The (supposed) limits of capitalism
資本主義（假設）的限制
Posted on November 27, 2021 by Chiapas Support Committee
By: Raúl Zibechi
作者：拿奧．仕伯池
For a long time some of the Marxists claimed that capitalism has structural and economic limits, established in “laws” that would make their (self) destruction inevitable. Those laws are immanent to the system and are related to central aspects of the functioning of the economy, like the law of the decreasing tendency of the rate of profit, analyzed by Marx in Capital.
長久以來，有些馬克思主義者聲稱資本主義存在著結構性和經濟性的限制，而這些定律確立其(自我)摧毀無可避免。這些定律是內建在建制之中，亦關係著經濟運作上的核心範籌，就比如利潤比率下降的走勢這定律，這是馬克思在資本論中的分析推論。
This thesis led some intellectuals to speak of the “collapse” of the system, always as a consequence of its own contradictions.
這論點導致有些學者經常談論到建制的崩塌，像是它的內在矛盾的必然結果。
More recently, more than a few thinkers argue that capitalism has “environmental limits” that would lead it to destroy itself or at least to change. Its most predatory aspects, when in reality what has limits is life itself on the planet and, very in particular, that of the poor and humiliated half of its population.
到了最近，不少思想家提出資本主義有「環境保護限制」，那會引致它自己的毀滅，或最少都會有所變化。而它最掠奪性的範籌是，在現實中在這地球上真有限制的生命本身，更具體地說，就是貧困人民和備受屈辱的一半人口的生命。
Today, we know that capitalism has no limits. Not even revolutions have been able to eradicate this system since, time and time again, in the bosom of post-revolutionary societies capitalist social relations expand and from within the State the bourgeois class in charge making them of prosper resurfaces.
到了今天，我們知道資本主義並沒有限制。即使多次的革命都未能消滅這個體制，而一次又一次地，在革命後的懷抱中，資本主義式的社會關係會從國家體制當中再一次擴展，控制大局的資產階級總令它捲土重來繁榮興盛。
The expropriation of the means of production and exchange was, and will continue being, a central step for destroying the system, but, more than a century after the Russian revolution, we know that it’s insufficient, if there’s no community control of those means and of the political power in charge of managing them.
奪回生產的基礎和生產成果的交換始終都是摧毀造個體制的核心的一步，但是，在俄羅斯革命的一個世紀後，我們知到這並不足夠，在人民眾群沒有對那些基礎的控制權和管理的政治力量下，這並不足夠。
We also know that organized collective action (the struggle of classes, genders and skin colors against oppressions and the oppressors) is decisive for destroying the system, but this formulation is also partial and insufficient, although genuine.
我們亦都知道，連合行動的組織（跟壓迫及壓迫者對抗的階級、性別和膚色鬥爭）是對摧毀這個體制具決定性的，但這套程式亦並不完全和不足夠，雖然那是確切的。
The updating of thought about the end of capitalism, cannot but go hand in hand with the resistances and constructions of the peoples, in a very particular way of the Zapatistas and the Kurds of Rojava, of the Native peoples of different territories of our America, but also of the Blacks and the campesinos, and in some cases of what we do in the urban peripheries.
就結束資本主義的思考的更新，不能不與各種抗爭和人民眾群的建設攜手並肩，具體來說，那些方法就是，查巴達(Zapatistas)和羅賈瓦(Rojava)的庫爾德人的、我們美洲大陸不同地域的原民的、但亦是黑人和農牧人民的、和在某些情況下亦是我們在城市邊沿所做的。
Some points seem central to overcome this challenge.
以下似乎是克服這挑戰的一些核心重點。
The first is that capitalism is a global system, which encompasses the entire planet and must permanently expand so as not to collapse. As Fernand Braudel teaches us, scale was important in the implantation of capitalism, hence the importance of the conquest of America, since it permitted an embryonic system to spread its wings.
首先，資本主義是一個全球化的體制，它覆蓋整個地球和需要持續擴張來使其不會崩塌。費爾南‧布勞岱爾告訴我們，規模對植入資本主義十分重要，所以征服全美洲十分重要，因為這可容讓這體制的胚胎展趐。
Local struggles and resistances are important, they can even bend capitalism on that scale, but to end the system, alliance/coordination with movements on all continents is essential. Hence the tremendous importance of the Tour for Life that the EZLN is carrying out in Europa these days.
在地鬥爭和抵抗是重要的，她們甚至可在那具體範圍內扭轉資本主義，但如要結束這體制，跟洲際的運動的聯盟／協調是必不可少的。因此，現時查巴達民族解放軍正在歐洲行進的生命之旅是極為重要的。
The second is that the system is not destroyed once and for all, as we debated during the seminar Critical thought versus the Capitalist Hydra, in May 2015. But there is an aspect that profoundly challenges us: only the constant and permanent struggle can suffocate capitalism. It isn’t chopped from a block, like the heads of the Hydra, but in another way.
第二點是，要摧毀這體制並不可能一戰而竟全功，就如我們曾在2015年5月對抗資本主義九頭蛇的批判性思考論壇中提出的討論。但有一個範疇在深切地挑戰著我們：只有持續堅持的鬥爭才可以窒礙資本主義。它並不像九頭蛇的頭一樣，可一下子砍下它，需要用另一些方法。
Strictly speaking, we must say that we don’t know exactly how to end capitalism, because it has never been achieved. But our intuition is that the conditions for its continuity and/or resurgence must be limited, subjected to strict control, not by a party or a State, but by organized communities and peoples.
直接點說，我們必須說明我們並不確實知道如何結束資本主義，因為這件事從未發生過。但我們的直覺是，可讓它存續和回復的條件必須被限制、被嚴格地監控，而這不是由一個政黨或國家進行，需要是由有組織的社群及人民所進行。
The third point is that we can’t defeat capitalism if we don’t construct another world at the same time, other social relations. That other or new world is not a place of arrival, but a way of living that in its daily life prevents the continuity of capitalism. The ways of life, social relations, the spaces that we are capable of creating, must exist in such a way that they are in permanent struggle against capitalism.
第三點是，如我們沒有同時建立另一個世界，另一些社會關係的話，我們不可能打倒資本主義。而另一個世界或一個新世界並不只是一個要去抵達的地方，而是一個生活方式，一個在日常生活中抵抗資本主義的存續的生活方式。這種種生活方式、社會關係、我們可能建立的空間，必須是存在於一個持續跟資本主義鬥爭的方式之中。
The fourth point is that, as long as the State exists, there will be a chance that capitalism will expand again. Contrary to what a certain thought proclaims, let’s say progressive or left, the State is not a neutral tool. The powers below, which are non-state and autonomous powers, are born and exist to prevent capitalist relations from expanding. They are, therefore, powers by and for the anti-capitalist struggle.
第四點是，只要那國家政府一日存在，資本主義就會有機會再次擴張。跟有些思想所宣稱的相反，比如那些進步或左翼，國家政府並不是一個中性的工具。來自底層草根的力量，是非政府和自主的力量，她們的生成和存在是要去防止資本主義關係的擴張。因此，她們是來自和為了反資本鬥爭的力量。
Finally, the new world after capitalism is not a place of arrival, it’s not a paradise where “good living” is practiced, but a space of struggle in which, probably, peoples, women, dissidences and the people below in general, will be in better conditions to continue constructing diverse and heterogeneous worlds.
最後，資本主義之後的新世界並不是一個要去抵達的地方， 那並不是一個實踐「美好生活」的天堂，而是一個奮鬥的空間。在那裡，可能人民、女人、異議者和普遍的底層人民可以有更好的條件，去持續建立種種多元和異質的世界。
I believe that if we stop struggling and constructing the new, capitalism is reborn, even in the other world. The story of Old Antonio who says that the struggle is like a circle, which starts one day but never ends, has enormous currency.
我相信如我們停止鬥爭和建立創新，資本主義就會重生，即使是在那另一世界之中。就如在老安東尼奧那故事中，她說鬥爭就像是一個圓圈，會在某一天開始但永不終結，這很有份量。
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Friday, November 19, 2021
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/11/19/opinion/021a1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
原文以西班牙文刊於工作天日報
2021年11月19日（星期五）
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/11/19/opinion/021a1pol
@narcissan 