重建社会:马克思与托克维尔政治哲学的对话

Reconstructing Society: Marx’ Discourse with Tocqueville in Political Philosophy

马克思与托克维尔的相遇是现代政治哲学史上最重大的事件之一。与他们表面的分歧相比,两位哲人内在的共识具有更深的历史意义。他们敏锐地洞察到了现代民主的危机,即推动工业繁荣和个人平等的民主运动同时也在塑造一个内部蕴含撕裂和对抗的共同体。他们都从社会状况出发展开对民主政治的分析,发现危机的根源在于市民社会及其利己主义,其结果便是现代人公共生活与私人生活发生不可弥合的断裂,并催生了一个拒斥公共责任的平庸的中产阶级,这决定了民主国家无法摆脱其专制本性,也导致了革命与复辟的一再循环。他们都意识到,消除民主危机的出路在于扬弃市民社会而重建“社会”,这要求人们克服政治浪漫主义和政治冷淡主义,以现实的手段开展自治和联合的尝试。马克思与托克维尔的思想关系绝不是激进主义与保守主义之间简单的对立,相反,他们为现代民主的诊断开启了超越自由主义的视野。

Karl Marx’s discourse with Tocqueville is one of the most important events in the history of modern political philosophy. Compared with their superficial differences, the two philosophers’ inner consensus has deeper historical significance. They were keenly aware of the dangers of modern democracy, in which the same democratic movements that promoted industrial prosperity and individual equality were also shaping a community of riven rivalries. From a sociological perspective, Karl Marx and Tocqueville found that the crisis of modern politics was rooted in the civil society and egoism. Therefore, people’s public lives have broken from their private lives and the bourgeoisie who rejected public responsibility became the major class. Democracy state in such a situation was still autocratic. Consequently, revolutions broke out once again. In order to be out of the crisis, people in modern society must reconstruct a real society in a realistic way to autonomy and unity, without political romanticism and political apathy. The ideological relationship between Marx and Tocqueville was by no means a simple opposition between radicalism and conservatism. On the contrary, they opened up a vision beyond liberalism for the diagnosis of modern democracy.