Uncovering The Mystery Of Capital Power

Political philosophy is a prominent subject of contemporary philosophy and a hot topic in the study of Marxist philosophy in China.According to Geoffrey Thomas,a famous British political philosophy expert,the mainstream political philosophy research topics include: power and public interest,justice and equality,freedom and democracy,state and law,rights and property rights and other major issues.Among all these topics,the problem of power is the upmost one,so it is the rational origin of all discussions about political philosophy.That is because the conflict among power,wealth and status is the essential reality of human being's political life.Or to quote Zhao Tingyang's inference: "The game between power and interest is the basic problem of political philosophy." Of course,Marx couldn't be characterized as a member of recent western mainstream political philosophy,he is the critic of that,the most important theoretical achievement of Marx's criticism of modern western political philosophy is his criticism of bourgeois property rights through his critical understanding of capital.From the perspective of political philosophy,it has become an important topic in the research field of Marx's political philosophy to see through the oppressive nature of capital,to ask why capital has power,and to explore the internal structure and operation mode of this power.From the historical point of view,the power of capital comes into the view of modern political philosophy accompanied by the development of modern capitalism and the rise of classical political economics.The classical political economics pioneered by Adam Smith shifted the focus of theory from the political sphere to the economic sphere,constructing the blueprint of the development of human civilization in the new era on the infinite pursuit of wealth.Theoretical consequences arising therefrom are that the distribution of power and interests in the economic field has become a new theme of modern political philosophy,property rights are core elements to the role of power,the power of capital replaces the traditional form of religious and political power,being the greatest political and social power in capitalist society with the meaning of "general light ".Marx captured the historical essence of the development of capitalist society.Through the critique of political economics,Marx went deeply into the mechanism of the capitalist economic structure to explore the operationalmechanisms of capital as political and social power.On this basis,he put forward a new political philosophy planning to eliminate capital power,transcend capitalist society and realize human liberation.Taking the power issue in political philosophy as basic point of view and materialist conception of history as theoretical premise,by exploring the theoretical content of Marx's criticism to the capital power,this paper tries to analyze the secret and complex operation mechanism of capital power,then to reveal the political problem in the Marx's critique of political economy,and explain the profound effect,which was given by Marx,on modern political philosophy.This paper is divided into three chapters.Chapter one aims at examining the concept of “power” and“capital power” in the context of modern political philosophy in the historical and logical way to provide a theoretical background for exploring the historical generation of capital power.The main theoretical background of the formation of “capital power” is that the born political economy replaced the modern political philosophy.As “the science of modern civil society”,political economics ends the tradition of political concept theory of classical political theory.Politics being replaced by economy is on the primary position of political philosophy.The property right replaces the traditional political power,which becomes the substantive social content of modern civil society.Starting from the investigation on the actual living conditions of modern people,Marx discovered that Hegel's philosophy of law could not solve the " confusion of material interests ".By criticizing Hegel's philosophy of law,Marx realized that "the anatomy of civil society should be sought in political economics ".The grand theory project of the political economy critique is thus started,providing the most appropriate and profound platform for reflecting on the political and historical limits of property rights theory.Marx had pointed out two fundamental doctrines of modern property right theory: First,the theory of property rights relied on the category of "individual" constructed by modern philosophy and political philosophy while "individual subject" was the starting point of property right theory,thus leading to the "individual principle" of property rights theory.Second,the "subject-based individual" had created a "rights-based " modern political society,private property rights were established as the primary basis for freedom,and the desire of "self-preservation" made the principle of wealth maximization be another doctrine of property rights.The so-called individual rights were mainly the right to "acquire property to defend theirown interests ".As the subject of wealth and right,the individual became the dominant paradigm of modern political philosophy.In the historical pattern of modern political development,the expansion of property to its own rights boundary transmuted to be its highest political form,that is,the power of capital.It was the most common and powerful dominant force in bourgeois society with theoretical basis of political economics as the political theory of civil society.Marx pointed his criticism to the principle of "free market" advocated by political economy.Guided by historical materialism,he revealed that capitalist private ownership was the real source of capital power rule and exposed the historical illusion,the labor illusion and the freedom illusion caused by the capital power.It provided the most profound theoretical platform and method for political philosophy to reflect on the form and essence of capital power.Based on the deep interpretation of Marx's Capital and his manuscript,chapter two discusses the occurrence mechanism and operation mechanism of capital power from labour,distribution,exchange,and consumption.By describing the actual process of economic operation,Marx revealed the realization path of capital power in social life at the height of political economy criticism and political philosophy criticism and restored the relationship between people hidden behind things.During production,through purchasing labour,the labour was transmitted from“ formal subordination” to “ actual subordination” for capital while the subjectivity of the laborer was dispelled.The power of capital was transformed into the discipline power to human life and life,shaping producers in the dual dimensions of time and space,to domesticate independent individuals to compliant individuals that was “ useful economically but harmless politically”.At the distribution level,capitalists bought labor with wages to form a covert non-equivalent exchange.The power of capital created an illusion of equality,which covered the political oppression of the working class arising from capital claiming surplus value in the name of property rights.Meanwhile,participating in surplus value distribution by extracting surplus value and by virtue of its own capital,capital power thus gained the material basis to maintain its own existence.At the exchange level,the root of capitalist economic relations---the unity of opposites between "concrete labor" and "abstract labor",formed the illusion of capital power.The use value of goods was concealed by the exchange value and the capital power was represented by monetary power,to form the dominance of people's daily life and social life by its own purchasing power.At the consumption level,consumption,by alienating itself,achieved a new rotation of capital topower and its own transformation in the late capitalist era.By controlling the needs and consumption of goods of modern people,ways of social value standards were reconstructed and a new set of capital power operation mechanism was formed,the free illusion arising from which represented as people became slaves to their needs and desires on the surface while it accepts the more complete rule of capital power in the deeper sense.Based on historical materialism,chapter three analyzes Marx's criticism of the value of capital power to clarify the new revolutionary theme of political philosophy that Marx planned to transcend capital rule and realize human liberation.This part mainly absorbs the core concepts of Marx's philosophy," commonality"," proletariat "," communism and the united body of the free people ",to build the basis of discussing the critique of capital power.It points out that Marx based his criticism of capital power on historical materialism and on the negativeness and transcendence of human practice,by exposing the most realistic human condition in capitalist society--the individual being governed by the power of capital,awakened the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat,overthrew the social and historical premise of power oppression,to achieve the philosophical goal of eliminating capital power and surpassing capitalist society.Marx's critical theory of capital power,with extremely powerful theoretical penetration,inspired the later philosophers' thoughts on the construction of on power problems and formed the "life political echo" of the capital power problem.As two well-known cases,this chapter discusses the major influence of Marx's critical work of capital power on Foucault's power theory and contemporary life politics theory: Foucault moved on just along Marx's capital power criticism thought and the question frame and further revealed the change of explicit form of capital power:factory discipline---discipline power---life power and then re-thought Marx's theory of historical materialism and surplus value theory;The contemporary biopolitical theory restarts the thought to the capital power in the new period by questioning the existence of life,digs the biopolitical elements of Marx's critical theory of capital power,aiming at building the “new commonality” and exploring the possible path to the liberation of people's freedom.