重新检视马克思的“使用价值”之思--基于货币转化为资本的视角

A Re-examination of Karl Marx’s Thought of"Use Value":From the Perspective of the Conversion of Money into Capital

作为马克思经济研究对象的使用价值,不是一般意义上的有用性,而是同资本主义生产关系存在本质关联的商品属性。以简单商品流通为分析框架的货币职能,无法包含货币使用价值的全部外延;只有以自身为目的实现价值的增殖,才构成货币的使用价值本身。这是资本主义生产方式所特有的历史现象。只有这个意义上的使用价值,才构成马克思经济学研究的对象。劳动力商品的使用价值,意味着价值增殖只能根源于对劳动力的实际使用即劳动本身。因此,劳动力使用价值的实现,成为剩余价值赖以创造的真实基础。这一特定的生产关系,决定了价值增殖的历史必然性。对劳动力使用价值的考察,乃是揭示剩余价值秘密的必要步骤。马克思从具体的生产关系出发思考使用价值问题,避免了经验直观方法的限囿;同时又凭借对人类社会发展规律的整体把握,揭示了使用价值本身得以扬弃的历史机制,从而克服了一切旧经济学研究所固有的非历史的思维方式的局限性。

As the subject of Karl Marx’s economics studies, use value does not refer to usefulness in the general sense, but the commodity attribute which is intrinsically connected with the capitalist relations of production. Functions of money, analyzed within the framework of simple commodity circulation, cannot cover all use values of money. The use value of money, in essence, is increasing value by aiming at money itself. This is a unique historical phenomenon of the capitalist mode of production. The use value only in this sense constitutes the research subject of Marxist economics. The use value of labor as commodity means that its value can only increase by actually using it, that is, labor itself. Therefore, the realization of the use value of labor has become the real basis for the creation of surplus value. This particular relation of production determines the historical inevitability of value increase. Therefore, the investigation of the use value of labor is a necessary step to reveal the secret of surplus value. Karl Marx thought about the use value based on specific relations of production, avoiding the limitations of empirical and intuitive methods. At the same time, by grasping the development law of human society as a whole, it reveals the historical mechanism for use value, thus overcoming the limitations of all non-historical ways of thinking inherent in old researches of economics.