The humanistic implications of Marx's concept of civilization

Source: China Social Science Daily

Realizing the liberation of the proletariat and all mankind and building a "free association of men" were the theoretical themes and value pursuits for which Marx struggled all his life. This fundamentally determines that Marx's insight into civilization must have humanistic implications. If Engels understood civilization as "a practical thing and a social attribute", thus laying an existential foundation for the concept of civilization, then Marx understood the "height of principle" of civilization as "the height of man", which gave the concept of civilization a humanistic meaning.

The unique nature of Marx's concept of civilization

In view of the multiple meanings of the concept of civilization in Marx's textual world, it is necessary to first analyze Marx's concept of civilization, otherwise the relevant discussion is bound to degenerate into "all this is due to the empty words of 'civilization'" and "vulgar opinions" criticized by Marx. Generally speaking, Marx's concept of civilization has the following four types.

The first concept of civilization refers to the "age of civilization" in which mankind was freed from obscurantism and barbarism. With the disintegration of clans, the development of the division of labour and the establishment of the state, human society moved from the age of barbarism into the age of civilization, "the age of civilization is a stage of social development in which the division of labour, the exchange between individuals resulting from the division of labour, and the production of commodities which combine the two, are fully developed and completely transform the whole society that preceded it." This is the anthropological view of civilization.

The second concept of civilization refers to the civilization form formed by each region. Marx not only explored the development of Western civilization, but also paid attention to the historical fate of Indian civilization and Chinese civilization. This is the plural form of civilization, that is, the different manifestations of civilization elements in different countries and regions, with different civilization faces and their own civilization concepts, so it is a relationship of pluralism, equality, exchange and mutual learning.

The third concept of civilization refers to the progressive state of social development and its positive results. Based on the difference in the degree of social development, people classify different societies as "uncivilized", "semi-civilized" and "civilized society". Marx also followed this conception of civilization, understanding "any growth in the productive forces of society (and also the productive forces of labour itself)" as "all the progress of civilization."

The fourth concept of civilization refers to the social state of the full and free development of man and its conditions. In the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx refers to the entire history of the past, including capitalism, as "the prehistoric period of human society." Compared with the anthropological concept of civilization, Marx's "prehistoric period" is obviously a pre-civilization concept in the metaphorical sense, which instead shows the true meaning of Marx's concept of civilization. In Marx's view, the true beginning of civilization, the "human society," meant the end of capitalism. Marx's criterion for dividing the "prehistoric period" and "human society" is the comprehensive and free development of man.

If the first three concepts of civilization are common to Marx and other thinkers, then the fourth concept of civilization marks the uniqueness of Marx's concept of civilization. Civilization is understood not only as the progressive state of social objects, but also as the level of development of the human being as the subject.

The main body of Marx's concept of civilization turned

Compared with the previous concept of civilization, the focus of Marx's concept of civilization shifted from the social object to the subject of man. He understood civilization from the subject side and realized the "subjective turn" of the concept of civilization. According to the materialist view of history, the development of civilization certainly provides the necessary preconditions for the development of man, and the development of man is the principle height of the development of civilization.

First of all, human development is an evaluation measure of the degree of civilization. The reason why the pre-capitalist civilization is barbaric and backward compared to capitalism is that man is subject to direct dependence or dependency and has no independence, and at the same time his abilities "develop only within narrow boundaries and isolated places" in a narrow way. Similarly, capitalism is barbaric and backward compared to socialism. On the one hand, capitalism has not broken free itself from the "law of antagonism" of the development of civilization in the past, which "ends up being based on the confrontation between accumulated labour and direct labour." There is no progress without confrontation. This is the law that civilization has followed to this day", and the civilization of the minority is at the expense of the majority living in the "gutter of civilization". Capitalism, on the other hand, adds a new contradiction, namely the inversion of man and matter. The sublimeness of the ancient world lies in the fact that man is the end of production, while the modern world reduces man to the means of things, and the development of things is at the cost of human alienation.

Second, human development constitutes the internal driving force for the development of civilization. In Marx's view, the driving force for the development of civilization stems from the development of man, or more precisely from free time. In response to the bourgeois view that "capital equals civilization", Marx pointed out that "since all free time is time for free development, the capitalist steals the free time created by the workers for society, that is, steals civilization". Here, Marx directly regarded free time as civilization. Thus, when Marx outlined the path from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom in the third volume of Capital, he regarded the "shortening of the working day" as a "fundamental condition".

To highlight the important position of human development in the development of civilization is not to oppose human development and social development. Guizot also proposed that civilization consists of two major facts, namely, the development of human society and the development of man himself. However, Guizot regarded "man's own development" as merely a "moral development" detached from the material basis, just as Stolch criticized Smith for focusing only on material wealth and studying "inner wealth" as an "element of civilization." These practices were denounced by Marx as "empty words of civilization" because they pit human development against social development. In Marx's view, human development and social development are the same process of simultaneous unfolding and intrinsic connection, because man "as a constant premise of human history, and also as a constant product and result of human history, and man becomes a premise only as a product and result of himself."

From "Capital Civilization" to "New Form of Civilization"

The anthropological implication of Marx's concept of civilization not only clarifies the intrinsic relationship between human development and the development of civilization, but also aims to open up the development path of human civilization to a "new form of civilization" through the "capital civilization aspect". Capitalist civilization still has historical and progressive significance for human development. Marx pointed out that for the all-round development of the individual to be possible, "the development of ability must reach a certain degree and comprehensiveness, which is premised on production based on exchange value, which produces the universality of the individual's alienation from himself and with others, as well as the universality and comprehensiveness of personal relations and individual capacities." This means that one cannot remain in the romantic imagination of "nostalgia for that primitive richness" because capitalism is "hostile to man.". To construct a new form of civilization for the all-round free development of man is not only to possess the positive fruits of modern civilization, but also to abandon the alienation of capitalism, "to overthrow all relations that make man an insulted, enslaved, abandoned and despised thing."

First of all, as far as the relationship between man and matter is concerned, human development should be the independent development of controlling material conditions. It is clear that man has created the conditions for the development of civilization, but they in turn have become shackles different from man, "making the individuality completely subordinate to such social conditions, which take the form of the power of things, and are extremely powerful things", which is the "mystery of civilization" of capitalism. Thus, the first condition for the passage to the kingdom of freedom is that "the socialized man, the united producer, will rationally regulate the material transformation between them and nature, placing it under their common control, without allowing it to rule over itself as a blind force."

Secondly, as far as human relations are concerned, human development should be a common development that is universally shared. Engels pointed out that it seems that slavery no longer exists in a highly developed bourgeois society, but "hidden slavery has always accompanied the age of civilization" and that "the exploitation of one class by another" constitutes "the basis of the age of civilization". This exploitation is not only the exploitation of surplus-value and material goods, but also the plundering of free time and even the space for development, which constitutes the "reproduction of social relations" that is more important than material reproduction. This means the sinking of the upward mobility space and free development conditions of most people. In this regard, the new form of human civilization is not only for everyone to share the fruits of development, but also for everyone to share development opportunities.

Finally, as far as man's relationship with me is concerned, man should develop in a highly free and all-round way. Under capitalist conditions, human development presents a state of "involuntariness", and man is confined to the system of division of labor, and even dwarfed into a "part" of the machine system. In this regard, the state of human development in the new form of human civilization is presented as a state of "gentleman without instrument", in the words of Marx, "man does not reproduce himself in a certain prescriptiveness, but produces his comprehensiveness; Not to try to stay on something that has become, but to be in the absolute motion of change."

For the new form of human civilization, the "civilized aspect of capital" is not only a necessary prerequisite for human development, but also produces various restrictions. The process of the development of civilization is also the process of discarding such limitations. In this sense, allowing "this limitation to be recognized as a limitation, rather than as a sacred boundary", is the whole meaning of the Marxist conception of civilization to be explored from a philosophical perspective in this day and age.