The Dialectics of Modernity in *Capital*

There is a view that whether economic issues are incorporated into theoretical perspective can serve as a theoretical criterion for distinguishing the pre-modern from the modern. In this sense, it can indeed be said that “Karl Marx was the first major social theorist to conceptualize the modern as distinct from the pre-modern and to form a comprehensive theoretical perspective on modernity.” And Marx’s “comprehensive theoretical perspective” on the problem of modernity was primarily accomplished through *Capital*, the monumental work of “critique of political economy”; *Capital* is a kind of “advanced interpretation” of modernity.

有一种观点认为，是否把经济问题纳入理论视野，可作为区分前现代和现代的理论标准。在此意义上，确实可以说“卡尔·马克思是第一位使现代与前现代形成概念并在现代性方面形成全面理论观点的主要的社会理论家”。而马克思对现代性问题形成的“全面理论观点”，主要是通过作为“政治经济学批判”巨著的《资本论》完成的，《资本论》就是对现代性的一种“高级解说”。

The “Capitalization” of God: The Secular Essence of Modernity

上帝的“资本化”：现代性的世俗本质

Modernity is a topic that is difficult to exhaust in a few words. From a temporal dimension, the birth of modernity is relative to the Middle Ages; it is the inevitable product of human history developing into the modern era. From a spatial dimension, modernity is a Western-centered modernity; it “makes barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on civilized ones, makes peasant nations dependent on bourgeois nations, makes the East dependent on the West.” But penetrating behind the “time-space” dimension, we need more to understand and grasp the inner essence of modernity. If the long Middle Ages were the age of faith, that is, the age when religious theology dominated all under heaven, which followed faith before reason, God before the self, and advocated asceticism in economic life, autocracy in political life, and obscurantism in cultural life, then modernity is the opposite: it is the process of the rationalization, materialization, and humanization of God. It advocates reason before faith, the self before God; economically it opposes asceticism and pursues real happiness; politically it opposes autocracy and pursues natural rights; culturally it opposes obscurantism and pursues human freedom. In this sense, the Middle Ages were a process of “establishing sacred images,” while modernity is a process of “dissolving sacred images.” Therefore, modernity is what Nietzsche called the “death of God,” what Weber called the “disenchantment” of the world, and what Leo Strauss pointed to as a “secularized biblical faith.” Thus, modernity is in essence the process of “secularizing God” by “dissolving sacred images.” The era in which Marx lived was precisely a “modern era” that had passed through the Renaissance, completed the Reformation, and realized the Enlightenment—that is, an era of the “disenchantment” of God, an “era of capital”—“Capital appears as soon as it marks a new epoch in the social process of production.”

现代性是个一言难尽的话题。从时间维度上来说，现代性的诞生是相对中世纪来说的，它是人类历史发展到近代的必然产物；从空间维度上来说，现代性是以西方为中心的现代性，它“使未开化和半开化的国家从属于文明的国家，使农民的民族从属于资产阶级的民族，使东方从属于西方”。但透过“时—空”维度的背后，我们更需要理解和把握现代性的内在本质。如果说漫长的中世纪是信仰的时代，即宗教神学一统天下的时代，它遵从的是先信仰后理性、先上帝后自我，主张的是经济生活的禁欲主义、政治生活的专制主义和文化生活的蒙昧主义，那么，现代性则与之相对，它是上帝的理性化、物化和人本化的过程，它主张先理性后信仰、先自我后上帝，经济上反对禁欲主义、追求现实幸福，政治上反对专制主义、追求天赋人权，文化上反对蒙昧主义、追求人性自由。在此意义上，中世纪是“确立神圣形象”的过程，而现代性则是“消解神圣形象”的过程。因此，现代性就是尼采所说的“上帝的死亡”，韦伯所说的世界的“祛魅”，列奥·施特劳斯所指出的一种“世俗化了的圣经信仰”。所以说，现代性在本质上就是“消解神圣形象”的“上帝世俗化”过程。马克思所生活的时代，正是一个经过了文艺复兴、完成了宗教改革、实现了思想启蒙的“现代性时代”，即一个上帝“祛魅”的“资本的时代”——“资本一出现，就标志着社会生产过程的一个新时代”。

In the perspective of the “critique of political economy” in *Capital*, the “era of capital” is precisely the era of the “capitalization” of God—the era of “secularization.” Therefore, in Marx’s *Capital* here, secularized modernity is an era that has turned from “deification” to “reification”—the era when the social wealth of capitalist society appears as an “immense accumulation of commodities.” In the era of reification, “capital” ultimately replaces “God” as the supreme ruler and comprehensive dominator, and capital thus becomes the dominant principle of modernity and sets its direction. It constitutes the foundation and motive force of modern society, and also constitutes the core and soul of all phenomena of modernity—capital ultimately becomes the “Juggernaut wheel” [1]1 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The Communist Manifesto* (1848), where Marx and Engels argue that under bourgeois conditions capital alone has independence and personality, while the living worker is reduced to a mere appendage. that dominates history. In Marx’s words, capital is the “universal light” of modernity, establishing the highest standard and measure for real life—everything must justify its existence before capital or renounce its right to exist. In modern society, capital (money) replaces emotion and faith as the bond that holds society together. In this sense, Scheler believed that modernity is the “commercial spirit” defeating and replacing the “theological-metaphysical” spirit, and “practical value” converting and inverting “life value.” In *Capital* here, God, in the transformed and secularized “fetish” image of “capital,” realizes comprehensive rule over real life.

在《资本论》的“政治经济学批判”视野中，“资本的时代”也就是上帝的“资本化”时代——“世俗化”时代。因此，在马克思的《资本论》这里，世俗化的现代性就是由“神化”的时代转向“物化”的时代——资本主义的社会财富表现为“庞大的商品堆积”的时代。在物化的时代，“资本”最终取代“上帝”成为最高统治者和全面支配者，资本也因此成为现代性的主导原则并为之制定方向，它构成现代社会的基础和动力，也构成各种现代性现象的核心和灵魂——资本最终成了主宰历史的“札格纳特车轮”。按马克思的说法，资本就是现代性的“普照光”，它为现实生活确立了最高标准和尺度——一切都要在资本面前为自己的存在作辩护或者放弃存在的权利。在现代性社会，资本（金钱）取代情感和信仰成为维系社会的纽带。在此意义上，舍勒认为现代性就是“工商精神”战胜并取代了“神学—形而上学”精神，“实用价值”转换和颠倒了“生命价值”。在《资本论》这里，上帝以改头换面的“资本”这一世俗化的“物神”形象实现了对现实生活的全面统治。

The “Deification” of Capital: The “Fetish” Representation of Modernity

资本的“上帝化”：现代性的“物神”表征

It is precisely by firmly grasping the image of “capital” as the “secularized God” characterizing the new era that *Capital* fully demonstrates its superiority over past and contemporary philosophy and economics, and is able to penetrate into the essence of modernity. In *Capital*, capital is no longer merely a “sensible thing” appearing as “material wealth,” but exists as a “sensible and supersensible thing.” Thus capital appears both as a “thing”—an immense accumulation of commodities—and as a “relation”—the relation between the bourgeois and the proletariat—and as a “power”—the economic power that rules everything. In this sense, Marx emphasizes that capital is by no means “Mistress Quickly” [2]2 Friedrich Engels, “Review of *Capital*” (1867), in which Engels summarises the central discovery of Marx’s work., but is “full of metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties,” possessing a riddle-like nature. But this riddle-like nature of capital clearly does not come from capital itself, but is caused by the capitalist mode of production.

正是紧紧抓住了“资本”这一表征新时代的“世俗化上帝”形象，《资本论》才充分体现出相较以往和当代哲学与经济学的优越性，并且能够深入现代性的本质中。在《资本论》中，资本已不再仅仅是作为“物质资财”出现的“可感觉物”，而是作为“可感觉而又超感觉的物”存在的，所以资本既表现为“物”——庞大的商品堆积，也表现为“关系”——资产者与无产者的关系，还表现为“权力”——统治一切的经济权力。在此意义上，马克思强调资本绝不是“快嘴桂嫂”，而是“充满了形而上学的微妙和神学的怪诞”，具有谜一般的性质。但资本的这一谜一般的性质，显然不是从资本自身而来，而是资本主义生产方式所致。

In *Capital* here, capital undergoes an evolution and transformation from “commodity capital” to “money capital” to “interest-bearing capital,” and the general formula of capital correspondingly shifts from W—G—W to G—W—G and then to G—G. Especially in the stage of interest-bearing capital, capital finally becomes a self-valorizing “automatic fetish” completely unrelated to production. In this sense, capital is the presentation and representation of the “spectral objectivity” of modernity; capital, in the new “fetish” image, retains and represents in modernity the “spiritualist honor” that God possessed in the Middle Ages but lost in the modern era. It can be said that it is precisely in interest-bearing capital that modernity obtains its highest form and most complete meaning. Therefore, the power of capital as the “automatic fetish” is the power of modernity, and the image of capital is also the image of modernity: it “compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In a word, it creates a world after its own image.” Capital possesses a “divine power” consistent with God’s creation.

在《资本论》这里，资本有着从“商品资本”到“货币资本”再到“生息资本”的演进和转换，资本的总公式也相应从W—G—W转变为G—W—G再转变为G—G。特别是在生息资本阶段，资本最后变成了完全与生产无关的自我增殖的“自动的物神”。在此意义上，资本就是现代性的“幽灵般的对象化”呈现和表征，资本以新的“物神”形象在现代性中保留和表征了上帝在中世纪获得而在近代失去的“唯灵论的荣誉”。可以说，正是在生息资本这里，现代性获得了它的最高形态和最完全的意义。因此，作为“自动的物神”的资本的力量就是现代性的力量，资本的形象也就是现代性的形象：它“迫使一切民族——如果它们不想灭亡的话——采用资产阶级的生产方式；它迫使它们在自己那里推行所谓的文明，即变成资产者。一句话，它按照自己的面貌为自己创造出一个世界”。资本具有了与上帝创世一致的“神力”。

But capital’s creation and rule of the world is not achieved by force, but by means of “equality.” “The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate.” In *Capital*, Marx emphasizes that commodities, money, and capital are all “born levelers”; “it is always ready not only to exchange its soul but its body with any other commodity, even if it is more repulsive than Maritornes” [3]3 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 1, Section 4, where Marx criticises classical political economy for naturalising historically specific capitalist relations.; “one cannot tell from the money what kind of commodity has been transformed into it. In the money-form, one commodity looks exactly like any other.” Therefore, the “equality and freedom” of modernity that rules the world “are not only respected in exchange based on exchange values, but, also, the exchange of exchange values is the productive, real basis of all equality and freedom... Equality and freedom are merely the squared form of this basis.” This is in fact precisely the root and secret of the “three fetishisms”—commodity fetishism, money fetishism, and capital fetishism—that *Capital* reveals and criticizes. It is precisely for this reason that Marx clearly points out: modernity, represented by capital as the “automatic fetish,” “has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation”; “it has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade”; that is, “while capital thus has an immanent drive, and a constant tendency, to increase the productive forces to the utmost, it also tends to render the main productive force, i.e., the human being himself, one-sided.” This leads to the situation where, under capital as the “fetish” of modernity, although people have shaken off their dependence on God and gained a certain independence, this independence still remains within the condition of dependence on things.

但资本对世界的创造和统治，却不是以武力方式实现的，而是以“平等”的方式完成的。“它的商品的低廉价格，是它用来摧毁一切万里长城、征服野蛮人最顽强的仇外心理的重炮。”在《资本论》中，马克思强调商品、货币和资本都是“天生的平等派”，“它随时准备不仅用自己的灵魂而且用自己的肉体去换取任何别的商品，哪怕这个商品生得比马立托奈斯还丑”，“从货币上看不出它是由哪种商品转化来的。在货币形式上，一种商品和另一种商品完全一样”。因此，统治世界的现代性的“平等和自由不仅在以交换价值为基础的交换中受到尊重，而且交换价值的交换是一切平等和自由的生产的、现实的基础……平等和自由不过是另一次方的这种基础而已”。这实际上也正是《资本论》所揭示和批判的“三大拜物教”——商品拜物教、货币拜物教和资本拜物教——产生的根源和秘密所在。也正因如此，马克思明确指出：以资本这一“自动的物神”为表征的现代性把“一切都淹没在利己主义打算的冰水之中”，“它把人的尊严变成了交换价值，用一种没有良心的贸易自由代替了无数特许的和自力争得的自由”，也即“资本在具有无限度地提高生产力趋势的同时，又在怎样程度上使主要生产力，即人本身片面化”。由此导致在资本这一现代性的“物神”这里，人虽然摆脱了对神的依附性而获得了一定的独立性，但这一独立性依然处于对物的依赖性之中。

This is precisely the greatest “consequence of modernity” brought about by capital as the “honour of spiritualism” of modernity: “Capital has independence and individuality, while the living individual has neither independence nor individuality.” [1]1 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The Communist Manifesto* (1848), where Marx and Engels argue that under bourgeois conditions capital alone has independence and personality, while the living worker is reduced to a mere appendage. The task and mission of the dialectic of modernity in *Capital*, as a “critique of political economy,” is to set up “traffic lights” for capital, to transcend capital by limiting it—to transform the independence and individuality of capital into the independence and individuality of real human beings.

这实际上正是资本作为现代性的“唯灵论的荣誉”带来的最大的“现代性的后果”：“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。”而作为“政治经济学批判”的《资本论》之现代性辩证法的任务和使命，就是要为资本设立“红绿灯”，通过限定资本来超越资本——变资本的独立性和个性为现实的人的独立性和个性。

Setting Up “Traffic Lights” for Capital: The Modernity Project of *Capital*

为资本设立“红绿灯”：《资本论》的现代性方案

In his review of *Capital*, Engels explicitly emphasised: “the relation of capital and labour” is the axis around which the whole of modern society revolves, and in *Capital* it received its first “scientific explanation.” [2]2 Friedrich Engels, “Review of *Capital*” (1867), in which Engels summarises the central discovery of Marx’s work. Yet the classical economists could not see or reveal and explain the real relationship between capital and labour; instead, they “treat this definite, particular, historical form of social labour as it appears in capitalist production as the general, eternal form.” [3]3 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 1, Section 4, where Marx criticises classical political economy for naturalising historically specific capitalist relations. That is, the classical economists regarded the capitalist mode of production as a universal, natural form, so that labour ultimately became completely subordinate to capital, both formally and actually. In response, Marx in *Capital* advocated using the positive “cooperative factories” of the working class and the negative “joint-stock companies” of the capitalists to break the “myth” and “spell” of universal eternal capital—that is, ultimately to replace “wage labour” with “cooperative labour” performed by workers with cheerful spirits, thereby breaking the “iron law” that equates modernity with the capitalist mode of production: “Capital is neither the absolute form of the development of productive forces, nor the form of wealth absolutely consistent with the development of productive forces.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (1857–1858), Notebook V, where Marx argues that capital is not an absolute form of productive development. In this sense, it can indeed be said that labour is the key to understanding and resolving the problem of capitalist modernity.

恩格斯在为《资本论》撰写的书评中明确强调：“资本和劳动的关系”是全部现代社会所围绕和旋转的轴心，并且在《资本论》这里第一次得到了“科学的说明”。但古典经济学家却看不到或无法揭示和说明资本与劳动之间的真实关系，反而“把社会劳动在资本主义生产中表现出来的这种一定的、特殊的、历史的形式说成是一般的、永恒的形式”。也就是说，古典经济学家把资本主义生产方式看成是普遍的天然形式，因而劳动最终无论从形式上还是实际上都完全从属于资本。对此，马克思在《资本论》中主张以积极的工人阶级的“合作工厂”和消极的资本家的“股份公司”来打破普遍永恒资本的“神话”和“符咒”，也即最终通过工人带着愉快心情从事的“合作劳动”取代“雇佣劳动”来打破把现代性等同于资本主义生产方式的“铁律”：“资本既不是生产力发展的绝对形式，也不是与生产力发展绝对一致的财富形式”。在此意义上，确实可以说劳动是理解和解决资本现代性问题的一把钥匙。

It is precisely by means of this key of “labour” that the dialectic of modernity in *Capital* surpasses the classical economists and the utopian socialists. Its greatness lies not in simply opposing, negating, or even discarding capital, but in seeing through the fetishistic appearance of capital as a modern “idol” to perceive “the civilising aspect of capital”: “One of the civilising aspects of capital is that it extorts this surplus labour in a manner and under conditions that are more advantageous than earlier forms such as slavery and serfdom for the development of productive forces, for the development of social relations, and for the creation of the elements of a new and higher form.” [5]5 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume III, Chapter 48, “The Trinity Formula,” where Marx notes the progressive role of capital compared to earlier modes of exploitation. In this sense, the profound insight of the dialectic of modernity in *Capital* lies not only in discovering and revealing that capital “is conducive to the creation of the elements of a new and higher form,” but also in “transforming” capital itself. The direct result of this transformation is to turn “the civilising aspect of capital” into “the highly civilised human being”—that is, “to replace the partial individual, who is merely the bearer of a particular social function, with the fully developed individual, for whom the different social functions are alternating modes of activity.” [6]6 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 15, Section 9, on the transformation of the division of labour under large-scale industry. Replacing the “partial individual” with the “fully developed individual” means cultivating the “highly civilised human being”: “to cultivate all the attributes of the social human being and to produce him as a human being with as rich a range of attributes and connections as possible, and therefore with as wide a range of needs as possible”—to produce him as a “highly civilised human being.” [7]7 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, Notebook I, on the production of the rich individual with universal needs. In this regard, some foreign scholars have argued that “Marx’s *Capital*, as the political economy of the proletariat, from the first page to the last, is permeated with one great purpose: to liberate the working class from the shackles of capitalist exploitation.” [8]8 This appears to be a paraphrase of a view attributed to a foreign scholar; the original source is not identified in the text. This view can be said to grasp the true meaning of the dialectic of modernity in *Capital*. To this end, Marx points out in *Capital* that the liberation of human free individuality means: the associated producers—socialised human beings—will rationally regulate their material exchange with nature, carrying it out with the least expenditure of energy under conditions most appropriate to and most worthy of human nature, thereby placing it under their common control, rather than allowing it to rule them as a blind force. Thus, on the far side of this “realm of necessity,” the true “realm of freedom”—the free development of human capacities as an end in itself—begins. [9]9 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume III, Chapter 48, on the realm of freedom and the realm of necessity. It is evident from this that the construction of the “realm of freedom” in *Capital* can only be achieved through the control and transformation of capital.

正是借助“劳动”这把钥匙，《资本论》的现代性辩证法高于古典经济学家和空想社会主义者的伟大之处，就在于不是简单地反对和否定甚至抛弃资本，而是透过资本这一现代性的“物神”表象，看到了“资本的文明面”：“资本的文明面之一是，它榨取这种剩余劳动的方式和条件，同以前的奴隶制、农奴制等形式相比，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。”在此意义上，《资本论》现代性辩证法的深刻洞见，不仅在于发现和揭示了资本“有利于更高级的新形态的各种要素的创造”，而且在于对资本本身进行了“改造”。这一改造的直接成果，就是把“资本的文明面”转变为“高度文明的人”，也即“用那种把不同社会职能当作互相交替的活动方式的全面发展的个人，来代替只是承担一种社会局部职能的局部个人”。由“全面发展的个人”代替“局部个人”，也就是培养出“高度文明的人”：“培养社会的人的一切属性，并且把他作为具有尽可能丰富的属性和联系的人，因而具有尽可能广泛需要的人”——作为“具有高度文明的人”——生产出来。对此，国外有学者认为“作为无产阶级政治经济学的马克思《资本论》从第一页起直到最后一页，贯穿着一个伟大的目的，就是把工人阶级从资本主义的剥削的枷锁下解放出来”，此见可谓深谙《资本论》现代性辩证法之本意。为此，马克思在《资本论》中指出，人之自由个性的解放就是：联合起来的生产者——社会化的人，将合理地调节他们和自然之间的物质变换，在最适合于和最无愧于人类本性的条件下，靠消耗最小的力量来进行这种物质变换，从而把它置于他们的共同控制之下，而不让它作为盲目的力量来统治自己。由此，在这个“必然王国”的彼岸，真正的“自由王国”——作为目的本身的人类能力的自由发挥——就开始了。由此可见，《资本论》中“自由王国”的构建，唯有通过控制和改造资本才能实现。

In *Capital*, Marx’s transformation of capital is also the setting of a space for capital’s activity and operation: through “re-establishing individual property” [10]10 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 32, “The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation,” where Marx speaks of re-establishing individual property on the basis of co-operation and common ownership of the means of production.—abolishing the “wage-labour system”—to propel capital from the “realm of necessity” toward the “realm of freedom.” This is, in effect, setting up “traffic lights” for capital: capital cannot act arbitrarily and devour everything; capital is both the starting point and the endpoint of modernity, and the limit of capital is the limit of modernity. In this regard, Marx hoped to heal the wounds of a modernity dominated by capital through a more fully and more profoundly developed modernity of the free and all-round development of human individuality. In this sense, the dialectic of modernity in *Capital* aims not only to transcend capitalism, but also to transcend capital itself—“to transcend capital by means of capital.” [11]11 This phrase echoes a theme in Marx’s critique of political economy: that capital itself creates the conditions for its own supersession. *Capital* is both the truly “highest-level revolution of modernity” and the truly “highest-level revolution of freedom.”

在《资本论》这里，马克思对资本的改造也即为资本设置活动和作用的空间：通过“重新建立个人所有制”——消灭“雇佣劳动制”，推动资本由“必然王国”走向“自由王国”。这实际上就是在为资本设立“红绿灯”：资本不能任意妄为和吞噬一切，资本既是现代性的起点也是现代性的终点，资本的界限就是现代性的界限。对此，马克思希望通过一种更加充分和更加深刻的人之自由个性全面发展的现代性来医治资本统治一切的现代性之创伤。在此意义上，《资本论》的现代性辩证法不仅要超越资本主义，也要超越资本——“极力通过资本来超越资本”。《资本论》既是真正“最高级现代性革命”，也是真正“最高级自由革命”。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗