The Historical Thinking Mode Of The Critique Of Political Economy

Marx used the critique of political economy named his systematic studies of economics.The object of its criticism includes the basic positions and viewpoints of the previous political economy theory,as well as the thinking mode in economic studies,which is the premise of the former,and constitutes the biggest feature and advantage of Marx’s economic studies.We are able to re-interpret Marx’s critique of political economy,only by fully grasping and consciously following the his thinking mode of economic studies.Because only in this way,can we truly understand the philosophical change completed by Marx,and use this "new materialism" which aimed to "change the world",as its mission to grasp the process and results of its economic research,so as to understand Marx’s radical change in political economy.Marx’s critique of political economy basically follows a kind of historical thinking mode.This mode of thinking is formed on the basis of criticizing the mode of thinking from the old political economists and fully absorbing dialectics used by Hegel.Marx discussed economic issues from the existence status of humanbeing,that is,the inherent social and historical nature of practice itself,which is different from the old political economist who understood historical thinking as the succession of time.This mode avoids the insufficiency of previous economic studies that only grasps the research object from the perspective of "perceptual existence" rather than "perceptual activity",which result in the separation of the research process and conclusions from "human existence".As a concrete representation of practice,economic activities can only be realistic when they are implemented in specific production relations.The critique of political economy aims to reveal the historical evolution and self-sublation mechanism of relations of production,especially capitalist production and exchange relations.Marx analyzed the mechanism of capitalism’s development and demised with the method of"retrospective thinking",and the rectification and reform of production relations caused by the maturity of specific historical conditions based on historical materialism.The overall law and view of human society development,which constituted the basis for the corresponding economic phenomenon.It is taking commodities as the starting point of economic studies that is a big difference between Marx and the previous political economists,which is a requirement for the critique of political economy under the norms of historical thinking.From the perspective of phenomenon,only by revealing the social relations contained in commodities through their representations as "things",can we recognize the historical premise of commodities becoming an elemental form of social wealth,and then grasp the capitalist relations of production itself.In essence,commodities can be used for exchanging for they contain undifferentiated human labor in the process of commodity production.The inherent contradiction between the two factors of commodities and the prominent status of value relative to use value,makes currency standing out of general commodities and becoming the expression of value reality itself.As a commodity,currency confirms itself in a way of value multiplication and then completes the transformation into capital with its "quantitative determinateness".This is the inherent requirement of capitalist relations of productions.Commodity fetishism is the historical regulation of commodities by capitalism rather than the natural properties of commodities themselves,whose reason is to separate the external expression of commodities from the production relations in which they exist.In this way,the old political economists demonstrated the eternity of capitalist production relations,which expose the a-historical features of their modes of thinking.Marx’s analysis of special commodities,such as currency and labor force,revealed the historical characteristics of capitalist production relations and fully reflected the historical thinking of his critique of political economy.Firstly,the goal of currency circulation is to continuously realize value appreciation,which marks the transformation of currency from a circulation intermediary to the aim in itself.This is the new use value that the capitalist mode of production endows currency with,and it is impossible to recognized by analyzing currency with the simple circulation of commodities.Secondly,the participation of laborers in production activities as a labor force commodity is not only an inherent requirement of the mode of production in capital society,but also a prerequisite for the transformation of currency into capital.In the production process,the means of production only transfer their own value,while the transfer of the use value of the labor force commodity itself is the process of creating value,and the value created is far greater than the value of reproduction itself.This constitutes the real source of value appreciation.Thirdly,the continuous creation of surplus value by labor force commodities is an inherent requirement of the principle of capital accumulation.The huge "industrial reserve army" keeps labor commodities in a buyer’s market for a long time.In order to avoid being fired and falling into extreme poverty,hired workers as "active labor force" must create increasingly huge surplus value as quickly as possible.At the same time,capitalists are bound to further strengthen the exploitation of workers to avoid becoming proletarians.It is obviously impossible to grasp the basic characteristics of currency and labor force commodities,without the historical analysis of capitalist production and exchange relations.Marx’s critique of political economy aims at achieving the free development of humanbeings,and the realization of this goal depends on the maturity of historical conditions.It is a historical inevitability that capitalism become the dominant production relations.This inevitability makes all economic elements and categories branded with capitalism.The general production of commodities,the transformation of currency into capital,and the transformation of labor force into commodities are not natural properties of commodities,currency,and labor force themselves,but the inherent requirements of capitalist production relations.This means that the economic"reform" guided by such non-historical thinking cannot truly achieve human liberation,whether we are only satisfied with the adjustment of specific economic measures and do not fundamentally transcend capitalist production relations or their historical preconditions.On the other hand,the realm of freedom is not a state of social existence outside the process of human history,but the completion of history itself by actively sublating the realm of necessity,including capitalism.The fully development of capitalism is a historical premise for absorbing all its positive factors,thus,any a-historical attempt to artificially declare or abolish capitalism and its specific manifestations will ultimately be reduced to a kind of utopia.