Alienated labor and revolutionary subject: Why bring up the 1844 manuscript again?

Paul Klee's Angelus Novus shows an angel who seems to be turning away from something he is gazing at. He is staring ahead, his mouth slightly open, his wings spread. This is how the angel of history is depicted. His face is turned toward the past. Where we see a series of events, he sees a single catastrophe. This catastrophe piles up corpses and dumps them before him. The angel wants to stop and wake the dead, to make the broken world whole again. But a storm blows from heaven, and it blows the angel's wings so hard that he can no longer fold them. This storm blows the angel irresistibly toward the future to which he has his back turned, while the ruins before him pile higher and higher until they reach the sky. This storm is what we call progress. - Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History, IX.

The problem lies in the misunderstanding that Marx believed in the 1844 manuscript that people lost a certain kind of "humanity" and became alienated, or that Marx was using a certain kind of personal "sensory certainty" or a personal experience to fight against totality. People who hold a holistic view always believe that having a certain holistic perspective is the premise for understanding everything, and the essence of dialectics is to achieve such a totality and understand reality from a holistic perspective. However, the problem is not about totality, but about what kind of totality. The reason why the totality of capitalism is alienated is not because it is inhumane, but because of such an inverted reality, that is, the production of alienated reality confirms the self-alienated totality, or as self-consciousness/thing-in-itself, it is the manifestation of alienation. As Marx said in Capital, the value form of commodities began to dance actively, and we reached a non-sensory sensual area, because the relationship between people presents the alienated relationship between things, and the most fundamental thing is that this relationship of objectification and alienation is the most real and realistic relationship between people. Here, no matter how enlightened the criticism is, it cannot hurt fetishism in the slightest. Therefore, here lies the core of Marx's criticism of Feuerbach, because Marx's criticism of Feuerbach is clearly that any enlightened sensual certainty or "species essence" that does not touch totality, that is, this alienated thing-in-itself/self-consciousness, cannot harm the most core totality. In the 1844 manuscript, Marx attaches great importance to totality, but this emphasis is based on a seemingly "sensual certainty" or "species essence" criticism of totality. Here, the 1844 manuscript should be read backwards, starting with Marx's criticism of Hegel's philosophy.

1. Why the totality itself cannot be “broken”

Structuralists always point out that capitalism must be understood as a whole, and individuals are merely carriers of capital subjectivity, and are products of absolute externalization or alienation of the capitalist order. This product confirms the nihilistic nature of the self-abandonment of the alienation of the capitalist order through its own negation, that is, through its own objective production confirming its own negation in the movement, that is, its own nihilism. Here, through the movement of self-negation of external objectivity and the confirmation of its own negation or nihilism, the capitalist order or the thing-in-itself is reborn in the negation of this movement. This is why the alienated or reified relationship between people is ultimately the truest form of the relationship between people. Here, structuralists point out very correctly that if we insist on a certain sensory certainty, insist on something pre-total, then the only thing we get is to go through the journey of how this order confirms itself again. But here, the structuralists have nowhere to go, because the only thing they can expect next is that the collapse of workers as a link in the operation of capitalism and capitalism as a whole will lead to revolution. Or to put it simply, they hope that problems will arise in society as an alienated part of the capitalist order, making it impossible for the capitalist order to reproduce, thereby releasing the revolutionary potential of the workers.

In Hegel's eyes, the completion of a thing means that it turns to its opposite, that is, it collapses. But the problem is that as a modern capitalist order, it is self-disintegrating. In other words, capital always releases individuality through its own alienation and self-sublation, so that it can sublate this production relationship through the operation of the objective existing production relationship, that is, through the crisis, the existing social production collapses. But it is here that the objective sublation of this self-disintegrating social production overlaps with the nihilism of alienated capital, that is, the disintegrated social production reproduces the capital order, and the capital order is reborn in this reproduction. Therefore, in the face of the disintegration and crisis of the existing social production, what emerges in capitalist society is not necessarily socialist thought, but reformism, social democracy, corporatism and even fascism, which want to reshape the existence of the capital production system, because the capital order as self-consciousness/thing-in-itself is regenerated in this collapse, and people always hope to make up for what they have lost. But here, some socialists always think that since the capitalist order as an alienation, as a nihilism that negates itself, is essentially no different from the objective production of reality after its alienation, that is to say, precisely because objective production has negation and overlaps with this nihilism, then in fact it cannot negate itself. Because if the thing-in-itself must alienate itself to transition to existence, and the negation of objective production is its alienation itself, that is, to reach itself, it must reject its own nihilism, then it is obvious that the alienation of the thing-in-itself, that is, the confirmation of its own nihilism, returns to itself. The thing-in-itself must alienate itself again, but outside itself is itself, and it has nowhere to go, and it can no longer reproduce capital. Therefore, a rupture occurs. The suspension of capital reproduction means the occurrence of revolution, which means that now is the time for uprising. The working people as objective production are against the oppression of capital.

But here, the thing-in-itself/self-consciousness merely releases itself from itself as nature. Here, the reproduction and self-maintenance of the big Other cannot continue. However, the big Other does not exist, but people always desire a master. Here, as the objectivity of the released reality, it still confirms the capital order as the thing-in-itself according to the original dialectical movement and negates itself, but the result of this order is that it does not exist, and thus infinitely reflects back to this reality objectivity production, because this reality objectivity production is the truth of this order. Therefore, the non-existence of the big Other is essentially an unhappy consciousness, because what it wants is only itself, but it is infinitely alienated from itself due to its own dialectical movement. Therefore, here, only when it realizes that the master does not exist, or the moment when the master is overthrown, can one feel one's own subjectivity, or in other words, only when the criticism of the status quo is successful, can one feel the subjectivity of that moment and a moment. Then one returns to the ranks of producing masters, that is, confirming an order that is external to oneself according to one's own dialectical movement. Therefore, here, one's own enemy is oneself. The more it denies itself, the more it confirms that it is negated, the more it confirms the existence of an order; on the other hand, because this order/thing-in-itself releases itself, that is, as the objective production of reality, it is precisely the truth of this order, that is, it constantly realizes this order through the negation and self-negation of its own dialectical movement. The big Other does not exist, but precisely because it does not exist, the dialectical movement of real objectivity constantly confirms this big Other, and the negation of real objectivity is precisely the dialectical movement of this real objectivity, so the big Other exists forever. The death of God is the confirmation of God's eternal reincarnation. Here, objective production is absolutely negated, because if it moves forward to negate this objectivity, then the non-existence of the big Other precisely confirms that it is precisely this objectivity's negation movement, that is, the movement of objectivity to avoid itself from producing the capitalist order, and the dialectical movement and self-negation of objectivity itself, that is, the movement of producing the big Other, are the same, so it is impossible to deny the fate of itself inevitably producing the big Other or the order enslaving itself. On the other hand, from the perspective of objectivity itself as the big Other or the self-release of order/thing-in-itself, it is the negation of this order, but it constantly generates this order, so it should be the object of opposition. Here, whether it is opposition to order/thing-in-itself or opposition to the objective production that produces this big Other, it inevitably leads to the revival of order. But the paradox here is that the thing-in-itself/self-consciousness itself has completely collapsed because it is the center of production or the order of reproduction, but this capitalist order can be embodied from objective production. Capital seems to have endless vitality. Even if the capitalist order has been completely destroyed, it can always be regenerated in objective production in various ways.

If completion means disintegration, then the completion of disintegration itself, that is, the completion of the thing-in-itself as alienation and nothingness, is the disintegration of disintegration, that is, a kind of eternity. This is why Francisco Fukuyama can use Hegel and Marx to show that capitalism can never be eliminated. On the other hand, if completion means a certain disintegration, then the disintegration of disintegration, that is, a certain eternity, is in fact unfinished. Habermas's core argument is that modernity is an "unfinished project", and in this argument he is absolutely right. Here we can clearly see what the "open society" and a certain "openness to the future" that contemporary capitalist defenders hope for are all about, and we can also know why this kind of "progress" can only be achieved in capitalist society. As long as alienated labor is not eliminated and new social relations are not born, all criticisms of capitalism will become a tool for capitalism to prolong its life, because the completion of modernity is its own incompleteness and so-called "openness". This openness, as a storm of progress, constantly confirms that self-realization is suffering, that completion is incompleteness, and that reality itself is unreality and alienation itself. Suffering creates glory. This sentence should be said in reverse. The essence of any glory and transcendence is suffering. The openness advocated by modern bourgeois ideology is nothing more than the confirmation of a certain transcendental perfection, and this transcendence is the existing order. The development of bourgeois society and the capitalist organism, as well as the propaganda of "modernization with Chinese characteristics" and "socialism with Chinese characteristics" in some imperialist countries in recent years, are like this. In their words, they define their own development as a great cause that has never been completed, which we will never see in our lifetime. As a replica of the "Millennium Empire", this "great cause" is indeed open. Its doors are opening wider and wider, and its pace of rushing to the world is getting faster and faster. However, this openness is to include everything in its "living space", and most of its opponents are unconsciously repeating its ideals in different directions. To die for an unfinished cause is to transcend the ideological world of modern countries themselves, and this transcendence has become an important part of the spirit of modern countries. In many ways, the Nazis are a prototype of modern society. In the imperialism of a certain Eastern country and in Iran, "sacrifice is the cornerstone of humanity" is already their unspoken subtext.

As revolutionary socialists, we are naturally the enemies of this "open society". However, if we still understand reality from the perspective of the totality we criticize when criticizing this totality, then the only result is this unfortunate consciousness. Because no matter how we base ourselves on reality and create a "rupture" in a certain sense, our only result is to recreate capitalism and the capitalist order on the basis of this reality and rupture. Here, the problem lies in such a disguise and deception, as if the reality of objective production released because the "big other does not exist" is regarded as a self-realization, because totality grows out of this objective production. Here we must mention Marx's "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right". Marx clearly criticized Hegel for, on the one hand, regarding the state, that is, a certain totality or order, as the internal purpose of civil society, that is, as mentioned above, as order growing out of objective production as its purpose; but on the other hand, as a state, it is an external necessity, that is, by confirming the negation of objective production, the nothingness of order itself is confirmed, that is, the state regards civil society as its own reproduction. This kind of reproduction is irrational and nihilistic, but it is precisely under this irrational and abstract state order that this order is recognized as reasonable. Because this order must release itself, and objective production must produce this order through dialectical movement according to its own nature. But the problem here is precisely that if we insist that it is because the self-release of this order triggers the objectivity to be generated according to itself, then it is not the objective production that causes the order in essence, but the order essentially confirms its own nihilism through the negation of this production, but this is precisely why the order releases itself. Therefore, the rationality of the order can only be attributed to the fact that objective production itself creates this order, but the order created is precisely irrational and negates the existence of objective production. Therefore, this so-called self-realization and internal purposefulness is an external necessity and compulsion. In other words, this is nothing more than saying that suffering is the ultimate goal of human beings, and being oppressed and enslaved by the state and capital is a person's happiness. This kind of holistic thinking, no matter in which aspect, whether it regards the totality as active or produced, cannot actually solve the problem.

2. Marx’s Overall Reform Plan

In contrast, materialist historical writing is based on a construction principle. Thinking involves not only the flow of ideas, but also their obstruction. When thinking comes to a halt in a construction full of tension and conflict, it shocks the construction, and thought crystallizes into a monad. The historical materialist can grasp this subject only in the historical subject as a monad. In this structure, he sees the suspension of historical events as a sign of salvation. In other words, it is a revolutionary opportunity to fight for the oppressed past. - Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History, XVII

Marx saw this contradiction in the 1844 manuscripts, especially in his critique of Hegel's philosophy. That is, if a totality, a self-consciousness/thing-in-itself, ultimately shows that slavery is the realization of its own internal purpose, then this internal purpose is imposed by external necessity, and it is the most humiliating slave who thinks he should be enslaved and actively seeks the master. Then the problem arises in this totality, rather than finding comfort through enlightened "sensory certainty" or abstract objectivity that leaves the totality (because these will all lead to this totality). Then the biggest problem is the totality's negation of the object, that is, the negation of the object and the confirmation of its own non-objectivity. Here, Marx defines man as an objective being, not in order to counter totality with isolated objectivity; but out of realization: since as a totality man is inhuman, that is, a non-objective being, and as isolated objective production will inevitably lead to its own sublation and negation, then why can't this non-objective being become a being that is essentially objective in operation, so that its operation is no different from the objective being it sublates.

Therefore, the most important part of the entire 1844 manuscript is Marx's attack on Hegel's totality, that is, questioning whether the totality itself, which is the so-called transcendence of objectivity, is really "non-objective"? Here, Marx's definition of objectivity lies precisely in the fact that there are things outside of itself. As long as it does not exist alone, it is objectivity. In other words, as self-consciousness/thing-in-itself, or as a totality, as mentioned earlier, the truth of itself is essentially the production of reality, that is, when self-consciousness/thing-in-itself releases itself, it is the process of replacing itself with the production of reality. "It only creates or sets objects because it itself is set by objects, because it is originally nature. Therefore, it is not that it turns from its "pure activity" to create objects in the act of setting, but its objective products only confirm its objective activity, confirming that its activity is the activity of an objective natural being." Therefore, in summary, since a certain totality grows out of objectivity, it is obvious that totality cannot be separated from any objectivity, or the final result of totality is to confirm that it is born through the embodied dialectical movement of objectivity production, or as a concrete dialectical movement, it replaces totality through the contradiction produced by totality itself. However, this problem is not decoupled from totality itself, or because objectivity production replaces totality, the production of totality is not attributed to the negation of the dialectical movement of objectivity production itself.

That is to say, as a kind of structuralism (or Spinozism), God (or as totality, that is, the thing-in-itself/self-consciousness) is regarded as nature. God is nature, which does not abolish God, but describes the world as only God exists, and everything else does not exist. The reason why this kind of thinking is called "unfortunate consciousness" is that this kind of thinking always regards the self-collapse of God, or the self-dissociation of the totality of capitalism, as a kind of liberation, but it is precisely this disintegration that makes the whole world, or the objective production of reality, really become a captive of capitalism, because every single, isolated objective production, every single, limited oppression mode/system/production (racism, sexism) will generate the capitalist totality. But the real fatal thing is that every opposition to this reality, as mentioned in the previous section, inevitably reproduces capitalism. The big other does not exist, but people always desire to have a master. Or the real existence of the big other lies precisely in people's desire to have a master. In order to avoid the confirmation of the master caused by this passion, people instead begin to castrate themselves, or go to tranquility through a death drive. But the problem is that the path to the master is precisely self-giving, self-sacrifice to negate one's own objective production; and the path against the master is precisely the negation of one's own objective production, because this objective production leads oneself to the most disgusting master. Therefore, here, the person who most blames the masses for maintaining capitalism in their daily lives or participating in political activities is precisely the conservative who unconditionally supports and preserves everything in reality. In other words, the more a person despises and hates patriarchy, the more he is doing the same thing as a patriarch, and the final result of patricide is that he becomes the new father. In a word, the final result of this kind of thinking orientation is that "the dragon slayer will eventually become a dragon" and describe this real world as a kind of "openness", because capitalism is never complete and can never end.

Structuralism, as a "total of evil", transforms human autonomous actions into the confirmation of its own non-autonomy and self-destruction. If the abstract totality is still an abstract order that alienates itself and uses the world as a means of its own reproduction, then the totality of evil is nothing more than saying that this autonomy is nothing more than non-autonomy, which will inevitably produce the kind of power that dominates itself and will inevitably make itself suffer, whether it supports or opposes itself. The abstract totality believes that people are structures, that is, people are nothing more than the bearers of structures; while the totality of evil believes that structures are people, that is, the existence of the essential alienation of structures or totalities is what people are and the purpose of people. The totality of evil is not to impose capitalist production on people or the objective production of reality, but to say that as a reality, objective people have lost the ability to resist capitalism and take the maintenance of the status quo as their own purpose, regardless of whether they appear in the name of supporting or opposing the status quo; because it is not the totality that is imposed on people or objective production, but the totality that replaces these things and becomes the only thing. That is, this totality is the only reality, the only understandable and the only existing thing. This uniqueness means that capitalism as a totality cannot actually be abolished, because in this understanding, capitalism has no outside, cannot be completed, and is always open. Therefore, in this sense, the uniqueness of structuralism regards capitalism as its own God, even if it exists as a creature. But the problem is that the creature has essentially become God. The creature that seems to oppose the totality has become what it least wants to be, that is, God. The creature has become God as it wished, but what it lost is its desire for another world when it opposed the totality. Capitalism would rather lose its power and collapse again and again than allow another world to be born. Therefore, it is extremely eager to give up its own ruling power and let the proletariat take over and rebuild the state machine and the law of profit; that is to say, it will be overthrown in a revolutionary way, and then produce these corrupt elements from within the revolution to regenerate itself. There is no capitalist and bureaucrat who will not laugh out loud because the revolution has been betrayed, and whisper in the ears of the revolutionaries: "See, capitalism cannot be overthrown."

Therefore, the problem is not to oppose and overthrow totality, but to create what kind of totality. The contradiction of totality must be resolved in totality itself, that is, totality cannot be regarded as an independent, alienated and self-producing existence (this is essentially impossible), nor can it be regarded as replaceable (in fact, this means that there is only one totality that exists), and in fact, the solution to the contradiction of totality lies precisely in its own two properties, namely, replaceability and uniqueness. Here, replaceability means that the totality has its own objective production outside itself, that is, it is an existence produced by objects outside itself; and uniqueness means that the totality essentially negates objectivity itself, that is, the movement of objectivity self-negation. But the problem is that Hegel mystified the process of the thing-in-itself negating objectivity and self-alienation, or he regarded the thing-in-itself as a truly active, self-alienated existence. But the problem is that the truth of the thing-in-itself lies precisely in objective production. Here, the replacement of the thing-in-itself by objective production is precisely an illusion without a clear truth, a pseudo-concrete. In other words, taking the daily life and political activities of real people as the reasons for maintaining and producing capitalism is precisely falling into capitalist thinking. Here, since the thing-in-itself is essentially the negation of the objective production of reality, its own truth, that is, the objective production outside of itself, cannot be easily accepted. If objectivity means a kind of replacement, that is, as a production, there is another production outside of itself to replace itself, then the key to the problem lies in whether the thing-in-itself is an object or production, that is, whether self-consciousness has objectivity, whether it "produces". Here, it is precisely the thing-in-itself as a non-objective, when objectivity regards the thing-in-itself as the object that produces objects, when the thing-in-itself negates these objective productions, that is, as the combination of basis-conditions as representations, it also becomes an objective production because of the negation of representations. Therefore, as a thing-in-itself, it must negate its own objective production, that is, abandon itself as an objective production that negates the representation of objective production and turn itself into existence, that is, into a representation-like objective production, as a kind of existence. In other words, as a thing-in-itself, it is an objective production, but this objective production is only an absolutely externalized existence, that is, it completes its own objective production by negating its own objective production.

In other words, this process can be understood as alienation. If you understand the thing-in-itself as transcending objective production and becoming a non-objective, unique existence, then what is outside this uniqueness is naturally alienation; and the only result of alienation is to confirm the absolute existence of this alienation itself through objective self-alienation. However, if we understand this issue from the perspective of objective production, we will find that the thing-in-itself is just a process in which objective production negates itself and allows itself to be replaced by another production. And precisely because what is negated here is precisely objective production itself, then the objective production that produces this objective production cannot be objective production but must be something else, that is, the absolute negation of objective production. But it is also because of this that the thing-in-itself produces objective production by negating its own objective production. Precisely because the truth of the thing-in-itself is as objective production, the thing-in-itself itself can be replaced, so it is precisely the objectivity itself, not the negation of objective production, that is the truth of this objectivity. Here is exactly the contradiction mentioned by Marx in the critique of legal philosophy, one side is internal purposefulness, and the other side is external necessity. This is the point of philosophical disagreement, because many people do not actually believe in internal purpose, or regard internal purpose as an external necessity (people are born to suffer, slavery is the existence of reason, etc.). However, since external necessity, that is, the transcendence of objectivity by the thing-in-itself is considered to necessarily take objectivity as its truth, that is, external necessity must disintegrate, then the replacement of the abstract totality of the thing-in-itself by objective production must necessarily prevent itself from reproducing this abstract external necessity. Precisely because it cannot allow itself to produce this external necessity that transcends objective production, the focus of objectivity is not to view objectivity or non-objectivity in isolation, but on the interaction of the dialectical movement of the entire objectivity. This also means questioning objectivity, that is, whether the purpose of objectivity is to allow itself to be transcended or to preserve itself. In other words, whether to allow itself to continue to exist as a kind of generation and creation, or to destroy the power of creation.

When destruction points its truth to creation, when destruction believes that it can be replaced, it means a change of position, that is, the objective essence that allows itself to be replaced and leads objective production to destruction does not lead to destruction. That is to say, as objective production, it does not take its own replacement as its own purpose, but takes the maintenance of this objective production as its own purpose. This change of position reverses the link of objectivity's self-sublation into the thing-in-itself. Because the thing-in-itself was initially considered as an objective production as an objective production of images, because the sublation of images leads to this objective production. Here, it was necessary to sublate the objective production of the thing-in-itself in order to sublate the entire objective production itself, so the thing-in-itself alienated itself into the phenomenon, that is, alienated itself into objective production. But now, because objectivity does not want itself to go to non-objective annihilation, the objective production of impression as objective production is precisely retained, that is, the thing-in-itself is now considered as an objective production, because as an abstract, the truth that sublates the totality of objectivity is this objectivity, because this totality that sublates the object can be replaced by objectivity, so the self-maintenance of objectivity is the core. The affirmation of objectivity does not mean affirmation as an isolated, abstract object, but affirmation as objectivity must transcend itself when entering the thing-in-itself. Whether the thing-in-itself is regarded as the objective production of impression as objectivity production according to the principle of objectivity, or the thing-in-itself is regarded as the existence that abstractly transcends objectivity. If the latter explains that objectivity is its own truth, this transcendental truth, according to its own dialectical movement, then the former is the only answer.

Here, we can see that the second negation or negation of negation fully flows in Marx's 1844 manuscripts, precisely when structuralists or pessimists believe that capitalism will be produced forever and will never complete itself, or will be generated forever and long for an empty messianic moment of rupture; this time that seems to close all historical outlets, it is precisely the lifeblood of absolute negativity that is slowly flowing. As a criticism of criticism itself, as a negation of negation itself, it means reversing the principle itself. Here, this principle is to regard negation or its own collapse as its own completion, and here this negativity or non-objective totality points out that its own truth is objective production. In ontology, dialectical movement is said to be a transformation into something else, that is, to realize that objective production is essential existence; and in essentialism, this other thing is actually this thing itself, that is, the thing-in-itself that exists as an order, and its truth or itself can be replaced by objective production. In other words, the other thing is not the truth of this thing, and this thing itself must transform into something else. Therefore, here, neither isolated objective production nor totality is the truth of the other, because they are each other's other. The true truth lies in a kind of retention, that is, the awareness that it must transform into something else, that is, when objective production must transform into totality, this totality must exist as this thing as something else, because being something else is not the truth of something else. Therefore, it must regard itself as objective production, and must regard itself as an objective production that reflects objective production, but it is essentially not this objective production, but a non-objective existence. Here, the core contradiction is precisely the absolute conflict and tension between the internal necessity of this thing itself as totality and as something else and its external purposefulness. The core of this tension lies in the totality that should be the internal purposefulness of objective production of labor, that is, the totality that should be the same as objective production is precisely non-objective, that is, it itself cannot complete what it should be and should be, so it exists as an alienation. The reason why it is alienated is not because it deviates from a previous "original thing", but because it is not the objectivity that it should become.

Here, the thing-in-itself as an object negates its own objectivity, that is, the object enters the phenomenon by negating its own objectivity. Here is the most acute contradiction. An existence that is originally an object needs to alienate itself, that is, to become a completely different, non-objective existence, in order to realize itself and obtain its own production as objectivity. In fact, it is precisely because of the sharp contradiction between objectivity and non-objectivity - this contradiction makes the thing-in-itself have objectivity - that it becomes more acute within the thing-in-itself. The thing-in-itself should not be a non-objective existence, but its own movement makes itself non-objective. Therefore, here the movement of the entire thing-in-itself is stopped, which gives the entire structure a shock and causes conceptual obstruction. Because the entire order is essentially irrational and contradictory. In other words, it is precisely because of the simultaneous existence of this objectivity and non-objectivity that the self-alienation of the thing-in-itself is blocked and it is forever condensed in a static time, that is, it cannot reproduce itself through alienation. In other words, it is precisely because of the tension and conflict between the objectivity and non-objectivity of the thing-in-itself that this abrupt stop is created. In this stillness, the thing-in-itself once again disintegrates. If the result of the previous disintegration was that objective production replaced the self-affirmation of the order as an abstract nothingness as its own purpose, then this disintegration means that the entire order, including the alienated objective production and even the initial objective production as the production of this objective thing-in-itself, is an object that should be negated. In other words, the objective production as the production of the objective thing-in-itself is blocked by this concept, and because the result of this self-generation cannot alienate itself and thus reproduce the initial objective production, the initial objective production and the objective thing-in-itself as the most acute contradiction all collapse with this absolute contradiction that cannot be resolved through alienation. However, in essence, because the objective thing-in-itself is an object, itself as objective production means that it is negated by another production through its own contradiction, and this production is not the initial objective production (because it perishes due to its own result and cannot reproduce itself), but an objective production that transcends this objective production, that is, creating an existence that has never existed and has never appeared in reality. This act is revolutionary practice, a creative impulse. Only vitality, only life can replace this objective thing-in-itself, and only when it is replaced, that is, replaced by revolutionary practice, can it be explained that thinking/thing-in-itself/self-consciousness has objectivity.

This process is to crystallize thoughts into monads, that is, to smash the self-alienation of thinking in shock and obstruction, and to grasp the real revolutionary actions and revolutionary practices as the real subjectivity. Only this kind of practice can be called subject, can be called change, can be called revolution, can be called creation. This revolutionary subjectivity is the moment when people become human beings, and it is a leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. Only the proletariat can complete this leap and create and be reborn. The creation of this new life is a new or revolutionary humanism, because the purpose of revolution is not to smash capitalism in essence, but to protect and strengthen this new life, and this new life will inevitably regard violence as a part of protecting itself to eliminate external threats, that is, capitalism. As long as capitalism exists, patriarchy exists, and racial discrimination exists, they are threats to this new life, and they all need to be eliminated. The old world is seen here as a factor that hinders progress and an obstacle that must be cleared on the road to the growth of the new life. Here, class struggle is also elevated to a struggle between one world and another.

This is also what Marx said, whether thinking is objectivist must be confirmed in practice. And the reason why he criticized Feuerbach was not just because Feuerbach looked at the problem from the perspective of "sensory certainty" or "non-totality" and focused on personal feelings and experiences outside of totality, but because Feuerbach failed to grasp the dialectical reversal link and failed to block the objectivity of the thing-in-itself and prevent alienation through the negation of negation. Instead, he comfortably regarded the thing-in-itself as a kind of objectivity, and the non-objectivity of self-alienation was the way for this objectivity to realize itself. Therefore, the thing-in-itself and objectivity are identical. If this is the case, then Feuerbach just changed the pretext and did not really touch on alienation, because if alienation is regarded as an objectivity, non-objectivity is regarded as As an objective production, it is essentially no different from Hegel's view of objectivity as non-objectivity, and Hegel did point out that non-objective truth is objectivity, but Feuerbach feared the negation of negation and was content to occupy objectivity, which is merely the opposite of totality. He neither thought about how to change the totality nor how to prevent objectivity from moving towards abstract totality. Therefore, Feuerbach moved towards sensory certainty, towards understanding objects, reality, and sensibility only from the objective or intuitive form, rather than as the activities of sensory people, as practice, and not from the subjective aspect. This kind of sensibility will naturally be swept away by dialectics. However, the elimination of the secular family requires the change of the sacred family, the transformation of totality and the self-contradiction of totality, thereby preventing its alienation and creating new life. In other words, the transformation of the sacred family and self-consciousness/thing-in-itself is a process of radical subjectivity formation, which leads to the practice of creation. This is also the process of how radical subjectivity is transformed into actual force.

Ultimately, revolutionary practice or changing the world is the answer to philosophical questions, and the only answer. In other words, people are born to change the world. The essence of man is the sum of all social relations, that is, a kind of totality, which does not swallow up man's true, revolutionary subjectivity. The sum of social relations inevitably leads to the result that social relations are the objective production of man, and it is precisely because this contradiction sharpens the contradiction in the objectification of the sum of social relations that people are determined to curb alienation and create. In other words, only by realizing that it is the economic base that determines the superstructure, that is, the process in which the superstructure abandons this base and then confirms that it can be replaced, this process promotes the objectification of the superstructure, that is, it has a contradictory and radicalized core, and it is this core that gives birth to radical subjectivity and changes the world through practice. In this sense, the entire 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscript not only abandons Hegel, but also abandons Feuerbach, and more importantly, abandons classical political economy and vulgar communism through the category of alienated labor.

3. Alienated labor as a core political economic-philosophical concept

The political economist has only made the question a mystery. He assumes as a fact, as an event what is to be inferred, namely, the necessary relation between two things ... In the same way, the theologian uses original sin to explain the origin of evil, that is, he assumes what he is to explain as a fact in historical form. - Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

In other words, alienated labor is absolutely not a "deviation" or "degeneration" from the original essence. The understanding of alienated labor can only be understood in its relationship with the totality of capitalism. Labor is not the source of all wealth, and nature also has use value. Here, the core of alienated labor lies precisely in the fact that this alienated labor is the confirmation of the self-alienation of capital, so that when the capitalist order completely disintegrates and points to objective production, that is, labor, the isolated labor here is precisely confirming the entire capitalist order. Here, the bourgeoisie needs to add a layer of supernatural creative function to labor, because it is precisely isolated labor production that has no object, that is, there is no condition that creates labor or makes labor possible. In other words, if a person does not regard nature as his own property (and precisely this kind of possession is only possible in a certain social totality), he can only rely on the permission of others to work and survive. This process is also the alienation process of the thing-in-itself. The reason why the bourgeoisie defines labor as the source of all value is that the negation of isolated labor itself will inevitably produce this capitalist order. The reason why alienated labor is alienated is that nothing positive can be produced in this labor. Labor creates wealth and creates the social totality, but it is this internal purpose that makes labor bear external necessity. In other words, as an objectively productive being, as a laboring, physical being, man needs his own objectivity, that is, to take the social totality as his own object, as his own generation (the essence of man is the sum of all social relations), but the sum of social relations as a totality is precisely generated. In other words, labor is precisely self-negating in this totality of production, and because this sum absolutely points to itself as its truth, the self-negation of labor seems to be its only purpose, and labor seems to be confirming its own internal purposefulness, which is to create this external necessity.

But precisely because of this, alienated labor has a kind of universality. In other words, alienated labor can only be understood under capitalism as the totality of production. Therefore, this is also the reason why the Soviet Union, China and the Eastern European group are state capitalism rather than so-called socialism. Because in these countries, alienation has developed to an extremely naked point. The so-called "socialist countries" openly declare that people should contribute to the country, should become a screw on the machine, should go to 996, otherwise they are foreign forces. This kind of social overall development has reached such a shameless point that it directly regards people as born to suffer as its own propaganda, regards the emptiness of the self-alienated dedication of the state machine and capital as an alienated subjectivity, and confirms the negation of this labor itself in the hard work of the working people every day and night. Therefore, the result of this objective production is consistent with the self-alienation of the state or capital. The more the country publicizes its own achievements, how much the party and bureaucrats "love the people like their own children", and how much they "care for the people", the more the masses have to make continuous contributions to "repay" these "favors". The capitalists shamelessly declare that "business is a kind of charity" and 996 is a blessing, so workers have to work 12 or even 14 hours a day. Not to mention the one-man system and "red managers" in the so-called socialist country. As the de facto managers and controllers of the factory, as part of the bureaucratic group, they are the de facto bourgeoisie of this country. Their only idea is to use the administrative power in their hands to force workers to work, drive farmers to collective farms and let them continuously produce surplus value for accumulation. They call this behavior "building socialism."

The only result of the totality of evil is that people regard the inevitable negation of labor as the stipulation of the internal purpose of labor itself. But in fact, it is precisely because of this that labor will find that it is not itself, but precisely this totality of evil that creates everything in reality. In other words, it is not because of people's own cowardice and servility that they are enslaved and think that this slavery is good, but precisely because this totality of evil itself points to itself being constructed by labor, "labor is the most glorious", "labor is the source of all wealth", but on the other hand, it negates labor and negates this objective production. Here, the totality of evil that believes that labor creates everything and therefore requires people to constantly confirm that external necessity is its own internal purpose cannot understand that it is precisely because it has caused labor to suffer such a great humiliation, precisely because it has directed its own purpose to labor for the eternal capitalist system so that labor can realize the internal purpose of ideology and constantly confirm that it should be negated and suffer. It is precisely because of this direction of the totality of evil that it is believed that labor essentially replaces itself. Then in the eyes of the workers, they are the ones who feed a bunch of parasites through their own suffering, and they feed a bunch of bureaucrats and capitalists who claim to be "civilized" and "serve the people." Labor is for its own purpose, but it finds itself creating its own opposite, and the more it works, the more it denies itself. In other words, self-desire or self-realization must negate this desire and realization. In other words, the worker is driven by the rhythm of the machine and negates his own objective production. He does not want to become a screw. Therefore, he resists the machine, the factory discipline and the bureaucrats at all levels. Here, the abolition of alienated labor lies precisely in the abolition of the totality of evil that makes alienated labor possible. In other words, alienated labor does not expect reformism or more wages and vacations to solve itself (just like the so-called "middle-developed countries" in the Soviet Union and European social democracy).

Here, only when we understand the social totality, that is, the thing-in-itself, as objective, that is, truly realize that the abolition of objectivity should not be the stipulation of the totality itself but should be an objectivity as the totality itself, can we truly see the irrationality of reality and realize the absolute contradiction of the totality as self-alienation and the objective production that the totality should have become. This means precisely the static action of this self-consciousness/thing-in-itself, that is, the cessation of the alienated movement, which breeds radical subjectivity and enables people to adopt revolutionary practice to change society. In other words, only when we realize that the social totality should become objective but it has not become so, but exists as a non-objective, can the radical nature of practice burst out. This practice is essentially a kind of creation, a suspension of the old thing-in-itself/self-consciousness and a replacement of alienated labor. In Marx, as vulgar communism, it is nothing more than seeing the replacement of the social totality by objective production, that is, they desire an abstract public ownership (whether this public ownership is democratic or authoritarian) to replace the existing private ownership. The essence of this kind of public ownership is to explain that the sublation of objective production as totality has been ended by generating public ownership (state ownership) of the means of production, that is, by generating the thing-in-itself/self-consciousness/totality as objective production. But the problem is that as long as alienated labor is not abolished, then as this alienated labor, it will generate the totality of evil and make itself the object of sublation, and itself as the truth of totality, so in fact this is the self-torture mentioned above and the self-explanation that suffering is its only internal purpose. This is what Marx called vulgar communism, because it is itself the final form of the capitalist order. The reason why society has become an abstract capitalist is that objective production defines itself as an internal purpose as an external necessity, which inevitably and constantly leads to the capitalist order. That is, the big other does not exist, but people always desire a master and define the desire for this master as their own internal purpose, but in fact this essentially sublates the internal purpose and is just saying that the internal purpose, or liberation as a kind of autonomy, does not exist. This is how (post)structuralism and postmodernism abandon the concept of liberation.

But the problem is that this kind of thinking only looks at alienated labor in an abstract way, so that they look at the social totality in an abstract way and conceive the social totality as an evil totality. In other words, the understanding of alienated labor must be placed in the conflict and tension of social totality in order to be understood. That is to say, social totality should be defined as objective production and its absolute conflict with not becoming this objective production, so as to produce the power to blow up the evil totality and the alienated labor that generates it. The importance of totality, or self-consciousness/thing-in-itself, lies in that it summarizes many objective productions (class, gender, race, etc.) and provides a platform for understanding as an order. But the problem is precisely that this abstraction of totality or the negation of objectivity has instead created a reductionist trend of thought, that is, the movement of a primitive thing itself encompasses all subsequent orders or stages of movement (one is the whole). Here, this reductionism is nothing more than saying that the totality of the abstract or evil is essentially developed from this original thing (whether it is supporting or opposing this original thing, because in essence both of them have become the link of movement or change, that is, opposition means to carry out this change movement, while support means to change as this movement itself), which inevitably leads to the totality of evil and abstract repression. In this sense, this original thing is defined as a kind of "original sin", but the problem is that whether it is opposed or supported, the final result will inevitably lead to such a totality. In other words, the self-sacrificing or blessing God here is the self-alienated god, as a grace. Man's original sin is nothing more than the result of God's self-alienation or grace. In other words, the more noble God is, the more self-sacrificing and self-sacrificing Christ is, the more mankind falls into the quagmire of sin and alienation. Therefore, in the religious sense, it is not because of the fall of man that God's grace is needed, but God's grace has caused the fall of man. The ultimate result of this logic is that people ultimately achieve their own greatness, but they exist in an absolute state of self-abandonment. The ultimate result of this greatness is that people regard their own suffering as their own intrinsic purpose, and there is no other purpose.

Therefore, the cessation of this totality of evil means that neither objective production nor totality itself can achieve this goal. Here, only when objective production understands itself as a necessary link in the generation of this totality, or this totality points to objective production, can totality itself have objectivity, that is, the thing-in-itself as objective production; and only by retaining this difference (because the nothingness of totality itself points to objectivity, then the objectivity that does not lead to this nothingness itself becomes an absolute contradiction, because whether in itself or not in itself, it will lead to totality, which is what it is not; but also because of this, as the absolute contradiction of objective production itself, it must include itself in the category of totality in order to understand itself), that is to say, the thing-in-itself as objective production not only constructs itself as objectivity, but also constructs its own purpose as that of objective production, that is, as a difference between objectivity and non-objectivity rather than no difference, that is, the reversal of its own purpose, from non-objectivity to objectivity. In other words, the objectivity of totality itself has two meanings. The first is the most commonly understood one, that is, the objective production as the original thing constantly produces non-objectivity, constantly confirming that its own internal purpose is external necessity; and the other is precisely that non-objectivity itself has negated itself as the purpose of non-objectivity, that is, it can be replaced by objectivity and exists as an objective thing in itself. This is the double choice of the proletariat, whether to choose to give up and go along with the world, accept the totality of evil, that is, to let oneself suffer as one's only purpose; or to fight hard, that is, to realize the internal contradictions of the entire society and the absolute suspension of its operation. Non-objectivity is indifferent, because as the logic of the operation of the capitalist order, no matter how many differences and objective productions there are, they can be absorbed into the capitalist order. All existence that escapes the capitalist order will re-produce its own disgusting totality because of its own objective production and differences; but precisely because of this, non-objectivity itself points out that its own truth is objectivity. That is to say, as an objective existence, non-objectivity transcends itself, is incompatible with itself, and is a conflict between its own negation and absoluteness.

In other words, the reversal here lies precisely in the fact that objectivity does not regard non-objectivity as its own purpose, that is, objectivity absolutely retreats into itself, but it finds that the slums where objective production is located constantly produce non-objectivity that it hates, that is, as alienated labor, it cannot produce anything positive. But the problem is that it needs objectivity as its own purpose, so its only way out is to regard the social totality as an objective thing-in-itself, that is, the vulgar communist public ownership mentioned above, but its own non-objectivity betrays itself, that is, the capitalists as an abstract society are no different from the capitalists who actually oppress the people. Giving the capitalists the name of the people and treating the country as a "people's republic" is actually no different from the old order in the past, but it is precisely here that the next principle is reversed. It is precisely because of the absolute conflict between what it should be and what it is now that the working people, who initially only hope to preserve objective production, have to overthrow the entire social totality and eradicate this historical scourge, and the result of this totality's self-alienation is precisely the alienated labor at the beginning. Here, the transcendence of alienated labor means that labor no longer exists as a separate objective production, no longer as an individual, isolated existence, but as a kind of common labor and cooperation managed by workers themselves, as a kind of industrial democracy and the abolition of the profit rate law and capital accumulation, that is, as individuals, they obtain and enjoy themselves in the collective; and society no longer exists as an existence opposed to individuals under the democratic management of workers. And this new society, we call it communism.

"The whole capitalist system of production is concerned with increasing this unpaid labour, either by lengthening the working day, or by increasing productivity and thereby straining labour, etc.; hence the wage-labour system is slavery, and the more developed the social productive forces of labour, the more cruel it becomes, whether the workers are better or worse paid... Lassalle does not understand what wages are, but follows the bourgeois economists in mistaking appearance for the essence of things. This is just like when the slaves finally discover the secret of their slavery and revolt, one of them, bound by old ideas, writes in the platform of the revolt that slavery must be abolished, because under slavery the slaves are best fed. The limit cannot exceed a certain, very low standard!" Here, the emphasis on objective production lies in the fact that the working people in a slave position must realize in the struggle against totality that once the entire total order is over, they can no longer return to the isolated alienated labor before, and can no longer create the wage law; in other words, this means that only by realizing that the entire social production order needs to be fully democratized and in the hands of workers, and only individuals as this collective, social existence, can they have freedom and liberation; similarly, as a total order in this process, it also means that it cannot return to the previous situation above objective production, because now it itself is social production itself, that is, social production controlled by workers' democracy. Here, both objectivity and non-objectivity are negated by the creative revolutionary practice. Only revolutionary practice can confirm the true objectivity, and the essence of this true objective production is to constantly eliminate the corruption of the existing order, because as a creation, it must confirm and strengthen itself. We call this creation revolution. "We see here that thorough naturalism or humanism is different from both idealism and materialism, and at the same time it is the truth that combines the two. We also see that only naturalism can understand the action of world history." Just as abolishing patriarchy is not about making women the new big daddies, but about creating a new gender order. However, this gender order does not come out of thin air, but rather lies in the fact that women who are disciplined by patriarchy realize in their own resistance that eliminating patriarchy as a whole means that they can no longer be defined by patriarchy and must seek new social relations. This is the true meaning of alienated labor, and it is also the revolutionary subjectivity of workers.

That is to say, revolutionary subjectivity means the following. First, as the objective production that the revolutionary subject insists on, it reverses the purposefulness of capitalism and limits the totality of capitalism itself in contradiction; second, as the persistence of objective production, it means that one's own situation must be included in the totality of capitalism, that is, the persistence of oneself in oneself will inevitably lead to the negation of totality in oneself, so the solution to one's own contradiction must be found in the sum of social relations (a counterattack against the theory of original sin); third, the revolution born as the termination of the alienation of the capitalist order means that the old objectivity of the past must be completely abandoned, and it also means that the order itself, which is an absolute contradiction that should have become an object but is in fact not an object, must be eliminated. In other words, as its own true objective production, it must be realized in the transformation of society, that is, the creation of revolution, and the creation of revolution must also build a new society that is not opposed to individuals, is controlled by anti-state democracy, and excludes prejudice and hatred, that is, a society where everyone can freely exert their talents and creativity, that is, a society where everyone does their best and distributes according to needs. In other words, in this transcendence, individuals completely abandon their previous isolated status and devote themselves to building a society in which everyone can be free, and enjoy their own freedom in this society. Society is completely under the control of the masses and becomes a society where freedom can be realized and through this freedom.

"Sublation is the objective movement of taking the alienation back into itself... It advocates the real objectification of man, the real appropriation of his objective essence by eliminating the alienated characteristics of the objective world, by subleasing the objective world in its alienated existence, just as atheism, as the sublation of God, is the generation of theoretical humanism, and communism, as the sublation of private property, is the demand for the return of truly human life, that is, human property, the generation of practical humanism; or, in other words, atheism is humanism mediated by the sublation of religion, and communism is humanism mediated by the sublation of private property. Only through the sublation of this medium - but this medium is a necessary prerequisite - can positive humanism, which actively begins from itself, come into being. However, atheism and communism are by no means the disappearance, abandonment, and loss of the objective world created by man, that is, the disappearance, abandonment, and loss of man's essential power in the form of an object, and by no means a return to an unnatural, undeveloped state of poverty. On the contrary, they are the real generation of the human essence or the human essence as something real, the real realization for man."