Kong Ming'an: A Review of Frontier Issues in Contemporary Foreign Marxist Research
On September 29, 2017, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held its 43rd collective study session on contemporary global Marxist ideological trends and their influence. While presiding over this session, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "A very important characteristic of contemporary global Marxist ideological trends is that many of them have conducted critical revelations of the structural contradictions of capitalism, as well as contradictions in the modes of production, class contradictions, and social contradictions, and have carried out in-depth analyses of capitalist crises, the process of capitalist evolution, and new forms and essences of capitalism. These perspectives help us correctly recognize the trends and destiny of capitalist development, accurately grasp the new changes and characteristics of contemporary capitalism, and deepen our understanding of the changing trends of contemporary capitalism." Since the establishment of the discipline of "Foreign Marxism" in China in the 1980s, Chinese research in this field has made significant progress. This article intends to summarize the latest developments in foreign Marxist ideological trends across the following ten aspects.
I. Contemporary Ideological Theory and Its "New" Characteristics
The term "ideology" originally stems from the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy’s work, Elements of Ideology, referring to the "science of ideas." In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels applied this concept to their critique of modern German philosophy represented by Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, and Max Stirner. Unlike Tracy’s neutral "science of ideas," Marx and Engels primarily used the concept of ideology from the perspective of "false consciousness," referring to the superstructure that represents the ideas of the ruling class. It is determined by social existence; while people are generally unaware of it, they are consciously dominated by it, thus giving ideology the characteristics of falsity and unconsciousness. Marx once vividly expressed this characteristic: "They do not know it, but they are doing it." [1]
After Marx, Antonio Gramsci, General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party, enriched Marxist ideological theory through his theory of "civil society" and the concept of "cultural hegemony." He likened ideology to the "cement" in the structure of a building and positioned ideology within the struggle for "cultural hegemony" via "war of position." [2] Building upon the ideological theories of Marx and Gramsci, Louis Althusser combined Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory to greatly expand the concept of ideology in three aspects: (1) Ideology is eternal and has no history; (2) Ideology functions as a state apparatus; (3) The function of ideology is to "interpellate" individuals as ideological subjects. [3] These three points constitute the core of Althusser's theory of ideology.
Slavoj Žižek expanded the concept of ideology from the perspective of the "unconscious" in Freud and Lacan, formulating it as follows: (1) All ideologies have their own "sublime object"; (2) Ideology is not merely ideas, nor merely the reified state apparatus, but "social reality" itself—though this reality is not an "objective" social reality, but one constituted by "ideological fantasy"; (3) The function of ideology is primarily manifested through the form of unconscious enjoyment (jouissance), which is latent within the subject’s "framework of fantasy." Through this fantasy framework, the subject obscures a traumatic rift, thereby domesticating themselves into an ideologized subject. [4] The prominent contribution of psychoanalytic ideological theory lies in revealing the mechanism of "misrecognition" produced by the subject within ideology, allowing people to glimpse the internal logic of ideological operation. In other words, "ideological recognition succeeds only when it touches the subject's framework of fantasy." [5]
II. Research on Digital Capitalism and New Imperialism
Digital capitalism is the new form of capitalism as it enters the digital era in the 21st century, the product of contemporary capitalism encountering the modern digital technological revolution. Dan Schiller noted that digital capitalism is capitalism in the information age. [6]
First, in the era of digital capitalism, capitalists have strengthened capitalist exploitation through digital capital, further widening the gap between rich and poor. This mode of exploitation is realized through a new form of labor that integrates production and consumption—"digital labor." In the era of digital capitalism, the dominant forces are no longer the productive labor and physical economy of Marx’s era, but rather digital labor and digitalized production; digital labor has become the extension and deepening of capital exploitation. Furthermore, digital capital must function through digital network platforms.
Second, digital network platforms constitute the primary mode of capitalist operation. From online shopping to daily consumption, from watching idol videos to leisure activities—ranging from minor daily consumption to large-scale capital operations, and even financial wars and military conflicts—none can be separated from digital technology and network platforms. In the era of digital capitalism, everything has been "digitalized" and "capitalized." Human social interactions, entertainment, and even emotional exchanges have become objects captured by digital capital. The irony is that these daily activities and emotional exchanges have turned into means of profit-making in the digital age, demonstrating the power of digital capital. Meanwhile, the individual, as a consumer of digital products, is simultaneously a provider of digital labor and digital capital.
Third, rather than eliminating the wealth gap, digital capitalism has led to its expansion on a global scale. The fact that the capital of Microsoft and Apple exceeds the wealth of entire nations is a most typical case. Christian Fuchs, in his book Digital Labour and Karl Marx, focused on the exploitation of digital labor among global workers and consumers by the Capitalist Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry under global value chains. On one hand, due to the international division of digital labor, workers in underdeveloped regions mostly engage in low-end manufacturing labor related to ICT products, such as miners in Africa, Foxconn workers in China, and software engineers in India. On the other hand, social media users' consumption of internet products is also a form of digital labor; the data they create regarding information and emotions is commodified and sold by large companies like Google and Twitter. This seemingly recreational activity is actually free labor for capitalists—the so-called "playbour." [7]
Of particular concern is that research on digital capitalism is closely linked to studies of contemporary capitalism or "new imperialism." Research on contemporary capitalism must first be traced back to Marx’s Capital. Following Marx, the Fourth International theorist Ernest Mandel, through an investigation of 20th-century capitalism in his book Late Capitalism, revised Marx’s theory of economic crisis. He proposed the "Long Wave Theory" regarding the outbreak of capitalist crises, arguing that capitalism does not suffer frequent economic crises but follows a longer periodicity, which he vividly represented as "long waves" (50–100 years). However, Mandel generally accepted Marx’s theory of capitalist economic crisis. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin transformed the study of contemporary capitalism into the study of imperialism, putting forward the classic thesis that "imperialism is, in its economic essence, monopoly capitalism." [8] It has been a hundred years since Lenin proposed this thesis; the emergence of digital capitalism has both accelerated the crisis of imperialism and provided new avenues for it to escape crisis.
Faced with the current state of imperialist development, contemporary Western Leftist scholars have put forward their respective views. David Harvey, through an interpretation of Marx’s Capital, proposed a theory of "New Imperialism" based on spatial geography to explain the difficult question of why modern imperialism is "moribund but not dead." Specifically, Harvey proposed the theory of "spatio-temporal fix" based on spatial geography. The so-called spatio-temporal fix refers to how New Imperialism, through the spatial expansion of capital within the dimension of globalization, transfers transnational capital to the Third World and backward countries to extract super-surplus value. By means of the "spatio-temporal fix," capitalism possesses a powerful capacity for self-repair, enabling it to evade capitalist crises and delay the collapse of the capitalist empire. [9]
Hardt and Negri also provided a new interpretation of contemporary imperialism in their book Empire. They argue that in the post-capitalist era of the "service-ification" and "information-ification" of production, regional economic differences are no longer manifested as different levels of development, but rather as hierarchical differences within the international production system. Traditional industrial production and labor as discussed by Marx in the 19th century are being replaced by another category of labor—immaterial labor. Immaterial labor has three forms: informationalized industrial labor, info-data service labor, and affective labor. Correspondingly, the assembly-line production model of traditional industry has been replaced by post-Fordist digital network production. By virtue of its dominant position in the fields of information industry, digital capital, and data services, the capitalist Empire is still able to establish control centers for production networks despite production being dispersed across the globe. What the decentralization of the production process in physical space brings about is the centralization of economic management and control; the financial trade of Wall Street guides and influences the development of the global economy. [10]
In short, digital capitalism and new imperialism have moved beyond the traditional imperialist mode of exploitation through the violent seizure of colonies, subsequently deriving various modern capitalist forms—such as "finance capitalism," "rentier capitalism," "welfare capitalism," "techno-capitalism," "disaster capitalism," and a series of other new forms of exploitation.
III. New Inquiries into Consumer Society and the Labor Theory of Value
It is generally held that the West entered a "consumer society" in the 1960s. In recent years, research on consumer society has roughly involved the following different perspectives or schools of thought:
(1) The Marxist view of consumption places consumption at the end of the four stages: production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. This is because the 19th century in which Marx lived was still an era of relative production deficiency. However, once humanity enters a consumer society, how to reconstruct the Marxist view of consumption and how to handle the relationship between production, distribution, exchange, and consumption will be an important task for Marxism.
(2) The liberal view of consumption, represented by Barbara Kruger, advocates "I shop, therefore I am." Unlike Descartes' mind-body dualism of "I think, therefore I am," "I shop, therefore I am" intrinsically links consumption with the existence of the subject. The core of the Cartesian proposition lies in the abstract cogito ("I think"), while the core of the liberal view of consumption lies in "I shop," which endows consumption with a certain ontological and existential core status, clearly adopting an attitude of praise and approval. That is to say, only consumption can manifest the essence of the subject; otherwise, the subject has no ground to stand on and might even cease to exist.
(3) Scholars represented by Mary Douglas and Pierre Bourdieu view consumption as the consumption of culture and "taste." If the liberal view of consumption grants consumption ontological and existential status, then cultural consumption greatly elevates the spiritual level and cultural refinement of consumption, making people feel more righteous and self-satisfied when consuming.
(4) Scholars such as Jean Baudrillard argue that consumption is a "consumption of signs" (symbolic consumption) situated within certain structural social relations. Unlike the second and third views which sing praises of consumption, the "sign consumption" represented by Baudrillard is a typical critique of consumption. It inherits the critical style of Western Marxism, literalizing and symbolizing the consumer society with the aim of revealing the deformed social relations of capitalist society through consumption.
Among studies of consumer society, the most representative is the French philosopher Baudrillard. In his book The Consumer Society, he proposed...
The concept of the "consumer society" holds that consumption is a mode of sign consumption, viewing it as a "white myth." Diverging from the production ontology of classical Marxism, Jean Baudrillard reconstructs the relationship between production, distribution, exchange, and consumption from the perspective of a consumption ontology, according primacy to consumption. This emphasis on the consumer society inevitably conflicts with Marx’s labor theory of value; consequently, how to regard Marx’s labor theory of value within the context of the consumer society has become a major issue explored by the academic community. Starting from the horizon of sign consumption, Baudrillard opposes Marx’s labor theory of value. In For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, he attempts to replace Marx’s critique of political economy with a critique of the political economy of the sign, substituting Marx’s use value and exchange value with symbolic value and sign value, thereby attempting to reconstruct the critique of political economy within a semiotic dimension. Proceeding from this basis, Baudrillard used the theory of symbolic exchange to reconstruct his entire theoretical system, subsequently delving into the world of hyper-real technological simulation and simulacra. The famous film The Matrix was filmed using Baudrillard's work Simulacra and Simulation as its theoretical support.
IV. Political-Philosophical Research on the Issues of Fairness and Justice
Due to the increasing inequality and gap between rich and poor in contemporary capitalist society, fairness and justice have become global social issues facing humanity today. Since the publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in the 1970s, fairness and justice have become hot topics in the field of political philosophy and major, unavoidable issues in contemporary foreign Marxist research. This first triggered the debate between liberalism and communitarianism, in which figures such as Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Alasdair MacIntyre engaged in fierce debate surrounding justice and its distribution. Subsequently, many foreign Marxist scholars also conducted critical analyses of Rawls’s A Theory of Justice.
Jürgen Habermas proposed an "equal and democratic" mechanism of communicative dialogue that differs from both liberalism and communitarianism. The most significant characteristic of this theory is its emphasis on the role of "norms" in a democratic society; its theoretical foundation is clearly based on liberal principles, yet the goal it seeks to achieve is communitarian. Habermas believes his theory is neither "positivist" nor "constructivist," but rather aims to "reconstruct" communicative mechanisms. This viewpoint is typically reflected in his work Between Facts and Norms. In this work, Habermas refutes Rawls's theory of distributive justice—which is based on a position of moral discernment—from a normative perspective, replacing it with a theory of normativity. Habermas's "norms" include both legal and moral norms; he argues that the fairness and justice pursued by people can only be realized through binding "norms" and "rules" as well as mechanisms of communicative deliberation, for there is no other way. Therefore, between "fact and norm," one must account for both factual validity and normative validity. [21]
G.A. Cohen, a representative figure of Analytical Marxism, reintroduced the issue of fairness and justice at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. In his two works, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality and Rescuing Justice and Equality, Cohen refuted the conceptions of fairness and justice held by Nozick and Rawls respectively. Specifically, in Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, Cohen first criticized Nozick's views on "self-ownership" and "justice in acquisition." Nozick argued that as long as procedural justice is followed, property acquired based on individual talent possesses legality and legitimacy. Cohen pointed out that the principle of "self-ownership" precisely reflects the inequality caused by deeper latent differences in talent; therefore, upholding this "non-elective" difference exacerbates inequality in distribution among individuals. Furthermore, in Cohen’s view, Nozick’s argument that freedom must be sacrificed to maintain equality is equally untenable. Cohen combined the idea of "self-ownership" with the equality of resources and proposed the advocacy of "joint ownership" of resources—that is, everyone has an equal right to the world's resources, and thus how to utilize them requires the consent of every owner. Next, in Rescuing Justice and Equality, Cohen challenged Rawls's theory of distributive justice. Rawls believed that certain inequalities could be encompassed by justice, and thus he advocated the "difference principle"—that social and economic arrangements should be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, thereby proving those inequalities are permitted by justice. The most typical practice of the difference principle is to stimulate innovation through the differential distribution of the "cake," thereby increasing economic efficiency and producing a larger "cake." Cohen criticized this view, arguing that the difference principle cannot prove that inequality based on incentives conforms to the requirements of a just society; the rationality of policy cannot be equated with justice. He noted: "The difference principle is not an unconditional principle of justice, because it supports that kind of unequal injustice caused by moral arbitrariness." [22]
Standing further upon modern ecological civilization, Cohen advocated that contemporary Marxists should seek the possibility of socialism within scarcity. He proposed two major principles of justice for socialism that differ from those of Rawls. (1) The principle of equality. In Cohen’s view, the ultimate value orientation of a socialist society is equality, and equality of opportunity is the way that best embodies egalitarian justice. (2) The principle of sharing, also known as the community principle. To prevent the substantive inequality brought about by formal equality of opportunity, Cohen introduced the principle of sharing—that people care for one another and look after one another when necessary and possible, and moreover, they care about each other’s mutual concern. The principle of sharing includes two modes of care: the first is a mode of care that suppresses certain inequalities resulting from socialist equality of opportunity, emphasizing that the wealthy should contribute to the community, which is similar to the "third distribution"; the second is a reciprocal mode of care, emphasizing reciprocal behavior among community members arising from motives outside the market.
In addition to the aforementioned scholars, many other foreign Marxist theorists have focused on the issue of fairness and justice, such as Allen W. Wood, Kai Nielsen, and Ziyad Husami.
V. Ecological Marxism
Since the 1960s, Ecological Marxism has begun to attract academic attention and has gradually formed into a social trend of thought. Ecological Marxism primarily emphasizes that the basic contradictions of modern capitalism lead to an imbalanced relationship between humanity and nature, which in turn brings about unavoidable ecological problems.
First, Marx’s exposition on the basic contradictions of capitalism contains the judgment that capitalism inevitably leads to ecological crises. As Marx stated, the basic contradiction between the socialization of production and the private appropriation of capitalism inevitably leads capitalists to blindly pursue surplus value, thereby ignoring environmental and ecological issues, which further triggers ecological crises. This is one of the primary reasons why foreign Marxist scholars focus on ecological issues from an institutional level.
Second, Ecological Marxist scholars apply Marx’s basic viewpoints and methods to analyze and interpret modern ecological and environmental problems, attempting to explore a path toward a future green social development. From Ben Agger, who proposed the concept of "Ecological Marxism," to those who continued to track ecological problems around the 21st century such as André Gorz, David Pepper, John Bellamy Foster, Joel Kovel, and Sararkar, all have integrated Marx’s philosophy, political economy, and critique of capitalism with the increasingly serious ecological problems in the West from different perspectives, subsequently proposing their own theoretical advocacies. For example, Foster believes that Marx’s ecological views exist not only in his economic theory but are even more centrally reflected in Marx’s philosophy. Therefore, he places the focus of his research on materialist theory, attempting to rediscover Marx’s ecological thought. In his book Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Foster systematically expounds on materialism and ecology and traces the formation process of Marx’s materialist view of nature from a historical-developmental perspective. It is worth mentioning that Foster takes the "metabolic rift," mentioned by Marx in Capital, as a core concept and applies it creatively to the interpretation of ecological materialism, profoundly revealing the contradictions in the relationship between humanity and nature under capitalist production conditions, while also pointing out that ecological problems concern not only the economic crises of capitalism but also the survival and destiny of all humanity. [23]
Finally, it should be noted that as research into ecological issues deepens, the problem is no longer confined to capitalist society but involves a renewed discussion of the relationship between humanity and nature. Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 provided a profound analysis of the relationship between humanity and nature, pointing the way for discussing contemporary ecological issues. In fact, most Western ecologists have also noticed this problem, recognizing that all regions and countries with human activity—particularly those with industrial activity—may face ecological problems and disasters. Therefore, ecology is a global problem that must receive high attention from the whole world and from the governments of all countries. Engels pointed out with foresight in his Dialectics of Nature: "Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us." [24] On this basis, Slavoj Žižek proposed an alternative interpretation of the relationship between humanity and nature, pointing out that humanity is a "wound of nature," and that regarding the relationship between humanity and nature, "there is no final solution"; one can only maintain this traumatic and "fragile balance." [25]
VI. Contemporary Populism and Its "New" Characteristics
Populism is a difficult problem permeating today's world. Whether it is Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front in the 2022 French presidential election, Donald Trump, who won the 2017 U.S. election, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, or other populist movements and their representatives in various countries, all indicate that populist forces are showing an upward trend on a global scale today. Populist trends of thought and movements have a long history, originating in Russia in the mid-19th century and spanning over a hundred years to the present. Specifically, populism worships flattened grassroots democracy—so-called "great democracy"—and emphasizes the interests of the people at the bottom; therefore, its political advocacies often possess great appeal and rallying power, as seductive as the "Siren’s song," making people unable to resist. However, although populism appears glamorous on the surface and can widely mobilize members of society and attract the masses, if left to develop unchecked, it becomes difficult to control and possesses great social destructiveness and lethality, leading to disastrous consequences. It should be recognized that populism also constitutes a current social trend of thought in China. For instance, in recent years, incidents of "human flesh searches" [26] and attacks in mass media—internet violence—as well as the boycotting of KFC, acts of smashing and looting during anti-Japanese protests, and extremist nationalist rhetoric are all manifestations of populist trends in social reality.
Generally speaking, populism often carries out political activities under the banner of "the people," yet it is divided into left-wing and right-wing varieties. Neoliberalism largely manifests as right-wing populism. Ernesto Laclau, in On Populist Reason, explored the strategy of left-wing populism in constructing the "people's" front through discourse theory and demonstrated the mechanism by which populism constructs "the people" through an antagonistic chart. [26] Recently, Chantal Mouffe, who has long maintained academic cooperation with Laclau, has again raised the banner of left-wing populism to revitalize left-wing populist theory. She published For a Left Populism in 2019, followed by Left Populism and the Power of Affect in 2022. Žižek, meanwhile, in In Defense of Lost Causes, lashed out at Laclau's left-wing populist theory characterized by the construction of "the people," calling the theory "good enough in practice, but not good enough in theory." [27]
Compared to theoretical research on populism, populism in actual society is indeed—as Slavoj Žižek describes—extremely ambiguous, complex, inflammatory, and destructive. It originates primarily from narrow nationalism and the emotional reactions of the lower classes, typically occurring at moments when social contradictions intensify and economic crises arise. By employing inflammatory language and utopian political fantasies, it transfers the anger and dissatisfaction of the masses onto an opposition to the technocratic governance models of political elites. It is simultaneously a political trend of thought, a political movement, and a political strategy. In political practice, it manifests concretely as a rejection of technical elites and mainstream institutional systems, advocating for universal equality and high social welfare, while externally opposing immigration and globalization. The construction of the border wall between the United States and Mexico during the Trump administration, along with a series of "withdrawals" from international organizations [17] during his term, are manifestations of the "populization" of politics. The destructive nature of populism is also reflected in its tendency toward "conspiracy theories"—that is, establishing a unified "people's" front through the figurative identification of "enemies." For example, Trump’s proposal to bring American manufacturing back home inherently contained the implication that foreign workers had "stolen the cheese" of the American unemployed.
VII. The Frankfurt School’s Social Critique Theory and Its New Developments
Since its formation in Germany in the 1920s, the Frankfurt School has a history of nearly a century and has currently developed to its fourth generation. Facing the characteristics of capitalist modernity and the current state of alienation caused by technical rationality, the Frankfurt School developed a unique social critique theory that continues to this day.
The first generation of the Frankfurt School primarily targeted Nazi atrocities in Germany during World War II, proposing a social critique theory centered on rational reflection and the critique of technology. Representative figures include Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse. Horkheimer and Adorno discovered that in the process of human liberation, reason turned into its own opposite. Their Dialectic of Enlightenment argued: "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." [18] On one hand, enlightenment shattered old myths and rescued humanity from the fear of nature; on the other hand, enlightenment mythologized itself, constructing another new "myth." The blind following of and reliance on science and reason provided the possibility for Fascist totalitarian rule. That is to say, technical rationality appeared in the guise of "dominating reason" (统治理性) but ultimately led to the domination of man.
The primary theories of the second-generation Frankfurt School are Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action and discourse theory. Differing from the first generation’s stance of rejecting instrumental reason, Habermas believes that modernity is an "unfinished project" and that philosophy should explain crises rather than engage in blind critique. Therefore, based on the tradition of rationalism, Habermas examined four manifestations of the crisis of late capitalism—namely economic crisis, rationality crisis, legitimation crisis, and motivation crisis—and pointed out that the legitimation crisis is the main problem facing capitalism today. In Habermas's view, communicative rationality is the primary way to eliminate the legitimation crisis. He replaced technical rationality and the subjectivity of Kantian philosophy with the "inter-subjective communication" (主体间交往) of subjects, attempting to use his theory of communicative action to reconstruct Marx's historical materialism.
The representative figure of the third-generation Frankfurt School is Axel Honneth. His theory of recognition and his conception of "plural justice" mark the postmodern turn—namely the "politico-ethical turn"—of social critique theory. Honneth applied Hegel's doctrine of recognition and Habermas’s theory of social communication to the construction of his own recognition theory. He argues that in today’s capitalist society, there exist "disrespect" (蔑视), oppression, and misrecognition; therefore, we must engage in a "struggle for recognition." In his representative work The Struggle for Recognition, Honneth discusses three forms of recognition: emotional care, legal recognition, and social esteem. These three forms exist respectively in the spheres of love, law, and solidarity, corresponding to an individual’s self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem. Correspondingly, he developed a conception of plural justice, arguing that justice aims to achieve individual autonomy and social recognition—specifically, the principle of "need" in the sphere of love, the principle of "equality" in the legal sphere, and the principle of "merit" (价值原则) in the sphere of cooperation. Honneth pointed out that the scope of recognition forms and their principles can change with social development to ensure the validity of the recognition theory. Additionally, Honneth and Nancy Fraser engaged in a fierce debate centered on "Redistribution or Recognition?", which primarily reflected whether, under a postmodern horizon, recognition theory is a trend of Marxist philosophy or is more closely associated with Hegelian philosophy.
The fourth generation of the Frankfurt School is primarily represented by the political theory and practical philosophy of Rainer Forst, a student of Habermas. Following Honneth’s politico-ethical turn, Forst combined the normative questions raised by Habermas in his later years with socio-political justice, thereby pushing social critique theory to a deeper level. In The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice, he points out that social justice is built upon the foundation of the individual's "right to justification"; through justification, people are able to prove themselves within normative contexts. Therefore, achieving socio-political justice requires "tolerance" and respect for the rights of others to justify themselves.
VIII. The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Rise of Researches in Philosophy of Life
The global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic starting in early 2020 has made the issue of the "philosophy of life" (生命哲学) in foreign Marxist studies increasingly a focal point of academic attention. The primary representative of the philosophy of life is Giorgio Agamben and his series of works; associated scholars also include Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, and Slavoj Žižek. In his late work Security, Territory, Population, Foucault explored "biopolitics" (生命政治) in the sense of social policing, arguing that capitalism establishes control over "bio-power" (生命权力) by virtue of knowledge and technologies of governance. Agamben inherited Foucault’s focus on micro-power. By synthesizing Martin Heidegger’s existentialism, Benjamin’s "bare life," Arendt’s The Human Condition, and Schmitt’s theory of the "exception," he constructed a philosophy of life under the "state of exception."
Agamben’s so-called "state of exception" refers to a state of crisis suspended outside of laws and norms—that is, the "point of imbalance between public law and political fact." [19] This state can be analogized to the "Event" in Alain Badiou’s texts and the concept of the "surplus" (剩余) in psychoanalysis. Under the state of exception, the original socio-political order is disrupted, and the power of the sovereign transcends the law. Corresponding to the expansion of power is the gradual waning and dissolution of the rights of the people, who ultimately degenerate into "bare life" (赤裸生命) set in opposition to political power. On one hand, the biological life of the individual is swallowed by political life, becoming a subordinate existence; on the other hand, by means of the state of exception, political power reduces political life, making the individual "bare life" exposed to death and oppression. Agamben believes that under the collusion of Western politics and law, the state of exception is becoming the true "norm" (常态), and power acquires a quasi-legal status through interference with the law. Although political power lacks the "name" of law, it possesses the "substance" of law.
In the book Homo Sacer, Agamben points out that as a realm beyond the control of the law, the state of exception causes all of a person’s basic rights within it to be stripped away; even human life is left without any guarantee, thus creating the state of "bare life." The sovereign, through punishment, allows the efficacy of the law itself to be manifested. It is precisely in this sense that Agamben asserts the life-state of modern man has been reduced to a purely biological, animal-like existence—this is his meaning of Homo Sacer [20]. In March 2020, Agamben mentioned in a statement that we are falling into a state of exception due to the plague, and that those in power are attempting to make us adapt to this state of exception so as to normalize it. In this state, people are deprived of social, political, and emotional dimensions, "living in a society that sacrifices freedom for so-called 'reasons of security,' and thus destined to live in a state of permanent fear and insecurity." However, while this state of exception brings chaos to society, it also creates opportunities. At the new starting point constructed by the state of exception, people can use the "Messianic moment" to break through the cracks in the power order and achieve the liberation of life.
IX. Postmodernism and Post-Marxist Trends of Thought
At the beginning of the 21st century, the domestic [Chinese] academic community began to pay attention to the trend of Post-Marxism. This trend arose after capitalist society entered postmodernity. Representative figures include scholars such as Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Slavoj Žižek, and Judith Butler.
Laclau and Mouffe developed Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural and political hegemony; therefore, their theoretical propositions are also known as "Neo-Gramscianism." Their main content can be summarized in the following points:
(1) Based on Gramsci's logic of hegemony, they integrated Foucault’s critique of micro-power and Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory to construct a theory of "hegemonic articulation" (霸权接合) centered on the logics of antagonism, dislocation, and contingency. They believe that the class struggle and theory of violent revolution of classical Marxism are no longer applicable to today’s modern society with its diversified social strata. Therefore, they advocate replacing Marx’s concept of "contradiction" and the theory of class struggle with a theory of "social antagonism."
(2) They replace the "subject" (主体) with "subject positions" (主体身份). Consequently, for them, the subject of revolution is no longer the working class as a specific group, but rather women, immigrants, people of color, and others situated on the margins of society. The mode of revolution is also no longer Marx’s class struggle, but rather the adoption of left-wing populist strategies to construct a "people's" front.
(3) They oppose economic determinism and re-examine the relationship between the economic base and politics, emphasizing the revolutionary guiding role of political hegemony and cultural ideology. In short, on one hand, Laclau and Mouffe oppose Marx's discourses on violent revolution and the decisive role of the economic base, advocating for social reform; on the other hand, they claim their theory is "Marxist." Their "Post-Marxism" is manifested, first, in their research method being Marx’s methodology of social critique; and second, in the fact that although their object of concern is no longer the subject of the working class, it remains the impoverished strata and marginalized groups of society. For example, the 2020 "Black Lives Matter" (BLM) movement in the United States is more or less a contemporary realistic manifestation of this Post-Marxist trend.
The Western left-wing scholar Slavoj Žižek is even more radical than the Post-Marxism of Laclau and Mouffe. On one hand, in The Sublime Object of Ideology, he analyzes the "symptomatic" (症候) characteristics of the subject's submission to fetishism in a capitalist commodity society from the perspectives of ideology and commodity fetishism—that is, the difficulty for the subject to escape the "reified" (物化) condition of commodity society described by Georg Lukács. On the other hand, in The Ticklish Subject and In Defense of Lost Causes, he uses Lacanian psychoanalysis to propose an alternative revolutionary subject, attempting to replace the "reified" subject with a "hysterical" acting subject. The greatest characteristic of Žižek’s radical left theory lies in his connection of Marx with Lacanian psychoanalysis, German Classical Philosophy (especially the thought of Kant and Hegel), and his reinterpretation of Marxist theory on this basis, thereby forming a distinctive "Left-Marxism" with a psychoanalytic dimension.
Judith Butler, from a postmodernist perspective, proposed "Queer Theory" based on gender distinction and claims of equality, and advocated replacing "identity politics" with "performative" (述行) action.
X. Spatial Critique and Studies in Urban Marxism
Research into the philosophy of space and urban issues has been one of the "hot topics" of academic concern in recent years. The founder of the spatial critique theory in foreign Marxism is undoubtedly the French scholar Henri Lefebvre. His theoretical research can be divided into two periods: the early period focused primarily on the "critique of everyday life," while the later period turned toward research on space and urban issues. In Critique of Everyday Life, Lefebvre revealed the comprehensive alienation of man caused by capitalist expansion—that is, alienation occurs not only in the sphere of labor production but also penetrates into the everyday life of the human being; leisure activities and living spaces are also incorporated into the capitalist system. This focus on the conditions of everyday urban life caused Lefebvre to shift his theoretical horizon from time to space. In his late work The Production of Space, Lefebvre elaborated on the "triadic constitution" of physical space, social space, and mental space within urban space. This "spatial turn" of Lefebvre’s directly triggered the development of spatial critique theory and urban sociology.
David Harvey combined geographical research with the philosophy of space, constructing a "historical [materialist]..." from a postmodern perspective...
—Spatial critical theory under geographical materialism. David Harvey inherited and further developed Marxist theories regarding the uneven development of capitalism as well as Lefebvre’s theory of the "production of space." Starting from the primary territorial unit of the city, he demonstrated the core argument that capitalism must exist and sustain itself through the production of space. Harvey divides space into absolute space, relative space, and relational space. His spatial critical theory primarily encompasses the following three dimensions: first, the philosophy of space and the critique of the spatial production mechanisms of capitalism, which corresponds to Marx’s theory of capital reproduction; second, urban philosophy and research into spatial justice, upon which he critiques neoliberal attempts to capitalize urban construction; and third, the production of space and the theory of New Imperialism. Harvey argues that the city has become the core of capitalism’s spatial problems. Through the control of space, or by "annihilating space with time" [21], contemporary capitalism enables its own continuation and development, eventually forming a system of spatial production that extends from the city to the region, the nation, and the globe.
Edward Soja is primarily renowned for his proposed "Thirdspace"—also known as "heterotopia." This so-called "Thirdspace" is a "space of difference" that integrates the real and the imagined—a space of "othering" and a space of possibility that transcends traditional dualistic epistemologies of space. This space is essentially space viewed through the lens of postmodern geography; it is derived directly from Lefebvre’s "spatial triad": spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces. Building on this basis, Soja introduces the "Other" into space. The "eternal presence of the Other" injects a critical consciousness of creating difference into the philosophical critique of space, blasting homogeneous space into heterogeneous space and transforming static reality into fluid reality. Soja’s "Thirdspace" is a space that unites this openness and creativity; it is an ideal environment for free exchange as well as an impenetrable labyrinth. Furthermore, based on his concept of "Thirdspace," Soja proposed and critically analyzed the concept of "spatial justice."
Another representative figure in the philosophy of space is Manuel Castells. Castells's spatial critique primarily unfolds around the issues of urbanization, informationization, and globalization. His themes involve a critique of the Chicago School, as well as critiques of "collective consumption" and urban social movements. He advocated for the establishment of a "scientific object" for the theoretical study of urbanism and attempted to construct a new "structuralist Marxist" urban theoretical system to explain the structures and processes of capitalist urbanization.
XI. Conclusion
In addition to the ten major social trends of thought mentioned above, foreign Marxist research is also extensively distributed across numerous fields such as philosophy, political science, history, and economics. By integrating with the latest theoretical resources in academia, it has produced schools such as Existentialist Marxism, Feminist Marxism, Analytical Marxism, Structuralist Marxism, Psychoanalytic Marxism, Dependency Theory, and East European Marxism. Furthermore, since the beginning of the 21st century, Japanese Marxist research has emerged as a new force; the theoretical perspectives of left-wing scholars such as Hiromatsu Wataru, Mochizuki Seiji, and Karatani Kojin have also attracted the attention of the domestic academic community. All of this demonstrates the inclusive and open character of foreign Marxist studies. A large number of foreign Marxist theorists and left-wing scholars are dedicated to combining Marxism with the characteristics of the present era to respond to the "questions of the times," demonstrating the powerful vitality and explanatory force of Marxist theory. While we may not agree with their specific viewpoints, their research methods and the issues they explore merit our attention.