马克思的当下意义：《大纲》写作150年后
The current importance of Marx, 150 years after the Grundrisse
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与埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆的谈话
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆，马切罗·木斯托
By Eric Hobsbawm and Marcello Musto
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆是最伟大的仍在世的历史学家之一。他是伦敦大学柏贝克学院的院长，纽约社会研究新学院的荣退教授。他著作很多，其中包括关于“漫长的十九世纪”的三部曲：1962年出版的《革命时代：1789－1848年的欧洲》，1975年出版的《资本时代：1848－1874》，1987年出版的《帝国时代：1875－1914》，以及1994年出版的《极端时代：短暂的20世纪，1914－1991》。
马切罗·木斯托是2008年出版的英译本《政治经济学批判大纲》（London-New York: Routledge 2008）的编辑。
1) 马切罗·木斯托：霍布斯鲍姆教授，1989年马克思被匆匆忘却，已经过去20年了，他又回到了聚光灯下。现在他已经不再被用作苏俄的统治工具，也摆脱了“马克思列宁主义”的禁锢。在最近几年中，通过他的著作出版新书，马克思不但引起了知识分子的关注，也成为更广泛关怀的目标。比如在2003年，法国的《新观察者》杂志出版了一期马克思特刊《卡尔·马克思：第三个千年的思想者？》一年后，德国电视台ZDF关于“古往今来谁是最有影响的德国人”的观众民意调查中，马克思得了50多万票，位列综合类第三，“当前影响”类第一。2005年，《镜报》有一期的封面是马克思，标题是《一个幽灵的回归》，而BBC广播4台“我们的时代”节目的听众则选出马克思为最伟大的哲学家。
在最近的一个与雅克·阿塔利的公开对话中，您说了一句充满吊诡的话：“比起别人来，正是资本家们一直在重新发现马克思。”您也谈到了当大商人和自由主义政客索罗斯对您说：“我刚正在读马克思，他说的话里有很多东西”的时候，您感到非常震撼。虽然这次回归还很微弱模糊，它的原因到底是什么？马克思的著作是否只对专家学者和知识分子有意义，只能在大学课堂中当作不应被遗忘的现代思想的经典？或者，一个新的“马克思需求”将来也会从政治的角度的产生？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：在资本主义世界中，大众对马克思的兴趣无疑正在复苏，但在欧盟的东欧国家中，暂时还没有这种现象。可能由于《共产党宣言》出版150周年的同时，我们在超高速自由市场全球化过程中遇上了一次极为戏剧性的国际经济危机，这次复苏加速了。
基于他对资本主义社会的分析，马克思150年前就预言了21世纪初期世界经济的本质。有点头脑的资本家，尤其是那些在全球化金融机构工作的，会觉得马克思很了不起，这一点也不惊奇，因为他们必须比其他人更清楚资本主义经济的本质和不稳定性。大部分知识左翼不再知道应该拿马克思怎么办，由于社会民主主义在80年代北大西洋地区的国家失败，许多政府采取自由市场意识形态，以及那些自称是在马克思主义和列宁主义的指导下建立的政权的崩溃，知识左翼锐气大挫。所谓的“新社会运动”，比如女权运动，要么与反资本主义无关（虽然女权主义者做为个人可能与之相关），要么已经不再相信人对自然能够不断加强控制（这是资本主义和传统社会主义都相信的）。同时，“无产阶级”分裂和弱化了，很难相信他们是马克思所说社会变化的历史主体。而且，自1968年以来，最著名的激进运动都倾向于直接行动，而这些行动不必定是基于很多阅读和理论分析的。
当然这并不是说马克思不再是一个伟大的经典思想者，虽然从政治角度来说，特别是在法国和意大利这样曾经有过强大的共产党的国家，曾经出现过很激烈的反对马克思和马克思主义分析的知识倾向，在1980和90年代达到高潮。现在看来，这种反对倾向已经差不多消逝了。
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2)
马切罗·木斯托：马克思一生都是个明智而且勤奋的研究者，他比他那个时代的任何其他人都更清晰地感觉和分析了资本主义在世界范围的发展。他认识到全球化国际经济的产生是内在于资本主义生产方式的，他预言这个过程不但将促成自由主义理论家所吹嘘的成长和繁荣，也就催生暴力冲突、经济危机和广泛的社会不平等。在过去的十年中，我们已经经历过1997年夏天开始的东亚金融危机，1999－2002年的阿根廷经济危机，最重要的就是2006年的，已经成为二战后最严重经济危机的美国次贷危机。那么，是否可以说，对马克思兴趣的复苏，也是源自资本主义社会的危机以及源自马克思对于解释当今世界深刻矛盾的持久有效性？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：
将来的左翼政治是否会像过去的社会主义和共产主义运动那样，再次被马克思的分析激活，这就要看世界资本主义会发生什么了。但这不但对马克思是这样的，对于做为一个连贯的政治意识形态和事业的左翼，也是这样的。你说得很对，对马克思的兴趣的回归很大程度上是－－我觉得主要是－－因为当前资本主义社会的危机，既然这样，前景比1990年代要乐观得多。这次的世界金融危机，很可能在美国会变成一次严重的经济萧条，它使得对不受控制的全球自由市场崇拜的失败变得极度戏剧化，连美国政府也不得不考虑执行自从1930年代以来就被遗忘的公共行为。政治压力已经在削弱经济上属于新自由主义的政府对不受控制的、不受限制的、不受规范的全球化的投入。在某些地方（中国），向自由市场经济的全盘转化造成的巨大社会不平等和不公正已经引发了影响社会安定的重要问题，也在政府高层中引起了质疑。
有一点很清楚，任何“马克思的回归”都在本质上是向马克思对资本主义及其在人类历史进化中的位置的分析的回归－－首先包括他对资本主义发展的不稳定性的分析，也就是资本主义是在一系列自身引发的阶段性经济危机（也带有政治和社会向度）中发展的。没有一个马克思主义者会相信新自由主义意识形态分子在1989年所说的话－－自由资本主义从那时起永远稳固了自己，历史已经终结，或者说任何人类关系可能是最后的、决定性的。
3) 马切罗·木斯托： 国际左翼现在正在思考社会主义在新的世纪中的问题，您是否觉得如果国际左翼的政治和知识力量放弃马克思的思想，他们将会失去一个审视和改变当今现实的一个基本指导？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：没有一个社会主义者可以放弃马克思的思想，因为资本主义之后必须有另一种社会形式的这个信念不是基于希望或者意志，而是基于对历史发展－－尤其是资本主义时代的历史发展－－的严肃分析。他关于资本主义将被一个社会性的管理或者计划的系统取代的预言看来仍然合理，但是他当然也低估了将在任何后资本主义时代的系统中存在的市场元素。既然他有意地避免对未来的臆测，就不能让他来对在“真实存在的社会主义”下的“社会主义”经济组织的具体方式负责。关于社会主义的目标，马克思不是唯一想要一个没有剥削和异化的社会的思想者，在这样的社会中，每个人都能充分实现他/她的潜力，但马克思表达这种报负的方式要比别人更加有力，他所说的话至今保留了激发抱负的力量。
但是，大家都必须理解，马克思的著作不应该被当成政治规范（不管是不是权威的），或者是当今世界资本主义的现实描述，它们应该被当作怎样理解马克思对资本主义发展本质的分析的指导，否则马克思就不会做为一个政治灵感回归左翼。虽然恩格斯和其他人曾经试图从马克思的手稿中整理出《资本论》的第二和第三卷，我们也不能或者说不应该忘记他没有能够连贯地完整地表述他的观点。正如《大纲》所示，即便是完整的一部《资本论》也不过是马克思自己的也许过分宏伟的原始构思的一部分而已。
在另一方面，除非激进活动家中风行的把反资本主义变成反全球主义的倾向停止，马克思不会回归左翼。全球化存在着，如果人类社会不崩溃，将是无法抗拒的。事实上，马克思把全球化看成事实，而且，做为一个国际主义者，欢迎做为原则的全球化。他所批评的，也就是我们所必须批评的，是资本主义制造的全球化。
4) 马切罗·木斯托：
《大纲》是马克思著作中引起新读者群和评论者最大兴趣的作品之一。它是1857至1858年之间写成的，是马克思政治经济学批判的第一稿，因此也是写作《资本论》之前的准备工作。它包括了很多马克思在他没有完成的全集中的其他地方没有展开的话题。在您看来，为什么虽然这些手稿只是马克思为了总结他的政治经济学批判的基础而写的，但却持续地比他的其他著作引发了更多的争论呢？为什么它们能这样持久地引起人们的兴趣？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：
我觉得《大纲》对国际马克思主义知识分子产生巨大影响的原因有两个，它们是互相联系的：第一，1950年以前，这些手稿基本没有出版，正如你说的，它们包含了大量马克思在别的著作中没有讨论的问题的反思。它们不是苏联社会主义世界中已经很大程度上被教条化的正统马克思主义的一部分，但苏联社会主义无法简单地忽视这些文本。那些想要批评正统马克思主义或者拓宽马克思主义分析的人，如果不想把他们的出发点根基在可能会被指责成离经叛道的文本上，就可以利用这份文本。因此1970年代和1980年代（远早于柏林墙的倒塌）的版本继续在引发争论，这很大程度是因为马克思在这些手稿中提出的重要问题在《资本论》中没有得到分析，比如说那些在我为您编辑的书所做的序言中提到的那些问题。[《卡尔·马克思的大纲：政治经济学批判基础的150年后》马切罗·木斯托编辑，Routledge，2008年出版。Karl Marx's Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy 150 Years Later, edited by M. Musto, London—New York: Routledge 2008; http://www.routledgeeconomics.com/boo ... ndrisse-isbn9780415437493 ].
5) 马切罗·木斯托：这本书是很多国际专家学者为《政治经济学批判大纲》写作150周年所写的论文集，在您为这本书写的序言中，您写到：“也许现在是一个正确的时机，对《大纲》的研究可以不那么受从赫鲁晓夫对斯大林的批判到戈尔巴乔夫的颓败的当代左翼政治思潮的约束。”而且，为了强调这份文本的巨大价值，您还提出，“《大纲》包含了能使得马克思对资本主义的分析适用于远远大于19世纪的范围的分析和洞见，它们可以用来分析制造不再倚重人工的年代，自动化的年代，闲暇的潜力，以及异化在这些的情景中的变化，比如说他对科技的看法，就有这样的力量。这是德国意识形态中唯一的一份超越了马克思本人对共产主义的提示的文本。简单地说，《大纲》体现了最为丰富的马克思思想。” 那么，今天重读《大纲》会有什么样的结果呢？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：
恐怕只有屈指可数的几个编辑和翻译才完整地了解这系列宏大而又以难以解读著称的文本。但今天我们重读或者开始阅读这些文本，能够帮助我们重新思考马克思：能让我们区分马克思对资本主义的一般分析和他对19世纪“资产阶级社会”具体情境的分析。我们无法预言他的分析可能或者可以产生怎样的结论，我们只能说，它们肯定不会是全体都一致同意的结论。
6) 马切罗·木斯托：
最后一个问题，为什么今天读马克思还是很重要？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：
对思想感兴趣的人，不管是不是大学生，有一点都很清楚：马克思是而且将一直是19世纪伟大的哲学家和经济分析家之一，而且，当他发挥最好的时候，是一个杰出的充满激情的散文家。读马克思很重要，也是因为不了解他的著作对20世纪的影响，就没有办法理解我们现在生活的世界。最后，他的重要性还在于，就像他自己写的那样，我们不理解这个世界就无法有效地改变它，而马克思则一直将杰出地指导人们理解这个世界和我们必须面对的问题。
人文与社会编辑小组译：http://humanities.cn
The current importance of Marx, 150 years after the Grundrisse
Conversation with Eric Hobsbawm
September 16, 2008
By Eric Hobsbawm and Marcello Musto
Eric Hobsbawm is considered one of the greatest living historians. He is President of Birkbeck College (London University) and Professor Emeritus at the New School for Social Research (New York). Among his many writings are the trilogy about the "the long 19th century": The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848 (1962); The Age of Capital: 1848-1874 (1975); The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 (1987), and the book The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (1994).
Marcello Musto is editor of Karl Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, London-New York: Routledge 2008.
1) M. M. Professor Hobsbawm, two decades after 1989, when he was too hastily consigned to oblivion, Karl Marx has returned to the limelight. Freed from the role of instrumentum regni to which he was assigned in the Soviet Union, and from the shackles of "Marxism-Leninism", he has in the last few years not only received intellectual attention through new publication of his work, but also been the focus of more widespread interest. Indeed in 2003, the French magazine Nouvel Observateur dedicated a special issue to Karl Marx - le penseur du troisième millénaire? (Karl Marx - the thinker of the third millennium?). A year later, in Germany, in an opinion poll sponsored by the television company ZDF to establish who were the most important Germans of all time, more than 500,000 viewers voted for Marx; he came third in the general classification and first in the "current relevance" category. Then, in 2005, the weekly Der Spiegel portrayed him on the cover under the title Ein Gespenst kehrt zurück (A spectre is back), while listeners to the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time voted for Marx as their Greatest Philosopher.
In a recent public conversation with Jacques Attalì, you said that paradoxically "it is the capitalists more than others who have been rediscovering Marx", and you talked of your astonishment when the businessman and liberal politician George Soros said to you "I've just been reading Marx and there is an awful lot in what he says". Although weak and rather vague, what are the reasons for this revival? Is his work likely to be of interest only to specialists and intellectuals, being presented in university courses as a great classic of modern thought that should never be forgotten? Or could a new "demand for Marx" come in the future from the political side as well?
E. H. There is an undoubted revival of public interest in Marx in the capitalist world, though probably not as yet in the new East European members of the European Union. It was probably accelerated by the fact that the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Manifesto of the Communist Party coincided with a particularly dramatic international economic crisis in the midst of a period of ultra-rapid free market globalization.
Marx had predicted the nature of the early 21st century world economy a hundred and fifty years earlier, on the basis of his analysis of "bourgeois society". It is not surprising that intelligent capitalists, especially in the globalized financial sector, were impressed by Marx, since they were necessarily more aware than others of the nature and instabilities of the capitalist economy in which they operated. Most of the intellectual Left no longer knew what to do with Marx. It had been demoralised by the collapse of the social-democratic project in most North Atlantic states in the 1980s and the mass conversion of national governments to free market ideology, as well as by the collapse of the political and economic systems that claimed to be inspired by Marx and Lenin. The so-called "new social movements" like feminism either had no logical connection with anti-capitalism (though as individuals their members might be aligned with it) or they challenged the belief in endless progress in human control over nature, which both capitalism and traditional socialism had shared. At the same time the "proletariat", divided and diminished, ceased to be credible as Marx's historical agent of social transformation. It is also the case that since 1968 the most prominent radical movements have preferred direct action not necessarily based on much reading and theoretical analysis.
Of course this does not mean that Marx will cease to be regarded as a great and classical thinker, although for political reasons, especially in countries like France and Italy with once powerful Communist parties, there has been a passionate intellectual offensive against Marx and Marxist analyses, which was probably at its height in the 1980s and 1990s. There are signs that it has now run its course.
2)
M. M. Throughout his life Marx was a shrewd and tireless researcher, who sensed and analysed better than anyone else in his time the development of capitalism on a world scale. He understood that the birth of a globalized international economy was inherent in the capitalist mode of production and predicted that this process would generate not only the growth and prosperity flaunted by liberal theorists and politicians but also violent conflicts, economic crises and widespread social injustice. In the last decade we have seen the East Asian Financial Crisis, which started in the summer of 1997, the Argentinian economic crisis of 1999-2002 and, above all, the subprime mortgage crisis, which started in the United States in 2006 and has now become the biggest post-war financial crisis. Is it right to say, therefore, that the return of interest in Marx is also based on the crisis of capitalist society and on his enduring capacity to explain the profound contradictions of today's world?
E. H. Whether the future politics of the Left will once again be inspired by Marx's analysis, as the old socialist and communist movements were, will depend on what happens to world capitalism. But this applies not only to Marx but to the Left as a coherent political ideology and project. Since, as you say correctly, the return of interest in Marx is largely - I would say mainly - based on the current crisis of capitalist society, the outlook is more promising than it was in the 1990s. The present world financial crisis, which may well become a major economic depression in the USA, dramatises the failure of the theology of the uncontrolled global free market, and forces even the US government to consider taking public actions forgotten since the 1930s. Political pressures are already weakening the commitment of economic neo-liberal governments to uncontrolled, unlimited and unregulated globalization. In some cases (China) the vast inequalities and injustices caused by a wholesale transition to a free market economy already raise major problems for social stability and raise doubts even at the higher levels of government.
It is clear that any "return to Marx" will be essentially a return to Marx's analysis of capitalism and its place in the historical evolution of humanity - including, above all, his analysis of the central instability of capitalist development, which proceeds through self-generated periodic economic crises, with political and social dimensions. No Marxist could believe for a moment that, as neo-liberal ideologists argued in 1989, liberal capitalism had established itself forever, that history had come to an end, or indeed that any system of human relations could ever be final and definitive.
3) M. M. Do you not think that if the political and intellectual forces of the international left, who are questioning themselves with regard to socialism in the new century, were to foreswear the ideas of Marx, they would lose a fundamental guide for the examination and transformation of today's reality?
E. H. No socialist can foreswear the ideas of Marx, since his belief that capitalism must be succeeded by another form of society is based not on hope or will but on a serious analysis of historical development, particularly in the capitalist era. His actual prediction that capitalism would be replaced by a socially managed or planned system still seems reasonable, though he certainly underestimated the market elements which would survive in any post-capitalist system(s). Since he deliberately abstained from speculation about the future, he cannot be made responsible for the specific ways in which "socialist" economies were organised under "really existing socialism". As to the objectives of socialism, Marx was not the only thinker who wanted a society without exploitation and alienation, in which all human beings could fully realise their potentialities, but he expressed this aspiration more powerfully than anyone else, and his words retain the power to inspire.
However, Marx will not return as a political inspiration to the Left until it is understood that his writings should not be treated as political programmes, authoritative or otherwise, nor as descriptions of the actual situation of world capitalism today, but rather as guides to his way of understanding the nature of capitalist development. Nor can or should we forget that he did not achieve a coherent and fully thought out presentation of his ideas, in spite of attempts by Engels and others to construct a volume II and III of Capital out of Marx's manuscripts. As the Grundrisse show, even a completed Capital would have formed only part of Marx's own, perhaps excessively ambitious, original plan.
On the other hand, Marx will not return to the Left until the current tendency among radical activists to turn anti-capitalism into anti-globalism is abandoned. Globalisation exists, and, short of a collapse of human society, is irreversible. Indeed, Marx recognised it as a fact and, as an internationalist, welcomed it, in principle. What he criticised, and what we must criticize, was the kind of globalisation produced by capitalism.
4) M. M. One of Marx's writings which has provoked the greatest interest amongst new readers and commentators is the Grundrisse. Written between 1857 and 1858, the Grundrisse is the first draft of Marx's critique of political economy and, thus, also the initial preparatory work on Capital; it contains numerous reflections on matters that Marx did not develop elsewhere in his incomplete oeuvre. Why, in your opinion, are these manuscripts one of Marx's writings which continue to provoke more debate than any other, in spite of the fact that he wrote them only to summarise the foundations of his critique of political economy? What is the reason for their persistent appeal?
E. H. In my view the Grundrisse have made so large an international impact on the Marxian intellectual scene for two connected reasons. They were virtually unpublished before the 1950s, and, as you say, contained a mass of reflections on matters that Marx did not develop elsewhere. They were not part of the largely dogmatised corpus of orthodox Marxism in the world of Soviet socialism, yet Soviet socialism could not simply dismiss them. They could therefore be used by Marxists who wanted to criticise orthodoxy or widen the scope of Marxist analysis by an appeal to a text which could not be accused of being heretical or anti-Marxist. Hence the editions of the 1970s and 1980s (well before the fall of the Berlin Wall) continued to provoke debate largely because in these manuscripts Marx raised important problems which were not considered in Capital, for instance, the questions raised in my preface to the volume of essays you collected [Karl Marx's Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy 150 Years Later, edited by M. Musto, London—New York: Routledge 2008; http://www.routledgeeconomics.com/boo ... ndrisse-isbn9780415437493 ].
5) M. M. In the preface to this book, written by various international experts to mark the 150th anniversary of its composition, you have written: "Perhaps this is the right moment to return to a study of the Grundrisse less constricted by the temporary considerations of leftwing politics between Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin and the fall of Mikhail Gorbachev". Moreover, to underline the enormous value of this text, you stated that the Grundrisse "contains analyses and insights, for instance about technology, that take Marx's treatment of capitalism far beyond the nineteenth century, into the era of a society where production no longer requires mass labour, of automation, the potential of leisure, and the transformations of alienation in such circumstances. It is the only text that goes some way beyond Marx's own hints of the communist future in the German Ideology. In a few words, it has been rightly described as Marx's thought at its richest." Therefore, what might be the result of re-reading the Grundrisse today?
E. H. There are probably not more than a handful of editors and translators who have full knowledge of this large and notoriously difficult mass of texts. But a re-rereading, or rather reading, of them today could help us to rethink Marx: to distinguish what is general in Marx's analysis of capitalism from what was specific to the situation of mid-nineteenth-century "bourgeois society". We cannot predict what conclusions from this analysis are possible and likely, only that they will certainly not command unanimous agreement.
6) M. M. To finish, one final question. Why is it important today to read Marx?
E. H. To anyone interested in ideas, whether a university student or not, it is patently clear that Marx is and will remain one of the great philosophical minds and economic analysts of the nineteenth century, and, at his best, a master of passionate prose. It is also important to read Marx because the world in which we live today cannot be understood without the influence that the writings of this man had on the twentieth century. And finally, he should be read because, as he himself wrote, the world cannot be effectively changed unless it is understood - and Marx remains a superb guide to understanding the world and the problems we must confront.
The current importance of Marx, 150 years after the Grundrisse
人文与社会编辑小组译：http://humanities.cn
与埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆的谈话
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆，马切罗·木斯托
By Eric Hobsbawm and Marcello Musto
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆是最伟大的仍在世的历史学家之一。他是伦敦大学柏贝克学院的院长，纽约社会研究新学院的荣退教授。他著作很多，其中包括关于“漫长的十九世纪”的三部曲：1962年出版的《革命时代：1789－1848年的欧洲》，1975年出版的《资本时代：1848－1874》，1987年出版的《帝国时代：1875－1914》，以及1994年出版的《极端时代：短暂的20世纪，1914－1991》。
马切罗·木斯托是2008年出版的英译本《政治经济学批判大纲》（London-New York: Routledge 2008）的编辑。
1) 马切罗·木斯托：霍布斯鲍姆教授，1989年马克思被匆匆忘却，已经过去20年了，他又回到了聚光灯下。现在他已经不再被用作苏俄的统治工具，也摆脱了“马克思列宁主义”的禁锢。在最近几年中，通过他的著作出版新书，马克思不但引起了知识分子的关注，也成为更广泛关怀的目标。比如在2003年，法国的《新观察者》杂志出版了一期马克思特刊《卡尔·马克思：第三个千年的思想者？》一年后，德国电视台ZDF关于“古往今来谁是最有影响的德国人”的观众民意调查中，马克思得了50多万票，位列综合类第三，“当前影响”类第一。2005年，《镜报》有一期的封面是马克思，标题是《一个幽灵的回归》，而BBC广播4台“我们的时代”节目的听众则选出马克思为最伟大的哲学家。
在最近的一个与雅克·阿塔利的公开对话中，您说了一句充满吊诡的话：“比起别人来，正是资本家们一直在重新发现马克思。”您也谈到了当大商人和自由主义政客索罗斯对您说：“我刚正在读马克思，他说的话里有很多东西”的时候，您感到非常震撼。虽然这次回归还很微弱模糊，它的原因到底是什么？马克思的著作是否只对专家学者和知识分子有意义，只能在大学课堂中当作不应被遗忘的现代思想的经典？或者，一个新的“马克思需求”将来也会从政治的角度的产生？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：在资本主义世界中，大众对马克思的兴趣无疑正在复苏，但在欧盟的东欧国家中，暂时还没有这种现象。可能由于《共产党宣言》出版150周年的同时，我们在超高速自由市场全球化过程中遇上了一次极为戏剧性的国际经济危机，这次复苏加速了。
基于他对资本主义社会的分析，马克思150年前就预言了21世纪初期世界经济的本质。有点头脑的资本家，尤其是那些在全球化金融机构工作的，会觉得马克思很了不起，这一点也不惊奇，因为他们必须比其他人更清楚资本主义经济的本质和不稳定性。大部分知识左翼不再知道应该拿马克思怎么办，由于社会民主主义在80年代北大西洋地区的国家失败，许多政府采取自由市场意识形态，以及那些自称是在马克思主义和列宁主义的指导下建立的政权的崩溃，知识左翼锐气大挫。所谓的“新社会运动”，比如女权运动，要么与反资本主义无关（虽然女权主义者做为个人可能与之相关），要么已经不再相信人对自然能够不断加强控制（这是资本主义和传统社会主义都相信的）。同时，“无产阶级”分裂和弱化了，很难相信他们是马克思所说社会变化的历史主体。而且，自1968年以来，最著名的激进运动都倾向于直接行动，而这些行动不必定是基于很多阅读和理论分析的。
当然这并不是说马克思不再是一个伟大的经典思想者，虽然从政治角度来说，特别是在法国和意大利这样曾经有过强大的共产党的国家，曾经出现过很激烈的反对马克思和马克思主义分析的知识倾向，在1980和90年代达到高潮。现在看来，这种反对倾向已经差不多消逝了。
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2)
马切罗·木斯托：马克思一生都是个明智而且勤奋的研究者，他比他那个时代的任何其他人都更清晰地感觉和分析了资本主义在世界范围的发展。他认识到全球化国际经济的产生是内在于资本主义生产方式的，他预言这个过程不但将促成自由主义理论家所吹嘘的成长和繁荣，也就催生暴力冲突、经济危机和广泛的社会不平等。在过去的十年中，我们已经经历过1997年夏天开始的东亚金融危机，1999－2002年的阿根廷经济危机，最重要的就是2006年的，已经成为二战后最严重经济危机的美国次贷危机。那么，是否可以说，对马克思兴趣的复苏，也是源自资本主义社会的危机以及源自马克思对于解释当今世界深刻矛盾的持久有效性？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：
将来的左翼政治是否会像过去的社会主义和共产主义运动那样，再次被马克思的分析激活，这就要看世界资本主义会发生什么了。但这不但对马克思是这样的，对于做为一个连贯的政治意识形态和事业的左翼，也是这样的。你说得很对，对马克思的兴趣的回归很大程度上是－－我觉得主要是－－因为当前资本主义社会的危机，既然这样，前景比1990年代要乐观得多。这次的世界金融危机，很可能在美国会变成一次严重的经济萧条，它使得对不受控制的全球自由市场崇拜的失败变得极度戏剧化，连美国政府也不得不考虑执行自从1930年代以来就被遗忘的公共行为。政治压力已经在削弱经济上属于新自由主义的政府对不受控制的、不受限制的、不受规范的全球化的投入。在某些地方（中国），向自由市场经济的全盘转化造成的巨大社会不平等和不公正已经引发了影响社会安定的重要问题，也在政府高层中引起了质疑。
有一点很清楚，任何“马克思的回归”都在本质上是向马克思对资本主义及其在人类历史进化中的位置的分析的回归－－首先包括他对资本主义发展的不稳定性的分析，也就是资本主义是在一系列自身引发的阶段性经济危机（也带有政治和社会向度）中发展的。没有一个马克思主义者会相信新自由主义意识形态分子在1989年所说的话－－自由资本主义从那时起永远稳固了自己，历史已经终结，或者说任何人类关系可能是最后的、决定性的。
3) 马切罗·木斯托： 国际左翼现在正在思考社会主义在新的世纪中的问题，您是否觉得如果国际左翼的政治和知识力量放弃马克思的思想，他们将会失去一个审视和改变当今现实的一个基本指导？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：没有一个社会主义者可以放弃马克思的思想，因为资本主义之后必须有另一种社会形式的这个信念不是基于希望或者意志，而是基于对历史发展－－尤其是资本主义时代的历史发展－－的严肃分析。他关于资本主义将被一个社会性的管理或者计划的系统取代的预言看来仍然合理，但是他当然也低估了将在任何后资本主义时代的系统中存在的市场元素。既然他有意地避免对未来的臆测，就不能让他来对在“真实存在的社会主义”下的“社会主义”经济组织的具体方式负责。关于社会主义的目标，马克思不是唯一想要一个没有剥削和异化的社会的思想者，在这样的社会中，每个人都能充分实现他/她的潜力，但马克思表达这种报负的方式要比别人更加有力，他所说的话至今保留了激发抱负的力量。
但是，大家都必须理解，马克思的著作不应该被当成政治规范（不管是不是权威的），或者是当今世界资本主义的现实描述，它们应该被当作怎样理解马克思对资本主义发展本质的分析的指导，否则马克思就不会做为一个政治灵感回归左翼。虽然恩格斯和其他人曾经试图从马克思的手稿中整理出《资本论》的第二和第三卷，我们也不能或者说不应该忘记他没有能够连贯地完整地表述他的观点。正如《大纲》所示，即便是完整的一部《资本论》也不过是马克思自己的也许过分宏伟的原始构思的一部分而已。
在另一方面，除非激进活动家中风行的把反资本主义变成反全球主义的倾向停止，马克思不会回归左翼。全球化存在着，如果人类社会不崩溃，将是无法抗拒的。事实上，马克思把全球化看成事实，而且，做为一个国际主义者，欢迎做为原则的全球化。他所批评的，也就是我们所必须批评的，是资本主义制造的全球化。
4) 马切罗·木斯托：
《大纲》是马克思著作中引起新读者群和评论者最大兴趣的作品之一。它是1857至1858年之间写成的，是马克思政治经济学批判的第一稿，因此也是写作《资本论》之前的准备工作。它包括了很多马克思在他没有完成的全集中的其他地方没有展开的话题。在您看来，为什么虽然这些手稿只是马克思为了总结他的政治经济学批判的基础而写的，但却持续地比他的其他著作引发了更多的争论呢？为什么它们能这样持久地引起人们的兴趣？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：
我觉得《大纲》对国际马克思主义知识分子产生巨大影响的原因有两个，它们是互相联系的：第一，1950年以前，这些手稿基本没有出版，正如你说的，它们包含了大量马克思在别的著作中没有讨论的问题的反思。它们不是苏联社会主义世界中已经很大程度上被教条化的正统马克思主义的一部分，但苏联社会主义无法简单地忽视这些文本。那些想要批评正统马克思主义或者拓宽马克思主义分析的人，如果不想把他们的出发点根基在可能会被指责成离经叛道的文本上，就可以利用这份文本。因此1970年代和1980年代（远早于柏林墙的倒塌）的版本继续在引发争论，这很大程度是因为马克思在这些手稿中提出的重要问题在《资本论》中没有得到分析，比如说那些在我为您编辑的书所做的序言中提到的那些问题。[《卡尔·马克思的大纲：政治经济学批判基础的150年后》马切罗·木斯托编辑，Routledge，2008年出版。Karl Marx's Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy 150 Years Later, edited by M. Musto, London—New York: Routledge 2008; http://www.routledgeeconomics.com/boo ... ndrisse-isbn9780415437493 ].
5) 马切罗·木斯托：这本书是很多国际专家学者为《政治经济学批判大纲》写作150周年所写的论文集，在您为这本书写的序言中，您写到：“也许现在是一个正确的时机，对《大纲》的研究可以不那么受从赫鲁晓夫对斯大林的批判到戈尔巴乔夫的颓败的当代左翼政治思潮的约束。”而且，为了强调这份文本的巨大价值，您还提出，“《大纲》包含了能使得马克思对资本主义的分析适用于远远大于19世纪的范围的分析和洞见，它们可以用来分析制造不再倚重人工的年代，自动化的年代，闲暇的潜力，以及异化在这些的情景中的变化，比如说他对科技的看法，就有这样的力量。这是德国意识形态中唯一的一份超越了马克思本人对共产主义的提示的文本。简单地说，《大纲》体现了最为丰富的马克思思想。” 那么，今天重读《大纲》会有什么样的结果呢？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：
恐怕只有屈指可数的几个编辑和翻译才完整地了解这系列宏大而又以难以解读著称的文本。但今天我们重读或者开始阅读这些文本，能够帮助我们重新思考马克思：能让我们区分马克思对资本主义的一般分析和他对19世纪“资产阶级社会”具体情境的分析。我们无法预言他的分析可能或者可以产生怎样的结论，我们只能说，它们肯定不会是全体都一致同意的结论。
6) 马切罗·木斯托：
最后一个问题，为什么今天读马克思还是很重要？
埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆：
对思想感兴趣的人，不管是不是大学生，有一点都很清楚：马克思是而且将一直是19世纪伟大的哲学家和经济分析家之一，而且，当他发挥最好的时候，是一个杰出的充满激情的散文家。读马克思很重要，也是因为不了解他的著作对20世纪的影响，就没有办法理解我们现在生活的世界。最后，他的重要性还在于，就像他自己写的那样，我们不理解这个世界就无法有效地改变它，而马克思则一直将杰出地指导人们理解这个世界和我们必须面对的问题。
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The current importance of Marx, 150 years after the Grundrisse
Conversation with Eric Hobsbawm
September 16, 2008
By Eric Hobsbawm and Marcello Musto
Eric Hobsbawm is considered one of the greatest living historians. He is President of Birkbeck College (London University) and Professor Emeritus at the New School for Social Research (New York). Among his many writings are the trilogy about the "the long 19th century": The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848 (1962); The Age of Capital: 1848-1874 (1975); The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 (1987), and the book The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (1994).
Marcello Musto is editor of Karl Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, London-New York: Routledge 2008.
1) M. M. Professor Hobsbawm, two decades after 1989, when he was too hastily consigned to oblivion, Karl Marx has returned to the limelight. Freed from the role of instrumentum regni to which he was assigned in the Soviet Union, and from the shackles of "Marxism-Leninism", he has in the last few years not only received intellectual attention through new publication of his work, but also been the focus of more widespread interest. Indeed in 2003, the French magazine Nouvel Observateur dedicated a special issue to Karl Marx - le penseur du troisième millénaire? (Karl Marx - the thinker of the third millennium?). A year later, in Germany, in an opinion poll sponsored by the television company ZDF to establish who were the most important Germans of all time, more than 500,000 viewers voted for Marx; he came third in the general classification and first in the "current relevance" category. Then, in 2005, the weekly Der Spiegel portrayed him on the cover under the title Ein Gespenst kehrt zurück (A spectre is back), while listeners to the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time voted for Marx as their Greatest Philosopher.
In a recent public conversation with Jacques Attalì, you said that paradoxically "it is the capitalists more than others who have been rediscovering Marx", and you talked of your astonishment when the businessman and liberal politician George Soros said to you "I've just been reading Marx and there is an awful lot in what he says". Although weak and rather vague, what are the reasons for this revival? Is his work likely to be of interest only to specialists and intellectuals, being presented in university courses as a great classic of modern thought that should never be forgotten? Or could a new "demand for Marx" come in the future from the political side as well?
E. H. There is an undoubted revival of public interest in Marx in the capitalist world, though probably not as yet in the new East European members of the European Union. It was probably accelerated by the fact that the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Manifesto of the Communist Party coincided with a particularly dramatic international economic crisis in the midst of a period of ultra-rapid free market globalization.
Marx had predicted the nature of the early 21st century world economy a hundred and fifty years earlier, on the basis of his analysis of "bourgeois society". It is not surprising that intelligent capitalists, especially in the globalized financial sector, were impressed by Marx, since they were necessarily more aware than others of the nature and instabilities of the capitalist economy in which they operated. Most of the intellectual Left no longer knew what to do with Marx. It had been demoralised by the collapse of the social-democratic project in most North Atlantic states in the 1980s and the mass conversion of national governments to free market ideology, as well as by the collapse of the political and economic systems that claimed to be inspired by Marx and Lenin. The so-called "new social movements" like feminism either had no logical connection with anti-capitalism (though as individuals their members might be aligned with it) or they challenged the belief in endless progress in human control over nature, which both capitalism and traditional socialism had shared. At the same time the "proletariat", divided and diminished, ceased to be credible as Marx's historical agent of social transformation. It is also the case that since 1968 the most prominent radical movements have preferred direct action not necessarily based on much reading and theoretical analysis.
Of course this does not mean that Marx will cease to be regarded as a great and classical thinker, although for political reasons, especially in countries like France and Italy with once powerful Communist parties, there has been a passionate intellectual offensive against Marx and Marxist analyses, which was probably at its height in the 1980s and 1990s. There are signs that it has now run its course.
2)
M. M. Throughout his life Marx was a shrewd and tireless researcher, who sensed and analysed better than anyone else in his time the development of capitalism on a world scale. He understood that the birth of a globalized international economy was inherent in the capitalist mode of production and predicted that this process would generate not only the growth and prosperity flaunted by liberal theorists and politicians but also violent conflicts, economic crises and widespread social injustice. In the last decade we have seen the East Asian Financial Crisis, which started in the summer of 1997, the Argentinian economic crisis of 1999-2002 and, above all, the subprime mortgage crisis, which started in the United States in 2006 and has now become the biggest post-war financial crisis. Is it right to say, therefore, that the return of interest in Marx is also based on the crisis of capitalist society and on his enduring capacity to explain the profound contradictions of today's world?
E. H. Whether the future politics of the Left will once again be inspired by Marx's analysis, as the old socialist and communist movements were, will depend on what happens to world capitalism. But this applies not only to Marx but to the Left as a coherent political ideology and project. Since, as you say correctly, the return of interest in Marx is largely - I would say mainly - based on the current crisis of capitalist society, the outlook is more promising than it was in the 1990s. The present world financial crisis, which may well become a major economic depression in the USA, dramatises the failure of the theology of the uncontrolled global free market, and forces even the US government to consider taking public actions forgotten since the 1930s. Political pressures are already weakening the commitment of economic neo-liberal governments to uncontrolled, unlimited and unregulated globalization. In some cases (China) the vast inequalities and injustices caused by a wholesale transition to a free market economy already raise major problems for social stability and raise doubts even at the higher levels of government.
It is clear that any "return to Marx" will be essentially a return to Marx's analysis of capitalism and its place in the historical evolution of humanity - including, above all, his analysis of the central instability of capitalist development, which proceeds through self-generated periodic economic crises, with political and social dimensions. No Marxist could believe for a moment that, as neo-liberal ideologists argued in 1989, liberal capitalism had established itself forever, that history had come to an end, or indeed that any system of human relations could ever be final and definitive.
3) M. M. Do you not think that if the political and intellectual forces of the international left, who are questioning themselves with regard to socialism in the new century, were to foreswear the ideas of Marx, they would lose a fundamental guide for the examination and transformation of today's reality?
E. H. No socialist can foreswear the ideas of Marx, since his belief that capitalism must be succeeded by another form of society is based not on hope or will but on a serious analysis of historical development, particularly in the capitalist era. His actual prediction that capitalism would be replaced by a socially managed or planned system still seems reasonable, though he certainly underestimated the market elements which would survive in any post-capitalist system(s). Since he deliberately abstained from speculation about the future, he cannot be made responsible for the specific ways in which "socialist" economies were organised under "really existing socialism". As to the objectives of socialism, Marx was not the only thinker who wanted a society without exploitation and alienation, in which all human beings could fully realise their potentialities, but he expressed this aspiration more powerfully than anyone else, and his words retain the power to inspire.
However, Marx will not return as a political inspiration to the Left until it is understood that his writings should not be treated as political programmes, authoritative or otherwise, nor as descriptions of the actual situation of world capitalism today, but rather as guides to his way of understanding the nature of capitalist development. Nor can or should we forget that he did not achieve a coherent and fully thought out presentation of his ideas, in spite of attempts by Engels and others to construct a volume II and III of Capital out of Marx's manuscripts. As the Grundrisse show, even a completed Capital would have formed only part of Marx's own, perhaps excessively ambitious, original plan.
On the other hand, Marx will not return to the Left until the current tendency among radical activists to turn anti-capitalism into anti-globalism is abandoned. Globalisation exists, and, short of a collapse of human society, is irreversible. Indeed, Marx recognised it as a fact and, as an internationalist, welcomed it, in principle. What he criticised, and what we must criticize, was the kind of globalisation produced by capitalism.
4) M. M. One of Marx's writings which has provoked the greatest interest amongst new readers and commentators is the Grundrisse. Written between 1857 and 1858, the Grundrisse is the first draft of Marx's critique of political economy and, thus, also the initial preparatory work on Capital; it contains numerous reflections on matters that Marx did not develop elsewhere in his incomplete oeuvre. Why, in your opinion, are these manuscripts one of Marx's writings which continue to provoke more debate than any other, in spite of the fact that he wrote them only to summarise the foundations of his critique of political economy? What is the reason for their persistent appeal?
E. H. In my view the Grundrisse have made so large an international impact on the Marxian intellectual scene for two connected reasons. They were virtually unpublished before the 1950s, and, as you say, contained a mass of reflections on matters that Marx did not develop elsewhere. They were not part of the largely dogmatised corpus of orthodox Marxism in the world of Soviet socialism, yet Soviet socialism could not simply dismiss them. They could therefore be used by Marxists who wanted to criticise orthodoxy or widen the scope of Marxist analysis by an appeal to a text which could not be accused of being heretical or anti-Marxist. Hence the editions of the 1970s and 1980s (well before the fall of the Berlin Wall) continued to provoke debate largely because in these manuscripts Marx raised important problems which were not considered in Capital, for instance, the questions raised in my preface to the volume of essays you collected [Karl Marx's Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy 150 Years Later, edited by M. Musto, London—New York: Routledge 2008; http://www.routledgeeconomics.com/boo ... ndrisse-isbn9780415437493 ].
5) M. M. In the preface to this book, written by various international experts to mark the 150th anniversary of its composition, you have written: "Perhaps this is the right moment to return to a study of the Grundrisse less constricted by the temporary considerations of leftwing politics between Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin and the fall of Mikhail Gorbachev". Moreover, to underline the enormous value of this text, you stated that the Grundrisse "contains analyses and insights, for instance about technology, that take Marx's treatment of capitalism far beyond the nineteenth century, into the era of a society where production no longer requires mass labour, of automation, the potential of leisure, and the transformations of alienation in such circumstances. It is the only text that goes some way beyond Marx's own hints of the communist future in the German Ideology. In a few words, it has been rightly described as Marx's thought at its richest." Therefore, what might be the result of re-reading the Grundrisse today?
E. H. There are probably not more than a handful of editors and translators who have full knowledge of this large and notoriously difficult mass of texts. But a re-rereading, or rather reading, of them today could help us to rethink Marx: to distinguish what is general in Marx's analysis of capitalism from what was specific to the situation of mid-nineteenth-century "bourgeois society". We cannot predict what conclusions from this analysis are possible and likely, only that they will certainly not command unanimous agreement.
6) M. M. To finish, one final question. Why is it important today to read Marx?
E. H. To anyone interested in ideas, whether a university student or not, it is patently clear that Marx is and will remain one of the great philosophical minds and economic analysts of the nineteenth century, and, at his best, a master of passionate prose. It is also important to read Marx because the world in which we live today cannot be understood without the influence that the writings of this man had on the twentieth century. And finally, he should be read because, as he himself wrote, the world cannot be effectively changed unless it is understood - and Marx remains a superb guide to understanding the world and the problems we must confront.
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