Abstraction Becomes Domination: Marx and Lefebvre

Marx critiqued the modern paradox that “individuals are now ruled by abstractions,” and Lefebvre, taking up Marx’s discourse of “abstraction (capital) becoming domination,” concluded that “abstract space becomes domination.” However, this immense “anonymous force” did not drive them to despair; Marx and Lefebvre were filled with revolutionary optimism, both believing in the liberating power of historical dialectics.

马克思批判了“个人现在受抽象统治”的现代性悖论，列斐伏尔承接马克思“抽象（资本）成为统治”的话语，得出“抽象空间成为统治”的结论。不过，这种庞大的“匿名力量”并没有使他们陷入绝望，马克思和列斐伏尔充满了革命乐观主义，他们都相信历史辩证法的解放力量。

Abstract capital becomes domination. Modern people have broken free from the clan ties and regional constraints of traditional society, yet inadvertently fall into the reified condition of the capitalist formation. Marx held that “personal independence based on dependence on things is the second great form, in which alone a system of general social exchange of matter, universal relations, manifold needs, and universal capacities is formed.” The high development of the market economy means that exchange value becomes an alien force dominating people; money, as its “incarnation,” becomes an “external power,” and all relations in capitalist society are thereby inverted into monetary relations. In other words, money not only becomes the currency of commodity circulation but gradually evolves into the “God” that exchanges everything in the social sphere; hence the fetishism of money grows and develops, and money becomes the spiritual totem of modern people.

抽象资本成为统治。现代人挣脱了传统社会的宗族羁绊和地域限制，却又不经意地陷入资本主义形态的物化处境之中。马克思认为，“以物的依赖性为基础的人的独立性，是第二大形态，在这种形态下，才形成普遍的社会物质交换，全面的关系，多方面的需求以及全面的能力的体系”。市场经济的高度发展，意味着交换价值成为支配人们的异己力量，作为它的“化身”的货币成为一种“外在的权力”，资本社会的一切关系随之翻转为货币关系。换言之，货币不仅成为商品流通领域的通货，而且逐渐演变为社会领域通兑一切的“上帝”，拜金主义观念因而发展壮大，货币成为现代人的精神图腾。

As a reified social relation, the money fetish appears as an external natural necessity for people; “abstraction becomes domination” manifests the logic of capital in modern society. Of course, this is not the ruthlessness of abstraction itself, but the nature of capital’s infinite self-valorization. For capital in pursuit of surplus value, workers and capitalists are less independent acting subjects than appendages of capital. Marx emphasized: “In bourgeois society, capital has independence and individuality, while the living individual has neither independence nor individuality.” In the process of capitalist socialized large-scale production, workers are merely tools for capital’s valorization, and capitalists are nothing but agents of capital’s consciousness; together they bear the task of producing surplus value. Capital in its conceptual form is money, but in essence it is a “relation of production,” possessing a dominating power over everything, becoming the “light that bathes all other colors” in the capitalist world.

作为一种物化的社会关系，货币拜物教俨然成为一种外在于人的自然必然性，“抽象成为统治”彰显着现代社会的资本逻辑。当然，这不是抽象本身的无情，而是资本无限增殖的本性使然。对于追求剩余价值的资本而言，与其说工人和资本家是独立行动的主体，不如说他们是资本的附庸。马克思强调：“在资产阶级社会里，资本具有独立性和个性，而活动着的个人却没有独立性和个性。”在资本主义社会化大生产的过程中，工人不过是资本增殖的工具，而资本家无非是资本意识的代理人，他们一起承担着生产剩余价值的任务。资本在其概念形态上是货币，但其本质上是一种“生产关系”，有着支配一切的统治力量，俨然成为资本主义世界“普照的光”。

Economic globalization is the result of the thorough penetration of abstract capital’s domination. The expansion of capital breaks through spatial limits, national narrowness, and civilizational conflicts; capitalist commodities become “heavy artillery for battering down all Chinese walls” of the most stubborn xenophobia of barbarians, and the bourgeoisie rushes around the world to open up markets and sell their commodities, making “production and consumption in all countries become cosmopolitan.” Marx pointed out: “Individuals are now ruled by abstractions, whereas formerly they depended on one another. But abstraction, or idea, is nothing but the theoretical expression of the material relations that dominate them.” Hidden behind the idea is the overall interest of the bourgeoisie; they promote their own civilizational order globally, and capitalist fetishism thus becomes the ideology of capital’s globalization.

经济的全球化是抽象资本统治全面渗透的结果。资本扩张突破了空间限制、民族狭隘性以及文明的冲突，资本主义的商品成为“征服野蛮人最顽强的仇外心理的重炮”，资产阶级奔走于世界各地开拓市场、推销他们的商品，使得“一切国家的生产和消费都成为世界性的了”。马克思指出：“个人现在受抽象统治，而他们以前是相互依赖的。但是，抽象或观念，无非是那些统治个人的物质关系的理论表现。”隐藏在观念背后的是资产阶级整体利益，他们在全球推行自己的文明秩序，资本主义拜物教由此成为资本全球化的意识形态。

Abstract space becomes domination. Social space condenses relations of production and reproduction; it is a spatial metaphor for the order of social power and a practical construction of the reorganization of social relations. Since a change in the mode of production implies the emergence of a new space, capitalist property relations mean a latest form of social space. According to Lefebvre, this is a shift from “the production of ‘things’ in space” to “the production of space”; in more concrete terms, it is from “the production of ‘things’ in geographical space” to “the production of space in abstract space.” That is to say, the dominant form of capitalism is no longer commodity production but the reorganization and transformation of space; capitalism can only satisfy its voracious need for expansion by “drawing circles” through the reproduction of relations of production, even though this “production of space” is concealed within the mature form of the high development of capitalist productive forces and relations of production.

抽象空间成为统治。社会空间凝结着生产与再生产关系，是社会权力秩序的空间隐喻，也是社会关系重组的实践建构。既然生产方式的转变意味着新空间的产生，那么资本主义财产关系就意味着一种最新形态的社会空间。依据列斐伏尔的看法，这是从“空间中的‘物的生产’到空间的生产”，用更具体的语言来表达，就是从“地理空间中的‘物的生产’到抽象空间中的‘空间的生产’”。这就是说，资本主义的主导形式不再是商品生产，而是空间的重组与改造，资本主义只有通过生产关系再生产来“画圈”，才能满足其大肆扩张的需求，虽然这种“空间生产”隐匿于资本主义生产力与生产关系高度发展的成熟形态之中。

According to Lefebvre’s judgment, “abstract space has become the ‘subject’ of present-day social space, daily life, and the production and reproduction of relations of production”; here “subject” means subject in Marx’s sense, implying that abstract space has become the dominant force governing social relations. Following Marx’s discourse of “abstract capital becoming domination,” Lefebvre argues that in contemporary capitalist society, “abstract space becomes domination.” The dazzling world of commodities erases the essential difference between day and night; the logic of capital “annihilates time by space,” obliterating the historicity and naturalness of traditional society, and according to its own intentions, plans a “historicity” and “naturalness” that conform to the needs of abstract space. Lefebvre points out: “Lived experience has been destroyed and conquered by fictions; history, along with sensations and intuitions, is not allowed to enter abstract space.” In short, the production of space constructs a system of codes that can be dominated; objects without exchange value simply cannot enter capitalist abstract space.

依据列斐伏尔的判断，“抽象空间已经成为当下社会空间、日常生活以及生产关系生产和再生产的‘主体’”，这里的“主体”是指马克思意义上的主体，它意味着抽象空间已经成为支配社会关系的主导力量。接着马克思“抽象资本成为统治”的话语，列斐伏尔认为当代资本主义社会的“抽象空间成为统治”。灯火辉煌的商品世界消弭了白天与黑夜之间的本质区别，“用空间消灭时间”的资本逻辑抹杀了传统社会的历史性及其自然性，并且根据自己的意图规划符合抽象空间需要的“历史性”和“自然性”。列斐伏尔指出：“鲜活的经验已经被虚构物摧毁和征服，历史连同感觉、直觉在内均不能获准进入抽象空间当中。”要言之，空间生产建构的是一套可以支配的符码体系，没有交换价值的物品根本进入不了资本主义抽象空间。

Abstract space is not a product of subjective imagination but an objective abstraction, which must be grasped through the “dialectic from the abstract to the concrete”; concretions such as the state and commercial plazas are merely its forms of realization. Lefebvre argues: “Abstract space cannot be defined on the basis of its perceived form, nor can it be reduced to some absolute position.” The concretion closest to abstract space is state monopoly capitalism, a notable combination of state and capital that originated with Keynesianism and the New Deal, resolving the economic crises of the capitalist world through government leadership. Since space was incorporated into the capitalist reproduction process, urbanization, nationalization, and globalization have constructed a spatial trinity; the domination of abstract space is omnipresent.

抽象空间不是主观想象的产物，而是一种客观的抽象，需要借助“从抽象到具体的辩证法”来把握，诸如国家、商业广场等具象都不过是它的实现形式。列斐伏尔认为：“抽象空间不能以知觉到的形式为根据来界定，也不能被还原为某种绝对立场。”最接近抽象空间的具象是国家垄断资本主义，这种国家和资本的显著结合肇始于凯恩斯主义、罗斯福新政，通过政府主导来解决资本主义世界的经济危机。自空间被纳入资本主义再生产过程以来，都市化、国家化和全球化建构了空间化的三位一体，抽象空间的统治无所不在。

The path to breaking abstract domination. “Abstraction becomes domination” is a modern consequence of capital’s infinite self-valorization, signifying the advanced stage of capitalist development. Marx once prospectively envisioned the historical trend of the transition from free capitalism to monopoly capitalism, arguing that “the modern state power is merely a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” Lefebvre, following Marx’s political discourse, judged capitalism to be “a combination of state power and capital power,” because “space makes the combination of economy and politics possible.” Thus, individuals are inevitably placed under an extremely vast “anonymous domination,” and this “abstract domination” becomes an inescapable “destiny” for modern people.

破除抽象统治之路。“抽象成为统治”是资本无限增殖的现代性后果，表征着资本主义发展的高级阶段。马克思曾经前瞻性地展望了自由资本主义向垄断资本主义转变的历史趋势，认为“现代的国家政权不过是管理整个资产阶级的共同事务的委员会罢了”。列斐伏尔接着马克思的政治话语，判定资本主义是“国家权力和资本权力的结合体”，因为“空间使得经济和政治的结合成为可能”。如此一来，个人势必处于一个极其庞大的“匿名统治”之中，并且这种“抽象统治”成为现代人不可逃脱的“天命”。

However, Marx believed that capital’s nature is “self-repulsion”; its enemy is “itself,” because the logic of capital’s expansion requires breaking the fetters of capitalist private property: “The universality toward which capital irresistibly strives encounters barriers in capital’s own nature, which at a certain stage of capital’s development will make people recognize that capital itself is the greatest limitation of this tendency.” For Lefebvre, abstract space also contains contradictions that must explode, because it must produce differential space, and can only exist in a negative form: “Difference persists or expands on the margins of homogenized space, either in an antagonistic form or in an external form.” In short, the “reflexivity” of capital connects with the “self-negation” of abstract space, heralding the path of the dissolution of abstract domination.

然而，马克思认为资本的本性是“自我排斥”，它的敌人就是“自身”，因为资本扩张的逻辑要求打破资本主义私有制的桎梏，“资本不可遏制地追求的普遍性，在资本本身的性质上遇到了界限，这些界限在资本发展到一定阶段时，会使人们认识到资本本身就是这种趋势的最大限制”。对于列斐伏尔而言，抽象空间也存在着必然爆炸的矛盾，因为它必须生产出差异空间，并且只能以否定性的形式存在，“差异性在同质化领域的边缘区持续或扩大，要么以对抗的形式，要么以外在的形式”。简言之，资本的“自反性”衔接着抽象空间的“自我否定性”，昭示着抽象统治的瓦解之路。

What dominates the future is often initially suppressed; this is the charm of historical dialectics. An interesting fact is that the bourgeoisie itself forges the weapons that will destroy it, and the proletariat bears the mission of liberating all humanity. Marx believed: “The proletarian movement is the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.” Correspondingly, the possibility of spatial liberation in Lefebvre’s imagination also lies in places such as urban margins, slums, and spaces of resistance prohibited by the government.

主导未来的事物起初往往都是被压制的，这是历史辩证法的魅力所在。一个有趣的事实是，资产阶级亲自锻造了置自身于死地的武器，无产阶级承担着解放全人类的使命。马克思认为：“无产阶级的运动是绝大多数人的，为绝大多数人谋利益的独立的运动。”与之相应的是，列斐伏尔想象中的空间解放的可能性所在，也是城市边缘、贫民窟以及被政府禁止的反抗性空间等地方。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗