On Marx’s Labor Dialectics

The central idea of this paper is to deeply understand the basic principles of historical materialism by explaining Marx’s labor dialectics,and through the application of labor dialectics in the criticism of capitalism in order to test its rationality.The basic principles of historical materialism in the past,under the framework of productive forces,relations of production,economic base and super structure,have scientifically expounded the rule of development of human social form,but its deficiency is that it does not better highlight the rule of human development,and there is no reasonable explanation of the problem of all-round and free development of human beings.This paper attempts to make up for this deficiency by explaining labor dialectics.The main contents of labor dialectics include three parts,the first is to define the related concepts of labor dialectics;the second is to expound the triple development rule of labor dialectics with labor as its core;the third is to concrete development and application of three rule of labor dialectics in critical capitalism.Firstly,the theoretical definition of the related concept of labor dialectics.First,labor is the essential activity of human beings,it is necessary to form object relations in the process of changing the world through labor,the essence of human beings and its historical development can only be understood in the relation of object.Second,one of the innovations of this paper is the structural analysis of concept of labor,and the theory of “the triple structure of labor” is put forward.According to Marx’s abstract analytical method and Hegel’s entity that is subject’s point of view,the labor itself consists of the following triple structure: First,from human labor,we can abstract elements of labor,labor objects,labor materials and so on,here,labor as a substantial subject,must establish a structural relationship with other elements,which is the first structure.Second,people,labor and other relevant elements can be abstracted from human labor,here,people as substantive subject elements,must establish structural relations with labor elements and other elements,this is the second structure.Third,the reality of human labor is also manifested as social labor,the main body of social labor is human society,so human society as a substantive subject must establish a structural relationship with social labor and other relevant elements,this is the third structure.The above-mentioned “triple structural relations” of labor are not only different from each other,but also unified with each other.The significance of distinguishing different structures of labor is that it enables us to understand more deeply the rule of social historical development.Secondly,another innovation of this paper is that,from the “triple structural relationship” of labor,the triple expression of development rule of labor dialectics is further drawn: the rule of development of labor itself,the rule of human development,the rule of social historical development.The triple expression of development rule of labor dialectics is also a triple view of the development of human history,it can fully understand the rule of the development of human history,especially the rule of labor development and the rule of human development.Marx’s labor dialectics was formed on the basis of criticizing and inheriting western traditional philosophy,especially on the basis of criticizing and inheriting the “rational core” of Hegel’s idealism dialectics and Feuerbach’s materialism “basic core”.Not only that,in the middle and later period of his thought,he used the structural analysis method to expound social historical rule,made dialectic thought develop innovatively.Of course,the formation of Marx’s labor dialectics is not a success in a day,but gradually formed in his long-term theoretical exploration work.The characteristics of his theoretical exploration can be summarized as “discovering new world in criticizing old world”,so Marx’s labor dialectics was gradually formed and developed in the concrete application of critical capitalist society.Thirdly,the concrete development and application of Marx’s labor dialectics in critical capitalism.Through the analysis,his criticism of capitalism is carried out from the triple rule of labor dialectics.First,from the view of development rule of labor itself,the history of labor development is represented by rule of development from special labor to general labor.Special labor refers to labor which is relatively backward in labor ability and only plays a special role in the formation of wealth;general labor refers to the complete form of human labor,that is an abstract expression of the state of full development of human labor.So Marx used ordinary human labor to understand the value of goods,defined the value as condensation of ordinary human labor in things.Which goes beyond the traditional political economy,so as to deeply expose the fetishism secret of capitalist commodity production and exploitation secret.Second,from the point of view of the rule of human development,the historical performance of human beings is from the regional individual or dependence of human beings on human beings to the individual’s development rule of free and all-round development,production,communication and consumption are the ways of human development.Therefore,the capitalist commodity production,that is,the commercialization of labor force,the alienation of labor and so on,are the essence of man’s alienation.Third,from the perspective of rule of social historical development,human social form is represented by the development rule from the primitive form of common ownership to the form of individual private ownership and then to the form of common ownership of all members of the society,this rule of development is determined by the mode of social organization of labor,that is,the mode of production,the primitive communal ownership is determined by the mode of labor of original group,the private ownership is determined by the mode of individual labor,social joint ownership is determined by socialized mass production.If we examine the capitalist society according to this rule,the capitalist society will inevitably fall into the contradiction between socialized mass production and capitalist ownership,this contradiction also indicates the inevitable trend of historical development.The significance of Marx’s labor dialectics is that it can not only make up for the deficiency of principle of historical materialism,but also contribute to the deep understanding of Marxist theory of political economics and scientific socialism.From the perspective of labor dialectics,political economics should be the theoretical weapon of human liberation,while scientific socialist theory can only establish the historical subject status of the working people in order to find its own way and strength to realize it.