The Technological Intent of Machine-Based Large-Scale Industry in *Capital*

Today, with the high development of machine-based large-scale industry, the question of how to approach the political essence of modern capitalism constitutes a task of the era posed by the development of Marxist political philosophy. Machine-based large-scale industry has transformed people’s logic of production, providing the most suitable technical foundation for the capitalist mode of production, thereby “from below” altering people’s social relations and spiritual conceptions, and reshaping the power domination of modern society. Machine-based large-scale industry constructs modern production technology, making technology a fully modern science. Modern technology not only reveals the basis of the fundamental movement of the social production process in machine-based large-scale industry but also provides an overall demonstration of this basis. By revealing this principle, technology also reveals the deep construction of bourgeois power relations in people’s material and spiritual production.

在机器大工业高度发展的今天，以何种方式切入现代资本主义的政治本质，是发展马克思主义政治哲学所提出的时代任务。机器大工业改变了人们的生产逻辑，为资本主义生产方式提供了最合适的技术基础，从而“由下而上”地改变了人们的社会关系以及精神观念，重塑了现代社会的权力统治。机器大工业建塑现代生产工艺学，使工艺学成为一门完全现代的科学。现代工艺学不仅是对机器大工业社会生产过程基本运动的根据的揭示，而且是对这种根据作出整体的论证。通过对这一原则的揭示，工艺学也揭示了资产阶级权力关系在人的物质和精神生产中的深层建构。

*Capital* Reveals the Technology of the “Interaction Between Humans and Nature”

《资本论》揭示“人与自然互动”的工艺学

In *Capital*, Marx distinguishes between the general connotation and the specific connotation of technology. In terms of its general connotation, it is the revelation of the active relation between humans and nature, abstracted from every specific social form. The direct production process is its core and primary research content, which then extends to the production of people’s social life relations and people’s spiritual conceptions: “Technology reveals the active relation of man to nature, the direct process of the production of his life, and thereby it also lays bare the process of the production of the social relations of his life, and of the mental conceptions that flow from those relations.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 1. The translation follows the standard English edition. In terms of its specific connotation, technology studies the direct production process of a particular historical period. For example, in the capitalist period, its production process is the unity of the direct production process of capital and the circulation process. The direct production process of capital studied by modern technology is the labor process of capital and the valorization process, abstracted from the circulation process. Therefore, on the one hand, modern technology takes the reshaping of the human labor process under machine-based large-scale industry as its object of investigation; that is, it must investigate every specific social form and study the general character of production, and is thus a science concerning the material exchange between humans and nature. In this sense, “political economy is not technology.” [2]2 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 1. The history of technology is the history of the relation between humans and nature, “the evolutionary history of the shaping and ordering of labor in the materialization and objectification of labor in tools.” [3]3 This is a paraphrase of a concept from the Chinese Marxist scholar Zhang Yibing, referring to the historical evolution of labor’s materialization in tools. On the other hand, under the capitalist mode of production, the direct purpose of production is the production of surplus value, and the labor process becomes formally and actually subordinate to capital: “With the development of machine production, the conditions of labor also come to dominate labor technologically.” [4]4 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 1.

在《资本论》中，马克思区分了工艺学的一般内涵和特殊内涵，就一般内涵而言，它是撇开每一种特定的社会形式下的对人与自然能动关系的揭示，直接生产过程是其核心和首要的研究内容，并进而延伸人的社会生活关系生产以及人的精神观念生产，“工艺学揭示出人对自然的能动关系，人的生活的直接生产过程，从而人的社会生活关系和由此产生的精神观念的直接生产过程”。就工艺学的特殊内涵而言，它研究的是特定历史时期的直接生产过程，如在资本主义时期，其生产过程是资本的直接生产过程和流通过程的统一，现代工艺学所研究的资本的直接生产过程是撇开了流通过程的资本劳动过程和价值增殖过程。因此，一方面，现代工艺学以机器大工业下对人的劳动过程的重塑为考察内容，即要考察每一种特定的社会形式，研究生产的一般性质，因而是关于人和自然之间的物质变换的学问。从这个意义上讲，“政治经济学不是工艺学”，工艺学史是人与自然的关系史，是“劳动物相化和对象化在工具中的劳动塑形和构序的进化史”。另一方面，在资本主义生产方式之下，直接生产的目的是剩余价值的生产，劳动过程在形式和实际上成为资本的从属，“随着机器生产的发展，劳动条件在工艺方面也表现为统治劳动的力量”。

In Marx’s view, the reason technology can reveal the active relation between humans and nature is that it firmly grasps the core issues and domains within the direct production process, namely, the investigation of the characteristics of the means of labor and the mode of using the means of labor. Thus, it focuses on the questions of “how to produce” and “with what means of labor to produce” in a given period. Investigating these questions across different periods essentially means inquiring into the social technological history of how humans transform nature, or the history of the formation of the organs of production: “Darwin has interested us in the history of nature’s technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining their life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of every particular social organization, deserve equal attention?” [5]5 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 1, footnote.

在马克思看来，工艺学之所以能揭示人与自然的能动关系，在于它紧紧抓住了直接生产过程中的核心问题和领域，即抓住对劳动资料的特点以及劳动资料使用方式的考察。因而它所关注的是特定时期“怎样生产”和“用什么劳动资料生产”的问题，对不同时期这些问题的探讨实质上是在追问人类用什么方式改造自然的社会工艺史或是生产器官的形成史，“达尔文注意到自然工艺史，即注意到在动植物的生活中作为生产工具的动植物器官是怎样形成的。社会人的生产器官的形成史，即每一个特殊社会组织的物质基础的形成史，难道不值得同样注意吗？”

Machine-Based Large-Scale Industry Constructs the Modern Logic of Technology

机器大工业建构工艺学的现代逻辑

From the perspective of the means of labor, the system of machines replaces the human organism with an objective productive organism in the labor process, completing the process of de-personalization. The full degree of development of large-scale industry depends on the degree of de-personalization of machines. The working machine, as the core element of the machine, first appears as a replacement for the human hand, unrestricted by the human body. Second, it is the replacement of the laws of the human body that govern the use of tools by the mechanical laws that govern the working machine. The replacement of humans by machines is not a replacement of human labor capacity, but rather the exclusion of part of the labor in the labor process and the alteration of the labor process. The machine is essentially still a means of labor. The machine is a tool that manipulates tools, a tool in motion; it replaces humans in directly grasping the object of labor, creating a separation and sense of unfamiliarity between humans and the object of labor. The system of machines is a combination of a series of different yet complementary working machines, a concatenation of machines; it is a potentially infinite intermediary between humans and the object of labor, and between the various tools. Because the machine is a link in the system of machines, it is itself also alienated and unfamiliar in relation to humans. The resolution of the sense of unfamiliarity between humans and the means of labor and the object of labor under the system of machines is achieved through the re-appropriation of the product of labor.

从劳动资料看，机器体系在劳动过程中以客观的生产有机体替代了人的有机体，完成了去人身的过程。大工业发展的充分程度依赖于机器的去人身程度，工作机作为机器的核心要素首先表现为不受人身限制的人手的替代。其次是以支配工作机的力学规律对使用工具的人的人身规律的替代。机器对人身的替代并非对人的劳动能力的替代，而是对劳动过程中部分劳动的排除和对劳动过程的改变。机器本质上仍是一种劳动资料。机器是操纵工具的工具，是动起来的工具，它替代人直接抓取劳动对象，造成人与劳动对象的隔离和陌生感。机器体系是一系列各不相同而又互为补充的工具机的结合，是联系起来的诸机器，它是人与劳动对象以及诸工具之间的可能的无限中介。机器由于是机器体系中的诸环节，因而它自身与人之间同样也是疏离和陌生的。机器体系下人与劳动资料和劳动对象陌生感的解决途径是通过劳动产品的重新占有。

From the perspective of the operation of the means of labor, the system of machines manifests a powerful capacity for decomposition and synthesis. The modern form of technology is not only founded on this basis but also proves its universality, effectiveness, and practicality through finer decomposition and vaster integration. “The principle of large-scale industry is, first, to resolve each production process into its constituent elements, irrespective of the human hand, and thereby to create the completely modern science of technology.” [6]6 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 2. “In the developed factory, what dominates is the continuity of the specific processes.” [7]7 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 2. The capacity for decomposition and synthesis is not unique to large-scale industry, but it was not until the emergence of large-scale industry that it was truly elevated to the level of a principle, thereby permeating the entire social production process. Decomposition and synthesis are not merely the dismemberment and recombination of natural objects, but also the decomposition and synthesis of the production process itself. This decomposition and synthesis is not a simple splitting and combining, but a recursive structure in which decomposition contains connection and synthesis contains division; that is, the individual elements obtained through decomposition themselves contain connections and influences with the system. Decomposition and synthesis are both aimed at removing technical obstacles; it is precisely within an interconnected system that it is possible to decompose into individual elements. In decomposition and synthesis, what is followed are the laws of science and technology. “How each partial process is accomplished and how the partial processes are combined is resolved by the technical application of mechanics, chemistry, etc.” [8]8 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 2.

从劳动资料的运作看，机器体系展现为一种强大的分解和综合能力，工艺学的现代形式不仅奠基在此基础上，而且在更精细的分解和更庞大的整合中证明自身的普适性、有效性和实用性。“大工业的原则是，首先不管人的手怎样，把每一个生产过程本身分解成各个构成要素，从而创立了工艺学这门完全现代的科学。”“在发达的工厂中，起支配作用的是各特殊过程的连续性。” 分解和综合能力并非大工业所独有，但直到大工业出现才真正意义上提高到了原则的高度，从而贯穿于社会生产过程。分解和综合不仅是对自然对象的肢解和组合，同时也是对生产过程的分解和综合。这种分解和综合并非简单地拆分和组合，而是分解中有联系、综合中有分割的递归性结构，即分解得到的单个元素本身包含了与系统的勾连和影响，分解和综合都是为了扫除技术上的障碍，正是在相互联系的系统中才能分解成各个单独的元素。分解与综合之中，所遵循的是科学和技术的规律。“每个局部过程如何完成和各个局部过程如何结合的问题，由力学、化学等等在技术上的应用来解决。”

Modern Technology as an Entry Point into Political Philosophy

切入政治哲学的现代工艺学

The capitalist application of machines capitalizes the machine, making the labor process subordinate to capital, turning the machine into a means of sucking up labor, and making the production process a process in which the object dominates the subject. In the capitalist mode of production, the purpose of using machines is to obtain more surplus value. However, the machine as a means of labor does not create value; rather, it produces surplus value by “shortening the part of the working day that the worker works for himself, in order to lengthen the part that he gives to the capitalist for nothing.” [9]9 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 3. In essence, the machine can achieve the goal of obtaining more surplus value only by acting on humans. The reason the machine can act on humans and establish a one-dimensional “machine-human” relation of domination is, on the one hand, because humans have nothing if they do not sell their labor power; if the human material cannot be incorporated into the objective organism of the system of machines, humans cannot integrate into the production process. On the other hand, it is because the system of machines everywhere displays a strange and powerful capacity and rigid force—whether in absorbing natural forces, social forces, manipulating tools, or decomposing and synthesizing the object of labor—making it impossible for any single individual to compete with it. Humans are dependent on the system of machines and follow the logic of things in production, which simultaneously means that human production, and the life founded upon it, is dominated and ruled by the logic of things. “The movement and activity of the means of labor become independent of the worker.” [10]10 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 3. “It is no longer the worker who uses the means of labor, but the means of labor that use the worker.” [11]11 Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 3.

机器的资本主义应用使机器资本化，使劳动过程成为资本的从属，机器成为吮吸劳动的手段，生产过程成为客体支配主体的过程。在资本主义生产方式中，使用机器的目的是获得更多的剩余价值，但机器作为劳动资料并不创造价值，而是通过“缩短工人为自己花费的工作日部分，以便延长他无偿地给予资本家的工作日部分”的方式生产剩余价值。从本质上看，机器唯有作用于人才能实现获得更多剩余价值的目的。机器之所以能作用于人且建立起“机器—人”的单向度支配关系，一方面是由于人如果不出卖劳动力便一无所有，如果人身材料不能合并到机器体系这个客观有机体之内，人便无法融入生产过程。另一方面则是由于机器体系无论是在吸取自然力、社会力、操纵工具抑或分解、综合劳动对象方面处处展现出一种陌生而强大的能力和刚性力，使得单个人无法成为竞争者与之抗衡。人依附于机器体系并遵循着物的逻辑来进行生产，也就同时意味着人的生产以及奠基在此之上的生活被物的逻辑所支配和统治。“劳动资料的运动和活动离开工人而独立了”，“不再是工人使用生产资料，而是生产资料使用工人了”。

Machinery and large-scale industry reshape the logic of power domination, and the direct domination of things over people becomes a new form and new modality of capitalist social domination. The human production process is governed by the logic of things. Here, "things" do not refer to things manifested in the form of commodities or money, but rather to the system of machinery. Thus, being governed by the logic of things means being governed by the operational logic of the system of machinery. First, the ownership of the means of production and products by the capitalist is the precondition for the establishment of the comprehensive logic of domination by things under machinery and large-scale industry. Second, the fact that machinery adopts the form of capital simultaneously means that machinery becomes the material intermediary through which capital harnesses labor, becoming a screen erected by the capitalist before the worker, rendering the power domination of capital more concealed. Third, the system of machinery is not a mere accumulation of machines; it is both the objectification of humanity's general intellect and the realized form of the separation of manual and mental labor. Hence, the domination of people by machinery is manifested not only as the logic of things but also contains the logic of the historical development of human society. It turns the general intellect into a tool for dominating labor, endowing the social knowledge developed over humanity's long history with a function of domination. Finally, machinery and large-scale industry alter the mode of workers' resistance to capitalists. It not only renders workers' resistance powerless but also transforms the direct struggle between workers and capitalists into an indirect struggle.

机器大工业重塑了权力的统治逻辑，物对人的直接统治成为资本社会统治的新形式和新形态。人的生产过程受物的逻辑所支配，这里的物并非以商品或货币形式表现出来的物，而是指机器体系，因而被物的逻辑所支配指的是被机器体系的运行逻辑所支配。首先，生产资料和产品归资本家所有是机器大工业下物的全面统治逻辑得以确立的前提。其次，机器采用了资本的形式同时意味着机器成为资本驾驭劳动的物的中介，成为资本家树立在工人面前的遮蔽物，使资本的权力统治更具隐蔽性。再次，机器体系并非单纯的机器的堆积，它既是人的一般智力的对象化，又是体力和脑力劳动分离的现实化形式，因而机器对人的统治不仅表现为物的逻辑，同时也包含了人类社会历史发展的逻辑，它使一般智力成为支配劳动的工具，使人类长期发展的社会知识具有了统治功能。最后，机器大工业改变了工人对资本家的抗争模式。它不仅使工人的抗争无力化，还使工人与资本家的直接斗争转变为间接斗争。

Unlike previous modes of explaining power relations that move from political economy to political philosophy, approaching political philosophy through the lens of technology [12]12 The Chinese term "工艺学" (gōngyìxué) is translated here as "technology" in the sense of the systematic study of industrial arts and production processes, as used by Marx in his analysis of machinery and large-scale industry. It is distinct from "技术" (jìshù), which also translates as "technology" but more narrowly as technique or skill. allows a deeper understanding of the micro-mechanisms of capitalist power and their comprehensive development, a deeper understanding of the logic of power domination under a specific rather than a general capitalist mode of production, and better reflects the deep construction of bourgeois power relations within people's spiritual concepts. Technology, as a product of machinery and large-scale industry, is also reproduced in various forms: not only does it manifest academically as production technology, but also as management technology and other disciplines with an inherent isomorphism. It continuously intrudes into all aspects of people's real life, such as education, traditions, and habits, forming a culture centered on technology, and developing into a productive cultural industry. Ultimately, it develops into an ideology that dominates people's conceptual life, thereby maintaining the legitimacy of capital's domination. Management technology is simultaneously a "political anatomy" and a "power mechanics"; it constantly compels and dissects the human body, making every part and every action of the body subordinate to the system of machinery and the most scientific mechanical laws for operation, ultimately achieving the discipline and domination of the entire human body. In people's daily lives, changes in their lifestyles often depend on changes in how they use time. In the era of large-scale industry, where even leisure time is quantified, people's lives are likewise dominated by a technology that subdivides time. The boundary between leisure time and labor time becomes blurred. Various life plans and career plans are fundamentally oriented toward how people can better integrate into social production. The blurring of the boundary between leisure time and labor time also allows power domination to penetrate all areas of people's lives. People begin to unfold their activities and lives by precisely calculating time, viewing the non-utilitarian expenditure of time as wasteful and shameful. This invisible power domination is not of the type that annihilates the person, but rather a disciplinary type that both indulges and mistreats the person. As Foucault pointed out, this mode of power domination, which segments and integrates time, is a combination of macro-power and micro-power. It manifests as "the integration of a temporal, unitary, continuous, and cumulative dimension in the control of activities and the domination of practices." Its emergence is associated with a new power technique, namely "a new way of managing and efficiently using time through segmentation, serialization, synthesis, and integration." Clearly, this power technique is, in essence, a form of technology.

不同于以往从政治经济学到政治哲学的权力关系阐释方式，以工艺学的方式切入政治哲学更能深刻体认到资本主义微观权力的发生机制及其全面发展，更能体认到特殊的而非一般的资本主义生产方式下的权力统治逻辑，也更能反映资产阶级权力关系在人的精神观念中的深层建构。工艺学作为机器大工业的产物也被以各种形式再生产出来：它不仅在学科上表现为生产工艺学，而且表现为管理工艺学等各门具有内在同构性的学问。它还不断涉入人们的教育、传统、习惯等现实生活的各个方面，形成了以工艺学为核心的文化，并发展成具有生产性的文化产业。最终发展成为意识形态支配着人们的观念生活，从而维护了资本统治的正当性。管理工艺学同时是一种“政治解剖学”和“权力力学”，它不断促逼和解剖人的身体，使人身体的每个部位和行为服从于机器体系以及最科学的力学规律来运作，最终达到对人整个身体的规训和统治。在人们的日常生活中，人们生活方式的改变往往取决于人们对时间使用方式的改变。在闲暇时间也被计量化的大工业时代，人的生活同样被细分时间的工艺学所支配。闲暇时间和劳动时间的区分界限变模糊了，各种人生规划和职业规划便是以人怎么更好融入社会生产为基本定向。闲暇时间与劳动时间界限的模糊也使得权力统治深入到人的生活各领域。人们开始以精确计算时间的方式展开自身的活动和生命，将时间的非功利性的耗费视为浪费和可耻的行为，这种无形的权力统治并非人身消灭式的，而是对人身有所放任又有所苛待的规训式。正如福柯所指认的，这种对人时间分割、整合的权力统治模式是一种宏观权力学和微观权力学的结合，它表现为“对控制活动和支配实践中的一种时间性的、单一性的、连续性和累积性的向度的整合”。它的出现则是与一种新的权力技术，即“通过分割、序列化、综合和整合而管理和有效地使用时间的新方式”相关联。显而易见，这里的权力技术本质上讲就是一种工艺学。

The transformation brought about by the system of machinery is "from below," which does not mean that the "political domination of capitalism can continue to be legitimized 'from below' rather than 'from above' (with the aid of cultural tradition)." [13]13 This is a reference to the argument that the capitalist system requires cultural and ideological legitimation from above (e.g., through tradition, education, and ideology) to maintain its rule, not merely the economic base from below. Marx's study of technology precisely reveals the human labor process hidden behind the production process of machinery and large-scale industry, which has always been obscured by the valorization process. The analysis of the labor process demonstrates the historical character of the power domination of machinery and large-scale industry under capitalism: machinery and large-scale industry, which represent humanity's capacity to transform nature, will inevitably generate an irreconcilable contradiction with capital's logic of valorization, and will ultimately destroy this logic, along with the social relations and power domination built upon it. "Modern industry never views and treats the existing form of a production process as the definitive one. Therefore, the technical basis of modern industry is revolutionary, while that of all earlier modes of production was essentially conservative." [14]14 This is a quotation from Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 15, Section 9, discussing the revolutionary nature of modern industry's technical foundation.

机器体系所带来的是“从下而上”的变革，并不意味着资本主义的“政治统治能够继续‘从下’而不是‘从上’（借助于文化传统）得到合法化”。马克思的工艺学研究正揭示了隐藏在机器大工业生产过程背后的，一直被价值增殖过程所遮蔽的人的劳动过程。对劳动过程的分析表明了资本主义下机器大工业权力统治所具有的历史性质：表征人改变自然能力的机器大工业必将与资本价值增殖逻辑之间产生不可调和的矛盾，并最终摧毁这种逻辑以及建立在此基础上的社会关系和权力统治，“现代工业从来不把某一生产过程的现存形式看成和当做最后的形式。因此，现代工业的技术基础是革命的，而所有以往的生产方式的技术基础本质上是保守的”。

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