The *Mill Notes* in the Context of Political Economy and the Evolution of Its Logic of Alienation

The *Mill Notes* are an experimental text written by the young Marx when he first encountered political economy, and because of their relatively concentrated commentary they constitute an important link in understanding the logical evolution of Marx’s thought at this time. A detailed examination, based on MEGA², of the economic-historical context of the evolution of the logic of alienation in the *Mill Notes* and its complex theoretical effects will help us to grasp more deeply the process of the young Marx’s intellectual development and to reconsider current scholarly debates on the subject.

《穆勒笔记》是青年马克思首次遭遇政治经济学时写下的思想实验性文本，因其较为集中的评注而成为理解此时马克思思想逻辑演进的重要环节。基于MEGA2详细考察《穆勒笔记》中异化逻辑演进的经济学思想史语境及其复杂理论效应，将有助于我们深入把握青年马克思的思想发展进程，重新反思当前学界的相关争论。

Scholarly circles have engaged in a long-standing debate over the order of composition and theoretical status of the *Mill Notes* and the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (hereafter the *1844 Manuscripts*), and have achieved fruitful results in both philological investigation and interpretation of intellectual logic. These results can be summarized in three interpretive models. The first is the “prior composition” thesis, represented by scholars such as Zhang Yibing and Wei Xiaoping, which holds that the *Mill Notes* were written before the *1844 Manuscripts*. The second is the “intermediate” thesis, represented by scholars such as Lapin and Han Lixin, which holds that the *Mill Notes* were written between Notebook I and Notebooks II and III of the *1844 Manuscripts*. The third is the “subsequent composition” thesis, represented by scholars such as Taubert, Rojahn, and Yao Shunliang, which holds that the *Mill Notes* were written after Notebook III of the *1844 Manuscripts*. Although the latter two views have received support from the majority of scholars, they still require further investigation. Some scholars reject the first view on philological grounds, arguing that Marx did not directly cite the works of Ricardo and Mill in Notebook I of the *1844 Manuscripts*. In reality, however, Marx had already made use of the theoretical resources of Ricardo and Mill in Notebook I. For example, in the section on “Wages,” Marx points out that the expansion of the division of labor and the accumulation of capital reduce the worker to a machine. A comparison with the relevant excerpts in the *Paris Notebooks* reveals that this formulation comes directly from Marx’s excerpts and comments on the works of Ricardo and Mill. This shows that tracing Marx’s theoretical sources cannot rely solely on direct textual citations; it must also incorporate the implicit clues found in Marx’s excerpt notebooks. Other scholars emphasize, from the perspective of intellectual logic, that the alienation of intercourse in the *Mill Notes* is superior to the alienation of labor in Notebook I, on the grounds that the former reveals Marx’s perspective on social relations, constituting the germ of the development toward historical materialism and even the critique of fetishism, while the latter remains within the structure of the subject-object relation of the isolated individual. But the problem is: (1) the core of the alienation of labor is not an isolated subject-object relation, but rather the exploitative relation between labor and capital behind private property; (2) the social relations in the *Mill Notes* are primarily relations of exchange, and the freedom and equality they represent are merely an ideological illusion that obscures the private property and its exploitative essence that serve as their precondition. Therefore, the perspective on social relations at this time is not a scientific insight. To further clarify these issues, it is necessary for us to return to the deep political-economic context of the *Mill Notes* and its intrinsic connection to the logic of alienation.

学界围绕《穆勒笔记》与《1844年经济学哲学手稿》（以下简称《1844年手稿》）的写作顺序和理论地位问题展开了长期争论，并在文献考据和思想逻辑解读方面取得了丰硕成果，主要包括三种解读模式。一是以张一兵、魏小萍等学者为代表的“先行说”，即《穆勒笔记》写于《1844年手稿》之前；二是以拉宾、韩立新等学者为代表的“中间说”，即《穆勒笔记》写于《1844年手稿》笔记本I和笔记本II、III之间；三是以陶伯特、罗扬、姚顺良等学者为代表的“之后说”，即《穆勒笔记》写于《1844年手稿》笔记本III之后。尽管后两种观点得到多数学者的支持，但仍有待深入探讨。有学者从文献学层面否定第一种观点，依据在于马克思在《1844年手稿》笔记本I中没有直接引述李嘉图和穆勒的著作。但实际上，马克思在笔记本I中已经利用了李嘉图和穆勒的理论资源。例如，马克思在“工资”栏中指出，分工扩大和资本积累导致工人沦为机器。通过对比《巴黎笔记》中的相关摘录就会发现，这一表述正是来自马克思对李嘉图和穆勒著作的摘录和评注。这表明，对马克思的理论渊源的追溯不能只依据直接的文本引述，还需要结合马克思的摘录笔记隐含的线索。还有学者从思想逻辑层面强调《穆勒笔记》中的交往异化高于笔记本I中的劳动异化，其理由是：前者彰显了马克思的社会关系视域，构成走向历史唯物主义乃至拜物教批判的萌芽，后者则停留于孤立个人的主客关系结构。但问题在于：（1）劳动异化的核心并非孤立的主客关系，而是私有财产背后的劳资剥削关系；（2）《穆勒笔记》中的社会关系主要是交换关系，它所表征的自由平等只是一种意识形态假象，遮蔽了作为其前提的私有财产及其剥削实质。因此，此时的社会关系视域并非科学洞见。为了进一步澄清上述问题，我们有必要回到《穆勒笔记》的深层政治经济学语境与异化逻辑的内在关联。

An examination of the second and third notebooks of the *Paris Notebooks* reveals that the works of Say, Skarbek, and Smith presented Marx with a picture of “commercial society” in the context of political economy. First, the motive of the acting subject originates from self-interest and need. Skarbek emphasizes that people’s altruistic behavior stems from selfishness in satisfying their own needs. Smith points out that people’s exchange behavior is a natural inclination arising from self-interest, and thereby constructs commercial society. Second, the precondition of commodity exchange is the recognition of private property. Say emphasizes that private property is recognized possession. Skarbek further points out that property rights are the first basic condition of commodity exchange. Third, money is the universal intermediary of commodity exchange. Skarbek and Smith respectively identify the functions of money as a measure of value and a medium of exchange, i.e., money gives exchange value a material form of existence, otherwise exchange value would be merely an abstraction, thereby becoming the universal commercial instrument of all civilized nations. This precisely constitutes the entry point for Marx’s construction of the theory of the alienation of intercourse in the *Mill Notes*. He points out that the essence of money lies in the fact that the mediating activity (social action) of man’s products is alienated into a property of the thing external to man. Compared to Hess, who appropriated Feuerbach’s logic of religious alienation to directly compare money to God, Marx more accurately grasped the mediating function of money and its alienated structure, and therefore compared money to Christ: just as Christ, as the mediator between God and man, manifests as the double alienation of both, so money, as the mediator between man and the thing, manifests as the double alienation of both. Subsequently, Marx follows the economic line of thought to continue investigating the root of the development of private property into money: man’s tendency toward intercourse necessarily develops into exchange, and exchange premised on private property necessarily develops into value. Value is the abstract relation between private properties, and money is the real mode of existence of this abstract relation. It can be seen that at this point, with the help of the ideas of Smith and Skarbek, Marx consciously recognizes that money is an abstract value relation or social relation.

通过考察《巴黎笔记》的第二、三笔记本可以发现，萨伊、斯卡尔培克和斯密的著作向马克思展现了政治经济学语境中的“商业社会”图景。第一，行为主体的动机源自利己心和需要。斯卡尔培克强调，人们的利他行为是出于满足自身需要的自私自利。斯密指出，人们的交换行为是一种出于利己心的自然倾向，并由此建构起商业社会。第二，商品交换的前提是承认私有财产。萨伊强调，私有财产是被承认的占有。斯卡尔培克进一步指出，财产权是商品交换的第一个基本条件。第三，货币是商品交换的普遍中介。斯卡尔培克和斯密分别指认了货币的价值尺度和交换手段功能，即货币赋予交换价值以物质存在形式，否则交换价值就只是一种抽象，从而成为一切文明民族的普遍商业手段。而这恰好构成马克思在《穆勒笔记》中建构交往异化理论的切入口。他指出，货币的本质在于人的产品的中介活动（社会行动）异化为外在于人的物的属性。相较于赫斯挪用费尔巴哈的宗教异化逻辑直接把货币比作上帝，马克思更准确地把握到货币的中介功能及其异化结构，因而将货币比作基督：基督作为上帝与人的中介而表现为两者的双重异化，货币作为人与物的中介表现为人与物的双重异化。随后，马克思沿着经济学的思路继续探究私有财产发展到货币的根源：人的交往倾向必然发展到交换，以私有财产为前提的交换必然发展到价值。价值是私有财产之间的抽象关系，货币则是这种抽象关系的现实存在方式。可见，此时马克思借助斯密和斯卡尔培克的思想自觉认识到货币是一种抽象的价值关系或社会关系。

Subsequently, Marx analyzes the individual and his social essence in commercial society from the perspective of philosophical humanism. He points out that national economy [political economy] has investigated man’s communal essence in the form of exchange and trade; this communal essence originates from the individual’s need and egoism, and is the direct product of the real, living, particular individual’s active realization of his determinate being [Dasein]. Since man’s species-essence is self-alienated, this communal essence necessarily appears in an alienated form. Thus, the picture of commercial society depicted by Smith and others constitutes the direct theoretical background of Marx’s theory of the alienation of intercourse. However, the appearance of equal exchange highlighted by the concept of commercial society itself obscures the exploitative essence of the private property that serves as its precondition. If one remains only at the level of the alienation of intercourse, it is impossible to break through this implicit constraint of bourgeois ideology. Therefore, Marx did not stop there, but keenly perceived the actual occurrence of “estate labor” [Erwerbsarbeit], and thereby turned from the alienation of intercourse to the alienation of labor.

随后，马克思从哲学人本学角度剖析了商业社会中的个人及其社会本质。他指出，国民经济学以交换和贸易的形式探讨了人的共同本质，这种共同本质源自个人的需要和利己主义，是现实的、活生生的、特殊的个人积极实现其定在的直接产物。由于人的类本质是自我异化的，因此，这种共同本质必然以异化的形式呈现。由此可见，斯密等人描绘的商业社会图景构成了马克思交往异化理论的直接理论背景，但商业社会概念本身所彰显的平等交换表象掩盖了作为其前提的私有财产的剥削实质，如果只停留于交往异化层面，便无法突破这种资产阶级意识形态的隐性制约。因此，马克思没有就此止步，而是敏锐觉察到现实发生的“谋生劳动”，进而从交往异化转向劳动异化。

Marx points out that the precondition of the relation of exchange is that labor becomes direct estate labor. The context in which “estate labor” emerges originates from the thread of “division of labor—labor machine—exploitation-based private property” in the *Paris Notebooks*. Through the works of Say, Smith, and others, Marx recognizes that the division of labor can both increase productive forces and enhance social welfare, and also deprive and degrade individual capacities. The internal contradiction of the division of labor constitutes the overall economic context for Marx’s focus on estate labor, and reaches its apex in Ricardo. Through Ricardo, Marx sees that, on the one hand, the worker labors only to obtain the minimum wage for subsistence, thereby falling into universal poverty and being reduced to a “labor machine”; on the other hand, private property based on expropriation is the necessary precondition for the accumulation of capital, and the worker becomes a machine for creating private profit for the capitalist. This means that the expropriative essence of private property is the root cause of “labor becoming estate labor,” and is also the foundation of commercial society. In short, in the context of political economy, Marx sees the extremely contradictory situation of real labor: labor is an important source of creating wealth and value, yet under bourgeois private property it suffers cruel exploitation and is reduced to estate labor. In this regard, the view of some scholars that “estate labor” should be translated as “profit-making labor” precisely overlooks this important dimension. And this actually constitutes the theoretical activation point for Marx’s initial construction of the theory of the alienation of labor from the perspective of humanism.

马克思指出，交换关系的前提是劳动成为直接的谋生劳动。而“谋生劳动”的出场语境则源自于《巴黎笔记》中的“劳动分工—劳动机器—基于剥削的私有财产”线索。马克思通过萨伊、斯密等人的著作认识到，劳动分工既能提高生产力、增进社会福祉，又会剥夺和贬低个人能力。劳动分工的内在矛盾构成马克思关注谋生劳动的总体经济学语境，并在李嘉图那里达到顶点。马克思通过李嘉图看到，一方面，工人劳动只是为了获得维持生计的最低工资，因而陷入普遍贫困，沦为“劳动机器”；另一方面，以剥夺为基础的私有财产是资本积累的必要前提，工人成为替资本家创造私人利益的机器。这意味着私有财产的剥夺本质是造成“劳动成为谋生劳动”的根源，也是商业社会的基础。总之，马克思在政治经济学语境中看到现实劳动极其矛盾的境况：劳动是创造财富和价值的重要源泉，却在资产阶级私有制下遭受残酷的剥削，沦为谋生劳动。就此而言，有学者提出“谋生劳动”应译为“营利劳动”的观点恰恰忽视了这一重要层面。而这实际构成了马克思从人本学角度初步构建劳动异化理论的理论激活点。

Based on the commercial society and wage labor in the context of political economy, Marx initially constructed a theory of labor alienation under the discourse of humanism. First, Marx pointed out that the real roots of alienated labor as wage labor lie in: first, wage labor and its products lose their direct connection with the worker’s needs and vocation, becoming entirely dependent on an “alien social combination.” [5]5 “Alien social combination” (*fremde gesellschaftliche Kombination*) is a term Marx uses in his early writings to describe the external, coercive social forces that dominate individuals under capitalist relations of production. Division of labor and exchange make labor increasingly one-sided, turning people into highly abstract beings. The theoretical support here clearly comes from Smith and others’ picture of commercial society and Ricardo’s concept of the “labor machine.” [6]6 “Labor machine” (*Arbeitsmaschine*) refers to David Ricardo’s characterization of the worker as a mere instrument of production, whose activity is reduced to a mechanical function within the capitalist system. Second, the production and consumption of products are separated, the root of which lies in the separation of labor from ownership and labor from capital caused by capital’s monopolization of private property. This perspective on the exploitative relationship between labor and capital became an important opportunity for Marx to begin breaking through the logic of alienated exchange. Second, on this basis, Marx initially elaborated the fourfold manifestation of labor alienation: the alienation and contingency of labor in relation to the laboring subject, the alienation and contingency of labor in relation to the labor object, the worker’s vocation being determined by social needs, and the maintenance of subsistence being the worker’s sole purpose. From this, we can draw the following conclusions: First, the overall logical framework of Marx’s theory of labor alienation at this time was still exchange relations, but his attention to the worker’s wage-labor situation and the implied relations of labor-capital exploitation and class antagonism constituted the germ of his comprehensive construction of a humanist theory of labor alienation in the *1844 Manuscripts*. [7]7 The *1844 Manuscripts* (also known as the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*) are a set of early writings by Marx that develop a humanist critique of capitalism centered on the concept of alienated labor. Second, at this time Marx’s theory of labor alienation lacked the link of “sublating alienation,” but he subsequently constructed the complete logic of the theory of labor alienation by drawing on Hegel’s dialectics of negation.

基于政治经济学语境中的商业社会和谋生劳动，马克思初步建构起人本学话语下的劳动异化理论。首先，马克思指出作为谋生劳动的异化劳动的现实根源在于：一是谋生劳动及其产品同工人的需要和使命失去直接联系，完全取决于“异己的社会组合”。分工和交换使劳动日益片面，使人成为高度抽象的存在物。这里的理论支撑显然来自斯密等人的商业社会图景和李嘉图的“劳动机器”概念。二是产品的生产与消费相分离，其根源在于资本垄断私有财产所导致的劳动与所有权、劳动与资本的分离。这一劳资剥削关系视域成为马克思开始打破交往异化逻辑的重要契机。其次，马克思在此基础上初步阐述了劳动异化的四重表现形式：劳动对劳动主体的异化和偶然性、劳动对劳动对象的异化和偶然性、工人的使命取决于社会需要、维持生存是工人的唯一目的。由此，我们可以得出以下结论：第一，此时马克思的劳动异化理论的总体逻辑框架仍然是交换关系，但他对工人的谋生境况及其隐含的劳资剥削和阶级对抗关系的关注，构成他在《1844年手稿》中全面建构人本主义劳动异化理论的萌芽。第二，此时马克思的劳动异化理论缺乏“扬弃异化”的环节，但他随后通过借鉴黑格尔的否定辩证法而建构起劳动异化理论的完整逻辑。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗