的要素，“这一关系只表现为资本的总运动的一个要素”。“生产以及它的每一个要素都被设定为总体，但是同时一切矛盾都展开了。于是，世界市场又构成整体的前提和承担者。”在纯观念中，资本是自己的原因和根据并且推动一切矛盾展开，“作为原因，作为活动，工人被资本所吸收，并体现为资本”。但在现实中，工人才是根据和原因。世界市场是资本赖以自我实现的温床，却产生“资本主义最复杂的现象——世界市场危机”。一旦生产过程中商品的形态变化和流通过程中资本的形态变化不能顺利地相互转化而停滞于彼此分离独立，就会爆发世界历史性的现代危机。

Second, the original opposition between the natural conditions of “objective activity” and the substantive conditions of “objectified labor.” The material metabolism of society occurs in the labor process and is realized in the circulation process; the material metabolism of capital fuses immediacy and mediation, production and consumption into one. Yet we must not overlook the material metabolism of nature itself. Only by standing on the material metabolism of the round earth can the totality of human social forms and their social relations be determined, and at the same time the non-objectifying objectification process of natural use-value and subjective productive labor be determined. Conversely, “personal independence based on dependence on things… forms the universal social material metabolism, comprehensive relations, multifaceted needs, and a system of comprehensive capacities.”[49]49 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, MECW, Vol. 28, p. 95. This reveals the historical science within material metabolism. Nature and society are themselves non-objectified, meaning that the opposition between the natural conditions of “objective activity” and the substantive conditions of “objectified labor” is an original opposition within differential reality. Objectified labor turns nature and society into substance; the personification of capital is the fundamental purpose of natural and social material metabolism. But under the production conditions determined by the ethical substance of capitalist modernity, first nature is subjugated to second nature, causing both natures to lose the vital force of organic life. Objectified labor is merely a process of precision and rationalization among things, a purposeless purposiveness; nature is transformed into a substantive external world opposed to itself, not only making itself “the inorganic body of man,” but also turning man’s organic body into “inorganic nature.”[50]50 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, MECW, Vol. 3, p. 276. Only through de-substantialization can we break through the empire of the fetish and grasp the nature and life of the object that cannot be objectified. Through the original opposition of the production conditions of essential difference, Marx further points out: “Capitalist production destroys the purely spontaneously formed conditions of this material metabolism, while at the same time forcibly establishing this material metabolism as a law regulating social production, and systematically building it up in a form suited to the full development of man.”[51]51 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, MECW, Vol. 35, p. 507. This is the essential difference between the “spontaneous” material metabolism of man and nature (land) in pre-capitalist societies and the “forcible” material metabolism brought about by objectified labor in capitalist society. Through this, Marx uncovers the laws of social-historical development within material metabolism.

其二，“对象性的活动”的自然条件与“对象化劳动”的实体条件的原初对立。社会的物质变换发生于劳动过程，实现于流通过程，资本的物质变换使直接性与间接性、生产与消费融合为一体，不过我们也不能忽略自然界本身的物质变换。只有站在呈圆形大地上的物质变换，才能使人的社会形式及其社会关系的总和被确定，同时使自然性的使用价值与主体性的生产劳动的非对象的对象化过程被确定。相反，“以物的依赖性为基础的人的独立性……才形成普遍的社会物质变换、全面的关系、多方面的需要以及全面的能力的体系”。这就揭示了物质变换中的历史科学。自然与社会本身就是非对象化的，这意味着“对象性的活动”的自然条件与“对象化劳动”的实体条件的对立是差异性现实中的原初对立。对象化劳动把自然和社会变成实体；资本的人格化是自然的和社会的物质变换的根本目的。但在资本主义的现代性伦理实体决定的生产条件下，第一自然臣服于第二自然，使两个自然都失去了有机体的生命活力。对象化劳动不过是诸事物之间的精确化和合理化了的无目的的目的化过程，自然转变为与自己相互对立的实体性的外部世界，不仅使自身成为“人的无机的身体”，也使人的有机身体变成了“无机的自然”。只有通过去实体化，才能突破物神帝国，把握无法被对象化的对象之自然与生命。通过本质差异的生产条件的原初对立，马克思进一步指出，“资本主义生产通过破坏这种物质变换的纯粹自发形成的状况，同时强制地把这种物质变换作为调节社会生产的规律，并在一种同人的充分发展相适合的形式上系统地建立起来”。这就是前资本主义社会的人与自然（土地）的“自发”的物质变换，和资本主义社会对象化劳动带来的“强制”的物质变换的本质区别，马克思由此揭开了物质变换中的社会历史发展规律。

Third, “objective activity” harbors the power to reproduce itself as a new object. Man’s pure natural force is the natural attribute of labor; that is, the natural attribute of the labor object and objectified labor itself—use-value—deeply contains the real power to unlock the objectified labor chained by capital. If objectified labor is objectified objective activity, then the living labor opposed to it becomes non-objective, i.e., non-existent activity. Only non-objectified living labor under natural rather than substantive conditions can actively sublate the flesh and soul reified by objectified labor, achieving complete objective activity. Therefore, if we are to leap out of capital’s total process and totality, we cannot enter the labor process from abstract value substance; we can only enter it through use-value—which is obscured, displaced, and forgotten in the transposition and inversion of exchange value—in order to clarify the essential power of active sublation within objective activity. Since use-value is cast aside in the valorizing exchange movement, the fetish cannot deeply excavate the natural power of the bearers of class consciousness. “Hence, labor as the creator of use-values, as useful labor, is a condition of human existence independent of all social forms; it is an eternal natural necessity mediating the material metabolism between man and nature, through which human life is realized.”[52]52 Ibid., p. 53. Within the natural form of objectified labor, there exist natural objects and natural forces that cannot be dissolved, which are also natural conditions that cannot be objectified. Marx never simply equated dialectical thinking with reified consciousness; the former rejects any either/or choice between opposing poles, and also rejects treating the reified collective power and its passive sublation as rigid and immutable dogma. Any concrete thing possessing use-value cannot be completely dissolved into an abstract social form. The key is that Marx seeks to elucidate a completely new historical dialectic, to reveal the immediacy and authenticity of objective activity occurring at every moment, whose essential power is the material metabolism between man and nature in non-objectified labor. Use-value cannot be dissolved into abstract, general, homogeneous objectified labor; it is natural, and it is life: “The only thing distinct from objectified labor is non-objectified labor, labor still in the process of objectification, as subjective labor.”[53]53 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, MECW, Vol. 28, p. 232. The only thing that can become the opposite of capital is the natural power of labor that creates use-value. The use-value of living labor is not the economic determination of natural form and its power determination, but a power that common substance cannot solidify, preserve, or objectify. This is also the non-objectified “reality” that Hegel’s objectifying movement is powerless to grasp, because nature and life cannot be dissolved into the self-movement of “spirit.” As the non-objectified material metabolism of living labor, old objectified labor is actively sublated into non-objectified living labor. The reified subject is sublated into a new subject that creates a new world history, becoming the essential power of the reality that creates new objects.

其三，“对象性的活动”蕴藏着使自身再现为新对象的力量。人的纯粹自然力是劳动的自然属性，也就是说劳动对象和对象化劳动本身的自然属性即使用价值，深蕴着解开被资本链锁锁住的对象化劳动的现实力量。如果对象化劳动是被物化了的对象性的活动，那么与之对立的活劳动也就成为非对象性即非存在的活动。只有在自然条件下而非实体条件下的非对象化的活劳动，才能积极扬弃被对象化劳动物化了的肉体和灵魂，实现完整的对象性的活动。因此，如果我们要跳出资本的总过程和总体性，就不能从抽象的价值实体切入劳动过程，只能通过被交换价值换位、颠倒过程中遮蔽、替代和遗忘了的使用价值切入劳动过程，才能明确对象性活动中实现积极扬弃的本质力量。由于使用价值在增殖的物质交换运动中被抛开，物神无法深刻发掘阶级意识的承载者的自然力量，“因此，劳动作为使用价值的创造者，作为有用劳动，是不以一切社会形式为转移的人类生存条件，是人和自然之间的物质变换即人类生活得以实现的永恒的自然必然性”。对象化劳动的自然形式中存在着无法消融的自然对象和自然力量，这也是无法被对象化的自然条件。马克思从未把辩证思维和物化意识进行简单等同，前者反对任何对立两极的二择一，也反对把被物化了的集体力量及其消极扬弃视为僵硬不变的教条，任何具有使用价值的具体事物不会完全消融于社会抽象形式之中。关键在于，马克思要阐明一种全新的历史性的辩证法，要揭示每时每刻都在进行的对象性的活动的直接性与真实性，其本质力量是非对象化劳动的人与自然的物质变换。使用价值无法被消融在抽象的、一般的、同质的对象化劳动中，它是自然的，也是生命的：“唯一不同于对象化劳动的是非对象化劳动，是还在对象化过程中的、作为主体性的劳动。”唯一能够成为资本对立面的是创造使用价值的劳动的自然力量，活劳动的使用价值并非自然形式的经济规定及其权力规定，而是共同实体无法凝固保存和对象化的力量。这也是黑格尔的对象化运动无力抓住的非对象化的“现实”，因为自然和生命无法被消融在“精神”的自我运动中。作为活劳动的非对象化的物质变换，使旧的对象化劳动被积极扬弃为非对象化的活劳动。物化主体被扬弃为创造新世界历史的新主体，成为创造新对象的现实性的本质力量。

In sum, the antagonistic logic of objectified labor epitomizes the dialectical logic of the critique of political economy, elucidating that the secret of the material transformation of social labor is formal transformation, and that the essential antagonism within formal transformation is cause and ground. The antagonistic logic of objectified labor manifests the internal and external movement of capital as it objectifies itself into money and commodities, and then withdraws from these objectified money and commodities back into itself; it also embodies the upward movement in which individual material forms arising from individuality continuously evaporate into the One, and the downward movement in which the One continuously descends and permeates the actual flesh and soul. Capital is the secret of the actual, total reification, driving material transformation to ascend step by step toward objectified labor, and causing objectified labor to diffuse and permeate every atom of society. However, owing to the non-identity between reality and concept, the antagonistic logic of “objectified labor” in *Capital* and its manuscripts can only be a logical antagonism within non-identical reality. Rediscovering the natural conditions and use-value of living labor remains of great significance for our examination and critique of modern capitalist problems today. (Author’s affiliation: Ningbo University Base, Zhejiang Provincial Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era)

总之，对象化劳动的对立逻辑集中体现了政治经济学批判的辩证逻辑，阐释了社会劳动的物质变换的秘密是形式变换，形式变换中的本质对立是原因和根据。对象化劳动的对立逻辑展现了资本对象化为货币和商品，再从被对象化了的货币和商品收回自身的内外运动；也体现了从个体性中生发的个别性物质形态不断向上蒸发为一，又从一中不断向下运动浸入现实的肉体和灵魂的上下运动。资本是现实的全体的物化秘密，推动物质变换向对象化劳动逐次提升，并使对象化劳动向社会的每一个原子弥漫浸透。但是由于现实与观念的非同一性，《资本论》及手稿中的“对象化劳动”的对立逻辑，只能是非同一性现实中的逻辑对立。重新发掘活劳动的自然条件和使用价值，对我们今天审视和批判资本主义现代问题依然具有重要意义。（作者单位：浙江省习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想研究中心宁波大学基地）

Online editor: Paul

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