社会形态、经济的社会形态、社会形式——马克思社会形态理论的核心概念考辨

Social Formation,Economic Social Formation and Social Form:A Review of the Core Concepts of Marx's Theory of Social Formation

“社会形态”是马克思仿照“地质层”概念而创制的用以标示人类社会不同发展阶段的新概念。“经济的社会形态”概念中的“经济”,既可以理解为观察社会形态的视角,也可以理解为社会形态的经济方面或部分,但不能把“经济的”理解为社会形态的特征限定,认为除了经济的社会形态,还有非经济的社会形态。“社会形式”与“社会形态”的内涵既有同也有异:它们都可以在社会发展阶段的意义上使用,但“社会形式”还可以在社会形式规定性的意义上使用。二者在本质上的相通之处在于:物、人的劳动在一定的社会关系中获得的社会形式规定性,是不同经济发展阶段(经济形态)进而是整个社会发展阶段(社会形态)的标志。

The disputes among Chinese scholars'on Karl Marx's theory of social formation are largely due to differences in understanding of the core concepts of social formation,economic social formation and social form.It is therefore necessary to carefully examine these core concepts.Marx understood society as a product of human activities and as a social organism.The social organism is composed of a variety of factors which are interlinked organically,among which the economy is in the fundamental position,and is always in a state of change.Social change presents obvious phase characteristics.In order to highlight the these phase characteristics as stages in the evolution of human societies,Marx coined the concept of die Gesellschaftsformation based on the concept of geological formation.Productive forces,relations of production(the economic foundation)and superstructure are all components of society and all have phase,or stagecharacteristics,so they should be included in the concept of the social formation.Some scholars have a narrower understanding of social formation which excludes productive forces or superstructure from social formation.Perhaps these scholars confuse the main signs that distinguish various social formations with social formation itself.The scope of the form itself is two different issues.Economic social formation(die konomische Gesellschaftsformation)in Marx's works can be used in two ways,(1)it is the social formation from the economic perspective,(2)it is the formation of social economy or the economic formation,namely the economic part of the social formation,therefore,it belongs to the same sequence as the economic foundation,the economic structure,but it highlights the diachronic evolution rather than the synchronic structure of the economy.Some scholars interpret economy as the characteristics of the social formation,and argue that there are both the economic social formations and the non-economic social formations.Such understanding is in conflict with some of Marx's classical statements.Marx's theory of social formation contains historical consciousness,which is related to his distinction between objects and specific social forms(die Gesellschaftsform).In addition to social formation,Marx also used social form to refer to a certain stage of social development.The connotations of social form and social formation are both similar and different:they can both be used in the sense of staged social development,and social form can also be used in the sense of die gesellschaftliche Formbestimmtheit(the social determination of form).The essential similarity between social form and social formation lies in the fact that the certainty of social form obtained by objects and human labor in certain social relations is the symbol of different stages of economic development(economic formation)and then the stages of social development(social formation).