More than 150 years ago, Marx actively participated in the struggle of working class for emancipation, and found the key to understand the history of human and society in the history of labor development, and discovered two most important theories-historical materialism and the theory of surplus value based on labor, so he called labor the "sun" that society revolves around. Today, great changes have taken place in the world: the theme of era has changed from war and revolution into peace and development, the human society has seen two far-reaching revolutions in science and technology. Meanwhile, a series of new circumstances and questions have arisen in the field of labor and the phenomena and conducts of looking down upon and despising labor are often seen and the social vogue of respecting labor and creativity is far from formed. From the theoretical perspective, the important position of the category of labor has not been fully embodied in the system of Marxist Theory, the development process of the Labor Theory of Marx has not been recognized, much divergence still exist on the connotation and paradoxical traits of labor. So it is an important and pressing task for the people in theory circle to deepen the understanding of the viewpoints of Marx on labor and develop a labor theory that fits the new situation and accords with the era spirit on the basis of Marxism. This dissertation seeks to explore these questions with the following methods: the method of the unification of history and logic, the method of the combination of theory and reality, induction and comparison, the method of from abstract up to concrete. The Viewpoints of Marx on Labor is the inheritance and development of the viewpoints on labor of British Classical Political Economics and German Classical Philosophy and British and French Utopian Socialist Doctrine. Having gone through a long and laborious process of theory exploration, the Viewpoints of Marx on Labor gradually became mature and perfect. Meanwhile, the three integral parts of Marxism had been successively established: Marx first established Historical Materialism with the logical starting-point of labor, then established Political Economics based on the foundation-stone of the theory of Value of Labor, finally established Scientific Socialist Theory with labor emancipation as its end-result and ultimate goal based on the first two theories. Therefore, labor is the basis and fountain of Marxism. After the historical and logical exploration, this dissertation tries to establish the Viewpoints of Marx on Labor systematically. First, put forward a more scientific definition of the concept of labor; Second, explain the connotation and extension of labor and make a comparison among the concepts of labor, produce and praxis; Third, expound the paradoxical traits of labor; Finally, predict the development trend of labor forms according to the era settings.In the epilogue, the dissertation briefly explain the significance of the Viewpoints of Marx on Labor to the contemporary China: it has a connection with whether the notion of human-centeredness can be established and implemented, it also has an impact on the stimulation of workers enthusiasm and ambitions, thereby affect China socialist modernization. |