Continuously Advancing Ideological Emancipation on the Question of Capital

Since the mid-20th century, the study of modernization has produced many influential theories—such as classical modernization theory, dependency theory, world-systems theory, globalization theory, and post-modernization theory—all of which presuppose the existence and developmental logic of capital. Confined as they are to exploring the process of human modernization within the logic of capital, these theories inevitably become trapped in a pre-existing structure of center-periphery and dependency-subordination, unable to provide genuinely valuable theoretical foundations for the modernization of the vast number of developing countries. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese people of all ethnic groups, through prolonged exploration and practice, have endured countless hardships and paid enormous costs to successfully forge a path of Chinese-path modernization. On the basis of practical exploration, they have achieved theoretical innovation and creatively put forward the theory of Chinese-path modernization. General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly pointed out, “Summarizing and elaborating the theory of Chinese-path modernization is a major theoretical innovation of the 20th National Congress of the CPC and the latest major achievement of scientific socialism.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie* (1857–1858), Notebook V. The passage is a paraphrase of Marx’s argument that capital itself becomes the greatest barrier to its own development. This major theoretical innovation has realized the organic integration of Marx’s critical theory of modernity with China’s developmental reality, solving the practical problem of how to achieve socialist modernization under the premise of the coexistence of two social forms and two social systems. The great practice of Chinese-path modernization over more than forty years has continuously advanced ideological emancipation on the question of capital, and this is the key to why the theory of Chinese-path modernization surpasses all previous modernization theories.

20世纪中叶以来，人类的现代化研究形成了诸多有影响力的现代化理论，诸如经典现代化理论、依附理论、世界体系理论、全球化理论、后现代化理论等，均以资本的存在及其发展逻辑为前提。它们限于资本逻辑来探讨人类现代化进程，必然陷于中心—外围、依附—被依附的先在性结构而无法自拔，无法为大批发展中国家实现现代化提供真正有价值的理论依据。中国共产党领导全国各族人民在长期探索和实践中历经千辛万苦、付出巨大代价，成功地走出了一条中国式现代化道路，并在实践探索的基础上实现理论创新，创造性地提出中国式现代化理论。习近平总书记深刻指出，“概括提出并深入阐述中国式现代化理论，是党的二十大的一个重大理论创新，是科学社会主义的最新重大成果”。这一重大理论创新实现了马克思主义现代性批判理论与中国发展实际的有机结合，破解了两种社会形态、社会制度并存的前提下如何实现社会主义现代化的现实难题。中国式现代化四十多年的伟大实践，持续推进了在对待资本问题上的思想解放，这是中国式现代化理论超越以往所有现代化理论的关键。

Deeply Grasping the Inner Contradictions of the Logic of Capital

深刻把握资本逻辑的内在矛盾

Dialectically viewing the nature of capital and deeply grasping the inner contradictions of the logic of capital are the practical requirements of Marx’s critical theory of modernity.

辩证看待资本属性、深刻把握资本逻辑的内在矛盾是马克思现代性批判理论的实践要求。

Marx repeatedly elucidated the essential nature of capital. He pointed out that capital is not a thing but a power, “the all-dominating economic power of bourgeois society,” which dominates not only labor and its products but also the capitalist himself, and therefore possesses autonomy; capital is a force, “not a personal force but a social force,” capable of mobilizing all natural and social elements to serve its own self-valorization, and therefore possesses penetrative capacity; ultimately, capital is even more a relation, “a definite social relation, belonging to a definite historical social formation,” which in modern society often appears in reified form, concealing its essence as a relation, and therefore possesses mystique. With its powerful integrating effect, capital drives traditional society toward modernity, endowing society with modernity; it is the all-overshadowing universal light in modern society, the “specific ether.” As the universal “light” and the specific “ether,” capital transcends ordinary materiality, but it can never be separated from matter, from its material carrier—capital as a factor of production. Capital as a social relation and capital as a factor of production are dialectically unified. Without the former, factors of production cannot achieve the “splendid transformation” into capital; without the latter, all the mysterious properties of capital, “all its magic and sorcery,” would “immediately disappear.”

马克思曾多次阐明资本的本质属性。他指出，资本不是物，是种权力，是“资产阶级社会的支配一切的经济权力”，它既支配着劳动及其产品，同样支配着资本家本身，因此具有自主性；资本是种力量，“不是一种个人力量，而是一种社会力量”，它足以调动一切自然的和社会的要素为其自我增殖服务，因此具有渗透性；归根到底，资本更是种关系，是“一定的、社会的、属于一定历史社会形态的社会关系”，在现代社会，这种关系往往以物化形式呈现，掩盖其作为关系的实质，因此具有神秘性。资本以其强大整合作用推动传统社会走向现代，赋予社会以现代性，是现代社会中统摄一切的普照之光，是“特殊的以太”。资本作为普照之“光”、作为特殊“以太”，脱离了一般的物性，但终究离不开物，离不开它的物质载体即作为生产要素的资本。作为社会关系的资本和作为生产要素的资本是辩证统一的。离开前者，生产要素无法实现向资本的“华丽转身”；而离开了后者，资本的一切神秘性质、“一切魔法妖术”就会“立刻消失”。

The essential nature of capital is revealed in its operation, and the operation of capital always proceeds according to certain laws and rules—in short, the logic of capital. Modern society finds it difficult to escape the coexisting developmental dilemmas of poverty and wealth, civilization and barbarism, progress and regression, rationality and irrationality. Thus, on the one hand, it creates unprecedented material civilization, while on the other hand, it constantly threatens to destroy all the civilizational achievements created by humanity. All the conflicts and tensions inherent in modern society originate from the inner contradictions of the logic of capital. As a social relation, capital’s nature is “the unceasing drive toward the general form of wealth,” integrating all factors of production to maximize the extraction of surplus value. Therefore, on the one hand, it “creates a system of the general exploitation of natural and human qualities, a system of general utility.” On the other hand, it simultaneously creates itself and its opposite—that is, universalized surplus labor, i.e., surplus value itself—realizing the dialectical unity of the logic of creating civilization and the logic of realizing valorization.

资本的本质属性在运行中得到展现，而资本的运行总是以一定的法则和规律简言之资本逻辑为依据。现代社会难以摆脱贫穷与富裕、文明与野蛮、进步与倒退、理性与非理性等并存的发展困境。因此，它一方面创造了前所未有的物质文明，同时它又时刻威胁着要摧毁人类创造的所有文明成果。现代社会所具有的一切冲突和张力均根源于资本逻辑的内在矛盾。作为一种社会关系，资本的本性就是“孜孜不倦地追求财富的一般形式的欲望”，整合一切生产要素，最大限度地实现剩余价值。因此，它一方面“创造出一个普遍利用自然属性和人的属性的体系，创造出一个普遍有用性的体系”。另一方面，它又同时创造出自身及其对立面，即普遍化了的剩余劳动即剩余价值本身，实现了创造文明的逻辑和实现价值增殖逻辑的辩证统一。

Adhering rigidly, in theoretical form, to the absolute identity of capital’s two attributes and two logics leads to an inability, in the practical sphere, to transcend capital relations and fully bring into play capital’s function as a factor. For a long time, there has existed in both theory and practice an essentialist and ossified notion: that capital as a social relation is essential and is the precondition for factors of production to perform their civilizational function. This notion has had a profound influence, hindering many attempts to utilize capital under the socialist system. In his later years, Lenin attempted to break free from this notion by implementing the New Economic Policy to replace War Communism. By 1928, the Soviet Union gradually formed the Stalinist model that replaced the New Economic Policy. After the founding of New China, it likewise faced the difficulty of developing the productive forces. Following the completion of the socialist transformation in 1956, Mao Zedong once doubted that “the Russian New Economic Policy was ended too early” and proposed the developmental concept that “as long as society needs it,” “we can eliminate capitalism and then engage in capitalism again.” [2]2 Cf. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party* (1848), Chapter II: “The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.” However, due to historical reasons, this ultimately failed to break through the ossified notion.

在理论形态上固守资本的两种属性、两种逻辑的绝对同一，导致实践领域无法突破资本关系来充分发挥资本的要素功能。一直以来，在理论和实践领域存在一种本质主义的僵化观念，即认为作为社会关系的资本是本质性的，是促使生产要素发挥文明功能的前提。这种观念影响至深，阻碍了社会主义制度下利用资本的诸多尝试。列宁晚年尝试突破该观念的束缚，推行新经济政策，以取代战时共产主义。到1928年，苏联逐步形成代替新经济政策的斯大林模式。新中国成立后同样面临生产力发展的难题，1956年完成社会主义改造后，毛泽东就曾怀疑“俄国新经济政策结束得早了”，提出“只要社会需要”“可以消灭了资本主义，又搞资本主义”的发展构想，然因历史原因，最终未能突破僵化观念。

It was only after reform and opening up, when our Party continuously advanced ideological emancipation, that we truly broke through the essentialist and ossified notion regarding the question of capital in both theoretical form and the practical sphere, forming a new developmental pattern. After the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC implemented reform and opening up, we broke free from the traditional conceptual shackles on the question of ownership, deeply grasped the inner contradictions of the logic of capital, and distinguished between capital as a relation of production and capital as a factor of production. We recognized that capital, as an important factor of production, is a tool for market allocation of resources and a means and method for economic development, and that socialist countries can also utilize various forms of capital to promote economic and social development. This laid the ideological foundation for advancing the market economy, enhancing economic vitality, and using capital to better advance Chinese-path modernization. In a word, the socialist system possesses incomparable superiority, can provide more advanced social relations than capitalism, can offer deeper and more nurturing institutional guarantees for factors of production to fully perform their civilizational creative function, can create unprecedented material civilization and cultural-ethical progress, and can propel human society into a new form of civilization. The experience of more than forty years of reform and opening up fully demonstrates that “capital, together with factors of production such as land, labor, technology, and data, has jointly contributed to the prosperity and development of the socialist market economy.” [3]3 Friedrich Engels, “Preface to the Russian Edition of the *Manifesto of the Communist Party*” (1882), in which Engels and Marx wrote that if the Russian Revolution became the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, the two could complement each other. The positive role of various forms of capital has been fully manifested, powerfully confirming the incomparable superiority of the socialist system.

改革开放之后，我们党持续推进思想解放，才在理论形态和实践领域真正突破对待资本问题上本质主义的僵化观念，形成新的发展格局。党的十一届三中全会实行改革开放以后，我们破除所有制问题上的传统观念束缚，深刻把握资本逻辑具有的内在矛盾，区分了作为生产关系的资本和作为生产要素的资本，认为资本作为重要生产要素，是市场配置资源的工具，是发展经济的方式和手段，社会主义国家也可以利用各类资本推动经济社会发展。这为推进市场经济、增强经济活力、利用资本来更好地推进中国式现代化奠定了思想前提。一言以蔽之，社会主义制度拥有无比优越性，能提供比资本主义更加先进的社会关系，能够为生产要素充分发挥文明创造功能提供更加深厚、更有涵养的制度保障，创造前所未有的物质文明和精神文明，推动人类社会进入文明新形态。改革开放四十多年的经验充分表明，“资本同土地、劳动力、技术、数据等生产要素共同为社会主义市场经济繁荣发展作出了贡献”，各类资本的积极作用得到充分彰显，强有力地印证了社会主义制度的无比优越性。

Continuously Advancing Practical Exploration in the Use of Capital

持续推进运用资本的实践探索

Since the founding of New China, and especially after reform and opening up, the CPC has united and led the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in continuously deepening practical exploration and advancing theoretical innovation, constantly breaking through barriers in thought and action, forging ahead with determination and pioneering innovation. It has successfully answered a series of major questions such as “whether to utilize capital” and “how to utilize capital,” constructed and perfected the socialist market economy system with Chinese characteristics, and achieved a great transformation from eliminating capital to utilizing capital, to regulating and guiding capital, and then to transcending capital. It has pioneered the successful use of capital under the socialist system to drive modernization while effectively avoiding the adverse effects of capital, establishing a new model for the process of human modernization.

新中国成立特别是改革开放以后，中国共产党团结带领全国各族人民持续深化实践探索、推进理论创新，在思想上和行动上不断突破藩篱，锐意进取、开拓创新，成功回答了“要不要利用资本”“怎样利用资本”等一系列重大问题，构建并完善了中国特色社会主义市场经济体制，实现了从消灭资本到利用资本、到规范引导资本再到超越资本的伟大转变，开创了在社会主义制度下成功利用资本推动现代化同时又有效规避资本不利影响的先河，为人类现代化进程确立了新的典范。

From the founding of New China to the establishment of the socialist system in 1956, our Party, through the implementation of the general line for the transition period, eliminated private ownership and capital throughout society. [4]4 Lenin’s theory, developed in articles such as “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe” (1915) and “The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution” (1916), held that socialism could first triumph in a single capitalist country rather than simultaneously in all advanced countries. Until the early period of reform and opening up, society still confined socialism to the level of social relations, understanding it as public ownership of the means of production and absolute equality in distribution, conflating relations of production with factors of production, and rejecting the commodity economy. To develop the socialist market economy, the first step was to break free from this conceptual shackle, distinguish between capitalist private ownership and individual ownership, fully stimulate the active role of subjects, and enhance market vitality. From the commodity economy to the market economy, the function of factors of production in creating material wealth was fully released, promoting the capitalization of factors of production, and ultimately resolving the question of whether a socialist society should utilize capital.

新中国成立至1956年社会主义制度建立，我们党通过实施过渡时期总路线，在全社会范围内消灭了私有制、消灭了资本。至改革开放初期，社会上仍将社会主义局限在社会关系层面，理解为生产资料的公共占有和分配上的绝对平等，混同生产关系和生产要素，拒绝商品经济。发展社会主义市场经济，首要的就是突破这种观念束缚，区分资本主义私有制和个人所有制，充分激发主体能动作用，增进市场活力。从商品经济到市场经济，生产要素创造物质财富的功能得到充分释放，推动生产要素的资本化，最终解决了社会主义社会要不要利用资本的问题。

The market economy and capital mutually reinforce each other: the market allocates various factors of production and drives their capitalization, while capital injects momentum and vitality into the market economy. Yet capital always takes self-valorization as its fundamental purpose, often leading to blind production, market disorder, social polarization, and the distortion of human nature—all of which run counter to the socialist system. Developing a socialist market economy cannot simply leave capital unchecked. Through a series of policies and measures, our Party has formulated and improved a range of rules and regulations, continuously strengthened market oversight, regulated market entities, maintained market order, and guided the healthy development of capital while curbing its disorderly expansion, mitigating capital risks, and bringing into play its positive role as an important factor of production, thereby contributing to Chinese-path modernization.

市场经济和资本相互成就，市场调配各种生产要素，并推动生产要素资本化；资本则为市场经济注入动力和活力。然而资本总是将自我增殖作为根本目的，往往造成生产盲目、市场无序、社会分化以及人性扭曲，这些均与社会主义制度背道而驰。发展社会主义市场经济不能放任资本。我们党通过一系列政策、举措，制定和完善一系列规章制度，持续强化市场监管，规范市场主体，维护市场秩序，规范和引导资本健康发展，防止资本无序扩张，规避资本风险，发挥其作为重要生产要素的积极作用，为中国式现代化助力。

The inherent contradictions of the logic of capital determine the congenital limits of capital’s development: the more developed capital becomes, the more it becomes a constraint on development. “These limits come to be recognized as such at a certain stage of capital’s development, so that capital itself appears as the greatest barrier to its own tendency, and hence drives people toward using capital itself to abolish capital.”[1]1 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie* (1857–1858), Notebook V. The passage is a paraphrase of Marx’s argument that capital itself becomes the greatest barrier to its own development. Using capital as a factor of production to abolish capital as a social relation is an inevitable requirement of the socialist system and the fundamental purpose of regulating and guiding capital under the conditions of the socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics. Using capital as a factor of production means fully mobilizing all factors of production to develop the productive forces. Abolishing capital as a relation of production means abolishing the act of exploitation that appropriates others’ labor through the ownership of the means of production, and abolishing the social conditions and institutional foundations that legitimize such acts. Communism does not abolish ownership in general; it abolishes bourgeois ownership.[2]2 Cf. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party* (1848), Chapter II: “The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.” Chinese-path modernization, as a socialist modernization, necessarily entails using capital to abolish capital—this is its inherent meaning and an inevitable requirement.

资本逻辑的内在矛盾决定了资本发展的先天局限，资本的发展程度越高，就越会成为发展的限制。“这些限制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，因而驱使人们利用资本本身来消灭资本”。利用作为生产要素的资本来消灭作为社会关系的资本，是社会主义制度的必然要求，也是中国特色社会主义市场经济条件下规范和引导资本的根本目的。利用生产要素的资本，就是充分调动一切生产要素来发展生产力。消灭作为生产关系的资本，就是消灭通过占有生产资料来剥夺他人劳动的剥夺行为、消灭赋予该行为以合法性的社会条件和制度基础。共产主义并不消灭一般的所有制，而是要消灭资产阶级的所有制。中国式现代化作为社会主义现代化，利用资本来消灭资本乃是其应有之义，是其必然要求。

Opening Up the Path of Chinese-Path Modernization

开辟中国式现代化道路

The classical Marxist writers did not put forward a specialized theory of socialist modernization. Within the theoretical framework of historical materialism that they established, socialism and modernization constitute a pair of opposing categories that cannot coexist simultaneously. For, according to the basic principles of historical materialism, socialism is superior to capitalism in both productive forces and relations of production; it is a higher social formation than capitalism. In Marx’s critique of modernity, “modern” is synonymous with “capitalist,” and “modernization” is a tautology with “capitalization.” Socialist society, logically speaking, is in the perfect tense of “modernization”—it is a “completed” modern society. In the year before Marx’s death, the Russian edition of the *Communist Manifesto* was published, and its preface still expressed the view that the Russian revolution would serve as a signal for a European proletarian revolution and that the two would complement each other.[3]3 Friedrich Engels, “Preface to the Russian Edition of the *Manifesto of the Communist Party*” (1882), in which Engels and Marx wrote that if the Russian Revolution became the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, the two could complement each other. This fully demonstrates that although Marx recognized the possibility of special paths in the evolution of social formations, the overall course of history must presuppose the basic principles of historical materialism—that is, particularity must presuppose universality.

马克思主义经典作家没有提出社会主义现代化的专门理论，在他们创立的唯物史观理论框架中，社会主义和现代化是一组不可能同时存在的对立范畴。因为按照唯物史观的基本原理，社会主义无论在生产力还是在生产关系上都要优越于资本主义，是比资本主义更高级的社会形态。在马克思现代性批判理论中，“现代”是“资本主义”的同义语，“现代化”与“资本主义化”是同语反复。社会主义社会在逻辑上处于“现代化”的完成时，是“完成了的”现代社会。在马克思逝世前一年，《共产党宣言》俄文版出版，在其序言中仍旧表达了俄国革命作为欧洲社会主义革命的信号而相互补充的观点。这充分表明马克思虽然认可社会形态演进的特殊道路，但是作为总体之历史要以唯物史观的基本原理为前提，即特殊性要以普遍性为前提。

“Socialist modernization” as a historical task was first raised as an inevitable outcome of Lenin’s theory of the “victory of socialism in one country.”[4]4 Lenin’s theory, developed in articles such as “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe” (1915) and “The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution” (1916), held that socialism could first triumph in a single capitalist country rather than simultaneously in all advanced countries. Lenin held that “the unevenness of economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism,” and therefore socialism could achieve victory in a few or even a single country. Yet how a socialist country could “increase the total quantity of productive forces as rapidly as possible”[5]5 V. I. Lenin, “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government” (1918), where he argued that after seizing power the proletariat must increase the quantity of productive forces as rapidly as possible. and realize modernization had no ready-made theory to draw upon, still less any precedent to follow. At the same time, socialist modernization had to confront a world history dominated by capital. Should it cling to the “two camps” and create a “parallel world,” or should it integrate into the overall global structure? Closed-door rigidity would not work, and changing the flag and altering the course would be a betrayal of one’s ancestors. The great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics has demonstrated that our Party has insisted on viewing the general trend of human social development with a global perspective, persisted in correctly understanding and handling relations with the external world of capital from the perspective of a grand historical view, adhered to openness rather than closure, treated the dual logic of capital dialectically, used capital to develop itself, and successfully blazed a path of Chinese-path modernization.

“社会主义现代化”作为一项历史任务被提出，是列宁“一国胜利论”的必然结果。列宁认为“经济和政治发展的不平衡是资本主义的绝对规律”，因此，社会主义可能在少数甚至单独一国取得胜利。然而，社会主义国家如何“尽可能快地增加生产力的总量”、实现现代化，没有现成的理论可以参考，更无先例可循。同时，社会主义现代化需面临以资本为主导的世界历史，是固守“两大阵营”搞 “平行世界”，还是融入世界总体格局？封闭僵化行不通，改旗易帜更是数典忘祖。中国特色社会主义伟大实践表明，我们党坚持以世界眼光关注人类社会发展大势，坚持从大历史观正确认识和处理同外部资本世界的关系，坚持开放、不搞封闭，辩证对待资本的双重逻辑，利用资本来发展自身，成功走出了一条中国式现代化道路。

General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed: “We must safeguard the foundation, source, roots, and soul of Chinese-path modernization, and unswervingly uphold its Chinese characteristics, essential requirements, and major principles, so as to ensure the correct direction of Chinese-path modernization.”[6]6 Xi Jinping, speech at the opening ceremony of a study session for leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial level, February 2023, on the theme of “Advancing Chinese-Path Modernization.” Socialist modernization under the leadership of the Communist Party of China insists on not losing its bearings or losing itself in the tide of capital, maintaining strategic resolve, fully stimulating the vitality of market entities to create efficiency higher than that of capitalism, while fully demonstrating the superiority of the socialist system and more effectively safeguarding social fairness and justice.

习近平总书记强调：“要守好中国式现代化的本和源、根和魂，毫不动摇坚持中国式现代化的中国特色、本质要求、重大原则，确保中国式现代化的正确方向。”中国共产党领导的社会主义现代化坚持在资本大潮中不丢失方向、不迷失自我，保持战略定力，既充分激发市场主体的活力，创造出比资本主义更高的效率，又充分彰显社会主义制度优势，更有效地维护社会公平正义。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗