Transcending the Logic of Capital: Innovation and Development of the Basic Socialist Economic System

The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Upholding and Improving the Socialist System with Chinese Characteristics and Advancing the Modernization of China's System and Capacity for Governance," adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC, [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 3, ch. 51, “Distribution Relations and Production Relations.” [2] Karl Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, “Introduction,” sec. 2, “The General Relation of Production to Distribution, Exchange, and Consumption.” [3] Karl Marx, *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, Part I. [4] This is a paraphrase of a formulation from the decision of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC (October 2019), which elevated the basic economic system for the primary stage of socialism to include distribution according to work as the mainstay alongside multiple modes of distribution. [5] The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC was held in October 2019 and focused on the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. [6] Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 3, ch. 47, “The Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent.” [7] Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, ch. 24, sec. 4, “The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.” clearly states: "The basic socialist economic systems, including the system under which public ownership is the mainstay and diverse forms of ownership develop side by side, the system under which distribution according to work is the mainstay and multiple forms of distribution coexist, and the socialist market economy system, not only embody the superiority of the socialist system but also correspond to the level of development of the social productive forces in the primary stage of socialism in China; they are a great creation of the Party and the people." The development and improvement from a single basic economic system of ownership to a "three-in-one" basic economic system encompassing ownership, distribution methods, and the economic system has deepened and expanded the connotation of the basic socialist economic system, marking that the socialist economic system with Chinese characteristics has been basically finalized after more than 40 years of reform and opening up practice. This is a major theoretical innovation and institutional arrangement made by our Party standing at a new historical juncture, and it has important practical significance for China's transcendence of the logic of capital toward socialist modernization. We should, from the perspective of Marx's critique of the logic of capital, clarify the evolving picture of contemporary capital logic, deeply understand and grasp how the basic socialist economic system can transcend the logic of capital, and further recognize institutional advantages and strengthen confidence in the system.

党的十九届四中全会通过的《中共中央关于坚持和完善中国特色社会主义制度推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化若干重大问题的决定》明确提出：“公有制为主体、多种所有制经济共同发展，按劳分配为主体、多种分配方式并存，社会主义市场经济体制等社会主义基本经济制度，既体现了社会主义制度优越性，又同我国社会主义初级阶段社会生产力发展水平相适应，是党和人民的伟大创造。”由单一的所有制基本经济制度到所有制、分配方式、经济体制“三位一体”的基本经济制度体系的发展完善，深化、拓展了社会主义基本经济制度的内涵，标志着中国特色社会主义经济制度经过40余年改革实践的检验已经基本定型。这是我们党站在新的历史方位作出的重大理论创新和制度安排，对我国超越资本逻辑走向社会主义现代化具有重要现实意义。我们应该立足马克思资本逻辑批判的视角，明晰当代资本逻辑的嬗变图景，深刻理解和把握社会主义基本经济制度何以能够超越资本逻辑，进一步认识制度优势、坚定制度自信。

I. The Critique of the Logic of Capital Is the Key to Marx's Analysis of Capitalist Society

一、资本逻辑批判是马克思剖析资本主义社会的锁钥

Delving into the history of Marx's critical thought, one can find that from his critique of "state philosophy" and "legal philosophy" in "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," to writing "On the Jewish Question" and the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844," Marx began to shift his critical focus toward issues more characteristic of a "critique of political economy," such as wages, rent, wage labor, private property, and capital. Then, with his critique of Proudhon's "metaphysics" in "The Poverty of Philosophy," and culminating in the birth of "Capital," Marx's critical thought underwent a deepening process from a "critique of political economy" to a "critique of metaphysics." In Volumes 1 to 3 of "Capital," Marx, using the dialectical method of thinking from the abstract to the concrete, conducted an in-depth investigation and systematic exposition of economic categories such as commodities, money, and surplus value, as well as the logic of capital movement. He put forward the theory of capitalist surplus value production and reproduction, elucidating the inherent law of the evolution and operation of the capitalist mode of production and its corresponding relations of production and exchange, namely that capital "can only produce itself by producing surplus value," and thus "the production of surplus value is the direct purpose and determining motive of production." This scientifically restated and deepened the view in the "Communist Manifesto" that communism would inevitably surpass capitalism.

深入马克思批判思想史即可发现，从在《黑格尔法哲学批判》中对“国家哲学”“法哲学”加以批判，到撰写《论犹太人问题》《1844年经济学哲学手稿》，马克思开始将批判视野转向工资、地租、雇佣劳动、私有制和资本等更具“政治经济学批判”性质的问题，再到在《哲学的贫困》中对蒲鲁东“形而上学”展开批判，直至《资本论》的诞生，马克思批判思想经历了一个由“政治经济学批判”到“形而上学批判”的深化过程。在《资本论》第1卷到第3卷中，马克思运用从抽象到具体的辩证思维方法，对商品、货币、剩余价值等经济范畴与资本运动逻辑进行了深入考察和系统阐述，提出了资本主义剩余价值生产及再生产理论，阐明了资本“只有生产剩余价值”才能生产自身，因而“剩余价值的生产是生产的直接目的和决定动机”这一资本主义生产方式及与之相适应的生产关系和交换关系演化运行的内在规律，科学地重述并深化了《共产党宣言》中共产主义必然超越资本主义的观点。

In Marx's view, "The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an 'immense collection of commodities'; the individual commodity appears as its elementary form." Therefore, the study of capital must begin with the analysis of the commodity. At the outset of "Capital," Marx profoundly analyzes the dual character of the commodity and, on this basis, points out: "If we then leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labor." "With the disappearance of the useful character of the products of labor, the useful character of the kinds of labor embodied in them also disappears; this in turn entails the disappearance of the different concrete forms of labor. They can no longer be distinguished, but are all together reduced to the same kind of labor, abstract human labor." This clearly reveals the root of the dual character of the commodity: the dual character of objectified labor: human abstract labor is objectified as the value of the commodity, and concrete labor is objectified as the use-value of the commodity. Marx further points out that commodity value is "the crystal of this social substance, which is common to them all." He emphasizes: "The general value-form, which represents all products of labor as mere congealed quantities of undifferentiated human labor, shows through its very structure that it is the social expression of the world of commodities. In this way it is made plain that within this world the general human character of labor forms its specific social character." The commodity as use-value, on the other hand, is "an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human needs of some kind or another," an existence that is "purposive" for meeting human needs, achieved by humans transforming external nature through various forms of objectifying activity, i.e., concrete labor. This indicates that the duality of human existence—human sociality and naturalness—is inherent in the dual character of the commodity and the dual character of labor. That is to say, the exchange of labor is the essence of commodity exchange and constitutes the foundation of all human social relations.

在马克思看来，“资本主义生产方式占统治地位的社会的财富，表现为‘庞大的商品堆积’，单个的商品表现为这种财富的元素形式”，所以，对资本的研究必须从分析商品开始。《资本论》开篇，马克思就深刻地剖析了商品二重性并在此基础上指出：“如果把商品体的使用价值撇开，商品体就只剩下一个属性，即劳动产品这个属性。”“随着劳动产品的有用性质的消失，体现在劳动产品中的各种劳动的有用性质也消失了，因而这些劳动的各种具体形式也消失了。各种劳动不再有什么差别，全都化为相同的人类劳动，抽象人类劳动。”这清楚地揭示出商品二重性的根源——物化了的劳动二重性：人的抽象劳动物化为商品的价值，具体劳动物化为商品的使用价值。马克思进一步指出，商品价值就是“作为它们共有的这个社会实体的结晶”。他强调：“把劳动产品表现为只是无差别人类劳动的凝结物的一般价值形式，通过自身的结构表明，它是商品世界的社会表现。因此，它清楚地告诉我们，在这个世界中，劳动的一般的人类的性质形成劳动的独特的社会的性质。”而商品作为使用价值则是“靠自己的属性来满足人的某种需要的物”，是人通过各种形式的对象化活动即具体劳动，将外部自然改造为满足自身需要的“合目的性”的存在。这表明，人的存在的二重性即人的社会性与自然性，内含于商品二重性及劳动二重性之中。也就是说，劳动的交换乃是商品交换的本质，并构成人的全部社会关系的基础。

It is precisely by analyzing the dual character of the commodity to uncover the dual character of labor that Marx, in a scientific manner, reveals the duality of human existence obscured by the dual character of the commodity. He points out that capital is not a concrete object that transcends "real history" and can be perceived through sensory intuition, but rather "the bourgeois relations of production"—a reified social relation between people. Thus, he unprecedentedly deciphers the "secret of existence" of capital and, from this, unfolds a systematic critique of the logic of capital. It is necessary to emphasize one point: Marx never directly used the term "logic of capital"; he generally used expressions such as "laws of capital" or "tendencies of capital" to convey similar meanings. Therefore, the so-called logic of capital, in short, refers to the inherent laws and objective tendencies of capital movement. It runs through the development process of capital in an inevitable manner and is manifested through a series of economic links and their interactions. The logic of capital is mainly determined by the stipulations and nature of capital itself; as long as capital exists, the logic of capital will inevitably play a role.

正是从商品二重性入手剖析出劳动二重性，马克思以科学的姿态揭示了被商品二重性遮蔽的人的存在的二重性，指明了资本并非超脱“现实的历史”却能够付诸感性直观的具体物品，而是“资产阶级社会的生产关系”——一种物化了的人与人的社会关系，从而前所未有地破解了资本“存在的秘密”，并由此展开了对资本逻辑的系统性批判。需要强调一点：马克思从未直接使用过“资本逻辑”这个提法，他一般是用“资本的规律”或“资本的趋势”等字眼来表达相近之义。因而，所谓资本逻辑，简言之，就是资本运动的内在规律和客观趋势，它以一种必然如此的方式贯穿于资本的发展过程之中，并通过一系列经济环节及其相互作用得以体现。资本逻辑主要是由资本自身的规定和本性决定的，只要有资本存在，资本逻辑就必然发挥作用。

As mentioned above, capital is in essence a social relation, but it first manifests itself as the factors of production necessary for the creation of value. Therefore, within the logic of capital, it can both shape civilization through the power of things and necessarily pursue value augmentation through specific relations of production. It is in this sense that Marx, on the one hand, fully affirmed the great historical significance of capital, praising the bourgeoisie for having created productive forces in its less than 100 years of rule that were incomparable to all past epochs, and believing that the capitalist mode of production was "more favorable for the development of the productive forces, for the development of social relations, and for the creation of the elements of a new and higher form" than all previous forms of production. On the other hand, he profoundly analyzed the core logic of capital's appropriation of surplus value, pointing out that "the essential condition for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital." The "formation and augmentation of capital" here actually refers to the dynamic process of the continuous production and realization of surplus value.

如前所述，资本在本质上是一种社会关系，但其首先表现为实现价值创造所必需的生产要素。所以，在资本的逻辑中，它既能够借助物的力量塑造文明，又必然借由一定的生产关系追求价值增殖。正是在此意义上，马克思一方面充分肯定了资本的伟大历史意义，赞扬资产阶级在其不到100年的统治中创造了过去一切世代都无可比拟的生产力，并认为资本主义生产方式比过去一切形式的生产方式“都更有利于生产力的发展，有利于社会关系的发展，有利于更高级的新形态的各种要素的创造”。另一方面，他深刻分析了资本攫取剩余价值的核心逻辑，指出“资产阶级生存和统治的根本条件，是财富在私人手里的积累，是资本的形成和增殖”。这里的“资本的形成和增殖”实际上就是指剩余价值不断生产和实现的动态过程。

Marx said: “All methods for producing surplus value are simultaneously methods of accumulation, and every extension of accumulation becomes, conversely, the means for the development of these methods. It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, whatever his payment, must grow worse. Finally, the law which always holds the relative surplus population or industrial reserve army in equilibrium with the extent and energy of accumulation rivets the worker to capital … This law establishes an accumulation of misery corresponding with accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product as capital.” He further emphasized: “The development of the productive power of labour — the creation first of surplus labour — is a necessary condition for the valorisation or self-expansion of capital. Therefore capital, as the ceaseless striving after the boundless increase of wealth, strives to develop the productive power of labour without limit and to make it actual.” This means that under the domination of the logic of capital, the capitalist, as “personified” capital, inevitably spares no effort to enslave, oppress and exploit the working people, constantly expanding reproduction and developing the productive forces. Conversely, however, in capitalist society, the development of the productive forces is unavoidably constrained by the essential stipulation that production must manifest itself as the valorisation of capital. Under these circumstances, the limited consumption capacity of the whole society and the private ownership of the means of production become fetters on the unlimited development of the productive forces, and the fate of the logic of capital being sublated and transcended becomes a historical necessity.

马克思说：“一切生产剩余价值的方法同时就是积累的方法，而积累的每一次扩大又反过来成为发展这些方法的手段。由此可见，不管工人的报酬高低如何，工人的状况必然随着资本的积累而恶化。最后，使相对过剩人口或产业后备军同积累的规模和能力始终保持平衡的规律把工人钉在资本上……这一规律制约着同资本积累相适应的贫困积累。因此，在一极是财富的积累，同时在另一极，即在把自己的产品作为资本来生产的阶级方面，是贫困、劳动折磨、受奴役、无知、粗野和道德堕落的积累。”他进一步强调：“劳动生产力的发展——首先是剩余劳动的创造——是资本的价值增加或资本的价值增殖的必要条件。因此，资本作为无止境地追求发财致富的欲望，力图无止境地提高劳动生产力并且使之成为现实。”这意味着，在资本逻辑统摄下，资本家这一“人格化”的资本必然不遗余力地奴役、压迫和剥削劳动人民，不断地扩大再生产和发展生产力。但反过来说，在资本主义社会，发展生产力又不可避免地受限于生产必须表现为资本的价值增殖这个本质规定。在这种情况下，整个社会有限的消费能力与生产资料的私人占有便成了生产力无限发展的桎梏，资本逻辑被扬弃和超越的命运也就成为历史之必然。

It should be particularly pointed out that the logic of capital in Marx’s perspective refers to the logic of (private) capital rooted in private ownership, which cannot be equated with the logic of (public) capital being constructed and developed in our country, which is based on public ownership. Although the two share commonalities in the duality of commodities, the market mechanism and the law of value, at root, the logic of (public) capital is an overcoming and sublation of the logic of (private) capital within the framework of the socialist system, concretely manifested in a rational mode of capital existence, a rational attitude toward capital, a lofty social value orientation and effective means of capital control, and is centrally reflected in the “trinity” system of basic economic institutions.

应当特别指出的是，马克思视阈下的资本逻辑指称的是以私有制为根底的（私有）资本逻辑，它与我国正在建构和发展的以公有制为基础的（公有）资本逻辑决不能等而论之。虽然二者在商品二重性、市场机制和价值规律上存在相通之处，但究其根本，（公有）资本逻辑是在社会主义制度框架下对（私有）资本逻辑的克服和扬弃，具体体现在合理的资本存在样态、理性的对待资本态度、高尚的社会价值取向和有效的资本驾驭方式等方面，并集中反映于“三位一体”的基本经济制度体系。

Facts have proven that the critique of the logic of capital has always been the key with which Marx dissected capitalist society. Through this key, Marx enabled his doctrine to penetrate into the essential dimension of history and become the quintessence of the spirit of the times. The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm put it very accurately: in Marx’s thought, “what has never lost its contemporary significance is his view of capitalism as a human economic model of a specific historical epoch and his analysis of the mode of operation of capitalism’s constant expansion, constant concentration, constant crisis-creation and constant self-transformation.” This enlightens us that only by adhering to the Marxist stance, viewpoint and method, and deeply studying and analyzing the contemporary picture of the transmutation of the logic of capital, can we profoundly understand and comprehend why the socialist basic economic system is able to sublate and transcend the logic of capital.

事实证明，资本逻辑批判始终是马克思剖析资本主义社会的锁钥，马克思通过这把锁钥使他的学说深入到历史的本质之维而成为时代精神的精华。马克思主义史学家霍布斯鲍姆说得非常准确：在马克思思想中，“从未失去当代意义的是他关于资本主义是一种一定历史时代的人类经济模式的看法与他对资本主义不断扩张、不断集中、不断制造危机和不断自我改造的运行模式的分析”。这启示我们，只有坚持马克思主义的立场观点方法，深入研究和分析当代资本逻辑的嬗变图景，才能深刻认识和理解社会主义基本经济制度何以能够扬弃和超越资本逻辑。

II. The Transmutation of the Contemporary Logic of Capital

二、当代资本逻辑的嬗变

Following Marx’s critical perspective, it can be clearly seen that although the logic of capital displays the immense power to create highly developed productive forces, the pursuit of valorisation has always been its unshakable fundamental purpose. This compels capital to expand without rest and to resort to any means to reify people into slaves subordinated to it. Therefore, the logic of capital is necessarily manifested as the logic of valorisation, the logic of expansion and the logic of reification, which are mutually interconnected, mutually supportive and mutually reinforcing, together constituting the inner “hard core” of capital. At the present stage, as the degree of capital monopolization, financialization and economic globalization deepens, financial and economic crises rise and fall, and the polarization of wealth between rich and poor in capitalist society and the crisis of human development become increasingly severe, contemporary capital exhibits a picture of transmutation in which the logic of valorisation is overall strengthened, the logic of expansion is continuously intensified and the logic of reification becomes increasingly prominent.

循着马克思的批判视界，可以清楚地看到，尽管资本逻辑展现了创造高度发达生产力的巨大威力，但追求价值增殖始终是其不可动摇的根本目的。这使得资本必须无休止地扩张，并不择手段地把人物化为屈从于它的奴隶。因此，资本逻辑必然表征为增殖的逻辑、扩张的逻辑和物化的逻辑，三者相互联系、相互支撑、相互强化，共同构成资本的内在“硬核”。现阶段，随着资本垄断化、金融化和经济全球化程度不断加深，金融危机与经济危机跌宕起伏，以及资本主义社会贫富两极分化和人的发展危机日趋严重，当代资本表现出增殖逻辑整体强化、扩张逻辑持续加强和物化逻辑愈加凸显的嬗变图景。

1. The deepening degree of monopolization, financialization and economic globalization: the overall strengthening of the logic of capital valorisation

1.垄断化、金融化和经济全球化程度不断加深：资本增殖逻辑整体强化

Marx and Engels pointed out in the *Communist Manifesto*: “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society … Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.” In Volume 1 of *Capital*, Marx further emphasized: “The production of surplus value, or the extraction of surplus labour, is the specific content and purpose of capitalist production.” This more deeply reveals that the pursuit of self-valorisation is the unchanging essence of capital, and is the reason why capital must constantly revolutionise production through various means, constantly break through the limits of industry, region and nationality, and constantly open up markets, plunder resources and launch wars. Driven by capital, after several hundred years of development, capitalism has evolved from the stage of free competition capitalism to the stage of international monopoly capitalism. Monopolization, financialization and economic globalization constitute the key mechanisms for the continuous strengthening of the logic of capital valorisation.

马克思恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中指出：“资产阶级除非对生产工具，从而对生产关系，从而对全部社会关系不断地进行革命，否则就不能生存下去……生产的不断变革，一切社会状况不停的动荡，永远的不安定和变动，这就是资产阶级时代不同于过去一切时代的地方。”在《资本论》第1卷中，马克思进一步强调：“生产剩余价值或榨取剩余劳动，是资本主义生产的特定的内容和目的。”从而更加深入地揭示了追求自身增殖是资本不变的本质，是其必须通过各种方式不断地变革生产，不断地突破行业之限、地域之限、民族之限，不断地开拓市场、掠取资源和发动战争的因由。在资本的驱动下，资本主义经过数百年发展，已经从自由竞争资本主义阶段演进到国际垄断资本主义阶段，垄断化、金融化和经济全球化构成了资本增殖逻辑不断强化的关键机制。

The increasingly deepening economic globalization has opened a wide door for Western developed countries to wantonly plunder, oppress and exploit underdeveloped countries, gradually reducing these weak countries to their raw material markets, cheap labour markets and consumer markets, and temporarily alleviating the predicament of sluggish or declining valorisation for developed country capital. Furthermore, international monopoly capital, continuously accumulated and concentrated under the drive of the logic of capital, has already completed the exclusive possession or division of all fields of the global capitalist economy, including commodity production, trade, investment, as well as finance, services, technology and brands, and, relying on its firmly dominant and hegemonic position in the entire world economic order, flagrantly extracts super surplus value. The pursuit of capital valorisation has always been its eternal source of power, supreme purpose and lifeline.

日益深化的经济全球化，为西方发达国家肆意掠夺、压榨和剥削不发达国家大开方便之门，使这些弱小国家逐渐沦为它们的原料市场、廉价劳动力市场与消费市场，让发达国家资本暂缓了增殖乏力或衰退的窘境。此外，在资本逻辑驱使下不断积聚和集中的国际垄断资本已经完成对商品生产、贸易、投资，以及金融、服务、技术和品牌等全球资本主义经济各个领域的独占或瓜分，并凭借其在整个世界经济秩序中牢固的主导和支配地位大肆攫取超额剩余价值，追求资本增殖始终是它永恒不变的力量源泉、最高宗旨和生命线。

Especially once financial capital, with virtuality and speculation as its basic characteristics, was born, it caused “all capitalist modes of production to periodically suffer from a mania to make money without the mediation of the production process.” As Marx said: “The greatest part of the banker’s capital is purely fictitious and consists of claims (bills of exchange), government securities (which represent past capital) and stocks (drafts on future revenue) … They merely represent claims to revenue, not capital.” “Their market value … changes with the size and reliability of the revenue to which they give a claim … because it is not determined by actual revenue, but by the anticipated, pre-calculated revenue,” hence “the market value of these securities is partly of a speculative nature.” That is to say, financial capital merely represents the right to obtain revenue; it follows the pure logic of “making money out of money,” itself creating no value, and its revenue originates from the flagrant plunder of industrial profit, thereby enhancing the ability of total social capital to obtain high profits and further highlighting the effect of valorisation. Once the revenue of financial capital exceeds the growth of the real economy, it may generate a bubble. If this is not curbed, this bubble will inevitably grow larger and larger with the continuously rising prices and eventually burst. It can be seen that all so-called “financial innovations” are merely new tools and new paths for contemporary financial capital to escape state regulation in order to freely pursue profit maximization. While indulging in the revelry of profit-seeking, they also lay the groundwork for a new round of financial and economic crises in capitalist society with greater destructive power, wider scope and longer duration. Overall, the growing strength of the logic of valorisation makes the rate of return on capital far higher than the economic growth rate and the rate of return on labour, and the gap is widening. This makes the power of capital stronger, the rule of capital more entrenched, and the fetishism of capital more inflated, and also further strengthens the logic of capital expansion.

尤其是以虚拟性和投机性为基本特征的金融资本一经诞生，就使得“一切资本主义生产方式的国家，都周期地患一种狂想病，企图不用生产过程作中介而赚到钱”。正如马克思所说：“银行家资本的最大部分纯粹是虚拟的，是由债权（汇票）、国债券（它代表过去的资本）和股票（对未来收益的支取凭证）构成的……它们只是代表取得收益的要求权，并不是代表资本。”“它们的市场价值……会随着它们有权索取的收益的大小和可靠程度而发生变化……因为它不是由现实的收入决定的，而是由预期得到的、预先计算的收入决定的”，因而“这种证券的市场价值部分地有投机的性质”。即是说，金融资本仅仅只是代表取得收益的权利，它遵循“以钱生钱”的纯粹逻辑，本身并不创造价值，其收益源于对产业利润的大肆掠夺，从而使社会总资本获取高额利润的能力变得更强，增殖效果进一步凸显。一旦金融资本收益超越实体经济增长，它就可能产生泡沫，倘若不加遏制，这个泡沫就势必随着不断抬升的价格越变越大并最终破裂。可见，一切所谓“金融创新”都不过是当代金融资本为了摆脱国家监管以实现自由追求利润最大化的新工具和新路径，其在沉浸于逐利狂欢的同时，也为资本主义社会爆发破坏力更大、波及面更广、持续时间更长的新一轮金融和经济危机埋下伏笔。总的来看，增殖逻辑的日趋强盛让资本收益率远高于经济增长率和劳动回报率且差距越拉越大，这令资本力量愈加强大、资本统治愈益牢固、资本拜物教愈发膨胀，也使资本扩张逻辑进一步加强。

2. The rise and fall of financial and economic crises: the continuous intensification of the logic of capital expansion

2.金融危机与经济危机跌宕起伏：资本扩张逻辑持续加强

Shortening circulation time and reducing circulation costs are inherent to the nature of capital, because “circulation time appears as a limitation on labour productivity = an increase in necessary labour time = a decrease in surplus labour time = a decrease in surplus value = a barrier or limitation on the process of capital’s self-valorisation. Therefore, capital on the one hand strives to tear down every local barrier to intercourse and exchange, to conquer the whole earth as its market, and on the other hand it strives to annihilate space with time, i.e., to reduce to a minimum the time taken to move commodities from one place to another. The more capital develops, the more the market on which it circulates expands, the more the market constituting the spatial road of capital’s circulation expands, the more at the same time capital strives to expand the market spatially and to annihilate space with time.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 3, ch. 51, “Distribution Relations and Production Relations.” [2] Karl Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, “Introduction,” sec. 2, “The General Relation of Production to Distribution, Exchange, and Consumption.” [3] Karl Marx, *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, Part I. [4] This is a paraphrase of a formulation from the decision of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC (October 2019), which elevated the basic economic system for the primary stage of socialism to include distribution according to work as the mainstay alongside multiple modes of distribution. [5] The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC was held in October 2019 and focused on the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. [6] Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 3, ch. 47, “The Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent.” [7] Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, ch. 24, sec. 4, “The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.” In summary, the logic of capital’s valorisation and the logic of its expansion always mutually reinforce each other.

缩短流通时间、降低流通费用，这是资本的本性使然，因为“流通时间表现为劳动生产率的限制=必要劳动时间的增加=剩余劳动时间的减少=剩余价值的减少=资本价值自行增殖过程的障碍或限制。因此，资本一方面要力求摧毁交往即交换的一切地方限制，征服整个地球作为它的市场，另一方面，它又力求用时间去消灭空间，就是说，把商品从一个地方转移到另一个地方所花费的时间缩减到最低限度。资本越发展，从而资本借以流通的市场，构成资本流通空间道路的市场越扩大，资本同时也就越是力求在空间上更加扩大市场，力求用时间去更多地消灭空间”。概言之，资本的增殖逻辑与扩张逻辑始终是相互强化的。

To maximise surplus value, capital must move from the domestic market to the international market, placing all production and circulation in a state of constant expansion. On the one hand, within the nation-state, capital forcibly imposes wage labour and breaks down all guild and local restrictions on production and exchange; on the other hand, abroad, capital imposes its own mode of production on others through international competition, compelling all modes of production worldwide to submit to it. “Capital has a tendency, on the one hand, to create ever more surplus labour, and, on the other hand, it also has a tendency to create ever more supplementary sites of exchange… Essentially, this means promoting the production based on capital, or the mode of production corresponding to capital. The tendency to create a world market is already directly contained in the concept of capital itself.” [2]2 Ibid., p. 311. [Translator’s note: Standard English translation, *Grundrisse*, p. 408.]

要实现剩余价值最大化，资本就必须从国内市场走向国际市场，使一切生产和流通都处于不断扩大的运动之中。一方面，在民族国家内部，资本强制推行雇佣劳动，并打破了生产和交换上的一切行会限制和地方限制；另一方面，在国外，资本通过国际竞争将自己的生产方式强加于人，使世界上所有生产方式都唯其是从。“资本一方面具有创造越来越多的剩余劳动的趋势，同样，它也具有创造越来越多的交换地点的补充趋势……从本质上来说，就是推广以资本为基础的生产或与资本相适应的生产方式。创造世界市场的趋势已经直接包含在资本的概念本身中。”

With the formation and development of the world market, capital “is no longer fixed in a particular nation-state: highly mobile technology and flexible production processes mean that capital can flow in and out of specific regions when the profit rate begins to decline. This complete openness of territory is the result of the increasingly close relationship between capital and technology, because only when media and communication networks transform every specific life-world into a node of information exchange is it possible for capital to mutate into a deterritorialised regime of hyper-accumulation.” [3]3 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, *Empire* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 253. That is to say, under contemporary conditions, capital, through its “collusion” with modern metaphysics, mutates into fictitious capital and greatly enhances its capacity for expansion through its rapidly swelling power of disposition. Through the massive expansion of various financial derivatives, financial capital markets have spread across the world, and liberal ideas have become more deeply entrenched. In this sense, today’s world market is a globalised financial capital market.

随着世界市场的形成与发展，资本“不再固定在特定的民族国家：高度机动的技术和灵活的生产流程意味着资本可以在利润率开始下降的时候在特定的地区流出流进。这种地域性的完全开放是资本与技术的关系日益密切的结果，因为只有媒体和通信网络将每个特定的生活世界改造为信息交换的一个节点，资本才有可能得以突变为一个去地域化的超积累体制”。也就是说，在当代条件下，资本借助与现代形而上学的“合谋”变异为虚拟资本，并以极速膨胀的支配权使自身扩张能力大大增强。通过各种金融衍生品的大量扩张，金融资本市场已经遍及世界各地，自由主义观念更加深入人心。就此而言，当今世界市场即是一个全球化的金融资本市场。

Data show that after the United States implemented financial liberalisation, profits surged: in 1950, the profits of financial companies amounted to 9.9% of the profits of domestic US companies, and this ratio never exceeded 20% in the 1960s, nor 30% before 1990; by 2000, this ratio reached 42.7%, and by 2005, it reached 52.5%. The director behind the scenes of this financial drama was the intensifying logic of capital expansion. It not only spawned alluring financial bubbles, allowing some speculators to make a killing, but also caused contradictions to accumulate, intensify, and sharpen, leading to the complete outbreak of the world financial and economic crisis in 2008, dealing a heavy blow to those indulging in the illusion of capitalist economic growth. It is clear that the global financial and economic crisis prominently reflects the continuously intensifying trends of contemporary capital monopolisation, financialisation, and economic globalisation, once again highlighting the inherent contradictions that the capitalist economic operation cannot overcome and the fundamental limitations of the capitalist system. It proves with ironclad facts that the basic principles of Marx’s analysis of capitalist economic relations and the laws he revealed remain applicable to contemporary capitalism.

数据显示，美国在实行金融自由化后利润激增：1950年时，金融公司的盈利相当于美国国内公司盈利的9.9%，而且这一比率在20世纪60年代从未超过20%，在1990年之前从未超过30%；到2000年，这一比率达到了42.7%，到2005年时，则达到了52.5%。这出金融大剧的幕后导演就是愈演愈烈的资本扩张逻辑，它既催生了诱人的金融泡沫，让一些投机者赚得盆满钵满，也使矛盾不断积累、加剧和激化，导致世界金融和经济危机在2008年彻底爆发，给了那些沉迷于资本主义经济增长幻象的人当头一棒。可以明确的是，全球性金融和经济危机突出反映了当代资本垄断化、金融化和经济全球化持续强化的趋势，再次凸显了资本主义经济运行无法克服的固有矛盾和资本主义制度的根本局限性，用铁一般的事实证明了马克思分析资本主义经济关系的基本原理及其所揭示的规律依然适用于当代资本主义。

3. The increasingly severe crisis of social polarisation between rich and poor and of human development: the logic of capital reification becomes ever more prominent

3.社会贫富两极分化和人的发展危机日趋严重：资本物化逻辑愈加凸显

The valorisation and expansion of capital require it to ceaselessly suck in “human natural forces” and “the natural forces of social labour” for free through the “production of absolute surplus value” and the “production of relative surplus value”, and to adopt all means such as shifting competitive pressure and lowering wages, making the working class increasingly “free in the double sense” [4]4 A reference to Marx’s description of the worker as “free in the double sense” in *Capital*, Volume I: free to sell their labour power as their own commodity, and free of any other means of subsistence., increasingly an appendage of the machine and a vassal of capital. This inevitably leads to the intensifying reification of things belonging to human qualities such as labour power, personality, conscience, reputation, and body, as well as social relations between people and human nature within capitalist society, pushing the labouring people into ever deeper poverty, even to the abyss of “becoming beggars and paupers”, causing an increasingly severe crisis of human development.

资本的增殖和扩张要求其必须片刻不停地通过“绝对剩余价值的生产”和“相对剩余价值的生产”以无偿地吸吮“人的自然力”与“社会劳动的自然力”，并采取转嫁竞争压力、压低工资等一切手段，使工人阶级越来越“自由得一无所有”、越来越成为机器的附属和资本的附庸。这必然导致劳动力、人格、良心、名誉和身体等属于人的特质的东西，以及人与人之间的社会关系和资本主义社会中人性的物化不断加剧，将劳动人民推向愈加贫困乃至“变成乞丐和赤贫”的深渊，造成日趋严重的人的发展危机。

Faced with increasingly acute socio-economic and class contradictions, since the end of the Second World War, Western developed countries have successively implemented reform measures such as “worker shareholding” and “worker participation in management”, along with “social welfare policies”, which have somewhat improved labour-capital relations and raised the living standards of the working class, leading them to successively declare the establishment of “welfare states”. Some people have taken this as evidence to claim that Marx’s theory of the impoverishment of the proletariat is wrong. However, a brief analysis reveals that no welfare system can touch the foundation of capitalist private ownership of the means of production. Although there are forces within capitalist society that constrain and mitigate the trend of proletarian impoverishment, these are far from sufficient to shake the absolute dominance of the logic of capital. The so-called welfare system is merely a warm veil used by the bourgeoisie to disguise exploitation, a clever means for carrying out covert exploitation. Fundamentally, the social welfare income obtained by the working class all originates from their own labour creation, and is by no means the generous charity of the capitalists. It can be said with certainty that no matter what measures Western “welfare states” implement, they cannot reverse the increasingly severe situation of social polarisation between rich and poor. Regarding the so-called “charity” of the bourgeoisie, Engels long ago evaluated it in *The Condition of the Working Class in England* as follows: “Charitable institutions! You suck the last drop of blood from the proletarians, and then hypocritically dole out small favours to them to satisfy yourselves and to pose before the world as great humanitarians, while you return to the exploited only one percent of what is rightfully theirs, as if this were doing good to the proletarians!”

面对日益激化的社会经济矛盾和阶级矛盾，自第二次世界大战结束以来，西方发达国家纷纷推行“工人持股”“工人参与管理”等改良措施和“社会福利政策”，使劳资关系得到一定改善，工人阶级生活水平有所提高，进而相继宣布已建成“福利国家”。于是有人以此为据，宣称马克思揭示的无产阶级贫困化理论是错误的。然而，稍加分析便能发现，任何福利制度都不可能触及资本主义生产资料私有制的根基。尽管资本主义社会存在制约与缓和工人阶级贫困化趋势的力量，但这远不足以撼动资本逻辑的绝对统治地位。所谓福利制度不过是资产阶级用以掩饰剥削的温情面纱，是其为了进行隐秘剥削使用的精巧手段。从根本上讲，工人阶级所获得的社会福利收入，都源于他们自己的劳动创造，绝非资本家的慷慨施舍。可以肯定地说，西方“福利国家”不论推行何种举措，都无法扭转社会贫富两极分化日益严重的局面。对于资产阶级的所谓“慈善”，恩格斯早在《英国工人阶级状况》中就这样评价道：“慈善机关！你们吸干了无产者最后一滴血，然后再对他们虚伪地施以小恩小惠，以使自己感到满足，并在世人面前摆出一副人类大慈善家的姿态，而你们归还给被剥削者的只是他们应得的百分之一，似乎这样做就是造福于无产者！”

Take the United States as an example: after the 2008 world financial and economic crisis, the US implemented large-scale bank bailouts and fiscal stimulus plans, preventing the collapse of the financial system by massively increasing government debt, artificially keeping interest rates low, allowing countless “zombie companies” to survive on nearly interest-free loans; coupled with the comprehensive implementation of fiscal austerity and wage reduction policies, by 2011, although corporate profits gradually rose, the living standards of the wage-earning class had declined for ten consecutive years. In May 2018, the United Way reported that 43% of Americans could no longer afford basic necessities. Bernie Sanders pointed out sharply: “The three wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population—160 million people—combined.” Even so, the Trump administration vigorously sought to completely abolish the imperfect regulatory system for financial institutions established during the Obama administration, to clear obstacles for financial oligarchs to continue plundering social wealth, while claiming it could not afford investments in education, healthcare, public housing, and pensions. This shows that the capitalist state is nothing but a political power governing for the profit of capital. In capitalist society, no matter how much the level of productive forces improves, common prosperity cannot be achieved; it can only exacerbate wealth polarisation and social injustice, leading to the rupture of social strata.

以美国为例：2008年世界金融和经济危机之后，美国实施了大规模的银行救助和财政刺激计划，通过大量增加政府债务阻止金融体系崩溃，人为地将利率保持在低位，使无数“僵尸企业”依靠几乎无利息的借款生存下来；加之财政紧缩和降低工资政策的全面施行，到2011年，虽然企业利润逐渐走高，工薪阶层的生活水平却连续10年下降。2018年5月，美国联合慈善总会在一份报告中称，43%的美国人已经负担不起生活必需品的支出。伯尼·桑德斯尖锐地指出：“美国最富有的三个人拥有的财富超过了收入最低的50%的人群——1.6亿人——的财富之和。”即便如此，特朗普政府仍极力谋求彻底废除奥巴马执政时期制订的尚不完善的金融机构监管制度，以为金融寡头继续搜刮社会财富扫清障碍，却声称无力承担教育、医疗卫生、公共住房和养老等民生领域的投入。由此可见，资本主义国家无非是为资本获利而执政的政治权力。在资本主义社会，不管生产力水平如何提高，都不可能实现共同富裕，而只能加剧贫富分化和社会不公，导致社会阶层断裂。

III. The Basic Socialist Economic System is the Sublation and Transcendence of the Logic of Capital

三、社会主义基本经济制度是对资本逻辑的扬弃和超越

“The inherent inner development of the thing itself” inevitably causes it to gradually transform from the “actual” into the “merely existing.” Similarly, in the process of contemporary capital’s evolution—where its logic of valorization is comprehensively strengthened, its logic of expansion continuously reinforced, and its logic of reification increasingly prominent—it ceaselessly generates factors of self-negation and self-sublation. However, the sublation of capital is not a purely objective process external to human beings; it can only be truly unfolded and realized through human subjective activity, especially revolutionary practice. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC [5]5 The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC was held in October 2019. It focused on upholding and improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. developed and perfected the single basic economic system of ownership into a “three-in-one” basic economic system encompassing ownership, distribution methods, and the economic system. This fully demonstrates that our Party consistently adheres to integrating the fundamental tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities, critically harnessing and utilizing the historically progressive role of capital in both theory and practice, thereby achieving the sublation and transcendence of the logic of capital.

“事物本身所固有的内在发展”使其必然逐渐由“现实”蜕变为“现存”。同样，当代资本在增殖逻辑整体强化、扩张逻辑持续加强和物化逻辑愈加凸显的嬗变过程中，亦不断滋生出自我否定和自我扬弃的因素。但是，资本的扬弃并非外在于人的纯粹客观过程，它只有通过人的能动性活动特别是革命性实践才能真正展开和实现。党的十九届四中全会将单一的所有制基本经济制度发展完善为所有制、分配方式、经济体制“三位一体”的基本经济制度体系，充分表明我们党始终坚持将马克思主义基本原理与中国具体实际相结合，在理论和实践中批判地驾驭和利用资本的历史进步作用，从而实现了对资本逻辑的扬弃和超越。

1. The ownership structure with public ownership as the mainstay sublates and transcends the logic of capital, laying a solid institutional foundation for the long-term positive trajectory of China’s economy.

1.公有制为主体的所有制结构扬弃和超越了资本逻辑，为中国经济长期向好奠定坚实制度基础

Marxist historical materialism holds that productive forces determine relations of production, and relations of production must adapt to the nature of the productive forces. As the material content of production, a given level of productive forces always requires corresponding relations of production; as the social form of production, the establishment of given relations of production cannot be divorced from the actual state of the productive forces. As Marx pointed out: “In developing their productive forces, i.e., in living, people also develop certain mutual relations; the forms of these relations necessarily change with the change and development of these productive forces.” [6]6 This quotation is from Marx’s letter to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, dated December 28, 1846.

马克思主义唯物史观认为，生产力决定生产关系，生产关系必须适应生产力的性质。作为生产的物质内容，一定的生产力总是要求有与之相适应的生产关系；作为生产的社会形式，一定的生产关系的建立不能脱离生产力的现实状况。正如马克思指出的：“人们在发展其生产力时，即在生活时，也发展着一定的相互关系；这些关系的形式必然随着这些生产力的改变和发展而改变。”

Looking back at history, we can see that with the continuous accumulation and concentration of capital, previously scattered production processes have increasingly merged into closely linked, interdependent production processes, and the entire national economy has increasingly become an organic whole formed by them. This nature of the productive forces objectively requires that society own the means of production and regulate the national economy. However, under capitalist conditions, the means of production are privately owned by the capitalists, production and management are entirely determined by their individual decisions, and all social products belong to them. Consequently, the form of production comes into sharp conflict with the form of ownership, and the contradiction between the social character of production and the private ownership of the means of production becomes the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. Within the framework of the capitalist system, this contradiction cannot be eliminated. Because the private ownership of the means of production—the “universal light” and “special ether” of capitalist society—drives capital, under the internal impetus of pursuing surplus value and the external pressure of fierce competition, both to strive to “destroy all barriers that hinder the development of productive forces, the expansion of needs, the diversification of production, and the utilization and exchange of natural and spiritual forces,” [7]7 This quotation is from Marx’s *Grundrisse* (Notebook VII). and to constantly create new barriers, further intensifying and sharpening the contradiction. How is this contradiction to be resolved? The answer given by the Communists is: abolish private property. In Marx’s view, “The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production which has flourished alongside and under it. The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of labor reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds.” [8]8 This quotation is from Marx’s *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 32: “Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.” The periodic economic crises that capitalist society cannot eradicate are the most powerful proof of this. It is evident that the modern social productive forces, nurtured by capitalism itself, can no longer tolerate the private ownership of the means of production by the bourgeoisie; replacing private ownership with public ownership has been placed on the historical agenda.

回溯历史可以看到，随着资本的不断积聚和集中，过去那些分散的生产过程愈益融合成为密切联系、彼此依赖的生产过程，整个国民经济也愈益成为由之结成的有机整体。生产力的这种性质客观上要求由社会占有生产资料、调节国民经济。然而在资本主义条件下，生产资料由资本家私人占有，生产经营全凭其个人决断，社会产品也全部归其所有。于是，生产形式便同占有形式发生激烈冲突，生产社会化与生产资料私人占有之间的矛盾就成了资本主义的基本矛盾。在资本主义制度范围内，这一矛盾是无法消弭的。因为生产资料私有制这个资本主义社会中“普照的光”和“特殊的以太”，促使资本在追求剩余价值的内在动力和展开残酷竞争的外在压力下，既竭力“摧毁一切阻碍发展生产力、扩大需要、使生产多样化、利用和交换自然力量和精神力量的限制”，又不断制造新的限制，使矛盾进一步加剧和激化。如何解决这一矛盾？共产党人给出的回答是：消灭私有制。在马克思看来，“资本的垄断成了与这种垄断一起并在这种垄断之下繁盛起来的生产方式的桎梏。生产资料的集中和劳动的社会化，达到了同它们的资本主义外壳不能相容的地步。这个外壳就要炸毁了。资本主义私有制的丧钟就要响了”。资本主义社会无法根绝的周期性经济危机即是最有力的证明。可见，由资本主义亲自培育起来的现代社会生产力，已经不能容忍资产阶级对生产资料的私人占有，以公有制取代私有制已经提上历史日程。

Unlike capitalist private ownership, socialist public ownership is compatible with large-scale socialized production. Establishing and developing socialist public ownership is an inevitability in the historical development of human society. Since reform and opening up, our Party, based on the Marxist theory of the interrelationship between productive forces and relations of production, and proceeding from the specific national conditions that China is in the primary stage of socialism, with unbalanced development and a relatively backward level of productive forces, has decided that in terms of ownership structure, “we must unswervingly consolidate and develop the public sector of the economy… and unswervingly encourage, support, and guide the development of the non-public sector of the economy.” Socialist public ownership “is an institutional guarantee for ensuring that all ethnic groups in our country share the fruits of development, and it is also an important guarantee for consolidating the Party’s ruling position and upholding our socialist system.” Consolidating and developing the public sector of the economy means consolidating and giving play to the dominant position of public ownership and the leading role of the state-owned sector, continuously promoting the construction and development of the logic of (public) capital, ensuring that the public sector of the economy has an advantage in quantity and control in quality, and constantly consolidating the economic foundation of the socialist system. The non-public sector of the economy is an important engine for further liberating and developing social productive forces. Encouraging, supporting, and guiding the development of the non-public sector of the economy means both striving to prevent and curb the negative effects of the rampant logic of (private) capital, and constantly stimulating the market vitality of the non-public sector of the economy, fully utilizing capital to develop productive forces, and creating conditions for continuously enhancing the social character of the productive forces. The fact that China’s economy maintained robust and strong growth during the Asian financial crisis at the end of the 20th century and the world financial crisis that began in 2008 irrefutably proves the significant advantages of the socialist ownership structure and its forms of realization.

与资本主义私有制不同，社会主义公有制是与社会化大生产相适应的，建立和发展社会主义公有制，是人类社会历史发展的必然。改革开放以来，我们党根据马克思主义关于生产力与生产关系相互关系的理论，从我国正处于社会主义初级阶段，发展还不够平衡、生产力水平还比较落后的具体国情出发，决定在所有制结构上“必须毫不动摇地巩固和发展公有制经济……毫不动摇地鼓励、支持和引导非公有制经济发展”。社会主义公有制“是保证我国各族人民共享发展成果的制度性保证，也是巩固党的执政地位、坚持我国社会主义制度的重要保证”，巩固和发展公有制经济，就是要巩固和发挥公有制主体地位与国有经济主导作用，持续推进（公有）资本逻辑的建构和发展，确保公有制经济在量上占优势、在质上有控制力，不断夯实社会主义制度的经济基础；非公有制经济是推动社会生产力进一步解放和发展的重要引擎，鼓励、支持和引导非公有制经济发展，就是要既着力预防和遏制（私有）资本逻辑泛滥造成的负面效应，又不断激发非公有制经济的市场活力，充分利用资本发展生产力，为不断增强生产力的社会性质创造条件。在20世纪末亚洲金融危机及2008年开始的世界金融危机过程中我国经济保持稳健强劲增长的事实，无可辩驳地证明了社会主义所有制结构及其实现形式的显著优势。

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee, from the height of the basic socialist economic system, made systematic arrangements for upholding and improving the ownership structure with public ownership as the mainstay and diverse forms of ownership developing together, covering aspects such as exploring multiple forms of public ownership, promoting the optimization and structural adjustment of the state-owned sector, developing mixed-ownership enterprises, and creating a favorable market environment. It also put forward many new theses, such as “enhancing the competitiveness, innovation, control, influence, and risk resilience of the state-owned economy, and making state-owned capital stronger, better, and larger.” This not only provides a new temporal coordinate for our Party to continuously promote the innovative development of socialist ownership theory in practice, but also further consolidates the institutional cornerstone for China’s economy to maintain a long-term positive trend while coping with complex and changing domestic and international situations.

党的十九届四中全会站在社会主义基本经济制度的高度，从探索公有制多种实现形式、推进国有经济布局优化和结构调整、发展混合所有制经济、营造良好的市场环境等多个方面，对坚持和完善公有制为主体、多种所有制经济共同发展的所有制结构作出系统部署，还提出“增强国有经济竞争力、创新力、控制力、影响力、抗风险能力，做强做优做大国有资本”等诸多新论断。这不仅为我们党在实践中不断推进社会主义所有制理论创新发展提供了新的时代坐标，更进一步夯实了中国经济在应对复杂多变的国内外形势中保持长期向好趋势的制度基石。

2. The distribution method with distribution according to work as the mainstay sublates and transcends the logic of capital, forging a strong institutional guarantee for achieving the goal of common prosperity.

2.按劳分配为主体的分配方式扬弃和超越了资本逻辑，为实现共同富裕目标筑牢强大制度保障

According to the viewpoint of Marxist political economy, distribution is a historical category; the nature and method of distribution will inevitably change with the transformation of relations of production. In this sense, all claims about the justice and eternity of capital appropriating profit, labor receiving wages, and land collecting rent, and the assertion that the logic of capital will inevitably end history, are nothing but the delusions of the bourgeoisie. Before the dialectics of history, both the capitalist mode of production and its mode of distribution are merely temporary.

按照马克思主义政治经济学的观点，分配是一个历史的范畴，分配的性质和方式必然会随着生产关系的变迁而改变。从这个意义上讲，一切宣扬资本攫取利润、劳动获取工资、土地收取地租的正义性和永恒性，主张资本逻辑必将终结历史的论调，都不过是资产阶级的妄想。在历史的辩证法面前，无论是资本主义的生产方式还是分配方式，都只是暂时的。

Marx pointed out: “The so-called distribution relations correspond to and arise from the historically determined specific social forms of the production process and the relations into which people enter in the reproduction of their human life. The historical character of these distribution relations is the historical character of the relations of production, of which they express merely one aspect.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 3, ch. 51, “Distribution Relations and Production Relations.” [2] Karl Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, “Introduction,” sec. 2, “The General Relation of Production to Distribution, Exchange, and Consumption.” [3] Karl Marx, *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, Part I. [4] This is a paraphrase of a formulation from the decision of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC (October 2019), which elevated the basic economic system for the primary stage of socialism to include distribution according to work as the mainstay alongside multiple modes of distribution. [5] The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC was held in October 2019 and focused on the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. [6] Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 3, ch. 47, “The Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent.” [7] Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, ch. 24, sec. 4, “The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.” This thesis not only clarifies that a given mode of distribution always constitutes a key link in the basic economic system of a given society, but also indicates that distribution is not an abstract existence detached from a specific social system; only by placing it within a certain social system and its interrelations with production, exchange, and consumption can its essence be accurately grasped. It must be understood that production, distribution, exchange, and consumption are “elements of a totality, differences within a unity. Production predominates not only over itself, in the antithetical definition of production, but over the other elements as well. The process always returns to production to begin anew. That exchange and consumption cannot be predominant is self-evident. Likewise, distribution as distribution of products; and as distribution of the elements of production, it is itself a moment of production. A definite production thus determines a definite consumption, distribution, exchange, and definite relations of these different moments to one another. Of course, production, in its one-sided form, is in turn determined by the other moments.” [2]2 Ibid., p. 311. [Translator’s note: Standard English translation, *Grundrisse*, p. 408.] Therefore, the effect of production on distribution is dominant: production determines distribution, and the mode of production determines the mode of distribution. The construction of any distribution system has objective regularity and inevitability; it does not depend on people’s subjective choices. Although people can change the specific practices of distribution, they cannot change the nature and mode of distribution, because “any distribution of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves. The latter distribution, however, is a feature of the mode of production itself.” [3]3 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, *Empire* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 253. The position of laborers in the relations of production determines their position in the relations of distribution. To study the problem of distribution, one cannot set aside the relations of production, especially the structure of ownership, which is the foundation of the relations of production.

马克思指出：“所谓的分配关系，是同生产过程的历史地规定的特殊社会形式，以及人们在他们的人类生活的再生产过程中相互所处的关系相适应的，并且是由这些形式和关系产生的。这些分配关系的历史性质就是生产关系的历史性质，分配关系不过表现生产关系的一个方面。”这一论断不仅明确了一定的分配方式总是构成一定社会的基本经济制度的关键一环，还指明了分配不是脱离具体社会制度的抽象存在，只有将之置于一定的社会制度及其与生产、交换和消费的相互关系之中，才能准确地把握其实质。要知道，生产、分配、交换和消费是“构成一个总体的各个环节，一个统一体内部的差别。生产既支配着与其他要素相对而言的生产自身，也支配着其他要素。过程总是从生产重新开始。交换和消费不能是起支配作用的东西，这是不言而喻的。分配，作为产品的分配，也是这样。而作为生产要素的分配，它本身就是生产的一个要素。因此，一定的生产决定一定的消费、分配、交换和这些不同要素相互间的一定关系。当然，生产就其单方面形式来说也决定于其他要素”。所以，生产对分配的作用是支配性的：生产决定分配，生产方式决定分配方式。建构什么样的分配制度具有客观的规律性和必然性，不取决于人们的主观选择。人们虽然能够改变分配的具体做法，却无法改变分配的性质和方式，因为“消费资料的任何一种分配，都不过是生产条件本身分配的结果；而生产条件的分配，则表现生产方式本身的性质”。劳动者在生产关系中的地位决定了他们在分配关系中的地位，要研究分配问题，就不能撇开生产关系特别是作为生产关系基础的所有制结构。

In capitalist society, the private ownership of the means of production, which occupies the dominant position in the ownership structure, requires that the entire society must implement distribution according to factors of production, with distribution according to capital as its core. By virtue of capital, the capitalist appropriates from social wealth the profit that includes surplus value, while the laborer can only obtain the necessary labor value required to reproduce labor power. Under the dominance of the logic of (private) capital, monopoly capital can easily accelerate the speed of wealth circulation and concentration by manipulating financial markets and other means, and no matter what kind of improvement measures are taken, they have little effect or are powerless against it; indeed, they themselves are hypocritical accomplices of capitalists in exploiting the working people. This inevitably leads to a continuously expanding trend of polarization between rich and poor in capitalist society. In the primary stage of socialism, however, the “institutional arrangement of public ownership as the mainstay and the common development of multiple forms of ownership is conducive to mobilizing the enthusiasm of all parties and to achieving the organic unity of efficiency and fairness,” [4]4 A reference to Marx’s description of the worker as “free in the double sense” in *Capital*, Volume I: free to sell their labour power as their own commodity, and free of any other means of subsistence. which can effectively avoid polarization in income distribution, continuously promote the all-round development of people, and enable the entire society to steadily advance toward the goal of common prosperity.

在资本主义社会，居于所有制结构主体地位的生产资料私有制，要求整个社会必须实行以按资分配为核心的按生产要素分配。资本家凭借资本从社会财富中取走了包括剩余价值在内的利润，劳动者只能获得再生产劳动力所需的必要劳动价值。在（私有）资本逻辑主导下，垄断资本能够轻松地通过操纵金融市场等手段加快财富流转和集中的速度，而不论何种改良措施对此都收效甚微抑或无能为力，甚至其本身就是资本家剥削劳动人民的伪善帮凶，这必然导致资本主义社会贫富两极分化趋势不断扩大。而在社会主义初级阶段，公有制为主体、多种所有制经济共同发展的“制度安排有利于调动各方面积极性，有利于实现效率和公平有机统一”，能够切实避免收入分配两极分化，不断促进人的全面发展，使整个社会朝着共同富裕的方向稳步前进。

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC, [5]5 The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC was held in October 2019. It focused on upholding and improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. based on the basic principles and methodological tenets of Marxist political economy, innovatively elevated the system of distribution according to work as the mainstay and the coexistence of multiple modes of distribution to the status of a basic economic system. On the one hand, it consistently upholds the logic of labor—more work, more reward, and prosperity through hard work—emphasizing the protection of income from labor, increasing the labor remuneration of workers, especially front-line workers, and raising the share of labor remuneration in primary distribution. On the other hand, it points out that it is necessary to improve the mechanism whereby the market evaluates contributions and determines remuneration according to contributions, so that the vitality of traditional and new factors of production—labor, capital, land, knowledge, technology, management, and data—can burst forth in competition. It also explicitly proposes for the first time to attach importance to the role of tertiary distribution, requiring vigorous development of charity and other social welfare undertakings, and giving full play to the important role of tertiary distribution in providing relief to those in need. This, on the one hand, ensures that labor income is the main source of national income, and on the other hand, guides capital income onto the track of serving social labor, so that the fruits of reform and development can benefit all the people more and more fairly, thereby building a strong institutional guarantee for further enhancing the people’s sense of gain, happiness, and security.

党的十九届四中全会立足马克思主义政治经济学的基本原理和方法论原则，开创性地将按劳分配为主体、多种分配方式并存上升为基本经济制度，既一以贯之地高扬多劳多得、勤劳致富的劳动逻辑，强调坚持着重保护劳动所得，增加劳动者特别是一线劳动者劳动报酬，提高劳动报酬在初次分配中的比重；又指出必须通过健全由市场评价贡献、按贡献决定报酬的机制，让劳动、资本、土地、知识、技术、管理和数据等传统生产要素及新型生产要素活力竞相迸发；还首次明确提出重视第三次分配作用，要求大力发展慈善等社会公益事业，发挥好第三次分配在扶危济困方面的重要作用。这一方面保证了劳动性收入是国民收入主要来源，另一方面将资本性收入引导到服务于社会劳动的轨道上来，让改革发展成果能够更多更公平地惠及全体人民，为进一步增强人民群众获得感、幸福感、安全感构筑起强大制度保障。

3. The Socialist Market Economy System Sublates and Transcends the Logic of Capital, Providing Strong Institutional Support for Dual Regulation by the Market and the Government

3.社会主义市场经济体制扬弃和超越了资本逻辑，为市场与政府双重调节提供有力制度支撑

In Volume 3 of *Capital*, Marx wrote: “The capitalist mode of production is a specific, historically determined mode of production; like any other definite mode of production, it takes a given stage of social productive forces and their forms of development as its historical condition, a condition which is itself the historical result and product of a preceding process, and from which the new mode of production proceeds as from its given foundation.” [6]6 This quotation is from Marx’s letter to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, dated December 28, 1846. It can be seen that, “like any other definite mode of production,” the capitalist mode of production also develops continuously on the basis of what came before, and what runs through this “preceding process” and “given foundation” is the economic operation mechanism of capitalist society. Therefore, the economic system of a given society necessarily possesses corresponding attributes of its basic economic system. In fact, no economic system can exist independently of ownership; it must be built on a certain foundation of ownership of the means of production, and the same applies to the market economy. The capitalist market economy is built on the foundation of capitalist private ownership. The logic of (private) capital dominates the relations of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption, which inevitably leads the capitalist market economy to take extreme individualism and market fundamentalism as its dogma, allowing capital to pursue surplus value and the maximization of individual interests, relying almost entirely on market mechanisms and the law of value for resource allocation, and achieving survival of the fittest through competition. Therefore, on the one hand, the organized nature of production in individual enterprises brings about a certain increase in social productive forces; on the other hand, the anarchic state of production in society as a whole leads to endless contradictions and risks, periodic economic crises, and massive waste of social resources. As Marx said: “The capitalist mode of production compels every individual enterprise to economize, but its anarchic system of competition imposes the greatest waste of social means of production and labor power, and also creates innumerable functions which are indispensable in themselves but are superfluous under normal conditions.” [7]7 This quotation is from Marx’s *Grundrisse* (Notebook VII). Although capitalist countries also have macroeconomic regulation, it is mostly ex post facto regulation; the government is merely a “firefighter” that extinguishes the economic crises caused by private capital. In essence, the capitalist market economy has always served only to enrich the capitalists.

马克思在《资本论》第3卷中写道：“资本主义生产方式是一种特殊的、具有独特历史规定性的生产方式；它和任何其他一定的生产方式一样，把社会生产力及其发展形式的一个既定的阶段作为自己的历史条件，而这个条件又是一个先行过程的历史结果和产物，并且是新的生产方式由以产生的既定基础”。可见，同“任何其他一定的生产方式一样”，资本主义生产方式也是在原有基础上赓续发展的，而贯穿于这个“先行过程”与“既定基础”的就是资本主义社会的经济运行机制。所以，一定社会的经济体制必然具有相应的基本经济制度属性。事实上，任何经济体制都不能脱离所有制而独立存在，它必须建立在一定的生产资料所有制基础之上，市场经济亦是如此。资本主义市场经济建立在资本主义私有制基础上，（私有）资本逻辑主导生产、分配、交换和消费关系，这使得资本主义市场经济必然把极端个人主义和市场原教旨主义奉为圭臬，放任资本追逐剩余价值和个体利益最大化，近乎完全依靠市场机制和价值规律进行资源配置，并通过竞争实现优胜劣汰。因此，一方面，个别企业生产的有组织性，使社会生产力得到一定提高；另一方面，整个社会生产的无政府状态，又导致各种矛盾风险层出不穷，周期性经济危机不断，造成大量的社会资源浪费。正如马克思所言：“资本主义生产方式迫使每一个企业实行节约，但是它的无政府状态的竞争制度却造成社会生产资料和劳动力的最大的浪费，而且也产生了无数现在是必不可少的、但就其本身来说是多余的职能。”虽然资本主义国家也存在宏观调控，但大都是事后调控，政府不过是为私人资本造成的经济危机“灭火”的“消防员”。究其实质，资本主义市场经济从来都只是为资本家发财致富服务的。

Historically, there was no precedent for socialist countries implementing a market economy. Marx and Engels once believed that a socialist society would have no currency and no commodity exchange, while Lenin’s New Economic Policy was an unconventional measure for socialism, and at that time Soviet Russia had not yet established a socialist system. It can be said that whether socialism could develop a market economy was a new question that the classical Marxist writers had never encountered nor answered. In this situation, the contemporary Chinese Communists boldly broke free from the shackles of traditional concepts. Through arduous practical exploration, they arrived at the truth that “a planned economy is not equivalent to socialism, because capitalism also has planning; a market economy is not equivalent to capitalism, because socialism also has markets.” [9]9 This formulation was popularized by Deng Xiaoping during his southern tour in 1992, arguing that market and planning are both economic means, not inherent to socialism or capitalism. They historically established the socialist market economy system, making the great pioneering creation of developing a market economy under socialist conditions. The socialist market economy, built on the foundation of public ownership, takes public ownership as the mainstay and the state-owned economy as the leading force; meeting the needs of the masses is the fundamental purpose of its production and circulation. This economic system breaks the stereotypical thinking of bourgeois mainstream economics that sets government and market in opposition. It strives to promote a pattern in which the role of the market and the role of the government are organically unified, mutually complementary, mutually coordinated, and mutually reinforcing. This enables more effective handling of the relationships between planning and the market, micro-level liberalization and macro-level regulation, and stimulating economic efficiency and achieving social justice. It further perfects and develops the logic of (public) capital, powerfully promotes better and faster development of social productive forces, and pushes the people’s living standards to new heights. In essence, the socialist market economy serves the fundamental interests of the vast majority of the people.

历史上，社会主义国家没有实行市场经济的先例。马克思恩格斯曾经认为，社会主义社会没有货币也不存在商品交换，列宁的新经济政策则属于非社会主义常规之举，而且当时的苏俄也还未建立起社会主义制度。可以说，社会主义能否发展市场经济是马克思主义经典作家没有遇到过也未曾予以回答的新课题。在这种情况下，当代中国共产党人大胆突破传统观念束缚，经过艰苦的实践探索，得出了“计划经济不等于社会主义，资本主义也有计划；市场经济不等于资本主义，社会主义也有市场”的真理性认识，历史性地确立了社会主义市场经济体制，做出了在社会主义条件下发展市场经济的伟大创举。建立在公有制基础上的社会主义市场经济以公有制为主体、国有经济为主导，满足人民群众需求是其生产和流通的根本目的。这一经济体制打破了资产阶级主流经济学把政府与市场对立起来的思维窠臼，致力推动形成市场作用和政府作用有机统一、相互补充、相互协调、相互促进的格局，能够更加有效地处理计划与市场、微观放活与宏观调控、刺激经济效率与实现社会公正之间的关系，进一步完善和发展（公有）资本逻辑，有力促进社会生产力更好更快发展，推动人民生活水平不断迈上新台阶。从本质上讲，社会主义市场经济是为最广大人民的根本利益服务的。

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC incorporated the socialist market economy system into the basic economic system, [10]10 The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC was held in October 2019, focusing on upholding and improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. highly demonstrating our Party’s conscious action and confident spirit in advancing this “great pioneering creation.” It can be seen that this new formulation of the socialist market economy system explicitly requires adherence to the general laws of the market economy. Through measures such as improving the property rights protection system, advancing the construction of the factor market system, and strengthening the construction of the basic system of the capital market, it strives to create a fair competition market environment, enabling the “invisible hand” to better play its decisive role in resource allocation. At the same time, it emphasizes the necessity of firmly using the government’s “visible hand,” resolutely implementing the people-centered development philosophy and the principle of common prosperity. Taking measures such as improving the urban-rural integrated development system and mechanism and constructing a mechanism for coordinated regional development as the main starting points, it focuses on solving the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development, continuously meeting the people’s needs for a better life. This provides strong institutional support for effectively preventing the drawbacks of the capitalist market economy, earnestly leveraging the special advantages of the socialist market economy, and promoting the sustained, healthy, and high-quality development of our country’s economy and society.

党的十九届四中全会将社会主义市场经济体制纳入基本经济制度体系，高度彰显了我们党将“伟大创举”继续向前推进的自觉作为和自信精神。可以看到，对社会主义市场经济体制作出的新概括，既明确要求必须坚持市场经济的一般规律，通过健全完善产权保护制度、推进要素市场制度建设、加强资本市场基础制度建设等举措，努力营造公平竞争的市场环境，使“看不见的手”更好发挥在资源配置中的决定性作用；又强调必须坚持用好政府这只“看得见的手”，坚决贯彻以人民为中心的发展思想和共同富裕原则，以完善城乡融合发展体制机制、构建区域协调发展新机制等措施为主要抓手，着力解决好发展不平衡不充分问题，不断满足人民群众的美好生活需要。这就为有效防范资本主义市场经济弊端，切实发挥社会主义市场经济的特殊优势，推动我国经济社会持续健康高质量发展提供有力制度支撑。

Practical development has no end, and theoretical innovation has no finality. One year later, the “Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives for 2035,” adopted by the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC, [11]11 The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC was held in October 2020, adopting the proposal for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025). carried forward the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session and further made systematic plans and strategic deployments for “upholding and improving the basic socialist economic system.” In terms of the ownership structure, it consistently requires adherence to the “Two Unswervinglys,” [12]12 The “Two Unswervinglys” refer to unswervingly consolidating and developing the public sector of the economy, and unswervingly encouraging, supporting, and guiding the development of the non-public sector of the economy. and once again emphasizes that while “deepening the reform of state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises, strengthening, optimizing, and expanding state-owned capital and state-owned enterprises,” efforts must be made to “promote the healthy development of the non-public sector of the economy.” In terms of the distribution method, it emphasizes the necessity of “upholding the distribution according to work as the mainstay and allowing coexistence of multiple modes of distribution.” Through a series of measures such as improving the wage system, the distribution policy system according to factors of production, and the redistribution mechanism, it continuously “raises the income level of the people” and solidly promotes common prosperity. In terms of the economic system, it points out the goals and paths for “comprehensively deepening reform and building a high-level socialist market economy system,” and puts forward the new proposition of “promoting a better combination of an effective market and a competent government.” This is an inevitable choice on the new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country to continuously carry forward the significant advantages of the basic socialist economic system.

实践发展永无止境，理论创新未有穷期。时隔一年，党的十九届五中全会通过的《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十四个五年规划和二〇三五年远景目标的建议》，承接四中全会精神，进一步对“坚持和完善社会主义基本经济制度”作出系统谋划和战略部署：在所有制结构方面，一以贯之地要求坚持“两个毫不动摇”，并再次强调要在“深化国资国企改革，做强做优做大国有资本和国有企业”的同时，着力“促进非公有制经济健康发展”；在分配方式方面，强调必须“坚持按劳分配为主体、多种分配方式并存”，通过完善工资制度、按要素分配政策制度和再分配机制等一系列举措，不断“提高人民收入水平”，扎实推动共同富裕；在经济体制方面，指明了“全面深化改革，构建高水平社会主义市场经济体制”的目标和路径，并提出“推动有效市场和有为政府更好结合”的新命题。这是在全面建设社会主义现代化国家新征程上，不断将社会主义基本经济制度的显著优势发扬光大的必然选择。

(The author is the Dean and Professor of the School of Marxism at Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and a doctoral supervisor at the School of Marxism at Guizhou Normal University.)

（作者系重庆邮电大学马克思主义学院院长、教授，贵州师范大学马克思主义学院博士生导师）

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