A Study On The Thought Of Justice In Capital

The issue of “Capital and justice” is an important topic in the study of Marxist political philosophy at present time.The theoretical and realistic dimensions of that topic require us to explore its academic history background,ideological source,basic content and theoretical significance from a theoretical perspective,and to clarify its realistic direction and significance from a practical perspective.Based on these,our research on the thought of justice in Capital is mainly carried out from the following aspects:(1)have a relatively complete and profound study of the complicated discussion on “Capital and justice” in the academic circle;(2)have a clear idea of the relationship between Marx's thought of justice and the justice thought of previous political philosophers,and the relationship between the thought of justice in Capital and the thought of justice in Marx's other works;(3)seize the narrative structure of the thought of justice in Capital from the macro perspective,and understand the theoretical theme,theoretical characteristics and theoretical purport of the thought of justice in Capital from the micro perspective;(4)clarify the realistic target and realistic significance of the thought of justice in Capital from practical point of view,and use the thought of justice in Capital for reference to analyze the problem of fairness and justice in contemporary society.Since the beginning of the 20 th century,there have been three direct or indirect academic debates on “Capital and justice”,respectively,the debate of “the school of science and the school of ethics”,the debate of “Trucker-Wood Thesis”,and the debate of “the paradox of justice in Capital”.Actually,these academic debates are,in essence,inexorable outcome of the relationship between thinking and existence in the development history of Marxist philosophy.On the one hand,the division between thinking and existence is manifested as the division between the Marxist school of ethics and the Marxist school of science.From the early 1900 s to the 1930 s and 1940 s,there was a prolonged debate among Marxist researchers such as Bernstein,Kautsky,Plekhanov,Lukács,Lenin and Trotsky,argued on whether Marxism is scientific or ethical.Although in this debate,most researchers only limit the concept of justice as a ideological conception of morality in the field of superstructure,the argument itself shows that Marx's thoughts and texts are not only scientific but also can be regarded as normative.This provides a possibility space for the study of “Marx and justice”.On the other hand,the difference between thinking and being is manifested as the difference between the contending parties about the issue of “Marx and justice”.Since the late 1960 s,the researchers gathered in the negative side of the “Tucker-Wood Thesis” and the affirmative side of the “Husami-Nelson View”,and launched a fierce debate on the issue of “Marx and Justice”.These arguments and studies confirm the double discussion of Marx's category of justice in the field of morality and legal rights.Later,Gary Young,Geras and Lukes began to study Marx's contradictory statement on the issue of justice and tried to provide a solution to eliminate this contradiction.The paradox in the way of scholars' debate and the “paradox” in Marx's thought of justice revealed by scholars promote the formation of a theoretical consensus,that is,there is a “paradox of justice” in Capital.From the point of view of“unification of thinking and existence”,this “paradox of justice” is a theoretical fantasy caused by the different interpretations of scholars,and cracking this paradox is the direct motivation for our study on the thought of justice in Capital.From the view of the development of Plato,Aristotle,Hume,Hegel and Marx's thought of justice and its mutual relations,Marx sublated the thought of justice of previous political philosophers and reformed the research paradigm of political philosophy.To be specific,the study of the theory of justice is mainly presented in three ways in history: the first is the path of the ancient Greek political philosophy with interpreting justice as “morality”,and the second is the path of the modern political philosophy with expounding justice as “law”,besides,the third is the path of German classical political philosophy with explaining justice as “the unity of morality and law”.As the integrator of traditional political philosophy,Hegel explained the ethical justice as “the unity of morality and law” in the process of criticizing transcendentalism and moving to the field of reality,and limited it in speculative logic.As for Marx,he followed Hegel's realistic line,and broke his idealist speculative logic.At the same time,he based on the realistic social relations and realistic historical background to consider and construct his view of justice.In general,when Marx was still a student,his thought of justice were full of ideal sentiments about human dignity and freedom.During the period of Rhein-Zeitung,Marx's thought of justice had the meaning of legal philosophy and metaphysics,from which Marx expressed his humanitarian concern.During the period of Deutsch Franzosische Jahrbücher,through the critique of Hegel's philosophy of law and religion,and the distinction between political liberation and human liberation,Marx expressed the demands of justice in his political vision.Since then,Marx's thought of justice had officially faded the abstract color of legal philosophy and religion,and then began to refer to the real political and economic realm itself,which laid the foundation for Marx to achieve the political philosophy revolution.In the period of the establishment of historical materialism,Marx not only criticized the justice of the civil society based on freedom and equality,but also began to construct justice of the human society based on the historical materialism and the communist theory.This concept of justice,which is the unity of morality and law,presents an overall nature.Marx's overall view of justice expressed in the period of the establishment of historical materialism was fully revealed in Capital,so his political philosophy revolution based on the issue of justice was finally completed in the field of political economy.In this regard,we first need to explain the logical structure of justice in Capital,and thus grasp the internal mechanism of Marx's overall view of justice from a macro point of view.In this book,Marx not only introduced the dialectical methods of “rising from abstraction to concreteness” and retrospective thinking—thinking from the perspective of the completion form of the development of things,but also expounded on research objects based on three major interaction forms and the respective relationships of ownership in the development course of the human society.These ideas fully demonstrate the logical structure of the overall view of justice,which consists of the logic of two dialectical negations.According to the logic of the first negation,Marx criticized the justice in the abstract field,and confirmed the justice of the civil society.According to the logic of the second negation,Marx sublated various forms of justice in the civil society,and pointed out the justice of the human society.The first logic is clearly stated by Marx,which is presented as the factual description of the issue of justice in Capital;the second logic,which needs to be carefully sorted out,is presented as the normative expression of the issue of justice in Capital.Besides,the theoretical theme of justice thought behind Capital should be analyzed microscopically.Marx analyzed the theory of surplus value,law of ownership transformation,and the theory of capital exploitation in great detail.As for the theory of surplus value,he pointed out that surplus value is an economic fact resulted from workers' unpaid labor,and that the theory of surplus value lays the foundation to address issues of ownership and capital exploitation.As for law of ownership transformation,by examining the issue of labor ownership in the process of commodity exchange,commodity production and capital accumulation,Marx observed the legal justice of labor ownership,which is superficially possessed by workers but actually deprived of.As for the issue of exploitation,Marx revealed the objective essence of capital exploitation from the perspective of scientific theories,condemned the cruelty of capital exploitation from the perspective of ethics,and revealed the compulsory relationship in capital exploitation from the perspective of institutional structure so as to comprehensively demonstrate the factual injustice,ethical injustice and institutional injustice of capital exploitation.Objectively speaking,what Marx explained in Capital is a view of justice which tries to unify the legal right request with the moral standard,the economic law with the humanities concern.Proceeding from the ideal of human dignity,the overall view of justice,after undergoing comprehensive dialectical judgment via Marx's philosophical critique,political critique and economic critique,becomes an overall category integrate fact and value,description and normalization.In general,Marx's overall view of justice has three theoretical characteristics:(1)In terms of its material motivation and realistic characteristics,Marx analyzes the category of justice based on the historical and material production world rather than the abstract and eternal world,and believes that economic facts,including commodity,currency and capital,are realistic factors of the category of justice.(2)In terms of its revolutionary aspirations and critical traits,Marx reveals the unjust control relationship among people concealed by the three kinds of fetishism,and expresses the just necessity of profoundly criticizing and reforming the capitalist institutional structure.(3)In terms of its overall logic and dialectical quality,Marx has negatively and positively understood the category of justice in a particular historical period from the perspective of interpreting the world and changing the world,and interpreting the factual and normative aspects of the content of justice in Capital.Additionally,Marx's overall view of justice expresses three theoretical purport:(1)In terms of economic justice based on the question of production,Marx shifted the category of justice from the exchange and distribution field to the production field,thus he pointed out the justice requirements based on the problem of production;(2)In terms of political justice based on institutional issues,Marx shifted the category of justice from the right field to the institutional field,thus he proposed the justice requirement for rebuilding individual ownership;(3)In the case of social justice based on the question of human dignity,Marx shifted the category of justice from the abstract ideal field to the historical fact field,thus he clarifyed the justice requirements for satisfying human needs and realizing human freedom.Based on all the above stated,Marx's category of justice has not only shifted from caring about things to caring about humans,but also from formal expression to substantive requirements.It is worth mentioning that the study on the thought of justice in Capital is of great theoretical and practical significance.In terms of theoretical significance,this study laid the legal foundation for the construction of Marx's political philosophy,provided theoretical support for clarifying Marx's political philosophy revolution,and contributed direct arguments for solving the “paradox of justice ” in Capital.In terms of practical significance,the overall view of justice revealed in the study on the thought of justice in Capital does not only help us to deeply understand and grasp the current issue of fairness and justice,but also helps us thoroughly analyze various policy plans on the problem of fairness and justice in China.It can be said that the study on the thought of justice in Capital is of great contemporary significance.