Marx and Engels's "labor-man" ideas and their significance

author

: Mao Letang, Professor, School of Philosophy and Law and Politics, Shanghai Normal University, Doctoral Supervisor, Director of the Research Center for Economic Philosophy.

Originally published in Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theory Research, No. 6, 2021

[Abstract] On the basis of criticizing and abandoning the previous ideas on labor, man, and the relationship between the two, Marx and Engels based themselves on the fundamental position of the proletariat, rooted in the profound alienated reality of capital modernity, created the "labor-man" thought full of dialectical tension, unveiled the original object existence relationship between labor and man, presented the dialectical existence relationship between labor and man that is co-generated, shaped and created by each other, and revealed the ontological status of labor for human life and for social history.

Marx and Engels' "labor-man" thought has cracked the "Sphinx mystery" about people in thought, explored the historical existential connotation of the concept of labor, highlighted the value brilliance of labor and its subjects, and provided a profound philosophical foundation and value basis for the people-centered development practice in the new era.

[Keywords] labor; laborer; people-centered

What kind of existential relationship is there between labor and people? How should we understand and grasp the essential relationship between labor and people, and then construct a humane relationship between labor and people? This is an ideological topic in the history of ideas that constantly arouses people's thinking and is full of differences, and it is also a theoretical task that today's ideological circles and academic circles have to face, and it is also a practical topic that must be directly faced in contemporary social life. In fact, how to look at people, look at labor, look at the relationship between labor and people, and then scientifically evaluate and treat labor and its subjects is an important indicator to measure the degree of historical progress of human society, an important yardstick to test the degree of civilization of a person, a country, and a nation, and an important indicator of the moral height and advanced degree of a ruling party. However, in the history of ideas or in real society, there are abstract cognitions and negative value evaluations in the relationship between labor and people, that is, the view that "labor ←→ people", which is concentrated in two aspects: one is based on metaphysical epistemology, first of all, the cognition of the binary separation of labor and people is adopted, and on this basis, metaphysical questions such as "first man or first labor" and "man creates labor or labor creates man". The second is in the theory of value, to make a divergent evaluation of the value relationship between man and labor, to believe that labor is a dirty activity, is the lowly activity of the humble person and the sin of life, and then believes that the real person, the noble person, is far away from labor and has nothing to do with labor. Marx and Engels, on the other hand, on the basis of criticizing and abandoning the ideas on man, labor, and the relationship between the two in the history of thought, based on the fundamental position of the proletariat and the broad masses of the working masses, rooted in the alienated reality of capital modernity, and created the idea of "labor-man" that contains profound truth and a high degree of morality, that is, it believes that labor and man are a kind of existence relationship that is historically defined and mutually interpreted, and that there is not only existential consistency between the two, but also consistency in value relations. The "labor-man" thinking of Marx and Engels not only solved the "Sphinx mystery" about man, but also demonstrated the value of labor and the social and historical subject status of laborers for the first time in history, created the labor anthropology of solving the essence of man in labor, and forged the concept of labor history of solving the mystery of history in labor. In the new era, the Communist Party of China shoulders the heavy historical task of uniting and leading the Chinese people to create a better life and realize the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. All this depends on the hard work of the broad masses of the people and the active creation of labor. Therefore, on the practical road of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, achieving Chinese a better life, how to protect the interests of workers and defend the status of workers as the main body, so as to effectively respect labor creation and stimulate labor enthusiasm, has become a major issue related to the social development of contemporary China and the future destiny of the Chinese nation. In this context, it deeply reveals the "labor-man" thought of Marx and Engels, profoundly expounds the value and purpose contained in it, and then provides a positive philosophical foundation and value support for the practice of people-centered development ideas in contemporary China, which has important theoretical significance and epochal value.

I. "Labor ←→ People": The View of Abuse in the Relationship Between Labor and People

The relationship between labor and people is not only the ideological focus of people's constant controversy in the history of ideas, but also an important practical issue in modern social life. How to view the relationship between labor and people is not only directly related to the practical understanding of the nature of human beings, but also directly related to the value assessment of labor and its subjects. From the perspective of intellectual history, in the cognition of the relationship between labor and people, there are epistemological abstract solutions and biased views on value theory, and the understanding of the relationship between labor and people has also undergone a historical process from negative evaluation to positive evaluation.

Discussions of labor, man, and their relations have long existed in the history of ideas. In the ancient Greek discourse on man and his relationship with labor, Aristotle's famous proposition that "man is born a political animal" and the corresponding idea of the relationship between labor and man had an important impact. Aristotle's proposition that "man is a political animal" defines man from the political level. This proposition implies that the root of man's humanity lies in his "political existence." Therefore, the revelation and grasp of the essence of man lies in the understanding of the meaning of Aristotle's so-called "political". What Aristotle called "political", that is, "social", "public", "related to the citizens of the city-state". Aristotle's proposition that "man is born a political animal" not only contains the publicness of man, the city-state-like form of existence, but also stipulates that the root of man's human being lies in his "city-state citizen" attribute. Aristotle pointed out that "man is naturally an animal that tends to live in the city-state (and by his very nature, he is also a political animal)." A mortal who, by reason of his nature or by chance, does not belong to any city-state, is a superman if he is not a contemptible man", and thus a man without a state or from outside the city-state, like a natural discard and an idler in the chess game, has in essence no qualifications and conditions for being a man. Thus, in the context of Aristotle's discourse about the "political man", only the free citizens were entitled to the political life of the city-state, while the vast number of low-class commoners and slaves who bore the lowly creative activities were not eligible to participate in the political life of the city-state and were thus excluded from the scope of the "political man". It can be seen that in Aristotle's view, labor and man are a kind of divergent existential relationship, that is, the so-called real man (political man) does not engage in lowly labor creation activities, while those who bear the heavy labor creation activity are excluded from the ranks of man, and thus the existence of labor and man constitutes a negative deviation.

In the Middle Ages, as Engels pointed out, people knew only one ideology, religion and theology, and the whole social life was imbued with a strong theological spirit, and the cognition and discourse of labor, man, and the relationship between the two unfolded in the context of religious theology. In the Christian theological worldview, everything in the world, including man, was created by God, so that the essence of man as a human being lies in his "divinity", and the meaning of life lies in his infinite faith in God and a devout understanding of God's will. The ancestors of mankind, Adam and Eve, committed primitive sins against God's will, and God punished them with labor, so that labor became the labor of human beings who rebelled against God and God's will, and human beings had to sweat and survive as a way of self-salvation. Thus, "according to the Christian point of view, labor is not a praiseworthy achievement in itself, but a retribution and punishment for sin", and labor is the mark of man's departure from the human nature (divinity), the heavy labor and guilty redemptive activity that man has to bear against God's will. Thus it can be seen that in the medieval conception of society, labor was generally regarded as a lowly activity full of guilt and burden of labor.

In modern times, with the revival of Chinese art in the field of thought and the opening of the Enlightenment Movement, the establishment and consolidation of the capitalist mode of production in secular economic life, and the corresponding development and growth of modern civil society, rational metaphysics has replaced religious theology in the ideological field, and the logic of capital has gradually replaced the feudal hierarchical power logic in secular economic life, realizing a major transformation from "religious people" to "rational people" and "economic people". Since modern civil society is a social existence structure with the market economy as the basis of existence and the logic of capital as its operating mechanism, its core value orientation is to obtain more material wealth and abstract exchange value, in modern civil society, the existence of people, the existence of society and even the existence of the entire nation-state revolve around how to increase national wealth and thus achieve the axis of the times of capital multiplication. In this process, the role of labor continues to be highlighted, the status is gradually improved, the image has been positively improved, and labor has changed from a symbol of existence that represents lowliness and negativity in the past to a positive identity of human existence, and has received positive evaluation. All this has been concentrated in the ideas and concepts of bourgeois thinkers on the theory of labor wealth, the theory of labor value, and the shaping of man by labor. Among modern bourgeois thinkers, Locke was an early concern for the value of labor and elaborated on the close relationship between labor and man. Locke argues that every man has exclusive rights to his own body, that the work performed by the human body and the work performed by the human hand belongs to himself, and that the property thus derived from his labor belongs to himself, "for, since labour is the indisputable property of the labourer, no one but him can enjoy the right to this gain", "labour adds something to the naturally completed work of the Mother of all things, so that they become his private right." ”。 Locke further points out that it is labour that gives all things different values, and that "ninety-nine percent of the vast majority of things are totally attributable to labour." Thus, in Locke's view, labor is both a source of value and a basis for property rights. Wealth and property are the prerequisites and important guarantees for people in civil society to obtain a place to live and enjoy the values of freedom and equality, so a positive existential relationship has been established between labor and people. This prominent position and value of labor in modern civil society has been further systematically expressed in the labor theory of value in classical economics. Adam Smith, who is revered as the "father of modern economics", on the basis of breaking the previous mercantilist theory of monetary wealth and the narrow agricultural labor theory of value, set aside the specific form of labor and took "labor in general" as the source and basis of wealth. In his book The Wealth of Nations, Smith began by pointing out that "the annual labor of a country's citizens is originally the source of all the necessities and conveniences of life that they consume every year", and then pointed out that "labor is the true measure of the exchange value of all commodities". In this way, Smith revealed the labor nature of social wealth and commodity exchange value at the level of economic science, thus highlighting the social significance and value of labor, and pointing to the substantive status of labor in civil social life. As the only German classical philosopher who has studied classical political economy, Hegel for the first time elevated labor to a philosophical category, and expounded the nature of labor and its relationship with human generation within the scope of speculative philosophy, revealing from many angles: from the relationship between man and animals, Hegel regarded labor as a "rational activity" that is fundamentally different from the instinctive activity of animals; from the relationship between man and nature, Hegel regarded labor as an activity of "cultivating things" to achieve desire In terms of the relationship between man, Hegel regarded labor as an activity to achieve "mutual recognition" between "master and slave"; from the aspect of man's relationship with himself, Hegel regarded labor as a process of man's self-confirmation and generative activity. It can be seen that Hegel revealed the rich connotation of labor from the philosophical level and demonstrated the meaning and status of labor. However, Hegel's philosophy is fundamentally a speculative logical deduction system about the self-externalization and self-realization of the "absolute spirit", and its so-called labor, man and the relationship between labor and man are essentially nothing more than the carrier or phenomenon of the "absolute spirit", and thus remain a speculative philosophical discourse of man and his labor far from reality. As Marx put it, Hegel regarded man as self-conscious, so that although "he regarded labour as the essence of manhood, at the nature of self-confirmation of man", he "the only labour he knew and acknowledged was the labour of abstract spirit".

It can be seen from the above that in pre-modern society, labor was basically defined as a negative existence, regarded as a sign of human inferiority and lowliness, and as a redemptive activity of man's guilt, so that labor and man were a divergent existential relationship. As far as modern civil society is concerned, with the establishment of the capitalist mode of production and the practical need for capital multiplication, the role and value of labor have gradually become prominent and positively evaluated and recognized. But all this is based on the premise of private property, and labor is still regarded as an abstract material for the multiplication of capital, so that whether it is the labor theory of value in national economics or Hegel's concept of labor, its essence is to provide everything for capital and its personality incarnation, that is, the capitalist, and indifferent to real labor and its subject, that is, the laborer, so in the dominant capitalist ideological discourse of civil society, the relationship between labor and man is still an external divergence. Until Marx and Engels based on the realistic context of capital modernity, based on the value position of the proletariat, through speculative philosophical criticism, political economy criticism and utopian socialism criticism, revealed the metaphysical cognitive bias and value bias in the relationship between labor and people in the past, and created the "labor-man" thought from the post-metaphysical existential vision and the fundamental value position of the proletariat, which not only solved the "Sphinx mystery" about man. On the basis of historical existentialism, it also reveals the status of labor and its subjects on the basis of historical existentialism, highlights the value of labor and laborers, and then provides a new theoretical picture for labor liberation and the free and all-round development of each person, and opens up a realistic road.

"Labor-Man": Marx and Engels' historical existential regulations on the relationship between labor and man

Just as Marxist theory was founded by Marx and Engels on the basis of criticizing the inheritance of excellent ideas in human history, Marx and Engels's "labor-man" ideas were also forged on the basis of criticizing and abandoning the excellent ideas of labor, man and the relationship between the two, among which the labor theory of axiology of classical political economy, the concept of man and labor in German classical philosophy, the labor theory in utopian socialism, especially Hegel's "spiritual labor" thought and Feuerbach's concept of "natural man", It has direct ideological resource significance for Marx and Engels to establish the idea of "labor-man". According to the German scholar Carl Lovett, Hegel's concentrated exposition of labor is mainly embodied in the Jena Lecture, the Phenomenology of Spirit, and the Principles of the Philosophy of Law. In the Jena Lecture, Hegel "defines the spiritual character of labour as a 'negative action' in relation to nature." Labor is not an instinct, but a 'rational activity', a 'spiritual way'", thus identifying the spiritual nature of man's labour. In The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel prescribes labor as the shaping action of man's cultivation of things, and regards labor as the pure self-existence of consciousness, so that the process of labor cultivating things is also the process of man's self-confirmation and generation. Hegel argues that the action and process by which labor cultivates things "is at the same time the individuality of consciousness or the purely self-existence of consciousness, which now incarnates itself outside and outside labor and enters into a permanent state." Thus the laboring consciousness attains the intuition of independent existence as itself." In Principles of the Philosophy of Law, Hegel continues the idea of labor in the "Jena Lecture" and the Phenomenology of Spirit, and expounds the "intermediary" nature of labor in civil society between subjectivity and objectivity, special interests and universal interests. Thus, Hegel's concept of labor is imbued with agency, creativity, and dialectics. But Hegel's philosophy is a speculative philosophical system with the absolute spirit as its endpoint, background, and attribution, which attributes the essence of all existence to the "absolute spirit", so that, as Marx pointed out, the only labor that Hegel knows and recognizes is "spiritual labor". Because of this, Feuerbach, with his new philosophy, the "philosophy of sensibility", implemented criticism and reaction to Hegel's speculative philosophy, founded humanistic materialism, and replaced Hegel's human consciousness with "natural man". However, Feuerbach's philosophy is essentially a philosophy of perceptual intuition, so that when understanding man and understanding labor, it still remains in the field and level of perceptual intuition, lacking historical principles and the dimension of objectified activity, and thus falling into the position of uncritical intuitive philosophy. However, it was Hegel's philosophy of man, the agency of labor, and the dialectical relationship between the two, as well as Feuerbach's idea of "natural man" and its perceptual principles, that provided important ideological resources for Marx and Engels to create the idea of "labor-man". In fact, it is precisely on the basis of criticizing and inheriting the dialectical thought in Hegel's philosophy and Feuerbach's perceptual philosophical principles, based on the realistic basis of capital modernity, through arduous ideological efforts, Marx forged the scientific concept of practice with perceptual objectification labor as the core content, founded the materialist view of history, realized profound changes in the history of philosophy, and established the idea of "labor-man" in the process. The ideological content of Marx and Engels's thinking on "labor-man" is rich and profound, including the ideological content of labor creating man, man creating labor, labor being human labor, human labor being labor, labor being the internal basis of man, and man being the actual subject of labor, revealing the dialectical relationship between labor and man at the level of historical existentialism.

First, labor is co-produced with people. On the question of what kind of existential relationship between labor and people is, there are different ways of thinking and understanding paths between people. Some are based on metaphysical epistemology, first of all, the external binary separation of man and labor, and on this basis put forward metaphysical questions such as "whether there is labor before man or labor first" and "man creates labor or labor creates man". In response to this kind of speculative metaphysics problem that is divorced from reality and lacks historical vision, Marx gave a sharp exposure and criticism, believing that there is a problem similar to "whether labor creates man or man creates labor" in the relationship between labor and man, which is itself an abstract product, and if this speculative abstraction divorced from reality and history is abandoned, the abstract problem itself is abandoned. Marx believed that once we transcend the speculative metaphysical ontological way of thinking and base ourselves on the philosophical vision of historical existentialism, we can uncover the original existential relationship between man and labor. Marx believed that the fundamental thing about man as a human being is not some supra-historical abstract existence such as the so-called "reason" in the history of ideas; on the contrary, man does not have the so-called innate and immutable abstract human nature, but includes the formation and development of man himself and the products of all human beings as the result of social-historical activities. Productive labour, on the other hand, is not only the basis of social history, but also the most important and fundamental feature of man's distinction from animals. Marx pointed out that "labor is the self-generation of man within the scope of externalization or as an externalized man", so that "the whole so-called history of the world is nothing more than the process by which man is born through man's labor, the process of natural generation for man, so he has an intuitive and irrefutable proof of his birth through himself, of his formation process". Therefore, man is the product of labor, and labor is the basic mode of existence of man, so that in the sense of historical genesis, there is a historical process of mutual generation between labor and man. Marx's above-mentioned view of the mutual generation of labor and man is specifically discussed in Engels's "The Role of Labor in the Transformation from Ape to Man". Engels believed that hundreds of thousands of years ago, tree-climbing apes, who lived in groups somewhere in the tropics of the earth, gradually became able to walk upright due to the influence of long-term lifestyles, thus taking a decisive step in the transition from apes to humans. With the passage of time, the hands and feet of the ape gradually divided their labor, the ape hands became more and more flexible, more and more engaged in other activities, and the hands became free. With the development of the hand, it is possible to simply use the original material to build a nest and use natural tools to defend the enemy, resulting in an instinctive form of animal labor, and the "person who is being generated" appears. Later, with the development of the specialization of the hand, the "forming man", in the process of constant struggle with external nature and the interaction within the group, gradually produced language, his intellect developed, he was able to use tools more flexibly and gradually became able to make simple and crude tools, and finally realized the transformation from ape to man. Therefore, the process of the generation of human life is the continuous process of human labor activities, and the emergence of human beings and the formation of human labor are the same historical process, and the two have the consistency of interconnection and common generation at the level of genesis.

Second, labor and man shape each other. In the view of Marx and Engels, there is not only a symbiotic relationship between labor and man at the level of genesis, but also a historical existential relationship of mutual regulation and mutual shaping at the level of existentialism, so that there is a consistent existential relationship between labor and man. This means that what labor is like, what human life is like, and what man is like is consistent with what labor is. In this regard, Marx and Engels profoundly expounded in the "German Ideology" that the existence of the living individual is the first prerequisite of human history, but if the living individual is to be able to survive, he must first engage in material production labor that satisfies his basic life needs. It is through the mediation of material production and labor that the living individual is shaped and elevated to a realistic individual, thus realizing the stipulation of the historical and social existential level of man, giving it the essential social attribute of man as a human being. So, we "can distinguish between man and animal according to consciousness, religion, or whatever." As soon as man begins to produce his own means of subsistence, that is, to take this step determined by the organization of his flesh, he himself begins to distinguish himself from animals. Man produces his own means of subsistence, while indirectly producing his own material life itself." In fact, material productive labour not only distinguishes man from animals, but more importantly, it constantly shapes and changes the way of life and the appearance of existence of man, because "it is a certain way of activity of these individuals, a certain way of expressing their lives, a certain way of life of theirs." How individuals express their lives is how they are. Therefore, what they are is consistent with their production - with what they produce and with how they produce. Thus what individuals are like depends on the material conditions under which they carry out their production." The above expositions of Marx and Engels profoundly revealed the profound existential relationship between productive labor activities and actual individuals that stipulate and shape each other, and pointed out the object existence relationship between labor and people that constructs and shapes each other.

Third, labor and man create each other. The mutually shaping relationship between labor and man means that changed labor will inevitably shape a new form of human existence and the appearance of existence. In the same way, the progressive development of man and the evolution of his mode of existence are bound to give rise to new forms of labor and the face of labor. In fact, man is not a predestined existence, but a being with agency, creativity and transcendence, a social being that is "able" based on the present and facing the future. Man not only shows his life in productive labor, but also transcends his existing state of existence in production labor, thus constantly creating new forms of life existence. In this regard, Marx pointed out: "The overall characteristics of a species, the class characteristics of species, lie in the nature of life activities, and the free conscious activities are precisely the class characteristics of man." "It is precisely this conscious nature of life activity peculiar to man that not only enables man and animal to distinguish directly, but also to make man understand the production of any kind of scale and to apply his own inner scale to objects, and at the same time to construct according to the laws of beauty." It is in the process of transforming the world of objects that one truly proves oneself to be a being of the same kind. This kind of production is the dynamic class of life of man. Through this production, nature manifests itself in his works and his reality. Therefore, initiative, creativity, transcendence is the existence attribute that man has, and man transforms the external world and creates the object world through labor practice, which not only embodies and proves man's transcendent existence attribute, but also in this creative labor activity, man will continue to innovate and transcend his original life pattern, and constantly achieve the leap and enrichment of his own life. The creativity of labor characterizes the transcendence of man, and the transcendence of man is ultimately embodied in the creativity of labor, and there is a relationship between the two that creates and transcends each other. And man's needs are the deep driving force behind man's transcendence and labor creativity. The essence of labor is to overcome and resolve the contradictions that exist between human needs and external nature. In the process, there is a transformation between human needs and labour, because "the first need that has been satisfied itself, the activity which satisfies the need and the tools which have been acquired to satisfy it give rise to new needs", and the new needs constantly stimulate man's innovative spirit and creative capacity, and promote the invention of the means of production and the progress of the way of labour. "The essence of labor lies in the fact that man's presence is intrinsically transcendent to every possible state of himself and the world", through labor, man becomes a kind of transcendent being of "self-made", and this self-existent existence attribute of man enables the continuous innovation and evolution of the labor style as the basic mode of existence of man, thus forming a historical mutual creation and dialectical transcendence of existence relationship between labor and man's presence.

In short, in the understanding of the relationship between labor and people, Marx and Engels abandoned the metaphysical way of thinking of traditional philosophy, made provisions and interpretations of historical existentialism, revealed and criticized the cognitive biases and value biases that prevail in the understanding of the relationship between labor and people, created the profound connotation of "labor-man" thought, and revealed the existential relationship between labor and people that are jointly generated, shaped and created by each other.

Third, the theoretical significance and epochal value of Marx and Engels's "labor-man" thought

The "labor-man" idea created by Marx and Engels has disintegrated the long-standing abstract and popular view of labor and human relations, not only deeply revealing the original historical existential relationship between labor and people, but also changing people's value prejudice against labor and its subjects in the past. This is of great significance and value for cracking the "Sphinx mystery" of man, reconstructing the historical existential connotation of the concept of labor, revaluing the value of labor, highlighting the status of laborers as the main body, and then effectively carrying out the development practice centered on working people in China in the new era.

First, Marx and Engels's "labor-man" ideas solved the "Sphinx mystery" about man. The question of man and his essence is an extremely challenging subject of thought, often confusing to thinkers and philosophers. This may be the meaning of the proverb "Know thyself" at the Temple of Delphi. Rousseau once lamented: "Of all the knowledge of mankind, the most useful to us but the least we have is the knowledge of man." Thus, questions about "what are people" and "who are people" are seen as the "Sphinx mystery" of man, and have sparked a race between philosophers and thinkers throughout history to solve the puzzle. In order to solve this puzzle, I don't know how many people have spent their brains. However, before Marx and Engels established the "labor-man" idea of historical materialism, this problem was still not scientifically solved. In fact, in the previous answers to the nature of man, there are different interpretation orientations and interpretation schemes such as "political man", "religious man", "rational man", "natural man" and so on. The explanatory path of the "political man" defines the essence of man as living a "social" and "city-state" life, thus depriving the low-class commoners and slaves of their qualifications to be human beings. The explanatory path of the "religious man" defines the essence of man as the creator of God and the carrier of God's will, thus obliterating man's subject status and free will. The explanatory path of "rational man" regards abstract reason as the essential stipulation of man, thus ignoring the existential dimension of man's perceptual life. The interpretation path of "natural man" defines the essence of man from the level of physical sensibility, and lacks the care for the attributes of human social existence. It is true that these provisions and sayings on the essence of man illustrate the existential attributes of man at a certain level, but they all take abstract human nature as the premise, share the philosophical basis of metaphysics, regard the essence of man as a kind of non-historical and surreal eternal existence, prescribe and look at man and its essence from an abstract and essentialist perspective, and try to grasp the essence of man and its truth once and for all within the scope of abstract metaphysics, which ultimately leads to indifference and obscuration of the actual man and his history of existence. Resulting in complete alienation and fundamental forgetting of man and the foundations of his life. On the basis of criticizing traditional philosophy, Marx and Engels opposed man's having a fixed and unchanging abstract essence, established a philosophical world outlook based on material production and labor, created a science about the real man and its historical development, disintegrated the metaphysical cage that shrouded abstract anthropology, created the "labor-man" idea, realized the profound change from abstract man to labor anthropology, and scientifically solved the "Sphinx mystery" about man from the principle of labor existentialism. It clarifies the basis for being a human being and the essence and truth of human existence.

Second, Marx and Engels's "labor-man" ideas explored the historical existential connotations of the concept of labor. Marx and Engels's "labor-man" thought not only realized the existential solution of labor to the essence of man, but also revealed the profound historical existential connotation of the concept of labor. As mentioned earlier, before modern civil society, "labor" was almost a negative value word that negated and alienated people. In modern civil society, although the value and meaning of labor are gradually recognized, it still remains in the abstract vision of national economics, which provides everything for capital and is indifferent to the interests of the labor subjects of civil society, that is, wage laborers. Labor and its subjects are nothing more than abstract materials for the multiplication of capital, and their existence has no legitimacy or legitimacy for self-sufficiency. On the contrary, the legitimacy of the existence of labor and its subjects depends on the charity and identification of capital, and its existence value is measured by the degree of contribution to the proliferation of capital, so that labor and its subjects are only subsidiary beings of capital, and capital has the divine hegemony of "kingly rule" over labor. In this regard, Marx and Engels made profound and sharp criticisms and exposés. Marx pointed out that because "capital is the dominant power over labor and its products", in the eyes of national economics as a capitalist ideology, the laborer is reduced to a dehumanized commodity, and it is the lowest commodity. Thus, "national economics, though proceeding from the point of view that labour is the true soul of production, does not provide anything for labour, but provides everything for private property", the essence of which is nothing more than an expression of the law of alienated labour, and thus an unscrupulous defense of the rationality and eternity of alienated labour! Engels also criticized that although "labor is the principal element of production, the 'source of wealth', and the free activity of man, it is rarely valued by economists", because as a complete science of enrichment, national economics "bears the most repulsive mark of selfishness on its forehead". Although Hegel elevated labor to a philosophical concept and discussed labor in conjunction with the generation, existence and development of man, the fundamental speculative philosophical nature of Hegel's philosophy makes its discourse about the connection between labor, labor and human survival ultimately remain in the abstract metaphysics, and its concept of labor is still essentially only an abstract, speculative, and logical expression of the perceptual labor of reality. Marx and Engels's "labor-man" thought, which regards labor as the basic mode of existence and essential activity of man, reveals the original perceptual relationship between labor and man, points to labor as the basic life form of man and the truth of existence that man generates in labor, thus presenting the post-metaphysical vision and its historical existential connotation contained in the concept of labor, transcending the abstract solution and empty view of labor in the past.

Third, Marx and Engels's "labor-man" thought highlights the value brilliance of labor and its subjects. In the long history of human society, the old division of labor determined by the level of development of the productive forces, as well as the class antagonisms and the separation of material and spiritual production formed historically on this basis, the broad working class has long been trapped in the existential situation of oppression and domination, and has lived a lowly and humble life. In order to safeguard its own interests and dominant position, the ruling class makes full use of the shielding function of ideology to perpetuate, rationalize, and sanctify all existing things, so that the ideological concepts of low labor and low laborers are implanted into the hearts of the people of society, resulting in a long-term distorted and negative value evaluation in the value relationship between labor and people. Marx and Engels, on the other hand, based on the alienation situation of capital modernity, effectively revealed the profound alienation reality of wage-laborers under the rule of capital logic, sharply criticized the irrational reality of the wealth of modern bourgeoisie at the expense of wage-laborers' poverty and ignorance, and put forward the lofty value ideal and realistic path of abandoning alienated labor and realizing labor liberation. To this end, Marx and Engels revealed the alienated labor essence of civil society through the critique of political economy, and then in the investigation and analysis of alienated labor, they went deep into the depths of social history, discovered the ontological basis of labor in social history, and found the key to opening the mystery of all social history - labor. In this way, Marx and Engels expounded the ontological status of labor for the generation of the existing perceptual world, the progress of social history, and the creation of human civilization for an unprecedented period of time, and praised the subjective status of laborers in creating social wealth, changing social history, and transforming the real world. Hannah Arendt has a pertinent comment about Marx's unconventional celebration of labor and laborers: "The real anti-traditional aspect of Marx's doctrine is the praise of labor. It has been often despised since the dawn of philosophy, and it is not considered necessary to deliberately understand and explain the useless and their activities, nor to re-evaluate the despised working class and labor. Marx was the only thinker of the 19th century who used philosophical terms to sincerely tell the important events of the 19th century— the emancipation of labor. Today, the influence of Marx's thought is extremely great, and it is also because of this fact. "It can be seen that in the history of philosophical thought, Marx and Engels, with their arduous ideological efforts and lofty moral feelings, broke through the ideological fog and value prejudice that hung over labor and its subjects, revealed the true status and existence of labor and its subjects, highlighted the brilliance of the social value of labor, and highlighted the historical subject status of laborers." Labor-man means that labor and man are integrated with each other, and that man is a social parasite to be despised for surviving by labor and developing through labor, so that those who do not work and do not live on labor are undoubtedly social parasites to be despised. Today, in the face of the social situation of the loss of labor value, the crisis of labor identity, and the lack of the main position of laborers, the exploration and elaboration of Marx and Engels's "labor-man" thought undoubtedly has important ideological enlightenment and value warning.

Fourth, Marx and Engels's "labor-man" thinking provides a philosophical basis and value basis for the people-centered development practice in the new era. As the expression of the proletariat's self-consciousness and interests, Marxism has effectively responded to the fundamental interests and ideological demands of the broad masses of the people with the working people as the mainstay at every stage of its appearance, development, and enrichment, and has widely won the recognition and protection of the working masses. One of the important reasons why Marxism has been able to penetrate deep into the hearts of the masses and lead the masses in its journey is to break the ideological lies and prejudices that obliterate the value of labor, ignore the interests of laborers, and disregard the status of the working masses as the main body, and with the power of truth and lofty values, go deep into the depths of social history, unveil the essence of material production labor in social history for the first time in the world, discover the ontological status of productive labor for social history, and reveal the truth that the working masses are the real subjects of social history. In addition, it is proposed that we must rely on the working masses to promote social change and historical development, and demand that the fundamental interests of the masses of the people be taken as the core yardstick for measuring social development and historical progress, and create a mass view of history with the interests of labor and laborers as the fundamental, drive out the heroic view of history that previously dominated the historical view, and realize a profound change in the historical outlook. The establishment of the mass concept of history and the establishment of the theory of people's subjectivity have completely changed the long-standing situation in which the value of labor is obscure and unclear, and the status of the main body of laborers is hidden, and the existence value and social status of labor and its subjects have been highlighted for the first time in history, and then require the effective implementation of the development concept centered on the working people in practice, and persist in developing the mass line and people's position of relying on the working masses and developing for the working people. Contemporary China has entered a new era, and the new era means a new historical orientation, a new era challenge and a new development requirement. However, whether it is the cracking of the tasks of the times or the response to the challenges of the times, they fundamentally depend on the practice of the working people and the guidance of the scientific theories corresponding to them. Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, our party has proposed to focus on practicing the people-centered development ideology and effectively implementing the development concept of people's joint construction, people's sharing, and people's common prosperity. In this process, Marx and Engels's "labor-man" thought has provided important philosophical reasons and value support for the "people-centered" development concept and development practice in the new era, because the "labor-man" thought inherently contains the profound ideas and value intentions of developing by relying on labor and developing for the people.

In summary, Marx and Engels's "labor-man" thought, rooted in the realistic foundation of capital modernity, based on the value position of the proletariat, from the principle of materialist view of history, broke through all kinds of abstract solutions and value prejudices in labor, people and the relationship between the two, revealed the original historical relationship between labor and people, unprecedentedly highlighted the main position and value of labor and laborers, and provided an important philosophical foundation and value support for the people-centered development practice of contemporary China in the new era.