On Marx's Cooperation Thoughts

Karl Marx pointed out, "Social relationship means many people'scooperation.... Certain production mode or industrial period is always relatedto certain mode of common activities or social period, and this mode ofcommon activities itself is 'productive force'." From the statement above oncooperation, this paper conveys a new perspective of Marx's cooperationthoughts. It expands the concept of cooperation in two dimensions: Firstly, itexpands the scope of cooperation from production relations in the traditionalinterpretation of Marx's cooperation thoughts to production relations as wellas productive force; Secondly, it expands the span of cooperation from acertain historic period to the whole life of human history.Based on Marx's dialectical materialism and historical materialism, thispaper studies Marx's cooperation thoughts and establishes the followingideas: (1) Cooperation is determined by material production mode instead ofhuman subjective minds. So study on cooperation should not start fromhuman subjective minds. The production mode of the time period in whichpeople live, together with the relation between cooperation and developmentof human beings, should be taken into consideration. (2) Productionrelations are the foundation of cooperative relations. But cooperation is notonly produced in production relations, but also in productive force. So studyon cooperation should go into the dialectic relationship between the twoaspects instead of only one. (3) Cooperation should not be studied merelyfrom the aspect of individualism. It should be done by both holistic andindividual methods, socially and individually, taking both common andindividual interests into account. (4) Cooperation can not be abstracted intoa game model without history. Cooperation is not the offspring of a certainhistoric period. So Cooperation should be studied logically and historicallyin the whole process of human history.Cooperative production mode shows harmony in the economic field. Cooperative production mode and economic harmony lay a solid economicfoundation for a harmonious society. Therefore, study on Marx's cooperationthoughts helps to build up a socialist harmonious society.