Marx and Engels’ Critique of the Paradoxes of Capitalist Society

The *Communist Manifesto* is a great work that for the first time comprehensively expounds the principles of scientific socialism. Once published, it practically promoted the development of world socialism and profoundly changed the course of human history. In the *Communist Manifesto*, Marx and Engels, applying the scientific worldview and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, and following the law that social development is driven by the fundamental contradiction of society, put forward that “the fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” [1]1 Marx and Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party* (1848), describing how the bourgeoisie has stripped all occupations of their former dignity and replaced veiled exploitation with open, direct exploitation. We can understand the thesis that “the fall of the bourgeoisie is inevitable” by starting from three paradoxes of capitalist society.

《共产党宣言》是第一次全面阐述科学社会主义原理的伟大著作，一经问世就在实践上推动了世界社会主义发展，深刻改变了人类历史进程。在《共产党宣言》中，马克思恩格斯运用辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义的科学世界观和方法论，根据社会基本矛盾推动社会发展的规律，提出“资产阶级的灭亡和无产阶级的胜利是同样不可避免的”。可以从资本主义社会的三个悖论入手，理解“资产阶级的灭亡是不可避免的”这一论断。

The Wealth Paradox of Capitalist Society

资本主义社会的财富悖论

The wealth paradox is concretely manifested as the opposition between the accumulation of wealth and the accumulation of poverty. In *The Poverty of Philosophy*, Marx points out that the relations of production within which the bourgeoisie operates have a dual character: the relations of production that generate wealth also generate poverty, and the relations of production that develop the productive forces also develop a force of oppression. Only by constantly destroying the wealth of individual members of the bourgeoisie and producing an ever-growing proletariat can the wealth of the bourgeoisie be produced.

财富的悖论具体表现为财富积累与贫困积累的对立。在《哲学的贫困》中，马克思指出，资产阶级借以在其中活动的生产关系具有两重性：在产生财富的生产关系中也产生贫困，在发展生产力的生产关系中也发展一种产生压迫的力量。只有不断消灭资产阶级单个成员的财富，产生出不断壮大的无产阶级，才能产生资产阶级的财富。

In the *Communist Manifesto*, Marx and Engels concretely analyze the opposition between the two kinds of accumulation. On the one hand, there is the immense development of the productive forces and the accumulation and concentration of wealth. “The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.” And the essential condition for the existence and rule of the bourgeoisie is the accumulation of wealth in private hands. Hence it does away ever more thoroughly with the dispersion of the means of production, of property, and of population. It has agglomerated population, centralized means of production, and concentrated property in a few hands. On the other hand, there is the accumulation of poverty. In *Wage Labour and Capital*, Marx points out that capital presupposes wage labour, and wage labour presupposes capital. They condition each other; they produce each other. The wage labour in which the worker engages produces the wealth of others that dominates him—that is, capital, a power hostile to him. The worker can obtain the means of subsistence from capital only on condition that his wage labour again becomes a part of capital, again becomes the lever that sets capital in motion for accelerated growth. The more capital grows, the more the amount of wage labour grows, the more the number of wage workers increases, and the more intense the competition among wage workers becomes. Precisely because they were aware of this contradiction between wage labour and capital, Marx and Engels in the *Communist Manifesto* naturally conclude: “But the modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth.”

在《共产党宣言》中，马克思恩格斯具体分析了两种积累之间的对立。一方面，是生产力的巨大发展和财富的积累集中。“资产阶级在它的不到一百年的阶级统治中所创造的生产力，比过去一切世代创造的全部生产力还要多，还要大。”而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，所以它日甚一日地消灭生产资料、财产和人口的分散状态，使人口密集起来，使生产资料集中起来，使财产聚集在少数人的手里。另一方面，是贫困的积累。在《雇佣劳动与资本》中，马克思指出，资本以雇佣劳动为前提，而雇佣劳动又以资本为前提。两者相互制约；两者相互产生。工人所从事的雇佣劳动生产的是对它起支配作用的他人财富，即同它敌对的权力——资本。它之所以能从资本那里取得生活资料，是以雇佣劳动又会变成资本的一部分，又会变成再一次把资本投入加速增长运动的杠杆为条件的。资本越增长，雇佣劳动量就越增长，雇佣工人人数就越增加，雇佣工人之间的自相竞争就越激烈。正因为意识到雇佣劳动与资本之间的这种矛盾，马克思恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中水到渠成地指出：“现代的工人却相反，他们并不是随着工业的进步而上升，而是越来越降到本阶级的生存条件以下。工人变成赤贫者，贫困比人口和财富增长得还要快。”

In *Capital*, Marx further clarifies the relationship between the accumulation of wealth and the accumulation of poverty: “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 in the form of capital.”

在《资本论》中，马克思进一步明确了财富积累与贫困积累的关系：“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。”

It is precisely because of the accumulation of poverty that the bourgeoisie can no longer rule. All societies up to the present have been based on the antagonism between an oppressing and an oppressed class. In order to be able to oppress the worker, the bourgeoisie must ensure that the worker has at least enough to barely maintain his slavish existence. However, the bourgeoisie cannot ensure that its own slaves can maintain their slave-like existence; it is forced to let its slaves fall to a state where they cannot support it but instead require it to support them. Society can no longer live under the rule of the bourgeoisie; hence the fall of the bourgeoisie is inevitable. A supplementary remark is needed: the wealth paradox in capitalist society is also manifested as the opposition between wealth accumulation and ecological destruction. Since the *Communist Manifesto* does not address this opposition, it will not be elaborated upon here.

正是源于贫困的积累，资产阶级统治不下去了。至今的一切社会都建立在压迫阶级和被压迫阶级的对立之上，为了有可能压迫工人，资产阶级必须保证工人至少有能够勉强维持它奴隶般的生存条件。然而，资产阶级不能保证自己的奴隶维持奴隶的生活，不得不让自己的奴隶落到不能养活它反而要它来养活的地步。社会再也不能在资产阶级的统治下生存下去了，故资产阶级的灭亡是不可避免的。需要补充一句，资本主义社会中财富的悖论还表现为财富积累与生态破坏之间的对立，由于《共产党宣言》没有涉及这一对立，故在此不展开。

The Freedom Paradox of Capitalist Society

资本主义社会的自由悖论

The freedom paradox is concretely manifested as the opposition between freedom and unfreedom. The freedom of capitalism is a kind of freedom that can be bought and sold, a freedom of trade, “within the existing bourgeois relations of production, what is called free trade is free trade, free buying and selling.” In his speech *On the Question of Free Trade*, Marx points out that the “free trade” touted by the bourgeoisie is essentially the freedom of the capitalist to exploit the worker, and also the freedom of the capitalist state to amass wealth at the expense of other nations. The free trade system is breaking up the previous nationalities, pushing the antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to its extreme point, and thereby accelerating the social revolution. In *Capital*, Marx analyzes the freedom of buying and selling. For money to be transformed into capital, the money owner must find the free worker on the commodity market. Here, “free” has a double meaning: on the one hand, the worker is a free person, able to dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity; on the other hand, he has no other commodity to sell, being free of all things, possessing nothing necessary for the realization of his labour-power, no means of production or means of subsistence. Labour-power or labour capacity is the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description. The sale and purchase of labour-power takes place within the limits of the sphere of circulation or commodity exchange, where what reigns is freedom, equality, property, and Bentham. [2]2 Ibid., contrasting bourgeois freedom with feudal chartered freedoms. Freedom, because the buyer and seller of a commodity (e.g., labour-power) are determined only by their own free will; they contract as free, legally equal persons. The contract is the free product of their will, to which the law gives common expression. But once we leave the sphere of circulation or commodity exchange, we see that the physiognomies of the dramatis personae change. “He who was previously the money-owner now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his worker. The one smirks self-importantly and is intent on business; the other is timid and holds back, like someone who has brought his own hide to market and now has nothing else to expect but—a tanning.” That is to say, the freedom of buying and selling in the sphere of circulation or commodity exchange is premised on the unfreedom of the worker, who, lacking means of production and means of subsistence, is forced to sell his labour-power as a commodity. If the worker has freedom, it is only the freedom to be compelled to sell his labour-power as a commodity.

自由的悖论具体表现为自由与不自由的对立。资本主义的自由是一种可以在市场上买卖、进行贸易的自由，“在现今的资产阶级生产关系的范围内，所谓自由就是自由贸易、自由买卖”。在《关于自由贸易问题的演说》中，马克思指出，资产阶级所标榜的“贸易自由”实质上就是资本家压榨工人的自由，同时也是资本主义国家牺牲其他民族的利益而聚敛财富的自由。自由贸易制度正在瓦解迄今为止的各个民族，使无产阶级和资产阶级之间的对立达到了顶点，从而加速了社会革命。在《资本论》中，马克思分析了买卖自由。要把货币转化为资本，货币占有者必须在商品市场上找到自由的工人。这里所说的自由具有双重意义：一方面，工人是自由人，能够把自己的劳动力当作商品来支配；另一方面，他没有别的商品可以出卖，自由得一无所有，没有任何实现自己的劳动力所必需的生产资料和生活资料。劳动力或劳动能力是一个人的身体中存在的、每当他生产某种实用价值时就运用的体力和智力的总和。劳动力的买卖在流通领域或商品交换领域的界限内进行，在这里占统治地位的是自由、平等、所有权和边沁。之所以自由，是因为商品（例如劳动力）的买者和卖者只取决于自己的自由意志，他们作为自由的、法律上平等的人缔结契约，而契约是他们的意志借以得到共同的法律表现的自由产物。但是，一旦离开流通领域或商品交换领域，我们就会看到，剧中人的面貌发生了变化。“原来的货币占有者作为资本家，昂首前行；劳动力占有者作为他的工人，尾随于后。一个笑容满面，雄心勃勃；一个战战兢兢，畏缩不前，像在市场上出卖了自己的皮一样，只有一个前途——让人家来鞣。”也就是说，流通领域或商品交换领域的买卖自由是以没有生产资料和生活资料、只能被迫出卖劳动力商品的工人的不自由为前提的。如果说工人有自由，工人只有被迫将劳动力作为商品出卖的自由。

At the same time, the freedom of capitalism is also a kind of freedom to compete in the market. “In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production.” [3]3 Ibid., the famous formulation of the communist association. “Free competition, and with it the social and political institutions corresponding to it, the economic and political rule of the bourgeoisie, take the place of the old.” Engels, in *The Communists and Karl Heinzen*, points out: “Free competition is the last, the highest, the most developed form of private property. Hence all measures that start from the basis of private property and yet are directed against free competition are reactionary, and seek to restore lower stages of development of private property; they must therefore ultimately be defeated by competition and restore the present state of society.” Free competition is manifested not only in administration, medical care, education, etc., but also in religion and belief. The ideas of freedom of belief and freedom of religion indicate that free competition holds sway in the realm of belief; it can also be said to be the freedom to compete in the marketplace of ideas. Free competition causes the worker immense suffering and arouses his hatred; free competition benefits the bourgeois and wins their support.

与此同时，资本主义的自由也是一种在市场上竞争的自由。“取而代之的是自由竞争以及与自由竞争相适应的社会制度和政治制度、资产阶级的经济统治和政治统治。”恩格斯在《共产主义者和卡尔·海因岑》中指出：“自由竞争是私有制最后的、最高的、最发达的存在形式。因此一切从私有制的基础出发而同时又反对自由竞争的措施都是反动的，都力图恢复私有制的低级发展阶段，因此，这种措施最终必将在竞争面前遭到失败，使目前这种社会状态重新恢复。”自由竞争不仅体现在行政、医疗、教育等方面，而且体现在宗教和信仰方面。信仰自由和宗教自由的思想表明，自由竞争在信仰领域里占统治地位，也可以说是观念市场上竞争的自由。自由竞争使工人遭受极大的痛苦，引起他们的痛恨；自由竞争使资产者获益，得到他们的拥护。

It is precisely the freedom of the bourgeoisie to engage in free buying and selling, free trade, and free competition that represents the unfreedom of the workers, who possess nothing but their own labor power. This is because bourgeois society has not abolished class antagonisms; it has merely substituted new conditions of oppression for the old ones, “has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment’… 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. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” [1]1 Marx and Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party* (1848), describing how the bourgeoisie has stripped all occupations of their former dignity and replaced veiled exploitation with open, direct exploitation. Therefore, the laborer has no freedom from exploitation, only the freedom to choose who exploits him, which in the final analysis remains a form of unfreedom. The freedom of capitalism differs both from the freedom of feudal society — “it has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation… has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe” [2]2 Ibid., contrasting bourgeois freedom with feudal chartered freedoms. — and from the freedom of communist social development: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” [3]3 Ibid., the famous formulation of the communist association.

正是资产阶级进行自由买卖、自由贸易、自由竞争的自由，代表着除了劳动力之外一无所有的工人的不自由。这是因为，资产阶级社会没有消灭阶级对立，只是用新的压迫条件代替了旧的压迫条件，“用公开的、无耻的、直接的、露骨的剥削代替了由宗教幻想和政治幻想掩盖着的剥削”。所以，劳动者没有不受剥削的自由，只有被谁剥削的自由，归根结底还是一种不自由。资本主义的自由既不同于封建社会的自由，“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挣得的自由”；也不同于共产主义社会发展的自由，“代替那存在着阶级和阶级对立的资产阶级旧社会的，将是这样一个联合体，在那里，每个人的自由发展是一切人的自由发展的条件”。

The Paradox of Civilization in Capitalist Society

资本主义社会的文明悖论

The paradox of civilization is concretely manifested as the opposition between civilization and barbarism. Capitalist society is a modern society, a civilized society, but its formation and development are also a process full of bloodshed, violence, and barbarism. “‘Modern’ Society is the capitalist society that exists in all civilized countries, more or less free from admixture of medieval elements, more or less modified by the special historical development of each country, more or less developed.” [4]4 Engels, *Socialism: Utopian and Scientific* (1880), defining “modern society” as capitalist society in its developed form.

文明的悖论具体表现为文明与野蛮的对立。资本主义社会是现代社会、文明社会，但其形成和发展又是一个充满血腥和暴力、野蛮的过程。“‘现代社会’就是存在于一切文明国度中的资本主义社会，它或多或少地摆脱了中世纪的杂质，或多或少地由于每个国度的特殊的历史发展而改变了形态，或多或少地有了发展。”

As early as in “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy,” Engels already referred to the opposition between civilization and barbarism in capitalist society: “You have abolished small monopolies in order that the one great basic monopoly, property, may operate the more freely and unrestrictedly; you have civilized the ends of the earth in order to win new terrain for the development of your vile avarice; you have brought about the brotherhood of the nations in order to prepare the ground for the brotherhood of thieves; you have reduced the number of wars in order to make more money in peacetime, in order to sharpen to the utmost the enmity between individuals, the infamous war of competition!” [5]5 Engels, “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy” (1844), an early critique of capitalist competition and colonialism.

早在《国民经济学批判大纲》中，恩格斯就提及资本主义社会中文明与野蛮的对立：“你们消灭了小的垄断，以便使一个巨大的根本的垄断，即所有权，更自由地、更不受限制地起作用；你们把文明带到世界的各个角落，以便赢得新的地域来扩张你们卑鄙的贪欲；你们使各民族建立起兄弟般的关系——但这是盗贼的兄弟情谊；你们减少了战争次数，以便在和平时期赚更多的钱，以便使各个人之间的敌视、可耻的竞争战争达到登峰造极的地步！”

In the *Communist Manifesto*, Marx and Engels provided a further analysis of the opposition between civilization and barbarism. On the one hand, thanks to the rapid improvement of the instruments of production and the great convenience of communication, the bourgeoisie has drawn all nations, even the most barbarian, into civilization. On the other hand, it compels all nations to adopt the bourgeois mode of production, to impose so-called civilization, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In a word, it creates a world after its own image. Just as it has made the country dependent on the town, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West. [6]6 Marx and Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party*, on the global expansion of the bourgeoisie and the subordination of the East. In Western Europe, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, England, France, and Germany successively became colonial powers. Through the control of powerful empires and joint-stock companies, they turned agricultural nations and barbarian and semi-barbarian countries into colonies and dependencies for plundering raw materials, selling commodities, and extracting wealth, and forced them to “adopt the bourgeois mode of production.” “Making the East dependent on the West” means making the backward agricultural countries of the East subject to the control and domination of the bourgeoisie of Western European countries. This shows that the civilized world that the bourgeoisie has created in its own image is a severely imbalanced and distorted world.

在《共产党宣言》中，马克思恩格斯对文明与野蛮的对立有了进一步的分析。一方面，由于生产工具的迅速改进和交通的极其便利，资产阶级把一切民族甚至最野蛮的民族都卷到文明中来了。另一方面，它迫使一切民族采用资产阶级的生产方式，推行所谓的文明，即变成资产者。正像它使农村从属于城市一样，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。在西欧，葡萄牙、西班牙、荷兰、英国、法国、德国相继成为殖民国家。它们通过强大帝国和股份公司的控制，使农业的民族以及未开化和半开化的国家变成其掠夺原料、推销商品、榨取财富的殖民地和附属国，并迫使它们“采用资产阶级的生产方式”。“使东方从属于西方”，就是使东方落后的农业国从属于西欧国家资产阶级的控制和统治。这表明，资产阶级按自己的面貌为自己创造的文明世界，是一个严重失衡的畸形世界。

Due to the paradox of wealth, the paradox of freedom, and the paradox of civilization, the downfall of the bourgeoisie is inevitable. Because of the paradox of wealth and the paradox of freedom, the workers of one factory, the workers of one locality or one branch of labor, and the workers of the whole country unite to struggle against the bourgeoisie of their own country. Because of the paradox of civilization, the proletarians of the whole world unite, striving for unity and coordination among the democratic parties of all countries, to struggle against the bourgeoisie itself. It is in this sense that the downfall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. [7]7 The concluding thesis of the *Manifesto*: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working Men of All Countries, Unite!”

由于财富的悖论、自由的悖论与文明的悖论，资产阶级的灭亡是不可避免的。由于财富的悖论与自由的悖论，某一工厂的工人、某一地方某一劳动部门的工人、全国的工人联合起来同本国资产阶级作斗争；由于文明的悖论，全世界的无产者联合起来，争取全世界民主政党之间的团结和协调，同资产阶级本身作斗争。正是在这个意义上，资产阶级的灭亡和无产阶级的胜利同样是不可避免的。

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