From Reverence to Transcendence

Dialogue of Thought: An Engagement with Marx

A foreigner's question stopped everyone in the room

One year, I was chatting with a few friends. Among us was a foreign friend.

When the conversation turned to faith, culture, and national identity, he suddenly asked a question. He asked it casually, even with a little curiosity:

"Your country is so large, yet it believes in the thought of a foreigner. That is no problem—history is history. But what I want to ask is: will you go on like this forever?"

"Can it be that your own nation cannot, in the future, produce a thought of its own—a Chinese thought, believed by the Chinese people—so that it truly means a nation, from its folk to its polity, believes in a soul of thought born of its own people?"

When he finished, the room fell silent.

That silence was not the silence of thought. It was the silence of not knowing how to respond.

The few of us looked at one another; no one answered immediately. It was not that there was no answer; it was that any simple "yes" or "no" felt like betrayal.

If we said "yes"—what would that mean? Denying history? Ingratitude? Marx's debt of gratitude to this country is real and immense. From the flames of revolution to the torrent of construction, from utter poverty to the world's second-largest economy—without this imported thought, China might still have been groping in the dark for much longer. That is a fact; it cannot be forgotten, and it should not be.

If we said "no"—then what would that mean? A civilization that has continued for five thousand years, a nation now marching toward great rejuvenation—must it forever use other people's thought to explain its own destiny? Use other people's concepts to define its own path? And where, then, would the so-called "cultural confidence" be placed?

We were not floored by the question. We were stopped by it.

What it asked was not a theoretical question, but a question of identity.

The true cultural confidence of a nation must ultimately come down to one thing: can we speak our own truth in our own language?

This does not mean negating Marx. To revere him is only right. But reverence does not mean lingering forever in his shadow.

Just as a son may be grateful to his father for life, he cannot spend his whole life merely repeating his father's words. He must eventually find his own voice—not as betrayal, but as growth.

Since Marxism was introduced into China, it has been deeply integrated with the Chinese revolution and Chinese civilization, forming a Marxism that is Sinicized and adapted to the times. This itself is a great tree of foreign thought that has grown on native soil.

But "Sinicization" is only the first step. Growing, out of China's own soil, a tree of thought that truly belongs to this nation itself—that is the final completion of "cultural confidence."

That day, we gave no answer. But the question, like a thorn, has stayed in my heart ever since.

This book is my answer to that thorn.

This book is not a settling of accounts, but a farewell

This book is not a settling of accounts.

To settle accounts means: to trample the opponent underfoot and declare one's own victory.

If I did such a thing to Marx, I would be an ungrateful man—because the sharpest tools in my own thinking were almost all first honed by him.

This book is a farewell.

A farewell is not betrayal.

A farewell is a son who has stood long on his father's shoulders and finally begins to see the distance with his own eyes. He is still grateful to the one who let him climb up—but he cannot forever see only the landscape that man saw.

Marx is one of the thinkers I respect most. This is not empty courtesy.

In the whole history of thought, few have been able, like Marx, to dissect the body of capitalism with something close to surgical precision, letting the world see the bones and blood vessels of its inner workings.

The dialectics he left behind, historical materialism, and his revelation of capitalism's structural contradictions remain, to this day, among the most precious treasures of humanity's treasury of thought.

Every page I write stands on his shoulders.

But even a giant has his era.

When Marx wrote Das Kapital, the world had no electric lights, no automobiles, no internet, and certainly no artificial intelligence.

The factories he observed were the stooped backs of child laborers in Manchester's textile mills. The value he analyzed was the physical exhaustion of workers tightening every screw with their own hands.

In that era, "labor" almost equaled "physical labor," "value" almost equaled "labor time," and "class" almost equaled "whether one owns the means of production."

These judgments were precise in the context of the nineteenth century—even genius.

But one hundred and sixty years have passed.

Today, a programmer writing a line of code can benefit billions of people around the world. A scientist's flash of inspiration can create an entirely new industry. An AI device can, in seconds, complete the labor that thousands of people once performed in a lifetime.

The forms of value have long surpassed the category of "labor time." The divisions of class have long surpassed the dimension of "ownership of the means of production." And the essence of the human being has been pushed by the development of biology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence to a level far deeper than "the ensemble of social relations."

This is not Marx's fault. It is the power of time.

Any serious thinker who truly inherits Marx's spirit should not enshrine his every word as dogma, but should treat him the way he treated Hegel—take up his method and renew his conclusions.

Marx himself did exactly that.

He did not remain within Hegel's absolute spirit; he pulled dialectics down from the heavens to the earth.

What we must do today, in the final analysis, is to pull his method from the nineteenth-century factory into the intelligent society of the twenty-first century.

The six questions this book must answer

The six questions that remain unresolved after Marx:

First, what is a person? Marx said the essence of a person is the ensemble of all social relations. The power of this proposition is that it frees the human being from abstract "theories of human nature" and places him within concrete historical and social structures. But it leaves a question: on whom do social relations act? Beneath the role, there is still a living subject. After a worker is laid off, he is still a person. He will feel afraid, anxious, unable to make sense of it, and he will make new plans. These feelings cannot be exhausted by the role of "worker."

Second, how does consciousness form? Marx said social being determines social consciousness. The power of this proposition is that it drags spiritual activity from "the heavens" down to "the earth." But it leaves a question: how does social being determine consciousness? In identical circumstances, some submit, some resist, some start businesses, some withdraw. Between social structure and action there is a judgment system. How does this judgment system work? How do emotions affect judgment? How does experience shape cognition? Where does the capacity for reflection come from?

Third, how is value realized? Marx said value is the socially necessary labor time congealed in a commodity. The power of this proposition is that it reveals the social relations behind commodity exchange. But it leaves a question: where is value realized? A commodity being manufactured, entering a warehouse, being sold, and being truly used are different stages. Does value come from input, or from the satisfaction of need? And what is the relationship among price, cost, profit, and person-centered value?

Fourth, how does a free society persist? Marx envisioned communist society: public ownership of the means of production, the extinction of classes, the withering away of the state, and the free development of every person. The power of this vision is that it gives a direction for human emancipation. But it leaves a question: how does a free society persist? Even if the means of production are made public, organizations may still form interests of their own. Even if class antagonism declines, conflicts over dignity, freedom, identity, power, and cognition will still exist.

Fifth, how do the six questions form a chain? "What is a person" determines how we understand motives. "How consciousness forms" determines how environment becomes action. "How value is realized" determines why society produces certain things. "How wealth differentiates" determines how the gains of value harden into strata. "How organizations stay tied to people" determines whether public institutions can keep serving. "How free people unite" determines what can sustain cooperation at low cost in future society. These six questions are not six unrelated books, but one causal chain.

Sixth, how do we avoid single-cause theories? Human thought often seeks one ultimate key: economics, power, culture, genes, cognition, institutions, or morality. The virtue of a single variable is sharpness. Its vice is that it easily flattens complex reality. Saying "every problem is an economic problem" is satisfying. Saying "every problem is a cognitive problem" is also satisfying. But satisfaction is not accuracy. What this book seeks is not a new monistic determinism, but a set of hierarchical relations: which variables are more fundamental? Which are intermediary? Which are results? Which feed back in reverse?

This book's core framework: eight volumes, thirty-two chapters

Volume one, methodology (chapters one through four). It defines the method of engaging with Marx: distinguishing Marx's own thought from dogmatized versions; clarifying the meaning of "transcendence"; sorting out the six questions still unresolved after Marx; and drawing the book's overall theory tree.

Volume two, the living subject (chapters five through eight). It answers "why people act": before becoming laborers, people are first living beings; the eleven private-good desires form the underlying map of action; the interaction of desires produces the sedimentation of relationships; and it moves from single class interest to multidimensional human contradictions.

Volume three, judgment and cognition (chapters nine through twelve). It answers "how people judge and take action": the mediating mechanism between social being and the judgment system; the four-system, one-pivot judgment model; how cognition determines the efficiency of resource transformation; and the move from passive judgment to active meta-judgment.

Volume four, the occurrence of value (chapters thirteen through sixteen). It answers "how value is formed and realized": input is not value; the eight nodes of value's life cycle; why price and cost cannot be equated with value; and how public good becomes the transformative mechanism of value.

Volume five, profit and alienation (chapters seventeen through twenty). It answers "how value is captured and when it turns into exploitation": profit cannot be judged by identity alone; the creation of value is not the capture of value; the three boundaries of alienation (reversibility, reciprocity, and subjectivity); and the civilizational divide between deriving profit through good and deriving profit through evil.

Volume six, the wealth gap (chapters twenty-one through twenty-four). It answers "how a gap turns from a one-time result into an intergenerational structure": the five sources of the wealth gap; the dual reproduction mechanism of structure and cognition; the capacity-building path to common prosperity; and class mobility and the choice of direction.

Volume seven, state and organization (chapters twenty-five through twenty-eight). It answers "why public ownership still cannot guarantee public conduct": the mechanism of alienation in public organizations; an observable framework of eleven dimensions for governance; the law of organizational attention orientation; and socialism as a constructive state rather than a finished state.

Volume eight, future governance (chapters twenty-nine through thirty-two). It answers "how the association of free individuals keeps operating": what Marx's association of free individuals still lacks; the complementarity of Dao governance and rule of law; how institutions grow goodwill; and a scenario matrix for the coordinated governance of governance by persons, rule of law, and Dao governance.

This chain can be written as: life desires → judgment and cognition → action and interaction → sedimentation of relationships → creation and realization of value → capture and distribution of value → wealth and structural position → organization and state → feedback and correction → subjective awakening and the evolution of civilization.

None of the arrows is mechanical causation. Every link has reverse effects.

This book's core theoretical increments

First, from "the ensemble of social relations" to "the living subject." Marx said the essence of a person is the ensemble of all social relations. This book adds: before becoming a laborer, a person is first a living being. Social relations act on a living body of flesh and blood, with desires and feelings—not on a blank board on which any label can be pasted. The eleven private-good desires—preservation, self-care, enrichment, beauty, pleasure, compassion, reflection, confidence, strength, esteem, and freedom—cross all classes. Workers have the desire for enrichment, and so do capitalists. The difference is not whether these desires exist, but how they are realized.

Second, from "social being determines consciousness" to "the four-system, one-pivot judgment system." Marx said social being determines social consciousness. This book adds: how does social being determine consciousness? In between, there must pass a judgment system. Sensory judgment gives the fastest judgments, closest to the body. Emotional judgment assigns closeness, likes and dislikes, trust, fear, anger, and compassion to experience. Rational judgment handles evidence, causation, comparison, planning, and consistency checks. Aesthetic judgment constructs possible worlds of "what could be." The reflective hub then judges "how I am judging." These five functions work together, but with different people, in different situations, it differs which one takes the helm.

Third, from the "labor theory of value" to "person-centered realized value." Marx said value is the socially necessary labor time congealed in a commodity. This book adds: input is not value. Exchange is not the realization of value either. Value occurs at the moment the subject's state actually changes. Person-centered value is the degree to which an action, product, service, or institution actually satisfies a subject's legitimate private-good desires, in a way that does not systematically harm others and the community. Value is not a mysterious entity floating on things. It is an event of realization that happens in relationships.

Fourth, from "surplus value" to "value capture." Marx said capital's profit comes from surplus labor. This book adds: the creation of value is not the capture of value. A teacher who has taught for thirty years and changed the lives of hundreds of students has created immense person-centered value. Yet his salary may not be high. A platform that, through algorithmic matching, helps countless merchants and consumers has created real value. But it may also, through monopoly, data control, and rule-making, obtain returns far exceeding its contribution. Those who create value do not necessarily receive corresponding returns. Those who receive high returns do not necessarily create corresponding value.

Fifth, from "alienated labor" to "the three boundaries of alienation." Marx said workers are alienated from the product of their labor, from their labor activity, from their species-being, and from other human beings. This book adds: alienation is not "all or nothing." It is a matter of degree. Three boundaries: reversibility—can the subject leave, rest, or switch roles? Reciprocity—does the giving have a comprehensible return? Subjectivity—can the subject understand, appeal, and exit? When all three boundaries fail at once, the same act of "pouring tea and passing water" is no longer "service," but "alienation."

Sixth, from "class analysis" to "structure-cognition compound interest." Marx revealed how ownership and the accumulation of capital produce class structure. This book adds: structure shapes cognitive conditions, and cognition in turn affects the transformation of resources. Wealth can buy a more stable living environment, longer study time, better linguistic and social stimulation, and lower-cost opportunities to fail. These conditions affect the formation of ability. And ability in turn changes the efficiency of using resources. Thus a compounding loop is formed: structure-cognition-value-wealth-restructured.

Seventh, from "public ownership" to "the law of organizational attention orientation." When Marx discussed the Paris Commune, he emphasized the election, accountability, and recallability of public officials. Engels warned even more directly: the organs created by society for the public interest can turn from "servants of society" into "masters of society." This book adds: public ownership is only the starting point of publicness. Whether an organization truly serves the people also depends on governance goals, state capacity, incentive directions, and sustained feedback. Whoever influences an organization's members in rewards, promotion, resources, and reputation over the long run is the one toward whom their information selection, time allocation, and behavioral priorities concentrate.

Eighth, from "the association of free individuals" to "the coordination of three forms of governance." Marx envisioned communist society: public ownership of the means of production, the extinction of classes, the withering away of the state, and the free development of every person. This book adds: the association of free individuals will not appear automatically. Even if the means of production are made public, organizations may still form interests of their own. Even if class antagonism declines, conflicts over dignity, freedom, identity, power, and cognition will still exist. What future society needs is not only an answer about ownership, but also governance mechanisms. Governance by persons, rule of law, and Dao governance are not simple substitutes for one another, but governance tools for different scales, risks, and conditions of trust.

What does this book's "transcendence" of Marx mean

True "transcendence" does not mean declaring the old theory wholly wrong. It means: preserving the explanatory power of the old theory within its valid range, while explaining new facts that the old theory handles with difficulty, and proposing new mechanisms that can be tested.

Einstein's theory of relativity did not "overthrow" Newtonian mechanics. In the slow, macroscopic world, Newtonian mechanics remains precisely valid. Relativity redefined the boundary of Newtonian mechanics within a larger scope of explanation.

The "transcendence" of social theory should also be like this.

Marx's historical materialism, class analysis, and theory of surplus value remain powerful explanatory tools within their valid range.

What this book does is preserve these tools while supplementing the fields they did not fully develop: life desires, judgment mechanisms, the realization of value, the capture of value, organizational attention, and feedback correction.

This is not declaring Marx outdated; it is placing Marx's theory within a larger explanatory framework.

Just as relativity placed Newtonian mechanics within a larger framework.

Newtonian mechanics was not wrong. It simply has its scope of application.

Marx was not wrong. He, too, has his scope of application.

And those who stand on his shoulders can see farther.

This book's core methodology: explanatory domain-boundary-extension

This book repeatedly uses one method: first restore the strongest version of Marx's propositions, then ask on which new problems they need more variables.

For example, attacking the labor theory of value on the grounds that "Marx neglected need" does not hold. The beginning of Das Kapital makes it clear: a commodity must be able to satisfy some human need. A useless thing cannot form value even if labor is expended on it.

What is truly worth asking is this: Marx took use value as a necessary condition for commodity value, yet placed the core determination of the magnitude of value on socially necessary labor time. This theoretical choice has a clear object and leaves a clear boundary. This book's separate concept of "person-centered realized value" is not meant to tamper with Marx's analysis of the value form of commodities under capitalism. It is meant to establish another, outcome-oriented evaluative language for fields such as public services, care, education, digital products, and ecological restoration.

Another example: saying "Marx never saw the internet, so his theory is outdated" is not itself a refutation. Marx never seeing the internet does not mean his core mechanisms cannot explain the platform economy. The real question should be: can his mechanisms extend naturally to new phenomena? If not, what is missing?

Every volume of this book asks two questions: first, in what range does the old theory remain valid? Second, do the new variables we add actually reduce explanatory difficulty?

If a new variable only adds a new way of speaking without reducing difficulty, then it has no reason to exist.

This book's position in the thought system

From Reverence to Transcendence is the core work of the "Dialogue of Thought" section in Hua Guoping's thought system—the key deduction leading from the eight-factor theory of human nature to an intellectual engagement with Marx.

It belongs to the level of dialogue of thought, and answers the core question: how do the human being, value, society, and civilization after Marx continue to evolve, differentiate, construct, and correct themselves.

Its relations to the other works in the system are as follows:

Gongjian (The Philosophy of Breakthrough) establishes the origin point of the eight-factor model—what is a person.

On Human Nature unfolds the philosophical foundation of the eight factors—the underlying logic of good and evil, energy, and civilization.

From Reverence to Transcendence puts the eight-factor model into systematic dialogue with Marx's thought, answering "how society operates."

The Cognitive Divide and Class Differentiation applies the eight-factor model to class analysis, answering "what is the essence of the wealth gap."

The Civilization of Value applies the eight-factor model to economic civilization, answering "how economic civilization should be reconstructed in the age of AI."

Public Good Civilization applies the eight-factor model to institutional evolution, answering "how society moves from imbalance to coordination."

Ultimate Dao Governance applies the eight-factor model to the philosophy of governance, answering "after rule of law, where does human governance go."

Human Happiness Community applies the eight-factor model to the human future, answering "how humanity can live well together."

If Gongjian (The Philosophy of Breakthrough) is the "root" of the system and Civilization Must Not Burn Itself is its "trunk," then From Reverence to Transcendence is one of the system's most important "branches"—it connects the theory of human nature with social theory, taking the eight-factor model from philosophical speculation to social analysis.

This book's ultimate answer

The title of this book is From Reverence to Transcendence: A New Treatise on the Human Being, Value, Society, and Civilization after Marx. This title condenses the core proposition of the whole book:

Reverence: acknowledging Marx's strengths. He looked at society through "relations" rather than "appearances." He revealed how structures shape interests and consciousness. The dialectics he left behind, historical materialism, and his revelation of capitalism's structural contradictions remain, to this day, among the most precious treasures of humanity's treasury of thought.

Transcendence: not declaring the old theory wholly wrong, but preserving the explanatory power of the old theory within its valid range, explaining new facts the old theory handles with difficulty, and proposing new mechanisms that can be tested.

The ultimate answer of this book is: true inheritance is not repeating his conclusions, but advancing the thinking he left unfinished.

It is not "replacing" Marx. I have neither the qualification nor the wish.

Rather: take up the method he taught me, and with the material of the land under my own feet, speak my own understanding of this era.

One day, when China truly produces a soul of thought believed by its own nation—not through the rejection of foreign thought, but through foreign thought taking root, sprouting, and growing into a new tree on this soil—that will be the true completion of "cultural confidence."

That day has not yet come.

But every sincere question, every thought that does not look away, every effort to speak truth in one's own language, is paving the road for that day.

This book is only one brick laid on it.

This book's theoretical boundaries and self-constraints

Every criticism of Marx in this book first answers three questions:

First, is the criticism directed at Marx himself, at the later Marxist tradition, or at some textbook version?

These three are not the same thing. If you charge the simplified propositions of the textbooks to Marx himself, the criticism loses its standing.

Second, is the criticism of an error, an omission, or an explanatory boundary caused by historical conditions?

Marx never seeing the internet does not mean his theory was "wrong." But if his core mechanisms cannot extend naturally to new phenomena, that shows there is room for a successor theory.

Third, does the new theory add a new variable, a new mechanism, or merely new terminology?

If one merely replaces "class" with "position" and "consciousness" with "cognition," without adding explanatory power, that is not progress.

If these three questions are not answered clearly, the "sharpness" of a thought is often only the sharpness of rhetoric.

This book also states clearly its conditions of failure:

If, after deleting Marx's structural analysis, this book's explanations become worse, then this book is not a replacement for Marx.

Only if adding new variables of subject, relationship, value, and feedback enables it to explain more facts without sacrificing the original explanatory power does it constitute successor progress.

If a new concept can only provide different words but cannot reveal new causal mechanisms, it cannot be called progress.

For example, the words "cognition," "public good," and "sedimentation of relationships"—if they merely rename existing concepts, the theory has added no explanatory power.

Only when they can explain differences in behavior within the same structure, the mismatch between value and income, and the alienation of public organizations—problems the existing framework cannot finely distinguish—do they earn an independent standing.

Conclusion

This is a love letter to the social theory of the future.

It adopts not the posture of prophecy, but of foundation-laying—the significance of this book lies not in whether it has been verified, but in whether it has been read, thought about, debated, and put into practice.

It starts from "what is a person" and moves toward "how humanity can live well together." It starts from Marx's strengths and moves toward the distance Marx never saw. It diagnoses the power of structure, proposes the mediation of judgment, traces the realization of value, reveals the mechanisms of capture, analyzes the alienation of organizations, and calls for the coordination of governance.

For the first time, it turns Marx's theory from a closed system into an open framework.

For the first time, it moves Chinese thought from "explaining Marx" toward "engaging with Marx."

For the first time, it turns "transcendence" from a rhetorical victory into a decidable intellectual operation.

This book deserves to be read seriously by everyone who cares about society, cares about human nature, and cares about the future of humanity.

Because what it asks is the most fundamental question:

How does the human being move from necessity to freedom?

And the answer it gives will change how we understand society, how we transform society, and how we move toward the future.