勞動的價值理論(八)
? ? ? ? 本篇文章由我翻譯,全文共63頁,本篇為節(jié)選的第八部分約3.5頁內(nèi)容,原文為英文并附于末尾,藍色標注為我添加的補充和注釋。全文已翻譯完畢。
????????4.馬克思價值分析的政治含義
????????我們在一開始就否定了馬克思的價值分析是剝削存在的證據(jù)的觀點,但認為這種否定并不必然會導(dǎo)致這一分析的去政治化。我們現(xiàn)在簡短地回到政治問題上;簡單地說,這是由于任何試圖深入處理這一問題的嘗試都至少需要另一篇論文。在我看來,馬克思價值理論中的政治性優(yōu)點以及它有助于社會主義者的地方在于它為我們提供了一個可以用于分析資本主義剝削是如何運轉(zhuǎn)、如何改變并發(fā)展和理解資本主義剝削過程的工具。因此,它為我們提供了一種探索唯物主義政治實踐可能性的途徑,用Colletti的話來說,這種實踐將“顛覆并從屬于產(chǎn)生它的條件” (Colletti, 1976, p. 69)。
????????為了支持這一觀點,我只提出三個簡短的要點:首先,價值理論能夠使我們在分析資本主義剝削的同時克服剝削經(jīng)驗碎片化的缺點;其次,它能夠使我們將資本主義剝削把握為一個不斷變化的、矛盾的、危機四伏的過程;最后,它幫助我們建立了對剝削過程運轉(zhuǎn)過程的理解,以及采取行動終結(jié)它的可能性。
????????第一點來源于這樣一個前提,即那些經(jīng)歷過資本主義剝削的人并不需要一個理論來告訴他們什么是錯誤的。但問題在于,資本主義剝削的經(jīng)驗是碎片化和缺乏關(guān)聯(lián)性的,因此很難準確地說出什么是錯誤的,以及如何才能改變它。尤其是在同時存在著貨幣關(guān)系和勞動過程關(guān)系的情況下,剝削表現(xiàn)為兩種不同的形式:“不公平”的貨幣工資或價格,和/或長時間和惡劣條件下的艱苦工作。從這樣的碎片化經(jīng)驗中產(chǎn)生的政治行動反過來被一分為二:流通政治和/或生產(chǎn)政治。我所指的流通政治是一種旨在試圖以對工人階級有利的方式改變貨幣關(guān)系的政治行動。例如通過斗爭來提高貨幣工資、控制貨幣價格;控制并消除金融系統(tǒng)運作中的不良影響和控制投資資金的直接流動;通過福利國家轉(zhuǎn)移貨幣收入等等。我所指的生產(chǎn)政治則是旨在試圖改善生產(chǎn)條件的政治行動;縮短工作日,組織工人在車間中對抗;建立工人合作社,制定“替代性計劃”(參見盧卡斯航空航天公司工人計劃)(22)。這兩類政治行動都是馬克思的時代與我們現(xiàn)在的時代的工人運動所追求的。這里并不是說這兩類政治行動本身都是錯誤的,而是它們兩者都是分別進行的(即使是在同一個組織同時進行這兩者的時候),就好像有兩個獨立的斗爭領(lǐng)域:流通和生產(chǎn);貨幣關(guān)系和勞動過程關(guān)系。
????????馬克思的價值理論為揭示剝削過程中貨幣關(guān)系和勞動過程關(guān)系之間的聯(lián)系提供了一個基礎(chǔ)。剝削過程實際上是一個統(tǒng)一體;在經(jīng)驗中被認為是兩個獨立且不同的關(guān)系的貨幣關(guān)系和勞動過程關(guān)系實際上只是這一統(tǒng)一體中特定方面的單方面反映。無論是貨幣關(guān)系還是勞動過程關(guān)系本身都不單獨構(gòu)成資本主義剝削;如果不伴隨著另一者的變化,任何一者都不會發(fā)生很大的變化(馬克思在這一點上的論述,見《工資、價格和利潤》,in Marx-Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 2;以及《政治經(jīng)濟學(xué)批判》,p.83-6)(《馬克思恩格斯全集》中文第二版第21卷第155-212頁;《馬克思恩格斯全集》第二版第31卷第478-81頁)。馬克思的價值理論能夠表明貨幣和勞動過程的這種統(tǒng)一性,因為它并沒有將生產(chǎn)和流通領(lǐng)域當(dāng)作兩個獨立的不同領(lǐng)域,也沒有將價值和價格當(dāng)作兩個不連續(xù)的不同變量。
????????第二點即資本主義被分析為一個矛盾的過程,而非一個靜態(tài)的“事實”的重要性則在于它能夠使我們把握住剝削是如何在其不斷變化的形式中,在流通政治和生產(chǎn)政治不斷促成這些改變的情況下維持其存在的;以及剝削又是如何具有這種舊形式不斷解體新形式又不斷形成的內(nèi)在趨勢的。理解這一矛盾過程的關(guān)鍵在于,盡管貨幣關(guān)系和勞動過程關(guān)系是同一統(tǒng)一體的兩個方面,在內(nèi)部相互依存,但它們在外部卻具有相對自主性,獨立于對方。這種相對自主性中埋下了危機可能性的種子。這具有很重要的政治意義,并非因為這樣的危機本身會導(dǎo)致資本主義的崩潰——顯然并非如此——而是因為它表明了政治行動的潛在空間;對生產(chǎn)和分配過程的自我有意識的集體調(diào)節(jié),而非通過“盲目”市場力量進行的調(diào)節(jié)。
????????但馬克思的價值理論并非僅限于以表明政治行動潛在空間的方式來分析資本主義社會中的勞動確定。它的第三個優(yōu)點在于它同時也是建立在分析中,不僅僅是政治行動的潛在空間,還包括采取政治行動的可能性?,F(xiàn)在,所有的社會主義者都認為,采取政治行動反對勞動確定的資本主義形式、反對資本主義剝削是理所當(dāng)然的。但奇怪的是,這種可能性在社會主義者分析剝削過程時卻往往沒有被納入剝削范疇中。相反,剝削被分析為一個封閉的體系,并引入反對它的政治行動——階級斗爭來從外部影響這一體系。隨著時間的推移,它會作為“歷史發(fā)動機”以更慢或更快的速度推動這一體系;或作為一個獨立變量決定工資水平,或決定工作日長度,或決定危機后資本重構(gòu)的速度或特定形式。無論使用哪種公式,都有一個相同的缺點:階級斗爭僅僅作為機械降神進入分析之中。這使我們無法將資本主義到社會主義的過渡視為一個歷史過程、一個集體行動自覺引發(fā)的質(zhì)變;而將其視為兩個固定的、預(yù)先給定的結(jié)構(gòu)之間的跳躍,或把社會主義形式當(dāng)作一種已與資本主義形式共存的某種社會形式的簡單延伸(對這一點的更詳盡討論,見Elson, 1979)。
????????愛德華?湯普森最近就這一點對阿爾都塞的馬克思主義進行了激烈的批判(Thompson, 1978),在我看來,他的批判同樣適用于大多數(shù)馬克思主義經(jīng)濟學(xué)的模型構(gòu)建;以及資本-邏輯學(xué)派那不斷展開的辯證法。它們?nèi)紝Y本主義剝削進行了分析,但都沒有使用那種包含了對有意識的反對這種剝削的集體行動的可能性的范疇。他們對什么是資本主義剝削以及如何對終結(jié)它的政治行動的分析存在著一定的割裂。如果“結(jié)構(gòu)”確實處在“統(tǒng)治地位”;如果自變量僅僅只是給定的,而因變量是由它們唯一決定的;如果資本確實是“統(tǒng)治主體”;那么我們就失去了政治行動的物質(zhì)基礎(chǔ)。
????????在我看來,以及在這里我的觀點并不同于湯普森,我并不認為馬克思的《資本論》中存在著同樣的割裂。它沒有為我們提供一個占據(jù)統(tǒng)治地位的結(jié)構(gòu),沒有提供一個政治經(jīng)濟模型,也沒有提供一個自我發(fā)展的、包括萬象的實體。相反,它將在資本主義生產(chǎn)方式盛行的社會中的勞動確定分析為一個形成本質(zhì)上未形成的事物的歷史過程;并認為資本主義所特有的就是勞動其中一個方面——抽象勞動的主導(dǎo),其對象化為價值。在此基礎(chǔ)上,才有可能理解資本為什么表現(xiàn)為一個統(tǒng)治主體,而個人僅僅只是資本主義生產(chǎn)關(guān)系的承擔(dān)者;但也有可能確定為什么如此僅僅只是真相的一半。因為馬克思的分析也意識到了將個人還原為價值形式承擔(dān)者的趨勢的局限性。它通過將私人和具體勞動范疇中勞動的主觀、有意識和特殊方面;以及社會勞動范疇中勞動的集體方面納入分析中來處理這一點。在價值形式中,勞動抽象方面的主導(dǎo)并不是從勞動的其他方面被抹殺的角度來分析的,而是從這些其他方面從屬于抽象方面的角度來分析的。這種從屬可以被理解為抽象方面對其他方面的中介,即將勞動的其他方面轉(zhuǎn)化為貨幣形式。但在分析中,勞動的主觀、有意識和集體方面被賦予了相對自主性。通過這種方式,《資本論》中的論述中確實包含了政治行動的物質(zhì)基礎(chǔ)。人類活動的主觀、有意識和集體方面得到了認識。政治問題則是將勞動的這些私人、具體和社會方面結(jié)合起來,而不需要價值形式的中介,從而創(chuàng)造出特殊的、有意識的集體活動來直接反抗剝削。馬克思的價值理論包含了這一可能性。
????????在我看來,如果社會主義者試圖利用馬克思價值理論所提供的工具來分析當(dāng)今資本主義國家中普遍存在的勞動確定的特定形式,那么這一可能性的實現(xiàn)將會有助于此。本文旨在為恢復(fù)這些工具的工作狀態(tài)做出貢獻。
????????后記
????????我要感謝布萊頓和曼徹斯特的許多同志,在過去的幾年里,我與他們一起討論了價值理論;特別感謝伊恩?斯蒂德曼,他閱讀并對本文的手稿進行了評論。當(dāng)然,文責(zé)自負。歡迎讀者們通過CSE Books發(fā)表評論。
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????????譯者注:
????????(22) 20世紀70年代前中期時,在面臨著高失業(yè)率、去工業(yè)化和裁員威脅時,英國軍工企業(yè)盧卡斯航空航天公司中不同崗位的工人們組織起來發(fā)起抗爭,并結(jié)合當(dāng)時左翼學(xué)者們的設(shè)想提出了一項大膽且具有開創(chuàng)性的計劃,旨在通過直接掌握企業(yè)乃至整個行業(yè)的經(jīng)營權(quán)力和生產(chǎn)過程、通過由工人主導(dǎo)的企業(yè)和行業(yè)改革來保住他們的工作。在遭到企業(yè)管理層的粗暴拒絕后,這一行動迅速得到了社會各界的支持,其他受到鼓舞的關(guān)鍵軍工企業(yè)也發(fā)起了類似的行動試圖將這一計劃在整個軍工行業(yè)中鋪開,而包括倫敦市政府、英國工商業(yè)聯(lián)合會在內(nèi)的組織向政府不斷施壓,迫使企業(yè)管理層重新回到談判桌前。盡管政府和企業(yè)管理層最終做出了一些讓步,并達成了一項減少裁員的協(xié)議,但該計劃并未得到實施,甚至沒有受到他們的認真考慮,就最終結(jié)果來看裁員問題也沒有得到緩解——這與盧卡斯航空航天公司引進新的自動化技術(shù)并轉(zhuǎn)向在其他國家投資有關(guān),同時也表明傳統(tǒng)的工會運動已不足以應(yīng)對當(dāng)代資本主義的一些新特征。雖然行動和計劃都最終失敗,但這次行動依然影響深遠。
????????社會主義經(jīng)濟學(xué)家聯(lián)合會成立于1970年。自那時起,發(fā)生了許多變化。CSE致力于發(fā)展馬克思主義傳統(tǒng)下的資本主義的唯物主義批判。CSE的成員現(xiàn)在涵蓋了政治和研究活動的廣泛領(lǐng)域,并引發(fā)了廣泛的辯論,因為CSE盡可能不受傳統(tǒng)學(xué)術(shù)界對智力勞動的劃分,如“經(jīng)濟學(xué)”、“政治性”、“社會學(xué)”或“歷史學(xué)”的限制。
????????相反,這些小組圍繞著CSE工作小組。目前,活躍在研究一線的小組包括意識形態(tài)小組、住房小組、資本與國家小組、國家經(jīng)濟政策小組、資本主義勞動過程小組、女性政治經(jīng)濟小組;歐洲一體化小組、健康與社會政策小組。勞動過程歷史學(xué)家小組以及其他小組正在組建中。小組分散在全球各地。有關(guān)成員資格的更多信息,請寫信給CSE, 55 Mount Pleasant, London WC1X0AE.
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????????CSE Books
????????CSE Books由社會主義經(jīng)濟學(xué)家聯(lián)合會的成員們創(chuàng)建,旨在促進作為一個整體的CSE所致力于的對資本主義的實踐批判,并促進CSE中進行的辯論和分析的更廣泛討論。我們不想把自己變成一個學(xué)術(shù)編輯委員會,對作者評頭論足,對讀者一無所知,而是想在政治上參與當(dāng)前的辯論和斗爭。通過與CSE的活動相協(xié)調(diào)、定期出版Socialist Review of Books以及就我們自己的出版物中提出的議題組織日間學(xué)校,我們希望縮小資產(chǎn)階級社會中圖書生產(chǎn)者與圖書消費者之間的隔閡。
????????有關(guān)CSE Books和CSE Bookclub的更多信息,請寫信給55 Mount Pleasant, London WC1X0AE.
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????????4. The political implications of Marx's value analysis
????????We began by rejecting the view that Marx's value analysis constitutes a proof of exploitation, but argued that such a rejection did not necessarily lead to a de-politicisation of that analysis. We must now briefly return to the question of politics; briefly, because any attempt to treat this question in depth would require at least another essay. In my view the political merit of Marx's theory of value, the reason why it is helpful for socialists, is that it gives us a tool for analysing how capitalist exploitation works, and changes and develops; for understanding capitalist exploitation in process. And as such, it gives us a way of exploring where there might be openings for a materialist political practice, a practice which in Colletti's words 'subverts and subordinates to itself the conditions from which it stems' (Colletti, 1976, p. 69).
????????In support of this view I will make just three short points: firstly, the theory of value enables us to analyse capitalist exploitation in a way that overcomes the fragmentation of the experience of that exploitation; secondly, it enables us to grasp capitalist exploitation as a contradictory, crisis-ridden process, subject to continual change; thirdly, it builds into our understanding of how the process of exploitation works, the possibility of action to end it.
????????The first point stems from the premise that those who experience capitalist exploitation do not need a theory to tell that something is wrong. The problem is that the experience of capitalist exploitation is fragmentary and disconnected, so that it is difficult to tell exactly what is wrong, and what can be done to change it. In particular, there is a problem of a bifurcation of money relations and labour process relations, so that exploitation appears to take two separate forms: 'unfair' money wages or prices, and/or arduous work with long hours and poor conditions. The politics that tend to arise spontaneously from this fragmented experience is in turn bifurcated: it is a politics of circulation and/or a politics of production. By a politics of circulation I mean a politics that concentrates on trying to change money relations in a way thought to be advantageous to the working class. Examples are struggles to raise money wages, control money prices; control and remove the malign influence of the operation of the financial system, direct flows of investment funds; make transfers of money income through a welfare state, etc. By a politics of production, I mean a politics that concentrates on trying to improve conditions of production; shorten the working day, organise worker resistance on the shop-floor; build up workers' co-operatives, produce an 'alternative plan' (cf. Lucas Aerospace Workers Plan), etc. Both these kinds of politics have been pursued by the labour movement in both Marx's day and ours. The point is not that these kinds of politics are in themselves wrong, but that they have been pursued in isolation from one another (even when pursued at the same time by the same organisation), as if there were two separate arenas of struggle, circulation and production; money relations and labour process relations.?
????????What Marx's theory of value does is provide a basis for showing the link between money relations and labour process relations in the process of exploitation. The process of exploitation is actually a unity; and the money relations and labour process relations which are experienced as two discretely distinct kinds of relation, are in fact onesided reflections of particular aspects of this unity. Neither money relations nor labour process relations in themselves constitute capitalist exploitation; and neither one can be changed very much without accompanying changes in the other. (For examples of Marx's argument on this point, see Wages, Price and Profit' in Marx-Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 2; and Critique of Political Economy, p. 83-6). Marx's theory of value is able to show this unity of money and labour process because it does not pose production and circulation as two separate, discretely distinct spheres, does not pose value and price as discretely distinct variables.
????????The importance of the second point, that capitalist exploitation is analysed as a contradictory process, not a static 'fact', is that it enables us to grasp both how exploitation survives, despite the many changes in its form, changes which the politics of circulation and the politics of production have helped to bring about; and also how it has an inbuilt tendency to disintegrate in the form in which it exists at any moment, and to be constituted in another form. Hie key to understanding this contradictory process is that although money relations and labour process relations are aspects of the same unity, internally dependent on other, they are nevertheless relatively autonomous from one another. In that relative autonomy he the seeds of potential crisis. This is important politically, not because such a crisis in itself constitutes the breakdown of capitalism —it clearly does not — but because it indicates a potential space for political action; for the self conscious collective regulation of the processes of production and distribution, rather than their regulation through 'blind' market forces.
????????But Marx's theory of value does not simply analyse the determination of labour in capitalist society in a way that indicates potential space for political action. Its third virtue is that it also builds into the analysis, not only potential space for political action, but the possibility of taking political action. Now the possibility of taking political action against the capitalist form of the determination of labour, against capitalist exploitation, is taken for granted by all socialists. But the strange thing is that this possibility has all too often not been built into the concepts with which socialists have analysed the process of exploitation. Instead exploitation has been analysed as a closed system, and political action against it —class struggle —has been introduced, to impinge upon this system, from the outside. It may impinge as 'the motor of history' pushing the system on over time, at a slower or more rapid pace; or as the independent variable determining the level of wages, or the length of the working day, or the particular form or tempo of the restructuring of capital after crisis. Whatever formula is used, the same drawback is there: class struggle only enters the analysis as a deus ex machina. This leaves us unable to think of the transition from capitalism to socialism as an historical process, a metamorphosis consciously brought about by collective action; rather than as a leap between two fixed, pre-given structures, or as a simple extension of socialist forms considered as already co-existing with capitalist ones (for a longer discussion of this point, see Elson, 1979).
????????Edward Thompson has recently presented an impassioned critique of Althusserian Marxism on this very point (Thompson, 1978), and it seems to me that his critique is equally applicable to the model-building of most Marxist economics; and to the relentlessly unfolding dialectic of the capital-logic school. All of them analyse capitalist exploitation without using concepts which contain within them the recognition of the possibility of conscious collective action against that exploitation. There is a bifurcation between their analysis of what capitalist exploitation is, and their analysis of the politics of ending it. If the 'structure' really is 'in dominance'; if the independent variables are simply 'given', and the dependent variables uniquely determined by them; of capital really is 'dominant subject'; then we are left without a material basis for political action.
????????In my view, and here I differ from Thompson, the same bifurcation does not occur in Marx's Capital. This offers us neither a structure in dominance, nor a model of political economy, nor a self-developing, all-enveloping entity. Rather it analyses, for societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, the determination of labour as an historical process of forming what is intrinsically unformed; arguing that what is specific to capitalism is the domination of one aspect of labour, abstract labour, objectified as value. On this basis it is possible to understand why capital can appear to be the dominant subject, and individuals simply bearers of capitalist relations of production; but it is also possible to establish why this is only half the truth. For Marx's analysis also recognises the limits to the tendency to reduce individuals to bearers of value-forms. It does this by incorporating into the analysis the subjective, conscious, particular aspects of labour in the concepts of private and concrete labour; and the collective aspect of labour in the concept of social labour. The domination of the abstract aspect of labour, in the forms of value, is analysed, not in terms of the obliteration of other aspects of labour, but in terms of the subsumption of these other aspects to the abstract aspect. That subsumption is understood in terms of the mediation of the other aspects by the abstract aspect, the translation of the other aspects of labour into money form. But the subjective, conscious and collective aspects of labour are accorded, in the analysis, a relative autonomy. In this way the argument of Capital does incorporate a material basis for political action. Subjective, conscious and collective aspects of human activity are accorded recognition. The political problem is to bring together these private, concrete and social aspects of labour without the mediation of the value forms, so as to create particular, conscious collective activity directed against exploitation. Marx's theory of value has, built into it, this possibility.
????????Its realisation, in my view, would be helped if socialists were to use the tools which Marx's theory of value provides to analyse the particular forms of determination of labour which prevail in capitalist countries today. This essay is offered as a contribution to the restoration to working condition of those tools.
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????????Notes
????????I should like to thank the many comrades in Brighton and Manchester with whom I have discussed value theory over the last few years; and in particular Ian Steedman for reading and commenting on the manuscript of this essay. The responsibility for its idiosyncracies remains mine alone. I would welcome comments from readers via CSE Books.