Niu Ziniu: From “Material Production” to “Value Production” — The Evolutionary Logic of Marxist Philosophy from the Perspective of Production Theory
June 2024
Author Dr. of Philosophy & Lecturer at the School of Philosophy, Nankai University
The changes in Marx’s production theory reflect the evolutionary logic of Marx’s philosophy from historical materialism to the critique of political economy. In his youth, Marx realized the philosophical revolution of new materialism by criticizing idealist philosophy and old materialist philosophy, which was mainly manifested in the theoretical logic of “material production”. After that, in order to analyze the particularity of capitalist society and to meet the practical requirements of the new revolutionary situation, Marx realized the concretization of historical materialism in the critique of political economy. Through the premise criticism process of “from abstract to concrete”, Marx revealed the special laws of capitalist society and highlighted the dominant logic of “value production”. The evolutionary process from “material production” to “value production” is also the deepening process of Marx’s philosophy from general to specific. The two together constitute the organic whole of historical materialism.
In the study of Marxist theory, the relationship between historical materialism and the critique of political economy has always been a key topic of academic concern. This article attempts to rethink this important theoretical issue starting from the changes in Marx’s production theory. In my opinion, the historical materialism of Marx in his youth and the critique of political economy in his later years are two interrelated organic links in the development of Marx’s thought.
The former focuses on the general discussion of “material production” activities, while the latter focuses on the particular description of “value production” activities. Among them, the logic of “material production” reveals the common laws of historical development and is a concentrated embodiment of Marx’s new philosophical revolution. After that, in order to conduct a particular analysis of capitalist society, Marx realized the further concretization of historical materialism in the critique of political economy, highlighting the dominant logic of “value production”.
The above two links together constitute the organic whole of the philosophy of historical materialism.
1. Marx’s New Philosophical Revolution and the Formation of “Material Production” logic
The new materialist philosophical revolution in Marx’s early years was mainly manifested in the construction of the logic of “material production”, which was completed in the process of criticizing idealism and old materialist philosophy.
The main themes of Marx’s philosophical criticism in his youth can be summarized as “abstract speculative criticism” and “existence criticism”. The former mainly criticized idealist philosophy and led to a perceptual and practical philosophy; the latter targeted both idealism and old materialist philosophy and led to a generative and active philosophy. The synthesis of these two critical themes requires the proposal of a new philosophy that is both generative and realistic: this philosophy does not understand things in their existing nature, but understands things in the process of their generation and extinction; at the same time, this generative process is not a mysterious history driven by the inner rationality of “spirit”, but a history constituted by people’s real life.
The next question is, after transcending idealist philosophy and old materialist philosophy through “abstract speculative criticism” and “existence criticism”, how should we define the “reality” itself that becomes visible through this transcendence? In “Theses on Feuerbach” and “The German Ideology”, Marx gave an answer to this question. According to the general provisions of “Theses on Feuerbach”, to understand the world in its changeability is to understand people from the perspective of active and sensual practical activities; and people as the subject of this activity are not the people imagined by idealist philosophy, but “the sum of all social relations”. From this, it can be logically deduced that to define people as the subject of practice, it is necessary to define “the sum of all social relations”, that is, a very specific empirical reality. Later, in “The German Ideology”, Marx took this “real individual” as the starting point of theory and as a “premise without premise”.
The question that arises is, how can we define a specific empirical reality at the starting point of the theory? A “concrete” is bound to contain a very rich set of specific provisions, which cannot be all put forward at the starting point of the theory. Among these provisions, which must be put forward, which can be omitted, which are original, which are derived, what is the logical order and level between them, etc., are all issues that must be carefully considered. In this regard, the strategy adopted by Marx in “The German Ideology” is: in this specific empirical reality, select a most prioritized provision, that is, “the first premise of all human existence” and “the first historical activity”, set it as the essential provision of real historical activities, and deduce historical development from it. This essential provision is: “In order to be able to ‘create history’, people must be able to live. But in order to live, they first need food, clothing, shelter and other things. Therefore, the first historical activity is to produce materials to meet these needs, that is, to produce material life itself.” In short, Marx set the essential provision of real historical activities as material production for the purpose of meeting needs; the reason for taking this logical step is to solve the problem that is inevitably brought about by defining the starting point of thought as the specific empirical reality of “real people”.
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