This article is transferred from | Political Communication Studies
summary
Marx made extensive use of the concepts of Kommunikation and Verkehr in Capital and his manuscripts. In many cases, these two terms include both physical transportation and spiritual communication, telegraph exchange, interpersonal communication, and relationship building. Based on the second edition of the Historical Research Edition of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels (MEGA²), this paper compares these two words and the related word Transport with a total of 1,213 original words, derivatives and compound words, and compares the existing Chinese translations of Capital and its manuscripts of about 12 million words to produce various comparative tables and write about 500,000 words of analytical text. It is confirmed that a considerable number of Kommunikation and Verkehr are translated as "transportation" and "transportation", while the contemporary Chinese "transportation" mainly refers to trains, ships and other means of transportation, which virtually causes Marx's rich concept of communication to be obscured. This article comprehensively sorts out this situation from five perspectives, and strives to return to the original meaning of Marx's argument.
About the Author
Chen Lidan (Chair Professor, Sichuan University, Honorary First-Class Professor, Chinese Minmin University)
Yan Yan (Ph.D. student, School of Literature and Journalism, Sichuan University)
Article Source:
International Press, Issue 04, 2024
In 1845-1846, Marx and Engels used a core concept, Verkehr, and a series of concepts derived and compounded from it, in their work "The German Ideology", which founded the materialist view of history; At the same time, they also used the concept of Kommnikation, which is associated with Verkehr. From the "German Ideology" alone, we can see that they are very rich in connotation, showing the grand vision of Marx and Engels in communication studies. The first author of this article pointed out in the 80s and 90s of the last century that Verkehr refers not only to commercial trade and transportation in the material sense, but also to information transmission in the spiritual sense. Subsequently, a number of papers and writings appeared in China on the study of "interactions" in the German Ideology. The problem is that the study of "communication" in the German Ideology is basically confined to the treatise itself, and most of it is studied from the perspective of philosophy and political economy, without further research from the perspective of communication, and few people pay attention to the use of these concepts in Marx's Capital and his huge manuscripts from 1857 until his death, as well as Engels' collation of Marx's Capital The manuscript continued to use Verkehr as well as the associated concept of Kommnikation. One of the important reasons why "communication" has not been studied from the perspective of communication is that most of the Chinese translations of Capital and its manuscripts translate them as "transportation" and "transportation" rather than "communication" or "communication and transportation", and some kommnikation has not been translated; However, most researchers do not know German and rarely check the original text. Therefore, it is necessary to systematically investigate whether the original text of Capital and its manuscripts correspond to the Chinese translation, return to Marx's original meaning, and deeply understand and study Marx's concept of communication from the specific historical background.
One
The frequency of Kommunikation, Verkehr, and related transport in Capital and its manuscripts
The basis for this research is the second edition of the Historical Critical Works of Marx and Engels (MEGA²). The editorial principle of this edition is that all the documents left by Marx and Engels should be published in the language in which they were written, reflecting the whole picture of the documents. As such, it is the most authoritative version for the study of the works of Marx and Engels.
Volume 1 of Capital was revised by Marx or Engels in French and English, and Kommunikation and Transport are communication and transport in both editions. With regard to Verkehr, Marx wrote in French in 1846 to the Russian political commentator Pavel Anenkov, in particular that "I use the word 'commerce' here in its broadest sense, just as I use the word 'Verkehr' in German." And Verkehr's English counterpart, according to a large number of Marx or Engels' English treatises, its counterpart is intercourse. For example, in 1853, Marx spoke of "creating universal intercourse based on the interdependence of all human beings, and the means of that intercourse", and the corresponding words of "universal intercourse" and "the means of that intercourse" are "universal intercourse" and "the means of that intercourse".
We take the words Kommunikation (including English or French communication, English-German mixed spelling Communikation and compound words containing this word), Verkehr (including the corresponding French commerce, corresponding to English intercourse), and the words containing these two keywords, Transport (transportation, French and English same) and their compound words. Find them all from the MEGA². There are 167 foreign words (mainly German, but also French and English) of original and compound words, and 1,376 occurrences. Because of the existence of multiple meanings, 163 uses that are not related to semantics such as "communication", "traffic", "transportation" and "communication" are excluded, and a total of 1213 uses involve the expression of Marx's concept of communication, some of which (454) are currently not translated into Chinese, and are compared by the author according to the original German, French or English translations into Chinese. To this end, we have made a large table with three vertical columns, which are divided into the original foreign language, the Chinese translation, and the simple analysis, with a total of 153 pages and 350,000 words.
Based on these 1213 original texts found from MEGA², and checking the Chinese translation of the second Chinese edition of Capital and its manuscript of The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, we find more translation problems that affect an accurate and comprehensive understanding of Marx's original meaning. At the same time, the Chinese translation of the second edition of Capital and its manuscript was compared with the Chinese translation of the first Chinese edition of the Complete Works, and the improvements made in the second edition were checked. For this purpose, we have created two comparison tables of 20,000 words.
The first Chinese edition of The Complete Works of Marx and Engels is not included in the first German and French editions of Capital Volume 1, and some manuscripts of Capital are not included. The second Chinese edition is based on the contents of MEGA² Part II., organized into 17 volumes, included in the German 1st and French editions of Capital Volume 1, and has been published in 151/3 volumes (30-39, 40 volumes, 42-46 volumes) and 12/3 volumes (40 middle and second volumes, 41 volumes) to be published. Considering the independent value of the German 1st and French editions of Capital Volume 1, we compared the original and Chinese translations of these three key words and their compounds with the popular Chinese translation of the 4th German edition, and produced three tables with a total of 25 pages and 60,000 words.
The Chinese 2nd edition of The Complete Works of Marx and Engels has decided not to include the 2nd German edition revised by Marx and the 3rd German edition revised by Engels in Volume 1 of Capital, as well as the English edition revised by Engels. In order to comprehensively examine the further expositions of Marx and Engels on the concept of communication that may exist in the changes or additions of each edition of Capital, we have checked all the key words and compound words in the three editions: Kommunikation (communication), Verkehr (intercourse), and Transport (the same as in English).
After a long period of checking and statistics, the original words, derived words and compound words of the above three words related to communication, transportation, exchange, exchange, transaction, etc., account for the following proportion of each word in the total: Transport 52% (626 places, 253 original words), most of the words are translated as "transportation", which is accurate, and the core connotation is the contemporary Chinese "transportation", focusing on the transfer process of spatial displacement of matter from one place to another. Verkehr 33% (402 places, 119 original words), quite a few of which are translated as "communicative". Kommunikation, which accounts for 15% (185 words, 38 original words), covers a similar domain of meaning to Verkehr, focusing on the transmission of messages, the exchange of telegrams, the spiritual communication between people, and the construction of human relationships. Among these keywords, the conjunctions Kommunikation-und Transport or Transport-und Kommunikation and compound words based on these two conjunctions appear more frequently, with a total of 169 occurrences, which are also the focus of the translation to distort the original meaning, which will be discussed in detail later.
The core connotations and extended connotations of Verkehr and Kommunikation, two key words used in Capital and its manuscripts, which embody Marx's concept of communication, can be examined through the German Digital Dictionary (DWDS) compiled by the Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Science (BBAW). This large database includes 13 billion usable text words as of May 2018 and is of comparable quality to a standard English corpus (BNC). We mainly use the historical corpus (HistorischeKorpora), which covers almost all academic works, including Marx's works.
We looked at the use of these two terms between 1465 and 1900, and the frequency of use increased every year until 1900. Verkehr appears 33 times in 1465-1600, 53 times in 1600-1700, 383 times in 1700-1800, and 68229 times in 1800-1900; Kommunikation occurs 20 times in 1465-1600, 146 times in 1600-1700, and 344 times in 1700-1800; 1800-1900 3475 times. It can be seen that the period from 1800 to 1900 was a period of rapid development of these two terms, and the use of these two words in Marx's Capital and his manuscripts was at this stage, showing the forward-looking use of his and Engels' views on communication. Among them, the use of Verkehr in later generations showed strong vitality, appearing 79,784 times from 1900 to 1987 (the year when the material ended), and became the core concept of expressing the situation of the information society in the German-speaking world; Kommunikation decreased to 308 times.
Two
Changes in the connotation of "transportation" in the Chinese context
"Transportation" is rich in connotation in ancient Chinese literature. "'Jiao' means the overlap of heaven and earth, the handover of all things, the intersection of men and women, and the interaction between people, and the communication between people, and 'Tong' means accessibility, communication, and exchange", and the combination of "Jiao" and "Tong" refers to the meaning of communication, connection, and exchange. "Zhou Yi" is said to be "heaven and earth are handed over and all things are connected, and the upper and lower are handed over and their like-mindedness is also." Chinese scholars at the end of the 19th century translated Kommunikation or Verkehr as "traffic" in response to the linguistic understanding environment at the time: "At that time, 'traffic' was not an inseparable compound word, but a juxtaposition of the words 'jiao' (interaction, communication) and 'tong' (interconnection)." This is a relatively old usage, and it is even closer to the original meaning of communication than 'communication'. However, since the early years of the Republic of China, the word "transportation" has gradually referred to water and land transportation, and with the gradual death of the older generation who used the connotation of "transportation" in ancient times, the original rich connotation of "transportation" has become more and more narrow.
We consulted Xu Baohuang, the founder of Chinese journalism, Journalism, published in 1919 and later written in books, and Shao Piaoping's Practical Application of Journalism, written in 1923. There are 28 places in Journalism that refer to the transportation of passengers and goods. The book begins with the following sentence: "Since the World Transportation Day, when countries have become close to each other, the important affairs of other countries have also been noticed by us, so they have also been news." Xu Baohuang also deliberately made a positive and negative evaluation of the two ways of writing the same news on the same day on June 24, the seventh year of the Republic of China (1918), praising it as "The opening of the first transportation conference of the Ministry of Communications is to seek the unification of transportation affairs" and "The opening of the transportation conference". The historical information revealed here is as follows: first, the department responsible for water and land transportation of the government of the Republic of China at that time was called the "Ministry of Communications", and the connotation of "transportation" here has been greatly reduced compared with the connotation of "transportation" in ancient China; Second, at that time, the words "transportation" and "transportation" had been mentioned together, and they were used together, which was basically synonymous. Xu Baohuang praised the former: "The Ministry of Communications is one of the famous institutions in the country, the transportation conference is a novel name, and the transportation matter has a relationship with most businessmen, and it is also paid attention to by railway transportation scholars, and there is nothing more interesting in this news, so the 'first transportation meeting of the Ministry of Communications' is also a brilliant news." Here, he inadvertently explained the connotation of "traffic" and "transportation" at that time. The use of the word "transport" was apparently beginning ("novelty"), "the matter of transport, which in turn had a bearing on the majority of businessmen", who were concerned with rail transport with promising development.
Shao Piaoping's "Practical Applied Journalism" appears 8 times in "traffic". Three times referred to the position of "Chief of Communications", two times to the Ministry of Communications, one time to "cut off the transportation of houses and ships" (measures to prevent infectious diseases), and one time to "distribute according to the convenience of geography, transportation, people, and economy". The "convenient transportation" here obviously refers to the "convenience" in the sense of road transportation. The preface to the book was written by Wang Zhengting, a famous political and social figure at the time, and he began with the following sentence: "Human beings like to communicate, to be gregarious, and to exchange new knowledge is originally the instinct of life, that is, the necessity of social life, and in order to fill this instinct and satisfy its necessity, newspapers are still in use." Wang Zhengting was a member of Sun Yat-sen's first cabinet of the Republic of China, and later served as a member of the cabinet, and in 1922 was China's first member of the International Olympic Committee. Born in 1882, he spanned the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, so his "traffic" continues the rich connotation of ancient Chinese literature. Shao Piaoping is a new-school figure, who is accustomed to using the connotation of neologisms in contemporary meanings in new contexts.
Although the connotation of "transportation" in the early years of the Republic of China was narrowed, in terms of understanding, journalism scholars included the telegraph, telephone, and telecommunications of news agencies at that time in "transportation". Xu Baohuang wrote in "Journalism": "The United States has convenient transportation and a developed communications industry; Domestic wires are as dense as spider webs, and foreign radios are the ...... of the world." The words "wire" and "radio" refer to telegraphs, telephones, and telecommunications from news agencies. In 1924's "General Theory of Journalism", Shao Piaoping also included telegraph and telephone in the category of "transportation". However, in the general social use of the word "transportation", it mainly refers to the transportation of passengers and goods by water and land.
After 1949, the term "transportation" was further narrowed. The Government Council of the People's Republic of China (later renamed the State Council) at different times or at the same time had the Ministry of Communications (renamed the Ministry of Transport in 2008, corresponding to the English MinistryofTransport), the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, and the Civil Aviation Administration. Now it is called the "Ministry of Transport", and the three main bureaus under its jurisdiction are: the Highway Administration, the Navigation (referring to the waterway) Administration, and the local railway administration. Corresponding to this is the use of the word "transportation" in society. We randomly checked two articles in the People's Daily in 1951 that contained "transportation", one was the article "Planned Development of Handicraft Production" on June 3, and there was one "transportation": "under the condition that the machine industry is underdeveloped and the transportation is not convenient enough"; One is the article on September 22, "We must fix the Huai River!" There are two "traffics": "adding a transverse traffic artery" and "the Huai River has been a waterway transportation artery since ancient times". In 1960, the People's Daily also spot-checked two articles containing "transportation", one was the article on July 4, "Henan Workers Quickly Build More Water Lifting Tools", and there were three "transportation": "industrial transportation and commercial front", "transportation department transportation of drought-fighting materials" and "transportation to protect coal production campaign"; One is the article "Building a Beautiful and Happy Rural People's Commune" on October 23, and there is a "transportation": "socially run industry and transportation industry". Obviously, all this "transportation" refers to water and land transportation in a narrow sense, and it is no longer visible that it includes full-time information dissemination.
In the 7th edition of Modern Chinese Dictionary, 2016, compiled by the Dictionary Editorial Office of the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the explanation of the word "transportation" is as follows:
Transportation: A noun that was originally a general term for various transportation and post and telecommunications undertakings, and now only refers to transportation undertakings. <书>Verb, to and fro: Qianmo traffic.
Obviously, at the moment of the 21st century, the connotation of the Chinese character "transportation" has changed over time, and the connotations of "the handover of all things, the communication between people", "accessibility, communication, and exchange" expressed by the word "transportation", especially the circulation of information, are more used to refer to "communication", "exchange", "communication" and "communication". Under such circumstances, the use of "transportation" and "transportation" to correspond to the words Kommunikation or Verkehr in Capital and its manuscripts or their compounds, Marx and Engels' concept of communication, which originally contained a grand vision, seems to involve only the use of means of transportation, obscuring their profound ideas about communication.
When Marx and Engels used these two concepts, in many places they talked not only about the transportation industry or tools, but also about the system of communication that included material and spiritual exchanges and the construction of social relations.
Three
《资本论》及其手稿中使用Communication、Transportation概念时的完整所指
The above check has verified that the vast majority of Chinese translations translated as "transport" are accurate, so I will not mention it here. Some of the concepts Kommunikation and Verkehr used by Marx in Capital and his manuscripts do not fully and accurately express the author's original meaning. The following is a detailed analysis of a number of examples to illustrate the complete referent of these concepts by Marx.
Illustration 1: There is a passage in Volume 2 of Capital, and the latest Chinese translation is as follows:
There are separate branches of industry, where the products of the production process are not products of new substances, not commodities. Of these industrial sectors, the only economically important one is the transportation industry, which is either a real cargo and passenger transportation industry, or only the transmission of news, letters, telegrams, etc.
The original German word corresponding to "transport industry" in this text is Kommunikationsindustrie, and Marx's concept of the spatial movement of matter (including people) from one place to another is the compound word Transportindustrie (transport industry) with Transport as the qualifier. That is to say, when summarizing the two types of situations in which the nature of material transportation and information communication is similar but not the same, he uses a compound word with Kommunikation as a qualifier, that is, the connotation of Kommunikation includes these two aspects, which is much broader than "transportation" in the current Chinese context. In the face of Marx's clear expression of meaning, it is obviously inappropriate to translate Kommunikationsindustrie as "transportation industry", because the "transportation" in the current Chinese context only refers to the transportation of passengers and goods, obscuring the connotation of "the transmission of news, letters, telegrams, etc." that Marx wanted to express through this concept. The qualifier Kommunikationsindustrie should be translated here as "communicating" in a broader sense, compounding with another noun, Industrie, to form "communicative industry".
Illustration 2: Looking at another paragraph in Marx's 1857-1858 economic manuscript on how to reduce the alienation of communication through the communication of various information, the latest Chinese translation is:
The universal linkage and total dependence of production and consumption grows with the independence and indifference of consumers and producers; Because this contradiction leads to crisis and so on, so with the development of this alienation, on its own basis, people try to eliminate it; Quotation tables, exchange rates, correspondence between commercial operators, telegraph links, etc., (the means of transport of course developed at the same time), by means of which each individual could learn about the activities of all others, and sought to adapt his own activities to them.
The original text corresponding to "vehicle" in the text is the anglicized noun "Communicationsmittel". Here, Marx summarizes a series of means of information communication, such as "market charts, exchange rates, correspondence between business operators, and telegraph links", as "Communicationsmittel", which is inaccurate to translate as "means of transportation". When the reader sees the Chinese word for "transportation", he or she does not think of the market tables, exchange rates, and correspondence and telegraph links between commercial operators, as Marx speaks of. The original text corresponding to the words in parentheses in the Chinese translation is "die Communicationsmittel wachsen natürlich gleichzeitig", which translates to "of course the means of communication develop at the same time", and Marx's meaning is clearer. Communication here should be translated as "communication".
Illustration 3: Let's look again at Marx's use of compound words with Verkehr as a qualifier. In Volume 3 of Capital, Marx talks about railways, telegraphs, and postal services, and the latest Chinese translation is:
penny postal system, railways, telegraphs, in short, improved means of transport, also contributed to the economy of means of circulation; As a result, the UK can now operate 5 or even 6 times as much as the banknotes in circulation, although they have almost the same amount of banknotes.
The original German word corresponding to "means of transportation" in the article is Verkehrsmittel, which is obviously inappropriate to translate as "means of transportation", because it is difficult for Chinese readers to think of telegraph and postal service in the context of "means of transportation", and Marx's argument here is mainly about the improved communication technology, how to make the use of the same amount of information bring several times the benefits of social communication effect, should be translated as "means of communication" in a broad sense.
Illustration 4: Look again at the note (8) of Chapter 30 of Capital Vol. 3 added by Engels, who argues that the formation of the world market uses the compound Verkehr as a qualifier, Verkehrsmittel, and the latest Chinese translation is as follows:
Thanks to the astonishing development of means of transport,—— ocean steamers, railways, telegraphs, the Suez Canal, ,—— for the first time really formed a world market.
The Chinese translation translates Verkehrsmittel as "means of transport", while Engels's line refers to "ocean-going ships, railways, telegraphs, and the Suez Canal", which obviously does not fully correspond. In the current Chinese context, the telegraph and canals are not considered as "means of transportation". This should also be translated as "means of communication" in a broad sense.
Illustration 5: In his July 1894 essay "On the History of Primitive Christianity", Engels talks about how the International Workingmen's Association (First International) relied on various modern means of communication to achieve unity of action, the latest translation of which is as follows:
…… It was achieved by modern means of transport, by railways, by telegraphs, by huge industrial cities, by newspapers and organized assemblies of the people.
The original equivalent of "transport" in the text is Verkehrsmitteln (plural case), and the following provides the five aspects of the concept: "railways, telegraphs, huge industrial cities, newspapers, and organized assemblies of the people". In addition to the railway, the other four aspects cannot be reduced to "transportation" in the Chinese Chinese context. This should be translated as "means of communication" in a broad sense.
Illustration 6: When the various forms of means of transport are used for different purposes, they are not only part of production, but also carriers or intermediaries of interpersonal communication, and the following argument from Marx's economic manuscripts of 1857-1858 clearly expresses his dialectical understanding of the various means of transport:
Houses can be used for production as well as for consumption, as can all means of transportation: ships and vehicles can be used both for tourism and transportation; Roads can be used as a means of transportation for production in the original sense, for walking, and so on.
In this translation, the words "means of transportation", "means of transportation" and "means of transportation" appear successively, and the original words are all different. The original word corresponding to "vehicle" was Vehikel, which referred to a relatively narrow means of transport, especially old-fashioned vehicles (at that time "car" meant horse-drawn carriages, rickshaws, and no cars). The original word corresponding to "means of transport" is Transportmittel, and the word corresponding to "means of transport" is Communicationsmittel. There is nothing wrong with the general understanding of the three words in the Chinese translation, but such a translation without screening will affect the understanding of Marx's argument for the use value of the two means of transport. Now let's retranslate word by word (including punctuation) according to the grammatical structure of the original German:
Original:
A house can serve for production as well as for consumption; as well as all vehicles, a ship and a carriage for pleasure as well as for the means of transport; a street as a means of communication, for the actual production, such as for walking, etc.
Retranslation: "A house can be used for production just as it is for consumption; The same is true for all vehicles, a boat and a car can be used for travel just as they are used as a means of transportation; A road as a means of communication, as well as for walking, can also be used for actual production, and so on. ”
Marx's grammatical structure of the use of means of communication for production or for travel and walking, he regarded the two uses side by side, and there was no distinction between priority and subordination. There is no fundamental difference between the overall meaning of the retranslated text and the original translation, but the three Chinese words related to transportation have been screened and selected according to the context, and Vehikel is translated as "vehicle", which refers to the most ordinary small ships and vehicles without mechanical power that were in contact with ordinary life at that time; Transportmittel turns to production, using the stricter economic term "means of transport"; The road (carriage or rickshaw) itself is not a transport body, but a carrier of the transport body, and at the same time it can also be a path for leisure people, so it is more prudent to translate Communicationsmittel as a "means of communication" in a broad sense. The purpose of this passage is to illustrate that, even if they are mere "means of transport", Marx has in mind that they have different use values for production and for recreation, the latter being a form of human interaction or communication. In other words, Marx used the concept of Communicationsmittel in a way that always acknowledged the human element in it.
Illustration 7: Regarding the human factor in transportation (cooperation in production), Marx has a special chapter in the first volume of Capital, and in the manuscript of Capital, there is a historical investigation from ancient times to the 19th century, and the concept of Verkehr is used many times to describe the cooperation of thousands of eyes and hands and feet. He has this passage in an economic manuscript from 1861-1863 (this passage is repeated twice in the same manuscript), the latest translation of which is as follows:
Due to the increase in the use of machinery in mines, cotton mills, etc., it is necessary to carry out large-scale production in the machine building itself. Needless to say, the increase in the means of transport required on a large scale for this mode of production was made possible only by the use of machines in the machine-building industry itself, especially high-powered prime movers——, etc...... (When railroads are built, we mean railroad lines——, it is only a form of capital accumulation on the one hand, and a collaboration of workers on the other.) The adoption of the machine itself is very unimportant here. ）
The original counterpart to "means of transport" is "Mitteln des Verkehrs" (the plural of the dative phrase, which has the same meaning as Verkehrsmittel), which Marx used to refer to all kinds of new types of machinery, including means of transport, noting their enormous contribution to mass production, and speaking of the cooperation of workers (an organized interaction of people) in the construction of railway lines, he even valued "workers' cooperation", arguing that " The adoption of the machine itself is very unimportant here." Depending on the context, "Mitteln des Verkehrs" should not be translated as "means of transport", but rather as "means of communication" in a broad sense, including organized workers' collaboration.
In Capital and its manuscripts, Kommunikation and Verkehr are often used interchangeably, with roughly the same connotation. Examples 3, 4, 5, and 7 above can be fully demonstrated.
According to the above 6 and 7 examples, Marx's general use of Kommunikation, Verkehr, or their compounds, even if the text does not explicitly state that the concept includes various means of communication of information or structures of human relations, should be aware of the full meaning of the concept of the concept of all means of transportation and all means or modes of communication of information, even if all the examples in the specific text are specific means of transportation.
In Capital and its manuscripts, the compound words such as Kommunikation- and Verkehr- are suffix mittel, or the nouns Mittel, which are qualified by the case of Kommunikation and Verkehr, are mostly translated as "tools". For example, in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th examples, the translated "vehicle" corresponds to the suffix mittel of the original word, and in the seventh example, "vehicle" corresponds to the noun mittel, both of which are translated as "tools". Only illustration 6 of the original word Communicationsmittel is translated as "means" by the suffix mittel.
In general, it is more appropriate to retranslate Mittel as "means", considering that when Marx used the words Kommunikation and Verkehr, in most cases it not only refers to transport, means of transport, and transport industry in a general sense, but also includes the connotation of information communication, and also takes into account the different use values of transport for production and leisure. Mittel's translation of "instrument" or "means" can be found in a recent translation from an economic manuscript of 1861-1863. Marx excerpted in a largely affirmative tone from the German economist Wilhelm Schulz's 1843 book The Movement of Production, which he quoted extensively twice in his 1844 economic and philosophical manuscripts, one of which reads:
Later, at first, simple means of transportation were created, such as pack animals for transporting things, or small boats that people also used hand tools such as oars to steer and propulse. A further division of labour in activities for the purpose of common interaction could also be indicated......
The phrase "means and means" in this passage corresponds to the original text "Werkzeuge und Mittel des Verkehrs", where "tools and means" is accurately translated. Werkzeug and Mittel, both meaning "tools", when combined, remind us of their nuances. The primary meaning of Werkzeug is specific tools, such as knives and forgings. The primary connotation of Mittel is method, method, countermeasure, and means, which should be translated as "tool" in concrete situations. According to the context, this phrase should be translated as "tools and means of communication". The "purpose of communication" in this sentence corresponds to the original text "Zwecken des Verkehrs", which is accurately translated.
In fact, the Chinese 2nd edition of The Complete Works of Marx and Engels has already noticed this translation problem. In the first and fourth editions (44th) and 3rd (46th) of Das Kapital, the word "Mittel" was translated in three and two places, respectively, by changing the word "means of transportation" to "means of transportation", thus broadening the connotation.
Based on the experience of translating the above paragraph, and considering the complete referent of Marx and Engels when they use Kommunikationsmittel and Verkehrsmittel in general, these two compound words should be translated as "means of communication" in a relatively broad sense rather than as concrete "tools of communication". In certain argumentative situations, such as Kommunikationsmittel in Example 2, it translates as explicit "means of communication".
Four
The main problems with the Chinese translations of Kommunikation and Verkehr in Capital and its manuscripts
(一)"Communication and Transportation-"统一译为"交通运输-"
In the Chinese edition of Capital and its manuscripts, the conjunctions "Kommunikations-und Transport-" or "Transport-und Kommunikations-" appear frequently, with many different combinations of suffixes, a total of 169 places. At present, such conjunctions, whether Kommunikation or Transport come before or after, are uniformly translated as "transport-", which does not translate the full connotation of Marx's use of this couplet.
Here is a quote from Marx's 1863-1867 economic manuscripts that no one has cited:
It is clear that the development of means of transport is of great importance in this regard, since the actual distance, the time necessary to travel this distance, depends on these means. It comes down to this alone, not the geographical distance itself.
This is the complete natural paragraph of Marx's discussion of the time of capital return and circulation, in which the German counterpart of "means of transport" is "Transport und Communicationsmittel", which specifically argues the circulation of money or securities, so this conjunction refers to the means of communication such as telegrams that send market information, postal services that transmit various bills and letters between individuals, and special means of transportation to escort money, which should be translated as "means of transportation and communication"; The word "tool" is also translated as "means".
In an economic manuscript of 1857-1858, Marx argued the factors affecting the velocity of commodities and wrote: "The development of the means of transport has a twofold significance: it determines both the range of those who exchange with each other, that is, those who come into contact with each other, and the speed at which the raw materials reach the producers and the products reach the consumers......"
The original word for "transport" is "Communications-und Transportmittel". Here the latter (speed) can be determined by the means of transport, while the former (the contact of the exchanger) is mainly achieved through interpersonal contact or information communication, therefore, "means of transport" does not translate the connotation of the conjunction Communicationsmittel of the former, and should be translated as "means of communication and transport", so that the context is properly connected and the logic is self-consistent.
Marx spoke many times about the changes brought about by the development of the means of communication in the capitalist market, for example, when he said that "the development of the means of transport will shorten the distance between the market", and the "transport-und Communikationsmittel" used here to "shorten the distance to the market" includes not only trains and ships, but also the telegraph, as he said of "the swiftness of communication" (which should be translated as "communication"]"). Telegraph and rail could transport cotton from Liverpool to Manchester at any time. Whenever the words Kommunikation and Transport are used together, they are actually expressing "communication and transportation-", while the Chinese translation simply translates it as "transportation-", which invisibly only highlights the material level of transportation, ignoring the connotation of information transmission and interpersonal communication. It is difficult for Chinese readers to find the double meaning of the original text through the Chinese word "transportation".
In a scientific treatise as Das Kapital, which is extensive and argument-based rather than narrative, the precise expression of the conceptual connotation is very important, and stipulating that a certain type of word and phrase (with differences in the order) should be uniformly translated into the same Chinese word in any case will distort or obscure the author's thinking.
(2) Multiple translations of the word in the same situation
If, contrary to the above, the same words and phrases under the same background conditions are translated completely differently, it will lead to a situation where Chinese readers generally think that the Chinese translation should correspond to different foreign words, but the actual situation is not. Again, this situation does not accurately express Marx's ideas.
The 1857-1858 economic manuscript has two places with more than ten lines of text that are almost identical, but the translation of the key word "Verkehr" is different. The original text at the beginning of this sentence is "Das Austauschen des Ueberflusses ist Austausch-und Tauschwerth-setzender Verkehr." There are several lines of text that are also the same. The only difference is the penultimate word "Tauschwerthsetzender" in the above sentence, the first occurrence has a "-", the second occurrence does not, the writing is different, the translation should be the same. Now the first translation is: "The exchange of surpluses is a transaction that sets the value of exchange and exchange." The second translation is "the exchange of surplus products is the exchange of exchange and exchange value." The main difference is that the word "Verkehr" is translated as "transaction" for the first time and "exchange" for the second time. The latter part of the passage (longer argument in the middle, omitted) reads: "If the intermediaries engaged in exchange (Lombards, Normans, etc.) appear again and again, and thus continue the development of trade,...... This is the role of the so-called foreign trade in the spread of civilization. Marx's argument is the result of the development of exchange: the exchange of surplus products is no longer just a transaction, but more and more intermediaries engaged in exchange are involved, exchanges between people are intensified, exchange is expanded, and civilization is spread. Obviously, the translation of "Verkehr" here as "exchange" is more in line with the overall context and the idea that Marx wanted to convey, and the translation of "transaction" will lead to a narrow understanding of the meaning of the word.
There is also a place in Volume 3 of Capital that adds two translations of the word nature. Marx, in his argument on the path of the transition from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist mode of production, spoke of how the merchants organized the workers to work for themselves, and Engels made a note (No. 52) on this purpose, the latest translation of which is as follows: "The same is true of the ribbon weaving, silk braiding and silk weaving industries in the Rhine region. There was even a railroad built near Krefeld to connect these rural weavers with the urban "factory owners". ”
这句话里的名词"Traffic"是表示目的的介词"for"(相当于英文for)引导的目的状语中的关键词,原话是"for the intercourse of these rural hand weavers with the urban 'manufacturers'",可以翻译为:"为了方便农村手工织工和城市'工厂主'之间的交往"。 中译文里的"沟通"和"交易"只能对应"Traffic"这一个词。 若不核对原文，读者会认为恩格斯既谈到铁路的沟通作用，又谈到织工和工厂主之间的交易，其实不然。
There are many translations of the word in the same situation, and each example is a special case, and it is difficult to describe them one by one. For example, the verb verkehren and the noun Verkehr are translated in the same context, and this place is translated as "doing business with India and China" (mit Indien und China verkehren), and that place is translated as "im Verkehr der Engländer mit Indien und China" ("dealings with India and China"), the latter is accurately translated, and the former should be translated as "dealing with India and China". For example, when Verkehr is in the prepositional phrase "imtäglichen Verkehr", it also discusses the exchange and circulation of money, which is translated in one place as "In everyday interactions, copper (and later iron) remained the main metal." ”； In another place, it is translated "......in the daily transactions of bourgeois life directly between producers and consumers", where the latter should be replaced by "intercourse". There is also the phrase "dem internationalen Verkehr" with Verkehr, which also discusses the role of money in international exchanges, which is translated as "international transactions" in one place and "international exchanges" in the other. Here the former is more appropriately translated as "international exchanges". Since many Chinese readers do not understand German and study Marxism through Chinese translations, translators should take into account their receptive psychology, find the most appropriate Chinese words to express Marx's original meaning as much as possible, and present them with accurate and complete translations.
(3) One translation of multiple words in the same topic argument
Marx was very careful in his choice of words when expressing his thoughts, and many words with similar connotations were used to distinguish between them in a meticulous manner. Therefore, although it is not impossible to translate multiple words in translation, it is necessary to be cautious and avoid such situations as much as possible. For example, in the same passage of the 1857-1858 economic manuscript provided by MEGA² (the Complete Works Chinese 2nd Edition, Volume 30 divides this passage into two natural paragraphs) on the same printed page, Marx has this passage: "The needs that arise from history are the needs generated by production itself, and the more social needs, that is, the needs generated from social production and exchange, are manifested as necessary, the higher the degree of development of real wealth." ”）
The word "exchange" here corresponds to the English word "intercourse", which is occasionally used in this German paragraph; As has been explained, the word is the German word "Verkehr". He then argues how universal exchange can create a world market, and the Chinese translation uses the concept of "exchange" twice, corresponding to "Austausch" (exchange) and its referent. Chinese readers who see three Chinese words "exchange" in a row will think that they correspond to the same foreign language word, but this is not the case. The first word "exchange" should be replaced by the word "exchange". Marx's argument for "exchange" involves the discussion of "social needs", and this is a comprehensive problem that arises from social production (material aspect) and also derives from social interaction (spiritual aspect). The last two "exchanges" are accurately translated, and the basis of the world market is the universal exchange of goods. The same Chinese word, the original word is different, and it is put together, and the translation should be more accurate so as not to mislead the reader.
In 1859, in his first work on political economy, Critique of Political Economy, in the section "On the Doctrine of the Unit of Measurement of Money", Marx mentioned the measurement of the value of Prussian banknotes, and the latest translation is as follows:
For example, the Prussian paper thaler, although legally prescribed not to be honored, immediately depreciated when it was lower than the silver thaler in daily circulation and therefore could not be fulfilled in practice.
In this section, you can see the Chinese word "circulation", and the corresponding German word is mostly the basic word "Cirkulation" (circulation) of nouns or compound words, or the verb "cirkulieren" corresponding to nouns. For example, Bishop Berkeley "confused gold and silver as a measure of value with gold and silver as a means of circulation", "the Asigne franc circulated as a symbol of the value of silver coins", etc. Only the "circulation" in the above paragraph is not "Cirkulation". When Marx speaks of the "everyday circulation" of Prussian banknotes, the original text is the prepositional phrase "im gewöhnlichen Verkehr". The adjective "gewöhnlich" means "general, ordinary, everyday" and the noun "Verkehr" should be translated as "communicative". While he used many of the concepts of "Cirkulation", it was considered that he would suddenly switch to "Verkehr". The Prussian low-grade paper money thaller is an intermediary between ordinary people in their daily lives, and the translation of "daily circulation" does not reflect the interpersonal relationship between people, nor does it reflect the idea that behind the money is the human labor entity that Marx emphasized in this section.
In Volume 3 of Capital, Marx says: "As long as this devaluation does not indicate the actual stagnation of production and of railway and canal transport, the cessation of enterprises that have begun to operate, and the waste of capital on worthless enterprises, a country will never be diminished by the bursting of the soap bubble of nominal money capital." ”
Most of the original words for "transport" in the translations of Capital and its manuscripts correspond to "transport", but the "transport" in this sentence corresponds to "Verkehr". Around this time, Marx spoke of the amount of money that shares represent the amount of money advanced by shareholders, and in no way ruled out that shares were only a form of fraud. It is naturally people who are defrauded, abstracted into stocks. So, while "devaluation does not indicate a real stagnation in production and in the transport of railways and canals" is a description of the operation of railways and canals, it does not refer solely to the "transport" function of railways and canals themselves, and "Verkehr" clearly has a broad meaning, including interpersonal interactions, and fraud is also a kind of interpersonal relationship. This is understandable why "transport" corresponds to "transport" everywhere else, except for "Verkehr". The phrase was changed to "as long as this devaluation does not indicate a ...... of actual stagnation in production and the exchange of railways and canals", distinguishing the subtle differences between Transport and Verkehr. "Correspondence" can not only refer to the daily operation of railways and canals, but also represent the relationship between people behind the operation of railways and canals.
The careless translation of Capital and its manuscripts will erase the nuances between them and affect the reader's comprehensive and accurate understanding of Marx. For readers, they need to be more vigilant about this phenomenon of translation when studying it specifically, and they must verify the original text and carefully understand the meaning of each word used by Marx.
Five
Several important communication ideas of Marx and Engels are clearly revealed by the clarification of the translation problem
In 2023, a recent doctoral graduate majoring in communication went to a 985 university for an interview and told the story of the enlightenment of Marx and Engels' ideas on the 19th century communication revolution to the development of China's journalism and communication industry today. This important content of the Marxist outlook on journalism, which the professors of this discipline do not know, may be related to the fact that there is no clear expression of "communication revolution" or "communication and transportation revolution" in the current treatises of Marx and Engels. In this regard, I would like to introduce some of the important points of their views on communication in Capital and its manuscripts, which have been obscured by improper translation.
(1) Marx and Engels' thoughts on the great significance of the revolution of exchanges
As early as the 40s of the 19th century, Marx and Engels paid close attention to the revolution of communication in England, especially the invention and popularization of the telegraph. In July 1853, Marx spoke of the telegram consolidating "the political unity which had enabled India to be stronger and more extensive than it had been under the Great Mughals". In September of the same year, he spoke of "a telegraph network throughout the Indian peninsula." In January 1855, Marx argued twice that "the telegraph has turned the whole of Europe into a huge commercial exchange".
In 1867 only in the first volume of Capital, Marx mentioned the communicative revolution twice, but the current translation does not fully express the connotation of his argument and does not attract the attention of researchers in this discipline. Here's an up-to-date translation of one of the arguments:
The revolution in the mode of industrial and agricultural production in particular necessitates a revolution in the general conditions of the social production process, i.e. in the means of transport. Just as the means of transport possessed by a society with small agriculture and urban handicrafts as its "hubs" (I borrow Fourier's phrase) with its family sideline were no longer able to meet the needs of the workshop handicraft period, which had an expanded social division of labour, concentrated means of labour and workers, and the colonial market, and was in fact transformed, the means of transport left over from the workshop handicraft period were soon transformed into a frenzied rate of production and a huge scale of production. The shackles of big industry, which often throws large quantities of capital and workers from one sphere of production to another and which have newly established world market linkages, cannot endure.
The original word "Kommunikations-und Transportmittel" confirmed by Marx three times in a row is "Kommunikations-und Transportmittel". Previously, the first edition of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels was translated as "means of transportation", but the new translation has been changed to "means", and "means" has a broader meaning than "tools", and the translation is more accurate. However, the conjunction of und (and) contains two parallel basic words Kommunikation and Transport, which is still problematic to translate as "means of transportation", because "transportation" is basically synonymous and repeated in the contemporary Chinese Chinese context, which is equivalent to missing the translation of Kommunikation. "Transportation" only expresses the process of moving from one place to another on the material level, and does not translate the process of information transmission contained in the original text, and when Chinese readers see the word "transportation", they will reflect ships and railways, and will not include "telegraph" and other means of information transmission. This should be translated as "means of communication and transport". The significance of these means lies in the fact that they are the "general conditions" of "big industry with newly established links to the world market" in the process of social production.
The editors of Part II of MEGA² (Capital and its manuscripts) point out, inter alia, that until the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century (shortly before Marx's death) Marx spoke in his letters that he could not complete the rest of Capital without analyzing the new phenomena - the financial economy and the transport and communication industry (Transport-und Kommunikationsindustrie) were becoming powerful and profitable sectors on a par with manufacturing, It's not an excuse, it's an insight. These two fields are the core areas of serving the information industry (financial industry and information industry) in today's era. The accuracy of Marx's prediction of the development of human society has made our contemporaries ashamed. We found the letter to which the editor was referring, and now there is only a translation of the 1972 version: "Railway...... Not only because it has finally become (along with ocean-going steamships and telegraphs) a means of communication compatible with the modern means of production......". The German equivalent of "means of communication" was "Kommunikationsmittel", which at that time could be understood as "means of communication", and the translator was level. Now, it is more accurate to translate it as "means of communication". The editors of the forensic edition also note that it is worth noting the long list of key words that Marx compiled in 1879-1880 for his "Marginal Notes to Adolf Wagner's Textbook of Political Economy" on the influence of means of communication and transport (Kommunikations-und Transportmittel) on the economy. This material further shows that Marx is ready to deepen his study of the world revolution of communication. These notes are included in MEGA² Part IV. as Marx's treatise, but unfortunately the notes covering this period have not yet been published.
In 1893, after Marx's death, Engels edited and published the third volume of Marx's Capital, and supplemented the fourth chapter of it, further arguing for the revolution of communication, the latest translation of which is:
The main way to reduce circulation time is to improve traffic. In the last 50 years, there has been a revolution in transportation, which can only be compared to the industrial revolution of the second half of the 18th century. On land, gravel roads have been relegated to a secondary position by railroads, at sea, slow irregular sailing ships have been relegated to a secondary position by fast regular steamship routes, and the entire earth is covered with telegraph networks. It was the Suez Canal that really opened up steamship traffic to East Asia and Australia.
The subject corresponding to the above "revolution" is "Kommunikationen", which translates as "transportation" really should not be, and the specific situations listed later clearly say that "the whole earth is covered with telegraph networks", how can it be summarized as "transportation" in the current Chinese Chinese context? It should be translated as "in terms of communication", and the connotation of "communication" is broad. Here, Engels explicitly juxtaposes this revolution with the "industrial revolution" of the 18th century, which shows Engels' continued firmness in carrying out his and Marx's views.
(2) Marx affirmed the formation of "a system of river ships, railways, ocean-going ships and telegraphs"
In the fourth German edition of Capital Volume 1 (revised by Engels, the version commonly used in China), Marx has a very important argument about the situation of communications and transportation in the 19th century, and the latest translation is now: "Leaving aside the completely transformed sailing industry, the transportation industry has gradually adapted itself to the mode of production of large industry by means of the system of river steamers, railways, ocean-going steamers, and the telegraph." ”
The Chinese translation of "transport industry" is "Kommunikations-und Transportwesen", which should be translated as "communication and transport industry", omitting the connotation of Kommunikation. Marx speaks of "the system of river ships, railways, ocean-going ships and telegraphs" (ein System von Flußdampfschiffen, Eisenbahnen, oceanischen Dampfschiffen und Telegraphen), a social system that combines material movement and information exchange, and about 200 words (in Chinese) before this passage, Marx also speaks of the "modern printing press", in other words, and he actually belongs to the printing and publishing industry to this system. He used the conjunction "communications and transportation" to refer to all forms and means of human interaction at the time, with a broad vision and a deep sense of thought. The current Chinese translation narrows his reference to "transportation", and it will be difficult for Chinese readers to understand the characteristics of Marx's communication ideas in the context of historical materialism. With regard to this system of communication and transport, Marx, in the same book and in the same chapter, further argues its role after the revolutionary change: "As soon as the general conditions of production adapted to large industry are formed, the mode of production acquires an elasticity, a capacity for sudden and leapfrogging expansion". In the second half of the 20 th century, the world's information industry began to exert a tremendous impact on human social and economic development, and in fact it is a contemporary version of what Marx called in the 19th century the ability of the communications and transportation industry to "suddenly expand by leaps and bounds" to promote social and economic development.
In addition to the fourth German edition of Capital Volume 1, we have also checked the German first, second and French editions of Capital Volume 1 revised by Marx, as well as the German third and English editions revised by Engels.
(3) Marx argues the essence of the means of communication and transportation: the use of time to eliminate space
In recent years, Marx's exposition on "using time to eliminate space" has been cited more and more, but his specific exposition has been cited very little as a whole, because if you study his exposition in this regard, you will find that Marx is talking about "transportation", which seems to have a certain distance from what we now call information dissemination and sharing. This is not unrelated to the current Chinese translation of "means of transportation". Marx's 1857-1858 economic manuscripts have a number of arguments about "using time to eliminate space", and the following is one of the more important ones:
The more production is based on exchange value, and therefore on exchange, the more important the material conditions of exchange – the means of transport – are for production. Capital, by its very nature, seeks to transcend all spatial boundaries. Therefore, the creation of the material conditions for exchange – the means of transport – is essential for capital: the use of time to destroy space. Since the direct product can realize its value on a large scale in distant markets only with the reduction of the cost of transport, and on the other hand, since the means of transport and transport themselves can only become the realm of value multiplication, the realm of labour driven by capital, only in the case of large-scale transactions in which necessary labour is compensated, the production of cheap means of transport is the condition of production on the basis of capital, and thus the means of transport are created by capital.
In this argument, Marx uses the conjunction "Communication+Transport" four times in succession, and there are slight differences between the original German. The first and second conjunctions are the same, i.e. "Communications-und Transportmittel", and the original translation "means of transport" should be translated as "means of communication and means of transport"; The third without the connecting symbol "-", i.e. "Communikationsmittel und Transport", the corresponding Chinese translation is "means of communication and transport", which should be translated as "means of communication and transport"; The fourth (the fifth in the Chinese translation is a pronoun in the original text, referring to the fourth) is translated as "means of transport", and the original word is "Transport-und Communikationsmittel", which should be translated as "means of transport and communication". Here Marx discusses the increasingly important role of the means of communication and transport in capitalist mass production: the more production is based on exchange value, the more important the means of communication and transport become.
The nature of capital is to make as much profit as possible, and if it can earn more beyond space, it will do so. Therefore, in this passage, Marx's statement that "capital, by its very nature, strives to transcend all spatial boundaries" is in this sense, and here it is a simplified expression. According to the context, he meant the means of communication and transportation as the control of capital (especially the telegraph, since the steamships and railways at that time were limited beyond space), and by the nature of their service, "the use of time to destroy space". In a series of news reports written by Marx in the 50s of the 19th century, a considerable amount of content was to expose how the French emperor and the British newspapers took advantage of the time difference between the rapid transmission of telegraphic information and the time difference between the reception of different regions to engage in exchange speculation, which he called "news blackmail". Understood in this way, Marx's summary of "using time to eliminate space" is actually given the necessary material conditions for modern production -- the means of communication and transportation (especially the means of communication, which have been transformed into a huge financial industry and information industry in contemporary times), which is his summary of its essential characteristics. In another place, Marx directly summarizes it as a broader concept: "Verkehr". He wrote: "Capital, on the one hand, seeks to destroy all the local limits of exchange, that is, exchange, and to conquer the whole earth as its market, and on the other hand, it seeks to destroy space with time."
(4) The development of Marx's means of communication has led to changes in the concept of time and space
From the current point of view, the means of communication in the 19th century seem to be very backward, but at the moment when the electronic medium first appeared, Marx was already deeply aware of the changes in the concept of time and space brought about by it. His discussion of this aspect is distributed in the volumes of Capital and its manuscripts, but it has long been ignored by the discipline as a concept of communication. For example, in the first volume of Capital, Marx talks about the understanding of "dense population":
Countries with smaller populations but developed means of transportation have more dense populations than countries with larger populations but less developed means of transportation; In this sense, for example, the northern states of the United States are more densely populated than India.
The cause of this change in perception is the "means of transport" (Kommunikationsmittel, two places), and when contemporary people see "means of transport", even if they know the historical context, because of the connotation limitations of the word, they can only think of railways and ships, when there were no automobiles, and it may be faster to transport goods to a place than to a place without railways or shipping, but to make an area densely populated (conceptually), it is impossible without a rapid means of information transmission. Therefore, it should be translated as a "means of communication" with a wide connotation, otherwise it is impossible to understand the change in the perception of time and space that Marx said that "the northern states of the United States are more densely populated than those of India".
In the chapter 14 of Volume 2 of Capital, "Time of Circulation", Marx has a chapter on the discussion, but the current Chinese translations have inadvertently obscured the connotation of "communication" or "means of communication" in the original text, such as the following discussion:
The improvement of the means of transport [Kommunikations und Transportmittel] will absolutely shorten the period during which goods can be moved; …… As a result of the development of the means of transport [Transport-und Kommunikationsmittel], this relative difference will change in a way that is inconsistent with the natural distance. For example, a railway from the place of production to a major centre of population agglomeration in the interior could make a closer point in the interior without railway distance, absolutely or relatively, farther away from the natural distance. Similarly, this situation also changes the relative distance from the place of production to the larger sales market, which shows that with the change of means of transport [Transport-und Kommunikationsmittel], the old production centers declined and new ones arose.
This is the latest translation of this chapter, and 60% of this chapter is devoted to arguing how the development of means of communication has led to a change in the understanding of the concept of time and space, Marx uses the conjunction "Kommunikation + Transport" 6 times before and after (the first Kommunikation comes first, and the other 5 Transport comes first) to analyze the macro causes of the change in the concept of time and space, which is now translated as "means of transportation", and this chapter talks about " The acceleration of the concentration of a large number of people and capital in a certain place", "the quarrel between the representatives of industry and commerce and the railway companies in various places", "the acceleration of shipping and the establishment of the telegraph", etc., do not depend on railways and steamships alone, but on the development of means of communication, so these six conjunctions should be translated as "means of communication and transport" or "means of transport and communication", so as to fully explain what Marx talks about in the above quotation "change in a way that is inconsistent with natural distance" or what is mentioned later Long-distance transportation is relatively much cheaper than short-distance transportation."
In the 1863-1867 economic manuscripts, Marx also discussed in many places that due to the development of the "means of communication", the change in the understanding of the concept of time and space led to the re-understanding of differential rent, the rate of profit, the value of capital, etc., and only one argument is taken from each below:
Without an increase in market prices, location can also bring better land into competition through improved means of transportation, as we have seen everywhere in the western states of the United States, for example, and still see it.
The change in the time of circulation, i.e. the effect of its shortening and lengthening (and the means of transport associated with it), on the profit margin......
We will further examine the reduction in the value of constant capital or savings in constant capital expenditure resulting from the shortening of the time of circulation, in this case the development of means of transportation as a material element.
The original word "means of transportation" in the above translation is "Kommunikationsmittel", which should be translated as "means of communication". All the gains that result from the progress of the means of communication, which Marx summed up as "saving", are, in the final analysis, the saving of time, and Marx valued time so much because he knew that "the less time a society needs to produce wheat, livestock, etc., the more time it will win for other production, material or spiritual production." His foothold included "the production of the spirit."
(5) Marx on the characteristics of the "means of communication" in Asian society
Capital and its manuscripts contain much discussion of the characteristics of interaction in ancient societies, including those of Oriental Asia. In August 1857 he drafted the first outline of the writing of Capital, and the last part of the title included the influence of ancient means of communication, which reads:
The impact of the means of transport. World history is not something that has always existed in the past; History as the history of the world is the result.
Because the word "Communicationsmittel" in the article is translated as "means of transportation" rather than "means of communication", it has never attracted the attention of journalism scholars. Marx attached equal importance to the material and spiritual exchanges of human beings in history, and he has made many expositions on the characteristics of ancient Asian society and spiritual exchanges in China, but they have been submerged in the technical phrases of political economy and need to be salvaged. For example, in an economic manuscript of 1857-1858 he said:
In this case, the common conditions of actual appropriation by labour, such as irrigation channels, which played a very important role among the peoples of Asia, and means of transportation, etc., are expressed in the form of a higher unity, the enterprise of an autocratic government that overrides the small communes.
The word "means of transportation" here corresponds to "Communicationsmittel", which should be translated as "means of communication", so that the researcher can incorporate all the possible spiritual matters of the era. It is about the interaction in the construction of huge structures, including the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China. In an economic manuscript of 1861-1863, Marx quoted Richard Jones, the last classical British political economist, from a description of labor cooperation in ancient Asiatic society. Jones's narrative refers to "the arm of almost all the non-agricultural population," and Marx goes on to write:
Huge eccentrics with many eyes, many arms, and so on replace individuals with only one pair of eyes and so on. From this came the monumental works of the Roman army, many magnificent public buildings in Asia and Egypt. Wherever the state disposes of the nation's income, the state has the power to move the masses.
This is a very special situation of group spiritual intercourse, which arises because of the power character of Asian society that he analyzes: "manifested itself in a higher unity, that is, the cause of an autocratic government over the small communes", and "wherever the state disposes of the national income, the state has the power to move the masses". In the first volume of Capital, Marx again quotes Jones to illustrate the power character behind this interaction in Asiatic society: "It is precisely because the income on which the laborer lives is concentrated in the hands of one or a few people that this type of undertaking is possible. ”
It is only with this recognition of the peculiarities of Asiatic means of intercourse that Marx can return to current international events to draw scientific conclusions about the peculiarities of social intercourse in ancient China: "Just as the emperor is usually revered as the father of all China, so the emperor's officials are also considered to have maintained this patriarchal relationship in their respective jurisdictions." However, the corruption of the officials, who had made a fortune by conniving at the smuggling of opium, gradually undermined this patriarchal authority, the only spiritual link between the various parts of the vast state apparatus. ”
Six
epilogue
Capital is primarily a work of political economy, but Marx's arguments are broad and profound, touching almost all aspects and fields of human social life and production, and his concept of communication is also deeply engraved in it. Starting from 1845-1846 with his and Engels' The German Ideology, they expressed a very broad view of communication through the use of core concepts such as Verkehr and Kommunikation, and in the later vast Capital and its manuscripts, they further developed the concept of communication of historical materialism that they had argued in their early years.
They are Germans and write mainly in German (partly in English and French), with Chinese readers reading Chinese translations. These two concepts, which are often used interchangeably, are often translated as "transportation" and "transportation", thus obscuring the idea of communication in them. Engels once wrote a special article on translating Marx's Capital, regarding it as "a truly honest scientific work". We should carry out this spirit in this compilation. We have compared and analyzed the translations of Capital and its manuscripts in the 1st and 2nd Chinese editions of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels, and found that there are 5 places in Volumes 1-3 (Volumes 44-46) of Capital included in the 2nd edition of the Complete Works, and the "tools" in the 1st edition (Volumes 23-25) have been changed to "means". In the second edition of the Complete Works, Volume 3 (Volume 46) of Das Kapital added three untranslated "exchanges", and changed the words "circulation", "commerce" and "exchange" in the first edition to "exchanges". The "Verkehr" in the 2nd edition of the Complete Works of 1857-1858 Economic Manuscripts (Volumes 30 and 31) has 13 changes based on the context. These subtle changes have shifted the connotation of "Verkehr" from being limited to the material level to the level of material and spiritual integration, reflecting the elements of interpersonal communication and information communication contained in it. However, at present, the second edition of the Complete Works of Capital and its manuscripts still do not fully reflect Marx's ideas in terms of the translation of the concepts of Kommunikation and Verkehr.
The compilation of Capital and its manuscripts is a work that has been going on for many years and has not yet been completed, not by one person or a few people, but by two generations and hundreds of people. The compilers of each volume are different, and they have different degrees of understanding of Marx's thought, so it is necessary to conduct more academic discussions, coordination, and trade-offs among the various volumes, and to listen to the opinions and suggestions of all sectors of society, especially the Marxist research circles. Together, we will push the cause of studying Marxism to a more accurate and scientific level.
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This article is from International Press, the annotations are omitted, and the academic citation is subject to the paper version.
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