《英国工人阶级状况》视域下恩格斯生命健康思想探析

A Probe into Engels’ Thought of Life and Health in the Context of The Condition of the Working-Class in England

摘要: 当前国内学界对《英国工人阶级状况》的研究多侧重于史实梳理，对恩格斯生命健康思想的完整理论逻辑与哲学根基挖掘仍有待深化。本文在系统梳理国内外批判健康研究相关前沿成果的基础上，嵌入福柯生命政治、医疗社会学“医疗化”等中层理论工具，剖析资本运行逻辑如何通过劳动规训、空间隔离等具体社会机制造成劳动者健康损害，揭示资本的逐利趋向与人的生命健康需求之间的内在张力，为新时代健康中国建设提供可操作的经典理论参照。本文立足历史唯物主义文本解读法，以《英国工人阶级状况》为核心文本，结合德国古典哲学、古典政治经济学等理论渊源，对恩格斯的相关论述开展系统梳理。该思想以现实的肉体的人为本体基础，从制度批判维度剖析资本主义生产方式对工人生命健康权利的制度性剥夺，揭示工厂劳动、城市居住环境、女工童工特殊遭遇带来的多重健康伤害。恩格斯生命健康思想不仅可以阐释当代资本主义社会的公共健康困境，同时坚持以劳动者生命发展为核心的价值立场，为我国推进健康中国建设、引导资本规范运行、维护劳动者健康权益提供重要价值遵循。

Abstract: Existing domestic academic studies on The Condition of the Working‑Class in England mostly focus on sorting out historical facts, while the theoretical logic and philosophical foundation of Engels’ thought on life and health have not been sufficiently explored. Based on a systematic review of relevant cutting-edge achievements of critical health research at home and abroad, this paper embeds middle-level theoretical tools such as Foucault’s biopolitics and the “medicalization” concept of medical sociology, analyzes how the operational logic of capital causes health damage to workers through specific social mechanisms such as labor discipline and spatial isolation, and reveals the inherent tension between the profit-seeking tendency of capital and the demand for human life and health, so as to provide operable classical theoretical reference for the construction of Healthy China in the new era. Adopting the textual‑interpretation approach of historical materialism, this paper takes The Condition of the Working‑Class in England as the core primary text. It sorts out Engels’ relevant arguments systematically by tracing theoretical origins including German classical philosophy, and classical political economy. This thought takes real, corporeal human beings as its ontological foundation. From the perspective of institutional critique, it exposes how the capitalist mode of production causes institutional deprivation of proletarians’ rights to life and health. It concretely analyzes multiple health damages inflicted upon the working class caused by factory labor, poor urban living and public‑hygiene conditions, as well as special harms suffered by women workers and child laborers under capitalist exploitation. Engels rejects the view that workers’ health crises stem merely from individual habits or personal morality. Instead, he attributes widespread physical damage, occupational diseases and premature death among workers to the institutional logic of capital‑driven surplus‑value pursuit. Engels’ thought on life and health possesses cross‑epoch explanatory power. It provides a classical theoretical tool to interpret persistent public‑health dilemmas within modern capitalist societies. Meanwhile, its value standpoint that human life ranks above capital interests supplies important normative guidance for China’s Healthy China strategy. It offers theoretical references for upholding the laborer centered principle, regulating capital order, safeguarding laborers’ health rights, and promoting health equity in contemporary Chinese social‑practice.