“The Emancipation of Humanity” from the Perspective of Community Theory

Under the influence of the Soviet Marxist theoretical system, categories such as “civil society” and “community” have long been regarded as immature elements in Marx’s early theory. In recent years, the reflection of many domestic scholars on this theoretical system, the appearance of translations of works by foreign Marxist scholars, and especially the proposal of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s concept of “a community with a shared future for mankind,” have provided us with an opportunity to re-examine Marx’s concept of “community.” In essence, the concept of “community” itself, as a dynamic and constantly changing category, runs through the entirety of Marx’s thought. If “the emancipation of humanity” is the theme and purpose of Marx’s philosophy, then the theory of “community” is its solid foundation and guarantee for achieving this purpose.

在苏联马克思主义理论体系的影响下，“市民社会”“共同体”等范畴长期以来一直被视为马克思早期理论中的不成熟因素。近年来，众多国内学者对这一理论体系的反思，国外马克思主义学者译著的出现，特别是习近平总书记的“人类命运共同体”理念的提出，为我们提供了一个重新审视马克思的“共同体”概念的契机。实质上，“共同体”概念本身作为一个动态的不断变化的范畴贯穿于马克思思想的始终。如果说“人的解放”是马克思哲学的主题和目的，那么“共同体”理论则是其实现这个目的的坚实基石与保证。

Young Marx’s Refutation of Hegel’s View of “Community”

青年马克思对黑格尔“共同体”观的驳斥

From the perspective of the history of philosophy, the concept of “community” can be traced back to Aristotle’s *Nicomachean Ethics*. Aristotle believed that the ethical ideal of citizens, that is, the pursuit of a happy life, must be realized within a community (the political polis); only in the political polis can people “become virtuous and capable of noble deeds.” Over 2,000 years later, in the “Ethical Life” section of the *Philosophy of Right*, Hegel established a tripartite schema of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis with “family,” “civil society,” and “state.” Standing from the perspective of absolute spirit, Hegel perceived that in “civil society,” this “system of needs,” people are entangled in irrational calculations of deceit and intrigue against one another. Therefore, he attempted to use the “state,” this “earthly divine being,” to sublate these irrational elements in human nature.

从哲学史上看，“共同体”概念可以追溯到亚里士多德的《尼各马可伦理学》。亚里士多德认为，公民的伦理理想即对幸福生活的追求必须要在共同体（政治城邦）中加以实现，只有在政治城邦中人才能“成为有德行的人、能做出高尚行为”。2000多年后，在《法哲学原理》中的“伦理”章节中，黑格尔以“家庭”“市民社会”“国家”建立起一套正、反、合的三段论图示。黑格尔站在绝对精神的视角上，窥视到在“市民社会”这个“需要的体系”中，人与人处于违背理性的尔虞我诈的算计之中，因此他试图以“国家”这个“地上的神物”来扬弃这些人性中不合理的成分。

As we know, Kant attempted to defend human freedom and dignity through the “moral imperative”; Hegel, in turn, tried to enable each individual to attain “substantive freedom” by “sublimating” individual self-consciousness into the state as an idea. Young Marx, dedicated to “the emancipation of humanity,” was dissatisfied with the abstract freedom of Kant and Hegel. In his doctoral dissertation, Marx regarded Prometheus’s “I hate all gods” as the motto of philosophy itself, precisely because he opposed “all gods in heaven and on earth that do not recognize human self-consciousness as the highest divinity.” [1]1 This is a reference to Marx’s doctoral dissertation, *Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature* (1841), where he uses the myth of Prometheus to symbolize the rebellious spirit of human self-consciousness against divine authority. Therefore, Marx used the “swerve of the atom” to eulogize self-consciousness, this “spiritual charioteer.” [2]2 The “swerve of the atom” (*clinamen*) is a concept from Epicurean physics, which Marx interprets in his dissertation as representing individual freedom, spontaneity, and the assertion of self-consciousness against deterministic necessity. The individual freedom and emancipation symbolized by the “swerve of the atom” also imply the supreme pursuit of Marx’s community thought. Although Marx’s thought at this time was still an immature “rebellion” within the Hegelian philosophical system, the “spiritual charioteer” would not be satisfied with the constraints of abstract pure ideas; it would eventually plunge into the blazing fire of reality and shine in the real world!

如我们所知，康德试图以“道德律令”的方式捍卫人类的自由与尊严；黑格尔则试图通过将个人的自我意识“升华”为作为理念的国家而使每个人获得“实体性的自由”。致力于“人的解放”的青年马克思不满于康德与黑格尔式的抽象自由，在博士论文中，马克思将普罗米修斯的“我痛恨所有的神”视为哲学自己的格言，正因为他反对“不承认人的自我意识是最高神性的一切天上的和地上的神”。因此马克思借“原子的偏斜运动”来讴歌自我意识这个“精神载荷者”，“原子的偏斜运动”所象征的个人自由与解放也隐含着马克思共同体思想的至高追求。尽管马克思此时的思想依然是在黑格尔哲学体系内的不成熟的“反叛”，但是“精神载荷者”不会满足于抽象的纯理念束缚，它终究会扑入熊熊的现实之火，在现实世界中发光！

In his reflection on Hegel’s view of “community,” Marx gradually punctured the Hegelian myth of the idea. Subsequently, under the influence of Feuerbach, Marx began to question Hegel’s “illusory community”—the political state—and initiated an assault on absolute spirit. Adopting a Feuerbachian “inversion of subject and predicate” regarding Hegel’s “political state” determining “civil society,” he thus arrived at the conclusion that “civil society” determines the “political state.” In *On the Jewish Question*, Marx, on the one hand, analyzed the essence of “civil society,” namely, “practical need, egoism is the principle of civil society”; on the other hand, he criticized the “political state,” pointing out that the state not only cannot abolish the various real differences among people but, on the contrary, presupposes these real oppositions—it is precisely under these presuppositions that the “political state” feels its own universality.

在对黑格尔“共同体”观的反思中，马克思逐渐戳破黑格尔式的理念神话。此后在费尔巴哈的影响之下，马克思开始对黑格尔的“虚幻共同体”——政治国家提出质疑，并开始了对绝对精神的征讨——对黑格尔的“政治国家”决定“市民社会”采取了费尔巴哈式的“主宾倒置”，从而得出了“市民社会”决定“政治国家”的结论。在《论犹太人问题》中，马克思一方面剖析了“市民社会”的本质，即“实际需要、利己主义是市民社会的原则”，另一方面对“政治国家”展开批判，指出国家不仅无法废除人们在现实上的种种差别，反而以这现实的种种对立为前提——正是在这些前提之下，“政治国家”才感到自己的普遍性。

The Idea of “Community” in the Early Period of Historical Materialism

历史唯物主义初期“共同体”思想

In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx first shaped the idea of “community.” Here, employing Feuerbach’s humanistic method, Marx conducted a tripartite argument of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis: “un-alienated state,” “alienated state,” and “sublation of the alienated state.” Feuerbach, in his *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, described the “species,” i.e., the essence of man, as follows: “The isolated, individual person, whether as a moral entity or as a thinking entity, does not possess the essence of man. The essence of man is contained only in community, in the unity of man with man, but this unity is founded only on the reality of the distinction between ‘I’ and ‘you’.” [3]3 This is a quotation from Ludwig Feuerbach’s *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future* (1843), aphorisms 59-60, where he argues that human essence is inherently social and relational, not individual. Borrowing Feuerbach’s concept of “species,” Marx also regarded the “un-alienated state,” i.e., the person who has not lost their essence, as a person living a “species-life.” Here, the various contradictions between humanity and nature have not yet manifested; nature exists as the inorganic body of humanity. However, after being distorted by private property and alienated labor, humanity loses its existence as a “species-being,” is put in chains, and loses the possibility of freedom. Finally, in the “sublation of the alienated state” mediated by the sublation of private property—communism as a community—people regain control over the existence they themselves created but which stood opposed to them. The liberation people obtain in communist society is not a liberation of having nothing, but an era of immense abundance in the material and spiritual worlds, the comprehensive development of individual personality, an era of freedom and liberation. The community of “communism” depicts the following vision: it is the reconciliation of contradictions between humanity and nature, and between people; the laborer re-appropriates the humanized nature that exists as products and wealth; nature once again becomes an extension of human limbs, just as food is the natural prerequisite of the human digestive system. After the establishment of historical materialism, this philosophical language would naturally be reproduced in the scientific form of economic terminology.

在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思第一次塑造“共同体”思想。在此，马克思以费尔巴哈的人本学方法，进行了“未异化态”“异化态”“异化态的扬弃”的正、反、合三段论论证。费尔巴哈在《未来哲学原理》中对“类”即人的本质有过如下描述，“孤立的、个别的人，不管是作为道德实体或作为思维实体，都未具备人的本质。人的本质只是包含在团体之中，包含在人与人的统一之中，但是这个统一只是建立在‘自我’和‘你’的区别的实在性上面的”。借用费尔巴哈“类”概念的马克思也将“未异化态”即未丧失本质的人视作过着“类生活”的人，在这里人与自然的种种矛盾尚未彰显，自然界作为人的无机的身体而存在。然而历经私有财产与异化劳动的扭曲之后，人丧失了其作为“类存在”的存在，并被套上了枷锁，失去了自由的可能。最后在以扬弃私有财产为中介的“异化态的扬弃”——作为共同体的共产主义中，人们重新控制了由自己创造却与自己相对立的存在。人们在共产主义社会中所获得的解放并非一无所有的解放，而是一个物质和精神世界极大丰富、人的个性全面发展的时代，是自由与解放的时代。“共产主义”之共同体为我们描绘了如下愿景：它是人与自然、人与人之间矛盾的和解；劳动者重新占有了作为产品与财富的人化自然界，自然重新作为人的四肢的延伸，正如食物是人类消化系统的天然前提一样。在历史唯物主义建立之后，这种哲学语言显然会以经济学术语的科学形式得以再现。

After experiencing *The Holy Family*, this “eve of historical materialism,” Marx ultimately reflected on Feuerbach’s “humanistic” framework in the *Theses on Feuerbach*. After initially forming the ideas of historical materialism, he attempted to analyze the reasons why Hegel fell into illusion regarding “community.” The result was *The German Ideology*. Here, Marx analyzed the “illusory community” using the method of historical materialism, pointing out its class character of freedom: “The social position of individuals, and hence their personal development, is determined by the class to which they belong; they are subordinate to the class.” [4]4 This is a paraphrase of a passage from *The German Ideology* (1845-46) by Marx and Engels, critiquing how class society determines individual development. Correspondingly, in the “real community” born from the proletarian revolution’s sublation of the “illusory community,” “individuals gain their freedom in and through their association.” [5]5 This is a direct reference to the concept of the “real community” (*wahre Gemeinschaft*) in *The German Ideology*, where Marx and Engels describe the communist association as the condition for individual freedom. Thus, the emancipation of humanity is truly realized. However, the world-historical thought unfolded along the thread of the division of labor was merely Marx’s preliminary application of historical materialism. Here, “community” appears only as a result: if the theory of “community” is viewed as a tripartite expression, at this moment *The German Ideology* contains only the “antithesis” (“illusory community”) and the “synthesis” (“real community”). Where, then, is the “thesis” (“community”)? How is this tripartite transformation achieved? This lacuna was subsequently filled in the manuscripts of *Capital*.

在经历《神圣家族》这一“历史唯物主义的前夜”后，马克思在《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中最终反思了费尔巴哈的“人本学”架构，并在初步形成了历史唯物主义思想之后，试图分析黑格尔在“共同体”上陷入幻觉的原因，其结果就是《德意志意识形态》。在此，马克思通过历史唯物主义方法分析了“虚假的共同体”，指出其中自由的阶级属性，“各个人的社会地位，从而他们个人的发展是由阶级决定的，他们隶属于阶级”。相对应的，在无产阶级革命对“虚假的共同体”的扬弃而生的“真正的共同体”中，“各个人在自己的联合中并通过这种联合获得自己的自由”，从而真正实现人的解放。然而，以分工为线索展开的世界历史思想，只是马克思对历史唯物主义的初步运用，“共同体”在此还仅仅是作为结果出现的：若将“共同体”理论视作三段论式的表达，此刻《德意志意识形态》中仅包含着“反题”（“虚假的共同体”）与“合题”（“真正的共同体”），那么作为“正题”的“共同体”何在？这三段论式的转变何以达成？这种留白在随后的《资本论》手稿中得以补全。

The Historical Retrospection of Community in the Critique of Political Economy

政治经济学批判对共同体的历史性追溯

In the first manuscript of *Capital*, Marx undertook a historical reflection on the default premise of the “Chapter on Capital”: “wage labor.” If *Capital* is a logical investigation of the various elements within the capitalist mode of production and an inquiry into the secret of its self-production, then the section “Forms Which Precede Capitalist Production” in the first manuscript adopts a historical attitude toward the capitalist mode of production. It is precisely here that the missing “thesis” of community in *The German Ideology*, the original appearance of humanity’s earliest productive activity—the original community—is finally unveiled.

在《资本论》第一手稿中，马克思对《资本章》中的默认前提“雇佣劳动”展开了历史性的反思。如果说《资本论》是以对资本主义生产方式中的诸要素采取逻辑上的考察并探究其自我生产的秘密的话，那么第一手稿中的《资本主义生产以前的方式》则对资本主义生产方式采取一种历史性的态度。正是在此，《形态》中缺失的共同的“正题”、人类生产活动最初的原貌——本源性共同体才得以被解蔽。

Marx first established a dual determination for wage labor: free labor, and the exchange of free labor with money for the purpose of valorization; the separation of labor from property, i.e., the opposition between labor capacity and the conditions of labor. Marx attempted to investigate the conditions for the realization of the above determinations within the original community.

马克思首先为雇佣劳动设下了双重规定：自由劳动，及自由劳动与货币以价值增值为目的交换；劳动与所有相分离，即劳动能力与劳动条件的对立。马克思试图在本源性共同体中考察上述规定实现的条件。

In this primordial community, labor and property (its material precondition), that is, “the worker places the objective conditions of his labor” in an undifferentiated natural state of identity, the former regarding the latter as his own property; thus the worker firmly grasps in his own hands both the possibility of realizing the fruits of labor (labor capacity) and the basis for realizing those fruits (the means of labor), and he himself is the embodiment of the actuality of labor capacity. Individual property is a premise that requires no prior premise; nature is inherently a part of the human body, as if it were an extension of that body; food is naturally what the digestive system requires; people are simultaneously owners and laborers, members of the community. This view is the idea that Marx consistently upheld in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*. Having established the primordial state of labor and property, Marx, according to the different forms of expression of labor and property, delineated three synchronous forms of property: the Asiatic form of property, the ancient form of property, and the Germanic form of property.

在这种本源性的共同体中，劳动与所有（其物质前提），亦即“劳动者把自己劳动的客观条件”放置于未分化的天然同一状态，前者将后者视为自己的财产；因而劳动者将实现劳动结果的可能性（劳动能力）与实现劳动结果的根据性（劳动资料）紧紧抓在手中，其自身便是劳动能力现实性的体现，个人所有是不为前提的前提，自然界天然的就是人类身体的一部分，就像为他身体的延伸一般，食物天然就是消化系统的所需，人们既是所有者同时也是劳动者的共同体成员。这种观点是《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中的马克思一直以来所秉承的理念。在确立了劳动与所有的本源态之后，马克思依据劳动与所有的不同表现形式划分了三种共时态所有制：亚细亚的所有制形式、古代的所有制形式、日耳曼的所有制形式。

The transformation of man from the primordial community into the worker of modern bourgeois society, that is, the dissolution of the primordial community, is a product of history. What, then, is the historical juncture that impels the dissolution of the community? Which type of community possesses the potential for self-dissolution, for breaking through its own determinate being? Marx believed that within this chaos, the Asiatic peoples were content with a self-sufficient life, slumbering in the embrace of the community and delivering the fruits of their labor to it, so that the possibility of exchange was already stifled. The ancient form of property, because of the flourishing of slavery, possessed the potential for self-dissolution, but it lacked the capacity to transcend its own determinate being. In other words, under the ancient form of property, although money had permeated every corner of society, there was no trace of free labor here.

从本源性共同体中的人变成现代资产阶级社会中的工人，亦即本源性共同体的解体是历史的产物。那么促使共同体解体的历史契机何在？哪种共同体具有自我解体、突破自身定在的潜能呢？马克思认为，在这种混沌之中，亚细亚的人们满足于自给自足的生活，酣眠于共同体的怀抱并将劳动的成果交付给共同体，交换的可能性已经被扼杀。而古代的所有制形式因为奴隶制的兴盛具有自我瓦解的潜能，但它却没有促使自我超脱定在的能力，换言之，在古代的所有制下，货币虽然浸润了社会的每个角落，但这里却没有自由劳动的影子。

In the Germanic form of property, however, “each individual household is an economic whole, forming an independent center of production on its own.” The community exists only in the mutual relations of individual owners; here, the act of labor is purely an “act of self-interest.” Individual labor exists only under individual property. This community, unlike the ancient form of property, does not play a mediating role, and surplus labor thus contains the possibility of self-mastery. On this basis, monetary relations replaced feudal relations, liberating the peasant into “free labor.” Under the dual effect of free labor and monetary relations, wage labor emerges logically.

而在日耳曼的所有制形式中，“每一单个家庭就是一个经济整体，它本身单独地构成一个独立的生产中心”。共同体只有在个人所有者们的相互关系中才存在，在这里劳动行为纯粹是“利己行为”，只有在个人所有制下，个人劳动才存在，这一共同体并没有像古代的所有制一样起到中介的作用，剩余劳动便蕴含着自我支配的可能。以此为基础，货币关系取代了封建的关系，将农民解放为“自由劳动”，在自由劳动与货币关系的双重作用下，雇佣劳动得以在逻辑上出现。

The Economics of Time — The Dissolution of Capital and the Restoration of Community

时间经济学——资本的瓦解与共同体的复权

After the dissolution of the Germanic community, a completely new entity — civil society — emerged. Unfortunately, from the very moment of its birth, civil society was already enveloped by the capitalist mode of production. Original freedom was replaced by the free labor of those who possess nothing, and as this “collapse” expanded, it also destroyed the Asiatic and ancient forms of property. In other words, the world market was formed, casting everything under the shadow of capital, and the emancipation of man seemed to become an impossibility.

在日耳曼共同体解体之后，一个全新的存在——市民社会就出现了，很不幸的是自市民社会诞生之初就已经被资本主义生产方式所裹挟，原本的自由被一无所有的自由劳动替代，并且随着这种“崩落”的扩大，连带着也摧毁了亚细亚与古代的所有制形式。换言之，世界市场形成了，它将一切的一切都笼罩在资本之下，人的解放看似成为不可能的事情。

Yet does the community thereby disappear? Certainly not. Regarding the capitalist mode of production, *Capital* on the one hand reveals capital’s unbridled nature of “self-valorization,” and on the other hand, through a comprehensive historical phenomenology, demonstrates capital’s civilizing role. In the process of the leap from commodity-capital to money-capital, capital leaves us with a rich and varied array of objects imbued with use-value. Capital’s tendency to expand the use of living labor and reduce necessary labor simultaneously fosters a “time economy” in which workers autonomously control their own time for comprehensive development. Clearly, “the great historical aspect of capital is to create this surplus labor.” Making capital contribute to the restoration of the community is the work Marx undertook in *Capital*.

然而共同体是否就此消逝？当然不是。对于资本主义生产方式，《资本论》一方面展现了资本淋漓尽致的“自我增值”本性，另一方面以整全性的历史现象学展现了资本的文明作用。在由商品资本到货币资本的飞跃过程中，资本为我们留下的是丰富多彩的凝结着使用价值的物品。资本扩大使用的活劳动和缩小必要劳动的趋势，同时也促成了劳动者为了自身全面发展而自主掌控的“时间经济”，显然，“资本的伟大的历史方面就是创造这种剩余劳动”。而让资本为共同体的复权添砖加瓦则是马克思在《资本论》中的工作。

“The scroll of history is always unfurled through arduous struggle; the chapters of the era are always written in new endeavors.” Gramsci pointed out in his *Prison Notebooks* that communism is not merely a spiritual refuge for people; communism exists in people’s practice. With the proposal of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s concept of “a community with a shared future for mankind,” and with the extension and ceaseless flow of the river of history, Marx’s vision of community will ultimately realize itself in the leap from theory to reality.

“历史的画卷总是在砥砺前行中铺展；时代的华章总是在新的奋斗里书写”，葛兰西在《狱中札记》中指出，共产主义不只是人们的精神寄托，共产主义就存在于人们的实践中。随着习近平总书记“人类命运共同体”理念的提出，随着历史长河的绵延和奔腾不息，马克思的共同体愿景终将在从理论到现实的飞跃中实现自身。

Online Editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗