Liu Guixiang: Marx's Dialectic of Labor and the Limits of Western Modernity
Marx’s concept of labor not only holds a foundational position within Marxist doctrine but is also inherently related to Hegelian dialectics. Regarding the intellectual differences between Marx and Hegel, a re-examination of Martin Heidegger’s discourse on the role of the dialectic of labor in both thinkers reveals much. In The Principle of Thought, Heidegger posits that in Hegel, thought entering the dimension of dialectics "is a world-historical event." It is through this "event" that all existing things can be presented to humanity as present things. Heidegger further argues that Marx inherited Hegel’s dialectic of labor and advanced it. He believes that Marx’s dialectical materialism "is today a world reality, and perhaps is the world reality"; whether one opposes or favors it, it remains powerful.
Heidegger’s judgment on labor and dialectics has had a massive impact. It concerns not only how one views the intellectual relationship between Marx and Hegel but also involves one’s fundamental attitude toward the entire problem of modernity. This judgment has influenced many contemporary philosophers and has continuously sparked relevant debates within China. Therefore, it is necessary here to re-examine Heidegger’s view on the intellectual relationship between Marx and Hegel. This re-examination takes "labor and dialectics" as the overarching problem and unfolds around the following three sub-questions: (1) What are Heidegger’s specific evaluations of Marx and Hegel? (2) What constitutes Marx’s inheritance, development, critique, and transcendence of Hegel? (3) How does Heidegger evaluate the contributions and limitations of both? Finally, this article points out that Marx’s dialectic of labor points toward the critique of modernity and the communist movement; these are two sides of the same coin, and thus the dialectic itself is the solution to the "riddle of history" [1].
I. Heidegger on the Intellectual Relationship Between Marx and Hegel: The Question of Labor and Dialectics
For researchers familiar with the intellectual relationship between Hegel and Marx, the concept of labor is a foundational concept for both thinkers, even though they assign different connotations to it. As one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, Heidegger naturally would not overlook or skip this theme. In his 1956–1957 essay "The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics," his "intellectual confrontation" (Auseinandersetzung) centered mainly on Hegel, but in the 1957 essay The Principle of Thought, his confrontation was not limited to Hegel but extended to Marx. The importance of the relationship between Hegel and Marx in academic and intellectual history goes without saying, but their specific relationship remains a matter of endless debate. In the history of Marxist philosophy, we generally say the two share a relationship of critical inheritance, and that Marx’s philosophy is the Aufhebung of Hegel’s philosophy. Generally speaking, there is no problem with this statement; however, in the eyes of Western philosophy—particularly the phenomenological school—the situation is different. For instance, Husserl always disdained Hegel’s dialectics; Heidegger, proceeding from existential phenomenology, likewise believed that Marx’s philosophy was merely a modern metaphysics of subjectivity confined within Hegelian philosophy, and that there was no such thing as a Marxian advancement over Hegel, because Marx simply transformed the mental production emphasized by Hegel into human production and material production. In this regard, Heidegger first cited Marx’s famous assertion in the Paris Manuscripts regarding the whole of world history, namely that "the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labor, nothing but the emergence of nature for man." He then commented:
Many might reject this Marxian interpretation of world history and the view of the essence of man that serves as its foundation. But no one can deny that technology, industry, and the economy decisively regulate all reality as the self-production of man through labor today. However, with such an assertion, we have already fallen out of that dimension of thought in which the aforementioned Marxian statement concerning world history as the "self-production of man through labor" moves. For the word "labor" (Arbeit) here does not refer to mere activity or achievement. This word is used in the sense of Hegel’s concept of labor, where labor is thought as the fundamental characteristic of the dialectical process through which the becoming of reality unfolds and completes its reality.
In this famous commentary, Heidegger primarily indicates the following points: (1) Marx’s interpretation of world history and its theoretical foundation stem from a certain view of the essence of man; (2) the theoretical basis of this view is to see man and the world as a process of continuous objectification of labor—a process where the reality of human existence is stipulated by technology, industry, and the economy driven by productive labor; (3) this reality is expressed by Marx’s view on productive labor, but it has its roots in Hegelian philosophy, namely that labor has already been thought as the fundamental characteristic of the dialectical process. Let us examine these three points one by one to see whether Heidegger’s assertions are appropriate.
If we consider this passage in isolation, Heidegger’s assertions are undoubtedly accurate and appropriate. The first point concerns Marx’s interpretation of world history and its theoretical basis. This basis indeed involves Marx’s view on the essence of man—that is, Marx views the self-creation of man and the world as a process of the objectification of labor. Marx’s view of world history is indeed formulated this way. It is worth noting that "the entire so-called history of the world" is a universal proposition; the phrasing in Marx’s Paris Manuscripts is exactly this decisive and resolute. For Heidegger, who views human production based on the "thinking of Being" (Seinsdenken), this is undoubtedly a typical form of humanism or anthropocentrism. He believes that Marx’s way of viewing man and the world is the same as Sartre’s: "strictly speaking, we are on a plane where there are only men," having not yet reached what he calls the plane where "strictly speaking, we are on a plane where there is principally Being." Therefore, his claim that Marx’s doctrine or the whole of Marxism is a form of humanism or anthropocentrism does not seem misplaced.
But this immediately leads to the second point: Marx’s fundamental understanding and basic viewpoints on the essence of man. What exactly is the essence of man according to Marx? If given the simplest answer, it is indeed "labor." Labor creates man, or rather, man self-creates and self-generates within labor. This can be confirmed throughout the Paris Manuscripts and seems to present no problem. For example, Marx says: "The history of industry and the established objective existence of industry are the open book of man’s essential powers." "For all human activity hitherto has been labor—that is, industry—activity alienated from itself." Engels, in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, also summarized the characteristics of Marxist doctrine by stating that Marxism is "a new school that found the key to understanding the entire history of society in the history of the development of labor." Among Western Marxist schools, this positioning is even more common, such as viewing Marx's doctrine as a "philosophical anthropology" (Sartre) or a "philosophy of labor" (Arendt). All of this seems to prove the correctness of Heidegger’s assertion that Marx, like Hegel, holds a "creation of the world through labor" theory. Clearly, Heidegger understands Marx in this way. As for the difference between Marx and Hegel, Heidegger believes Marx merely emphasizes the real person and their material production.
Thus we enter the third point: "labor being thought as the fundamental characteristic of the dialectical process." Regarding this, Heidegger had already made a clear judgment in his 1946 "Letter on Humanism," subsuming all materialism into Hegelian metaphysics. He stated: "The essence of materialism does not consist in the assertion that everything is simply matter but rather in a metaphysical determination according to which every being appears as the material for labor. The modern metaphysical essence of labor is pre-thought in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit as the self-arranging process of unconditional manufacture, which is the process of objectifying the real through man experienced as subjectivity." Labor is seen as "the self-arranging process of unconditional manufacture," which is precisely the typical characteristic of modern production and technology. Are not the technologization, automation, and intelligentization (AI) of production the fundamental pursuits of modernization? Is the essence of technology not precisely the seeking of this reality? Among all materialist doctrines, does not Marxism emphasize the development of productive forces and technological progress most strongly? Consequently, Heidegger believes that "the essence of materialism is hidden in the essence of technology." However, this is only regarding the manifestation of materialism; as for its essence, he believes materialism has not perceived its deeper intellectual roots. In an age of the world picture [2], materialism merely utilizes human subjectivity and agency, but the source of subjectivity and agency lies in idealism. This source was long ago expressed by Hegel through the self-negation of the dialectic of spirit; materialism is merely the externalization of this thought and idea. In this way, Heidegger pushes Marx’s philosophy back within Hegelian philosophy:
In opposition to Hegel, Marx does not find the essence of reality in the Absolute Spirit that grasps itself, but in the person who produces themselves and their means of life. While this certainly brings Marx into an extreme opposition to Hegel, through this opposition Marx remains within the scope of Hegelian metaphysics; for real life and action are everywhere the dialectical process of labor, which is to say the process of labor as thought, so long as the truly productive element of every kind of production remains thought—whether this thought is carried out as speculative metaphysical thought, as scientific-technological thought, or as a mixture and coarsening of the two. Every kind of production is in itself reflection; it is thought.
Here, Heidegger applies the same "violent interpretation" he used on Kant and Nietzsche to his interpretation of Hegel and Marx. If we do not examine the fundamental differences between Marx and Hegel—especially Marx’s ontological revolution against Hegelian philosophy—then his judgment is undoubtedly correct and astute. However, regarding the three most important points concerning the difference between Marx’s and Hegel’s philosophies, he substitutes the "nature" of the thing with its "source." Heidegger correctly identifies the Hegelian source of Marx’s thought: Marx’s theory of the objectification of labor comes from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, where Hegel had already expressed in advance how the objectification of labor shapes and develops reality. However, in judging the nature of Marx’s and Hegel’s philosophies, Heidegger views Marx’s philosophy entirely as the application and development of Hegel’s. The relationship of Marx to Hegel’s philosophy is fundamentally one of critical inheritance, namely Aufhebung. This requires neither downplaying nor exaggerating, nor does it require any shocking claims. The key and crux of the problem lie in seeing how Marx exactly inherited and critiqued Hegel’s concept of labor through a specific analysis of the relationship between the two. This leads to the next question.
II. The Intellectual Confrontation Between Marx and Hegel Regarding Labor and Dialectics
Marx’s concept of labor did indeed come from Hegel; in this sense, Marx inherited Hegel’s concept of labor. However, Marx never accepted Hegelian philosophy uncritically; rather, he truly achieved critique and development within that inheritance.
This is a basic principle for viewing the intellectual relationship between Marx and Hegel. The question of labor and dialectics was always at the heart of Marx’s thought. While processing the materials for Capital, Marx stated that he was attempting for the first time to "apply the dialectical method to political economy," and that he was willing to "elaborate the rational kernel within the mystified form of the Hegelian method, making it accessible to the general reader." The latter, of course, was not realized [in a separate treatise], but Marx wrote Logic with a capital "L" [in the form of Capital]; thus, Capital is not only an application of logic but its development. In the "Afterword to the Second Edition" of Capital in 1873, Marx still maintained this principle. He said that while people treated Hegel as a "dead dog," "I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even, here and there in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." At the same time, Marx pointed out that "nearly thirty years ago, when the Hegelian dialectic was still the fashion, I criticized the mystificatory side of this dialectic."
The "nearly 30 years ago" Marx referred to was, of course, around 1843. This phase was the critical period of Marx’s initial study of political economy and his ideological transition. According to Marx’s own account of his actual intellectual process, this was the period when he moved toward a truly critical worldview—namely, the period of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (German-French Annals). Subsequently, in the Paris Manuscripts, Marx provided his most concentrated critique of Hegel’s concept of labor and dialectics. Later that same year, in The Holy Family, Marx once again critiqued the "secret of the speculative structure" in Hegel. Thereafter, he further critiqued Hegelian philosophy indirectly through The German Ideology and The Poverty of Philosophy, comprehensively elucidating the basic ideological principles of historical materialism.
In Marx's five critiques of Hegel, the problem of labor and dialectics remained the core issue of his concern. Even during the period of the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, while Marx superficially discussed the conflict between civil society and the political state, a deeper look reveals that their conflict was precisely the conflict between private interests and the common interest caused by labor. This was also the internal motivation for Marx’s in-depth study of political economy; yet, studying political economy was impossible without engaging with Hegelian dialectics. As Marx stated in the Paris Manuscripts: "The question of how we stand as regards the Hegelian dialectic... appears to be a formal question, but it is in fact an essential one." In The Holy Family, Marx went further to accuse the "Free Men" [3] who had detached themselves from social reality, because they did not understand the basic reality defined by private property and could only use the "self-consciousness" of Hegelian philosophy to engage in "critical criticism." In reality, the "secret of the speculative structure" was merely the secret of Hegel’s spiritual dialectics where "substance is subject." As for the latter two critiques, they appeared on the surface to be Marx’s polemics with the Young Hegelians and Proudhon, but behind them remained a contest and polemic with the Hegelian dialectic. Marx stated explicitly that the Young Hegelians had never left the terrain of Hegelian philosophy, and Proudhon’s The Philosophy of Poverty was a mere copying and transplanting of the Hegelian dialectic.
The above constitutes the basic thread of the ideological dispute between Marx and Hegel. For Heidegger, because his assessment of Marx was limited to Marx's critique of Hegel in the Paris Manuscripts—and was furthermore an assessment based on his own [Heidegger's] logic of thought—his judgment lacked the support of the developmental thread of Marx’s thought and, more importantly, lacked insight into how Marx transcended Hegel. A typical characteristic of Marx’s critique of Hegel from the very beginning was that his critique of the Phenomenology of Spirit or the Science of Logic was not merely a critique of their internal relations, but a critique situated within a larger social reality. From this, he first derived that most famous judgment regarding Hegelian philosophy: the Phenomenology of Spirit is the "true birthplace and secret of the Hegelian philosophy," and then made the following famous assessment of the contribution of the Phenomenology:
The greatness of Hegel’s Phenomenology and its final result—the dialectic of negativity as the moving and generating principle—lies certainly in the fact that Hegel conceives the self-genesis of man as a process, conceives objectification as loss of the object, as alienation and as the transcendence of this alienation; that he thus grasps the essence of labor and comprehends objective man—true, because real man—as the outcome of his own labor.
Marx’s assessment first affirms the intellectual contribution of Hegel’s labor dialectic. First, the final result of Hegel’s Phenomenology is the dialectic of negativity as the moving and generating principle; second, the soul of the negative dialectic is "the self-genesis of man as a process, conceiving objectification as loss of the object, as alienation and as the transcendence of this alienation"; consequently, third, Hegel "grasps the essence of labor" and was the first philosopher to propose that "labor creates man." Among these three points, the second is where the essence of all Marxian and Hegelian philosophy lies, and it is also the primary breakthrough point for Marx’s critique of Hegel. What is the internal basis for viewing man as a generative process of the objectification of labor? In other words, how exactly should we understand the negativity of labor and dialectics? In Hegel’s view, "contradiction is the root of all movement and vitality; it is only in so far as something has a contradiction within itself that it moves." This is what Hegel expressed from the Phenomenology to the entire Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, and what he repeatedly affirmed in the Science of Logic. Marx inherited this idea of dynamism and negativity and expanded it into the idea that all of world history is a creation and generation within labor. Precisely because of this, Heidegger gave the aforementioned evaluation that Marx’s materialist dialectic regulates today's reality. Heidegger correctly perceived Marx’s inheritance of Hegel’s "labor creates man," but he failed to see Marx’s subsequent critique and development of Hegel’s concept of labor. Immediately following the affirmative words quoted above, Marx pointed out:
Hegel adopts the standpoint of modern political economy. He grasps labor as the essence of man—as man’s essence which affirms itself; he sees only the positive, and not the negative side of labor. Labor is man’s coming-to-be for himself within alienation, or as alienated man. The only labor which Hegel knows and recognizes is abstractly mental labor. Therefore, that which constitutes the essence of philosophy—the alienation of man who knows himself, or alienated science thinking itself—Hegel grasps as the essence of labor; and he is therefore able to combine the separate elements of previous philosophy and to present his own philosophy as the philosophy. What other philosophers did—that they conceived separate elements of nature and of human life as elements of self-consciousness and, indeed, of abstract self-consciousness—Hegel regards as the work of philosophy itself. His science is therefore absolute.
This is an extremely important critique. Here, Marx not only points out the limitations and inadequacies of Hegel’s labor dialectic but also gives his own view of the objectification of labor in principle, and finally thoroughly reveals that Hegelian philosophy is essentially a "logical pantheism"—that is, it "merely finds the abstract, logical, speculative expression for the movement of history." This assessment unfolds in three aspects.
First, regarding the subject of the objectification of labor: for Hegel, the subject is self-consciousness; Marx identifies the subject as sensuous man, a contribution that certainly came from Feuerbach. Second, regarding the process of the objectification of labor: for Hegel, this process is the process by which self-consciousness posits objectivity and then returns to itself; for Marx, it is the process by which real man deals with sensuous nature to produce his objects. Finally, the result of the objectification of labor: Marx says, "That a living, natural, endowed and equipped with objective, i. e., material essential powers social being should have real natural objects of his essence, and that his self-alienation should further take the form of the positing of a real, objective world, but within the form of externality, and therefore an objective world not belonging to his essence and overpowering him, is quite natural. There is nothing incomprehensible or mysterious about it. The reverse would be mysterious." Here, "the reverse" refers to Hegel’s process of the spiritual objectification of labor. Imagine if the subject of the objectified labor were always consciousness; then, no matter how much the process of objectification were emphasized, the result would still be "the ceaseless circling within thought." The result would be the development of human consciousness: "Knowledge is the sole act of consciousness. Therefore, something comes to be for consciousness insofar as it knows this something." Such a philosophy makes contributions to cognition, but in reality, it does not touch the object. Its entire result can only be the production of "the most conservative philosophy" in a radical form.
The above is Marx’s critique of Hegelian philosophy. Simultaneously, in his critique of the idealist objectification of labor in Hegel, Marx established the starting point for all his philosophical creation: "Man is objective activity." Marx says: "When real, corporeal man, standing on the firm, round earth, inhaling and exhaling all the powers of nature, posits his real, objective essential powers as alien objects through his alienation, it is not the act of positing which is the subject; it is the subjectivity of objective essential powers, whose action, therefore, must also be objective. An objective being acts objectively, and he would not act objectively if his objective character did not reside in the very nature of his being. He only creates or posits objects, because he is posited by objects—because at bottom he is nature. In the act of positing, therefore, he does not proceed from his ‘pure activity’ to create objects; rather, his objective product only confirms his objective activity, his activity as the activity of an objective, natural being."
"Man is objective activity" represents the "revolution in the dwelling-place of thought" initiated by Marx; it has been called by some scholars the "first principle of Marx’s philosophical ontology." This concept, for the first time, unifies the principle of activity from German Idealism with the sensuous principle of materialism in the sense of the original encounter between man and the world. This concept serves a formal indicative function. To use the language of Heidegger’s existential-phenomenological "reduction," objective activity is the "final residue" of phenomenological reduction; one can no longer ask why man deals with the world. As long as man exists in the world, there must be an original activity of dealing with the world. This activity does not take philosophical reflection as its prerequisite; on the contrary, it is the prerequisite for thought categories and substantial existence. Therefore, objective activity, as the original form of the concept of practice, subsumes and transcends modern mind-body dualism, while also providing a phenomenological revelation and proof of the existence of man and the world.
Regarding this contribution of Marx’s philosophy, Western Marxist scholars have offered many judgments. For instance, Marcuse stated that the transition from Hegel to Marx was a transition toward an essentially different order of truth, which is difficult to explain on the basis of philosophy alone. Althusser believed that Marx discovered the "new continent" of historical science and "established a new science: the historical science of ‘social formations’." Habermas argued that Marx realized a "critique of the critique of Hegel" through the concept of "social labor." The consensus formed in Chinese Marxist academic circles in recent years is also that objective activity is the original form of Marx’s concept of practice, that the Paris Manuscripts are the "secret and birthplace of Marx’s philosophy," and that Marx’s philosophical revolution was primarily an ontological revolution. Its fundamental horizon lies in the "opening of an ontological domain," which should be viewed as a kind of "historical phenomenology," "anthropological phenomenology," or "existential phenomenology." This interpretation of Marx’s philosophical revolution, which for the first time introduces and interprets phenomenological thought resources, constitutes a highly innovative insight, though it still requires further in-depth study.
III. Rethinking Heidegger on the Labor Dialectic and the Limits of Western Modernity
If we compare Marx’s and Heidegger’s critiques of Hegel, we immediately find that both start from Hegel but arrive at completely different judgments. These judgments persist on the one hand because the immense influence of Hegelian philosophy continues to this day, and on the other hand because the different evaluations themselves have stimulated contemporary philosophy. Regarding the former, as M. White said, "Every important philosophical movement of the twentieth century began with an attack on the views of that sprawling and prestigious nineteenth-century German professor." Regarding the latter, Marxism and phenomenology, represented by Marx and Heidegger respectively, have influenced various schools of contemporary philosophy. Therefore, re-examining Heidegger’s evaluation of Marx also requires placing it within a broader discursive field. In short, the discursive field of Marx’s thought is the problem of modernity.
Linking Marx’s thought to the problem of modernity is dictated by the very nature of his doctrine; it is also the general condition of the intellectual world since the 19th century. In his book From Hegel to Nietzsche, Karl Löwith states: "Hegel’s absolute philosophy of subjective and objective spirit became, with Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard, an analysis of man and society. But the practical reasons for this fragmentation and reduction of Hegelian philosophy were not purely 'spiritual-historical' (Geistesgeschichte); rather, they were contained within the general transformation of the European world." The "post-Hegelian era," as evidenced by Heidegger’s commentary on Marx, typically embodies this point. The capitalist system is the concentrated manifestation of the problem of modernity, while Marx’s critique of capitalism and the communist movement represent two sides of that same problem. Marx is a master of the critique of modernity—a characteristic similarly expressed and confirmed in different ways by Lukács in The Destruction of Reason and Marcuse in Reason and Revolution. Heidegger’s evaluation of the relationship between Marx and Hegel also does not escape this fundamental discursive field.
Philosophy moved toward social science and anthropology after the 19th century, a shift Heidegger himself acknowledged. However, we need a concrete analysis of how this transformation occurred and the heights it reached. For instance, looking at the intellectual relationship between Hegel and Marx through the lens of modernity, it is generally considered in the history of thought that Feuerbach served as the intermediary. Yet Karl Löwith argued: "Feuerbach’s propositions and principles define Marx’s entire Paris Manuscripts, but its true problems and the draft for their solution are determined entirely by Marx’s debate with Hegel." This fully demonstrates the importance of Hegelian philosophy, how the transformation occurred, and the height it attained. Feuerbach himself said, "Hegelian philosophy is the completion of modern philosophy. Therefore, the historical necessity and raison d'être of the new philosophy are primarily linked to the critique of Hegel." Unfortunately, Feuerbach ultimately failed to move beyond Hegel and degenerated into a "half-way" materialism. [8]
This lesson from Feuerbach in the history of thought is by no means an isolated case; on the contrary, it has universal significance for examining the intellectual relationship between Marx and Hegel, and similarly applies to the examination of Hegel and Heidegger. Marx established his "new materialism" only through five successive critiques of Hegelian philosophy. The guiding principle of this "new materialism" is objective activity (Gegenständliche Tätigkeit) or sensuous activity—a concept that subsumes and transcends both abstract thinking and sensuous intuition. Marx briefly expressed this in the fifth of his Theses on Feuerbach. Whether through intellectual threads or textual foundations, Marx’s dual transcendence of Feuerbach and Hegel is evident. Heidegger, however, did not see it this way. Throughout his life, Heidegger engaged in constant intellectual disputes with Hegel, producing many classic interpretations such as Hegel’s Concept of Experience, Hegel and the Greeks, and The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics. Hegel was the "intellectual enemy" who surfaced repeatedly in his thought; one could say that Heidegger’s "turn" (Kehre), much like Marx’s intellectual transformation, was the result of a dialogue with Hegel. This dialogue is continually reactivated by the problem of modernity. Yet even in the 1950s, in his Letter on Humanism and other works, Heidegger persisted in viewing Marx—alongside Kierkegaard and Nietzsche—as a "violent reversal and immense opposition" to Hegelian metaphysics. Regarding the overall nature of Marx’s doctrine, even in his late period in the 1970s, Heidegger still localized Marx based on Feuerbach’s proposition that "man is the highest essence of man." He completely ignored that in 1843, while affirming Feuerbach’s contribution, Marx pointed out his deficiencies: "Feuerbach’s aphorisms only dissatisfy me in one point: that he emphasizes nature too much and politics too little." [9] "Man is the world of man, the state, society." To study man, one must study the actual social relations in which man is rooted—that is, "once the 'beyond of truth' has vanished, the task of history is to establish the truth of the 'this-side.' ... Thus, the critique of heaven turns into the critique of earth, the critique of religion into the critique of law, and the critique of theology into the critique of politics." [10] Marx's intellectual transformation had already begun in 1843.
The realm reached by Marx’s intellectual transformation is reflected not only in its depth but also in its breadth. In terms of depth, Marx effected a revolution of the "abode of thought" [11] more than eighty years before Heidegger’s Being and Time. In terms of breadth, this revolution directly led Marx toward a transformation of the socio-historical outlook and the critique of political economy. The historical-materialist conception of history and the theory of surplus value are Marx’s two great achievements; they directly transformed socialism from utopia into science. If we shift our perspective, we immediately see that Engels’ summary of Marx’s doctrine is simply another expression of Marx’s critique of modernity. Heidegger acknowledged this, either explicitly or implicitly. For instance, when people treated Marx’s communism as a mere doctrine of resistance against the capitalist system, Heidegger remarked in his Letter on Humanism: "One can take various positions regarding the teachings of communism and their justification, but from the standpoint of the history of Being, it is certain that an essential experience of what is world-historical speaks out in communism. Whoever takes 'communism' only as a 'party' or a 'worldview' (Weltanschauung) thinks as short-sightedly as those who take the 'American system' only—and even disparagingly—as a particular lifestyle." Here, Heidegger affirms that Marx’s doctrine is essentially a program for the critique of modernity, yet he consistently refused to recognize the revolutionary nature of Marx’s philosophy, viewing it instead through the "history of Being" (Seinsgeschichte) as a mere reversal and application of Hegelian philosophy.
This constitutes Heidegger’s commentary on Marx’s critique of modernity—a commentary that centers on the problems of labor and dialectics. For example, regarding the nature of dialectical materialism, Heidegger’s judgment of modernity is once again activated:
True, nowadays when dialectics is mentioned, one notices that there is a dialectical materialism. People view it as a worldview and pass it off as an ideology. But with this assertion, we evade thinking rather than recognizing that dialectics today is a world-reality—and perhaps the world-reality. Hegel’s dialectics is one of those "world-controlling" thoughts that sound from afar; it is just as powerful where dialectical materialism is believed as where it is refuted—merely in a slightly varied style of the same thought. As they say, behind this dispute over worldviews, a struggle for world dominion is being fiercely waged.
Heidegger’s judgment here is clearly not based solely on philosophy or the history of ideas; rather, it places the relationship between Marx and Hegel within the unfolding process of Western modernity as a whole. Although such a judgment adopts a high vantage point, for Marx, it always "scratches where it doesn't itch." [12] The communist movement cannot be separated from the critique of political economy; conversely, the critique of political economy must be based on a philosophical revolution. Thus, communism, the critique of political economy, and the critique of philosophy are themselves a "trinity"—viewing the thought horizontally. Viewed vertically through its development, the philosophical revolution, the materialist conception of history, and the critique of political economy were implemented step-by-step. This characteristic of Marx’s thought is precisely where its vitality lies. Lukács said that in Marx’s doctrine, "the category of totality, the all-pervasive supremacy of the whole over the parts, is the essence of the method which Marx took over from Hegel," [13] and that Orthodox Marxism refers primarily to his dialectical method. Lenin similarly remarked that Marx’s doctrine is a single block of steel, and that "it is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital... without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic." All of these points highlight the internal connection between Marx’s doctrine and Hegelian philosophy. Yet Heidegger forcibly recruits Hegel and Marx into the "First Beginning" of the history of Being, maintaining that Marx is merely a violent reversal of Hegelian metaphysics.
If we compare Heidegger’s and Marx’s critiques of modernity, we immediately see that Heidegger’s critique is primarily ontological (existential), while Marx’s is praxeological. The greatest difference between these two modes lies in their method—simply put, the difference between the phenomenological method and the method of materialist dialectics. In The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics, Heidegger contrasts the two: he considers that for Hegel, the "matter" (Sache) is the "matter of thought," whereas the matter he himself discusses is "difference as difference"; the measure of Hegel’s dialogue with the history of thought is the "synthesis of thought," whereas his own measure is the "releasing of thought" (Gelassenheit); the characteristic of Hegel’s dialogue with the history of philosophy is "sublation" (Aufhebung), whereas his own is "reduction," namely the "step back" (Schritt zurück) of thought. Through this comparison, Heidegger argues that Hegel remains within the First Beginning of Being as the completion of Platonism. "The dialectical process of thought is the basic movement in the objectivity of all objects, that is, in Being understood in the modern way. The event in which our Western-European thinking has reached the dialectical dimension outlined since Plato is a world-historical event. It approaches the people of this age everywhere as something present, in various forms." Among the "present things" approaching the people of this age, dialectical materialism is the most powerful as a thought. Therefore, as a regulator and indicator of reality, dialectical materialism remains equally powerful whether people favor it or oppose it.
The above constitutes the intellectual dispute between Heidegger and Marx regarding modernity. Due to the immense influence of both thinkers, this dispute has permeated various contemporary philosophical schools. In Postmetaphysical Thinking, Habermas categorizes analytic philosophy, phenomenology, Western Marxism, and structuralism as the four major philosophical trends of the 20th century. These four trends influence and converse with one another, together forming the complex intellectual map of contemporary modernity. Yet, no matter how complex or multifaceted this map becomes, its background cannot escape the initial depictions provided by Heidegger and Marx.
In short, Heidegger’s judgment of Marx grasped the core of the relationship between Hegelian and Marxian thought, but this core—the problem of the dialectic of labor—requires concrete analysis. Starting from Hegel, the object of their mutual dispute, and focusing solely on the theme of the dialectic of labor, Heidegger’s judgment of Hegel and Marx undoubtedly correctly identifies one point: the limits of the Hegelian dialectic are, in fact, the limits of the entire modern society, and these limits are reproduced through the intellectual dispute between Hegel and Marx. However, Heidegger failed to perceive Marx’s transcendence and sublation of Hegel's idealist dialectic through the problem of labor. This led Heidegger to believe that Marx’s materialist dialectic was merely a contemporary application of the Hegelian dialectic.
IV. Conclusion
To understand Marx’s themes of labor and dialectics, one must understand the transformation brought about by Marx’s philosophical revolution. Only then can one overcome the binary thinking of humanism and historicism regarding the problem of modernity since the modern era. Faced with the fragmentation of modern man, humanism clings to the essence of man while historicism appeals to the temporal dimension; how to unify the two remains unresolved. However, this contradiction does not exist in Marx’s dialectic of labor. What the dialectic of labor reveals is a "crosswise opening" of history itself, where the longitudinal and transverse intersect. Diachronically, in the sensuous activity of man’s engagement with the world, labor creates man himself; simultaneously, synchronously, man’s own labor (production and intercourse) is a process of engaging with others and nature. Here, the diachronic and synchronic dimensions revealed by the dialectic of labor are integrally generated and mutually guaranteed in man’s engagement with the world. The key here does not lie in asking, as Heidegger did, how so-called "non-objective thinking and speaking are possible," but rather, once man and world have been split, how to deal with these intermediaries and how to re-realize the unity of man and world.
This unity cannot rely on Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis, nor on Heideggerian "thinking of Being" [14]; rather, it must appeal to the critique of capitalism and the communist movement. These two aspects are two sides of the same coin, revealed through the dialectic of labor. "This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism, equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man—the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. It is the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to be such solution." [15] Within this solution to the "riddle of history," objective activity remains the foundation throughout. In this sense, Marx’s dialectic of labor constitutes a new founding of Hegelian dialectics, rather than being merely an "application" of Hegelian dialectics as Heidegger suggested. If we properly understand the relationship between Marx’s dialectic of labor and his critique of modernity in this way, then what the dialectic of labor points toward is a new form of human civilization that transcends capitalism. This is the original and true meaning of Marx's critique of modernity.
(Author’s affiliation: Dalian University of Technology) Source: Social Science Journal, Issue 3, 2025 Online Editor: Paul