The Temporal Determination in Marx’s Theory of Value

The mode of production organization in contemporary society is undergoing a profound transformation: intelligent algorithms extensively empower material and immaterial labor; workers’ creativity, emotions, attention, and the like become important sources of value augmentation; the temporal boundary between work and life grows increasingly blurred, and the traditional mechanism of labor time faces unprecedented challenges. At the same time, theoretical reinterpretations of Marx’s theory of value have also emerged. On the one hand, the Neue Marx-Lektüre school, through formal analysis, reveals the qualitative determinations of abstract labor and the value form, criticizing the way the quantitative logic of labor time obscures social relations. While weakening the relationship between labor time and the magnitude of value, this approach also evades or sets aside the controversy over “whether value is determined by labor time.” On the other hand, autonomism points out that the labor theory of value faces a “crisis of measurability,” because immaterial labor, characterized primarily by affectivity, creativity, and communicativity, is difficult to incorporate into a framework of value calculation that takes labor time as its measure. Under the dual impetus of real-world transformation and theoretical reassessment, the temporal determination in Marx’s theory of value is no longer a default, common-sense premise but has become a key issue urgently requiring historical investigation, theoretical reconstruction, and a practical response. This article first critically reviews the existing interpretive approaches to the “value–time” problem and their theoretical difficulties; then, through an analysis of wealth in classical political economy, it reconstructs the historical logic by which time becomes the measure of value; it further returns to Marx’s problem-field to examine in depth the mechanism of the temporalization of labor behind socially necessary labor time and its internal connection with the “crisis of measurability”; and, in conjunction with the context of digital capitalism, it reassesses the explanatory power and critical significance of Marx’s theory of value, while exploring the inspiration that his critical theory of time offers for reflecting on the temporal structure of contemporary society.

当代社会的生产组织方式正在经历深刻转变：智能算法广泛赋能物质劳动和非物质劳动；劳动者的创造性、情感、注意力等成为价值增值的重要来源；工作与生活的时间边界愈发模糊，传统意义上的劳动时间机制受到前所未有的挑战。与此同时，理论上也出现了对马克思价值理论的重新解读。一方面，新马克思阅读学派通过形式分析揭示了抽象劳动与价值形式的质性规定，批判劳动时间量化逻辑遮蔽了社会关系。这一路径在弱化劳动时间与价值量之间关系的同时，也回避或搁置了“价值是否决定于劳动时间”的争议。另一方面，自治主义则指出，劳动价值论面临“可计量性危机”(crisis of measurability)，原因在于非物质劳动以情感性、创造性和交往性为主要特征，难以被纳入以劳动时间为尺度的价值计算框架。在现实转型与理论重估的双重激活下，马克思价值理论中的时间规定不再是一个默认的常识性前提，而成为一个亟须加以历史考察、理论重构与现实回应的关键议题。本文拟首先对“价值—时间”问题的既有解读路径及其理论困境进行批判性梳理，继而通过古典政治经济学中的财富分析，重构时间成为价值尺度的历史逻辑，并进一步回到马克思的问题场域，深入考察社会必要劳动时间背后的劳动时间化机制及其与“可计量性危机”的内在关联，同时结合数字资本主义情境，重估马克思价值理论的解释力与批判意义，并发掘其时间批判理论对于反思当代社会时间结构的启发。

I. Time as the Measure of Value: Three Interpretive Approaches and Their Difficulties

一、作为价值尺度的时间：三种解读路径及其困境

The traditional interpretation usually treats the concept of time in Marx’s theory of value as a self-evident, unproblematic metric. This interpretation is not entirely without basis. As Marx points out at the beginning of *Capital*: “How is the magnitude of value to be measured? By means of the quantity of the ‘value-forming substance,’ the labor, contained in it. The quantity of labor itself is measured by its duration, and labor time in turn has its standard in definite portions of time, such as hours, days, etc.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (Penguin, 1976), p. 129. Accordingly, the traditional interpretation regards time as an objective and linear unit of measurement, which can be divided equally and applied universally to economic processes such as production and circulation. For example, “labor time” refers to the quantity of the labor process, while “circulation time” refers to the quantity of the circulation process; time as a measure is merely a technical tool for quantifying these processes. This understanding of time essentially follows the gist of Aristotle’s conception of time, namely, that “time is the number of motion” — time is an infinitely divisible unit of measurement for a segment of motion. [2]2 Aristotle, *Physics*, Book IV, Chapter 11, 219b1–2. In this naturalized logic of measurement, time, as a neutral technical measure, possesses no social attribute; it neither changes the nature of the object being measured nor is it rooted in a specific social structure, but is determined solely by the natural characteristics of the motion process itself. Therefore, time in the traditional labor theory of value is tacitly assumed to be a natural and universally applicable technical measure, which does not undergo any essential transformation with changes in the form of labor, the mode of production, or the mechanism of exchange. This temporal determination constitutes the implicit premise for the proposition “value is determined by labor time” in the traditional interpretation.

传统解读通常将马克思价值理论中的时间概念理解为一种无需追问的计量尺度。这种解读并非全然无据。正如马克思在《资本论》开篇指出：“价值量是怎样计量的呢?是用它所包含的‘形成价值的实体’即劳动的量来计量。劳动本身的量是用劳动的持续时间来计量，而劳动时间又是用一定的时间单位如小时、日等作尺度。”据此，传统解读将时间视为一种客观的和线性的度量单位，它可以被均等地分割，并普遍适用于生产、流通等经济过程。譬如，“劳动时间”是指劳动过程的量，“流通时间”则是指流通过程的量，时间作为尺度仅仅是量化这些过程的技术性工具。对时间的这种理解实际上遵循着亚里士多德时间观的要旨，即“时间是运动的数”，时间是一段运动过程中无限均分的计量单位。在这种自然化的计量逻辑中，时间作为一种中性的技术尺度，不具有社会属性，它既不改变被计量对象的性质，也非植根于特定的社会结构，而仅由运动过程本身的自然特性所决定。因此，传统劳动价值论中的时间被默认为一种自然的和普遍适用的技术尺度，并不随劳动形式、生产方式或交换机制的变化而发生本质转变。这种时间规定构成了传统解读中“价值决定于劳动时间”命题成立的潜在前提。

However, it is precisely this seemingly neutral and technical determination of time that has been questioned and refuted by the Neue Marx-Lektüre school and autonomist Marxism. Although these two interpretive approaches differ in orientation, they both argue that this unreflective concept of time plunges Marx’s theory of value into difficulties.

然而，正是这种对时间的看似中立的和技术化的规定，遭到了新马克思阅读学派和自治马克思主义的质疑与反驳。这两种解读路径虽然取向各异，却不约而同地主张，这种未经反思的时间概念让马克思的价值理论陷入了困境。

Even before the rise of the Neue Marx-Lektüre movement, I. I. Rubin and Paul Sweezy had respectively proposed distinguishing between a quantitative theory of value and a qualitative theory of value. In Rubin’s view, most of Marx’s critics had not truly grasped the qualitative sociological dimension of Marx’s theory of value, because they placed the theory of value entirely within a mathematical quantitative framework for understanding, while neglecting that the calculation of the magnitude of value must in fact be based on labor relations under specific social forms. Therefore, Rubin emphasizes, “We must pass from the conception of value as a definite quantity to the conception of value as a definite social form, or, in other words, from the theory of ‘magnitude of value’ to the theory of ‘form of value.’” [3]3 I. I. Rubin, *Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value*, trans. Miloš Samardžija and Fredy Perlman (Black Rose Books, 1972), p. 117. Similarly, Sweezy believes that the greatness of Marx’s theory of value lies in the fact that, within a unified conceptual system, it simultaneously examines the “qualitative-value problem” and the “quantitative-value problem,” and, on the basis of the quantitative relations on which economists focus, it first reveals the “historically determined specific relations between producers” hidden within them. [4]4 Paul M. Sweezy, *The Theory of Capitalist Development* (Monthly Review Press, 1942), p. 25. According to the insights of Rubin and Sweezy, understanding Marx’s theory of value solely from the quantitative dimension precisely falls into the ideology of fetishism. Marx’s fundamental critique of classical political economy is that the quantitative relations of value, as basic elements of economic theory, are not self-sufficient and self-evident, but are the reified expression of social relations between commodity owners and producers. Commodity production not only creates the fetishistic illusion that obscures social relations, but also shapes an economic rationality that quantifies all things.

早在新马克思阅读运动兴起之前，伊萨克·伊里奇·鲁宾与保罗·斯威齐便分别提出要区分量化的价值理论与质性的价值理论。在鲁宾看来，马克思的大多数批评者并未真正把握马克思的价值理论的质性社会学面向，因为他们将价值理论完全置于数学层面的量化框架中去理解，而忽视了价值量的计算实际上必须基于特定社会形式下的劳动关系。因此，鲁宾强调，“我们必须从把价值视为一定的量，过渡到把价值视为具有一定质的社会形式，或者说，从‘价值量’的理论过渡到‘价值形式’的理论”。与之相似，斯威齐认为，马克思价值理论的伟大之处就在于，在一个统一的概念体系中，同时考察了“价值质问题”(qualitative-value problem)和“价值量问题”(quantitative-value problem)，在经济学家所聚焦的数量关系上，首先揭示了隐藏其中的“由历史条件决定的生产者之间的特定关系”。根据鲁宾与斯威齐的见解，仅仅从量化维度理解马克思的价值理论，恰恰陷入了拜物教意识形态。马克思对古典政治经济学的根本批判在于，作为经济理论的基本要素的价值量关系并不是自足自明的，而是商品所有者和生产者之间的社会关系的物化表现。商品生产不仅形成了遮蔽社会关系的拜物教幻象，而且塑造了将一切事物量化的经济理性。

The Neue Marx-Lektüre school largely inherits Rubin’s and Sweezy’s distinction between the qualitative and quantitative determinations of value, and from this develops a theoretical approach that places greater emphasis on the analysis of the value form. This approach stresses that Marx’s theory of value differs from the narrow economic tradition in both its object of study and its research paradigm: the latter takes measurable relations such as prices, exchange ratios, and the magnitude of value as its object of analysis, while the former attempts to reveal the basic structure of capitalist social relations through a critique of economic categories. Hans-Georg Backhaus argues that the predicament of modern economics lies in the fact that “on the one hand, it has developed complex mathematical methods for calculating the movement of prices and money, while on the other hand, it has neglected to think about what it is, what constitutes the object of its calculation”; [5]5 Hans-Georg Backhaus, *Dialektik der Wertform* (Ca ira, 1997), p. 41. in contrast, the aim of Marx’s critique of political economy is not quantitative calculation, but rather the pursuit of the question “a quantity of what?” [6]6 Ibid., p. 42. In other words, Marx’s theory of value is not only descriptive but also critical, because it seeks to reveal the social preconditions that make the value form possible. Consequently, the Neue Marx-Lektüre school generally turns toward the qualitative determinations of value and labor and the analysis of social forms, emphasizing social mediating mechanisms such as abstract labor, the commodity form, and the money form, and correspondingly downplays the investigation of the magnitude of value and the measure of labor time.

新马克思阅读学派大体继承了鲁宾与斯威齐对价值质性与量性双重规定的区分，并由此发展出一种更侧重价值形式分析的理论路径。这一路径强调，马克思的价值理论在研究对象与研究范式上均不同于狭义的经济学传统：后者以价格、交换比例和价值量等可计量关系为分析对象，而前者则试图通过批判经济范畴来揭示资本主义社会关系的基本结构。汉斯-格奥尔格·巴克豪斯认为，现代经济学的困境就在于，“为了计算价格和货币的运动，一方面发展了复杂的数学方法，另一方面却疏于去思考它究竟是什么，什么构成了他们计算的对象”;与之相反，马克思的政治经济学批判的旨趣不在于量的计算，而致力于追问“关于什么的量”。换言之，马克思的价值理论不仅具有描述性，更具有批判性，因为它旨在揭示使价值形式成为可能的社会前提条件。因此，新马克思阅读学派普遍转向关注价值和劳动的质性规定与社会形式分析，强调抽象劳动、商品形式、货币形式等社会中介机制，相应地也就淡化了对价值量和劳动时间尺度的考察。

Unlike the deflationary strategy of the Neue Marx-Lektüre school, autonomism, represented by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, directly rejects the determination of “time-as-measure” and regards it as a flaw in Marx’s theory of value. First, Negri argues that time as a measure of value is not an external, purely instrumental tool of measurement but is deeply embedded in the process of value formation as an internal mechanism that homogenises labour. “Time can measure labour because it reduces labour to a homogeneous entity; but equally, it determines the productivity of labour in the same form: through the multiplication of average time units. For labour, time is both measure and content, both form and substance.” [7]7 Antonio Negri, *Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse*, trans. Harry Cleaver, Michael Ryan and Maurizio Viano (New York: Autonomedia, 1991), p. 61. Therefore, the temporal determination in the theory of value is not a self-evident, objective natural measure but a specific measure bearing the coercive force of capitalism. By embedding labour in the measurement logic that takes time as its unit, the antagonism, subjectivity and creativity within the labour process are compressed into static, homogeneous and quantifiable elements, thereby obscuring qualitative historical change. In this sense, Negri reminds us that if Marx’s relevant discussions are simply understood as “time-as-measure”, it is easy to overlook the social relations and historical determinations behind this measure and to naturalise it as a technical precondition.

与新马克思阅读学派的淡化策略不同，以迈克尔·哈特和安东尼奥·内格里为代表的自治主义直接拒斥“时间即计量”(time-as-measure)的规定，并视其为马克思价值理论的漏洞。首先，内格里认为，作为价值尺度的时间并非外在的单纯的计量工具，而是深度嵌入价值生成过程、推动劳动同质化的内在机制。“时间之所以能够衡量劳动，是因为它将劳动简化为同质的实体；但同样地，它也以相同的形式决定劳动的生产力：通过平均时间单位的倍增。就劳动而言，时间既是尺度，也是内容；既是形式，也是实体。”因此，价值理论中的时间规定并非不言自明的客观自然尺度，而是一种具有资本主义强制力量的特殊尺度。通过将劳动嵌入以时间为单位的计量逻辑中，劳动过程中的对抗性、主体性与创造性被压缩为静态、均质、可分析的量化要素，历史的质性变化因而被遮蔽。在这个意义上，内格里提醒我们，若将马克思的相关论述简单理解为“时间即计量”，就容易忽视这一尺度背后的社会关系与历史规定，并将其自然化为一种技术性前提。

Second, Hardt and Negri point out that the logic of value measurement with time as its measure is increasingly losing its explanatory validity in the context of digital capitalism. “The critique of political economy, including the Marxist tradition, has generally focused on understanding surplus value and exploitation through measurement and quantification, but biopolitical products tend to exceed these quantitative measures.” [8]8 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, *Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire* (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), p. 148. The logic of measurement was effective under industrial capitalism because production was concentrated within the factory, working time and production time, necessary labour time and surplus labour time were clearly demarcated, and labour time could be strictly segmented and regulated. However, against the background of digital capitalism, labour increasingly breaks through the boundaries of the factory and the working day: “necessary labour time and surplus labour time are no longer sequential but simultaneous; similarly, working time coincides with living time, and the latter is also filled with the logic of exploitation and domination.” [9]9 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, *Empire* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 403. Consequently, it is difficult to recognise value production and valorisation through the measurable units of time. At the same time, immaterial labour, such as the production of information and affect, is gradually becoming the dominant form. The output of this type of labour is not only difficult to incorporate into the quantitative framework of abstract labour time but also inherently tends to exceed the measure and to self-valorise. For example, in the platform economy, the content, affect and attention input generated by users in daily life are all transformed into new sources of value. These labour contents are the creativity manifested in common activity and therefore cannot be reduced to the sum of simple labour time. It is in this context that Hardt and Negri emphasise that the traditional theory of value based on “time-as-measure” is unable to reveal the true dynamics of contemporary labour forms and the logic of capital domination, and that it is necessary to turn to a new theory of value of “non-measure” in order to respond to the new reality of the intertwining of value production and the biopolitical under digital capitalism.

其次，哈特和内格里指出，以时间为尺度的价值计量逻辑在数字资本主义情境中日益丧失其解释效力。“包括马克思主义传统在内的政治经济学批判普遍关注的是用计量和量化方法去理解剩余价值和剥削，但是生命政治产品则倾向于逾越(exceed)这些量化计量。”计量逻辑之所以在工业资本主义条件下有效，是因为生产集中在工厂之内，工作时间与生产时间、必要劳动时间与剩余劳动时间界限分明，劳动时间可以被严格切割与规范。然而，在数字资本主义背景下，劳动日益突破工厂与工作日的边界，“必要劳动时间和剩余劳动时间不再是先后关系，而是共时关系；同理，工作时间也与生活时间相重合，后者也充满了剥削和统治的逻辑”，因而人们难以通过时间的可计量单位去认识价值生产与价值增值。与此同时，非物质劳动如信息和情感的生产逐渐成为主导形式，此类劳动产出不仅难以被纳入抽象劳动时间的量化框架，而且本身具有超越计量尺度和自我价值增值(self-valorization)的趋势。譬如，在平台经济中，用户在日常生活中所生成的内容、情感与注意力投入，均被转化为新的价值来源，这些劳动内容是共同活动所表现出的创造力，因而无法被化约为简单劳动时间的总和。正是在这一背景下，哈特和内格里强调，基于“时间即计量”的传统价值理论难以揭示当代劳动形式与资本统治逻辑的真正动态，必须转向一种“非计量”(non-measure)的新价值理论，以回应数字资本主义条件下价值生产与生命政治交织的新现实。

Taken together, although the Neue Marx-Lektüre school and autonomist Marxism have each criticised, from different perspectives, the quantitative understanding of the temporal determination in traditional interpretations, neither has fully grasped the rich connotations of Marx’s temporal determination of value. On the one hand, although the Neue Marx-Lektüre school has deepened the critique of the value form by revealing the relations of production and exchange behind the magnitude of value, it has not extended this critique to the problem of the magnitude of value and labour time itself, nor has it been able to explain how qualitative determinations (such as abstract labour) are transformed into quantitative logic, or, in other words, why this qualitative dimension necessarily appears in reality in a quantitative form. As Moishe Postone points out, the approach of the Neue Marx-Lektüre school treats the problem of the magnitude of value merely as “the quantification of the qualitative dimension of value”, rather than as “a further qualitative determination of the social form”. [10]10 Moishe Postone, *Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 148. On the other hand, the autonomist Marxist critique of “time-as-measure” does not negate Marx’s theory of value; on the contrary, it reveals that the labour forms of the digital capital era verify, at the level of social structure, the “worst case” that Marx foresaw: the temporal measurement of value is no longer confined to the factory but has comprehensively penetrated every aspect of social life. Furthermore, Negri’s critique is built on a simplified understanding of “time-as-measure”, ignoring Marx’s socio-historical analysis of the “value-labour-time” relationship, and therefore fails to touch the core of his theory of value.

综合来看，虽然新马克思阅读学派和自治马克思主义分别从不同视角批判了传统解读对时间规定的量化理解，但二者都未能全面把握马克思关于价值时间规定的丰富内涵。一方面，虽然新马克思阅读学派通过揭示价值量背后的生产关系与交换关系，深化了对价值形式的批判，但他们并未将这种批判进一步扩展到价值量与劳动时间问题本身，更未能解释质性规定(如抽象劳动)如何被转化为量化逻辑，或者说，这一质性维度为何在现实中必然表现为量化的形式。正如莫伊舍·普殊同指出的，类似新马克思阅读学派的做法，是把价值量问题仅仅处理成“价值质性维度的量化”，而不是“社会形式的一个更深入的质性规定”。另一方面，自治马克思主义对“时间即计量”的批判不仅没有否定马克思的价值理论，反而揭示出，数字资本时代的劳动形式在社会结构上验证了马克思所预见的“最坏情况”：时间的价值计量不再局限于工厂内部，而是全面渗透至社会生活的各个层面。此外，内格里的批判建立在对“时间即计量”的简化理解之上，忽略了马克思对“价值—劳动—时间”关系的社会历史性分析，因而未能触及其价值理论的核心。

Thus it can be seen that these three approaches – the traditional interpretation, the Neue Marx-Lektüre school and autonomist Marxism – have all failed to fully develop Marx’s critical theory of time. Marx’s critique of political economy not only points out that the latter “has never once asked the question why labour is represented by the value of its product” [11]11 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (London: Penguin, 1976), p. 174. but also questions why “the magnitude of that value is represented by a definite quantity of the product”. [12]12 Ibid. This means that the magnitude of value and its temporal determination are not a neutral mode of measurement but a “form of appearance” with a social qualitative content. Therefore, re-examining the socio-historical logic of the temporal measure in the theory of value becomes a necessary task.

由此可见，传统解读、新马克思阅读学派以及自治马克思主义这三种路径，均未能充分阐发马克思的时间批判理论。马克思对政治经济学的批判，不仅指出后者“甚至从来也没有提出过这样的问题：……为什么劳动表现为价值”，同时还质疑，为什么“用劳动时间计算的劳动量表现为劳动产品的价值量呢?”这意味着，价值量及其时间规定并不是中性的计量方式，而是一种具有社会质性内容的“表现形式”。因此，重新考察价值理论中时间尺度的社会历史逻辑便成了题中应有之义。

II. The Historical Genesis of the Temporal Measure: The Analysis of Wealth in Classical Political Economy

二、时间尺度的历史生成：古典政治经济学的财富分析

The entry of the temporal determination into the horizon of political economy and its gradual establishment as the measure of labour and value was by no means a natural or self-evident process. In early political economy, such as that of the Physiocratic school, time had not yet established a clear connection with labour and value. Marx points out that although the Physiocrats had already recognised the core thesis that only labour which creates surplus value is productive, they were unable to reveal the true mechanism of surplus value, “because they had not yet reduced value in general to its simple substance: the quantity of labour, or labour time”. [13]13 Karl Marx, *Theories of Surplus Value*, part 1, trans. Emile Burns (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1963), p. 45. To be precise, “whether or not time is taken seriously” is a key characteristic distinguishing an economy of production for use from an economy of production for surplus. William James Booth argues that in an economy of production for use, time as a standard of measurement is meaningless, because “once needs are satisfied, people become indifferent to further extraction of labour time”; whereas in a capitalist economy of production for surplus, “time is the atom of profit”. [14]14 William James Booth, “The New Household Economy,” *American Political Science Review*, vol. 85, no. 1 (1991), p. 62. This means that only when the purpose of production shifts from satisfying use needs to the infinite pursuit of surplus value does time acquire an important position in economic life and enter the theoretical expression of political economy.

时间规定进入政治经济学的视野，并逐渐成为劳动和价值的计量尺度，绝非一个自然而然、不言而喻的过程。在早期政治经济学如重农学派的眼中，时间尚未同劳动和价值建立起明确联系。马克思指出，尽管重农学派已经认识到只有创造剩余价值的劳动才是生产性的这一核心论断，但他们并未能揭示剩余价值的真正机制，“因为他们还没有把价值一般归结为它的简单实体：劳动量，或劳动时间”。确切地说，“是否重视时间”是区分为使用而生产的经济与为剩余而生产的经济的关键特征。威廉·詹姆斯·布斯认为，在为使用而生产的经济中，时间作为一种计量标准是没有意义的，因为“一旦需求得到满足，人们就会对进一步提取劳动时间漠不关心”;而在为剩余而生产的资本主义经济中，“时间是利润的原子”。这意味着，只有当生产目的从满足使用需求转向无限追求剩余价值时，时间才会在经济生活中获得重要地位，才会进入政治经济学的理论表达中。

That labour time becomes the measure of value was first proposed by Adam Smith in a confused and contradictory manner. Unlike earlier political economy, Smith for the first time established labour as the fundamental basis for the growth of national wealth, arguing that economics should analyse labour not merely from the perspective of utility but from that of exchange value and valorisation. Hence he proposed that labour time is “the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.” However, Smith soon denied the universal applicability of the labour-time measure, holding that it applies only to the primitive society in which the labourer fully possesses his product, and not to modern commercial society, where capital accumulation and private ownership of land have already emerged. The reasons are twofold: first, the time expended by different kinds of labour is not the sole criterion for determining the proportion of different quantities of labour; the degree of difficulty and skill of different labours must also be taken into account. Second, the quantity of labour objectified in a commodity often does not coincide with the quantity of labour that the commodity can purchase; the latter is affected by supply and demand, changes in the value of money, and so on. In this sense, Smith may be regarded as a precursor of the “theory that the labour theory of value is obsolete.” In Marx’s view, Smith’s discovery and subsequent denial of the labour theory of value inadvertently captured the paradoxical character of capitalist production: “With the accumulation of capital and the rise of landed property — hence with the independence of the conditions of labour as against labour itself — a new transformation occurs, and the law of value seems (and in fact, from the result, does) turn into its opposite.” That is to say, when Smith, under the conditions of the universal division of labour and exchange in capitalist society, proposed labour time as the measure of value, he appeared to reveal the “real” basis of value, yet he could not explain the concrete historical logic of the movement of capitalist production and exchange.

劳动时间成为价值尺度，最初是由亚当·斯密以一种混乱且矛盾的方式提出的。与早期政治经济学不同，斯密首次将劳动确立为国民财富增长的根本基础，主张经济学不应仅从效用层面理解劳动，而应从交换价值和价值增值层面分析其意义。因此，他提出，劳动时间是“一切商品交换价值的真实尺度”。然而，斯密很快又否定了劳动时间尺度的普遍适用性，认为它只适用于劳动者完全占有其产品的原始社会，而不适用于已经出现资本累积和土地私有化的现代商业社会。原因有两方面：其一，不同劳动所耗费的时间并非决定不同劳动量的比例的唯一标准，还需考虑不同劳动的困难程度与精巧程度等；其二，物化在商品中的劳动量与商品可以购买到的劳动量往往并不一致，后者会受到供求关系、货币价值变动等影响。在这个意义上，斯密可谓“劳动价值论过时说”的先声。在马克思看来，斯密对劳动价值论的发现与否定，恰恰无意中捕捉到了资本主义生产的悖论性特征：“随着资本积累和土地所有权的产生，因而随着同劳动本身相对立的劳动条件的独立化，发生了一个新的转变，价值规律似乎变成了(从结果来看，也确实变成了)它的对立面。”也就是说，斯密在资本主义社会普遍存在分工和交换的条件下提出劳动时间作为价值尺度，看似揭示了价值的“真实”基础，却无法解释资本主义生产与交换的具体的历史运动逻辑。

David Ricardo, as Smith’s corrector, put forward the determination of value by labour time more thoroughly and clearly. Ricardo pointed out that the reason Smith vacillated between the labour theory of value and the cost-of-production theory was that, when confronting the temporal problem of how to quantify different labours in different periods, he still resorted to a non-temporal explanatory path, treating labours of different degrees of skill and intensity as incommensurable qualitative differences. Ricardo held that, within a given period, labours of different degrees of skill and intensity, after adjustment by the market, form a relatively stable conversion ratio; therefore, labour’s effect on value in different periods has no essential difference. This means that the labour time that determines the value of a commodity is not the time expended in producing a particular concrete commodity, but the socially necessary time that has been regulated by the market. Further, Ricardo’s correction shows that the labour theory of value not only does not exclude competitive supply-and-demand relations but rather presupposes them: “The full development of the law of value presupposes a society of large-scale industry and free competition, i.e., modern bourgeois society.” By introducing the variable of time, Ricardo turned the problem of value and labour in a quantitative direction. In Marx’s view, although Ricardo’s research was limited to the magnitude of value, he clearly stated: “The physiology of the bourgeois system — the foundation and starting point for the understanding of the inner organic connection and life-process of this system — is the determination of value by labour time.”

大卫·李嘉图作为斯密的修正者，更为彻底和清楚地提出了价值决定于劳动时间这一规定。李嘉图指出，斯密之所以在劳动价值论与生产成本论之间摇摆不定，原因在于，当他面对不同时期不同劳动如何量化这一时间性问题时，依然诉诸非时间性的解释路径，把不同熟练程度和强度的劳动看作不可通约的质的差异。李嘉图认为，在特定时期内，不同熟练程度和强度的劳动经市场调整后，会形成相对稳定的换算比例，因此，劳动在不同时期对价值的作用并无本质差异。这意味着，决定商品价值的劳动时间，并不是生产某个具体商品所耗费的时间，而是经过市场调节的、具有社会性的必要时间。进一步来说，李嘉图的修正表明，劳动价值论非但不排斥竞争性供求关系，反而以其为前提，“价值规律的充分发展，要以大工业生产和自由竞争的社会，即现代资产阶级社会为前提”。通过引入时间变量，李嘉图把价值和劳动问题转向了量化的方向。在马克思看来，尽管李嘉图的研究只限于价值量，但是他明确提出：“资产阶级制度的生理学——对这个制度的内在有机联系和生活过程的理解——的基础、出发点，是价值决定于劳动时间这一规定。”

The political economy represented by Smith and Ricardo, by introducing the temporal determination into the understanding of capitalist wealth and value, marks a fundamental transformation. According to Moishe Postone’s investigation, homogenised, measurable conceptions of time and corresponding time-measurement techniques already existed before the rise of capitalism, but it was only under the conditions of the universalisation of commodity relations that this form of time began to dominate the rhythm of social life. Therefore, the major change in political economy’s mode of understanding time does not lie in its “invention” of an empty, homogeneous, quantifiable abstract time, but in its unconscious transformation of this time into the standard for measuring labour and value, and its naturalisation and legitimation of this process. Michel Foucault keenly perceived that the “labour-time-value” relation represented by political economy actually creates an “essential rupture” in the understanding of time and wealth: in the production and exchange of wealth, “it is no longer the mutual representation of needs, but time and toil that are transformed, hidden, and forgotten.” On the one hand, anthropological time (such as physiological rhythms and life experience) is drawn into the temporal vortex of economic production: human beings, originally subject to time, toil, and death, are compelled to invest their finite life-time in the production of economic objects that cannot directly satisfy their needs. On the other hand, labour time, as expressed in the magnitude of commodity value, not only becomes detached from the life-activity of the labourer but is also required to be stripped of individuality and concreteness to the greatest possible extent, becoming an abstractly manipulable, independently operating magnitude that in turn dominates the concrete labour process and the rhythm of life. Foucault thus points out that, beginning with Smith, wealth begins to be organised and accumulated in the chain of time; the time understood by economics is no longer “the time of the cycle of poverty and wealth,” but “an internal time of an organic structure that grows according to its own necessity and develops according to its own immanent laws — it is the time of capital and the time of the productive apparatus.”

以斯密和李嘉图为代表的政治经济学，将时间规定引入对资本主义财富与价值的理解，标志着一种根本性转变。根据普殊同的考察，早在资本主义兴起之前，均质化、可计量的时间观念及相应的计时技术就已经存在，但只是在商品关系普遍发展的背景下，这种时间形式才开始支配社会生活节奏。因此，政治经济学在时间的理解方式上的重大改变，并不在于它“发明”了一种空洞、均质和可量化的抽象时间，而在于它将这种时间无意识地转化为劳动和价值的衡量标准，并且自然化与合法化了这一过程。米歇尔·福柯敏锐地洞察到，政治经济学所表征的“劳动—时间—价值”关系式，实际上在对时间与财富的理解上制造了一道“本质断裂”：在财富生产和交换中，“不再是需求对象的互相表象，而是时间和辛劳被转化、隐藏和遗忘”。一方面，人类学意义上的时间(如生理节奏、生命体验)被卷入经济生产的时间旋涡：人本受制于时间、辛劳与死亡，却不得不将有限的生命时间投入无法直接满足需求的经济对象的生产中。另一方面，表现为商品价值量的劳动时间，不仅与劳动者的生命活动相脱离，而且被要求最大程度地剥离个体性与具体性，成为一个可被抽象支配、独立运作的量度，并反过来支配具体劳动过程与生活节奏。福柯因而指出，从斯密开始，财富开始在时间链条上被组织和积累，经济学所理解的时间不再是“贫穷和富裕相循环的时间”，而是“一种有机构造的内在时间，这个构造根据它自己的必然性而增长，根据自生的规律而发展——正是资本的时间和生产体制的时间”。

In summary, with the universalisation of commodity relations and the establishment of the logic of capitalist production, time gradually transforms from a background condition of natural rhythms and life experience into an important measure of labour and value. The temporal measure becomes the key element that distinguishes the general form of wealth from the wealth form of capitalist society: the measure of general material wealth depends on the quantity and quality of the products created, while the capitalist wealth form that pursues valorisation takes abstract labour time as its measure. The historical process by which the temporal measure is generated is not natural but is the result of the totalisation and institutionalisation of capitalist relations of production. Classical political economy, represented by Smith and Ricardo, although it initially revealed the relationship between labour time and value, did not truly ask: why must the magnitude of value be measured by labour time rather than by some other standard? What function does time actually perform in the logic of capital? These questions in fact touch upon the fundamental level of the labour theory of value and even of the entire value system, and they are also an important but insufficiently elaborated dimension of Marx’s critique of political economy. Marx’s theory of value is less a correction and perfection of the classical labour theory of value than a revelation and critique of its social foundation. Only from this critical perspective can we re-discern the transformation, concealment, and forgetting of time in modern wealth production, and further reveal the deep mechanism of the logic of capitalist production.

综上所述，随着商品关系的普遍化与资本主义生产逻辑的确立，时间逐渐从一种自然节奏与生命体验的背景性条件，转变为衡量劳动和价值的重要尺度。时间尺度成为区分一般财富形式与资本主义社会财富形式的关键要素：一般物质财富的尺度取决于所创造产品的数量和质量，而追求价值增值的资本主义财富形式以抽象劳动时间为尺度。时间尺度生成的历史过程并非自然而然，而是资本主义生产关系总体化与制度化的结果。以斯密和李嘉图为代表的古典政治经济学，虽然初步揭示了劳动时间与价值之间的关系，但并未真正追问：为何价值量必须用劳动时间而非其他标准衡量?时间在资本逻辑中究竟发挥何种功能?这些问题实际上触及了劳动价值论乃至整个价值体系的根本层面，同时也是马克思政治经济学批判中重要但未被充分阐发的面向。马克思的价值理论，与其说是对古典劳动价值论的修正与完善，不如说是对其社会基础的揭示与批判。基于这种批判视角，我们才能重新洞察时间在现代财富生产中的转化、隐藏和遗忘，并进一步揭示资本主义生产逻辑的深层机制。

III. Socially Necessary Labour Time: The Temporalisation of Labour and the Crisis of Commensurability

三、社会必要劳动时间：劳动 时间化与可计量性危机

In Marx’s view, the magnitude of commodity value is not determined by the time actually expended by concrete labour; otherwise, the laziest and least skilled worker would produce the most valuable commodity, which contradicts the basic logic of the labour theory of value. The hesitation of classical political economy over the labour theory of value stems fundamentally from its failure to investigate thoroughly the specific social form of labour as the substance of value. Marx holds that the labour that constitutes the substance of value is abstract human labour, qualitatively undifferentiated. Therefore, the magnitude of value is related only to abstract labour time, not to concrete labour time. Hence an unavoidable question arises: how is abstract labour time to be measured? This question requires an examination of the inner connection between the abstraction of labour and the temporalisation of labour, and this constitutes the theoretical entry point for re-understanding abstract labour and socially necessary labour time.

在马克思看来，商品价值量并非由具体劳动实际耗费的时间决定，否则，最懒惰和最不熟练的工人反而会生产出最有价值的商品，这与劳动价值论的基本逻辑相悖。古典政治经济学在劳动价值论上的犹疑，根本上源于其未能深入考察劳动作为价值实体的特定社会形式。马克思认为，构成价值实体的劳动是质性无差别的抽象人类劳动。因此，价值量只与抽象劳动时间有关，而与具体劳动时间无关。于是，一个无法回避的问题随之显现：如何衡量抽象劳动时间?这个问题要求考察劳动抽象化与劳动时间化的内在关联，而这构成了重新理解抽象劳动与社会必要劳动时间的理论入口。

Many scholars believe that Marx’s two different and seemingly contradictory definitions of abstract labour precisely render the measurement of abstract labour and the determination of the magnitude of value fraught with difficulty. On the one hand, Marx defines abstract labour as “the expenditure of human labour-power,” i.e., “the expenditure of brain, muscle, nerve, hand, etc., of man,” and after stripping away all qualitative content, this abstract labour can only be measured by the quantity of its duration. In this sense, the “abstractness” of abstract labour seems to refer to the natural attribute of human labour-power. On the other hand, Marx repeatedly emphasises that abstract labour as value-objectivity “is purely social,” and it is generated only in the social form of exchange of equivalents. According to this definition, abstract labour is a specific social relation, which “simply cannot be expended” and cannot be directly measured by labour time, because “the labour time that can be measured by a clock is always the time of a specific concrete labour expended by a specific individual.” Thus, abstract labour exhibits a contradictory duality, being both natural-physiological and social-historical. This formulation by Marx has sparked protracted controversy. For example, Rubin argues that “it is impossible to reconcile the physiological concept of abstract labour with the historical character of the value it creates.” The Neue Marx-Lektüre school holds that it is precisely this definition from the perspective of physiological expenditure that leads to Marx’s theory of value being misidentified as a “theory of the magnitude of value.” Although these critiques touch upon the internal tension in the concept of abstract labour, they fail to reveal the social construction underlying it.

不少学者认为，马克思对抽象劳动作出的两种不同且看似矛盾的界定，恰恰使抽象劳动的计量和价值量的衡量变得困难重重。一方面，马克思将抽象劳动界定为“人类劳动力的耗费”，即“人的脑、肌肉、神经、手等等的生产耗费”，在撇除一切质性内容后，这种抽象劳动只能用持续的时间量来衡量。在这个意义上，抽象劳动的“抽象性”似乎是指人类劳动力的自然属性。另一方面，马克思又多次强调，抽象劳动作为价值对象性“纯粹是社会的”，它仅在等价交换的社会交往形式中生成。按照这种界定，抽象劳动是一种特定的社会关系，这种社会关系“根本无法被耗费”，也无法直接用劳动时间来衡量，因为“能用钟表衡量的劳动时间，都是一种由特定的个人耗费的、特定的具体劳动的时间”。由此，抽象劳动呈现出既具有自然生理性、又具有社会历史性的矛盾的双重性。马克思的这一表述引发了旷日持久的争议。例如，鲁宾认为，“把抽象劳动的生理意义概念同它所创造的价值的历史性质调和起来是不可能的”。新马克思阅读学派则认为，正是这种从生理耗费的角度作出的定义，导致马克思的价值理论被误认为“价值量理论”。这些批评虽触及了抽象劳动概念的内在张力，却未能揭示其背后的社会构造。

Marx’s dual “physiological-social” definition of abstract labour is not a theoretical oversight but a key hinge for understanding his theory of value and its temporal determination. First, the physiological dimension of abstract labour reveals the fundamental illusion of the fetishism of value: value is not generated out of nothing in exchange, nor can it increase infinitely in circulation. Second, the fact that different concrete labours are regarded as expenditures of the same labour-power is by no means a transcendental natural determination, but rather “an abstraction brought about by capital.” [16]16 “An abstraction brought about by capital”: A reference to Marx’s argument in the *Grundrisse* that the abstraction of labour into general labour is not merely a mental operation but a real historical process driven by the development of capital, which reduces all concrete labours to homogeneous human labour-power. In the production logic of capital, the specific determination of labour as the substance of value is irrelevant; what matters is whether it can function as variable capital as a simple labour-power. Therefore, labour is reduced to a mere expenditure of labour-power or a calculable quantity of time. This phenomenon, physiological in appearance, in fact contains a profound social meaning. Marx emphasises that “in the process of creating value, the same labour process only manifests its quantitative aspect. What is involved is only the time required for the labour operation, or only the length of time during which labour-power is usefully consumed… Whether it is the labour contained in the means of production or the labour added by labour-power, it is calculated only according to the time measure.” This means that the temporalisation of labour is not only the condition for the abstraction of labour but also a necessary link in its valorisation.

马克思对抽象劳动的“生理性—社会性”的双重界定，并非理论上的疏漏，而是理解其价值理论及时间规定的关键枢纽。首先，抽象劳动的生理维度揭示了价值拜物教的根本幻象：价值并非在交换中凭空生成，更不可能在流通中无限增值。其次，不同具体劳动被看作同一劳动力的耗费，绝非先验的自然规定，而是“资本造成的抽象”。在资本的生产逻辑中，劳动作为价值实体，其特殊规定是无关紧要的，重要的是它能否作为一种简单的劳动力发挥可变资本的功能。因此，劳动被简化成单纯的劳动力耗费或可计算的时间量，这一生理学意义上的现象实则蕴含着深刻的社会意义。马克思强调，“在价值形成过程中，同一劳动过程只是表现出它的量的方面。所涉及的只是劳动操作所需要的时间，或者说，只是劳动力被有用地消耗的时间长度……无论是包含在生产资料中的劳动，或者是由劳动力加进去的劳动，都只按时间尺度计算”。这意味着，劳动的时间化不仅是劳动抽象化的条件，还是其价值化的必要环节。

The temporalisation of labour is not the measurement of concrete labour by an external abstract time, but the process in which concrete labour is transformed into abstract labour time within the value relation. This transformation process has a dialectical character: “On the one hand, commodities must enter the exchange process as objectified general labour time; on the other hand, individual labour time as the objectification of general labour time is itself only the product of the exchange process.” Before exchange, concrete labour must be organised and carried out according to a specific abstract time measure, but this measure acquires actual validity only when it is confirmed as socially necessary labour time through exchange. This dialectical process cannot be simply understood as a linear process from production to exchange. According to Marx’s analysis of the circuit of capital, the production process and the circulation process are “simultaneous” in the movement of capital. Therefore, the temporalisation of labour includes both the reshaping of concrete labour by abstract time and the dynamic process of the generation of socially necessary labour time.

劳动时间化并非用外在的抽象时间去衡量具体劳动，而是具体劳动在价值关系中转化为抽象劳动时间的过程。这个转化过程具有辩证性质：“一方面，商品必须作为对象化一般劳动时间进入交换过程，另一方面，个人劳动时间作为一般劳动时间的对象化，本身又只是交换过程的产物。”在交换之前，具体劳动必须按照特定的抽象时间尺度来组织和实施，但这种尺度只有经由交换确认为社会必要劳动时间，才具有现实有效性。这一辩证过程不能被简单理解为从生产到交换的线性过程。根据马克思对资本循环的分析，生产过程和流通过程在资本运动中是“同时进行的”。因此，劳动时间化既包括抽象时间对具体劳动的重塑，也包括社会必要劳动时间的动态生成过程。

The scientific analysis method of Taylorism exemplifies the process of the temporalisation of labour. Frederick Taylor, by studying the time and motions of workers’ operational processes, designed a set of scientific operational norms, thereby maximising production efficiency and output. Taylor emphasised that the core of time study is not to record the actual time spent, but to set a standard time that a job “ought” to take. To this end, management needs to break down the work into basic elements and time them using unit times. Alfred Sohn-Rethel emphasises that “the essence of Taylorism lies in the fact that the standard of labour timing cannot be mistaken for an empirical summary of the workers’ own work”; this time standard is a temporal norm actively formulated and imposed on workers by management according to production needs.

泰勒制科学分析方式例证了劳动时间化的过程。弗雷德里克·泰勒通过研究工人操作过程的时间和动作，设计出一套科学的操作规范，从而让生产效率和产量实现最大化。泰勒强调，时间研究的核心并非记录实际花费的时间，而是设定一项工作“应当”花费的标准时间。为此，管理者需要将工作拆解为基本要素，并用单位时间来对它们计时。阿尔弗雷德·索恩-雷特尔强调，“泰勒制的精髓在于：劳动计时的标准不能被误认为是工人自身工作的经验总结”，这种时间标准是管理者根据生产需求主动制定并强加于工人的时间规范。

Sohn-Rethel further argues that Taylorism embodies three links in the transformation of concrete labour into abstract labour time: “empirical time → coercive time → synthetic time.” Empirical time refers to the time actually elapsed in concrete labour; its division depends on the work situation and content, thus lacking a unified, quantifiable unit standard. Coercive time is an externally imposed temporal system; management extracts time from the content of concrete labour and quantifies it, thereby forming a measurement framework independent of actual labour experience. Based on this framework, labour elements are re-decomposed and recombined, and mathematical models are used to present the “natural laws” in commodity production. On this basis, so-called “synthetic time” emerges: an abstract time standard entirely set by calculative rationality, which can even presuppose work processes and time configurations that have never been actually performed. This fictional temporal mode, detached from concrete labour experience and generated by rational calculation, is continuously reproduced and intensified in today’s ubiquitous algorithmic labour and digital platform management.

索恩-雷特尔进一步认为，泰勒制体现了具体劳动转化为抽象劳动时间的三个环节：“经验时间(empirical time)→强制时间(coercive time)→综合时间(synthetic time)”。经验时间是指具体劳动中实际流逝的时间，其划分取决于工作情境和内容，因而缺乏统一的、可量化的单位标准。强制时间则是一种外在施加的时间制度，管理者将时间从具体劳动内容中抽离，并加以量化处理，由此形成独立于实际劳动经验的度量框架。基于这一框架，劳动要素被重新拆解、组合，并用数学模型呈现出商品生产中的“自然规律”。在此基础上，便产生了所谓“综合时间”：一种完全由计算理性设定的抽象时间标准，它甚至可以预设从未被实际操作过的工作流程和时间配置。这种脱离具体劳动经验、由理性演算生成的虚构时间模式，在当今无处不在的算法化劳动和数字平台管理中被不断复制与强化。

The process of the temporalisation of labour shows that the function of abstract labour time as the magnitude of value is not to measure a pre-existing, fixed concrete labour process, but to continuously “manufacture” abstract reality, impelling concrete labour to constantly approach and conform to the requirements of socially necessary labour time. So-called socially necessary labour time refers to “the labour time required to produce a use-value under the conditions of production normal for a given society and with the average degree of skill and intensity of labour prevalent in that society.” The “normal conditions” and “average level” here are less a statistical induction from existing labour experience than a socially transcendentalised norm and production imperative, which continuously measure, shape, and discipline the actual labour process to satisfy the logic of capital’s valorisation. Just as “the measure helps construct the object being measured,” abstract time, through its own homogenising mechanism, shapes concrete labour into actual abstract labour. Abstract labour time, as a mode of measurement capable of actively reshaping the measured object, constitutes the core link of the valorisation mechanism. Its key lies not in the precise calculation of the time consumption of the concrete labour process, but in the temporalisation and quantification of all labour objects through an abstract temporal scale—regardless of whether these objects themselves can be quantified by time.

劳动时间化过程表明，作为价值量的抽象劳动时间，其功能并不在于测量一个预先存在、固定不变的具体劳动过程，而在于持续不断地“制造”抽象的现实，促使具体劳动不断趋近并符合社会必要劳动时间的要求。所谓社会必要劳动时间，是指“在现有的社会正常的生产条件下，在社会平均的劳动熟练程度和劳动强度下制造某种使用价值所需要的劳动时间”。这里的“正常条件”和“平均水平”，与其说是从既有劳动经验中统计归纳而来，不如说是被社会先验化的规范和生产律令，它们持续地衡量、塑造并规训实际劳动过程，以满足资本增殖的逻辑。正如“尺度帮助建构了被衡量的对象”，抽象时间通过自身的同质化机制，将具体劳动塑造成现实的抽象劳动。抽象劳动时间，作为一种能够主动重塑被计量对象的计量方式，构成了价值化机制的核心环节。它的关键不在于对具体劳动过程的时间消耗进行精确计算，而在于通过抽象化的时间尺度，对一切劳动对象实施时间化和量化——无论这些对象本身是否能够用时间来量化。

On the basis of re-understanding socially necessary labour-time and its temporalization mechanism, we can more accurately grasp the “crisis of measurability” in the era of immaterial labour. This crisis is not a unique product of new forms of labour but a recurrent, inherent phenomenon in capitalist production; it is precisely this “normal state of crisis” that makes socially necessary labour-time a necessary regulatory mechanism. Like the products of concrete labour, the products of immaterial labour cannot have their value directly measured by the time actually expended. Capital must rely on an external and coercive temporal yardstick to ensure that any form of concrete labour (including both material and immaterial labour) is uniformly measured and thereby enters the system of equivalent exchange. Marx points out: “Private labour carried on independently of each other, but as naturally developed branches of the social division of labour, are constantly being reduced to their socially proportional scale, because in the accidental and ever-fluctuating exchange relations of the products of private labour, the socially necessary labour-time required for their production forcibly asserts itself as a regulative law of nature, in the same way that the law of gravity asserts itself when a house falls on one’s head.” [17]17 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 1, Section 3. The translation follows the standard English edition. Therefore, the “crisis of measurability” does not pose a genuine challenge to Marx’s theory of value. What Marx is concerned with is not how to precisely calculate value, but how capital, through the mechanism of abstract time, continuously produces a measurable abstract reality and thereby sustains its valorization and domination.

在重新理解社会必要劳动时间及其时间化机制的基础上，我们可以更准确地理解非物质劳动时代的“可计量性危机”。这种危机并非新型劳动形式的独特产物，而是资本主义生产中反复出现、内在固有的现象，正是这一“危机常态”促使社会必要劳动时间成为一种必要的调节机制。非物质劳动产品和具体劳动产品一样，都不能直接以实际耗费的时间来衡量其价值。资本必须依赖一种外在而强制的时间尺度，才能保证任何形式的具体劳动(包括物质劳动和非物质劳动)被统一度量，并使其进入等价交换体系。马克思指出：“彼此独立进行的、但作为自然形成的社会分工部分而互相全面依赖的私人劳动，不断地被化为它们的社会的比例尺度，这是因为在私人劳动产品的偶然的不断变动的交换比例中，生产这些产品的社会必要劳动时间作为起调节作用的自然规律强制地为自己开辟道路，就像房屋倒在人的头上时重力定律强制地为自己开辟道路一样。”因此，“可计量性危机”并未对马克思的价值理论构成真正的挑战。马克思关注的并非如何精确计算价值，而是资本如何通过抽象时间机制持续生产出可计量的抽象现实，并由此维系其增殖与统治。

Furthermore, if immaterial labour cannot be subsumed under the determination of socially necessary labour-time, it cannot be transformed into value in the capitalist sense. The specific time taken for the first idea or innovation may be difficult to calculate precisely, but the value measurement of the second idea or innovation is very clear: it must take less time than the first. Socially necessary labour-time has never been a fixed unit of time or an unchanging temporal scope; it always conveys to every producer the temporal imperative of the law of valorization: either accelerate or be eliminated. In contemporary production dominated by immaterial labour, the intensity of this speed competition far exceeds that of traditional industrial labour, and it is precisely this reality that has given rise to various accelerationist theories. In fact, Marx had already pointed out that even if direct labour-time in capitalist production continuously decreases, this does not weaken the function of socially necessary labour-time as the measure of value: “On the one hand, capital calls to life all the powers of science and of nature, as well as of social combination and of social intercourse, in order to make the creation of wealth independent (relatively) of the labour-time employed in it. On the other hand, capital wants to use labour-time as the measure of the vast social forces thus created, and to confine them within the limits required to maintain the already created value as value.” [18]18 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, Notebook VII, “The Fragment on Machines.” The translation follows the standard English edition. Here, the former “labour-time” refers to concrete labour-time actually expended, while the latter refers to socially necessary labour-time; the latter, as a socially recognized temporal norm, reshapes creative labour that is difficult to quantify into commodities with equivalence and comparability.

进一步说，非物质劳动若不能被纳入社会必要劳动时间的规定中，就无法转化为资本意义上的价值。第一个想法或创新的具体耗时或许难以精确计算，但是第二个想法或创新的价值衡量却非常明确：必须少于上一个想法和创新所花费的时间。社会必要劳动时间从来都不是固定的时间单位和不变的时间范围，它始终向每一个生产者传达着价值增值规律的时间律令：要么加速，要么被淘汰。在非物质劳动主导的当代生产中，这种速度竞赛的激烈程度远远超过传统工业劳动，正是这一现实催生了诸种加速主义理论。事实上，马克思早已指出，即使资本主义生产中直接劳动时间不断减少，也不会削弱社会必要劳动时间作为价值尺度的功能：“一方面，资本唤起科学和自然界的一切力量，同样也唤起社会结合和社会交往的一切力量，以便使财富的创造不取决于(相对地)耗费在这种创造上的劳动时间。另一方面，资本想用劳动时间去衡量这样造出来的巨大的社会力量，并把这些力量限制在为了把已经创造的价值作为价值来保存所需要的限度之内。”在这里，前一个“劳动时间”是指具体耗费的劳动时间，后一个“劳动时间”则是指社会必要劳动时间，后者作为被社会承认的时间规范，将难以量化的创造性劳动重塑成具有等价性和可比性的商品。

The new forms of labour dominated by immaterial labour have not transcended the value logic measured by socially necessary labour-time; on the contrary, they have intensified temporal domination and temporal exploitation, making them more concealed. In creative, knowledge-based, and affective labour, the dominant abstract time no longer appears in a rigid and coercive form but is wrapped in seemingly liberating narratives such as “flexibility,” “self-realization,” and “continuous innovation,” silently infiltrating the worker’s everyday sense of time and subjective construction. The boundary between working time and life time is increasingly dissolved, not by directly abolishing the distinction between necessary labour-time and surplus labour-time, but by turning all of the worker’s time into potential surplus labour-time. Workers must “spontaneously” respond at any moment, update instantly, and produce continuously, in order to meet the ever-rising efficiency requirements of socially necessary labour-time. This logic of acceleration generates a persistent, inescapable sense of temporal anxiety. At the same time, the apparent immediacy, lightness, and dematerialization of immaterial labour conceal its profound connection to the global division of labour: against the backdrop of technological acceleration, the labour-intensive industries that underpin digital platforms and knowledge products exhibit even more extreme overtime labour and super-exploitation. In this sense, immaterial labour is precisely a labour form in which the temporalization of labour is further expanded.

以非物质劳动为主导的新劳动形式，非但没有超越以社会必要劳动时间为尺度的价值逻辑，反而加剧了时间统治和时间剥削，并使其变得更加隐蔽。在创意、知识和情感劳动中，支配性的抽象时间不再以僵化和强制的形式出现，而是被包裹在“灵活性”“自我实现”“持续创新”等看似解放性的叙事中，悄无声息地渗入劳动者的日常时间感与主观性建构之中。工作时间和生活时间的边界日益消解，并非直接取消了必要劳动时间和剩余劳动时间的界限，而是让劳动者的所有时间都变成潜在的剩余劳动时间。劳动者不得不“自发地”随时响应、即时更新、持续产出，以满足社会必要劳动时间所不断抬高的效率要求。这种加速逻辑制造了一种持续的、难以摆脱的时间焦虑感。与此同时，非物质劳动表面上的即时性、轻盈性和去物质化特征，掩盖了它与全球劳动分工之间的深刻关联：在技术加速的背景下，那些支撑数字平台与知识产品的劳动密集型产业，反而呈现出更加极端化的超时劳动和超强度剥削。在这个意义上，非物质劳动恰恰是劳动时间化进一步扩大的劳动形式。

Therefore, although forms of labour continue to evolve, under the dominance of the capitalist logic of production, socially necessary labour-time remains the hidden core of the value mechanism, deepening temporal domination in new forms. This precisely demonstrates the sustained explanatory power and critical force of Marx’s critique of time for understanding the new forms of contemporary labour.

因此，尽管劳动形式不断演变，但在资本主义生产逻辑的主导下，社会必要劳动时间依然是价值机制的隐性核心，并以新的形式深化时间统治。这恰恰体现了马克思时间批判理论对于理解当代劳动新形态的持续解释力与批判力。

Conclusion

结语

The preceding investigation shows that both the Neue Marx-Lektüre’s reinterpretation of the value form and autonomism’s emphasis on the “crisis of measurability” have, to a certain extent, broken through the limitation of traditional labour theory of value, which treats time as a natural, neutral yardstick. The Neue Marx-Lektüre emphasizes the social form of value, revealing the social relations constructed behind labour and exchange; autonomism, through its analysis of immaterial labour and biopolitical products, points to the difficulties and crises faced by the logic of measuring labour-time under the conditions of digital capitalism. Although these two approaches provide important critical methods or diagnoses of reality, neither fully reveals the historical construction and social logic of the temporal system in capitalist society. They either inadequately analyze the social form of the magnitude of value, or overemphasize the surface features of changes in labour forms, failing to explain in depth how the logic of capital achieves domination over labour and life through the mechanism of time.

前文的考察表明，无论是新马克思阅读学派对价值形式的重释，还是自治主义对“可计量性危机”的强调，都在一定程度上突破了传统劳动价值论中将时间视为自然中立尺度的思维局限。新马克思阅读学派强调价值的社会形式，揭示了劳动与交换背后的社会关系建构；自治主义则通过对非物质劳动和生命政治产品的分析，指出劳动时间计量逻辑在数字资本主义条件下面临的困境和危机。这两种路径虽然提供了重要的批判方法或现实诊断，但都未能充分揭示资本主义社会中时间制度的历史建构与社会逻辑。它们要么对价值量问题的社会形式分析不足，要么过度强调劳动形态变迁的表层特征，未能深入说明资本逻辑如何通过时间机制实现对劳动与生活的统治。

Marx’s theory of value actually contains a more profound critical perspective on time than these two approaches. He does not affirmatively inherit the principle of classical political economy that “value is determined by labour-time,” but rather, in a negative and critical manner, reveals the historical preconditions, social construction, and dominating effects of the temporal yardstick. Labour-time becomes the measure of value only on the precondition of a universally developed system of commodity exchange. To cope with the “crisis of measurability” — the difficulty of uniformly measuring the products of concrete labour — the logic of capital creates a system of value-time that is decoupled from natural time and life-time, thereby maintaining equivalent exchange and valorization. This abstract value-time, through the mechanism of the equalization of social conditions of production, not only imposes itself as a universal standard of measurement on all kinds of concrete labour, but also continuously penetrates every pore of social life, transforming life-time into infinitely divisible, exchangeable, and continuously accumulable units of time. In this abstract process of temporalization, the worker’s subjective experience, creativity, and even affective labour are all reorganized into value objects that conform to the requirements of socially necessary labour-time and are incorporated into capital’s circuit of valorization. Socially necessary labour-time is not only a historically constructed measure of value but also a key mechanism through which capital implements abstract domination, disciplines labour, and controls life. Marx’s critique is not a technical reflection on the logic of measurement but a holistic revelation of the political economy of time under capitalism. Thus, Marx’s critique of time reveals the structural operation of time as a mechanism of social power, providing important theoretical resources for understanding and resisting the temporal domination of contemporary capitalism and for rethinking the real possibility of free time.

马克思的价值理论实际上蕴含着比这两种路径更为深刻的时间批判视角。他并不是以肯定的方式承接古典政治经济学所主张的“价值决定于劳动时间”的原则，而是以否定和批判的方式，揭示出时间尺度的历史前提、社会构造及其统治效应。劳动时间成为价值尺度，是以普遍发展的商品交换体系为前提的。为了应对具体劳动产品难以得到统一衡量的“可计量性危机”，资本逻辑制造出一个与自然时间和生命时间相脱钩的价值时间体系，以此维系等价交换和价值增值。这种抽象的价值时间通过社会生产条件的平均化机制，不仅作为普遍的计量标准施加于各种具体劳动之上，而且不断渗透进社会生活的每一个毛孔，将生命时间转化为可无限分割、可交换并持续积累的单位时间。在这一抽象的时间化过程中，劳动者的主观体验、创造性乃至情感劳动，都被重组为符合社会必要劳动时间要求的价值对象，并被纳入资本的增殖回路。社会必要劳动时间不仅是一种历史性建构的价值尺度，更是资本实施抽象统治、规训劳动和生命的关键机制。马克思的批判不是对计量逻辑的技术性反思，而是对资本主义时间政治经济学的整体性揭示。由此，马克思的时间批判揭示了时间作为社会权力机制的结构性运作，为我们理解和抵抗当代资本主义的时间统治，重新思考自由时间的现实可能性提供了重要的理论资源。