An Analysis Of Marcuse's Critical Thought Of Political Economy

At the end of the 1970s,two vigorous emancipation movements were launched on the land of China.One was the emancipation of the ideological realm,which was to break away from the closed and rigid ideological shackles at that time and re-establish the correct Marxist ideological line.The other has been reform and opening up of the economic field,that is,from the original planned economic system to the construction of a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.The author of this paper believes that the two reforms and movements led by Deng Xiaoping have had far-reaching significance and impact.First of all,inspired by Machiavelli's sense of sorrow about "how people should actually live",reform and opening up brought about a major historical turn in the ontology of social existence,opened the curtain on China's modern development,therefore entered a new stage of historical development.Secondly,the emancipation of the mind not only provided a relatively relaxed and free academic atmosphere and environment for the development of Marxist theoretical research,thereby escorting the healthy and orderly development of China's economic reform and modernization;but also more importantly,it formed a special tension with this economic reform,pointing out the urgency of the issue of the construction of human culture,human thought and human value.In fact,it actually raises an important question about how to place the critique of cultural philosophy in the frame of the critique of political economy.This is in the same vein as the call by Tang Junyi,a famous Chinese thinker in the 1970s,which was to nurture political economy through the reconstruction of humanistic thinking.Therefore,in the context of the growth and development of Chinese modernity caused by this historical turning point,the study and analysis of the critical thoughts of political and economy on Marcuse,one of the representative figures of Western Marxism,has manifested the important value and significance of its existence in the following dual dimensions: first,to re-examine and evaluate Marcuse's spiritual wealth from both aspects,one is the characteristics and historical materials that have been shown since the reflection on the development of the late capitalist society,the other one is the uninterrupted historical progress of the criticism of Marx's political economy in the entire world's historical development;second,not only relies on the single perspective of cultural philosophy critique,but standing at the height of the critical logic of the critique of political economy to assess Marcuse's social critical theory and draw lessons from its international experience and lessons of "the loss of the humanistic spirit".This will provide better theoretical resources and research questions for the development of modernity in China,so as to realize the true "humanistic political economy".Focusing on "the Critique of Political Economy",an axis principle of Marx's ideological heritage,this paper aims to systematically analyze Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy,mainly through the following six sections.The introduction reveals the presuppositions of Marcuse's social critical theory.The results of Marcuse's research in Western Marxist studies in domestic academic circles are full of success,but they are mainly attributed to a cultural critique developed by Lukács and others,a repressive critique of the dominating principles of late capitalist society,and a critique of technical rationality that reflects on the productive destruction of technological civilization.The author of this paper believes that,despite their respective interpretation characteristics,these critiques do not comprehensively and profoundly grasp the core meaning of Marcuse's social critical theory,and more importantly,they do not reveal the correlation of the inner essence between Marcuse's social critical theory and Marx's theoretical axis.And this correlation is the critical logic of the critique of political economy.This article holds that,on the one hand,Marcuse's social critical theory continues the critical logic of Marx's critique of political economy in the following three aspects.Firstly,it follows the character of knowledge as action of Marx's critique of political economy: “the weapon of critique” and “the critique of weapons”.Secondly,it follows the critical logic of Marx's critique of political economy: "civil society-the state".Thirdly,as a general critique of all interfaces of society,it deeply reflects the critical function of socially complex systems in Marx's critique of political economy.On the other hand,under the premise of taking Marx's critique of political economy as the central axis,his high sensitivity to major trends in social history has led Marcuse's social critical theory to develop distinct characteristics from the former,including different themes and discourses of philosophical inquiry caused by the change of the times,different interpretations of the path of critical logic,different understanding of the problem of alienation,different interpretations of class analysis,and different critical tools used for analysis.The final conclusion of the introduction is that the essence of Marcuse's social critical theory is the current continuation of the theme of Marx's critique of political economy and the different transformation of the problem domain.The first chapter sorts out the thought motivation of Marcuse's critique of political economy.During his life,Marcuse experienced many major social events in the 20th century.The development of Marcuse's theoretical thoughts is inextricably linked to this.First of all,the anxiety over the First World War and the Russian and German revolutions during this period prompted Marcuse to become interested in the research of Marxist,in an attempt to look for a theoretical explanation for the proletarian revolution: why the revolution had failed to obtain the true victory when the revolutionary time was ripe and conditions were available? During this period,Marcuse's three important papers,“Contributions to a Phenomenology of Historical Materialism","On Concrete Philosophy",and "New Sources on the Foundation of Historical Materialism",showed his initial attempts to use Marx's critique of political economy as the base theory,and integrated various contemporary theoretical trends to explain the conditions of contemporary human survival.Second,the special historical reality of World War II allowed Marcuse to make an in-depth analysis of the origin of fascism.He believes that totalitarianism is the product of adapting to monopoly capitalist productivity and production methods,and thus provides protection against the internal crisis of capitalism and various resistances and revolutions against it.The critique of totalitarianism calls for a social critique theory that is different from traditional theories.It aims at historical materialism and dialectical Marx's critique of political economy,and emphasizes the thorough critique,negation and transcendence of the existing order.Finally,the post-war capitalist society entered the "post-industrial society" with the development of the new technological revolution.The drastic changes in production methods,lifestyles,exchange methods,and aesthetic methods brought new forms of opposition between capital and spirit,from the violent conflict to the suppression of psychological energy,leading Marcuse to the study of Freud's psychoanalytic theory,trying to explore the new features of the ontology of social existence at this stage through the fusion of Freud and Marx's theory.The second chapter explains the first level of Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy,that is,the abstraction of the essence of the economic interface.Aiming at the new historical and secular foundation of post-industrial society,Marcuse first took the new economic reality as the starting point to deeply analyze the new tendencies and trends of the complicated economic phenomena,and abstracted three fundamental characteristics of the economic ontology: 1.Consumer society.Since the second half of the 20th century,one of the drastic changes that have taken place in Western society is the transformation of the dialectical unified relationship between production and consumption in the Marx era into the traction and driving of production by consumption.Consumption has become a dominant way of social existence,and its psychological logical presupposition has also changed from "asceticism in the inner world" to libido's release function.The secret of its essential consumption alienation lies in the substitute for real needs with "false needs".2.Highly monopoly capital and its technological trend.Consumption has become the main concept of the economic interface,and the deeper reason comes from the essence of highly monopolized and highly technological capital.Since the second half of the 20th century,state monopoly capitalism has entered a highly developed stage.As a result of this transition,the operating mode of monopoly capital has changed accordingly.On the one hand,it has transformed from an overseas colony during the imperialist era to a multinational company.On the other hand,the technological trend of capital has shown itself as high-end technological capital,which has formed a set of technical logic driven by capital logic and established a highly rational and expedient living system.3.A new model of surplus value.According to Marcuse,under such high monopoly and highly technical capital logic,the surplus value in the Marx sense has been transformed into "surplus consciousness".It embodies the problem of the expansion of capital exploitation caused by the transformation of the capitalist mode of production.It shows that the exploitation of late capitalism not only exists in the economic field,but also extends to all other fields.This shows profoundly the new obstacles and difficulties human liberation are facing.The third chapter explores the second level of Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy: new changes in political form.Marcuse's analysis of the new trend of the post-industrial social economic interface not only reflects the essential characteristics of its economic field,but also contains a logical relationship that evolved from economic interests to political interests,that is,the revelation of the new changes in political forms.The first new form of politics is highly concentrated interests and highly monopolized power.The political power of capital logic relies on consumer ideology for political indoctrination and social subconscious manipulation;through the conspiracy of technical rationality,capital logic and political rationality,a new type of "totalitarianism" is constructed,making its power appear more subtle and indirect and more obscure?In the face of this new "net of meaning",the production and reproduction movement of surplus consciousness shows the contradictory nature of contradiction: on the one hand,it provides the power for the developed industrial civilization to maintain its own mechanism of exploitation and control.On the other hand,this momentum has also catalyzed the budding of a new "revolutionary subject".The second new form of politics is the new connotation of the concept of revolution.In the context of the integration of socio-political opposites of late capitalist society,the meaning of Marx's revolutionary concept has changed from poverty and scarcity to a violent revolution into a crisis caused by a wealthy society and excess system,thus ending the taboo of Marxism on utopia.The revolution has become how to build a non-repressive society with a completely different quality from the existing one under the premise of reconstructing technology.The third new political form is the new "revolutionary subject." The materialization of the proletariat in late capitalism is intensifying,and the traditional revolutionary subject is fading away.Therefore,only a complete "great rejection" of the existing order can provide space for the growth of the new "revolutionary subject".According to Marcuse,the new "revolutionary subjects" are those marginal groups and minorities who are struggling to survive in the trend of capitalist integration.Their existence means that a new form of human autonomy is still possible.The fourth chapter reveals the last level of Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy: material abundance and spiritual deficiencies,and the following three aspects are explained.First,"one-dimensional people" and one-dimensional society.Marcuse believes that contemporary affluent society is also a society with a high degree of contradiction,and the enjoyment and satisfaction brought by material abundance also imply all kinds of pain and lack.This is because people are entrapped into a single-dimensional interface completely ruled by material desires,and the need for spiritual dimension is suppressed and deprived.It is also this major reality encounter that has aroused Marcuse's deep anxiety and concern for the human condition and destiny,and constituted the object of the philosophy critical dimension of his critique of political economy.Second,"eros and civilization".One-dimensional society and "one-dimensional people" show that the true freedom and liberation of mankind lies first in the sublimation and release of psychological energy suppressed by the late capitalist mode of production,that is,the dialectical unity of eros and civilization in the new era.The actual revolutionary issue no longer manifests itself as a stormy class struggle,but as an inevitable manifestation of various psychological and cultural struggles.The release of human psychological energy ultimately comes down to shaping a "new type of person",and thus pursuing a social ideal form in which late capitalist high technology and high emotion are balanced.Third,aesthetic salvation.In his later years,Marcuse paid great attention to the aesthetic realm of man's all-round development,especially emphasizing the complete pursuit of philosophical sublimation and its value in the aesthetic sense.However,his aesthetics has a deeper connotation than pure aesthetic art,that is,he took the entire post-industrial society as the object of creation,and processed the text to make it reappear the new meaning of beauty in a human sense,which is the highest manifestation of his critique of political economy.The fifth chapter is mainly divided into two parts,one is to evaluate the role and significance of Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy,and the other is to try to analyze its shortcomings and deficiencies.This paper believes that there are three main aspects worthy of recognition of Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy: First,as one of the hallmarks of Western Marxism's transition to the 20th century version of critique of political economy,Marcuse's society critical theory has made important theoretical contributions to the development of this transition.Second,Marcuse's social critical theory has a strong "pursuit of action philosophy".It always points to the pursuit of the full return of human freedom and liberation.It pays close attention to the development of contemporary social thoughts and social movements and has a strong spiritual intention.Third,Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy has expanded the research horizon of Western Marxism in China,and provided theoretical resources and theoretical inspirations for the growth and development of modernity in China.At the same time,Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy also has certain limitations,which are mainly manifested in two aspects: one is that the analysis of the relationship between capital and spirit lacks the systemic and profound nature of Marx's critique of political economy;the other is that it only reveals the characteristics of various crises and conflicts in the late capitalist society,but fails to grasp the essence of the "re-alienation" of the human spirit caused by capital in contemporary times.Therefore,his spiritual heritage needs to be critically inherited.In short,by analyzing Marcuse's critical thoughts of political economy,this research mainly solves the following three major problems: first,it enriches the existing academic research results of Marcuse,and makes limited attempts to fill the gap of examining Marcuse's social critical theory from the perspective of the critique of political economy.At the same time,re-explaining Marcuse's theoretical thoughts from the axis of Marx's political economic critique,has created a new path and new content for Marcuse's theoretical research,and expanded the new horizon of Western Marxism research in domestic academic circles.The second is to supplement and improve the academic chain of the study of the history of critical ideology of political economy,and to provide new theoretical material for its subsequent development.The third is to make an active exploration about how to place the critique of cultural philosophy in the framework of the critique of political economy,which has accompanied the continuous development and change of China's modernity,therefore contributing new theoretical resources and theoretical issues for the next stage of modernity growth and development of China.