Zhu Fengming: Historical Evolution and Theoretical Examination of Marx and Engels' Thoughts on Common Prosperity
The abolition of private property, the elimination of social distinctions, and the realization of common prosperity constitute an essential part of the thought of Marx and Engels and remained their lifelong pursuit. Although Marx and Engels did not provide a systematic exposition of common prosperity during their lifetimes, their ideas on the subject are scattered across their texts from various periods, undergoing different stages of development as their intellectual foundations shifted accordingly. By tracing the formative path of Marx and Engels’ thoughts on common prosperity, we can observe that their research was consistently people-centered, progressing from the "abstract human" to the "concrete human," the "real human," and finally the "comprehensively developed human," characterized by a distinct openness, practical nature, and people-oriented character. Viewed from a longitudinal developmental perspective, Marx and Engels’ thoughts on common prosperity possessed unique characteristics at every stage, reaching maturity alongside the creation and elaboration of the fundamental tenets of historical materialism.
I. Intellectual Origins: A Humanistic Orientation toward Common Prosperity
Marx and Engels’ initial understanding of common prosperity was established upon the basic standpoint of Enlightenment rationality. Influenced by this perspective, during the period of the Rheinische Zeitung [1], Marx’s understanding of common prosperity focused primarily on the rational dimensions of liberty and equality. Through his concern for the actual lives of the common people, Marx for the first time encountered practical dilemmas concerning material interests that rationalism could not resolve. This led to a profound dissatisfaction with the vast chasm between the rational concept of the State constructed by Hegel and reality, prompting an urgent search for a new path toward a breakthrough. Under the influence of Feuerbach’s view of "sensuous man," Marx’s understanding of common prosperity during the Kreuznach period began to shift from rationalism toward humanism. Based on his own personal experiences and his analysis of the impoverished living conditions of workers along the Wupper Valley and their root causes, Engels similarly began a humanistically oriented critique and reflection on the nature of class exploitation and the unequal distribution of material interests.
(1) Preliminary Reflections Driven by the Problem of Material Interests
The young Marx was always deeply concerned with the lives of the common people. During his tenure at the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx wrote numerous articles, including "Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood," "Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction," and "Debates on Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Estates," in which he severely criticized the social estate system of the Prussian Kingdom. He emphasized the vital values of liberty and equality, gradually forming ideas characterized by radical liberalism. Particularly in "Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood," Marx openly took the side of the masses, profoundly exposing the greedy nature of the forest owners and the class essence of the ruling class in safeguarding the interests of the exploiters. He pointed out that they did not hesitate to "fell [the poor] from the living tree of morality and cast them as windfall into the hell of crime, shame, and poverty." Such inhuman behavior was a deprivation of the peasants’ basic right to subsistence and a stifling of the social rights of the impoverished. Although, in essence, Marx’s understanding of common prosperity during the Rheinische Zeitung period still bore a strong imprint of Enlightenment rationality, by standing with the laboring masses, he had already recognized the contradiction wherein the State—which ought to be the realization of the rational concept of the State—had in reality degenerated into an arena for the pursuit of private interests, leading him to put forward a more profound and intense demand for equality.
(2) Approaching Economic Reality from a Humanistic Standpoint
In March 1843, the Rheinische Zeitung was ordered to be shut down by the reactionary authorities. Marx "withdrew from the public stage to the study" and went to the small town of Kreuznach, where he began a dedicated study of history, focusing on clarifying the nature of the State and its relationship with social life. During his critical reflection on Hegelian rational statism, Marx wrote his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. While writing this work, Marx felt the need to master a vast amount of actual historical data; thus, in just two months, he filled five thick notebooks, known as the Kreuznach Notebooks. In these notebooks, while excerpting the French First Republic’s [2] issues regarding the redemption of paper currency, Marx noted: "This involves a major contradiction: on the one hand, declaring private property inviolable, and on the other, sacrificing private property." At this point, Marx recognized that the ultimate goal of the bourgeois revolution was to abolish feudal ownership and establish another form of private property dominated by the bourgeoisie. In the states established through bourgeois revolution, the social inequality caused by private property was not actually eliminated, but rather reinforced by the laws of the capitalist state. He realized that to achieve true equality, private property must be abolished—a mission the bourgeoisie could never fulfill. In the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx further developed his understanding of the relationship between private property and the political state, pointing out that what the bourgeoisie engaged in was a "partial, purely political revolution," which is "nothing but a certain class, from its particular situation, undertaking the general emancipation of society." It was a "revolution that leaves the pillars of the building standing," a "utopian dream" that could fundamentally never contribute to true human emancipation.
During this period, Marx developed the preliminary germs of the view that economic structure determines political orientation, civil society determines the political state, and class antagonism originates in economic reality. He no longer viewed socio-historical phenomena in an external, speculative manner; rather, based on a humanistic standpoint, he conducted a systematic critique of Hegel’s rational view of the State. He sought to discover from historical reality the necessity manifested in the life choices of people constrained by material relations, using "historical reality" to explain "historical logic." This completed a methodological transition [3] and laid the foundation for the shift toward a view of common prosperity based on a materialist standpoint.
(3) Deep Reflections on the Nature of Class Exploitation Sparked by Realistic Observation
The germination and formation of Engels’ thought on common prosperity were closely linked to his upbringing. Born into a wealthy merchant family in Barmen, in the industrially developed Rhine Province of Germany, Engels saw from a young age the exploitation of the laboring people by capitalists and knew how factory owners extracted profits by squeezing workers. The impoverished lives of the workers greatly stimulated Engels’ sympathy and pity for the poor. During his studies in Bremen, influenced and nurtured by the Young Germany [4] movement which advocated liberalism and democracy, Engels anonymously published "Letters from Wupper Valley" in the journal Telegraph für Deutschland. The article opens by depicting the flourishing industry and commerce in the twin cities of Elberfeld and Barmen along the Wupper Valley, pointing out the stark contrast: "the factory workers of the Wupper Valley generally live in a state of terrible poverty; syphilis and lung diseases have spread to an incredible extent; in Elberfeld alone, 1,200 out of 2,500 school-age children are deprived of education and grow up in the factories—simply so that the factory owner does not have to pay an adult, who would be replaced by a child, twice as much." Engels attributed this vast and widening gap between rich and poor to the factory owners using the religious doctrine of "predestination" as spiritual opium to ruthlessly exploit the bodies and spirits of the workers, leading to their increasing pauperization. He revealed the reality of the masses struggling to make a living in capitalist society and the phenomenon of cruel exploitation of workers by factory owners. At this time, like Marx, Engels realized through observing reality the serious problem of the unequal distribution of material interests and the hypocrisy of the capitalist state system.
In Marx and Engels’ initial discourses on the topic of common prosperity, they were focused more on the moral and ethical levels of human freedom and equality. They had not yet profoundly analyzed the root causes of the conflict of material interests between capitalists and proletarians or the impoverished lives of the masses. However, the investigations and theoretical accumulation they conducted laid a critical foundation for the decisive shift in their subsequent intellectual perspectives.
II. Preliminary Formation: Common Prosperity Thought Focused on Human Emancipation
During this stage, Marx and Engels’ thought on common prosperity exhibited an entanglement with Feuerbach’s humanism until its eventual sublation (Aufhebung). This was manifested in the transition from "theoretical philosophy" to "practical philosophy," emphasizing that everything must be re-examined and weighed within the context of social reality. It was also reflected in the theoretical elaboration which strengthened the focus on human emancipation and closely integrated it with the critique of capitalism. During this period, the series of articles in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher [5] and the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 centrally embodied the fruits of their theoretical reflections, marking the preliminary formation of Marx and Engels’ thought on common prosperity.
(1) Formation of the Value Pursuit Combining Class Emancipation and Human Emancipation
The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher was co-founded by Marx and Arnold Ruge and published in 1844. Due to differences in editorial policy and political views, combined with economic hardship, it ceased publication after only one double issue. During this period, Marx and Engels conducted in-depth investigations into the living conditions of the working class, fully recognizing their plight, profoundly revealing the increasing poverty of the working class under the capitalist system, and defending their social rights. In the "Introduction to Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right", Marx took human emancipation as the ultimate goal of his critical logic, arguing that "the head of this emancipation is philosophy, its heart is the proletariat." He maintained that only by truly uniting philosophy with the proletariat could human emancipation be realized. In his "Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy," Engels, using the methodology of a historical and social outlook, discovered that "this political economy or science of enrichment, born of the mutual jealousy and greed of merchants, bears on its brow the mark of the most detestable selfishness." Through the critique of previous political economic theories, he recognized that the root of proletarian poverty was private property, concluding that "no matter which way we turn, private property always leads us into contradictions." He further linked proletarian poverty with the capitalist system in The Condition of the Working Class in England, pointing out that "the cause of the miserable condition of the working class... is to be sought in the capitalist system itself."
(2) Outlining a Vision of Emancipation Above the Critique of Private Property and Alienated Labor
The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 represents Marx’s first attempt to conduct a critical examination of the capitalist economic system and bourgeois political economy, preliminarily expounding his new economic and philosophical views and communist ideas. It profoundly reflects on the social foundations necessary to realize common prosperity, most representatively by introducing the critical exploration of alienation into the field of inquiry.
On the one hand, he analyzed the existential predicament brought about by alienation. Drawing on Feuerbach’s views on the species-essence of man and based on the "fact of political economy, namely the alienation of the worker and his production," Marx proposed the problem of alienated labor. He pointed out that under conditions of alienated production, "the worker sinks to the level of a commodity, and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities; the wretchedness of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and magnitude of his production; the necessary result of competition is the accumulation of capital in a few hands... and the whole of society must fall apart into the two classes—the property owners and the propertyless workers." The alienation of labor leads to the alienation of man himself. Production has "turned the species-life of man into a means for his physical existence," whereas "society is the complete unity of man with nature—the true resurrection of nature—the accomplished naturalism of man and the accomplished humanism of nature." Clearly, in capitalist society, common prosperity is essentially impossible to achieve.
On the other hand, he emphasized that the abolition of private property is the sublation of alienated labor. When the antagonism between labor and capital reaches its limit, "communism is the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; it is the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being—a return become conscious and accomplished within the entire wealth of previous development." Thus, Marx transcended Feuerbach by introducing social practice into epistemology and for the first time proposed and elaborated the idea that "man produces in a comprehensive way." This was a key link in the formation of his thought on common prosperity and the germ of a new worldview.
Marx and Engels’ writings during this period reflect that they had completed the transition from idealism to materialism and from revolutionary democracy to communism, establishing the intellectual premises for studying the issue of common prosperity. Marx’s critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right and the theory of civil society provided his thought on common prosperity with more profound and rich connotations.
III. Deepening Development: The Critical Elaboration of Common Prosperity Thought within the Horizon of the Materialist Conception of History
As Marx and Engels began to focus their theoretical attention on issues such as real human needs, the division of labor, and social intercourse, they began to use historical materialism to thoroughly "settle accounts" with their former beliefs. It was under this transition that Marx and Engels broke free from the shackles of traditional speculative philosophy and liberal theoretical frameworks, moving toward the embrace of historical and practical science; they stepped out of the humanist horizon, opened up the new vista of the materialist conception of history, and constructed the basic principles, tenets, and viewpoints of historical materialism. This provided a scientific theoretical analytical tool for the further analysis of common prosperity under the capitalist system. During this period, the works of Marx and Engels involving common prosperity included The Holy Family, The Theses on Feuerbach, The German Ideology, and The Communist Manifesto. The publication of these works signaled the turn toward historical materialism in Marx and Engels’s thought on common prosperity.
(1) Establishing Basic Viewpoints on Common Prosperity on the Basis of the Materialist Conception of History
The Holy Family, co-authored by Marx and Engels for the first time in 1844, is a work that critiques the Young Hegelians' abstract, subjective idealism—which was detached from reality—and expounds upon historical materialism. Through the transition from the theory of alienated labor to the materialist conception of history, Marx and Engels gradually established the study of common prosperity on the foundation of historical materialism.
On the one hand, they analyzed the supporting forces for the realization of common prosperity from the perspective of the masses as the creators of history. In response to the views of Bruno Bauer [6] and others who advocated that "ideas create everything," that in historical activity "'what is important' is only 'an idea,'" and that "in order to create everything, a consciousness stronger than that of the worker is needed... the worker creates nothing"—views which one-sidedly exaggerated self-consciousness—Marx and Engels pointed out: "Ideas can never carry out anything but ideas. In order to carry out ideas, men are needed who can exert practical force." Those who exert practical force are the masses; what moves in history are the acting masses and their empirical activities. Therefore, "historical activity is the activity of the masses," and "Critical Criticism creates nothing; the worker creates everything, so much so that even his intellectual creations put the whole of Criticism to shame... the workers even create man." Engels noted: "Society cannot live without a class of producers, regardless of what changes take place in the non-producing upper strata of society." Thus, the masses are not only the creators of social material wealth but also the creators of spiritual wealth; they are the subjects of history and play the primary, decisive role in social development.
On the other hand, they deepened the understanding of the essence of man to reveal the practical path to common prosperity. Marx and Engels no longer spoke of common prosperity solely from the perspective of man's own needs; they believed that "the object as the being for man, as the objective being of man, is at the same time the existence of man for other men, his human relation to other men, and the social relation of man to man." Man is the sum total of all social relations formed and developed in history. Similarly, the realization of common prosperity can only be achieved in the continuous resolution of the needs of real individuals and the improvement of the relationships between man and man, man and society, and man and nature.
(2) Taking "Real Individuals" as the Historical Subject for the Realization of Common Prosperity
The premise for the unfolding of Marx and Engels's historical theory is the attention to the concept of "man"—that is, taking man as the starting point of history. In The Theses on Feuerbach and The German Ideology, they used materialist, historical, and practical viewpoints to explicate the real lives of human beings, taking real individuals as the creators of history, while common prosperity especially requires the participation of real individuals.
In the spring of 1845, Marx wrote The Theses on Feuerbach while residing in Brussels. In this work, which Engels called the "first document in which is deposited the brilliant germ of the new world outlook," Marx introduced practice into epistemology and the conception of history, systematically expounding a scientific concept of practice for the first time. This served as the cornerstone of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, completely erasing the traces of Feuerbachian humanism found in previous works. It marked Marx’s definitive break with old materialism and his complete intellectual transformation into a "new materialist," as well as the continuous deepening of his reflections on common prosperity based on the materialist conception of history. First, in Marx’s view, "all social life is essentially practical," whereas old materialists, including Feuerbach, thought about man and social life apart from practice, causing them to fall into an idealist conception of history. Marx established man, the essence of man, and social life on the foundation of practice, believing that practice is the basic condition for the existence and development of human society, and that human material productive activity is the foundation of the entire existence of society and the core content of its activities. Thus, Marx found in practice the path to solving the problem of common prosperity. Second, he proposed that the essence of man is the sum total of all social relations. Addressing Feuerbach’s erroneous view of man as an abstract, isolated, and natural individual, Marx pointed out: "The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism—that of Feuerbach included—is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively." This actually pointed out that old materialism regarded natural objects merely as objects of cognition and failed to discover that natural objects are, more importantly, objects for people to transform. They viewed the unity of man and nature merely as man's passive reaction to and dependence on nature; in reality, however, man is a social animal, and "the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations."
From 1845 to 1846, Marx and Engels collaborated on The German Ideology, critiquing old philosophies such as humanism (Feuerbach) and idealism (Hegel), and systematically clarifying the basic principles of historical materialism for the first time. This book is a landmark work that exerted a profound influence on the development of Marx and Engels's thought on common prosperity. On one hand, it proposed that the essence of history is the history of man. "The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals." Marx and Engels clearly stated that man is the indispensable premise of any conception of history; the essence of history is the history of man, and without man, there is no history to speak of. Real individuals engaged in practical activities are their starting point for examining history, because the first historical act of people is to produce the means to satisfy the needs of life—that is, the production of material life itself. On the other hand, the material basis for realizing common prosperity became the starting point for Marx and Engels's examination of social history. The German Ideology states: "We are dealing with Germans who are devoid of all premises, so we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to 'make history.' But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself." The "eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things" emphasized here are actually the popular terms used by Marx and Engels for the survival and living needs of human beings; such material needs are exactly the basic premise for realizing common prosperity. Based on an in-depth analysis of the capitalist economy, they summarized certain basic characteristics of the future society: the abolition of the antithesis between town and country and between physical and mental labor, the conscious application of economic laws, and the distribution of consumer goods according to need. In a sense, these were also their conceptions of the basic conditions necessary for realizing common prosperity, which greatly enriched the connotations of the communist doctrine they had just founded. To achieve this goal, Marx and Engels envisioned: "In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production." The publication of The German Ideology not only marked the basic establishment of Marx and Engels's materialist conception of history but also signaled that their thought on common prosperity had developed to a higher level.
(3) Proposing the Guarantor of Political Power and the Constructive Goals of Common Prosperity Based on Critique
In February 1848, The Communist Manifesto (hereafter referred to as "the Manifesto") was published. Marx and Engels applied the new ideas and viewpoints they had formed in the fields of philosophy, political economy, and historical science to profoundly summarize the experiences and lessons of the proletarian movement. They conducted a systematic study of human society, especially capitalist society, comprehensively and meticulously expounding the basic principles of scientific socialism. They explained the inevitability of the realization of common prosperity, its subjects, the paths, and strategies, making their thought on common prosperity even more profound, realistic, and systematic. First, they emphasized that establishing proletarian political power is the most powerful guarantee for realizing common prosperity. The Manifesto utilized a profound materialist viewpoint to explain that capitalist society had fallen into a total crisis caused by "too much civilization," and that "the conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them." Under the premise of private property, the prosperity of the proletariat cannot be guaranteed: "The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." If the proletariat is to improve its material living conditions, it must "overthrow the bourgeoisie by force and establish its own rule." Therefore, only the proletariat—the most advanced, most revolutionary class and the "gravedigger" of the bourgeoisie—can undertake this historical mission and fundamentally solve the problem of common prosperity. Second, they emphasized that the free and well-rounded development of individuals is the ultimate goal. The Manifesto states: "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." In a communist society, material wealth will be greatly abundant, the people will fully enjoy democracy, and the realization of common prosperity will have a material foundation and political guarantee. At the same time, common prosperity will continuously move toward higher levels, making communist society ultimately a society of free and well-rounded human development.
In short, during this period, Marx and Engels examined the issue of common prosperity using a new world outlook. By focusing on the lives of real individuals, they transcended the categories of "Absolute Spirit" and "Self-Consciousness" pursued by Hegel and replaced Feuerbach’s study of "real man based on nature." They fully argued that practical activity is the fundamental way to improve the lives of the people and proposed a practical path for realizing common prosperity. In this process of theoretical exploration, they not only profoundly explained the important task of obtaining the material basis for common prosperity through practice but also proposed that the ultimate goal, following the continuous development of common prosperity to higher levels, is to achieve the free and well-rounded development of individuals. This stage was a critical developmental phase in Marx and Engels's thought on common prosperity.
IV. Moving Toward Maturity: The Continuous Deepening of the Thought on Common Prosperity in the Context of the Critique of Capital
After the publication of the Manifesto, with the arrival of the low tide of the European revolution, Marx and Engels once again left their homeland. They retreated from the "front stage of social revolution" back to the "study" to resume the economic research they had interrupted due to the revolution. They sought to further expose the movement of the internal contradictions of capitalism, enabling the proletariat to clearly understand those laws that govern this movement and lead to the demise of the capitalist system. During this period, Marx wrote works such as The Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1857–1858 Manuscripts), Capital, and Critique of the Gotha Programme. He studied common prosperity from the perspective of political economy, and by exposing the basic contradictions of capitalism and the essence of capital, he profoundly revealed the hypocrisy of capitalism, thereby further expounding his own thought on common prosperity.
(1) Analyzing Common Prosperity Using the Dialectical Method of Moving from the Abstract to the Concrete
On the one hand, he proposed the method of dialectical thinking. The dialectical analytical method of moving from the abstract to the concrete—that is, the cognitive law of moving from abstract concepts toward more concrete ones—is an essential research and narrative method for understanding the essence of things. The "concrete" here refers to the rational concrete; it is a rich totality that is rational and possesses many determinations and relations. In the "Introduction" to the Grundrisse (Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858), Marx primarily critiqued the sensory and one-sided nature of the analytical methods used in classical political economy. He pointed out that by applying the dialectical method of moving from the abstract to the concrete, one could understand the essence of society: the concrete determinations within thought such as society and the individual, the individual and the relations of production, and the historical succession of relations of production and social formations. This leads to the realization that: "The further back we go into history, the more the individual and, therefore, the producing individual, appears as dependent, as belonging to a larger whole," and that "Man is in the most literal sense a zoon politikon [N1], not only a social animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society." Guided by this method, Marx proposed that in a society of common prosperity, "the development of social productive forces will be so rapid that... although production will be aimed at the wealth of all, the disposable time of all will increase." Therefore, only when the productive forces are improved and developed, and social wealth increases continuously, can people's material and spiritual needs be satisfied, and society as a whole progress.
On the other hand, he found the path for the critique of political economy, particularly the critique of capital. In the "Preface" to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Marx proposed a major methodological proposition based on his established "method of rising from the abstract to the concrete": "the anatomy of civil society is to be sought in political economy." First, starting from the anatomy of capitalist relations of production—that is, examining the relations between means of production and relations of production, relations of production and relations of intercourse [N2], and the relationship between forms of the state and consciousness and the relations of production and intercourse—and proceeding from the dimension of political economy closely related to civil society, he conducted an "abstract-concrete" analysis and reflection on modern civilization and modern society. Second, the core of historical materialism lies in grasping the historical practice of the historical subject. Specifically, through the practice of people's productive lives, one must dialectically analyze the development, changes, and historical destiny of capitalism to find the realistic basis for revealing the general laws of socio-historical development. All the above laid the methodological foundation for the further maturation of his thoughts on common prosperity.
(2) Taking the Unity of Man and Socio-Economic Relations as the Starting Point for Examining Common Prosperity
Capital is a monumental work to which Marx devoted his life's energy, the crystallized essence of a lifetime of revolutionary practice and the creation of revolutionary theory. Consisting of three volumes, the first volume focuses on the capitalist mode of production and its relations of production, examining the capitalist production process itself as the object of study. The second volume studies the process of circulation as a supplement to the production process. The third volume reveals and elucidates the various concrete forms and operational laws of the capitalist production process as a whole. As a masterpiece of proletarian political economy, Capital contains rich thoughts on common prosperity. Based on a scientific and thorough materialist conception of history, it provides a detailed and penetrating analysis of the social and economic life and phenomena under the capitalist system—the processes of commodity production, exchange, distribution, and consumption, as well as the capitalist relations of production they exhibit—by exposing and analyzing the wage-labor system founded on capitalist private ownership. It further explains the historical, economic, and institutional roots of the problem of proletarian poverty. Building on this, Capital conducts a more detailed exploration of the path to achieving common prosperity. These findings became the theoretical basis and guide for action for the proletariat to escape poverty and seek class liberation, marking an important sign of the maturation of Marx and Engels's thoughts on common prosperity.
First, the realization of common prosperity depends on the proletariat. Marx pointed out that in the process of its evolution, the capitalist mode of production provided the material basis for the birth of a new social formation on the one hand, and forged the proletariat on the other. In the "Afterword" to the second German edition of the first volume of Capital, it is noted that the proletariat possesses strong organizational discipline, revolutionary drive, and a spirit of resistance, and is more receptive to advanced theory: "The historical mission of this class is the overthrow of the capitalist mode of production and the final abolition of all classes."
Second, the sublation [N3] of the capitalist system is the fundamental way to achieve common prosperity. In Marx's view: "Every specific historical form of the labor process further develops its material foundations and social forms. When it reaches a certain stage of maturity, the specific historical form is discarded and makes way for a higher one." "The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of labor reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." The contradiction between the capitalist system of private appropriation and socialized large-scale production is the true source of economic crises. The inherent and insurmountable contradictions of the capitalist mode of production cause destructive "tremors" in economic life. The goals of the proletariat "can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions." Therefore, the capitalist system must be replaced by a higher social system, and this process is a necessary sublation toward the realization of common prosperity.
(3) Proposing an Integrated Vision and Feasible Scheme for Advancing Common Prosperity
In 1875, from the height of historical materialism, Marx analyzed and expounded on common prosperity in connection with the productive forces, relations of production, and modes of production. He wrote the Critique of the Gotha Programme, providing a feasible scheme for achieving common prosperity.
First, the prerequisite for common prosperity is the highly developed state of productive forces. "Any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves." The material basis of common prosperity is the wealth created by social production—the total social product—and social productive forces create social wealth. If social productive forces are meager and cannot create sufficient wealth, only "common poverty" [N4] will result, not common prosperity. The foundation of common prosperity is the development of material conditions to a great extent, "making it possible for every member of society not only to participate in the production of social wealth, but also in its distribution and management, and by the planned operation of the whole of production, to increase the social productive forces and their fruits to such an extent that the satisfaction of all reasonable needs of every individual is guaranteed in an ever-increasing measure."
Second, the realization of common prosperity is gradual. Marx pointed out that in the first phase of communist society (the socialist stage), since this phase "has just emerged from capitalist society... it is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges." Distribution can only be carried out according to the principle of "to each according to his work." Consequently, given differences in the labor capacity of workers and their family circumstances, it will lead to a situation where "one man is as a matter of fact richer than another." "But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society." As an advancement of this first phase, "in a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"
During this period, through their critique of capital, Marx and Engels completed the sublation of capitalist society and the planning of the future socialist path. Relying on a systematic theoretical system of political economy, they proposed a more refined integrated vision and feasible scheme for advancing common prosperity, and their thoughts on common prosperity reached maturity and completeness.
V. Conclusion
Marx and Engels critically absorbed the beneficial elements of utopian socialism, established the idea of common prosperity on the foundation of materialist philosophy for the first time, and provided a realistic demonstration of it from the perspective of political economy. Guided by dialectical materialism and historical materialism, they achieved a historic transformation of socialist theory. They made scientific predictions about the characteristics of the future society, viewing common prosperity as the fundamental characteristic and main goal of the future society, pointing the way forward and providing a scientific theoretical basis for the realization and development of common prosperity.
Marx pointed out: "Any true philosophy is the spiritual quintessence of its time." The historical evolution of Marx and Engels's thoughts on common prosperity is the product of the interaction between theory and practice, and the result of the mutual action and influence between productive forces and relations of production, and between social existence and social consciousness. Theoretical self-awareness is an important manifestation of a political party's maturity. Marx and Engels's thoughts on common prosperity provide an important theoretical source for us to deepen our understanding of common prosperity and serve as the starting point for the evolution and development of the Communist Party of China's thoughts on common prosperity. On the New Journey, the cause of common prosperity in socialism with Chinese characteristics should take Marx and Engels's thoughts on common prosperity as its theoretical baseline, and further enrich and develop these thoughts in practice, thereby continuously highlighting the superiority of the socialist system and providing a Chinese solution for the world.