The Machine Narrative and Its Conceptual Genealogy in Marx’s Context

The concept of “machine” occupies a very important position in Marx’s classical texts. Existing related research mainly focuses on the interpretation of Marx’s discussions on machines from the perspective of the philosophy of science and technology and the critique of political economy, which plays a very important role in our in-depth exploration of the profound connotations and contemporary value of Marx’s classical discussions on machines, alienation, capital, surplus value, etc. However, it rarely reveals the internal connections and logical construction of machines and related concepts in Marx’s context, which is not conducive to our overall and deep grasp of the internal logic and contemporary value of Marx’s discussions on machines. Based on Marx’s classical discussions on machines in his texts, this article reveals the machine narrative from traditional tools to tool machines, machines, automata, and the system of machines, from the system of machines to the automatic factory based on the automatic system of machines, and from the automatic factory to the factory system, factory laws, etc., clarifying that the machine in Marx’s context is not an isolated existence but has an internal generative logic and conceptual genealogy. The objective existence of this machine narrative and its conceptual genealogy provides important theoretical reference and ideological guidance for our in-depth exploration of the best way for humans to use machines.

“机器”这一概念在马克思经典文本中占有十分重要的地位。现有相关研究主要聚焦于马克思有关机器论述的科学技术哲学解读以及政治经济学批判，对于我们深入挖掘马克思有关机器、异化、资本、剩余价值等经典论述的深刻内涵和当代价值有着十分重要的作用，但对马克思语境中机器及其相关概念的内在关联与逻辑建构鲜有揭示，不利于我们从整体上深度把握马克思有关机器论述的内在逻辑及其当代价值。本文以马克思文本中有关机器的经典论述为基本依据，揭示从传统工具到工具机、机器、自动机、机器体系，从机器体系到基于自动机器体系的自动工厂，从自动工厂到工厂制度、工厂法等的机器叙事，阐明马克思语境中的机器并不是孤立的存在，而是具有内在生成逻辑和概念谱系的。这种机器叙事及其概念谱系的客观存在，为我们深入探寻人类利用机器的最佳方式提供了重要的理论参考和思想指南。

I. From Traditional Tools and Machines to the System of Machines

一、从传统工具、机器到机器体系

The machine in Marx’s context is related to the tool in the traditional context. In Marx’s own writings and the basic literature he studied, both machines and traditional tools first refer to a material, real existence in the production practice of human society. The 19th-century British mathematician Babbage believed that a machine is “the combination of all these tools (simple tools—author’s note) driven by one engine,” emphasizing the internal inheritance of machines from traditional tools in terms of structure. For Babbage, a machine was a new type of production tool with an improved structural mode, a product of the technological innovation of traditional tools. Marx absorbed Babbage’s intuitive way of understanding machines and re-examined and described machines from the perspectives of structure and function. Marx said: “All fully developed machinery consists of three essentially different parts: the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism, and the tool machine or working machine.” The motor mechanism is the power source of the machine, the transmitting mechanism transfers various mechanical movements to the tool machine, and the tool machine uses the power transmitted by the transmitting mechanism and “its own tools to complete the operations that workers previously completed with similar tools.” When the traditional tools used in past production labor were transferred to new equipment devices composed of the motor mechanism, transmitting mechanism, and tool machine, “the machine replaced the simple tool.”

马克思语境中的机器与传统语境中的工具有关。在马克思本人的文献以及其研究过的基本文献中，机器和传统工具都首先指向的是一种人类社会生产实践中的物质性现实存在物。19世纪的英国数学家拜比吉（也译为巴贝奇）认为，机器是“由一个发动机推动的所有这些工具（简单的工具——引者注）的组合”从结构上强调了机器对传统工具的内在继承性。在拜比吉那里，机器是一种改进了结构方式的新型生产劳动工具，是传统工具实现技术革新后的产物。马克思吸收了拜比吉理解机器的直观方式，并从结构和功能上重新考察和描述了机器。马克思说：“所有发达的机器都由三个本质上不同的部分组成：发动机，传动机构，工具机或工作机。”发动机是机器的动力机构，传动机把各种机械运动传递到工具机，工具机则利用传动机构传递的动力和“自己的工具来完成过去工人用类似的工具所完成的那些操作”。当以往生产劳动中使用的传统工具转移到由发动机、传动机和工具机构成的新式设备装置以后，“机器就代替了单纯的工具”。

From the intuitive structural analysis of machines to the understanding and definition of the machine’s connotation, Marx achieved a transcendence of Babbage’s view of the “machine.” This transcendence is reflected in the fact that Marx not only emphasized the historical inheritance of machines from traditional tools but also endowed machines with modern significance. Marx said, “If we study the machines that replaced previous tools, whether they replaced tools of handicraft production or tools of manufacture, we will see that the special part of the machine that changes the shape of the material is in many cases composed of previous tools,” but “machines by no means arise everywhere from manufacture… machines arise from tools that presuppose handicraft production.” Marx discovered that the development from traditional tools to machines went through two stages. The first stage was the development from the most ancient traditional tools to machines that combined these traditional tools, such as spinning machines and weaving looms. The second stage was the use of existing machines to manufacture new machines, a new stage that developed from manufacture. It was the emergence of this new stage that triggered the large-scale application of machines, which in turn gave birth to the modern industrial revolution. Marx pointed out that the emergence of modern machines “only changes the initial motion generated by power, transforming it into another form that conforms to a specific labor purpose and transmits power to the working machine.” As a single material, real existence in the production practice of human society, the machine has the function of a tool in the traditional sense but transcends the tool in the traditional sense.

从直观的机器结构分析到对机器内涵的理解与界定，马克思实现了对拜比吉“机器”观点的超越。这种超越体现在马克思不仅强调机器对传统工具的历史继承，而且赋予机器以现代意义。马克思说，“如果我们研究一下取代了以前的工具的那些机器，无论取代的是手工业生产的工具，还是工场手工业的工具，那么，我们就会看到，机器中改变材料形状的那个特殊部分，在很多情况下都是由以前的工具构成”，但是，“机器决不是到处都从工场手工业中产生的……机器是从那些以手工业生产为前提的工具中产生的”。马克思发现，从传统工具发展到机器，经历了两个阶段。第一个阶段是从最古老的传统工具发展出将这些传统工具组合起来的机器，如纺纱机和织布机。第二个阶段是利用现有的机器制造出新的机器，这是从工场手工业中发展出来的新阶段。正是这个新阶段的出现，引发了机器的大规模应用，进而催生了具有现代意义的工业革命。马克思指出，现代机器的出现，“只是改变由动力产生的初始运动，把它变成与一定的劳动目的和把动力传给工作机相符合的另一种形式”。作为人类社会生产实践中的单个物质性现实存在物，机器具有传统意义上的工具的功能，但又超越了传统意义的工具。

To distinguish machines from traditional tools, Marx, after tracing the history of machine development, pointed out: “Within manufacture, two material bases prepared for machine industry are the clock and the mill (initially the grain mill, and specifically the water mill), both handed down from antiquity. (The water mill was introduced to Rome from Asia Minor in the time of Julius Caesar.) The clock is the first automatic machine applied to practical purposes; the entire theory of uniform motion was developed on its basis.” Mumford believed that “Karl Marx was one of the first to understand the clock as the original model of all later machines.” The mill was an important tool for early humans engaged in production labor practice, while the clock was an important tool for describing material motion. In the Middle Ages, people mainly used hand mills, animal-powered mills, and water mills. By the 12th century, windmills had already begun to be used. By the 16th century, the use of windmills in the Netherlands and elsewhere had become very common. In the 17th and 18th centuries, people gradually began to apply the principle of uniform motion to tools in production labor practice to solve the problem that human and animal power were difficult to move uniformly and persistently. Marx therefore regarded the mill as the first production labor tool to apply the principle of the machine. When the traditional tool was transformed into a mechanical device, i.e., a tool machine, the engine driven by natural forces acquired an independent form completely free from human limitations. At this point, the single tool machine was reduced to a simple element of the machine. It was not until the late 18th century, when the United States mass-produced the first steam mills, that single machines developed into a system of machines, i.e., several mills driven by the same power source—a process that proceeded very slowly. The continuous power revolution of these “primitive” machines broke through the limitations of human and animal power on production labor practice and promoted the emergence of automata and the system of machines.

为了区分机器与传统工具，马克思在追溯机器的发展历史后指出：“在工场手工业内部为机器工业做好准备的有两种物质基础，即钟表和磨（最初是磨谷物的磨，而且是水磨），二者都是从古代流传下来的。（水磨在尤利乌斯·凯撒时代从小亚细亚传入罗马。）钟表是第一个应用于实际目的的自动机；匀速运动生产的全部理论就是在它的基础上发展起来的。”芒福德认为，“卡尔·马克思是最早理解时钟作为后来所有机器原模型的人之一”。磨是人类早期从事生产劳动实践的重要工具，而钟表是对物质运动作出描述的重要工具。中世纪时，人们主要使用手磨、畜力磨和水磨。12世纪时，已经开始应用风磨。到了16世纪，风磨在荷兰等地的使用已经非常普遍。十七八世纪，人们在生产劳动实践中逐渐开始将匀速运动原理应用于工具，以解决人力、畜力等难以均匀、持久运动的问题。马克思也因此把磨看作最先应用机器原理的生产劳动工具。当传统工具转化为一个机械装置即工具机以后，依靠自然力推动的发动机便取得了一种独立的、完全摆脱人力限制的形式。此时，单个的工具机就降为机器的一个简单要素。直到18世纪末美国大量制造第一批蒸汽磨为止，单个机器才发展到机器体系，即几台磨用同一个动力来推动，这一过程进行得十分缓慢。这种“原始”机器持续的动力革命，突破了人力、畜力对生产劳动实践的限制，推动了自动机和机器体系的产生。

The appearance of the concept of “automaton” in Marx’s classical texts not only signifies the basic completion of Marx’s endowment of machines with modern significance but also further reveals the fundamental difference between the machine in Marx’s context and the traditional tool. Babbage once “divided machines into: (1) machines that produce power; (2) machines that simply transmit power and complete work.” Unlike Babbage, Marx believed that the basic classification and modern understanding of machines cannot focus solely on improvements in power; if so, “it would precisely overlook what was the turning point in history.” What is referred to here as the “turning point” is precisely the “subjective part” of the modern machine that Babbage did not see. Unlike traditional machines, the automaton is composed of many “mechanical organs” and “intelligent organs.” The “mechanical organs” here refer to the mechanical components that constitute the machine, while the “intelligent organs” refer to the subjective elements that participate in the work of the “mechanical organs.” Marx discovered that people had possessed “living automata” long ago. It was not until the 18th century that humans had modern automata and machines driven by automata. “The clock provided the idea of the automaton and the adoption of automatic motion in production.” This automaton seems to be “automatic,” independent of “living labor,” but in reality, it is still only the crystallization of workers’ production labor—the “solidification” of workers’ past labor into an objective existence that appears to consist only of “mechanical organs.” Based on this, people still easily equate modern machines with traditional tools. To emphasize that the automaton, this modern machine, is different from traditional tools and previous machines, Marx directly quoted the workers of the time and Ure, among others, referring to the self-acting mule as the “Iron Man.”

“自动机”这一概念在马克思经典文本中的出现，既意味着马克思赋予机器以现代意义的基本完成，也进一步揭示了马克思语境中机器与传统工具的根本不同。拜比吉曾把“机器分为：（1）生产动力的机器；（2）单纯传送动力和完成工作的机器”。与拜比吉不同的是，马克思认为，对机器的基本分类和现代理解，不能仅仅着眼于动力的改进，如果是那样，“就会恰恰忽视在历史上曾经是转折点的东西”。这里所讲的“转折点的东西”正是拜比吉没有看到的现代机器的“主观部分”。不同于传统的机器，自动机是由许多“机械器官”和“智能器官”组成的。这里的“机械器官”指的是构成机器的机械部件，而“智能器官”则指的是参与“机械器官”工作的主观要素。马克思发现，人们很早以前就拥有了“活的自动机”。直到18世纪，人类才有了现代意义上的自动机和由自动机推动的机器。“钟表提供了关于自动机和在生产中采用自动运动的观念。”这种自动机似乎是“自动”的，不依赖于“活劳动”，但实际上依然只是工人生产劳动的结晶——将工人过去的劳动“固化”为一台看似只是由“机械器官”组成的客观存在物。基于此，人们依然容易将现代机器等同于传统工具。为了强调自动机这种现代机器与传统工具、以往机器不同，马克思直接引用了当时的工人们以及尤尔等人对自动走锭纺纱机的称呼——“铁人”。

When different machines are combined and applied to the same scene of production labor, the system of machines emerges as the times require. The “system of machines” is another important concept in Marx’s exposition of the stages of machine development, and it is the logical bridge through which Marx’s exposition of machines expands from individual general objective existents to social historical elements with sociality. Marx believed that the development of machines undergoes a process from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher level, namely, “simple tools; accumulation of tools; composite tools; the driving of composite tools by a human being as the motive power, i.e. by a person; the driving of these tools by natural forces; the machine; a system of machines with one prime mover; a system of machines with an automatic prime mover.”[4]4 Karl Marx, “The Poverty of Philosophy,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 166. The original passage in Marx’s text enumerates stages of tool and machine development. For Marx, the so-called “system of machines” refers to a physical device in which a series of machines or mechanical components are concentrated together to engage in the production of a certain product. It is not a combination of individual machines or workers, but an organic integration of traditional tools, machines, and human beings, and is a higher stage of machine development.

当不同的机器被组合起来应用于同一生产劳动场景时，机器体系便应运而生。“机器体系”是马克思论述机器发展阶段的另一个重要概念，是马克思对机器的论述从具有个体性的一般客观存在物拓展到具有社会性的社会历史要素的逻辑桥梁。马克思认为，机器的发展经历了一个由简单到复杂、由低级到高级的过程，即“简单的工具，工具的积累，合成的工具；仅仅由人作为动力，即由人推动合成的工具，由自然力推动这些工具；机器；有一个发动机的机器体系；有自动发动机的机器体系”。在马克思这里，所谓“机器体系”，指的是一系列机器或者机械部件被集中在一起从事某种产品生产的物理装置。它不是单个机器或者工人的组合，而是传统工具、机器与人的有机结合，是机器发展的较高阶段。

The emergence of the system of machines is an important historical node in the socialization of the machine itself. It depends not only on the emergence of various specialized tool machines and new, sustainable, and centrally supplied power sources, but also on the effective coordination between human beings and machines in the practice of production labor. The power source driving the machines, the tool machines with specialized functions, and the workers capable of operating the machines are all organic components of the system of machines. Marx pointed out: “In an organized system of machines, where one machine transmits work to another, the number, size, and speed of the individual machines are proportioned to each other.” “A system of machines, whether it is based on the simple cooperation of homogeneous work machines, as in weaving, or on the combination of heterogeneous work machines, as in spinning, once it is driven by an automatic prime mover, itself forms a great automaton.” That is to say, the system of machines is not only a modern form of machine existence developed from traditional tools and machines, but also a modern mode of combining machines with traditional tools, human beings, and other factors of production in the practice of production labor. The emergence of the system of machines signifies the emergence of a new mode of social production, namely machine production, and also signifies that human society has developed to a new historical stage.

机器体系的出现，是机器自身被社会化的重要历史节点。它既依赖于各种专门化的工具机、新的可持续且集中提供的动力源的出现，也依赖于生产劳动实践过程中人与机器的有效配合。驱动机器的动力源、具有专门职能的工具机、能够操作机器的工人都是机器体系的有机组成部分。马克思指出：“在有组织的机器体系中，各局部机器不断地互相交接工作，也使各局部机器的数目、规模和速度形成一定的比例。”“一个机器体系，无论是像织布业那样，以同种工作机的单纯协作为基础，还是像纺纱业那样，以不同种工作机的结合为基础，一旦它由一个自动的原动机来推动，它本身就形成一个大自动机。”也就是说，机器体系既是一种在传统工具、机器上发展起来的现代机器存在形态，也是一种机器与传统工具、人等多种生产要素在生产劳动实践中的现代结合方式。机器体系的出现意味着一种新的社会生产方式的出现，即机器生产，也意味着人类社会已经发展到了新的历史阶段。

II. From the System of Machines and the Automatic System of Machines to the Automatic Factory

二、从机器体系、自动机器体系到自动工厂

Machine production is an important theoretical premise of Marx’s critique of political economy. “Without a scientific theory of large-scale machine production, Marx could not have established a scientific theory of the critique of political economy, let alone a mature theory of the critique of capitalism.” The so-called “machine production” has two meanings. The first is the direct use of machines for production. In this kind of production, the main attribute displayed by the machine is the inherent attribute of traditional production tools, namely, the ability to produce new labor products. The second is that when machines produce new labor products, they “produce” new human beings and new modes of social production. The emergence of this new mode of social production causes the old mode of production of manufacture to gradually decline and disappear.

机器生产是马克思政治经济学批判的重要理论前提。“如果没有科学的机器大生产理论，马克思是不可能建立科学的政治经济学批判理论的，更不要说成熟的资本主义批判理论了。”所谓“机器生产”，有两层含义。其一是利用机器进行直接生产。在这种生产中，机器表现出的主要属性是传统生产工具的固有属性，即可以生产出新的劳动产品。其二是机器在生产新的劳动产品时，“生产”了新的人以及新的社会生产方式。这种新的社会生产方式的出现，使得工场手工业的旧生产方式逐渐走向消亡。

Marx recorded the important historical process of the emergence of this new mode of social production. Marx pointed out: “With the development of machine production in the first few decades of the 19th century, the machine gradually took over the manufacture of tool machines. But it was only in the most recent decades, with the construction of large-scale railways and the development of ocean shipping, that the huge machines used to manufacture prime movers were produced.” The fact that machines can produce new machines means that the original objects of production labor may no longer have each product’s production and processing stages completed in human hands, but rather a series of different and complementary tool machines complete the interconnected different stages. Thus, the true system of machines is formed, gradually replacing individual independent machines in socialized production labor practice to complete various social productions.

马克思记述了这种新的社会生产方式产生的重要历史进程。马克思指出：“随着19世纪最初几十年机器生产的发展，机器实际上逐渐掌握了工具机的制造。但只是到了最近几十年，由于大规模的铁路建设和远洋航运事业的发展，用来制造原动机的庞大机器才产生出来。”机器可以制造新的机器，就意味着原来的生产劳动对象将可能不再是在人的手中完成每一个产品的生产和加工环节，而是由一系列各不相同而又互为补充的工具机来完成相互联结的不同阶段。由此，真正的机器体系便形成了，开始在社会化的生产劳动实践中逐渐代替各个独立的机器来完成各种社会生产。

Machine production was conceived in the period of manufacture, but it is different from the social production of the period of manufacture. “Manufacture itself provided, in the main, a natural basis for the division and organization of the production process by the system of machines. But from the very outset, an essential difference appears between manufacture production and machine production.” This essential difference lies in the subject-object inversion of the real relationship between the worker-laborers who deal with machines and the machines themselves. “In manufacture, the individual worker or group of workers must use their own hand tools to complete each particular partial process. If the worker adapts to this process, then this process is also adapted to the worker in advance. In machine production, this subjective principle of division disappears. Here, the entire process is objectively decomposed into its constituent stages according to its own nature, and the question of how each partial process is completed and how the various partial processes are combined is solved by the technical application of mechanics, chemistry, etc.” Before the birth of capitalist machine production, machines were only a part of the entire production labor process, and human beings occupied a clearly dominant position in the entire production labor process. In capitalist machine production, machines possess a status close to that of human beings, or even surpass the dominant status of human beings; both machines and human beings are merely parts of machine production. In capitalist machine production, machines intervene in human production labor practice in an unprecedented way, while human beings are gradually bound within a production labor space where they constantly operate the same tool. Work that previously had to be completed by human beings is gradually replaced by machines, and the human beings participating in machine production are gradually transformed into “living appendages” that have lost their vital mechanisms. This subject-object inversion of the human-machine relationship has always been regarded as an important feature of capitalist machine production and has become an important object of critique for many modern and contemporary philosophers.

机器生产孕育于工场手工业时期，但又不同于工场手工业时期的社会生产。“工场手工业本身大体上为机器体系对生产过程的划分和组织提供了一个自然基础。但在工场手工业生产和机器生产之间一开始就出现了一个本质的区别。”这种本质区别在于，与机器打交道的工人劳动者与机器的现实关系的主客转置。“在工场手工业中，单个的或成组的工人，必须用自己的手工工具来完成每一个特殊的局部过程。如果说工人会适应这个过程，那么这个过程也就事先适应了工人。在机器生产中，这个主观的分工原则消失了。在这里，整个过程是客观地按其本身的性质分解为各个组成阶段，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”。在资本主义机器生产诞生之前，机器只是整个生产劳动过程的一部分，人在整个生产劳动过程中占有明显的主体地位。而在资本主义机器生产中，机器具有与人相近的主体地位，甚至超越了人的主体地位，机器和人都只是机器生产中的一部分。在资本主义机器生产中，机器以一种前所未有的方式介入人的生产劳动实践，而人逐渐被束缚于一个始终操作同一种工具的生产劳动空间内。以前必须由人完成的工作逐渐被机器替代，参与机器生产的人逐渐被转变为丧失生命机制的“活的附属物”。这种人机关系的主客转置，一直被认为是资本主义机器生产的重要特征，成为许多现当代哲学家的重要批判对象。

Marx discovered that the loss of the dominant position of human beings (workers) in the practice of capitalist machine production labor is the result of the capitalists exerting the dominant role of capital. Because, “Nature does not construct any machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules, etc. They are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified.” In reality, human beings are the producers of any machine and play a subjective role. Due to the pre-existing premise of the capitalist social system, human beings under capitalist social conditions have undergone a new differentiation, dividing into workers and capitalists. Capitalists possess capital, the system of machines, etc., and also possess the labor and surplus value of the working class. Therefore, the loss of the dominant position of human beings in capitalist machine production is not the loss of the dominant position of human beings in a general sense, but the deep-level appropriation of the dominant position of one part of human beings (the working class) by the dominant position of another part (the capitalists). This is a special phenomenon in class society, especially capitalist society.

马克思发现，人（工人）在资本主义机器生产劳动实践中主体地位的丧失，是资本家发挥了资本的支配性作用使然。因为，“自然界没有造出任何机器，没有造出机车、铁路、电报、自动走锭精纺机等等。它们是人的产业劳动的产物，是转化为人的意志驾驭自然界的器官或者说在自然界实现人的意志的器官的自然物质。它们是人的手创造出来的人脑的器官；是对象化的知识力量”。实际上，人是任何机器的生产者，发挥着主体性的作用。因为资本主义社会制度的前提性存在，资本主义社会条件下的人发生了新的分化，分为了工人和资本家，资本家占有了资本和机器体系等，也占有了工人阶级的劳动和剩余价值等，所以，人在资本主义机器生产中主体地位的丧失并不是一般意义上人的主体地位的丧失，而是一部分人（资本家）的主体地位对另一部分人（工人阶级）的主体地位的深层占有，这是阶级社会尤其资本主义社会中的特殊现象。

The worker’s labour is divided into two types, namely “living labour” and “dead labour”. In capitalist machine production, the worker’s productive labour is consistent with previous productive labour and can continue to create new value; this is called “living labour”. The machine is still merely the worker’s product of labour, a solidified labour value; it cannot create value, but under certain conditions it can transfer value, hence it is called “dead labour”. Owing to the objective existence of capitalist private ownership of the means of production, the worker’s dead labour and living labour are simultaneously absorbed by capital into the entire process of capitalist machine production. The machine is merely the highest form of manifestation of the means of production after they have undergone various morphological changes and entered the capital production process. In handicraft production, the labour of a worker possessing a certain productive skill plays an almost entirely decisive role in the production of the product; but in capitalist machine production, the worker’s labour and the machine are merely component parts, different forms of manifestation of capital. Therefore, the inversion of subject and object in the human-machine relationship brought about by capitalist machine production is not the loss of the worker’s actual productive subject position in the entire production labour process, but rather the social loss of the worker’s subject position and decision-making power in the distribution of the value of the product of the entire capitalist machine production.

工人的劳动被区分为两种劳动，即“活劳动”与“死劳动”。在资本主义机器生产中，工人的生产劳动与以往的生产劳动具有一致性，能够继续创造新的价值，被称为“活劳动”。机器依然只是工人的劳动产品，是被固化了的劳动价值，它不能创造价值，但能在一定条件下转移价值，故而称为“死劳动”。由于资本主义生产资料私有制的客观存在，工人的死劳动和活劳动同时被资本吸纳到整个资本主义机器生产中。机器只不过是生产劳动资料经历了各种不同形态变化，加入资本生产过程之后的最高表现形态。在手工业生产中，拥有某种生产劳动技能的工人的劳动，几乎对产品的生产起着全部的决定性作用；但在资本主义机器生产中，工人的劳动、机器都只是其组成部分，是资本的不同表现形式。因此，资本主义机器生产带来的人机关系的主客转置，不是工人在整个生产劳动过程中实际生产主体地位的丧失，而是工人在整个资本主义机器生产的产品价值分配中主体地位和决定权力的社会性丧失。

To further elucidate the loss of the worker’s subject position in the distribution of the value of the product of capitalist machine production, Marx introduced concepts such as “fixed capital” to continue his machine narrative. In capitalist machine production, as the product is completed, part of the means of production is transformed into formative elements of the product, leaves the production process, and is transferred from the sphere of production to the sphere of circulation as a commodity for consumption by the product’s purchaser. But some means of production, such as machines, “once they enter the production sphere, never leave it. Their function firmly confines them there. A portion of the advanced capital value is fixed in this form determined by the function of the means of labour in the process,” that is, fixed capital. Fixed capital is not absolute but relative. So-called relative fixation means that this means of production circulates in form and in the mode of value presentation just like any other portion of capital. “What determines that a portion of the capital value invested in means of production has the character of fixed capital is merely the unique mode of circulation of this value.” As one of the physical forms of fixed capital, the value transferred to the product by the machine, or the value consumed in the production of the product, is always transferred partially; the most prominent characteristic of the machine’s value transfer or disappearance is that it proceeds according to the average degree of the machine’s loss of use-value. Under normal circumstances, the capitalist always recovers the machine value that has been transferred or consumed in the production process before or at the time of the machine’s scrapping. Some capitalists also ensure the original value of the machine against accidental loss through maintenance funds, insurance, and the like.

为了进一步阐明工人在资本主义机器生产的产品价值分配中主体地位的丧失，马克思引入了“固定资本”等概念来继续展开他的机器叙事。在资本主义机器生产中，随着产品的完成，一部分生产资料转化为产品的形成要素，脱离生产过程，作为商品从生产领域转移到流通领域，供产品的购买者消费。而类似机器这样的一些生产劳动资料“一进入生产领域，就不再离开。它的职能把它牢牢地限制在那里。一部分预付资本价值，被固定在这个由劳动资料在过程中的职能所决定的形式上”，即固定资本。被固定的资本并不是绝对的，而是相对的。所谓相对的固定，是指这种生产劳动资料在形式上和价值呈现方式上和其他任何资本部分一样要进行流通。“决定一部分投在生产资料上的资本价值具有固定资本性质的，只是这个价值的独特的流通方式。”作为固定资本的实物形式之一的机器，转移到产品中的价值或者在产品生产中被消耗掉的价值总是部分进行的，机器的价值转移或者消失最突出的特点就是按照机器丧失使用价值的平均程度进行。正常情况下，资本家总是会在机器报废之前或者报废时，收回生产过程中已经转移或者消耗掉的机器价值。有些资本家还会通过维修基金、保险等方式保障机器的原有价值不受意外损失。

In Marx’s context, machine production also points ahead to a new social form, one that gestates new modes of governance. Marx envisions this new social form as an era of the “automatic system of machinery”. Marx points out that the “automatic system of machinery” is the most perfect and most appropriate form of the machine system. “It is constituted by an automaton, a motive power that operates of itself. This automaton consists of many mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are merely conscious limbs of the automatic system of machinery.” In this “automatic system of machinery”, the machine is transformed into a material existence corresponding to fixed capital and capital in general, while the means of labour, as direct means of production, enters the production labour process, and people are increasingly forced into a state determined by capital itself and corresponding to it. In the automatic factory constituted by the automatic system of machinery, the power of individual labour to create value becomes ever smaller and even disappears; this disappearance is not necessarily a negative outcome, but may also be a new opportunity for human emancipation. Marx points out: “Here capital — quite unintentionally — reduces human labour, the expenditure of power, to a minimum. This will be favourable to emancipated labour and is the condition for its emancipation.” However, the return of the machine to serving human emancipation cannot be a natural historical process; it requires the active action of workers who are oppressed or forced to become part of machine production. This active action is not to destroy the machine, but to recognise and gradually change their own social-historical position, which involves a series of social institutional issues such as the factory system and factory laws in which the machine is present.

在马克思的语境中，机器生产还超前性地指向一种新的社会样态，这种新的社会样态孕育着新的治理方式。马克思将这种新的社会样态展望为一种“自动的机器体系”时代。马克思指出，“自动的机器体系”是最完善、最适当的机器体系形式。“它是由自动机，由一种自行运转的动力推动的。这种自动机是由许多机械器官和智能器官组成的，因此，工人自己只是被当做自动的机器体系的有意识的肢体。”在这个“自动的机器体系”中，机器转化为一种与固定资本和资本一般相适应的物质性存在，而劳动资料作为直接的生产资料加入生产劳动过程中，人越来越被迫地转变为由资本本身规定并与资本相适应的状态。在自动的机器体系所构成的自动工厂中，单个劳动力创造价值的力量变得越来越小甚至消失，这种消失并不必然是一个消极的结果，也可能是一个人类解放的新契机。马克思指出：“资本在这里——完全是无意地——使人的劳动，使力量的支出缩减到最低限度。这将有利于解放了的劳动，也是使劳动获得解放的条件。”不过，机器回归于服务人类解放，不可能是一个自然的历史过程，需要受到压迫或者被迫成为机器生产的一部分的工人的主动作为，这种主动作为不是去摧毁机器，而是去认识并逐渐改变自身的社会历史地位，这就涉及机器在场的工厂制度、工厂法等一系列社会制度问题。

III. From the Automatic Factory, the Factory System, to the Social System

三、从自动工厂、工厂制度到社会制度

The worker becomes part of the automatic system of machinery, and makes the machine, a product of the worker’s own creation, into an opposing force: “The point is not in the objectification, but in the alienation, externalisation, estrangement, in the fact that it does not belong to the worker, but to the personified conditions of production, i.e., capital, to the immense power of the objectified [power], which places social labour itself as an element of itself in opposition to itself.” In Marx’s view, the machine is not necessarily opposed to the worker; rather, it is the dominating power of capital that forces the worker to submit to the capitalised machine system. In the early application of machines in human society, machines derived from traditional general tools, like previous means of production, were intended to liberate human labour and free humanity from the constraints of natural forces on production labour practice. In domestic labour or the small-peasant economy, people possessed subjectivity before the means of production and machines they owned. However, in the automatic system of machinery of capitalist machine production, the worker does not own the machine and cannot autonomously decide how to use the machine or how to relate to it. “Since the direct participation of man in production is reduced merely to acting as a simple motive power, the principle of the work to be accomplished begins to be determined by the machine.” This historical transfer of decision-making power and subjectivity stems both from the constraints of natural forces on humanity and from the actual control of capital and its power over the worker. For a long period, people attempted to return the nature of the machine’s ownership to the commonality of tools. But the increase in production labour efficiency brought by machines, the reduction in labour remuneration costs, and the more effective control over workers all enabled the capitalists who controlled capital in capitalist society to rapidly acquire more social wealth, thereby gaining stronger social control and becoming the ruling class. “In 1159, Frederick I declared the mill his own privilege,” [5]5 Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa, 1122–1190) was Holy Roman Emperor; the reference is to his assertion of sovereign privilege over mills, an early example of the state claiming control over productive machinery. while in capitalist machine production, the machine becomes a weapon for the capitalist to control the worker, “a weapon partly to throw the worker onto the street, to make him superfluous, partly to deprive the worker of his speciality and to eliminate the demands based on that speciality, and partly to subject the worker to the carefully established despotic system and military discipline of capital in the factory.” In these modern capitalist factories filled with machines, “the mass of workers is organised like soldiers. They are the common soldiers of the industrial army, placed under the surveillance of a hierarchy of non-commissioned officers and officers.” Owen, Lord Ashley, and others found in their factory investigations that “since the widespread adoption of expensive machinery, the human force consumed has far exceeded the average human force”; “now, the labour of the workers employed in the manufacturing process is three times what it was when these operations began.” Clearly, workers are unwilling to increase the time and intensity of production labour; struggle between workers and capitalists is inevitable. It is under these circumstances that the machine, the system of machinery, and the automatic system of machinery become an antagonistic force against the worker’s existence.

工人成为自动的机器体系的一部分，并使机器这样一种工人自己创造的产品成为自己的对立力量，“关键不在于对象化，而在于异化，外化，外在化，在于不归工人所有，而归人格化的生产条件即资本所有，归巨大的对象［化］的权力所有，这种对象［化］的权力把社会劳动本身当做自身的一个要素而置于同自己相对立的地位”。在马克思看来，机器并不必然与工人相对立，而是资本的支配性力量使工人被迫屈从于资本化的机器体系。在人类社会机器应用的早期，来源于传统一般工具的机器跟以往的生产劳动工具一样，都是为了解放人的劳动、解除自然力对人类生产劳动实践的束缚。在家庭劳动或者小农经济中，人们在自己占有的生产劳动工具和机器面前具有主体性。然而，在资本主义机器生产的自动的机器体系中，工人并不占有机器，并不能自主地决定如何使用机器或者如何与机器相处。“自从人对生产的直接参与仅仅在于作为简单的动力起作用的时候起，所要完成的工作的原理便开始由机器来决定了。”这种决定权与主体性的历史性让渡，既来源于自然力对人的限制，也来源于资本及其权力对工人的实际控制。很长一段时期内，人们都试图将机器的权属性质回归到工具的公有性上。但是，机器所带来的生产劳动效率的提升、劳动报酬成本的降低、对工人更加有效的控制等，都促使资本主义社会中掌握资本的资本家能够迅速获得更多的社会财富，进而获得更强的社会控制力，成为占有统治地位的阶级。“在1159年，弗里德里希一世把磨宣布为自己的特权”，而在资本主义机器生产中，机器成为资本家控制工人的武器，“这种武器部分是用来把工人抛向街头，把他变成多余的人，部分是用来剥夺工人的专业和消除以专业为基础的各种要求，部分是用来使工人服从工厂中精心建立的资本的专制制度和军事纪律”。在这些充斥着机器的现代资本主义工厂中，“工人群众就像士兵一样被组织起来。他们是产业军的普通士兵，受着各级军士和军官的层层监视”。欧文、阿什利勋爵等人在当时的工厂调查中发现，“自从普遍采用昂贵的机器以来，人被强行消耗的力量远远超出人的平均力量”；“现在，在制造过程中雇用的工人的劳动，是开始实行这些操作时的三倍”。显然，工人并不愿意增加生产劳动时间和生产劳动强度，工人与资本家之间的斗争必然会发生。正是在这种情况下，机器、机器体系、自动的机器体系成为工人存在的对抗性力量。

In order to mitigate the contradictions and conflicts between workers and themselves, the capitalists established the factory system to realize their will. The “factory system” is a foundational concept for understanding the construction of the machine-production system in Marx’s context. The so-called “factory system” refers to the production management system established by capitalists in capitalist machine production, based on the material foundation of machines and the system of machines, in order to obtain more surplus value. Marx pointed out, “The source of the surplus value obtained by the capitalist is not the labour replaced by the machine, but the labour employed on the basis of the machine.” This labour is neither provided by the machine nor the dead labour of the past congealed in the machine, but the living labour of the workers who participate in machine production and are situated within the automatic system of machines. If the capitalist wants to use machines to obtain more surplus value, he can only strengthen the management of workers. The capitalist invented the “labour organization that is adapted to the developed system of machines on the capitalist basis, that is, the factory system.” By establishing various factory systems, the capitalist suppresses the intellectual and professional development of the workers themselves, so that the workers, lacking mind and will, exist merely as limbs of the factory body, existing solely for the capitalist to obtain more surplus value.

资本家为了缓和工人与自己之间的矛盾与冲突，建立了实现其意志的工厂制度。“工厂制度”是理解马克思语境中机器生产制度建构的基础性概念。所谓“工厂制度”，指的是资本主义机器生产中资本家为了获得更多的剩余价值，以机器、机器体系为物质基础建立的生产管理制度。马克思指出，“资本家获得的剩余价值的来源，不是机器所代替的劳动，而是在机器的基础上所使用的劳动”。这种劳动既不是机器提供的，也不是凝固在机器上的过去的死劳动，而是参与机器生产并处于自动的机器体系中的工人的活劳动。资本家要想利用机器获得更多的剩余价值，就只能加强对工人的管理。资本家发明了与“发达的、同资本主义基础上的机器体系相适应的劳动组织，就是工厂制度”。资本家通过建立各种工厂制度，压制工人本身的智力和专业发展，从而使工人没有头脑和意志，只是作为工厂躯体的肢体而存在，只是为了资本家获得更多的剩余价值而存在。

The establishment of the capitalist factory system, serving the will of the capitalist, on the one hand provided new institutional guarantees for the capitalist to obtain more surplus value, and on the other hand clothed the capitalist’s exploitation of workers’ productive labour in a cloak of legitimacy. Taylorism and Fordism are both typical summaries of the core characteristics and key concepts of the capitalist factory system of large-scale machine production. Friedman believes that Taylorism is the most typical factory system theory after Marx; it “attempts to limit the controllable scope of labour power through coercive threats, close supervision, and minimizing the individual responsibility of workers… it treats workers as if they were machines.” With the establishment and consolidation of the capitalist factory system of large-scale machine production, workers were gradually degraded both spiritually and physically into machines, and the various conditions of workers’ survival and life increasingly depended on the use of capital and the whims of the rich. At the same time, “competition among workers intensified, and therefore their price also fell. Under the factory system, this condition of the workers reached its peak.” The emergence of the capitalist factory system of large-scale machine production further intensified the power struggle between workers and capitalists. Elevating the factory system, which represents the will of the capitalist, to the level of state will became a historical necessity for the capitalist to continue suppressing workers’ productive labour.

服务于资本家意志的资本主义工厂制度的建立，一方面使资本家获得更多的剩余价值有了新的制度保障，另一方面为资本家对工人生产劳动的剥削穿上了合法性的外衣。泰勒主义（Taylorism）、福特主义（Fordism）都是对资本主义机器大生产工厂制度的核心特征以及关键理念的典型概括。弗里德曼认为，泰勒主义是马克思之后最为典型的工厂制度理论，它“试图通过强制威胁、密切监督和将工人个人责任最小化来限制劳动力权力的可控范围……它对待工人就像对待机器一样”。随着资本主义机器大生产工厂制度的建立和巩固，工人在精神上和肉体上逐渐被贬低为机器，工人的各种生存生活境况也越来越取决于资本的使用和富人的兴致。同时，“工人之间的竞争加剧了，因而他们的价格也降低了。在工厂制度下工人的这种状况达到了顶点”。资本主义机器大生产工厂制度的出现，进一步加剧了工人与资本家之间的力量博弈。将代表资本家意志的工厂制度上升为国家意志，成为资本家继续压制工人生产劳动的历史必然。

The factory acts, as an expression of state will, thus became an important means for the capitalist to suppress workers. The “factory acts” are legal systems dependent on machine production and the factory system, and constitute a key concept of qualitative significance in Marx’s discourse on machines. This qualitative significance is mainly manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, capitalists not only directly formulate various factory systems but also fully utilize the state power of modern capitalist countries to promote the formulation of various factory acts, striving to guarantee and expand the scale of surplus-value production in machine production; on the other hand, the emergence of various factory acts provided capitalists with a more appropriate social reason to fix workers in a certain position within capitalist machine production. The formulation of various factory acts ostensibly alleviated the sharp contradictions between workers and capitalists in capitalist machine production, but in essence, it was the capitalists using social public forces to socialize the contradictions that were originally perhaps confined to one or some factories between capitalists and workers. The result of this socialization of partial contradictions was that capitalists were realistically united, while the working class in capitalist large-scale machine production was not necessarily able to unite as easily as the capitalists. Marx discovered that in the various factory acts of capitalist machine production, “the machine is described as the ‘master’s machine’, and the machine function is described as the master’s function in the production process (in ‘production affairs’), and the same applies to the science embodied in these machines or in the production method, chemical processes, etc.”

工厂法，作为国家意志的体现，便成为资本家压制工人的重要手段。“工厂法”是依赖于机器生产、工厂制度而建立的法律制度，是马克思有关机器论述中一个具有质变意义的关键概念。这种质变意义主要体现在两个方面：一方面，资本家不仅直接制定各种工厂制度，还充分利用现代资本主义国家政权力量推动制定各种工厂法，竭力保障和扩大机器生产的剩余价值生产规模；另一方面，各种工厂法的出现，使资本家将工人固化在资本主义机器生产的某个位置有了更加适当的社会性理由。各种工厂法的制定，表面上缓解了工人与资本家在资本主义机器生产中的尖锐矛盾，实质上是资本家利用社会公共力量将原来可能只是局限于某个或者某些工厂内的资本家与工人之间的矛盾社会化了。这种局部矛盾社会化的结果，使资本家现实地联合了起来，而资本主义机器大生产中的工人阶级则并不一定能够像资本家那样容易联合起来。马克思发现，在资本主义机器生产的各种工厂法中，“机器被说成是‘主人的机器’，而机器职能被说成是生产过程中（‘生产事务’中）主人的职能，同样，体现在这些机器中或生产方法中，化学过程等等中的科学，也是如此”。

Of course, the factory acts of capitalist machine production also improved the living conditions of workers to a certain extent, but they did not fundamentally change the social relations of production between capitalists and workers. The factory acts, based on capitalist private ownership of the means of production and its logic of capital, did not bring workers any more substantive liberation; instead, they made the capitalist social relations of production dependent on machines and the system of machines more stable, transforming the originally scattered capitalist machine factories and machine production, lacking social institutional guarantees, into a social system that more realistically and thoroughly serves the self-expansion of capital. Marx emphasized: “The machine itself is good; there is no getting on without machines; but the use of them, the fact that they are owned by individuals and not by the whole nation, is bad.” In Marx’s view, the root cause of various alienations arising from capitalist machine production lies in the premise of capitalist private ownership of the means of production and its logic of capital. In this social system based on capitalist private ownership of the means of production and its logic of capital, the more machines develop and the more extensively they participate in workers’ productive labour, the faster workers’ living labour is transformed into surplus value that the capitalist can extract.

当然，资本主义机器生产的工厂法也在一定程度上改善了工人的生存境遇，但并没有从根本上改变资本家与工人的社会生产关系。基于资本主义生产资料私有制及其资本逻辑的工厂法，没有使工人获得更多的实质性解放，却使依赖于机器、机器体系建立起来的资本主义社会生产关系变得更加稳固，使原来分散的、缺乏社会制度保障的资本主义机器工厂、机器生产演变为更加现实且彻底地服务于资本增殖的社会系统。马克思强调：“机器本身是好的，没有机器不行；但是机器的使用，它们为个别人占有而不为整个国家占有这种情况却不好。”在马克思看来，资本主义机器生产产生各种异化的根本原因在于资本主义生产资料私有制及其资本逻辑这一前提性存在。在这种基于资本主义生产资料私有制及其资本逻辑的社会系统中，机器越是发展，越是广泛参与工人的生产劳动，工人的活劳动就越会更快地转变为资本家可以榨取的剩余价值。

For this reason, Marx repeatedly warned the working class that smashing machines could not change their fate. Only by thoroughly changing capitalist private ownership of the means of production and establishing public ownership of the means of production more suitable for the free and comprehensive development of human beings can the working class better utilize machines and achieve liberation. In Marx’s view, the transition from private ownership of the means of production to public ownership of the means of production is not only the subjective will of the workers but also a historical necessity of the development of capitalist machine production. From individual traditional tools to machines and the system of machines, and then to the automatic system of machines and the automatic factory, the development and application of machines in human social production have become increasingly socialized. However, in capitalist machine production, capitalist private ownership of the means of production and its logic of capital constitute a premise, giving rise to a deep-seated basic contradiction, namely, the contradiction between capitalist private ownership of the means of production and the socialization of capitalist machine production. Marx pointed out, “The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of labour reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds.” It will, through the negation of the negation, “re-establish individual property on the basis of the co-operation of the workers and the common ownership of the land and the means of production produced by labour itself,” and thereby create a new way for humanity to utilize machine production.

为此，马克思反复告诫工人阶级，捣毁机器并不能改变命运。工人阶级只有彻底改变资本主义生产资料私有制，建立更加适合人自由全面发展的生产资料公有制，才能更好地利用机器并获得解放。在马克思看来，从生产资料私有制到生产资料公有制的转变，不仅是工人的主观意愿，更是资本主义机器生产历史发展的必然。从单个传统工具到机器、机器体系，再到自动的机器体系、自动工厂等，人类社会生产对机器的开发与应用已经越来越社会化。然而，在资本主义机器生产中，资本主义生产资料私有制及其资本逻辑又是一种前提性存在，由此产生了一对深层的基本矛盾，即资本主义生产资料私有制与资本主义机器生产社会化的矛盾。马克思指出，“生产资料的集中和劳动的社会化，达到了同它们的资本主义外壳不能相容的地步。这个外壳就要炸毁了。资本主义私有制的丧钟就要响了”。它将经过否定之否定，“在协作和对土地及靠劳动本身生产的生产资料的共同占有的基础上，重新建立个人所有制”，并由此而创造出人类利用机器生产的新方式。

IV. Conclusion

四、结语

In existing studies of Marx’s various ideas, due to the needs of different contexts and purposes, Marx’s thought often reveals certain aspects or characteristics. Different studies treat his thought as a “vast machine,” from which any component can be arbitrarily dismantled, as if his thought lacks internal unity. However, the research in this article shows that, from traditional tools to machines, automata, and the system of machines, to the automatic system of machines and the automatic factory constructed by the automatic system of machines, and then to the social systems such as the factory system and factory acts established on the basis of machine production, Marx’s discourse on machines spans multiple scenes of human social production and life practice. The machine in Marx’s context is not some isolated objective existence, but constitutes a unique machine narrative and its conceptual genealogy. It is precisely within this machine narrative and its conceptual genealogy that Marx reveals that the application of machines premised on capitalist private ownership of the means of production is not the optimal way for humanity to utilize machines. Capitalist private ownership of the means of production and its logic of capital created the modern machine civilization of human social production. Historical development requires human society to break through, as far as possible, the social power constraints of capitalist private ownership of the means of production and its logic of capital, and to make good use of machines oriented toward the free and comprehensive development of human beings.

在已有的对马克思各种思想的研究中，出于不同语境和目的的需要，马克思的思想往往展现出某个或者某些方面的面貌和特点。不同的研究将其思想视为一个“庞大的机器”，可以从中任意拆卸不同的零部件，似乎其思想并不具有内在统一性。然而，本文的研究表明，从传统工具到机器、自动机、机器体系，再到自动的机器体系、由自动的机器体系构建的自动工厂，再到基于机器生产而建立的工厂制度、工厂法等社会制度，马克思对机器的论述跨越了人类社会生产生活实践的多个场景。马克思语境中的机器并不是某种孤立的客观存在，而是构成了独特的机器叙事及其概念谱系。正是在这种机器叙事及其概念谱系中，马克思揭示了以资本主义生产资料私有制为前提的机器应用并不是人类利用机器的最佳方式。资本主义生产资料私有制及其资本逻辑创造了人类社会生产的现代机器文明，历史的发展需要人类社会尽可能突破资本主义生产资料私有制及其资本逻辑的社会性权力束缚，面向人自由全面的发展而善用机器。

Online editor: Paul

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