馬克思主義簡介：政治經濟學3 分工和世界體系理論

這期影片會介紹一下馬克思的分工理論，討論資本全球化對國際格局的影響，並淺談一下中美兩國在這種格局中的戰略選擇。

分工

分工就是不同的人負責不同的工作，提高專業化的程度。在馬克思看來，分工是生產力發展的結果，反過來也可以衡量一個民族生產力的水平。分工越精細，代表生產力越高。

在採集和狩獵為主的原始社會沒有分工，部落內的所有成員都需要共同製作工具和參與勞動。後來慢慢經歷了畜牧業和農業的分工，農業和手工業的分工，以及手工業等產業和商業的分工，稱為三次社會大分工，也稱為「產業間分工」。進入封建社會後，城市內發展出行業及專業的分工，出現了鐵匠、石匠、水手、畫師和醫生等不同行業，也稱為「產業內分工」。

按照辯證唯物主義的觀點，有了農業技術，才可能有專業的農民，當出現了一定數量的農民，才會反過來促進農業技術進一步發展。分工導致農民不知道如何打鐵，鐵匠也不清楚如何耕田，社會成員之間必須合作，是社會化大生產的前提，也促進了貿易的發展。

進入資本主義社會後，隨著機器生產，出現了單一產品在生產工序上的分工，也稱為「產品內分工」，工人專注在其中一個生產工序上，熟練度大幅提高、犯錯率大幅降低。

馬克思認為，提高生產力有兩種方法：一是量的變化，人口和生產規模的增加往往都能帶來更高的生產力。二是質的變化，新的生產方式可以用更少的人力、資源和時間，生產出更多的商品。資本主義的明顯特徵，是運用科技提高生產力，實現了更精細的分工，由量變達到了質變。

勞動異化

分工推動了生產力的發展、財富的增加和文明的進步。但一個事物如果能帶來好處，一定也會有一些代價，分工的一個代價是「勞動異化」。異化指的是主體變成了客體；勞動異化的意思是，人本來應該是勞動生產的主人，結果卻變成了機器的奴隸。

馬克思認為，勞動的意義在於「自我實現」，如果勞動者能夠在自己生產的物品中反映出自己存在的價值，工作就能成為快樂的源泉。但是在資本主義時代，無產階級將自己的勞動力出賣給資本家之後，雖然會獲得工資，發展自己的職業技巧，卻也會同時喪失對產品的控制權。

在大規模實行流水線生產之後，勞動異化體現得尤其明顯。流水線分工帶有強迫性質，生產線上的工人幾乎不可能隨意選擇分工。工人只能負責一個工序上簡單的步驟，沒辦法知道一個產品究竟是怎麼製作出來的，有時候連產品的用途也不知道，工作單純為了領取工資，沒有辦法理解自己的工作可以怎樣貢獻社會，自然也沒有辦法體會到自我實現的快樂。

虛擬經濟

隨著資本主義的發展，資本也會進行分工。在馬克思的時代，直接涉及生產的「產業資本家」佔據主導位置，後來為了追逐更高的利潤，出現了各種不直接涉及生產的「金融資本家」。

產業資本經過一系列複雜的運作，不同部門的資本家再按照出資比例，對剩餘價值進行分配。商業資本家以商業利潤的方式，借貸資本家以利息的方式，地主以租金的方式，國家以稅收的方式，都參與了瓜分由勞動產生的剩餘價值。由於轉移形式變得越來越複雜，尤其在金融化之後，也越來越難察覺到勞動在創造價值中的作用。

資本家有太多利潤，除了之前說到的盲目投資，當生產性的實體經濟沒有辦法提供更多的利潤，資本就會流向金融和證券等虛擬經濟。一開始虛擬資本還是為生產服務的，有協助產業資本家集資的作用，但量變導致質變，大量的資本進入後，資本家在虛擬經濟獲得的利潤就會高於實體經濟。一旦虛擬經濟過渡膨脹，大大超過了實體經濟可以支撐的範圍，甚至和實體經濟脫鉤的時候，整個國家的經濟就會脫實入虛，造成泡沫。

馬克思在《資本論》第三卷預言了這種情況，他評價這種和生產沒有直接關係的虛擬資本，最終只會週期性地消滅一部分產業資本家，過程同樣是異常殘酷的。

世界體系理論

資本主義的分工擴大到國際之後就會形成國際分工，大致上有三個過程：在馬克思的時代，核心國家生產工業產品，邊緣國家從事農牧業和資源出口，屬於「產業間分工」。

馬克思也預言了，在他去世之後，這種分工還會繼續發展。為了最大化利潤，資本需要到找到更便宜的勞動力，於是製造業會流向落後地區，國際分工又發展為「產業內分工」。最後，跨國公司興起，一個產品的不同部件都可以在不同國家完成，稱為「產品內分工」。相當於在國際上重複了一次人類分工的歷史。

後來的經濟學家將馬克思的觀點歸納為「世界體系理論」，並劃分了核心國家、半邊陲國家和邊陲國家。

核心國家是先進的工業國，掌握高科技，屬於資本密集型的生產；半邊陲國家缺乏高端技術，也缺乏資本，只能接收核心國家成熟或過時的技術進行低端製造業，屬於勞動密集型生產；邊陲國家幾乎不掌握技術，也沒有資本，只能向核心國家出口原料，屬於資源密集型生產。

以智能手機為例子，核心國家設計及掌握最主要的關鍵零部件，如晶片設計和光刻機；半邊陲國家使用光刻機製造晶片以及組裝手機；邊陲國家只能出口原材料。

由勞動價值論的角度去觀察，無論是技術還是資本，都是累積的勞動或者叫死勞動。

由技術來看，工業化累積了大量的死勞動，才能帶來技術優勢。但是這些技術必須通過新的勞動也就是活勞動，才能持續獲得利潤。這也是核心國家的資本必須找到勞動力成本比較低的半邊陲國家不斷投資的原因。

由資本來看，核心國家的貨幣才能成為輸出的資本，這是因為貨幣的價值取決於勞動生產率，而最影響勞動生產率的因素是社會的生產力。因此核心國家才能建立國際貿易的各種規則，形成國際分工體系，從中分得剩餘價值。核心國家在國際分工體系處於主導地位，可以異化半邊陲或邊陲國家，使一些國家明明已經獨立，實際上卻是核心國家資本的傀儡，最極端的例子稱為香蕉共和國，有興趣的朋友可以自己上網去看一下。

國際分工對於半邊陲國家和核心國家也都帶來一定的機遇和挑戰：

對於半邊陲國家來說，納入國際分工體系，一方面會獲得發展機會，另一方面會受到各種規則制約，和核心國家的差距難以縮小。這個世界上擁有龐大人口的國家不在少數，只有參與了國際分工，才能獲得必要的資金和技術，令整個產業得以發展。同理，擁有天然資源的國家也不少，但是這些天然資源只有通過勞動開採出來之後才有價值，通常天然資源也需要錨定在核心國家的貨幣上，例如石油和美元。

對於核心國家來說，資本家沒有祖國，核心國家的各種資本，都可以分享半邊陲和邊陲國家的勞動價值，從而令勞動價值隱藏的更加深，也是先進國家的國民難以察覺到勞動價值的原因。但看不到不等於不存在，國際分工會帶來工人失業的問題，影響政治局勢，資本家不需要考慮這些問題，核心國家的政客則會將矛頭轉向外國，不會討論這是資本逐利的必然結果。

核心國家要保持國際分工，方式還是在於資本和技術，一方面需要阻止半邊陲國家發展高科技，以及制定行業標準或品質認證標準；另一方面需要阻止半邊陲國家的貨幣國際化，形成多元化的「貨幣聯盟」。

共產主義

某程度上說，共產主義的目的就是消除分工的異化。馬克思曾經暢想，在共產主義社會當中，人類沒有特殊的分工，而是按照自己的興趣從事各種工作。

馬克思對於共產主義的想像，只有在生產力提高到一定階段之後才能實現。在生產力相對落後的社會主義階段，無論是馬克思還是他的好友恩格斯都不認為可以消除分工。

分工是一個社會生產力發展的結果，不可能強行增加或者是取消分工。理論上，社會主義應該創造比資本主義更大的生產力，而不是回到原始社會。故此，社會主義只能用各種勞動民主的方式緩解異化帶來的問題，例如表彰勞動模範、確保工人知情權和讓工人參與管理和決策等。

結語

究竟利潤是由交換產生的，還是由勞動產生的，是經濟學家不斷討論的一個問題。由國際分工的角度來說，不難發現即便核心國家的虛擬經濟十分發達，但還是要去到勞動力成本比較低的半邊陲國家進行生產性的投資。

在我們看來，雖然勞動價值在國際分工體系下變得異常複雜，但貿然否定勞動價值論，至少在現階段和現實不符。

邊陲和半邊陲國家逆襲到核心國家的例子，可謂少之又少。在這一輪的中美博弈當中，美國的一個核心訴求就是要求中國放棄補貼先進製造業，維持在半邊陲的地位。美國也希望製造也回流，解決經濟脫實入虛的問題。而對於中國來說，不斷提高生產力，累積資金和技術、爭取各種標準和規則的定義權，才有可能進一步發展。

《資本論》第三卷在馬克思去世11年後出版，由他的好友恩格斯根據手稿編輯而成，當中有許多論述未能詳細展開。馬克思不是預言家，馬克思主義也不是宗教，當然不可能精準預言100多年後的社會，更加不應該用宗教信條的方式去理解馬克思主義，但這不妨礙使用他的觀點發展、創新，並形成新的理論，正如這次介紹的世界體系理論。有興趣的觀眾可以自己找《資本論》第三卷看一下，說不定會有些新的啟發。

Introduction to Marxism: Marx's theory of the division of labor

This video will introduce Marx's theory of the division of labor, discuss the impact of capital globalization on the international landscape, and briefly examine the strategic choices of China and the United States within this framework.

Divide the work

The division of labor refers to the allocation of different tasks to different individuals, thereby increasing specialization. According to Marx, the division of labor is both a result of the development of productive forces and a measure of a nation's level of productivity. The more refined the division of labor, the higher the level of productivity.

In the gatherer and hunter-oriented primitive society, there was no division of labor, and all members of the tribe were required to jointly make tools and participate in labor. Later, it gradually experienced the division of labor between animal husbandry and agriculture, the division of labor between agriculture and handicrafts, and the division of labor between industries and commerce such as handicrafts, which was called the three social division of labor, also known as the "inter-industry division of labor." After entering the feudal society, the city developed the division of labor of industries and professions, and there were different industries such as blacksmiths, stonemasons, sailors, painters and doctors, also known as "intra-industry division of labor".

According to dialectical materialism, only with agricultural technology can there be professional farmers, and when there is a certain number of farmers, it will in turn promote the further development of agricultural technology. As a result of the division of labor, farmers do not know how to blacksmith, and blacksmiths do not know how to plow the fields. Cooperation among members of society is the premise of social large-scale production, and also promotes the development of trade.

After entering capitalist society, with machine production, there is a single product in the production process of the division of labor, also known as "product division of labor", workers focus on one of the production processes, proficiency is greatly improved, the error rate is greatly reduced.

Marx believes that there are two ways to increase productivity: first, quantity changes, and increases in population and production scale tend to bring higher productivity. The second is qualitative change, the new mode of production can produce more goods with less manpower, resources and time. The obvious feature of capitalism is the use of science and technology to increase productivity, to achieve a finer division of labor, from quantitative change to qualitative change.

Alienation of labor

The division of labor drives the development of productive forces, the accumulation of wealth, and the progress of civilization. However, every benefit comes with a cost, and one such cost is the "alienation of labor." Alienation refers to the transformation of the subject into the object; in the context of labor, it means that workers, who should be the masters of their own labor, become enslaved to the machines they operate.

Marx believes that the meaning of labor lies in "self-realization", if the laborer can reflect the value of his own existence in the goods he produces, work can become the source of happiness. But in the age of capitalism, the proletariat, after selling its labor power to the capitalists, although it will gain wages and develop its professional skills, it will also lose control of the product.

After the large-scale implementation of assembly line production, the alienation of labor is especially obvious. The division of labor on the assembly line is forced, and it is almost impossible for the workers on the production line to choose the division of labor at will. Workers can only be responsible for a simple step in a process, there is no way to know how a product is made, sometimes even the use of the product do not know, work simply to receive wages, there is no way to understand how their work can contribute to society, naturally, there is no way to experience the happiness of self-realization.

Virtual economy

As capitalism evolves, capital itself becomes subject to division. In Marx's era, "industrial capitalists," who were directly involved in production, held the dominant position. Later, in the pursuit of higher profits, "financial capitalists," who were not directly involved in production, emerged.

After a series of complex operations of industrial capital, capitalists in different sectors distribute the surplus value according to the proportion of investment. The commercial capitalists, in the form of commercial profits, the loan capitalists, in the form of interest, the landlords, in the form of rents, and the state, in the form of taxes, all take part in the division of the surplus value produced by Labour. As forms of transfer become more complex, especially after financialization, it is increasingly difficult to perceive the role of labor in creating value.

Capitalists have too much profit, in addition to the blind investment mentioned earlier, when the productive real economy can not provide more profits, capital will flow to the virtual economy such as finance and securities. At the beginning, virtual capital still serves production and helps industrial capitalists raise funds. However, quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes. After a large number of capital enters, the profits of capitalists in the virtual economy will be higher than those in the real economy. Once the virtual economy overexpands, greatly exceeding the scope that the real economy can support, and even when the real economy is decouped, the entire country's economy will be out of real into virtual, resulting in a bubble.

This situation was predicted by Marx in Volume III of Capital, when he assessed that this virtual capital, which has no direct relation to production, would eventually only periodically wipe out a part of the industrial capitalists, and the process was equally brutal.

World system theory

When the capitalist division of labor expands internationally, it forms an international division of labor, which can be divided into roughly three stages. In Marx's time, core countries produced industrial goods, while peripheral countries engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, and resource exports, representing an "inter-industry division of labor."

Marx also predicted that this division of labor would continue to develop after his death. In order to maximize profits, capital needs to find cheaper labor, so manufacturing will flow to backward regions, and the international division of labor will develop into "intra-industry division of labor." Finally, the rise of the multinational corporation, where different parts of a product can be done in different countries, is called "intra-product division". It is equivalent to repeating the history of human division of labor at the international level.

Later economists summarized Marx's views into "world system theory" and divided them into core states, semi-peripheral states and peripheral states.

The core countries are advanced industrial countries with high technology and capital-intensive production. Semi-border countries lack high-end technology and capital, and can only accept mature or outdated technologies from core countries for low-end manufacturing, which is labor-intensive production. Border countries have little technology and no capital, and can only export raw materials to core countries, which is a resource-intensive production.

Take smart phones as an example, the core countries design and control the most important key components, such as chip design and lithography machine; Semi-frontier countries use photolithography to make chips and assemble mobile phones; Border countries can only export raw materials.

Viewed from the perspective of labor theory of value, both technology and capital are cumulative labor or dead labor.

From the perspective of technology, industrialization has accumulated a lot of dead labor to bring technological advantages. But these technologies can only be sustainably profitable through new labor, living labor. This is also why capital from core countries must continue to invest in semi-frontier countries where labor costs are lower.

From the perspective of capital, only the currency of the core country can become the exported capital, because the value of money depends on the productivity of labor, and the factor that most affects the productivity of labor is the productivity of society. Therefore, the core countries can establish various rules of international trade, form an international division of labor system, and share the surplus value. Core countries are in a dominant position in the international division of labor system, which can alienate semi-border or border countries, so that some countries are clearly independent, but in fact they are puppets of core state capital, the most extreme example is called banana Republic, interested friends can go online to see.

The international division of labor also brings certain opportunities and challenges to both semi-border countries and core countries:

For semi-border countries, integration into the international division of labor system, on the one hand, will get development opportunities, on the other hand, will be restricted by various rules, and the gap with the core countries is difficult to narrow. There are many countries in the world with large populations, and only by participating in the international division of labor can they obtain the necessary capital and technology to enable the development of the entire industry. Similarly, there are many countries that have natural resources, but these resources are not valuable until they are extracted through labor, and they usually need to be anchored in the currency of the core country, such as oil and the dollar.

For the core countries, capitalists have no motherland, and all kinds of capital in the core countries can share the labor value of semi-border and border countries, thus deepening the hidden labor value, which is also the reason why it is difficult for the people of advanced countries to perceive the labor value. However, it does not mean that it does not exist. The international division of labor will bring about the problem of workers' unemployment and affect the political situation. Capitalists do not need to consider these problems, and politicians in core countries will turn their blame on foreign countries and will not discuss that this is the inevitable result of capital's pursuit of profit.

Core countries want to maintain the international division of labor, the way is still in capital and technology, on the one hand, it is necessary to prevent semi-border countries from developing high-tech, and formulate industry standards or quality certification standards; On the other hand, it is necessary to prevent the currency internationalization of semi-border countries and form a diversified "monetary union".

Communism

To some extent, the purpose of communism is to eliminate the alienation of the division of labor. Marx once imagined that in a communist society, there would be no special division of labor, but that human beings would do all kinds of work according to their own interests.

Marx's vision of communism can only be realized when the productive forces have risen to a certain stage. In the socialist stage, when the productive forces were relatively backward, neither Marx nor his good friend Engels believed that the division of labor could be eliminated.

Division of labor is the result of the development of social productive forces, and it is impossible to forcibly increase or cancel the division of labor. In theory, socialism should create more productive forces than capitalism, rather than return to primitive society. Therefore, socialism can only alleviate the problems caused by alienation in various labor-democratic ways, such as honoring model workers, ensuring workers' right to information, and involving workers in management and decision-making.

Conclusion

The question of whether profit arises from exchange or labor is a topic of ongoing debate among economists. From the perspective of the international division of labor, it is evident that even though the virtual economies of core countries are highly developed, they still rely on productive investments in semi-peripheral countries with lower labor costs.

In our opinion, although the value of labor has become extremely complex under the international division of labor system, it is inconsistent with reality to deny the theory of labor value at least in the present stage.

Examples of border and semi-border countries overrunning core countries are rare. In this round of Sino-US game, a core demand of the United States is to ask China to give up subsidies for advanced manufacturing and maintain its status in the semi-frontier. The United States also hopes that manufacturing will return to solve the problem of the economy from real to virtual. For China, further development is possible only by increasing productivity, accumulating capital and technology, and striving for the right to define various standards and rules.

The third volume of Capital, published 11 years after Marx's death and edited from the manuscript by his friend Engels, contains many arguments that are not fully developed. Marx is not a prophet, Marxism is not a religion, of course, it is impossible to accurately predict the society more than 100 years later, and we should not use the way of religious creed to understand Marxism, but this does not prevent the use of his views to develop, innovate, and form new theories, such as the world system theory introduced here. Those who are interested can find Volume 3 of Das Kapital for themselves, and perhaps there will be some new inspiration.