The Historical Foundation of Production and the Logical Starting Point of Exchange: An Exploration Based on Marx’s Theory of Value Form and the Process of Research and Presentation

One of the fundamental viewpoints of the Marxist conception of social history and political economy is that production determines exchange. The categorical system of production, including productive forces, relations of production, and mode of production, is the cornerstone of Marx’s two great discoveries: the new world outlook of historical materialism and the theory of surplus value. However, since the second half of the 20th century, in the study of Marx’s critique of political economy by Western left-wing theory, as well as in the dialogue between other schools of social science and Marxism, the logical priority of the discourse of exchange in theoretical analysis has been highly emphasized, and the discourse system of exchange has been used to replace and negate the Marxist categorical system of production. This is concentrated in the theoretical currents represented by the Neue Marx-Lektüre and the “New Dialectical School.” It is necessary to return to Marx’s texts to respond to this issue. This article argues that in the process of critically studying the categories of political economy, Marx explored the status of production as the historical foundation of exchange, but in the process of presenting the capitalist mode of production, he took exchange as the logical starting point—this process of research and process of presentation together constitute the unique method of Marx’s theory of value form.

马克思主义社会历史观和政治经济学的基本观点之一，就是生产决定交换。包括生产力、生产关系和生产方式在内的生产范畴体系，是马克思两个伟大发现即历史唯物主义新世界观和剩余价值理论的基石。但是，20世纪下半叶以来，西方左翼理论在对马克思政治经济学批判的研究中，以及其他社会科学流派在与马克思主义的对话中，高度强调了交换话语在理论分析中所具有的逻辑优先性，且用交换话语体系取代、否定马克思主义的生产范畴体系，这集中体现在以新马克思阅读与“新辩证法学派”为代表的理论潮流中。回到马克思文本中回应这一问题很有必要。本文认为，马克思在对政治经济学范畴进行批判研究的过程中探究了生产之于交换的历史基础地位，但在对资本主义生产方式进行叙述的过程中却将交换作为逻辑的开端——这一研究过程和叙述过程共同构成了马克思价值形式理论的独特方法。

I. The Retreat of the Discourse of Production and the Exaltation of the Discourse of Exchange: Characteristics of Western Left-Wing Theory in the Second Half of the 20th Century

一、生产话语的退却与对交换话语的推崇：20世纪下半叶西方左翼理论的特征

In the second half of the 20th century, Western left-wing theory detached itself from and even rejected the Marxist discourse of production, gradually turning to the discourse of exchange. This is manifested in the following aspects.

20世纪下半叶，西方左翼理论脱离乃至拒斥马克思主义的生产话语，逐步转向交换话语，这表现为如下几个方面。

First, in the process of formation and development of Western Marxism and Western Marxology, their understanding of Marx’s philosophical world outlook was, from the very beginning, distanced from the category of “production” established in the system of historical materialism. It is difficult to find in Lukács, Gramsci, and Korsch a clear use of the analytical method of productive forces and relations of production. Lukács defined the “functional transformation of historical materialism” as a critical analysis of the capitalist social system, arguing that “historical materialism is above all a theory of bourgeois society and its economic structure, not a universally valid conception of history.” [1]1 This is a reference to Georg Lukács’s essay “The Changing Function of Historical Materialism,” in which he argues that historical materialism is primarily a tool for criticizing bourgeois society rather than a universal theory of history applicable to all epochs. This basic attitude was largely shared by the whole of Western Marxism. The Frankfurt School, as early as the 1930s, established a social critical theory based on Marx’s “exchange abstraction.” By the second half of the 20th century, its distance from the category of “production” became increasingly evident. As the initial systematic expression of the new world outlook of historical materialism, the “Feuerbach” chapter of *The German Ideology* holds a crucial position. After 1932, the textual construction of *The German Ideology* in MEGA1 and the Russian edition of *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, Volume 3, was widely accepted. However, the controversy surrounding the editorial problem of the “Feuerbach” chapter of *The German Ideology*, triggered by two pages of manuscript discovered by Barone in 1960, [2]2 This refers to the discovery by the Italian scholar Mario Barone in 1960 of two previously unknown manuscript pages related to the “Feuerbach” chapter of *The German Ideology*, which sparked a long-running international debate about the proper editorial reconstruction of that chapter. cast doubt on the systematicity and originality of the new philosophical world outlook established in *The German Ideology*. This constituted a wedge for Western Marxology to dismantle the Marxist philosophical system. Consequently, Western Marxological circles regarded the philosophical system of historical materialism as a “invention” of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and, under the view of the “opposition between Marx and Engels,” [3]3 The “opposition between Marx and Engels” (Marx-Engels-Differenz) is a thesis in Western Marxology that posits a fundamental theoretical divergence between the two thinkers, often claiming that Engels’s later systematizations distorted Marx’s original critical-dialectical method. considered the philosophical world outlook based on the category of production as Engels’s creation. This trend also influenced the Western academic understanding of *Capital*, concentrated in the debate over whether the opening of *Capital* should be defined as “simple commodity production” or “simple commodity circulation.” Engels interpreted the opening of *Capital* as “simple commodity production” and clearly expressed the view that production determines exchange in texts such as *Anti-Dühring*. According to this understanding, the opening of *Capital* is an exposition of pre-capitalist “simple commodity production,” and it is only when labor power becomes a commodity and money is transformed into capital that capitalist production exists; thus, *Capital* unfolds in a historical manner. The questioning of Engels’s view once became the focus of debate in the study of *Capital* in Western and Soviet and Eastern European academic circles. Opponents emphasized that the opening of *Capital* is “simple commodity circulation,” a logical abstraction of the capitalist mode of production, not a historical description of pre-capitalism—further reinforcing the understanding that Marx’s thought is a critical theory of capitalist society, not a general world outlook or conception of history.

首先，西方马克思主义和西方马克思学在形成和发展过程中对马克思哲学世界观的理解，从一开始就与历史唯物主义体系中确立的“生产”范畴保持着距离。我们很难在卢卡奇、葛兰西和科尔施那里找到明确运用生产力、生产关系的分析方法。卢卡奇将“历史唯物主义的功能转化”界定为对资本主义社会制度的批判分析，认为“历史唯物主义首先是资产阶级社会及其经济结构的一种理论，而非具有普遍意义的历史观。这种基本态度大体被整个西方马克思主义共享。法兰克福学派在20世纪30年代就确立了基于马克思“交换抽象”的社会批判理论。到了20世纪下半叶，其与“生产”范畴的距离日益明显。作为历史唯物主义新世界观的最初系统表达，《德意志意识形态》“费尔巴哈”章具有至关重要的地位。自1932年之后，人们广泛接受的是MEGA1和俄文版《马克思恩格斯全集》第3卷中的《德意志意识形态》的文本建构方式。然而，由巴纳1960年发现的两页手稿所引发的围绕《德意志意识形态》“费尔巴哈”章编辑问题的争论，使得《德意志意识形态》中创立的新哲学世界观的体系性和原创性遭到了质疑，这构成了西方马克思学拆解马克思主义哲学体系的一个楔子。由此，西方马克思学界将历史唯物主义哲学体系视作苏东的“发明”，并在“马恩对立论”的观点下，将基于生产范畴的哲学世界观视作恩格斯的创造。这一态势也影响到了西方学界对《资本论》的理解，集中体现在《资本论》开篇应当定义为“简单商品生产”还是“简单商品流通”的争论上。恩格斯将《资本论》开篇解读为“简单商品生产”，并在《反杜林论》等文本中明确表达了生产决定交换的观点。按照这一理解，《资本论》开篇是对前资本主义的“简单商品生产”的阐述，直到劳动力成为商品、货币转化为资本，才存在资本主义生产，这样《资本论》就是以历史的方式展开的。对恩格斯观点的质疑，一度成为西方和苏东学界《资本论》研究争论的焦点，反对者强调《资本论》的开篇是“简单商品流通”，是对资本主义生产方式的逻辑抽象，而非对前资本主义的历史描述——进一步强化了马克思的思想是对资本主义社会的批判理论，而非一般的世界观和历史观的认识。

Second, after the 1960s, in the field of Marxist political economy in countries such as Germany, Japan, and France, different schools of thought formed around Marx’s theory of value-form analysis. These schools, from different angles, emphasized the logical priority of exchange over production, insisting on defining the starting point of *Capital* as “simple commodity circulation” rather than the “simple commodity production” understood by Engels. For example, Backhaus, the pioneer of the German Neue Marx-Lektüre, identified the source of the vulgarization and misunderstanding of Marxist political economy, including that of the Second International and the Soviet textbook system, as Engels’s generalization of “simple commodity production.” The analysis of simple commodity circulation, starting with commodity and money, is an analysis of the cellular form of capitalist society, establishing the scientific starting point of the critique of Marxist political economy, namely, the theory of value form. The dialectical process of the development of the commodity into money, that is, the process of the development of the value form, is constructed in the process of exchange. This manifests as a logical presentation of the historical process and is also the process of the unfolding of the categories of political economy. Therefore, value cannot be simply understood as the quantity of labor in a substantialist manner; rather, one must see the absolute necessity and even essential significance of exchange for value. The completed form of the value form—money—is precisely the unique “mediation” of capitalist society, becoming an existence inseparable from value. Proponents of value-form analysis also unanimously point out that the categorical system of political economy, centered on value and the value form, is not merely a system of conceptual categories but also a real social mediation. The uniqueness of the capitalist social form lies in the fact that its social labor is mediated through the value form, whose substance is labor. The concept of “doubling” [4]4 “Doubling” (Verdopplung) is a term used by Backhaus and Reichelt to describe the process by which, in capitalist society, the commodity is split into its natural form and its value form, and social relations appear as relations between things. and the “ambiguity” of the categories of political economy, which Backhaus and Reichelt strongly emphasize, are both intended to highlight the real social function of the categories of political economy. It is in this sense that most researchers of the value form express dissatisfaction with the rigid approach of the political economy textbook system, which treats “production” as the premise of “exchange,” and instead highlight the key significance of the link of exchange. Whether it is the Uno School in Japan, the Regulation School in France, Rancière of the Althusserian School, the subsequent New Dialectical School, or the “New Monetary Interpretation” in the field of economics, their views are highly consistent with the affirmation of the priority of the circulation and exchange link by the Neue Marx-Lektüre.

其次，20世纪60年代后，在德国、日本、法国等国的马克思主义政治经济学领域，围绕马克思价值形式分析理论形成了不同流派。这些派别从不同角度强调交换较之于生产的逻辑优先性，强调将《资本论》的起点界定为“简单商品流通”而非恩格斯所理解的“简单商品生产”。例如，德国新马克思阅读的开拓者巴克豪斯，就将包括第二国际和苏联教科书体系在内的对马克思主义政治经济学的庸俗化和误解的根源指认为恩格斯所概括的“简单商品生产”。以商品和货币为起点的简单商品流通分析，是对资本主义社会细胞形式的分析，确立了马克思主义政治经济学批判的科学起点即价值形式理论。而商品向货币的辩证发展过程，即价值形式的发展过程，是在交换过程中建构的，这表现为一种对历史过程的逻辑叙述，同时也是政治经济学范畴的展开过程。因此，不能以实体主义的方式将价值简单地理解为劳动量，而要看到交换对于价值的绝对必要性乃至本质性的意义。价值形式的完成形式——货币，恰恰是资本主义社会独特的“中介”，成为与价值密不可分的存在。价值形式分析的论者也异口同声地指出，以价值和价值形式为核心的政治经济学范畴体系绝不仅是观念的范畴，也是现实的社会中介。资本主义社会形式的独特之处就在于，其社会劳动是通过以劳动为实体的价值形式中介的。巴克豪斯和莱希尔特非常强调的“二重化”概念以及政治经济学范畴的“二义性”，其所要凸显的都是政治经济学范畴的现实社会功能。正是在这个意义上，价值形式的研究者大多对政治经济学教科书体系将“生产”作为“交换”的前提的僵化做法表示不满，而突出强调交换环节所具有的关键意义。不论是日本的宇野学派、法国的调节学派，还是阿尔都塞学派的朗西埃，抑或此后的新辩证法学派，以及经济学领域“货币的新解释”，其观点都与新马克思阅读对流通和交换环节优先性的肯定有着高度一致性。

Finally, Western left-wing philosophy and social theory have also begun to critique the discourse of production and promote the discourse of exchange—the discourse of production is regarded as a manifestation of the traditional subject-object dualism, while the discourse of exchange is seen as a structure of intersubjectivity. This critical direction is particularly represented by Habermas and Baudrillard. Although Habermas and Baudrillard differ greatly in their approaches to the discourse of exchange, as Hu Daping points out, “Baudrillard and Habermas have very different theoretical interests and styles, but they are strikingly consistent in their negation of Marxism that starts from production. Moreover, although ‘symbolic exchange’ and ‘communicative action’ appear on the surface to be two different theories, they are in essence logically completely consistent theoretical expressions that differ only due to their different starting points.” [5]5 Hu Daping, *The Direction of Late Capitalism: A Study of the Critical Theory of Late Capitalism* (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2021), p. 2. In reconstructing the starting point of historical materialism, Habermas chose language and communication rather than social labor and production; on the basis of language and communication, he then constructed the program of the theory of communicative action, thereby directly bypassing Marx’s critique of political economy. Habermas’s own self-description clearly proves that he has no interest in the relationship between thought and the commodity form. Baudrillard, in his *The Mirror of Production*, drawing on the intellectual resources of anthropology, criticized Marx’s concept of production, arguing that Marx had not moved beyond bourgeois ideology in this concept. However, unlike Habermas, who turned toward communication, Baudrillard, after rejecting the discourse of production, attempted to use the theory of symbolic exchange to transcend Marx’s discourse of production. Although both Habermas and Baudrillard rejected Marx’s political economy, their theoretical construction directions are close to the perspective provided by Marx’s analysis of the value form—Habermas’s communication and Baudrillard’s symbolic exchange, as well as the synchronic logic represented by communication and exchange, are broadly consistent with the perspective provided by the analysis of the value form. For example, Postone once pointed out that although he and Habermas “both criticize theories based on the subject-object paradigm and both place the examination of social relations at the core of analysis, Habermas’s critique leads to an analysis of communication itself, while mine leads to a consideration of the specific forms of social mediation that constitute modern society.” [6]6 Moishe Postone, *Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 218.

最后，西方左翼的哲学和社会理论也开始批判生产话语，推崇交换话语——生产话语被视作传统主客二元论的表现，而交换话语则被看作一种主体间性的结构。这一批判方向尤以哈贝马斯、鲍德里亚为代表。尽管哈贝马斯和鲍德里亚在走向交换话语的方式上很不相同，正如胡大平指出的，“鲍德里亚与哈贝马斯实际的理论旨趣和风格差异很大，但他们恰恰在否定从生产出发的马克思主义时出奇地一致。并且，尽管‘象征交换’和‘交往行为’在表面上是两种不同的理论，但实质上却是逻辑上完全一致而由于出发点依赖不同产生的有差异的理论表述”。哈贝马斯在重建历史唯物主义的起点上，选择了语言和交往，而非社会劳动与生产；进而在语言和交往之上，建构起了交往行为理论的纲领，这样便直接绕过了马克思的政治经济学批判。哈贝马斯本人的自述清楚地证明了他对思维和商品形式之间的关系问题没有兴趣。鲍德里亚在他的《生产之镜》中，借助于人类学的思想资源，批判了马克思的生产概念，认为马克思在生产概念上并未走出资产阶级意识形态。然而，与哈贝马斯导向交往不同，鲍德里亚在拒斥生产话语之后，试图利用象征交换理论超越马克思的生产话语。哈贝马斯和鲍德里亚尽管都拒绝了马克思的政治经济学，但在理论建构方向上与马克思价值形式分析所提供的角度相近——哈贝马斯的交往和鲍德里亚的象征交换，以及交往和交换所代表的共时性逻辑，都和价值形式分析所提供的视角大体一致。例如普殊同就曾指出，哈贝马斯和他尽管“都批判以主—客体范式为基础的理论，并都将对社会关系的考察置于分析的核心。不过，哈贝马斯的批判导向了对交往本身的分析，而我则导向了对建构了现代社会的特定社会中介形式的思考”。

The root of the above conflicts of views can be summarized as the relationship between the discourse of “production” and the discourse of “exchange” as presented in the process of Marx’s research and exposition of the theory of the value form. In Marx’s critique of political economy, the discourse of exchange (the system of categories) encompasses concepts involved in the analysis of the value form, such as the commodity form, the equivalent form, exchange value, and the money form. From the epistemological dimension of philosophy, the discourse of production contains a dimension of the subject-object contradiction based on subjectivity; the discourse of exchange, on the other hand, implies a dimension of intersubjectivity. The discourse of production, taking subjectivity as its standpoint, regards the subject-object contradiction as the driving force of historical development, thus implying a diachronicity; the discourse of exchange, in contrast, is more manifested as a synchronicity, possessing a stronger logical character, and therefore has the potential for formal analysis. From the actual economic and social dimension, the discourse of production contains the foundational role of labor, the subjectivity of the laborer, and the rationalization of the economy; the discourse of exchange, on the other hand, often implies the presupposition of private ownership, the division of labor, the commodity form, and the money form, thereby also presupposing the priority of market principles, as well as the “equality” of market subjects and the “freedom” of market activities. It can be seen that the relationship between the discourse of “production” and the discourse of “exchange” is of vital importance both theoretically and practically. Next, we will enter into Marx’s process of research and exposition of the value form to examine the intrinsic relationship between production and exchange.

以上观点冲突的根源，可以被归纳为马克思价值形式理论研究过程和叙述过程中呈现出的“生产”话语和“交换”话语的关系问题。在马克思的政治经济学批判中，交换话语（范畴体系）囊括了价值形式分析中所涉及的商品形式、等价形式、交换价值、货币形式等概念。从哲学的认识论维度看，生产话语内含的是一种以主体性为立足点的主体-客体矛盾的维度；而交换话语则意味着一种主体间性维度。生产话语以主体性为立足点，将主客矛盾作为历史发展的动力，因而蕴含了一种历时性；而交换话语则更表现为一种共时性，具有更强烈的逻辑性，因而具备形式分析的潜能。从现实的经济社会维度来看，生产话语内含了劳动的基础性、劳动者的主体性、经济的理性化；而交换话语则往往内含着私有制、分工、商品形式和货币形式的前提性，从而也预设了市场原则的优先性，以及市场主体的“平等”和市场活动的“自由”。由此可见，“生产”话语和“交换”话语的关系问题在理论和实践上都至关重要。接下来，我们就进入马克思对价值形式的研究和叙述过程中，考察生产和交换的内在关系。

II. Critique of the Categories of Political Economy: The Discovery of the Historical Foundation of Production

二、政治经济学范畴批判：对生产的历史基础的发现

The critique of the categories of political economy is closely related to the creation and development of Marx’s philosophical worldview of historical materialism. Among a series of categories of political economy, the object that consistently attracted Marx’s attention and runs through different stages of his thought is money. Marx pointed out in *Capital* that the money form is precisely the completed form of the value form. Money is the core category of the discourse of exchange; however, in the process of his research, Marx precisely sought to penetrate the discourse of “exchange” represented by money to discover the category of production behind it.

对政治经济学范畴的批判，与马克思历史唯物主义哲学世界观的创立和发展关系密切。在一系列政治经济学范畴中，始终吸引马克思关注、贯穿其思想不同阶段的对象，就是货币。马克思在《资本论》中指出，货币形式正是价值形式的完成形态。货币是交换话语的核心范畴，然而马克思在其研究过程中，恰恰是要透过货币所代表的“交换”话语，发现其背后的生产范畴。

In *On the Jewish Question*, Marx for the first time explicitly used money as a theoretical analytical tool. In this text, Marx revealed that the incompleteness of bourgeois political emancipation is precisely reflected in the contradiction and split within civil society, that is, the conflict between the particular interests and the general interests of individuals in civil society. The source of this conflict was attributed by Marx to the spirit of money. At this time, Marx did not provide an effective explanation of the root of the spirit of money, only abstractly regarding it as a product of the alienated essence of man. Nevertheless, Marx formed the understanding that “the anatomy of civil society is to be sought in political economy.” [7]7 Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” Preface, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 29 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987), p. 262.

马克思在《论犹太人问题》中第一次明确将货币作为理论分析工具。在这一文本中，马克思揭示了资产阶级政治解放的不彻底恰恰体现在市民社会中的矛盾和分裂，即市民社会中个体的特殊利益和普遍利益的冲突。而这种冲突的来源，被马克思归结为货币精神。马克思此时对货币精神的根源并未作出有效阐释，只能将之抽象地视作人的异化本质的产物。尽管如此，马克思却形成了“对市民社会的解剖应该到政治经济学中去寻求”的认识。

In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* and the *Paris Notebooks*, Marx achieved an important turning point on the issue of money. Regarding the understanding of money, Marx in the first notebook of the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* still regarded money as a product of the alienation of man’s species-essence, while in the “Excerpts from James Mill’s *Éléments d’économie politique*,” he began to regard money as a necessary product of wage labor and exchange relations under bourgeois private ownership. This marked Marx’s advancement of his understanding of the category of money from the speculative dimension into actual economic relations. In the “Excerpts from James Mill,” Marx understood the generation of money more from the perspective of exchange; the historical premise of exchange, that is, the social relations of private ownership, had already entered Marx’s thinking. This understanding was further developed later in *The German Ideology*.

在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》和《巴黎笔记》中，马克思在货币问题上实现了一个重要转折。在对货币的理解方面，马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》第一笔记本中仍然将货币视作人的类本质异化的产物，而在“穆勒摘要”中，则开始将货币视作资产阶级私有制中谋生劳动和交换关系的必然产物。这标志着马克思将对货币范畴的理解从思辨维度推进到了现实经济关系之中。在“穆勒摘要”中，马克思更多是从交换出发来理解货币的产生，交换的历史前提即私有制的社会关系，已经进入马克思的思考之中，这一认识在后来的《德意志意识形态》中得到了进一步发展。

In *The German Ideology*, Marx established the philosophical worldview of historical materialism based on the concept of production. It was precisely within this new worldview that Marx discovered that money represents a new form of social power, rooted in a specific mode of material production. He perceived the necessary connection between money and the capitalist mode of production; this insight was extremely crucial. On this basis, Marx resolutely criticized the reformist views of petty-bourgeois socialists, who attempted to transcend the ills of capitalism by changing the monetary system. The social and historical conditions of relations of production are the premise of exchange; this is the initial manifestation of the basic understanding that production determines exchange. This understanding was further developed in *The Poverty of Philosophy*. When commenting on the views of the Ricardian socialists, Marx emphasized that these views only saw exchange as cooperation, without seeing that exchange is precisely based on the compulsion of private ownership. Although Marx perceived the necessary connection between money and the capitalist mode of production, the mystery of money—the question of how exactly the intrinsic connection between the category of money and the capitalist mode of production is constructed—had not yet been completely unraveled by Marx.

在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思确立了以生产概念为基础的历史唯物主义哲学世界观。正是在这一新世界观中，马克思发现货币代表了一种新的社会权力形式，它根植于特定的物质生产方式之中。他洞察到了货币与资本主义生产方式之间的必然联系，这一洞察十分关键。基于此，马克思坚决批判小资产阶级社会主义者的改良观点，这种观点试图通过改变货币制度来超越资本主义的弊病。生产关系的社会历史条件是交换的前提，这是生产决定交换的基本认识的初步体现。这一认识在此后的《哲学的贫困》中得到了更进一步的发展。在评论李嘉图派社会主义者的观点时，马克思强调，这些观点只看到交换是合作，而没有看到交换恰恰建立在私有制的强迫之上。尽管马克思洞察到货币与资本主义生产方式之间的必然联系，但是，货币之谜，货币范畴与资本主义生产方式的内在联系究竟如何建构的问题，还并未被马克思彻底解开。

The line of thought explaining the generation of money based on exchange founded on private ownership and the division of labor continued into the *Grundrisse* (1857–1858) and the 1859 *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*. In the *Grundrisse*, this line of thought is manifested in advancing the premise of exchange to bourgeois relations of production, that is, bourgeois ownership and wage labor. On this basis, exchange becomes necessary, because there exists a class that must combine with the means of production through exchange; money appears in this process as a form of social power. However, this framework of thought was not yet complete, because it had not yet penetrated the social appearance of exchange to explain value and money by delving into the complete dimension of the mode of production.

以建立在私有制和分工之上的交换来解释货币产生的思路，一直延续到《1857—1858年经济学手稿》和1859年《政治经济学批判。第一分册》。这一思路在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中体现为将交换的前提推进到资产阶级生产关系，即资产阶级所有制和雇佣劳动。基于此，交换成为必然，因为存在着一个必须通过交换才能与生产资料相结合的阶级，货币在这一过程中就以一种社会权力的形式出现。但是，这一思考框架并不完善，因为它还未透过交换的社会表象，深入到生产方式的完整维度中来解释价值和货币。

In the *Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858*, on the one hand, through his study of the relationship between “objectified labour” and “living labour,” Marx initially formed the basic contours of the theory of the dual character of labour and the theory of surplus value. He recognized that “production based on exchange value, i.e., production that on the surface carries out the aforementioned exchange of equivalents based on freedom and equality (of individual labour products—trans.), is fundamentally the exchange of objectified labour as exchange value with living labour as use value.” On the other hand, Marx did not yet integrate the theory of the dual character of labour and the theory of surplus value, obtained from the dimension of production, with the theory of value and money; the two still lay along two separate lines of thought. In explaining the process of valorization, Marx took money as a given precondition: “Capital, which reproduces its own value and increases its own value, is, as a process, i.e., as the process of valorization, independent exchange value (money).” This precondition of money is at the same time the “power of others” and the “objective power” embodied by capital. Regarding capital itself, Marx stated, “Formally speaking, capital is not constituted by the object of labour and labour, but by value, more precisely, by prices.” This sentence shows that Marx understood the process of valorization and capital as a formal change of money, but he had not yet combined the labour process with the money form. As for money itself, Marx still remained at the level of analyzing the exchange process. For example, in the important subsection “The Emergence and Essence of Money,” Marx argued from the dimension of exchange that money is the commodity that has separated itself from all other commodities as exchange value: “The product becomes a commodity, i.e., a mere element of exchange. The commodity is transformed into exchange value. … The determination of the product as exchange value necessarily results in exchange value acquiring an existence separate and distinct from the product. This exchange value, which is separate from the commodities themselves and exists alongside them as a commodity in its own right, is money.”

在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中，一方面,马克思通过对“对象化劳动”与“活劳动”关系的研究，初步形成了劳动二重性学说和剩余价值理论的基本轮廓。他认识到，“以交换价值为基础的生产，即在表面上进行着上述那种（以个人劳动产品的所有权为基础的——引者注）自由和平等的等价物交换的生产，从根本上说，是作为交换价值的对象化劳动同作为使用价值的活劳动之间的交换”。另一方面，马克思并没有将从生产维度获得的劳动二重性学说、剩余价值理论与价值、货币理论结合起来，二者仍处于两条思考线索之上。在解释价值增殖过程时，马克思将货币作为既定的前提条件，“再生产自身价值和增加自身价值的资本，是作为过程即价值增殖过程的独立的交换价值（货币）”。货币这一前提条件同时又是资本所体现的“他人的权力”“客体的权力”。关于资本本身，马克思提到，“从形式来说，资本不是由劳动对象和劳动构成的，而是由价值构成的，更确切地说，是由价格构成的”。这句话显示出了马克思将增殖过程和资本理解为货币的形式变化，但他还没有将劳动过程与货币形式相结合。就货币本身来说，马克思还是停留在交换过程的分析上。例如，在“货币的产生与本质”这一重要小节里，马克思就是从交换的维度来论证货币即从各种商品中脱离出的作为交换价值的商品：“产品成为商品，也就是说，成为单纯的交换要素。商品转化为交换价值。……产品作为交换价值的规定，必然造成这样的结果：交换价值取得一个和产品相分离即相脱离的存在。同各种商品本身相脱离并且自身作为一种商品又同这些商品并存的交换价值，就是货币。”

Marx’s exploration of the origin of money in *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. First Part* is also highly representative. At this point, Marx only proceeded from the contradiction between the use value and exchange value of the commodity, and from the exchange process of commodities, to explore the origin of money; the commodity exchange process is the unfolding and resolution of the commodity’s internal contradiction. However, Marx only pushed the explanation of the nature of the labour that produces commodities as far as the “specific” determination of capitalist social labour, yet the further explanation of this specific determination seemed to remain trapped in a circular argument: exchange value is the determination of specific social labour, and this specific social labour is in turn based on exchange value: “Each individual’s labour, insofar as it is expressed as exchange value, possesses this sociality of equivalence, and it is only expressed as exchange value insofar as it enters into relation with all other individuals’ labour as equivalent labour.” The root of this limitation lies in the fact that at this time Marx had not yet truly unified the labour in the capitalist mode of production with the forms of value and money, nor had he clearly distinguished exchange value from value. He still regarded abstract general labour as “labour that produces exchange value,” rather than labour that produces value, and what stood in a unity of opposites with use value was not value, but exchange value. The failure to unify the understanding of value and money with the theory of the dual character of labour and the theory of surplus value production, starting from the commodity as the premise of capitalist production, is also manifested in remaining at the surface appearance of exchange and being unable to explain the capital-labour relation from the production process itself. For example, at the end of the “Money” chapter, after concluding his analysis of simple circulation, Marx pointed out that “in the further development of exchange value,” i.e., in the wage relation, the separation of labour from property and the domination of others’ labour by property would arise. When discussing the exchange between capital and labour, Marx also divided this exchange into two “processes that are qualitatively different and even opposed to each other”: the exchange process of labour and money, and the production process in which the capitalist uses the labour thus exchanged; the second process is essentially the appropriation of labour. At this time, Marx did not yet recognize that, under the conditions of the universalization of the capital relation, the labour and money involved in exchange had already been shaped by the capital relation into the commodity labour-power and capital.

马克思在《政治经济学批判。第一分册》中对货币起源的探讨也很具有代表性。此时，马克思只是从商品的使用价值和交换价值的矛盾出发，从商品的交换过程来探讨货币的起源，商品交换过程是商品内在矛盾的展开和解决。但是，马克思只是将生产商品的劳动性质的解释，推进到了资本主义的社会劳动这一“特殊”规定，而对这种特殊规定的进一步解释，却似乎停留在一种循环论证之上：交换价值是特殊社会劳动的规定性，这种特殊社会劳动又以交换价值为基础：“每一个个人的劳动，只要表现为交换价值，就有相同性这种社会性，而且也只有作为相同的劳动同所有其他个人的劳动发生关系，才表现为交换价值。”这一局限性的根源就在于，此时的马克思还未能将资本主义生产方式中的劳动与价值和货币形式真正统一起来，也未能将交换价值和价值明确区分开来。他还将抽象一般的劳动视作“生产交换价值的劳动”，而非生产价值的劳动，而作为使用价值对立统一物的也并非价值，而是交换价值。不能将对价值和货币的理解与劳动二重性学说和剩余价值生产理论统一起来，从作为资本主义生产前提的商品出发，也体现为停留在交换表象上而无法从生产过程本身来解释劳资关系。例如在“货币”章结尾，马克思在结束了对简单流通的分析之后指出，“在交换价值进一步的发展中”即在雇佣关系中，将会产生劳动和所有权的分离，以及所有权对他人劳动的支配。在探讨资本和劳动的交换时，马克思也是将这一交换划分为了两个“在质上不同的、甚至是互相对立的过程”，即劳动和货币的交换过程，以及资本家用换来的劳动进行生产的过程，第二个过程本质上是对劳动的占有。马克思此时并未认识到在资本关系普遍化的条件下，处于交换中的劳动和货币其实已经被资本关系塑造为了劳动力商品和资本。

This mode of understanding, which proceeds from the commodity exchange process to comprehend the emergence of money and has not yet integrated money with value itself, i.e., the nature of labour, provides an analytical framework for the social formation of “personal dependence based on objective dependence” [8]8 “Personal dependence based on objective dependence” (以物的依赖性为基础的人的独立性) is a phrase from Marx’s *Grundrisse* describing the second of three historical forms of society, where individuals are formally independent but materially dependent on the exchange of commodities and the social power of money. and the “social power” of money, but it does not achieve a fundamental grasp of the capitalist mode of production. From the perspective of intellectual history, an overemphasis on this mode of understanding easily leads to an excessive stress on exchange abstraction, thereby forgetting the historical specificity of bourgeois relations of production, and consequently giving rise to a tendency to interpret money beyond its historical limits, generating a dehistoricization of the study of money and the capitalist mode of production. This is precisely one of the characteristics of Western left-wing theory. In fact, in their later development, some Western left-wing theories relied heavily on the analytical tools of exchange provided by the *Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858*. However, this is not the final achievement realized by Marx; he still needed to explain the essence of value and the emergence of money through the study of the total process of capitalist production.

这种从商品交换过程理解货币的产生、尚未将货币与价值本身即劳动的性质相结合的理解方式，提供了一种“物的依赖性”的社会形态和货币“社会权力”的分析框架，然而并未完成对资本主义生产方式的根本把握。从思想史的角度看，偏重于这种理解方式很容易导致对交换抽象的过度强调，从而遗忘资产阶级生产关系的历史特殊性，进而导致对货币的解释超出历史限制，生发出将货币与资本主义生产方式的研究非历史化的倾向，这正是西方左翼理论的特征之一。事实上，一些西方左翼理论在后来的发展中，很大程度上倚重于《1857—1858年经济学手稿》提供的交换的分析工具。但是，这并非马克思所实现的最终成果，他还需要在对资本主义生产总过程的研究中来解释价值的本质与货币的产生。

In the *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863*, as Marx moved from the study of capital in general into the actual movement of capital, he formed the theory of average profit and prices of production. By means of the theory of average profit and prices of production, Marx truly unified the theory of the dual character of labour, the theory of surplus value, and the problem of value and money. On this basis, the explanation of value and money could finally enter the dimension of production.

在《1861—1863年经济学手稿》中，马克思从资本一般的研究进入资本的现实运动中，形成了平均利润与生产价格理论。借助于平均利润与生产价格理论，马克思将劳动二重性学说、剩余价值理论和价值、货币问题真正统一了起来。基于此，对价值和货币的解释才能够真正进入生产维度中。

Through Marx’s critique of Ricardo at this time, we can see that Marx clearly recognized the intrinsic connection between money and labour, rather than between money and the commodity in direct exchange. Marx found that although Ricardo pointed out that the exchange value of a commodity depends on the quantity of labour, he did not analyze the nature of this labour: “Ricardo does not understand the connection between this labour and money, i.e., he does not understand that this labour must necessarily be expressed as money. Hence, he completely fails to understand the connection between the determination of the exchange value of commodities by labour time and the necessary development of commodities into money. His erroneous theory of money stems from this.” Bailey, on the other hand, criticized Ricardo and his followers for regarding “value as an absolute result produced by a definite quantity of labour,” revealing the defects of Ricardo’s theory of value. This reminded Marx that Ricardo “does not study value at all from the formal side, from the specific form that labour takes as the substance of value, but only studies the magnitude of value.” To understand the form of value, i.e., the price form of money, and to integrate the analysis of the “nature of labour” with it, it is necessary to explain the intrinsic relationship between value and price, and between surplus value and profit. Between value and the price form of money, there exists a social mediation, namely the general rate of profit: “The price of a commodity, insofar as it is determined by the general rate of profit, is fundamentally different from the value of the commodity.” This is the intellectual context in which the theory of average profit and prices of production emerges.

通过此时马克思对李嘉图的批判可以看到，马克思清楚地认识到了货币与劳动而非直接交换中的商品之间的内在联系。马克思发现，李嘉图尽管指出了商品的交换价值取决于劳动量，但是没有分析这种劳动的性质：“李嘉图不了解这种劳动同货币的联系，也就是说，不了解这种劳动必定要表现为货币。所以，他完全不了解商品的交换价值决定于劳动时间和商品必然要发展到形成货币这两者之间的联系。他的错误的货币理论就是由此而来的。”而贝利则批判李嘉图及其门徒将“价值看做由一定量劳动产生的绝对的成果”，揭示了李嘉图价值理论的弊端，这提醒马克思认识到李嘉图“完全不是从形式方面，从劳动作为价值实体所采取的一定形式方面来研究价值，而只是研究价值量”。要认识价值的形式即货币形式的价格，并将对“劳动的性质”的分析与之结合起来，就需要解释清楚价值与价格、剩余价值与利润之间的内在关系。在价值与货币形式的价格之间，还存在着社会的中介即一般利润率，“商品的价格只要决定于一般利润率，就根本不同于商品的价值”。这就是平均利润与生产价格理论出场的思想语境。

The theory of average profit and price of production is derived from an analysis of the dual competition and the two equalization movements within the capitalist production process. Dual competition, namely competition within the same sphere of production and competition between different spheres of production, gives rise to two equalization movements: “Within the same sphere of production, individual capitals equalize the prices of the commodities produced in this sphere to the same market price,” while “competition between different spheres, insofar as the interaction of capitals is not hindered or disrupted by a third force such as landed property, etc., equalizes the various [market] values to the average price.” “The role of competition within the same sphere of production is to determine the value of the commodities produced in this sphere by the average labor time required in this sphere; thereby establishing the market value. The role of competition between different spheres of production is to equalize the different market values into market prices that represent cost prices differing from the actual market values, thereby establishing the same general rate of profit in different spheres.” Through dual competition and the two equalization movements in this process, the general rate of profit is formed, and commodity values are transformed into cost prices, i.e., prices of production. In this process, it is not that commodity prices adapt to commodity values; rather, value exists in the monetary form of price, “reducing commodity values to cost prices that differ from commodity values, abolishing the difference between commodity values and cost prices.” Thus, the monetary form of price is directly unified with the total process of capitalist production. In this way, the relationship between value and the monetary form of price, as well as the understanding of this relationship, are both placed within the total process of capitalist production.

平均利润与生产价格理论是通过对资本主义生产过程中的双重竞争与两种平均化运动的分析得出的。双重竞争，即同一生产领域内部的竞争和不同生产领域之间的竞争，产生两种平均化运动：“在同一生产领域内部，各个资本把这个领域内部生产的商品的价格平均化为同一市场价格”，而“不同领域之间的竞争，在各个资本的相互作用不被第三种力量——土地所有权等等——阻碍、破坏的情况下，把各个［市场］价值平均化为平均价格”。“竞争在同一生产领域所起的作用是：使这一领域生产的商品的价值决定于这个领域中平均需要的劳动时间；从而确立市场价值。竞争在不同生产领域之间所起的作用是：把不同的市场价值平均化为代表不同于实际市场价值的费用价格的市场价格，从而在不同领域确立同一的一般利润率。”经过双重竞争以及这一过程中的两种平均化运动，一般利润率形成，商品价值转化为了费用价格即生产价格。在这一过程中，并非商品价格适应商品价值，而是价值就以货币形式的价格存在着，“使商品价值归结为不同于商品价值的费用价格，取消商品价值同费用价格之间的差别”，货币形式的价格因此与资本主义生产总过程直接统一。这样，价值与货币形式的价格之间的关系以及对这一关系的认识，就都被放在了资本主义生产总过程中。

Through the theory of average profit and price of production, the characteristics of commodities as the result of the capitalist production process are grasped, which lays a solid foundation for understanding value and money. Marx points out, “It is only with the development of capitalist production and only on the basis of capitalist production that products universally take the commodity form—because all products must be transformed into exchange value, and the various elements of production themselves must enter production as commodities…” Marx also emphasizes, “The commodity that emerges from capitalist production… not only exists really as a product, but also as a commodity, appearing as not only a real but also an ideal part of the total product. Each individual commodity appears as the bearer of a definite portion of capital and of the surplus value created by capital.” In the chapter “Results of the Direct Production Process” in the *Economic Manuscripts of 1863–1865*, Marx conducts an in-depth analysis of the commodity as the result of the capitalist production process and describes the threefold determination of this commodity. First, a certain quantity of socially necessary labor time objectified in the commodity is “completely indeterminable” in the commodity as the result of the capitalist production process; the objectified labor as commodity value can no longer trace its source, because “the commodity as the product of capital” contains both paid and unpaid labor. Second, the commodity as the result of the capitalist production process is no longer an individual commodity but the bearer of capital value and the surplus value produced by capital; therefore, “the labor expended on the individual commodity… can no longer be calculated at all.” Third, because the commodity as the result of the capitalist production process bears the function of capital as the product of capital, its selling price can no longer be determined according to individual commodities or a portion of commodities, but can only be determined socially. Immediately following this, in this context, Marx once again discusses the emergence of money: “The exchange value of the commodity must acquire a form different from its use value, a special, independent, albeit ideal form. … The exchange value of the commodity acquires this independent form, completely unrelated to its use value, as the mere existence of objectified social labor time, in the price of the commodity; in this expression of price, exchange value appears as exchange value, i.e., as money…” At this point, the analysis is completely different from that in the *Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858*. Marx has incorporated the labor that creates value into the understanding of the contradiction of the commodity. The value of the commodity as the result of the capitalist production process, i.e., the quantity of labor, is socialized and cannot be directly calculated; therefore, it must take the monetary form. This is determined by the total process of capitalist production, not by the phenomenon of the commodity exchange process.

通过平均利润和生产价格理论，作为资本主义生产过程结果的商品的特征得以被把握，这为理解价值和货币奠定了坚实基础。马克思指出，“只是随着资本主义生产的发展并且只是在资本主义生产的基础上，产品才全面地采取商品形式，——这是因为全部产品都必须转化为交换价值，并且产品生产的各个要素本身要作为商品加入生产……”。马克思还强调，“从资本主义生产中出来的商品……不仅实在地作为产品，而且作为商品，表现为总产品的一个不仅是实在的、而且是观念的部分。每个个别的商品都表现为一定部分的资本和资本所创造的剩余价值的承担者”。在《1863—1865年经济学手稿》的“直接生产过程的结果”一章中，马克思对作为资本主义生产过程结果的商品进行了深入分析，并描述了这种商品所具有的三重规定性。一，对象化在商品中的一定量的社会必要劳动时间，在作为资本主义生产过程结果的商品中是“完全不能确定”的，作为商品价值的对象化劳动已经无法确定来源了，因为“作为资本的产物的商品”包含了有酬劳动和无酬劳动。二，作为资本主义生产过程结果的商品不再是单个商品，而是资本价值和资本所生产的剩余价值的承担者，所以，“花费在单个商品上的劳动……已经完全不能再计算出来”。三，作为资本主义生产过程结果的商品由于作为资本的产物而承担了资本的功能，所以它的出售价格再也不能按照单个商品或一部分商品来确定，而只能社会化地确定。紧接着，在这一语境中，马克思再度探讨货币的产生：“商品的交换价值必须取得一种与其使用价值不同的、特殊的、独立的、尽管是观念上的形式。……商品的交换价值是在商品的价格中取得这种独立的、与其使用价值完全无关的、表现为物化社会劳动时间的单纯存在的形式的；在价格这个表现中，交换价值表现为交换价值，即表现为货币……”此时的分析已经与《1857—1858年经济学手稿》完全不同了。马克思已经将创造价值的劳动纳入对商品矛盾的理解中。作为资本主义生产过程结果的商品的价值即劳动量是社会化的、无法直接计算的，因而必须采取货币形式，这是资本主义生产总过程决定的，而非商品交换过程的现象。

Through the *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863*, Marx’s understanding of the formation of money underwent a transformation, shifting from explaining the necessity of money from the actual total process of capitalist production rather than from general social determinations such as private property, division of labor, and exchange. Through the theory of average profit and price of production, Marx truly recognized the contradiction inherent in the commodity as the result of the capitalist production process. Its root lies in the capitalist production process itself, i.e., the value of the commodity itself contains paid and unpaid labor, and therefore cannot be intuitively experienced; the quantity of labor cannot be directly measured, so it must necessarily be expressed in the monetary form of price. At the same time, the value of the commodity is not directly equivalent to exchange value, i.e., the form of expression in monetary form; exchange value is the transformation of value in the capitalist production process. Therefore, the monetary form is an absolutely necessary formal framework of the capitalist production process, a concealment of the production of surplus value, and is unified with the capitalist mode of production. It can be seen that, through the research in the *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863*, Marx formed his own system of categories through the analysis of bourgeois competition, drawing a clear line with the theories of his opponents.

经过《1861—1863年经济学手稿》，马克思对货币形成的理解方式发生了转变，转变为从现实的资本主义生产总过程而非从笼统的私有制、分工和交换等社会规定性来解释货币的必然性。通过平均利润与生产价格理论，马克思真正认识到了作为资本主义生产过程结果的商品本身蕴含的矛盾，其根源在于资本主义生产过程之中，即商品价值本身包含了有酬劳动和无酬劳动，因此无法被经验直观，劳动量无法被直接衡量，故而必然以货币形式的价格为表现形式。与此同时，商品的价值并不直接等同于交换价值，即货币形式的表现形式，交换价值是价值在资本主义生产过程中的转化。因此，货币形式是资本主义生产过程绝对必要的形式构架，是对剩余价值生产的掩盖，与资本主义生产方式相统一。可见，经过《1861—1863年经济学手稿》的研究，马克思通过对资产阶级竞争的分析形成了自己的范畴体系，与对手的理论划清了界限。

In summary, in Marx’s research process of the critique of political economy, it is production, not exchange, that constitutes the entire foundation of his intellectual framework. However, in *Capital*, the need for a theoretical exposition of the capitalist mode of production determined that Marx had to take exchange as the logical starting point.

概而言之，在马克思的政治经济学批判研究过程中，是生产而非交换，构成了其思想构架的全部基础。然而，在《资本论》中，对资本主义生产方式进行理论叙述的需要，决定了马克思必须以交换作为逻辑开端。

III. The Logical Starting Point of Exchange: A Dialectical Exposition of the Capitalist Mode of Production

三、交换的逻辑开端：对资本主义生产方式的辩证叙述

On June 22, 1866, in a letter to Engels, Marx particularly emphasized that the section expounding the value form was “of decisive importance” for the entire *Capital*. After explaining the issues of value and money from the total process of capitalist production, Marx begins his exposition in the opening of *Capital* from exchange. This is a necessary requirement for him to elucidate the internal contradictions of the commodity, unfold the analysis of the value form, clarify the emergence of money, and thereby explain the process of the transformation of money into capital.

1866年6月22日，马克思在给恩格斯的信中特别强调，阐述价值形式部分的内容对于《资本论》全书“太有决定意义了”。从资本主义生产总过程解释了价值与货币问题之后，马克思在《资本论》开篇中从交换出发展开叙述，这是他阐明商品的内在矛盾、展开价值形式分析、阐明货币的产生，从而解释货币转化为资本的过程的必然要求。

Taking exchange as the logical starting point is related to the methodology of narration. In the *Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy*, Marx pointed out, “It would be inexpedient and wrong to arrange the economic categories in the order in which they were the determining factors in the course of history. Their order of succession is determined rather by their mutual relation in modern bourgeois society…”[10]10 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy*, trans. Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin, 1973), 107–108. In the postface to the second edition of Volume I of *Capital*, Marx also clearly stated, “In form, the method of presentation must differ from that of inquiry.”[11]11 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (London: Penguin, 1990), 102. Later, in the chapter “Results of the Direct Production Process” in the *Economic Manuscripts of 1863–1865*, Marx again explained to people: “This cycle of our presentation corresponds to the historical development of capital; for this historical development, commodity exchange, commodity trade is one of the conditions of its emergence… On the other hand, developed commodity exchange and the commodity form itself as the general necessary social form of the product are themselves only the result of the capitalist mode of production.”[12]12 Karl Marx, “Results of the Direct Production Process,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 34 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1994), 465–466. Therefore, Marx’s beginning of *Capital* with the analysis of exchange in “simple circulation” is precisely based on his complete grasp of the capitalist mode of production achieved in the process of research. Marx explicitly identifies this as a “cycle” in narration. This is an important prerequisite for understanding why Marx begins *Capital* with exchange. However, one must never proceed from this to reduce the opening of *Capital* to a purely synchronic logical analysis of the capitalist mode of production, for that would lead to the dissolution of historicity and thus fall into an idealist understanding of the capitalist mode of production.

以交换作为逻辑开端，与叙述的方法论有关。在《〈政治经济学批判〉导言》中，马克思指出，“把经济范畴按它们在历史上起决定作用的先后次序来排列是不行的，错误的。它们的次序倒是由它们在现代资产阶级社会中的相互关系决定的……”。马克思在《资本论》第一卷第二版跋中也明确指出，“在形式上，叙述方法必须与研究方法不同”。后来，在《1863—1865年经济学手稿》的“直接生产过程的结果”一章中，马克思再次向人们解释道：“我们叙述的这种循环，是同资本的历史发展相一致的；对于这种历史发展来说，商品交换，商品贸易是产生条件之一……另一方面，发达的商品交换和作为产品的一般必要的社会形式的商品形式本身，又只是资本主义生产方式的结果。”所以，马克思在《资本论》中以“简单流通”的交换分析为开端，恰恰建立在其在研究过程中所实现的对资本主义生产方式的完整把握上，马克思明确将此指认为叙述上的“循环”。这是理解马克思为何在《资本论》开篇以交换作为开端的重要前提。但是，绝不能由此出发，将《资本论》的开篇简化为对资本主义生产方式进行的纯粹共时性的逻辑分析，那样就会导致历史性的消解，从而陷入对资本主义生产方式的唯心主义理解中。

The narrative method starting from exchange is premised on and grounded in the revelation of the production basis of the categories of political economy during the process of research. Starting from exchange and revealing the transition from commodity to money through the analysis of the value form has an independent necessity. We can elaborate on this from the following aspects.

从交换出发的叙述方法，以研究过程中对政治经济学范畴的生产基础的揭示为前提和根基。从交换出发，通过价值形式分析揭示商品向货币的过渡，有独立的必要性。我们可以从以下几个方面来展开论述。

First, the choice of exchange as the starting point is determined by Marx’s object of narration, namely the cellular form of bourgeois society—the commodity form. The commodity is a contradictory existence; the contradiction of the commodity lies in exchange, and exchange is the fundamental attribute of the commodity form. In the preface to Volume I of *Capital*, Marx made the famous judgment, “For bourgeois society, the commodity form of the product of labor, or the value form of the commodity, is the economic cellular form.”[13]13 Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, 90. The commodity form and the value form are the direct manifestation and basic structure of bourgeois society; therefore, the narration of the capitalist mode of production must unfold through exchange. Later, in *Notes on Adolph Wagner’s “Lehrbuch der politischen Ökonomie”*, Marx again emphasized this point: “I do not start from ‘concepts,’ hence I do not start from ‘the concept of value,’ and therefore there is no need to ‘divide’ them in any way. My point of departure is the simplest social form in which the product of labor is presented in contemporary society, and this is the ‘commodity.’”[14]14 Karl Marx, “Notes on Adolph Wagner’s ‘Lehrbuch der politischen Ökonomie’,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 24 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1989), 544. Lenin clearly recognized the subtlety of Marx’s beginning *Capital* with commodity exchange: “Marx in *Capital* first analyzes the simplest, most ordinary, most fundamental, most common, most everyday relation of bourgeois society (commodity society), a relation encountered billions of times, viz. commodity exchange. The analysis in this simplest phenomenon (in this ‘cell’ of bourgeois society) reveals all the contradictions (or the germs of all the contradictions) of modern society.”[15]15 V. I. Lenin, “On the Question of Dialectics,” in *Collected Works*, vol. 38 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), 360. “This individual act of exchange of one commodity for another, as a simple form of value, already contains in an undeveloped form all the main contradictions of capitalism.”[16]16 V. I. Lenin, “Karl Marx,” in *Collected Works*, vol. 21 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), 55. Commodity exchange is the most universal and everyday relation permeating bourgeois society, containing the germs of all contradictions of the entire bourgeois society; therefore, it should be the first object to be confronted in narrating the capitalist mode of production.

首先，选择以交换为开端，是由马克思的叙述对象即资产阶级社会的细胞形式——商品形式——所决定的。商品是一个矛盾的存在，商品的矛盾存在于交换之中，而交换是商品形式的根本属性。马克思在《资本论》第一卷的序中作出了著名的判断，“对资产阶级社会说来，劳动产品的商品形式，或者商品的价值形式，就是经济的细胞形式”。商品形式和价值形式是资产阶级社会的直接表现和基本结构，因此必须以交换来展开对资本主义生产方式的叙述。后来，在《评阿·瓦格纳的“政治经济学教科书”》中，马克思再次强调了这一点，“我不是从‘概念’出发，因而也不是从‘价值概念’出发，所以没有任何必要把它‘分割开来’。我的出发点是劳动产品在现代社会所表现的最简单的社会形式，这就是‘商品’”。列宁明确认识到马克思《资本论》以商品交换作为开端的精妙所在，“马克思在《资本论》中首先分析资产阶级社会（商品社会）里最简单、最普通、最基本、最常见、最平凡、碰到过亿万次的关系：商品交换。这一分析从这个最简单的现象中（从资产阶级社会的这个‘细胞’中）揭示出现代社会的一切矛盾（或一切矛盾的萌芽）”。“这一个商品和另一个商品交换的个别行为，作为一种简单的价值形式来说，其中已经以尚未展开的形式包含着资本主义的一切主要矛盾。”商品交换是渗透在资产阶级社会中最普遍、最日常的关系，包含着整个资产阶级社会一切矛盾的萌芽，所以它应当是叙述资本主义生产方式时首先要面对的对象。

In this sense, the section “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof” in Volume I of *Capital* is precisely an explanation of taking exchange as the starting point of narration. Commodity fetishism is the most everyday and dominant ideology in bourgeois society, determined by the inherent contradictions of the commodity. The commodity is the most common manifestation of capital relations; its mystery does not lie in the content of its use-value and value determinations, but originates from the “form itself” of the commodity form, i.e., “the form of the equal value-objectivity of the products of labor,” “the form of the magnitude of value of the products of labor,” and “the form of the social relation of the products of labor.”[17]17 Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, 164. These forms all exist in the exchange relation between commodities. In the first German edition of Volume I of *Capital*, it is precisely in the appendix on “The Value Form,” in the section “Peculiarities of the Equivalent Form,” that Marx discusses the fourfold structural transformation accomplished upon the equivalent form of the commodity.

从这一意义上来说，《资本论》第一卷的“商品的拜物教性质及其秘密”一节，正是对以交换作为叙述开端的一个说明。商品拜物教是资产阶级社会中最日常、最具支配性的意识形态，是由商品的内在矛盾决定的。商品是资本关系最常见的表现形式，它的神秘并不体现于其使用价值和价值规定的内容，而是源于商品形式的“形式本身”，即“劳动产品的等同的价值对象性这种物的形式”“劳动产品的价值量的形式”“劳动产品的社会关系的形式”，这些形式都存在于商品和商品的交换关系中。在《资本论》第一卷德文第一版中，马克思也正是在“价值形式”附录的“等价形式的特点”中，论述商品的等价形式之上所完成的四重结构性转变的。

Second, taking exchange as the starting point of narration is a requirement for elucidating the essence of value and the origin of money. The commodity is a contradictory existence; what makes the commodity “mysterious” is precisely the value of the commodity, and value exists in the exchange relation of commodities, manifesting itself in the form of social relations. The object requiring speculative study is none other than the value of the commodity. In *Capital*, Marx, as in *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. First Part*, begins his exposition from the commodity form, but in analyzing the inherent contradictions of the commodity, he first sets aside “the exchange relation of commodities or the form in which commodities appear as exchange values, and considers the commodity as value in itself.”[18]18 Karl Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. First Part*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 29 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987), 272. Christopher John Arthur’s “systematic dialectics” also emphasizes in the same sense that “Marx’s real starting point is value, something appropriately simple and universal, which can be shown to be rooted in capitalism.”[19]19 Christopher J. Arthur, *The New Dialectic and Marx’s Capital* (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 37. That is to say, Marx takes commodity exchange as the starting point of narration, but the analysis of the commodity form is inseparable from the analysis of value from the very beginning. Value, this “ghostly objectivity,” cannot appear by itself; therefore, it must rely on the analysis of the commodity and commodity exchange, ultimately emerging in the form of money.

其次，以交换作为叙述开端，是阐明价值本质和货币起源问题的要求。商品是矛盾的存在，使商品变得“神秘的”正是商品的价值，而价值以商品的交换关系存在，以社会形式的方式显现。需要用思辨力来研究的对象不是别的，恰恰是商品的价值。马克思在《资本论》中还是像在《政治经济学批判。第一分册》中一样，从商品形式出发展开论述，但对商品内在矛盾的分析，却首先撇开“商品的交换关系或商品表现为交换价值的形式，把商品作为价值本身来考察”。克里斯多夫·约翰·阿瑟的“体系辩证法”也在同样的意义上强调，“马克思的真正起点是价值，它是某种适当简单的、普遍的东西，它可被证明根植于资本主义”。也就是说，马克思以商品交换作为叙述的开端，而对商品形式的分析从一开始就离不开对价值的分析，价值这一“幽灵般的对象性”又无法自己现身，因而必须借助商品分析、商品交换，最终以货币的形式出现。

Although both start from commodity exchange to discuss money, there is a fundamental difference between *Capital* and *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. First Part*. The key distinction is that the former advances commodity exchange to the level of explicit analysis of the value form. It can be said that one of the important purposes for Marx’s rewriting of the “Commodities and Money” section for Volume I of *Capital* in the autumn of 1866 was precisely to begin *Capital* with exchange, to conduct an analysis of the value form of the commodity, and thereby to provide a clear answer to the riddle of money. In *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. First Part*, Marx had already clarified his task: “The main difficulty in the analysis of money is overcome as soon as it is understood that money originates from the commodity itself.”[20]20 Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. First Part*, 291. But at that time, Marx had not yet combined the analysis of the nature of labor with the commodity form and the money form. When Engels read the manuscript of the first German edition of Volume I of *Capital*, he suggested that Marx “verify these things [i.e., the value form—trans.] historically” and “confirm them in somewhat more detail from history.”[21]21 Engels to Marx, 16 June 1867, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 42 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987), 382. Marx partially accepted Engels’s suggestion, i.e., he wrote a concise appendix, but he did not proceed in a historical manner; instead, he adhered to the logical analysis of the value form unfolding through exchange, because “this part is too decisive for the whole work.”[22]22 Marx to Engels, 22 June 1867, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 42, 384.

尽管同样从商品交换出发来论述货币，《资本论》与《政治经济学批判。第一分册》之间有根本不同，最关键的区别就是，前者将商品交换推进到明确的价值形式分析层面。可以说，马克思可能在1866年秋为《资本论》第一卷重新撰写“商品和货币部分”的重要目的之一，就是在《资本论》开篇从交换开始，对商品展开价值形式分析，进而给出货币之谜的明确答案。在《政治经济学批判。第一分册》中，马克思就明确了自己的任务，“只要理解了货币的起源在于商品本身，货币分析上的主要困难就克服了”。但在那时，马克思还未将劳动性质的分析与商品形式和货币形式结合在一起。恩格斯在读《资本论》第一卷德文第一版的书稿时，曾建议马克思“从历史上稍微详细地加以证实”“用历史来对这些东西（即价值形式——引者注）进行检验”。对恩格斯的建议，马克思部分地接受了，即写作了一个简明的附录，但马克思并未以历史的方式来进行，而是坚持了通过交换展开的、逻辑性的价值形式分析思路，因为“这部分对全书来说是太有决定意义了”。

The abstract human labor contained in a commodity, i.e., the substance of value, must take the use-value of another commodity as its direct form of realization. In the first German edition of *Capital*, Volume I, Marx provided a detailed explanation of this issue: “Only when another commodity takes the direct useful labor contained in a use-value or commodity body as the direct form of realization of abstract human labor can this use-value or commodity body become the form of expression of value or the equivalent.” Immediately thereafter, Marx pointed out, “This is the crux of all the difficulties in understanding the value form.” Distinguishing between the value and use-value of a commodity “is relatively easy,” because at this level, the abstract opposition of the commodity occurs through the splitting of the commodity itself. Note that this was precisely the analytical approach in Marx’s *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. First Part*. At that time, although he was aware of the need to derive the origin of money from the analysis of commodities, because he primarily focused on the split within the commodity’s inherent determinations—the contradiction between use-value and “exchange value”—he neither saw their unity nor recognized that “exchange value is merely the ‘form of expression’ of the value contained in the commodity.” Marx himself clearly stated this: “Only when the expression of value has already appeared in its developed form, i.e., as the money form… did I undertake the proper analysis of the expression of value.” This key quotation clearly shows that Marx had not yet clarified the relationship between value and its form of expression, exchange value, at that time.

商品中蕴含的抽象人类劳动即价值的实体，需要以另一个商品的使用价值为直接实现形式。马克思在《资本论》第一卷德文第一版中对这一问题作了详细的说明：“只有当另一商品把一个使用价值或商品体中包含的直接有用劳动当做抽象人类劳动的直接实现形式时，这个使用价值或商品体才能成为价值的表现形式或等价物。”紧接着，马克思指出，“这里是阻碍理解价值形式的一切困难的枢纽”。区分商品的价值和使用价值“是比较容易的”，因为在这一层面，商品的抽象对立是商品本身分裂发生的。注意，这正是马克思在《政治经济学批判。第一分册》中的分析思路，那时他尽管意识到了要从商品分析中得出货币的起源，但是由于主要聚焦于商品内在规定的分裂即使用价值和“交换价值”的矛盾，所以既没有看到二者的统一，也没有看到“交换价值只是包含在商品中的价值的‘表现形式’”。对此，马克思有着明确的自述，“只是当价值表现已经以发展的形式即作为货币表现出现时……才对价值表现作应有的分析”，这一关键引文，清楚地表明马克思那时并未厘清价值和价值的表现形式即交换价值之间的关系问题。

In *Capital*, however, based on a complete understanding of the capitalist mode of production, Marx grasped value fundamentally, thereby emphasizing that the analysis of the value form must begin from exchange. Compared to discovering the opposition within the commodity’s inherent determinations, the value form embodies the unity of these determinations, and this is precisely the difficulty in understanding the value form. Marx pointed out that at the level of the value form, the opposing determinations of the commodity are not mutually split but “interpenetrate”: “The value form is different; the value form exists only in the relationship between commodities.” That is to say, in the value form, the opposition within the commodity’s inherent determinations manifests as unity. However, as a “twofold thing,” the commodity, in order to show which kind it is, “must duplicate its form.” The duplication of the commodity’s “form” occurs in the relationship between commodities. In this analysis of form, one commodity cannot treat the concrete labor it contains as the mere form of realization of abstract human labor; it must rely on the concrete labor contained in another commodity to express itself as the mere form of realization of abstract human labor. Therefore, the commodity must take the other commodity as its equivalent form. Hence, in the analysis of the value form, quantitative analysis is irrelevant; the focus is on qualitative analysis. Marx no longer proceeds from the opposition between use-value and exchange value but recognizes that both are social forms of the product of labor: “‘The commodity’ is, on the one hand, a use-value, and on the other hand, ‘value’—not exchange value, for the mere form of expression does not constitute its own content.” Marx further pointed out that it is in qualitative analysis that the mystery of money can be unraveled: “If the value relation between two commodities is examined qualitatively, then in that simple expression of value one discovers the secret of the value form, and thus, simply put, the secret of money.” This leads into the familiar analysis of the value form and the problem of the genesis of money. In this process, the equivalent form, or the commodity’s social form and value form as the “exchangeable form,” becomes the core thread running throughout.

而在《资本论》中，马克思则在对资本主义生产方式完整理解的基础上，对价值有了根本把握，从而强调必须要从交换开始展开价值形式的分析。较之于发现商品内在规定的对立，价值形式体现出的是商品内在规定的统一，而这也恰恰是理解价值形式的困难所在。马克思指出，在价值形式这一层面，商品的对立规定不是相互分裂的，而是“相互渗透”的：“价值形式就不同了，价值形式只存在于商品与商品的关系之中。”也就是说，在价值形式中，商品内在规定的对立体现为了统一。但是，作为“二重物”的商品，为了表现出它是哪一种，“必须把它的形式二重化”。商品“形式”的二重化，就是在商品与商品的关系中发生的。在这种形式的分析中，一个商品无法将自身包含的具体劳动当作抽象人类劳动的单纯实现形式，而必须借助于另一个商品所包含的具体劳动来表现作为抽象人类劳动的单纯实现形式，因此商品要将另一个商品作为自己的等价形式。故而，在价值形式的分析中，量的分析是无关紧要的，重点是质的分析。马克思也不再从使用价值和交换价值的对立来展开，而是认识到它们都是劳动产品的社会形式，“‘商品’，一方面是使用价值，另一方面是‘价值’——不是交换价值，因为单是表现形式不构成其本身的内容”。马克思进而指出，正是在质的分析中，可以解开货币之谜：“如果对两个商品的价值关系从质的方面进行考察，那就会在那种简单价值表现中发现价值形式的秘密，从而简单地说，发现货币的秘密。”这样，就会进入人们熟知的价值形式分析和货币产生的问题中。在这一过程中，等价形式或者说商品的社会形式和价值形式作为“可以交换的形式”成为贯穿始终的核心线索。

The money form is the completed form of the value form. Explaining the genesis of money from the mode of existence of value has great theoretical significance: it both overcomes the fundamental shortcoming of classical political economy, which failed to discover the value form and thus saw no connection between the theory of value and the essence of money, and effectively counters the distortion and dissolution of value by vulgar economics. Hence, after the publication of *Capital*, when faced with criticism that he had not adequately explained value, Marx responded: “In a social system where the connection of social labor manifests itself as the private exchange of individual products of labor, the form in which this proportional distribution of labor is realized is precisely the exchange value of these products.” That is to say, exchange value, in the form of money, already expresses the substance of value, i.e., social labor. The key to exploring the problem of value is precisely to explain the origin of the money form, thereby elucidating the law of value.

货币形式是价值形式的完成形态。从价值的存在方式出发说明货币的产生，在理论上具有重大意义：既克服了古典政治经济学未能发现价值形式，因而看不到价值理论和货币的本质之间的任何联系的根本缺点；又可以有效回应庸俗经济学对价值的扭曲和消解。故而，当《资本论》出版后，面对人们对自己未能解释清楚价值的质疑时，马克思回应道：“在社会劳动的联系体现为个人劳动产品的私人交换的社会制度下，这种劳动按比例分配所借以实现的形式，正是这些产品的交换价值。”也就是说，交换价值已经以货币的形式表现了价值的实体即社会劳动，探讨价值问题的关键恰恰是为了解释货币形式的根源，从而阐明价值规律。

Finally, explaining the transformation of money into capital must rely on the analysis of exchange. The second section of Volume I of *Capital*, “The Transformation of Money into Capital,” is the most central part of the theoretical exposition. In this section, Marx first analyzes the simple circulation formula C-M-C and the general formula for capital M-C-M′. These two formulas represent two circuits, each consisting of two phases, with the opposition of buyer and seller at each phase. However, these two circuits are fundamentally different in form. In the simple circulation formula C-M-C, the ultimate purpose of exchange and circulation is use-value; the exchange of products “represents the different material transformations of social labor.” In the general formula for capital M-C-M′, the two poles have the same economic form but differ quantitatively, i.e., the second exchange process yields an increment (compared to the originally advanced sum of money), namely surplus value. Furthermore, Marx points out that in the simple circulation formula, the money form taken by the commodity’s value in circulation is merely an intermediary of exchange; whereas in the general formula for capital, both commodities and money are different modes of existence of value: money is the “general mode of existence” of value, while commodities are the particular mode of existence of value. Thus, value transforms into “an automatic subject” or “a self-moving substance in process.” Commodities and money are merely two forms of this substance, value. All of this is based on the analysis of exchange and circulation.

最后，要说明货币向资本的转化，必须借助于对交换的分析。《资本论》第一卷第二篇“货币转化为资本”是理论叙述最为核心的部分。在这一部分，马克思首先分析了简单流通公式W-G-W和资本总公式G-W-G′。这两个公式表征了两种循环，这两种循环都由两个阶段构成，每个阶段上都存在着买者和卖者的对立。但是，这两种循环在形式上又根本不同。在简单流通公式W-G-W中，交换和流通的最终的目的是使用价值，产品交换“表现社会劳动的不同物质的变换”；在资本总公式G-W-G′中，两极具有同样的经济形式，但在量上不同，即第二个交换过程产生了一个增值额（与原预付货币额相比），即剩余价值。此外，马克思还指出，在简单流通公式中，商品的价值在流通中采取的货币形式只是交换的中介；而在资本总公式中，商品和货币都是价值的不同存在方式：货币是价值的“一般存在方式”，商品则是价值的特殊存在方式，这样价值就转化为“一个自动的主体”，或者“处在过程中的、自行运动的实体”。商品和货币只是价值这一实体的两种形式。所有这些都建立在交换和流通的分析上。

However, it is precisely in the analysis of exchange that the general formula for capital M-C-M′ in the circulation process encounters a contradiction, and this contradiction provides the possibility for elucidating the essence of capital. Only through the analysis of exchange can the contradiction of the general formula for capital be discovered, namely that the increment M-M′ cannot itself be completed within the exchange process. As analyzed above, the commodity form and the money form are merely forms of value. If the commodity form and money form of the same value change, then “when the phenomenon proceeds purely, it only leads to the exchange of equivalents,” and “this change of form… does not itself contain a change in the magnitude of value.” Therefore, “circulation or the exchange of commodities creates no value.” Since exchange does not create value, the analysis of exchange reveals the true origin of the transformation of money into capital: there exists a special commodity whose “use-value itself possesses the unique property of being a source of value,” and its consumption is the objectification of labor, i.e., the creation of value. This special commodity is labor power.

然而，也正是在交换的分析中，G-W-G′这一流通过程中的资本总公式会遭遇矛盾，这个矛盾恰恰为阐明资本的实质提供了可能。也只有在交换的分析中才能发现资本总公式的矛盾，即G-G′的增殖在交换过程中本身无法完成。如前文分析，商品形式和货币形式只是价值的形式，如果同一价值的商品形式和货币形式发生了变化，那么“在现象纯粹地进行的情况下，就只引起等价物的交换”，“这种形式变换……本身并不包含价值量的改变”，所以，“流通或商品交换不创造价值”。既然交换并不创造价值，那么通过交换的分析就可以发现货币转化为资本的真正根源，即存在着一个特殊商品，其“使用价值本身具有成为价值源泉的独特属性”，对它的消费就是劳动的对象化，就是价值的创造，这个特殊商品就是劳动力。

The historical condition for the existence of capital is not commodity circulation and money circulation, but the formation of labor power as a commodity. Although labor power, as a commodity, also takes the form of exchange, it has necessary historical conditions, such as the emergence of free workers who can freely sell their labor power, and the formation of large-scale machine industry. These historical conditions are the fundamental conditions for the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. Thus, Marx’s research advances once again from the sphere of exchange to the historical conditions of production.

资本存在的历史条件并非商品流通和货币流通，而是劳动力商品的形成。劳动力作为商品，尽管也采取了交换的形式，但有其必要的历史条件，如自由出卖自己劳动力的自由工人的产生，如机器大工业的形成，这些历史条件才是资本主义生产方式产生的根本条件。这样，马克思的研究也便从交换的领域再次推进到了生产的历史条件中。

IV. Conclusion

四、结语

In the process of research, Marx’s discovery of the historical foundationality of production, and in the process of presentation, his grasp of the logical priority of exchange, embody the philosophical method Marx applied in his critique of political economy, namely the unity of the logical and the historical. Western scholars’ understanding of Marx’s dialectical materialism often rejects the unity of the logical and the historical; while emphasizing the priority of the discourse of exchange, they tend to stress the independence and systematicity of the logical. Heinrich’s view is a typical example. He distinguishes two ways of approaching dialectics: one is the dialectics in the sense of Engels’s *Anti-Dühring*, i.e., “the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society, and thought,” while the other is the dialectics in the sense of the presentation of categories in the critique of political economy, which is also the approach Heinrich affirms: “In the process of presentation, the individual categories develop through one another: the categories are not simply presented one after another, but rather the inner connection of the categories (the extent to which one category makes another necessary) becomes clear. This structure of presentation is not a scholastic problem for Marx, but has a decisive content-related significance.” [24]24 Michael Heinrich, *Die Wissenschaft vom Wert: Die Marxsche Kritik der politischen Ökonomie zwischen wissenschaftlicher Revolution und klassischer Tradition*, expanded new edition (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2006), p. 29. [Translator’s note: The English translation of this passage follows the German original as cited in the Chinese text.] However, while grasping the logical method of Marx’s dialectical mode of presentation, Heinrich discards the historical dimension. Specifically, he affirms the categorical system of exchange, binding the understanding of value to exchange, thereby highlighting the importance of the money form for understanding value, yet he denies the foundational position that the category of production always holds relative to the category of exchange within capitalist social relations. Regarding the dialectical relationship between the categories of production and exchange, we can recall Foucault’s understanding of dialectics in *“Society Must Be Defended.”* Foucault believes that dialectics is the encoding of philosophical-juridical discourse and historical-political discourse, the pacification and bourgeoisification of the discourse of eternal struggle. Although Foucault’s understanding of dialectics is one-sided, it still offers some inspiration for our understanding of the dialectical materialism in Marx’s analysis of the value form: the category of production contains contradictory struggle and diachronicity, while the category of exchange contains formal norms and synchronicity; the characteristic feature of the capitalist mode of production is precisely that it takes contradictory struggle as its core and non-historical economic categories and the ideologies derived from them as its outer shell. Western left-wing theory attempts to take the discourse of exchange as the entry point for criticizing capitalism, but may ultimately end up confirming the validity of capitalism, thereby dissolving history. The “basic tendency of this approach is that individual elements of the method are torn from the total context and absolutized. They try to reduce Marx’s method of research to a pure empiricism without any dialectics, and conversely, they isolate the method of presentation from the method of research, confusing it with Hegel’s idealist dialectics.” [25]25 This quotation is from a Chinese source summarizing a critical position; the original German or English text has not been identified.

马克思在研究过程中对生产的历史基础性的发现，以及在叙述过程中对交换的逻辑优先性的把握，体现出了马克思在政治经济学批判中所运用的哲学方法，即逻辑与历史的统一。西方学者对马克思唯物辩证法的理解常常拒斥逻辑与历史的统一，他们在强调交换话语的优先性的同时，往往强调逻辑的独立性和体系性。海因里希的观点就是典型代表，他区分了两种探讨辩证法的方式：一种是恩格斯《反杜林论》意义上的辩证法，即“关于自然、人类社会和思维的运动和发展的普遍规律的科学”，而另一种是以政治经济学批判展开范畴叙述意义上的辩证法，这也是海因里希所肯定的方式：“在叙述过程中，各个范畴借由彼此而得到发展：范畴不是简单地一个接一个地得到表现，而是说范畴的内在联系（一个范畴在多大程度上使另一个范畴成为必要）变得清楚起来。这种叙述的结构对马克思而言不是一个学究式的问题，而是本身有决定性的内容的意义。”然而，海因里希在把握了马克思辩证叙述方式的逻辑方法的同时，却丢掉了历史的维度。具体说来，他肯定了交换的范畴体系，将对价值的理解与交换绑定在一起，从而凸显了货币形式对于理解价值的重要性，然而却否定了资本主义社会关系中生产范畴对于交换范畴所始终具有的基础性地位。关于生产范畴和交换范畴之间的辩证关系，我们可以联想到福柯在《必须保卫社会》中对于辩证法的理解。福柯认为，辩证法就是哲学-法律话语与历史-政治话语的编码，是对永恒斗争话语的和平化和资产阶级化。尽管福柯对辩证法的理解存在片面性，但对于我们理解马克思价值形式分析的唯物辩证法还是有一定的启发的：生产范畴内含了矛盾斗争与历时性，交换范畴则内含了形式规范与共时性，而资本主义生产方式的特征恰恰以矛盾斗争为内核，以非历史的经济学范畴以及在此之上衍生的其他意识形态为外壳。西方左翼理论试图将交换话语作为批判资本主义的切入点，最后很可能会变成对资本主义有效性的确认，进而消解掉历史，这种做法的“基本趋势是，方法的个别要素被从总联系中分裂出来并被绝对化了。他们试图把马克思的研究方法归结为没有一点辩证法的纯粹经验主义，相反，把叙述方法孤立于研究方法之外，同黑格尔的唯心主义辩证法混为一谈”。

In summary, in the critique of political economy, especially in the analysis of the value form, the unity of the historical foundation of production and the logical priority of exchange in both theoretical content and mode of presentation is determined by the uniqueness of the capitalist mode of production: the two profiles—the contradictions and antagonisms contained in the discourse of production and the formal and normative appearance contained in the discourse of exchange—are precisely the unique embodiment of the capitalist mode of production. In this sense, the dialectical method Marx applied in his analysis of the value form is precisely the “sharp weapon” for the most thorough dissection of the capitalist mode of production. Only by correctly understanding the process of research and the process of presentation in Marx’s theory of the value form can we effectively respond to the questions raised by Western theoretical circles.

概而言之，马克思在政治经济学批判特别是价值形式分析中，对生产的历史基础和交换的逻辑优先性在理论内容和叙述方式上的统一，是由资本主义生产方式的独特性决定的：生产话语内含的矛盾和对抗与交换话语内含的形式和规范外观这两个剖面，恰恰是资本主义生产方式的独特体现。在这个意义上，马克思在价值形式分析上所运用的辩证方法，正是对资本主义生产方式进行最透彻解剖的“利器”。只有正确理解了马克思价值形式理论的研究过程和叙述过程，才能够有效回应西方理论界所提出的问题。

Online Editor: Paul

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