A Dialectical View of the Relationship between Marx’s Philosophy and Biopolitics

With the deepening of domestic scholarly research on Western left-wing theory, biopolitics has gradually entered scholars’ field of vision and become a hot topic. The relationship between Marx’s philosophy and biopolitics has drawn people’s attention. So how exactly should we understand this relationship? In this regard, we ought to approach it dialectically, starting from a comparison of the theoretical themes, theoretical content, and theoretical aims of the two.

伴随着国内学界对西方左翼理论研究的深入，生命政治学逐渐进入学者们的视野并成为热门话题。马克思哲学与生命政治学的关系问题被人们所关注，那么，究竟怎样理解这一关系问题？对此，我们理应从对两者的理论主题、理论内容、理论旨趣的比较入手加以辩证地看待。

Unfolding the critique of capitalist society

展开对资本主义社会的批判

No theory arises from a source without water or a tree without roots. To judge and analyze whether two theories have an intrinsic organic connection, we must consider not only whether they borrow from, inherit, and develop each other’s theoretical resources, but more importantly, whether they are intrinsically linked in what Althusser called the “problematic” [problématique].

任何理论都不是无源之水、无本之木。判断和分析两种理论是否具有内在的有机关联，不仅要看其在理论资源上是否相互借鉴、继承和发展，更主要的是看其在阿尔都塞所说的“总问题”上是否具有内在关联。

Although Western left-wing scholars rarely cite Marx’s classical expositions in their interpretations of biopolitical theory, the theme their theory focuses on in fact continues Marx’s theme of the critique of capitalism. Biopolitics was born from the reflection of Western left-wing scholars represented by Foucault on the understanding of modern politics within traditional politics—namely, that modern Western capitalist politics achieves the rational governance of populations. Specifically, it involves a non-violent, implicit form of control over individuals as living beings from multiple dimensions such as health, hygiene, birth rates, lifespan, and race. The goal of biopolitics is to reveal this actual state of affairs and relentlessly criticize modern Western democracy and the “pseudo-democratic nature” of the capitalist system. Therefore, biopolitics emerged in a historical context that transcends the understanding of the exploitative essence of industrial capitalist society, directly focusing on and grasping the epochal characteristics and new historical changes of capitalist state governance technology through the linkage of “life” and “power”: from the 19th century onward, the bourgeoisie, through the dual game of disciplinary techniques and regulatory techniques, truly and completely appropriates human life itself, achieving the clamping down and disciplining of human life. On the surface, this is clearly a theory different from Marxist philosophy, but in reality it is a theory that continues Marx’s theme of the critique of capitalism. Unfolding the critique of capitalist society within the critique of political economy is the basic theme of Marxist philosophy. Capitalist society, in less than a hundred years of its class rule, has created more productive forces than all past generations combined. But at the same time, capitalist society still suffers from the problem of human beings being enslaved, abandoned, and cast aside—that is, capital has independence, while individual persons do not. Therefore, in his critique of social reality, critique of ideology, and critique of political economy, Marx discovered the “absolute spirit” of capitalist society’s operation: “capital,” that is, revealing the contradictions of capital’s logic and its own internal contradictions, which lead to the demise of capitalist society and human liberation. In this sense, biopolitics continues the overall problematic of the critique of capitalism advocated by Marx’s philosophy, which is based on the transformation of the real world. Of course, although both are critiques of capitalist society, the former analyzes the disciplining and clamping down of life by modern politics, while the latter analyzes the power possessed by capital and its enslavement of wage labor.

尽管西方左翼学者在对生命政治学理论的阐释中很少引用马克思的经典论述，但就其理论关注的主题来说，实则延续了马克思的资本主义批判这一主题。生命政治学诞生于以福柯为代表的西方左翼学者在反思传统政治中对现代政治的认知，即现代西方资本主义政治所实现的是对人口的合理化治理。具体言之，是从健康、卫生、出生率、寿命、人种等诸多维度对作为生命个体的人的非暴力形式的、隐性的管控。生命政治学的目标在于，揭示这一现实的状况并无情地批判现代西方民主、批判资本主义制度的“伪民主性”。因此，生命政治学诞生于这样一种历史语境，即超越工业资本主义社会剥削本质的理解，直接在“生命”与“权力”的勾连中聚焦和把握资本主义国家治理技术的时代特点和新的历史变化：从19世纪开始，资产阶级通过规训技术和调节技术两方面的双重游戏真正完全占有人类生命本身，实现了对人类生命的钳制和规训。表面上看，这显然是一种不同于马克思主义哲学的理论，但实则是延续了马克思资本主义批判主题的理论。在政治经济学批判中展开资本主义社会的批判是马克思主义哲学的基本主题。资本主义社会在它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。但与此同时，资本主义社会依然存在着人被奴役、被遗弃、被唾弃的问题，即资本具有独立性，而个体的人却没有独立性的问题。因此，马克思在社会现实批判、意识形态批判和政治经济学批判中，发现了资本主义社会运转的绝对精神“资本”，即揭示资本逻辑及其自身的矛盾所导致的资本主义社会的灭亡和人类的解放。在这个意义上，生命政治学延续了马克思哲学所倡导基于现实世界的变革而展开的资本主义批判的总问题。当然，虽然是对资本主义社会的批判，但是前者剖析的是现代政治对生命的规训和钳制，后者剖析的则是资本所拥有的权力及其对雇佣劳动的奴役。

Understanding capitalist society from the perspective of “life”

从“生命”出发理解资本主义社会

Although in terms of the theme of theoretical research, biopolitics continues the realistic quality of Marx’s philosophy and the theme of the critique of capitalist society, this does not mean that the two adopt entirely identical paths of theoretical analysis and interpretation.

尽管从理论研究的主题看，生命政治学延续了马克思哲学的现实性品质和展开资本主义社会批判的主题，但这并不意味着两者采取了完全相同的理论分析和阐释的路径。

Examining the theoretical interpretations of biopolitics, we find that it focuses on the analysis of micro-power throughout society beyond the factory. In other words, when scholars including Foucault, Hardt, Negri, Agamben, and Esposito discuss biopower from the different angles of population governance, capital production, and national sovereign politics, they are in fact exposing that the operation of power in Western society is no longer the use of “violence,” but the use of the art of social governance—that is, achieving the domination of life through state governance technology. In this sense, biopolitics certainly continues and extends Marx’s critique of capitalism, and extends this critique to the micro level. This focus on the micro level is embodied in biopolitics in a signature concept: “life” or “population.” From the perspective of biopolitics, “life” emphasizes the naturalness and biological nature of human beings—living people. It focuses on naturalness, life, biopower, population and its regulation, analyzing how the modern bourgeoisie possesses a power that “lets the living live, but as if dead,” a power that achieves comprehensive governance over populations or life. Similarly, in Marx, the focus is on the extraction of surplus value from wage labor by capital in the factories of capitalist society—that is, the biopolitics of the factory. But Marx adopts two paths that are superficially different but substantively consistent: starting from “real people and their history,” he explores the basic laws of the development of human society; and he unfolds an analysis of the “real history” represented by capitalism, exploring the possibility of realizing communism. Therefore, in Marx, the understanding of “life” is necessarily “social-historical” rather than purely “political.” Works such as the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, *The German Ideology*, and *Capital* place great emphasis on human beings as “living” existences: “Man is directly a natural being,” and “the first premise of all human history is undoubtedly the existence of living human individuals.” But Marx does not stop at discussing “life” in its natural state; rather, he analyzes it within the dimensions of life’s spirituality, sociality, and historicity, especially within the dialectical relationship between life, labor, and production. The production of life necessarily includes a dual dimension—natural relations and social relations—and the latter is the more crucial dimension. Therefore, it is not so much that Marx emphasizes “life” as that he emphasizes the sociality and historicity of life. Marx reveals that “capital and labor” are the axis around which the entire system of modern Western society revolves; “life” is thus necessarily related to social human beings, to wage labor that creates surplus value, and to the logic of capital. It is precisely this difference in the understanding of “life” between biopolitics and Marx’s philosophy—especially the difference in their overall critique of capitalist society—that directly leads them to propose different schemes for how to achieve human freedom and liberation.

翻检生命政治学的理论阐释，我们会发现其所关注的对工厂以外的整个社会的微观权力分析。质言之，当包括福柯、哈特、奈格里、阿甘本、埃斯波西托等在内的学者分别从人口治理、资本生产、国家主权政治的不同角度讨论生命权力的时候，实则是揭露西方社会权力的运转不再是“暴力”的使用，而是社会治理术的使用，即通过国家治理技术实现对生命的统治。在这个意义上，生命政治学当然延续并拓展了马克思对于资本主义的批判，并将这一批判延展至微观层面。这一微观层面的聚焦，在生命政治学中体现为一个标识性概念：“生命”或“人口”。在生命政治学的视域中，“生命”所强调的是人的自然性和生物性，是活着的人。其所关注的是自然性、生命、生命权力、人口及其调节等，剖析现代资产阶级如何拥有一种“让活人活着，但却死了”的权力，一种对人口或生命实现全方位治理的权力。同样，在马克思那里，关注的是资本主义社会工厂中资本对雇佣劳动剩余价值的榨取，即工厂的生命政治学。但马克思却采用了两条表面上不同但实质内容一致的路径：从“现实的人及其历史出发”，探索人类社会发展的基本规律；展开对资本主义所代表的“现实历史”的剖析，探索实现共产主义的可能性。因此，在马克思那里，对“生命”的理解必然是“社会历史”的而非单纯“政治”的。《1844年经济学哲学手稿》《德意志意识形态》《资本论》等文献高度重视作为“生命性”存在的人，“人直接地是自然存在物”，“全部人类社会的第一个前提无疑是有生命的个人的存在”。但马克思并未停留于对自然状态的“生命”的讨论，而是在生命的精神性、社会性和历史性的维度中特别是在生命与劳动、生产的辩证关系中对其加以分析。生命的生产必然包含双重维度，即自然关系和社会关系，并且后者才是更为关键的维度。因此，与其说马克思重视的是“生命”，不如说重视的是生命的社会性和历史性。马克思揭示出“资本和劳动”是全部现代西方社会体系所围绕旋转的轴心，“生命”由此必然与社会性的人相关，与创造剩余价值的雇佣劳动相关，与资本逻辑相关。正是生命政治学和马克思哲学对“生命”理解的差异性，特别是对资本主义社会整体批判的差异性，直接导致了两者对如何实现人类的自由解放提出了不同方案。

Exploring the true path to human freedom and liberation

探索人类自由解放的真实道路

Both biopolitics and Marx’s philosophy strive to explore the true path to human freedom and liberation within the critique of capitalism. Although they share a common theoretical aim, the focal points of their theoretical analysis determine that the schemes they propose are necessarily different.

生命政治学和马克思哲学都力图在资本主义的批判中探索实现人类自由解放的真实道路。虽然两者有着共同的理论旨趣，但理论分析的着力点决定了其提出的方案必然是不同的。

According to the understanding of biopolitics, in modern capitalist society, human natural life is gradually incorporated into the various mechanisms and calculations of power. Agamben argues that sovereign politics shifts from the external to the internal, i.e., to the governance of bare life; the foundation of state power is no longer personified nation or citizen, but the governance and adjudication of “bare life” under the “state of exception.” Therefore, to break this impasse, Agamben advocates waiting for the “remnant people” of the messianic moment, while Negri pins his hopes on expanding the “singularity” of the individual that capital cannot dissolve. Clearly, this approach is not suitable for Marx. As discussed above, Marx’s discussion of “life” is always socio-historical, ultimately manifesting in the fact that this analysis is always linked to the critique of capitalism primarily in the form of the critique of political economy, always linked to the laws of development of human social history with “real people and their historical development” as the main content, and always linked to the realization of communism with “human freedom and liberation” as the theoretical aim. Correspondingly, the root of the power over life governance can only be “capital.” In Marx’s view, the dominant power possessed by capital leads to the control of life. This determines that Marx’s solution can only be to reveal the logic of capital and its inherent contradictions, and to open up the possibility of realizing communism in the process of revealing the transitory nature of capitalism. True liberation can only be the subversion of the entire social relations of capitalism, the transcendence of the capitalist social system. This transcendence is ultimately embodied in the construction of a communist “real community,” “in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

按照生命政治学的理解，在现代资本主义社会，人的自然生命逐渐被纳入权力的诸种机制和算计中。阿甘本认为，主权政治由外在的转为内在的，即对直接生命的治理；国家权力的基础不再是人格化的民族、公民，而是“例外状态”下对“赤裸生命”的治理与裁决。因此，要打破这一困局，阿甘本主张期待弥赛亚时刻的“剩余之民”，奈格里则寄希望于拓展资本无法消解的个体的“奇异性”。显然，这个方案是不适合马克思的。如前所述，马克思对“生命”的讨论始终是社会历史的，最终呈现为这一分析始终与以政治经济学批判为主要形式的资本主义的批判相关联，始终与以“现实的人及其历史的发展”为主要内容的人类社会历史发展规律相关联，始终与以“人的自由和解放”为理论旨趣的共产主义的实现相关联。与之相对应的是，对生命治理的权力之根本只能是“资本”。在马克思看来，资本所具有的主宰性权力导致了对生命的控制。这也就决定了马克思的方案只能是揭示资本逻辑及其自身的矛盾，在揭示资本主义的暂时性中敞开共产主义实现的可能性。真正的解放只能是对整个资本主义社会关系的颠覆，对资本主义社会制度的超越。这种超越最终体现为构建“真正的共同体”的共产主义，“在那里，每一个人的自由发展是一切人的自由发展的条件”。

The above comparative analysis shows that the biopolitics founded by the Western Left has greatly expanded the academic line of thought for criticizing capitalism pioneered by Marx, thereby enriching the content of world Marxist theory. This helps us continue the critique of capitalism on the basis of absorbing and drawing on new theories. More importantly, the issues focused on by Western Marxism, the theoretical resources it relies on, and the methodological principles it applies have significant reference value for constructing the academic system of contemporary Chinese Marxist philosophy. Contemporary Chinese Marxist philosophy, which contains new ideological connotations, contemporary connotations, and civilizational connotations, will surely provide intellectual wisdom for responding to the major practical issues in the process of Chinese-path modernization.

上述的比较分析表明，西方左翼所创立的生命政治学极大地拓展了马克思所开创的批判资本主义的学术理路，由此丰富了世界马克思主义理论的内容，这有助于我们在吸收借鉴新的理论的基础上继续展开对资本主义的批判。更为重要的是，西方马克思主义所聚焦的问题、依托的理论资源、应用的方法论原则，对于我们构建当代中国马克思主义哲学学术体系有着重要的借鉴意义，有着新的思想内涵、时代内涵和文明内涵的当代中国马克思主义哲学，必将为回应中国式现代化进程中的重大现实问题提供思想智慧。

Web editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗