The Concretization of Labor: The Pivot of the “Two Great Discoveries”

In his speech at Marx’s graveside, Engels regarded the materialist conception of history and the theory of surplus value as Marx’s “two great discoveries.” “These two great discoveries – the materialist conception of history and the revelation of the secret of capitalist production through surplus value – are both due to Marx. With these two discoveries, socialism became scientific.” Labor is precisely the pivot of the “two great discoveries.” For the materialist conception of history, the reason it was established is that it confirmed the foundational status of labor, i.e., material production, in the history of human social development. For the theory of surplus value, without the dual character of labor and the labor theory of value, a scientific theory of surplus value would be impossible. This is the important position of labor in the development of Marx’s philosophy.

在《在马克思墓前的讲话》中，恩格斯把唯物史观和剩余价值理论视为马克思的“两个伟大发现”。“这两个伟大的发现——唯物主义历史观和通过剩余价值解开资本主义生产的秘密，都应当归功于马克思。由于这两个发现，社会主义变成了科学。”劳动正是“两个伟大发现”的枢纽。对唯物史观而言，唯物史观之所以创立，就是确认了劳动即物质生产在人类社会发展史上的基础性地位。对剩余价值理论而言，没有劳动二重性与劳动价值论，就不可能得出科学的剩余价值理论。这便是劳动在马克思的哲学发展历程中的重要地位。

In *The German Ideology*, Marx and Engels not only used material production to lay the foundation for the materialist conception of history, but, more importantly, they also created through labor a “new worldview” that broke with speculative philosophy. In their view, the Young Hegelians’ attempts to transcend Hegelian philosophy through concepts such as “self-consciousness” and “the Unique One” “never left the ground of philosophy.” To leave the ground of Hegel’s speculative philosophy, one had to move from the interior of the world of ideas to its exterior; only then could one see through the dependence of ideas on social reality, thereby dismantling the appearance of the “independence” of ideas. To accomplish such a philosophical transformation, it was necessary to reflect, as a precondition, on the relationship between social being and social consciousness. On this point, Marx and Engels took a decisive step: “Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious being, and the being of men is their actual life-process.” Once they shifted the foundation of philosophy from social consciousness to social being, they had to deeply reveal the basis on which “social being” exists. This basis is labor as sensuous activity. On this point, Marx and Engels explicitly identified that “this activity, this continuous sensuous labor and creation, this production, is the foundation of the whole sensuous world as it now exists.” At this point, labor was established as the ontological foundation of the sensuous world; this is the new worldview of Marx and Engels.

在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思、恩格斯不仅用物质生产为唯物史观奠基，更重要的是，他们还通过劳动创立了一种与思辨哲学决裂的“新世界观”。在他们看来，青年黑格尔派试图通过“自我意识”“唯一者”等观念超越黑格尔哲学的做法，“都没有离开过哲学的基地”。想要离开黑格尔的思辨哲学基地，就要从观念世界的内部走向观念世界的外部，如此才能透视观念对于社会现实的依赖性，由此瓦解观念的“独立性”外表。要完成这样的哲学变革，必须前提性地反思社会存在与社会意识的关系。对此，马克思、恩格斯迈出了具有决定性的一步：“意识在任何时候都只能是被意识到了的存在，而人们的存在就是他们的现实生活过程。”当他们把哲学的根基从社会意识移到社会存在之后，就必须深入揭示“社会存在”何以存在的根据。这个根据便是作为感性活动的劳动。对此，马克思、恩格斯明确指认，“这种活动、这种连续不断的感性劳动和创造、这种生产，正是整个现存的感性世界的基础”。至此，劳动被确立为感性世界的存在论根据，这便是马克思、恩格斯的新世界观。

However, with only the concept of labor in the sense of sensuous activity, Marx could not yet directly bridge the materialist conception of history and the theory of surplus value. This is because the concept of labor in the sense of sensuous activity is still only material production in a general sense. Academia has keenly realized that material production in a general sense can only explain the general process of change in human society in a broad sense; it cannot yet penetrate the capitalist society with its specific socio-historical determinations, nor can it directly transition to the theory of surplus value. In *The Poverty of Philosophy*, Marx laid the cornerstone for the connection of the “two great discoveries”; this is the concretization of labor. That is to say, labor is no longer an abstract philosophical principle but is transformed into the mode of material production under specific social relations. And this decisive step was realized precisely in Marx’s critique of Proudhon.

然而，仅凭感性活动意义上的劳动概念，马克思还无法在唯物史观和剩余价值理论之间直接架设桥梁。这是因为，感性活动意义上的劳动概念还只是一般意义上的物质生产。学术界已经敏锐地意识到，一般意义上的物质生产只能说明广义的人类社会的一般变迁过程，还无法透视具有社会历史规定性的资本主义社会，亦无法直接过渡到剩余价值理论。在《哲学的贫困》中，马克思为“两个伟大发现”的联结奠定了基石，这便是劳动的具体化，也就是说，劳动不再是抽象的哲学原则，而是转变为特定社会关系下的物质生产方式。而这具有决定性意义的一步，正是在马克思对蒲鲁东的批判中实现的。

Proudhon was a typical figure who understood labor merely as an abstract principle. Starting from the principle of “equality of labor,” Proudhon discovered that the actual social condition is one where capitalists, by virtue of land and capital, dominate the wealth of the entire society. This is undoubtedly a form of “theft,” violating the principle of equality that the remuneration of individual laborers should be proportional to their labor. Proudhon believed that to achieve social equality in a real sense, it was necessary to construct an egalitarian society where everyone engages in equivalent exchange based on equal amounts of labor. In *The Philosophy of Poverty*, Proudhon argued that the “exchange value” of political economy distorts the inherent value of labor products. In market exchange, every commodity owner hopes to buy low and sell high to profit from the price difference. However, this price difference brought about by exchange value is precisely the enemy of equality, because it hinders genuine equivalent exchange. On this point, Marx provides an extremely vivid description: “Here, too, the stupidity of the socialists (especially the French socialists, who want to prove that socialism is the realization of the ideals of bourgeois society proclaimed by the French Revolution) is exposed: they argue that exchange, exchange value, etc., originally (in time) or according to their concept (in their most appropriate form) are a system of universal freedom and equality, but are distorted by money, capital, etc.” In Proudhon’s view, the only way for commodity exchange not to be distorted by factors such as money and capital is to realize equivalent exchange with equal amounts of labor; only then can true social equality be achieved. This is Proudhon’s “theory of value.”

蒲鲁东把劳动仅仅理解为抽象原则的典型人物。蒲鲁东从“劳动平等”的原则出发，发现现实的社会状况是资本家凭借土地和资本支配着整个社会的财富。这无疑是一种“盗窃”，违背了个体劳动者的报酬应与他们的劳动成正比的平等原则。蒲鲁东认为，要想实现真正意义上的社会平等，就必须建构人人根据等量劳动来实行等价交换的平等社会。在《贫困的哲学》中，蒲鲁东认为，政治经济学的“交换价值”扭曲了劳动产品的固有价值。在市场交换中，每个商品所有者都希望低买高卖，以赚取差价。然而，由交换价值带来的这种差价正是平等的敌人，因为它妨碍了真正的等价交换。对此，马克思有个极为生动的描述：“这里也恰好暴露了社会主义者的愚蠢（特别是法国社会主义者的愚蠢，他们想要证明，社会主义就是实现由法国革命所宣告的资产阶级社会的理想），他们论证说，交换、交换价值等等最初（在时间上）或者按其概念（在其最适当的形式上）是普遍自由和平等的制度，但是被货币、资本等等歪曲了。”在蒲鲁东看来，商品交换要想不被货币、资本等因素歪曲，唯一的办法就是以等量劳动实现等价交换，如此才能实现真正的社会平等。这便是蒲鲁东的“价值理论”。

On this point, Marx precisely discerned Proudhon’s theoretical defect: “To sum up: labor itself is a commodity, measured as a commodity by the labor time necessary to produce this commodity, labor.” This means that the crux of Proudhon’s entire problem lies in the fact that his “equivalent exchange based on equal amounts of labor” solidifies the structure of the “commodification of labor power.” As Marx said, “On the assumption that the quantity of labor is equal, the product of one person is exchanged for the product of another. All people are wage workers, and all are workers who receive equal remuneration for equal labor time.” Marx punctured Proudhon’s illusion: the free and equal commodity owners he imagined turned out to be nothing but wage laborers selling the commodity of labor power; he saw that all labor is objectified into commodities, but he failed to see the most special and most crucial commodity of all, namely, the commodity of labor power. It is precisely this key theoretical blind spot that led Proudhon to the misconception that social equality can be achieved as long as equivalent exchange is the premise. Little did he know that, under the conditions of the commodification of labor power, social inequality is precisely premised on equivalent exchange, especially on the “equivalent exchange” of the commodity of labor power. Marx concluded: “Relative value, measured by labor time, is inevitably the formula of the modern enslavement of the worker, and not the ‘revolutionary theory’ of the emancipation of the proletariat that M. Proudhon hopes for.”

对此，马克思精准洞悉了蒲鲁东的理论缺陷，“总括起来就是：劳动本身就是商品，它是作为商品由生产劳动这种商品所必需的劳动时间来衡量的”。这意味着，蒲鲁东的全部症结在于，他的“根据等量劳动实行等价交换”固化了“劳动力商品化”的结构。正如马克思所说，“在劳动量相等的前提下，一个人的产品和另一个人的产品相交换。所有的人都是雇佣工人，而且都是以相等劳动时间得到相等报酬的工人”。马克思戳破了蒲鲁东的幻象：他所设想的自由而平等的商品所有者，原来只是出卖劳动力商品的雇佣劳动者；他看到了所有劳动都物化为商品，唯独没有看到一种最为特殊也最为关键的商品，即劳动力商品。正是这一关键的理论盲区使蒲鲁东产生错觉：只要以等价交换为前提，就能实现社会平等。殊不知，在劳动力商品化的条件下，社会不平等恰恰是以等价交换为前提的，特别是以劳动力商品的“等价交换”为前提的。马克思得出结论：“由劳动时间衡量的相对价值注定是工人遭受现代奴役的公式，而不是蒲鲁东先生所希望的无产阶级求得解放的‘革命理论’。”

It is worth further asking: why did Proudhon only see the principle of “equal labor, equivalent exchange,” but fail to see the structure of the commodification of labor power? This is because Proudhon’s understanding of labor always remained at the level of abstract principle; he never deeply analyzed the specific mode of production of labor and its unfolding process, lacking the shift in perspective toward the “concretization of labor.” Proudhon’s “equality of labor” refers to taking labor as the principle for distributing social wealth, and its theoretical premise is precisely Locke’s principle of the right to labor, “I labor, I possess.” What he failed to see is that the principle of the right to labor, “I labor, I possess,” is only applicable to the era of manufacture. In the era of large-scale machine industry, bourgeois ownership is no longer based on one’s own labor but on the exploitation of others’ labor. This means that the equality Proudhon pursued was destined to be an anachronistic utopia in the era of large-scale machine industry. The reason Proudhon fell into theoretical confusion is that his “labor” was merely an abstract principle, whereas Marx’s “labor” was the concrete mode of material production.

值得进一步追问的是，为什么蒲鲁东只看到“等量劳动、等价交换”的原则，而看不到劳动力商品化的结构？这是因为，蒲鲁东对劳动的理解始终停留在抽象原则，从未深入分析劳动的具体生产方式及其展开过程，缺乏“劳动具体化”的视域转换。蒲鲁东的“劳动平等”是指把劳动作为社会财富分配的原则，其理论前提正是洛克“我劳动、我占有”的劳动所有权原则。他没有看到的是，“我劳动、我占有”的劳动所有权原则，只适用于工场手工业时代。到了机器化大工业时代，资产阶级所有权不再建立在自身劳动的基础上，而是建立在剥削他人劳动的基础上。这意味着，蒲鲁东追求的平等在机器化大工业时代注定是时代错乱的空想。蒲鲁东之所以陷入理论迷思，是因为他的“劳动”仅仅是抽象的原则，而马克思的“劳动”则是具体的物质生产方式。

In contrast, Marx, in *The Communist Manifesto*, entered the theoretical horizon of the “concretization of labor.” Starting from the concrete mode of material production, he profoundly recognized that with the transformation of the mode of production from manufacture to large-scale machine industry, the mode of combination between the laborer and the means of labor also underwent a tremendous change. In the stage of manufacture, the laborer and the means of labor were not completely separated; the rise of large-scale machine industry led to the dissolution of manufacture, which in turn led to the separation of the laborer from the means of labor, thereby giving rise to a proletariat forced to sell its labor power, inevitably leading to class differentiation and even class antagonism.

相比之下，马克思在《共产党宣言》中进入了“劳动具体化”的理论视域中，从具体的物质生产方式出发，深刻地认识到：随着工场手工业的生产方式转变为机器化大工业生产方式，劳动者与劳动资料的结合方式也发生巨大转变。在工场手工业阶段，劳动者与劳动资料没有完全分离；而机器化大工业崛起导致了工场手工业的解体，进而导致劳动者与劳动资料的分离，由此出现被迫出卖劳动力的无产阶级，因而必将导致阶级分化乃至阶级对立。

It is precisely by virtue of the concretization of labor that Marx recognized, in the *Grundrisse* (1857–1858), the historicity of labor—namely, that “labor in general” is “an abstraction which, as a category of the most modern society, is actually true in this abstraction, although it is an ancient and valid relation for all forms of society, and is therefore placed at the head of modern economics.” According to the principle of historicity, the concretization of labor means finding the social-historical specificity of the concrete mode of material production, rather than stopping at the concept of labor in general. Proceeding from this, Marx realized that “abstract labor,” as one of the two-fold character of labor, is not “the simplest abstraction applicable to all forms of society,” but rather a concept that is concretized and can only be realized in a society where the total social labor takes the form of private labor. Under the conditions of capitalism, labor is concretized into wage labor, i.e., the commodification of labor-power. It is precisely on this basis that Marx was able to derive the theory of surplus value, and thereby “unlock the secret of capitalist production.” If one were to remain at the level of the concept of labor in general, one could at most understand capitalist production as a “general material production process,” while failing to see the more essential “process of valorization.”

正是凭借着劳动的具体化，马克思在《1857-1858年经济学手稿》中认识到劳动的历史性，即劳动一般“这给现代经济学提到首位的、表现出一种古老而适用于一切社会形式的关系的最简单的抽象，只有作为最现代的社会的范畴，才在这种抽象中表现为实际上真实的东西”。根据历史性原则，劳动的具体化就是要找到具体物质生产方式的社会历史规定性，而不是停留于一般意义上的劳动概念。由此出发，马克思意识到，作为劳动二重性之一的“抽象劳动”并不是“适用于一切社会形式”的“最简单的抽象”，而是被具体化为只有在社会总劳动采取私人劳动形式的社会中才可能实现的概念。资本主义条件下的劳动被具体化为雇佣劳动，亦即劳动力的商品化，马克思正是在这一基础上才能得出剩余价值理论，进而“解开资本主义生产的秘密”。如果是停留在一般意义上的劳动概念，充其量只能把资本主义生产理解为“一般物质生产过程”，而看不到更为本质的“价值增殖过程”。

To say, in a general way, that labor is the pivot of the “two great discoveries” is, broadly speaking, not incorrect. But what is more noteworthy is: what kind of labor can serve as the bridge from historical materialism to the theory of surplus value? Here, *The Poverty of Philosophy* provides the answer: the abstract principle of labor cannot lead to a critique of capitalism; only the concretization of labor can uncover the truth of the logic of capital. If one sees only *The German Ideology* and *Capital*, while neglecting *The Poverty of Philosophy* in between, it is easy to oppose the logic of production to the logic of capital. Conversely, once one grasps the principle of the concretization of labor, the logic of production and the logic of capital can be completely unified and consistent.

笼统地说，劳动是“两个伟大发现”的枢纽，这在大体上固然是不错的。但更值得注意的是，究竟是什么意义上的劳动才能成为从唯物史观通往剩余价值理论的桥梁？在这里，《哲学的贫困》给出了答案：抽象的劳动原则并不能通往资本主义批判，只有劳动具体化才能揭开资本逻辑的真相。如果只看到《德意志意识形态》与《资本论》，而忽略了其间的《哲学的贫困》，就很容易把生产逻辑与资本逻辑对立起来。反过来说，一旦意识到劳动的具体化原则，那么生产逻辑和资本逻辑是完全可以贯通一致的。

(The author is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University.)

（作者系北京大学哲学系长聘副教授）