Logical Presuppositions Of Western Modernity And Critique Of Marxist Political Econom

Arthur Herman,an American scholar,pointed out in his book How the Scots Invented the Modern World that the modern world and the concept of modernity were“invented” by the Scottish Enlightenment in the 18 th century.According to the secular logic,the Scottish shaped modern Western civilization with capitalism,modern democracy,science and technology as its core elements.If the Scottish Enlightenment is the logical starting point of modern Western civilization,it must also be the theoretical origin of Marx’s critique of political economy.The essence of Marx’s critique of political economy was the critique of modernity on the proletarian position.Through the prism of Marx’s critique of political economy,we can find that Marx’s thought gathered the ideological essence of many western scholars’ questioning and reflecting on modernity,such as Rousseau,Kant,Hegel,etc.Through the prism of Marx’s critique of political economy,we will find that the Scottish Enlightenment is not only the creator of the core ideas of western modernity,but also the initiator of the evaluation system of western modern civilization.The free market,democratic system,science and technology they advocated have always been the“sacred standard” by which Western developed capitalist countries(especially the United States)measure the progress of civilization in the rest of the world.This paper attempts to sort out the theoretical origins and the evolution path of Marx’s critique of political economy from the perspective of thought history.First of all,we should jump out of the traditional understanding which the classical political economy is regarded as the origin of Marx’s thought;we should understand the modern civilization and society from the 18 th century Scottish enlightenment which is the macroscopic background of classical political economics;we should understand the reflection of Rousseau and Hegel on the modernity from the logic of civil society and the history of the free--market dogmas and then to understand the inheritance and innovation of Marx’s critique of political economy.This topic takes the Scottish Enlightenment--Rousseau--Hegel--Marx as the historical clue to sort out the different cognition of modern civilization.It is helpful to enrich and improve the study of thought history of Marx’s political economy critique.It is helpful to understand the profundity of Marx’s critique of political economy in a broader perspective.In the practical sense,the thesis goes deep into the history of the development of western modern society,and understands the system construction,concept change and inherent tension of modern society from the theoretical origin,so as to provides experience and reference for Chinese modernization process with socialist market economy as the core.To sort out the development process of Marx’s critique thought of political economy is helpful to consolidate the methodological principles for the construction of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.The relationship between civil society and the state is not only a main line of modernity,but also the logical starting point of Marx’s critique of political economy.The relationship between civil society and the state appeared in the Scottish Enlightenment,and the economic attribute and status of the civil society were highlighted.However,in the history of thought,Hegel was the first to highly abstract the logic of modernity as the relationship between civil society and the state,and proposed that "the state determines civil society",where Marx’s critique of political economy was launched.The proposition of “civil society determines the state”provided the theoretical direction for the development of Marx’s critique of political economics--dissecting,criticizing and transcending the civil society.Modern civil society was the secular stage for the development and evolution of modern western civilization,“human”was the subject of modernity logic,and freedom was the pillar of civilization.But modern capital distorted the theoretical logic in the historical process,and became the master of human beings and the definer of freedom.Taking modern civil society as the open line and the alienation and sublation of man as the hidden line,this paper sorts out the ideological history of Marx’s critique of political economy.Marx’s critique of political economy is an ideological system and a historical presentation of the internal movement of modern thought.A comprehensive understanding of Marx’s critique of political economy needs to be examined at least two frameworks.First,how did Marx’s critique of political economy come into being in the logical framework of modernity? Second,how to understand the self-movement and self-development of Marx’s critique of political economy within the framework of Marx’s ideological movement?Therefore,Marx’s critique of political economy is first of all a critique of modernity and a link in the chain of modern Western civilization.The proletarian position and historical materialism make Marx’s critique of political economy separate from the western mainstream thought.Marx devoted himself to exploring the practice of "principled height" and realizing the real liberation of human beings.The first half of the paper mainly analyzes the internal movement of the logic of modernity: the logical presupposition of modernity of Scottish Enlightenment--Rousseau’s logical antithesis of modernity--Hegel’s comprehensive reflection on the logic of modernity.It was Hegel who abstracted the logic of modernity from the relationship between civil society and the state,which became the real starting point of Marx’s critique of political economy.The latter part of the paper mainly analyzes the internal movement of Marx’s critique of political economy,"civil society determines the state"--establishing the proletarian position--criticizing the internal logic of political economy(historical materialism)--the opposition between capital and spirit.Through the critique of political economy,Marx reveals the inherent negativity of capital that modern western civilization is difficult to surmount,and the opposition between capital and spirit is the core proposition of Marx’s critique of political economy.Just like the inherent unity of philosophy and the history of philosophy,Marx’s critique of political economy was also inherent in the history of its ideological development.The combing of ideological history is to better understand the real connotation of Marx’s critique of political economy.Marx’s critique of political economy was a philosophical critical formula that reflected on the western modern civilization.The civil society and classical political economy was the core of the reflection.The profundity of Marx’s thought was to sublate the “scientific”,linear logic and intellectual thinking that political economics was keen on,and to put the category and logic of political economics into the historical logic from the perspective of dialectical logic and rational thinking.Deep understanding of Marx’s critique of political economy is like “peeling the onion”,the surface logic is the critique of the economic laws of political economy,Marx revealed the duality of labor from the commodity duality,discovered the secret of capital appreciation from the commercialization of labor force—the law of surplus value,and then pointed out that the inherent negativity of capital was the root of the problem of the modernity in the west.The middle--level logic was a criticism of the capitalist system endorsed by political economics.By dissecting the civil society,Marx revealed that the internal negativity of capital was externalized into the internal negation of system,and criticized the illusion of political state rights based on private ownership.The deep logic was the historical narrative of humans’ self--alienation logic.The pursuit of human happiness was the ideal that Marx had in his middle school.After entering the society,“realistic living conditions of human beings” was always the focus of his attention.The realization of “free personality and all--round development of human beings”,that was,the real liberation of human beings,was Marx’s lifelong pursuit.The alienation and sublation of human being,as the deep logic of Marx’s critique thought of political economy,was more obvious in his youth,and was understood more from the perspective of philosophy.The later period it was more invisible and more from the historical perspective.The German Ideology was a turning point.Since then,he no longer used alienation to explain history,but used history to explain alienation,and what promoted the development of human history was no longer philosophical speculation and premise presupposition,but the development of productive forces and the transformation of production relations based on material practice.The research process of Marx’s critique of political economy was the process of uncovering the mystery of human self--alienation.Generally speaking,Marx’s critique of political economy was the speculative political economy which is different from intellectual thinking,and it was a more profound questioning of social ontology,aiming to pursue the “political and philosophical realization” of the economy.Marx’s critique of political economy is a traditional and novel topic.The thesis has made some innovative attempts in the following aspects: First,from the perspective of the thought history,the theoretical origin of Marx’s critique of political economy is traced back to the space--time field of the Scottish Enlightenment in the18 th century,and then put forward my views on the connotation of Marx’s critique of political economy;Second,it tries to analyze the critical gene of political economy from the thought of young Marx,especially Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law and its Introduction;Third,it tries to analyze the core theme of Marx’s critique of political and economic,which is the opposition between capital and spirit.Although I have made a lot of efforts,the thesis still has many shortcomings because of my limited knowledge.For example,the thesis is discussed from the perspective of the thought history,which involves many characters and viewpoints,so it is inevitable to pay attention to one and lose the other.The inaccurate grasp of the original works may lead to some immature viewpoints,which need to be discussed.The analysis of the antagonism between capital and spirit,as the core proposition of Marx’s critique of political economy,is still not deep enough,and it needs more time to improve it both from the basic principles and from the social reality.