Wealth And Time

The Economic Manuscripts Of1857-1858(hereinafter, the Manuscripts) is the last important manuscripts of Marx. The Manuscripts didn’t attract people’s enough attention for one hundred years from1858to1953, actually it experienced the "one hundred years of solitude". In the sixty years of academic research on the Manuscripts, there has formed two basic approaches since1953:one is to interpret the Manuscripts around Capital, the prominent feature of this approach is regard the Manuscripts as a draft of Capital; The other is to interpret the Manuscripts according to the logic of itself, the prominent feature of this approach is regard the Manuscripts as a separate text, and think that it has more wide theory field than Capital. This thesis tries to interpret the Manuscripts autonomously.As people continuously research the Manuscripts in recent years, the unique value of the Manuscripts is increasingly being revealed. The Manuscripts was called "one of the most basic in all Marx’s works" and "the representative work of mature Marx", it "embodies the most abundant thoughts of Marx", reflects the essence of the mature Marx’s critique of political economy. The Manuscripts constitutes "the center in the process of Marx’s theory development" and "the center of the Marx’s thought" and "the apex of Marx’s revolutionary thought", this marked "completely mature" of historical materialism, and it is the most important document by which we can understand unknown Marx in the present era. In a sense, the Manuscripts Contains rich thoughts to rethink and understand Marx.This thesis argues that there is two closely related thought clues in the plenty of ideas of the Manuscripts:the first clue is the "wealth", according to this clue, the Manuscripts not only launched a critique to the wealth of the capitalist society, but also revealed the wealth rules of the future society. The second clue is the "time", according to this clue, the Manuscripts not only launched a critique to the time of the capitalist society, but also revealed the time rules of the future society.If the first thought clue (wealth clue) constitutes the "clear clue" of the Manuscripts, then the second thought clue (time clue) constitutes the "implicit clue" of the Manuscripts. If the clear clue is the critique to some phenomena of capitalism, then the implicit clue is the critique to the capitalism in essence.With the first clue, the Manuscripts through the critique to the commodity, currency and capital reveals the secret of commodities, alienation of currency and limits of capital, and strips the mystery of commodity fetishism, currency fetishism and capital fetishism. At the same time, what kind of wealth view should be established in the future society, such a fundamental problem has also been highlighted, and received solution to some extent.With the second clue, the Manuscripts further reveals the time structure of commodity, currency and capital, thus the logic of critique to wealth will rise to degree of time philosophy. Further, the Manuscripts also critically studies on the time structures of the technology and space in capitalist society, and this makes the Manuscripts can reveal the temporality of capitalism in history. At the same time, the attribute of free time in the future society is present, so "free time" becomes a coordinate of observing and studding the future society.The wealth problem and time problem revealed by the Manuscripts still have important contemporary significance. It is important for us to understand the problems of wealth creation and distribution, free time and people’s living conditions in contemporary China, and also there is important reference value even to reinterpret the great practice of Socialism with Chinese characteristics.