当代社会工资问题新探

A New Probe into the Wage Issue in Contemporary Society

在当代社会,工资是劳动的价格。但是,这只是一个概括性的说明。实际上,对于不同所有制形式和不同社会制度条件下的工资问题,应当分别作出说明。社会主义本质上是等量劳动相交换的关系,把社会主义公有制经济中的工资概括为劳动的价格是理所当然的。要说明和理解这一点并不是很难,这里的难点在于说明我国私人经济和西方发达国家的工资问题,学术界的意见分歧也主要集中在这里。我们认为,我国的私人经济存在于社会主义大环境中,它不同于资本主义社会的私人经济,且当代资本主义社会(后工业阶段)也不同于早期资本主义社会(大工业阶段),因而把这里的工资说成劳动力的价格是不正确的,应当根据新的现实作出新的概括。在理论上,说明工资是劳动的价格将会遇到的最大难题是:要说明劳动的价格,就得说明劳动的价值;而要说明劳动的价值,就会导致同义反复的问题。因此,必须在解开这个难题的基础上,进一步说明劳动的价值和劳动的价格,从而揭示当代社会工资的本质。

In contemporary society, wages are the price of labor. However, this is only a general description. In fact, for different ownership forms and under different social systems, the problem of wages should be explained separately. The essence of socialism is the relationship of exchange between the equal labors, it is reasonable to summarize the wages in the socialist public economic system as the price of labor. It is not difficult to show and understand this point, but the real difficulty here is to explain the wage issues of China＇s private economy and of the Western developed countries; this is also the focus of the differences of academic opinions. We believe that China＇s private economy exists in a socialist environment, it is different from that in the capitalist society, and the contemporary capitalist society （the post-industrial phase） is also different from the early capitalist society （the large-scale industrial phase）, therefore it is not correct to regard the wages here as the price of labor. A new definition should be made according to the new realities. In theory, the most difficult problem in indicating the wages as the price of labor is that to indicate the price of labor, one has to explain the value of labor; while to explain the value of labor will result in tautological problems. Therefore, only by solving this problem can the labor value and labor price be further explained, so as to reveal the nature of the wages in contemporary society.