Sun Leqiang: General Intellect and the Utopia of Liberation — Re-evaluating the Subject Theory of the Contemporary Western Left
Since the 1990s, with the rise of the so-called "knowledge economy," the role of intelligence and knowledge in the process of economic development has become increasingly prominent. Consequently, how to understand the relationship between intelligence and the logic of class has become a focal point of concern for the contemporary Western Left. Against this backdrop, leftist intellectual trends—represented by Autonomism and Cognitive Capitalism—have proposed theories of the "multitude," "cognitariat," and "cognitive worker" as distinct from the traditional proletariat, based on issues such as intelligence, immaterial labor, and knowledge production. These theories have exerted significant influence in contemporary Western academia. This compels us to rethink several questions: How did Marx and Engels understand the relationship between intelligence and class? Was the division between mental and manual labor the dominant logic by which they demarcated classes? What is the "proletariat of mental labor" [1] mentioned by Engels? What is the relationship between the latter and the "multitude" or "cognitariat" discussed by the Western Left? Only after clarifying these questions can we correctly understand and evaluate the subject theories of the contemporary Western Left.
I. Intelligence and the Remolding of Class Logic: The Subject Theories of Autonomism and Cognitive Capitalism
The Autonomist school argues that Marx's theory of the working class and the proletariat was defined according to material labor. In the post-Fordist era, with the rise of general intellect and immaterial labor, the traditional working class has receded to a secondary position, replaced by an entirely new social subject: the multitude. However, regarding the criteria for defining the multitude, certain differences exist within the Autonomist school. Hardt, Negri, and Lazzarato emphasize the biopolitical and immaterial labor dimensions. For Foucault, biopower and biopolitics were still two relatively ambiguous concepts, sometimes referring to the same thing—namely, the regulation and control of populations and life by power. In the work of Lazzarato and Negri, these two categories are clearly distinguished, evolving into two opposing categories with definite connotations. In their view, "biopower" refers to the control of life by capital or state power, corresponding to the power logic of capital or the state; "biopolitics," meanwhile, is the production of life and the genealogy of subject formation—a subject logic that transcends biopower. They argue that immaterial labor produces knowledge, information, affects, texts, and so on; such immaterial products cannot be produced via machines but can only be completed by relying on the subject's own life. Therefore, they believe that immaterial labor is essentially a biopolitical labor that produces and reproduces the subject and intersubjective social relations [2]. The so-called multitude consists of those new types of subjects engaged in immaterial labor and biopolitical production who are thus able to transcend the logic of biopower.
Unlike them, Paolo Virno opposes this kind of over-interpretation that detaches from the original context. He neither agrees with the rigid division between biopower and biopolitics, nor does he support the construction of "biopolitics" as a positive politics of the subject. In his view, biopolitics is simply the management and control of life by capital and state power [3]. Consequently, he does not advocate defining the multitude from a biopolitical dimension but rather appeals to "general intellect." This category originates from Marx's Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 (Grundrisse). In Marx's context, this category has a specific connotation: it is not a simple summation of individual intelligence, but rather the general intellect and "general social knowledge" accumulated through the long-term development of human society [4]. Virno, however, performs a postmodern reconstruction of this category from the dimension of the subject, understanding it as all the capacities and potentials possessed by the subject itself, including cognition, communication, affect, linguistic exchange, thinking, imagination, and so on [5]. On this basis, Virno argues that in the post-Fordist era, general intellect has replaced the manual power of the past to become a "general illumination" and a "special ether," forming the fundamental basis for understanding the social structure of contemporary capitalism. If the "people" take the state will as their sole basis, and "class" takes economic and production relations as its unified marker, then the "multitude" takes general intellect as its leading basis. "The multitude redefines the 'One.' In fact, this 'many' needs a unified form, needs to exist as 'One.' But the key here is: this unity is no longer the state; rather, it is language, intellect, and the common faculties of humanity. This 'One' is no longer a promise, it is a premise. Unity is no longer something toward which all things converge (the state, the leader), as in the case of the people; rather, it is taken for granted as a background or a necessary premise. This 'many' must be seen as a generic, universal individualization of shared experience. Accordingly, we must conceive of the 'One' as far from being something conclusive; perhaps it can be seen as a foundation, a basis that allows for difference, or a basis that allows this many to be seen as the many of an existing socio-political existence" [6]. In other words, in the multitude, the relationship between the "One" and the "Many" has undergone an important change: the "One" here is no longer an immutable ontological promise in the traditional metaphysical sense, but rather the actual intelligence and potentiality possessed by the subject itself; the "One" here is no longer a supreme "essence" that erases all differences, but a species-attribute that can be universally individualised and differentiated.
Regarding this understanding, the school of Cognitive Capitalism has raised doubts and criticisms, arguing that the "multitude" remains essentially a very vague concept that does not clearly demarcate the core characteristics of different strata. In this context, Franco Berardi, Yann Moulier-Boutang, Carlo Vercellone, and others advocate using the terms "intellectual proletarian," "cognitariat," and "cognitive worker" to replace the traditional categories of the proletariat and the multitude.
They began with a new interpretation based on the distinction between labor-power and "invention-power." They point out that material labor mainly produces tangible goods and can be accomplished with the aid of machine systems. In this process, capital's exploitation of labor is primarily manifested as capital sucking manual labor-power to realize the valorization of value; this is a form of capital accumulation dominated by dead labor. However, in contemporary capitalist society, the dominant form of production has shifted from material production at the low end of the value chain to knowledge production at the high end. The production of knowledge, information, ideas, and affects cannot be completed by machines and fixed capital; it can only be produced by relying on the subject's own invention-power or the collective brain. At this point, capital emphasizes more the exploitation of invention-power, general intellect, and collective intelligence. This is a process of using knowledge to produce knowledge and invention-power to produce living knowledge—or, one might say, a process of capital accumulation centered on the accumulation of knowledge. On this basis, Boutang further points out that if manual labor-power is consumed in the production process and congealed in the final product, then for invention-power, "this living labor, besides being partly consumed as energy and congealed in the new machines of the next cycle, will also partly continue to exist as a means of production throughout the entire production cycle" [7]. For capital, this living labor is no longer labor-power in the traditional sense, but a more advanced "invention-power." It has become prominent as the irreplaceable "living capital" and "intellectual capital" in the process of contemporary capital accumulation [8], becoming the dominant source of value creation. Based on the distinction between labor-power and invention-power, Boutang distinguishes between two different types of exploitation: Level 1 exploitation and Level 2 exploitation. Level 1 exploitation refers primarily to capital's exploitation of manual labor-power, while Level 2 exploitation refers to capital's exploitation of invention-power. The former is the core characteristic of industrial capitalism, while the latter is the core characteristic of cognitive capitalism; the former is the core criterion for defining the traditional proletariat, while the latter is the dominant measure for defining the cognitariat and cognitive workers [9]. In this regard, Cognitive Capitalism does not abandon the logic of class as the Autonomist school does, but rather seeks to reshape class logic in a new context.
However, Boutang points out that due to differences in intelligence and knowledge, cognitive workers have not yet reached the level of a "class-for-itself" (阶级为自身), but constitute an uneven and hierarchically differentiated "class-in-itself" (阶级为他人) [N]. "Although knowledge has become the raw material, it has led to real 'stratified' differentiation (these divisions give rise to new forms of exploitation characterized by Level 2 exploitation). Therefore, knowledge triggers an exclusivity that is more significant and intense than that of industrial society" [10]. Differences in general intellect and invention-power inevitably trigger differences in labor, thereby resulting in stratified differentiation within the ranks of laborers.
Based on the division between Level 1 and Level 2 exploitation and the degree of freedom of the exploited, Boutang achieves a classification of different strata. Specifically, the exploited mainly include the following types: (1) Slaves and serfs. They suffer Level 1 exploitation and have no freedom whatsoever. (2) Manual workers. Unlike slaves and serfs, they have escaped relations of personal dependence, are legally free, and can freely sell their labor-power; however, like the former two, they remain at the level of Level 1 exploitation. (3) Employed clerks, public officials, and salaried artists, etc. They suffer double exploitation as both labor-power and invention-power; however, unlike workers who freely sell their labor, they are akin to servants and lack freedom. (4) The cognitariat and the "pronetariat" [N] (network proletariat). If the traditional working class is the main force in the process of capitalist material production, the cognitariat and pronetariat in the narrow sense are one of the main forces in the process of capitalist knowledge production. They not only produce knowledge commodities but also create surplus value; they suffer Level 1 exploitation as labor-power and Level 2 exploitation as invention-power. Unlike public officials, however, they are free wage laborers. (5) Independent self-employed professionals. They are legally free and do not suffer Level 1 exploitation, but may suffer Level 2 exploitation. (6) Market-dependent cognitive workers. These workers are exploited not as manual labor-power but as invention-power; however, because they are entirely dependent on the market for their livelihoods, they are not free. (7) Cognitive workers freely engaged in creative activities. This group has escaped Level 1 exploitation and is mainly subject to Level 2 exploitation. However, unlike the cognitariat in the narrow sense and market-dependent cognitive workers, they possess stable wages or other income and do not need to submit to the despotism of the market or capital for survival. Therefore, they are no longer dependent cognitive workers, but cognitive workers freely engaged in creative activities in the truest sense [11].
Seen in this light, from the perspective of Cognitive Capitalism, there are clear differences in connotation and stratified composition between "cognitive workers" and the "cognitariat," the former being broader than the latter. In contemporary capitalist society, all cognitive laborers are components of the cognitive workers, while the cognitariat refers to the direct wage earners among cognitive workers; or rather, cognitive workers constitute a cognitive stratum with internal hierarchical divisions.
The "cognitive proletariat" refers to that segment of cognitive workers who directly sell their own creativity, are dominated by capital, and create surplus value. In their view, while manual labor and the proletariat in the traditional sense still exist within cognitive capitalist society, they are no longer its leading force. Cognitive workers and the cognitive proletariat have replaced the former, becoming the new subjects of the struggle for liberation in the era of cognitive capitalism.
II. New Contradictions Triggered by Intellect and New Strategies of Struggle
In the "Fragment on Machines," Marx argued that with the development of "general intellect," the creation of wealth would depend increasingly on the application of science and technology and less on labor time. He posited that once labor fell below a certain point, the law of value would lose its efficacy, and the system of exchange value production and the capitalist system itself would collapse. Contemporary Western Leftists believe that the developmental practice of contemporary capitalism has proven Marx’s judgment to be "a mixed bag": the development of general intellect did not lead to the collapse of the exchange value system and capitalism as Marx anticipated; instead, it gave rise to a new form of capitalism based on general intellect and the "knowledge theory of value." However, in their view, although contemporary capitalism has moved beyond the industrial capitalist form, it has not overcome the internal contradictions of capitalism. Rather, it has reproduced and developed these contradictions at a higher level, and on this basis, they have proposed new strategies of struggle.
First is the contradiction between the commonality of intellect and the nationalization and capitalization of intellect. Virno [12] argues that while general intellect represents the capacity and potential of the subject itself, knowledge is the product of the objectification of human intellect; both, in essence, belong to the common heritage of humanity. This commonality constitutes the essential attribute of general intellect and knowledge. However, in contemporary Western society, the combination of intellect with existing production systems and state power has led to a double alienation of intellect. On one hand, there is the paradox between the commonality of intellect and its capitalization. Virno notes: "As soon as intellect is linked to wage labor, its typical commonality is controlled and distorted. This commonality is invoked over and over again in its role as a productive force; but it is suppressed over and over again in its role as a public sphere (in the proper sense of the term) as a potential source of political action or as a differing principle." [13] Intellect is the foundation of social cooperation, and the scope of this cooperation is much broader than the scope of cooperation that labor can define. However, under capitalist conditions, the cooperation of intellect is not achieved through the autonomous association of subjects, but is forcibly constructed through the mediation of wage labor. As a result, intellect loses its autonomy and commonality, "playing the role of the most outstanding resource for capitalist cooperative action... the situation turns into its opposite: because the emergence of intellect becomes the technical premise of labor... it follows that intellect is conversely incorporated into the management criteria and hierarchies characteristic of the factory management system." Through this transformation, all intellectual workers are stripped of their autonomy and integrated into a "tight web of hierarchical systems," leading to a double subjection of the intellectual subject in terms of both individuality and personality.
On the other hand, there is the paradox between the commonality of intellect and its nationalization. Virno points out: "While intellect is exploited as a productive force, its unique commonality is also deprived of its true expression by labor, and can only find indirect manifestation within the state through the hypertrophic growth of administrative bodies. Administration is no longer a political parliamentarism, but the core of statehood: but this is actually the case because administration embodies the dictatorial coalescence of the general intellect; it is the point of confluence between knowledge and control, the reflection of excessive cooperation." With the concrete application of knowledge in administration, the state itself is not only rationalized, but intellect is gradually nationalized. "Hobbes understood the principle of rationalizing absolute power when the natural rights of every single individual are transferred to a supreme ruler; on the other hand, we should speak of a transfer of intellect—more precisely, the transfer of the inherent, irreducible commonality of intellect to the administration of the state," causing the commonality of intellect to gradually wither.
Second is the contradiction between "dead knowledge" and "living knowledge." In Marx's view, the inversion of the capitalist material production process is primarily manifested in the inversion of dead labor and living labor. Cognitive capitalism theorists argue that Marx's judgment was only directed at the material labor process; if based on the processes of knowledge production and cognitive labor, Marx's judgment is far from sufficient. Boutang [13] points out that in the era of cognitive capitalism, if capital wishes to realize the exploitation of this creativity, general intellect, and collective intelligence, it is no longer enough to gather living labor on a production line and completely objectify their intellect into products or transform it into components of dead labor. For capital, it is more critical to consistently maintain the dispossession of this living creativity of living labor itself, rather than turning it into completely objectified "dead knowledge." Therefore, if the contradiction of industrial capitalism was expressed as the opposition between dead labor (represented by capital) and living labor, then in the era of cognitive capitalism, "the opposition between dead labor and living labor under traditional industrial capitalism gives way to a new form of antagonism: namely, the opposition between the 'dead knowledge' of capital and the 'living knowledge' of labor."
Third is the contradiction between the privatization of intellectual property and the socialization of knowledge production. Cognitive capitalism theorists point out that in the era when Marx and Engels lived, the issue of intellectual property had not yet emerged; therefore, the "private ownership of the means of production" they spoke of referred primarily to the private ownership of material means of production. However, in contemporary capitalist society, intellectual property and its privatization have become major, unavoidable issues. If Virno analyzed the social contradictions of contemporary capitalism primarily through the paradox between the commonality and exclusivity of intellect and knowledge, then cognitive capitalism goes a step further, focusing on the new contradictions caused by the privatization of intellectual property rights. They point out that with globalization and the adjustment of global industrial structures, large enterprises and corporations in contemporary capitalism continuously seize the medium-to-high-end segments of global industrial value chains, thereby forming a mode of capital accumulation centered on knowledge and innovation—a "completely new stage of primitive accumulation of capital." If industrial capitalism used commodities to produce commodities, then cognitive capitalism uses knowledge to produce knowledge, and living people to produce living knowledge. Under these conditions, knowledge production—or the cognitive labor that produces knowledge—has effectively become subordinate to capital. Capital produces knowledge by dispossessing cognitive workers of their creativity and privatizes their cooperative or collective intellectual achievements in the form of property rights. On one hand, this realizes the dispossession of the fruits of others' intellectual labor and constructs a new set of intellectual property relations; on the other hand, it "obstructs the progress of knowledge by artificially creating resource scarcity... blocking the source of the processes of knowledge accumulation and dissemination." Therefore, to reveal the internal contradictions of the contemporary capitalist production process, it is necessary not only to examine the contradiction between private ownership of material means of production and the socialization of production, but also to systematically reveal the internal contradiction between the capitalist privatization of intellectual property and socialized production, achieving a critique of the political economy of intellectual property privatization.
The Autonomist and Cognitive Capitalism schools believe that under new historical conditions, as the social subject has changed and the contradictions of capitalist society have changed, the strategies of struggle must necessarily change accordingly. Combining these new social contradictions, the Autonomist and Cognitive Capitalism schools have proposed new struggle strategies from the perspectives of the "multitude" [14] and cognitive workers, respectively.
First: Cooperative Autonomy and the Return of Biopolitics. Whenever the development of productive forces of labor is mentioned, the popular explanation is usually Smith’s theory of the division of labor. It refers to "the cooperation of many workers under the command of one capital in the production of different parts of the same commodity, where each special part of the commodity requires a special type of labor, that is, a special operation, and each worker or group of workers only completes a certain special operation, while other workers complete other operations, and so on." This division of labor is not formed voluntarily or autonomously by workers, but is forcibly constructed under the dominance of capital. In this division of labor, the cooperation of workers can only form a total productive force subservient to capital, rather than producing the subjectivity and autonomy of the workers. Autonomists and cognitive capitalism theorists believe that while Smith's theory of the division of labor is effective for explaining material productive labor, it is clearly no longer applicable to intellectual labor, cognitive labor, and immaterial labor. If the era from large-scale machine production to Fordism sought to turn people into appendages of machines and achieve the de-subjectification of the labor process, the labor process of the post-Fordist era is exactly the opposite: it seeks to fully mobilize human subjectivity, initiative, and creativity. If traditional material labor produced things and material commodities—and the production of such things can be entirely completed by machines, making it irrelevant if humans are turned into things—then contemporary immaterial labor produces knowledge, information, affects, and texts. Such immaterial products cannot be completed by machines; they rely solely on the subject’s own cooperation. Therefore, to produce immaterial products, it is clearly impossible to follow Smith's theory of the division of labor by fixing workers to specific procedures and production lines. More importantly, unlike manual labor, immaterial labor, intellectual labor, and cognitive labor require the participation of the subject themselves, and they produce and reproduce the subject as well as inter-subjective social relations (cooperation, communication, affect, etc.) during the labor process. Thus, even if the initial cooperation between immaterial laborers is forcibly constructed under the dominance of capital, within the process of labor, "capital can by no means organize the relations of productive cooperation"; instead, the subjects themselves will produce a brand-new form of cooperation external to capital, realizing a logical shift from forced cooperation under the dominance of the logic of capital to autonomous cooperation of the subject—from "biopower" back to "biopolitics" [15].
Second: Non-cooperation and "Exodus." How can intellect break free from the constraints of capital and state power to return to its own commonality? Virno points out: "As long as it detaches its own connection from commodity production and wage labor, it is itself an autonomous public sphere. On the other hand, the subversion of capitalist relations of production can only be manifested through the establishment of a non-state public sphere and the establishment of a political community relying on the general intellect." To achieve this transformation, the multitude needs a new strategy of struggle, namely "non-cooperation and exodus." Non-cooperation is the basic form of the multitude’s political action; it is a "reluctance to express deep loyalty to the control of the state." "The birthplace of non-cooperation exists not only in the social struggles expressing protest, but especially in those places expressing defection." In other words, non-cooperation is not merely a verbal protest, but an act of "rebellion" against power; it is "not offering an opinion, but exiting." That is, all members of the multitude unite, strive to change the rules of the game, and continuously withdraw from the operational mechanisms of capital and state power.
Return the intellect and individual potential to their public nature, realize the common appropriation of general intellect, and subsequently "prevent this wealth of knowledge from being 'transferred' to state administrative power, and prevent its structure from functioning as a productive resource for capitalist enterprise" [17]91.
Third, the union of cognitive workers and the network. The exploitation of creativity constitutes the core of cognitive capitalism, and the privatization of intellectual property is an inevitable product of the capitalist process of knowledge production. How, then, can cognitive workers break free from this exploitation? The cognitive capitalism school rests its hopes on the union of cognitive workers and the network. They argue that "today, the core of value—the most typical characteristic of productive labor—is the creative activity of the brain" [19]163. To complete the exploitation of this creativity, it is impossible to continue using the hierarchical cooperation models of Taylorism or Fordism [16]; one must utilize modern network information technology to fully mobilize the initiative and subjecthood of cognitive workers, achieving a shift from vertical to horizontal modes of cooperation. "The organizational form that makes innovation possible is horizontal cooperation, and the latter is only possible by means of the Internet and digital tools. Without horizontal cooperation, there is no innovation, or innovation cannot be spoken of; without the Internet, the cost of organizing decentralized horizontal cooperation would be astronomical; without computers and digital tools—considering the meager computational power of the human brain—memory capacity and information processing efficiency would be low and limited" [19]163. Only through modern information technology can human brains be joined together to form a collective brain and collective intellect, radiating immense creativity.
When capital utilizes this form of cooperation to expropriate the creativity of cognitive workers, it simultaneously opens a new path to break through capitalist relations of production. Or rather, the development of the Internet and information communication technologies provides the technical support for cognitive workers to escape the mechanism of capitalist wage labor. Yann Moulier-Boutang [17] points out that with the integration of cognitive workers and modern information technology, all such workers will unite within the network to form a massive "human cloud." Every cognitive worker can find work entirely through the Internet, no longer subject to specific working environments or specific capital as before, thereby forming an entirely new mechanism of work. This will inevitably pose a massive challenge to the system of capitalist wage labor. More importantly, cognitive workers themselves constitute a cognitive stratum made up of different ranks, making the possibility of uniting in reality quite remote; yet, by means of the Internet, internal hierarchical divisions can be broken down to achieve a true union of creativity. Once this step is reached, all cognitive workers will reappropriate their own creativity and collective intellect, thereby breaking through the cage of capitalist relations of production, abolishing the restrictions of intellectual property and its privatization, and realizing the socialized union of knowledge production and the genuine sharing of intellectual wealth.
In short, their strategy is: Let all immaterial laborers and the multitude unite to reappropriate general intellect and achieve subjective autonomy! Let all cognitive workers and the cognitive proletariat unite to become the masters of their own creativity and collective intellect!
III. The Relationship Between Intellect and Class Existence: The Diagnosis of Marx and Engels
How should we view the understanding of the relationship between intellect and class in contemporary Western Leftist theory? To answer this, we must first clarify the judgments made by Marx and Engels on this issue.
First, is intellect the basis for dividing ranks and classes? In class society, the division of labor between mental and manual labor often manifests in the form of class antagonism. Consequently, it is easy to form the impression that mental laborers belong to the ruling class while manual laborers belong to the ruled class. This understanding has its rationality in certain historical periods, but it is an exaggeration to elevate the distinction between manual and mental labor to the dominant metric by which Marx and Engels define class. Class is an economic category; it is an essential division made according to relations of production and social relations, whereas intellect is merely a common attribute possessed by human beings themselves—it is not the basis for the logic of class division. In Marx's words, intellect is an "attribute which I have in common with everybody, which I possess to the same degree as everybody else, [which] constitutes neither my character, nor my specific quality, nor my particular essence." Therefore, "intellect does not make the person a member of the estate system [18]; it only makes the member of the estate system a human being" [23]338. On this basis, Marx reached an important conclusion: "intellect is by no means the characteristic of the estate"; on the contrary, "the estate is the characteristic of the intellect" [23]339.
Intellect is a common attribute of humanity, while ranks and classes are social categories; a shared species-attribute cannot become the dominant metric for rank and class status. Conversely, as a human species-attribute, intellect is endowed with special social attributes due to different relations of production and social relations, thus possessing specific forms and specific contents. Those who possess intellect are divided into different ranks based on the different positions and relations they occupy. In other words, intellect is not the metric for dividing ranks and classes; rather, ranks and classes are important standards for understanding the functional form and characteristics of intellect. Instead of making the rank or class "fit the intellect, it is the intellect that is made to fit it," just as a watchmaker cannot correct the sun according to his watch, but can only correct his watch according to the sun [23]343.
Second, what is the functional form of intellect in the spheres of capitalist material and immaterial production? Due to the limitations of the capitalist mode of production, the functional form of intellect also exhibits its own particularity. Marx and Engels conducted concrete analyses of this from the perspectives of material and immaterial production respectively. Regarding the sphere of material production, Marx and Engels believed that capital would fully utilize and appropriate socially accumulated intellect and scientific knowledge, transforming them into systems of machinery and fixed capital. This achieves intellectual control over the material production process, causing the majority of industrial workers to be reduced to appendages of the machinery system and realizing the separation of social intellect from the labor process [24]. For these industrial workers, their labor process gradually degenerates into increasingly monotonous, de-intellectualized manual labor. These industrial workers constitute the main force of the modern working class as described by Marx and Engels. However, can we assert that the proletariat in the sense of Marx and Engels refers only to industrial workers? The answer is "no," which brings us to the question of immaterial labor.
When Marx and Engels shifted their gaze from material production to immaterial production, they identified new functional forms of intellect—namely, the issues of immaterial labor and spiritual production. They divided this production into three types: The first is the intellectual labor of the bourgeoisie and its spokespersons. The ruling ideas of every epoch are the ideas of the ruling class. "Consequently, within this class, one part appears as the thinkers of the class... its active, conceptive ideologists, who make the perfecting of the illusion of the class about itself their chief source of livelihood" [25]. This type of immaterial laborer constitutes the spokesperson for the ruling class. The second category consists of those who engage in spiritual production autonomously. Their intellect has not yet been subordinated to the logic of capital. they can give full play to their own ingenuity and talents, autonomously engaging in various immaterial productive activities such as scientific research and artistic creation. The third category consists of intellectual laborers who are subjected to the power of capital.
Many contemporary Leftist scholars criticize Marx, claiming he ignored the production of surplus value in the sphere of immaterial labor. For instance, Paolo Virno points out that, from Marx's perspective, immaterial labor that does not provide a terminal product "to a great extent cannot be called productive (surplus-value-producing) labor. Marx actually accepts the equation: labor without a terminal product = personal private service" [17]66. In fact, this accusation is groundless. Those familiar with the Manifesto of the Communist Party will clearly remember the profound diagnosis of Marx and Engels: "The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers" [26]. Those who have read Capital and its manuscripts should remember the analogy of the "sausage factory" and the "teaching factory" [27]. One should remember Marx's analysis of teachers, actors, artists, writers, and painters: to their audience, they are not wage laborers; however, when a boss hires a teacher to make money, or an entrepreneur hires an actor or artist to accumulate wealth, then for the boss or entrepreneur who employs them, their immaterial labor is a form of wage labor producing surplus value. They are, in the modern sense, productive workers.
Third, what is the relationship between intellect, labor power, and the working class? In Marx's view, labor power is the prerequisite for the establishment of the capitalist mode of production. So-called labor power refers to the sum total of physical and intellectual energy consumed in the labor process, and the working class mainly refers to modern wage workers who rely on selling their labor power to maintain their livelihood. Combining Marx and Engels's analysis of the spheres of material and immaterial production, it can be seen that whether a person functions as physical labor power or intellectual labor power, as long as they create surplus value for the capitalist, they constitute a component of the modern wage worker as described by Marx and Engels. This again demonstrates that the distinction between manual and mental labor is by no means the primary criterion by which Marx and Engels demarcate the proletariat and the working class. The proportion of manual versus mental labor only affects the concrete form of direct labor; it does not subvert the overarching logic of labor power as the sum of physical and intellectual energy. Whether manual or mental laborers can become the proletariat in the sense of Marx and Engels does not depend on their level of intelligence or how much knowledge they possess, but is rooted in the position they occupy within the relations of production. In class society, the distinction between manual and mental labor is essentially a secondary factor subordinated to the logic of class. These distinctions are significant in understanding the class composition of the proletariat and the working class: material producers who primarily rely on selling physical labor power constitute the manual labor proletariat, while those mental laborers dominated by capital constitute, to a certain extent, the "proletariat of mental labor" [28]487 mentioned by Engels.
With the above clarification, let us now critique the subject theory of the contemporary Western Left.
First, the distinction between material labor and immaterial labor is by no means a criterion for demarcating the proletariat from the multitude. Based on this distinction, Hardt and Negri demarcate manual laborers engaged in material labor as the proletariat in the sense of Marx and Engels, while defining immaterial laborers engaged in biopolitical labor as a multitude distinct from the traditional proletariat. In doing so, they dig an unbridgeable chasm between the proletariat and the multitude, which is itself illegitimate. The proletariat and productive workers in the sense of Marx and Engels include not only some manual laborers but also some individuals engaged in immaterial labor. With the transformation of the contemporary capitalist mode of production, the proportion of mental labor and the intellectual proletariat has indeed risen daily, but this is merely a change in the internal composition of the proletariat, not the fading of class logic itself. Therefore, when they declare Marx’s class logic and working-class theory to be obsolete based on biopolitics and immaterial labor, they clearly commit an empiricist error. In this regard, cognitive capitalism possesses a certain degree of rationality...
They are to be commended for proposing the categories of the "cognitive worker" and the "cognitive proletariat" based on the relationship between capital and cognitive labor, thereby maintaining, to a certain extent, the Marxist logic of class. More importantly, even within the sphere of immaterial labor, there exist forms of immaterial labor of varying natures. Yet, these theorists set aside the analysis of the relations of production and social relations, subsuming all immaterial laborers under the category of the "multitude." By doing so, they conflate the bourgeoisie and its spokespersons, partially autonomous immaterial laborers, and the "proletariat of intellectual labor" in the sense used by Marx and Engels. This is entirely an extra-class logic of eclecticism.
Secondly, general intellect is by no means the criterion for distinguishing the working class from the multitude. Differing slightly from Hardt and Negri, Paolo Virno understands the general intellect as the "One" behind the multitude. In reality, this is also unreasonable. According to Virno’s definition, the general intellect is no longer the social collective intellect in the Marxian sense, but rather the totality of generic attributes possessed by every individual. According to this logic, the general intellect would have existed as early as primitive society, and thus everyone would have become what Virno calls the multitude; this is clearly invalid. As Marx noted, as a generic attribute, intellect is by no means a characteristic of hierarchy, much less the dominant measure for demarcating ranks and classes. In this regard, Virno’s use of the general intellect as a standard to define the multitude as the "possessors of the general intellect"—and thereby distinguish the modern multitude from the traditional proletariat—is itself problematic. On this point, the school of cognitive capitalism has provided a more detailed theoretical analysis by dividing cognitive laborers into cognitive workers and the cognitive proletariat, achieving to some extent a concrete analysis of the forms through which intellect functions. However, their flaws are also quite obvious: they include the first type of immaterial laborer in the sense of Marx and Engels within the category of cognitive workers, thus blurring the boundary between the bourgeois producers of ideas and cognitive workers.
Thirdly, labor power and creativity do not follow a binary logic of linear opposition. To highlight the cognitive characteristics of labor in contemporary capitalism, the school of cognitive capitalism has invented a new category, "creativity," outside the category of labor power, viewing the two as different logical mechanisms. The former refers to manual labor power, while the latter refers to intellectual creativity; based on this, they distinguish between two different logics of exploitation. To a certain extent, this helps reveal the evolution and operating mechanisms of contemporary capitalism. However, this linear binary division is itself built upon a distortion of the connotation of labor power. Labor power is inherently the sum of physical and intellectual capabilities; so-called "creativity" is itself a part of labor power, not an external logic independent of it. On this point, Virno’s judgment is correct: "What does 'labor power' mean? Labor power means the potential to produce. Potential, which is to say, talent, capacity, vitality... when we speak of labor power, we implicitly refer to various capacities: linguistic capacity, memory, agency, etc." [23]104. That life has emerged as the center of politics and power is, in the final analysis, because life is the bearer of labor power. "Wherever biopolitics exists, it involves the potentiality dimension of human existence coming to the fore, into direct experience: not the words spoken, but the capacity to speak itself; not the labor actually completed, but the generic productive capacity. Only, and exclusively under the name of labor power, does the potentiality dimension of existence become evident" [23]108. The secret of the politicization of life lies in the economization of life. Virno’s judgment reveals the secret of biopolitics and is worth affirming.
IV. Engels’s Advice: The Historical Mission of the Proletariat of Intellectual Labor
In his 1893 letter "To the International Congress of Socialist Students," Engels pointed out: "May your efforts lead the students to realize more and more that it is from their ranks that there should arise a proletariat of intellectual labor [N1], who are called upon, shoulder to shoulder with their brothers, the manual workers, to play a major part in the coming revolution in a single rank. The bourgeois revolutions of the past required from the universities only lawyers as the best raw material for their politicians; but for the liberation of the working class, we need, in addition, doctors, engineers, chemists, agronomists, and other specialists; for the problem is to take over not only the management of the political machine but also the whole of social production, and here what are needed are not sounding phrases but solid knowledge." [34]487. Although this letter is brief, the ideas it contains are extremely rich; even reading it today, it possesses contemporary value that cannot be ignored.
First, what is this "proletariat of intellectual labor" of which Engels spoke? Above, starting from the theory of labor power, we elaborated on the first layer of its connotation: those intellectual laborers who are dominated by capital and create surplus value (the third type of immaterial laborer mentioned earlier). But this is not the full extent of the "proletariat of intellectual labor"; it contains another important dimension. Marx pointed out: "The utilitarian intellect that struggles for its own home is, of course, different from the free intellect that struggles for the cause of justice regardless of its own home. There is a fundamental difference between the intellect that serves a specific purpose or a specific thing and the intellect that governs all things and serves only itself." [29]339. As a generic attribute, "intellect is not a selfish interest seeking satisfaction; it is a universal interest." [29]340. As intellectual laborers, whether their intellect serves a utilitarian intellect of private interest or a universal intellect that struggles relentlessly for the cause of human justice is also an important criterion for demarcating the proletariat of intellectual labor. Under capitalist conditions, "as natural science is used by capital as a means of enrichment, science itself becomes a means of enrichment for those who develop it." [27]572. Among the second type of immaterial laborers, those who engage in scientific research for the purpose of personal enrichment have not yet escaped the shackles of private interest and utilitarianism; they cannot reach the level of the proletariat of intellectual labor described by Engels. Conversely, those intellectual laborers who struggle relentlessly for the cause of human liberation constitute an important part of the proletariat of intellectual labor.
Secondly, why does the proletarian revolution need a proletariat of intellectual labor? The era of the bourgeois revolution was an era that needed giants and produced giants; their historical mission was to lay the foundation for modern bourgeois rule. Similarly, the era of the proletarian revolution also needs its own giants to lay the foundation for the liberation of the proletariat and humanity. Without the guidance of scientific theory, the success of the proletarian revolution is impossible. The proletariat likewise needs its own political party, its own immaterial laborers, and its own producers of ideas. More importantly, the proletariat also needs general intellect and knowledge; it needs to train its own doctors, engineers, chemists, and other specialists to provide a rich reserve of knowledge and a foundation of talent for future national and social governance. In this regard, the proletarian revolution requires not only the proletariat of manual labor but also the proletariat of intellectual labor.
Thirdly, what historical mission should the proletariat of intellectual labor shoulder? They must discard the utilitarian form of intellect, stand firmly on the side of the proletariat, and fight shoulder to shoulder with the manual labor proletariat, contributing their intellect to human liberation and the proletarian revolution. From this perspective, contemporary Western Leftist intellectuals have consistently maintained a critical stance toward capitalism, revealing the social contradictions of contemporary capitalism and striving to provide new strategies for the liberation of the subject under new historical conditions. In this sense, their intellectual efforts are to be commended. However, they seem to have forgotten Engels’s advice: the proletariat of intellectual labor should fight alongside the proletariat of manual labor. Although both Autonomism and Cognitive Capitalism acknowledge that the manual labor proletariat remains an important part of the contemporary capitalist social structure, they cast the manual labor proletariat to the back of their minds when identifying the subject of struggle. It as if the liberation of the subject only needs to rely on the multitude and cognitive workers—this is precisely what will not work. In today’s increasingly globalized world, if there is no leadership from a proletarian party, no guidance from scientific theory, and no unified class alliance—if one expects to escape the coercion of capitalist relations of production and state power by relying solely on so-called "multitude autonomy" or the union of a few intellectual elites—it is destined to be a postmodernist fantasy. Just as Marx once warned that in a country where the peasantry is dominant, if the proletarian revolution cannot gain the support of the peasants, it is destined to become a "solitary swan's mournful cry" [N2]; similarly, in countries where the manual labor proletariat accounts for a high proportion, if the struggle of the multitude and cognitive workers does not receive strong support from the manual proletariat, it is destined to degenerate into a "storm in a teacup" or an "ivory tower revolution."
Finally, what kind of intellectual laborers does socialism need? Socialism also needs "doctors, engineers, chemists, agronomists, and other specialists"; it needs educators, thinkers, scientists, artists, and so on. But what we need are intellectual laborers who can stand firmly on the people's side and dedicate their wisdom to the cause of socialist modernization, rather than "sophisticated egoists" [N3] who use their intellect to seek private gain. We need intellectual laborers who take the universal interest as their responsibility, rather than utilitarian intellectual laborers centered on private interest.
Third, it is essential to deeply summarize the historical experience and developmental laws of the international communist movement, especially the practical experience of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New Era. We must uphold the fundamentals and break new ground, continuously promoting the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism. The "Fragment on Machines" and the "General Intellect" are indeed important for understanding the new changes in contemporary capitalism, but they cannot replace the basic principles of historical materialism, nor can they substitute for the concrete practice of the socialist movement.
Regarding the future liberation of humanity, we cannot pin our hopes on a "technological utopia" or an "automatic transition" triggered by the development of the productive forces. Instead, we must, under the guidance of the party's original aspiration and founding mission, persevere in comprehensively and strictly governing the Party and advancing the Party's self-revolution. By continuously optimizing the political ecosystem and persisting over the long term, we can ensure that the development of new quality productive forces and the adjustment of the relations of production always proceed along the correct direction of socialist modernization. Only by truly realizing the organic unity of the development of productive forces and the liberation of the subject can we successfully construct a community with a shared future for humanity and ultimately achieve common prosperity and the comprehensive development of the person.
The exploration of the "General Intellect" by the contemporary Western Left provides us with a cautionary theoretical reference: any theory of liberation that deviates from the dialectic of the productive forces and the relations of production, or that ignores the leadership of the proletarian party and the conscious action of the masses, is bound to fall into the trap of historical idealism or utopianism. In the New Era, Chinese-path modernization provides a vivid practice and institutional guarantee for overcoming this theoretical dilemma. By seeking truth from facts and advancing with the times, we are writing a new chapter in the history of human civilization.