Marx and Engels' famous assertion about "Two Inevitabilities" was put forward in the period of 1848 when the European bourgeois revolution and the workers' movement were in full swing. At that time, the Producers' Party Manifesto was published, which was full of revolutionary passion. The assertion that "two will never" was put forward by 1859, when it was a European worker. The assertion that "two will never" is a supplement to the previous assertion. Marx and Engels prefaced the Declaration seven times, perfecting their immature views. Twenty-five years after the publication of the Declaration, Marx profoundly pointed out in the preface of the German version that this program is now outdated in some places. Therefore, the practical application of the declaration "always depends on the historical conditions at that time", which reflects that Marx's theory does have different expressions in different periods. These two propositions remind me of Hegel's famous proposition: "All reality must be reasonable, and all rationality must be realistic". The former means that the law is irresistible, while the latter means that the ideal must be realized. "Two Never" means that the law of the development of human society is irresistible. "Two Inevitabilities" refers to the inevitable realization of an ideal society. They seem contradictory, but they are dialectical unity. Moreover, Marx and Engels were in the historical period of the relative low tide of the workers' movement in the middle of the19th century, and their thoughts were inevitably influenced by the helplessness of social development. They have vaguely felt that the development of capitalist society is far from being on the verge of extinction. The development potential of capitalist productive forces is still slowly emerging, and capitalist society is still in a stage of vigorous development. The time for the proletariat to bury capitalism by revolutionary means is not yet ripe, which reflects that they are in the historical stage of19th century and their understanding of capitalist society is not complete.
Second, it reflects that the explanation of historical development process in Marx's historical materialism theory has traces of economic determinism, and the explanation of the influence of people's subjective initiative on social development is still incomplete.
Marx's discovery of the development law of human society is a great contribution to historical materialism. The movement of basic social contradictions has promoted the development of human society. The basic social contradictions are two pairs of contradictions and three aspects, namely, productivity, production relations and superstructure. The relations of production are the economic basis of the superstructure, but they are the relations of production of productive forces. Productivity is the foundation of social existence and development, and it develops to a certain extent. The conflict with production relations will lead to the change of production relations sooner or later. With the change of production relations, that is, the economic base, the whole superstructure will change sooner or later, and society will develop from one form or system to another. It can be seen that the basic social contradiction is the most basic driving force for the development of human society, and the development of productive forces is the ultimate decisive force for social development.
But Marx's statement that "two things will never happen" almost obliterates the value of his theory and socialist movement. Since a society will never perish until all the productive forces it can accommodate are brought into play, what is the significance of Marx's theory except predicting an inevitable thing? Since a society is doomed to perish after all the productive forces are exerted, isn't the socialist movement an interference with the historical process and a historical redundancy? ! Marx showed traces of economic determinism here. Sartre believes that there is an "open field" of anthropology in Marx's theory, at least no one has crossed the historical stage described by Marx here, and the historical development mentioned by Marx here has left no room for the main role. In front of people, it seems that there are two Marxs: one is "revolutionary" Marx, who called for "the proletarians of the whole world to unite" and launched an impact on the old world. The other is "scientific" Marx, who is very much like a "meteorologist" standing in the field of social history, predicting that society develops according to its own objective laws, and human subjective intervention is redundant. These two factors are in Marx's thought. From the perspective of the history of thought, Marx is indeed an epoch-making great figure. Philosophers before Marx always made a clear distinction between materialism and idealism. In other words, Marx is gradually surpassing the difference between materialism and idealism, trying to understand and explain history from two aspects rather than one-sidedly, but there are still contradictions. In the field of dialectical materialism, Marx correctly explained the relationship between consciousness and existence, but in the field of social history, there is indeed some contradiction between economic determinism and human subjective initiative. People's subjective initiative plays a decisive role in historical development. This is in the social sphere. Scientific prediction will have an impact on people's behavior and behavior results, that is, the Oedipus effect (the story of Oedipus, before the prince was born, a wizard decided to kill his father and marry his mother in the future, and the prediction really came true). Scientific prediction will have a suggestive effect on human behavior and have an impact on the development direction of history. It is also very important and crucial for human beings to choose what kind of society to build.
Third, the development of human society will ultimately solve the problems between man and nature and establish a harmonious and advanced social form. Humans need to rebuild their own value system.
The high development of productive forces promotes the gradual development of human society from low level to high level, and finally realizes * * * productism, and human material wealth is extremely rich. Has the form of human society developed to the highest stage? Don't!
Will human beings transform nature or change themselves in the future? Developing production and pursuing growth are the basic values of human tradition. Man's subjectivity is manifested as resistance and transcendence to the object. So far, the history of human development is a history of human resistance and transformation of nature. Therefore, the social relations and social forms constructed by human beings also reflect the relationship between man and nature in essence. Man has developed and shaped himself by breaking away from the shackles of nature. The pursuit of material wealth is the driving force of development. Science and technology are the means of development. People equipped with modern science and technology are becoming more and more powerful, and they have gained more and more initiative in the process of adapting to and transforming nature, which makes modern people full of optimism.
The real significance of historical materialism lies in that it shows that nature has set the boundaries of human activities. Although subjectivity expands the possible space of human activities, this space has its ultimate boundary, namely the finiteness of natural resources and ecological balance. The value system centered on the pursuit of material production and consumption constantly pushes mankind to March into nature, conquer and transform nature, and enjoin mountains to bow their heads and rivers to make way. In this value system, whether it is conducive to promoting the development of productive forces and improving economic benefits is the measure of society.
However, the value system of anthropocentrism, which has been dominant in the history of human civilization, has encountered a real historical challenge-human economic activities have touched the limits of nature. Compared with the natural limit of the growth of human economic activities, human beings have the ability to change and destroy the whole nature suitable for human survival. In fact, human beings are changing and destroying the environment and ecology on which they live. Today's human beings are overdrawing the future. Traditional development has come to an end, or human development has reached a turning point. Can technology save mankind and its traditional values? Determinists are optimistic that science and technology can solve or eventually solve all problems in human development, including environmental and ecological problems. They say that humans have gone this way in the past. However, the derivation of theory needs to be tested by practice, and past experience may not explain today's problems. We must face up to a basic fact: the speed at which human beings rely on science and technology to solve the problems of resources, environment and ecology is far lower than the actual speed at which production and consumption activities cause losses and damages to resources, environment and ecology. There are far more new problems than old ones that have been solved. To say the least, if time permits, there are not many new problems, and science and technology can finally solve all kinds of problems facing today. However, time is running out and new problems emerge one after another. This is predestined. If we don't completely change the traditional mode of production, lifestyle and way of thinking, human beings will inevitably be losers in the time race between scientific and technological progress and ecological and environmental disasters. A highly developed capitalist society cannot solve the problem of human survival and development once and for all.
The market economy once liberated mankind and gained a kind of freedom. At the same time, it also makes human beings fall into the trap of growth. The market economy has pushed the alienation of people to the extreme. Market economy itself is a great publicity of human subjectivity, but it also makes people's production activities lose their purpose and need to be attached to production, which comes from competition, artificial material services and the lack of subjectivity. Market economy puts human beings and nature at war. The infinite expansion of production activities driven by alienated demand is also destroying human beings and themselves by destroying the natural environment and ecological balance. Modern production activities have seriously posed a threat to human beings, and greedy human beings are their own enemies.
Generally speaking, the current production level can meet the natural needs of the material life of all mankind. In the current world-wide economic activities, the pulling effect of demand on production is decreasing day by day, and the basic fact that production is increasingly dependent on manufacturing demand to open its own way has shown that human production capacity is close to or even exceeds the critical point of meeting its own natural needs in some aspects. At present, human poverty and social gap are relative. Rather than in an absolute sense, human beings urgently need to change social relations and establish new systems to solve such problems. It is futile to ask for a bigger cake. The cake is big enough. It can't be any bigger. What human beings should do, perhaps in time, is to change themselves. In the long process of evolution and development, the long-term theme facing mankind is to break free from and resist the bondage and oppression of nature. The belief that man can conquer nature inspires mankind to move forward. In the human-centered value system, man is conceptually opposed to nature. The opposition between human beings is also the expression of the opposition between man and nature in human social relations. Man has always hoped to defeat nature through his own development and strength. Then, the differences and opposites between people can be reconciled. When the material production activities of human beings are fully developed in the possible space allowed by the natural environment and ecology, the value system of anthropocentrism has finally completed its historical mission: it has promoted human beings to gain the greatest freedom in the possible space provided by nature and pushed them to the brink of destruction.
Establishing a new value system is an unavoidable task for all mankind. We don't know the details of the new value system in the future. However, the basic orientation of this new value system is certain, that is, the change of subject orientation: from transforming nature to changing oneself, adapting to nature and realizing the social form of harmony between man and nature. The main task facing mankind now and in the future will be to change itself. In other words, human beings urgently need to establish a harmonious relationship with nature. The harmony between man and nature will be the core idea of the new value system in the future. In the future, human beings will no longer be slaves of nature, nor can they dominate everything. Harmony means establishing an equal relationship between man and nature. The starting point for the establishment of a new harmonious relationship is a conceptual revolution that changes the mainstream value system, which will liberate human thoughts and transcend the stereotype of anthropocentrism and determinism. It will urge human beings to re-examine themselves, re-evaluate history and redefine happiness. Developing production, expanding wealth and establishing an extremely rich social form do not mean the ultimate concern for people and human destiny, or even the direction of human progress. Social progress will always show the awakening of human beings and the evolution of human nature.
The harmony between man and nature provides a new rationality for the harmony of human social relations. The harmony between man and nature will become an important reason for designing and building an ideal society in the future. Our understanding of socialism is precisely that its mission is to change the traditional mode of production, lifestyle and way of thinking of human beings. It is also in this sense that we believe that socialist ideology is still pointing out the future for mankind. Because, on the other hand, the transformation of social relations and the realization of social harmony are indispensable prerequisites for the ultimate establishment of a harmonious relationship between man and nature. Realizing social harmony is the first step to achieve harmony between man and nature. Only by eliminating the survival competition between people and the materialization of people can we independently and consciously regulate the whole social life and economic activities. In order to realize human self-restraint, self-transcendence and return to nature; Only in this way can we guide the harmonious relationship between man and nature.
Harmony was once an ancient social ideal. After a long period of unharmonious development, today's human beings finally begin to pay attention to this ancient and urgent problem again. Because harmony or destruction is a realistic problem, or this problem has never been so realistic and urgent as it is today. Therefore, harmony, as a new reason, reappears in the vision of human thought, and people facing the future see the dawn of the new reason and realize people. It means that human beings are freed from alienation in the field of material life and return to the field of spiritual life; It means the sublimation of human life and the evolution and harmony of human nature, which will open up a vast new world of morality and aesthetics for the future development of human society, and it will be a paradise for people.
In a word, a society in which human beings are in high harmony with nature and people live in harmony should be the highest social form of human social development.