紀念馬克思誕辰200周年｜《馬克思爲什麼是對的》英文第二版序

2018-08-07 10:19:06 華章同人

回望歷史，馬克思主義的誕生是人類思想史上的一個偉大事件，近170年來，儘管人類思想的天空星漢燦爛，但唯有馬克思主義獨具魅力，永葆青春。
2008年席捲全球的金融危機，將此前長期掩藏於“現代化”“金融市場”“工業主義”等一系列華麗假面之下的資本邏輯，特別是新自由主義的嗜血成性，再次暴露於世人面前，重新喚醒了西方世界對於馬克思的思考和懷念。

《馬克思為什麼是對的》（第二版）序言

自2011年本書首次出版以來，馬克思的思想至少有一點得到了極大的確認。

馬克思認為，在自由資本主義社會中的政治領域和他所謂的“公民社會”之間，也就是社會存在和經濟存在之間存在著一條鴻溝。在前者中——例如民主選舉——男男女女表現得既平等又自主，每人一票，童叟無欺；但是，這恰恰掩飾了日常生活中實際上的分裂、不平等和依存關係。就好像政治層面從現實中分離了出來，而公民們則成為了他們自己的蒼白的擬像。除非民主自治被延伸到公民社會本身——如工人自治，否則這個鴻溝就不會彌合。

5月25日，烏克蘭總統候選人波羅申科在基輔一處投票站投票。圖/CFP

然而，對馬克思而言，自由民主政治並不是完全真實的；自本書首次出版以來的這幾年裡，我們已經見證了西方世界對這一政治的血腥反應——這絕不僅僅是對正統政治理論的拋棄，而是大規模的民眾示威遊行。這也絕不是政治生活中的某一個方面被人們所唾棄，而是整個政治體系，以至於這個世界上最強大的國家已經準備將電視真人秀節目中脫穎而出的某個跳樑小醜選做自己的領導人——實際上，這恰恰是不真實的表現——而不是去加強傳統政治進程的可信度。

自從20世紀30年代以來，我們還沒有見到過人們如此大規模地喪失了對自由中產階級政治共識的信仰。階級戰爭不斷爆發、暴力革命甚囂塵上，其根源是憤怒、仇恨和絕望，這一切同英國議會或美國國會寧靜而文明的氣氛相去甚遠。統治階級已經被人們公開拋棄，淹沒在一片嘲笑、咒罵和呵斥聲中，這在溫斯頓·丘吉爾或約翰·F.肯尼迪時代卻鮮有所見。政治已經成為一種騷亂，如果你置身其中卻在錯誤的時間站到了錯誤的地點，就很可能被人砸破腦袋。其實，左翼人士對這種狀況的態度是很矛盾的。一方面，聯合王國2017年差一點就選出了一位深受卡爾·馬克思思想影響的左翼社會主義者作為領導人，讓人感到驚訝。另一方面，遊行示威展現出來的並非單純的左翼民粹主義，也有可惡的右翼民粹主義，如種族主義、沙文主義、暴力和專制。

民粹主義從來都是一把雙刃劍，總會在釋放出最寬容的平等主義本性的同時帶來一些最為醜惡的東西。重要的是我們必須看到，這些右翼民粹主義所代表的正是植根於資本主義之中的深層矛盾的一極。由於新自由市場體系變得越來越全球化和集約化，世界正陷入無休止的動盪之中，原有的穩妥身份和熟悉的座標都被熔為灰燼，這場混亂造成的反作用就是一種深深的憂慮感，人們感到這個美好新世界正在顛覆他們原有的生活；這種憂慮感極易轉化為仇恨和種族主義。

事情常常就是如此：仇恨來源於恐懼，而非單純的敵意。19世紀的英格蘭本土主義者主張絞死有戀童癖的人和驅逐少數族裔，而這些人的另一張面孔則是和藹可親的公司老總，隨和得敞著襯衣領口、與下屬們都直呼其名，他們奔走世界各地，為公司創造出可觀的利潤，而這些人的世界觀都是徹頭徹尾的自由主義和世界主義。

這種內在的關聯性正是政治正統所拒不承認的，也恰恰是政治左派所堅持的。問題的關鍵不在於如何在這場枯燥乏味的衝突中選邊站隊，而在於認識到發達資本主義的本質正是問題的根源——資本主義制度的全球化必然時時面臨這個內在的矛盾，要消除這個矛盾就只能消除這個制度本身，但是那就意味著資本主義的末日來臨。既然有了這樣的認識，那麼馬克思的思想就仍然是正確的。

特里·伊格爾頓

2017年10月

張兵一譯

2018年3月2日

附：

《馬克思為什麼是對的》第二版序言（英文）

Since this book was first published in 2011, at least one aspect of Marx’s thought has been dramatically confirmed.

Marx argues that there is a gap in liberal capitalist society between the political sphere and what he calls “civil society,” meaning social and economic existence. In the former—at the ballot box, for example—men and women appear equal and autonomous, each of them counting as one; but this simply serves to mask the actual divisions, inequalities and dependencies of everyday life. It is as though the political dimension abstracts from these conditions, so that citizens become pale simulacra of themselves. Only if democratic self-government were extended to civil society itself—in, for example, workers’ self-management—would this gap be closed.

For Marx, then, the liberal-democratic political sphere is less than fully real; and what we have witnessed in the West in the years since this book first appeared is a full-blooded reaction to this fact—not just a theoretical rejection of orthodox politics, but one that has taken to the streets in overwhelming numbers. It is not just this or that aspect of political life that has been discredited, but the political as such, so that the most powerful nation in the world is prepared to elect as its leader a sinister buffoon drafted in from reality TV—in fact, the very incarnation of unreality—rather than lend credence to the conventional political process. Not since the 1930s have we seen such a mass loss of faith in the liberal middle-class political consensus. There have been outbreaks of class warfare and talk of violent revolution, all of it fired by a fury, hatred and despair very far from the sedate, civilized climate of Westminster or Capitol Hill. The ruling class has been publicly trashed, mocked, hooted and howled down, which was not generally the case in the days of Winston Churchill or John F. Kennedy. Politics has become a roughhouse, in which you are likely to have your skull smashed in if you find yourself in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

None of this, to be sure, can be greeted by the left with anything but ambivalence. On the one hand, astonishingly, the United Kingdom in 2017 failed by a whisker to elect as its leader a left-wing socialist whose thought is much influenced by Karl Marx. On the other hand, what has taken to the streets is not simply a left-wing populism but a nastily right-wing one as well: racist, chauvinist, violent and authoritarian.

Populism has always been double-edged in this way, unleashing some of the most generous egalitarian instincts as well as some of the ugliest ones. It is important to see that such right-wing populism represents one pole of a contradiction built into capitalism itself. As the neo-liberal market system becomes more globalised and intensive, generating a world of ceaseless flux and agitation in which all secure identity and familiar coordinates are thrown into the melting pot, it creates as a backlash to this turmoil a profound sense of anxiety among those who feel themselves uprooted and destabilised by this brave new world; and that anxiety can easily be cashed in terms of rancour and racism. As is often the case, hatred has its roots in fear, not simple antagonism. The Little Englander who wants to hang paedophiles and deport ethnic minorities is the other face of the affable chief executive, open-neck-shirted and on cheery first-name terms with his subordinates, who circles the globe making lucrative deals for his company and who is thoroughly liberal and cosmopolitan in outlook.

It is this connection which political orthodoxy refuses to acknowledge, and which only the political left has insisted upon. The point is not to take sides in this sterile conflict, but to understand how it is rooted in the very nature of advanced capitalism—how that system in its globalised form cannot function without running constantly into this inbuilt contradiction, one that it cannot abolish without abolishing itself, but which threatens at every moment to undermine it. In pursuit of such understanding, the thought of Marx remains as relevant as ever.

T.E.

October 2017