自资本主义诞生以来，其主要原则便不断受到审视、批评和抨击。其中最为猛烈的攻击，来自马克思、恩格斯和列宁等社会主义与共产主义哲学家。也有一些伊斯兰思想家从另一个角度提出了批判。

Since its inception, capitalism and its main principles have been under scrutiny, criticism, and attack. Among the most serious attacks are those that came from socialist and communist philosophers such as Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Some Islamic thinkers provided criticism from a different perspective.

但正是马克思对资本主义的基本原则提出了最为深入的批判之一。马克思在阐述资本主义时，聚焦于“价值”的定义，并认为自己发现了资本主义理论中一个重大而根本的缺陷。马克思重新定义了“价值”，并以自己对“价值”的定义来攻击资本主义的核心观念。马克思将价值定义为“在生产某一产品的过程中所投入的劳动量”。他主张，一件产品所具有的任何益处，都直接来自劳动者所投入的劳动。这既适用于农民在土地上生产的农产品，也适用于工人生产的工业产品。马克思将“剩余价值”定义为在产品被消费之后，资本家所留存的劳动量（或其货币等价物）。马克思认为，这种剩余价值是拥有生产资料（土地或工厂）的人对工人劳动的直接盗窃。马克思预言，剩余价值将导致财富大规模地积累在生产资料所有者手中，而代价则是那些最初付出劳动创造价值的人。最终，这一过程必将引发创造价值的劳动者阶级与将价值据为己有的资本家阶级之间的冲突。

But it was Marx who provided one of the most thorough criticisms of the basic principles of capitalism. Marx, in his account of capitalism, focused on the definition of “value” and thought to have found a major and fundamental defect in the theory of capitalism. Marx redefined the “value” and used his own definition of “value” to attack the core ideas of capitalism. Marx defined value as “the amount of labor invested in the process of producing a product.” He claims that whatever benefit a product has is a direct result of the labor invested by a laborer. This applies to products of lands made by farmers as well as products of industry made by workers. Marx defined the “surplus value” to be the amount of labor (or its monetary equivalent) retained by the capitalist after the consumption of the product. This surplus value, Marx maintains, is a direct theft of the labor of workers by the ones who own the means of production (the land or factory). Marx predicted that the surplus value will result in a massive accumulation of wealth in the hands of the owners of the means of production at the expense of those who exert their labors to produce the value in the first place. Eventually, this process should lead to a clash between the class of laborers who produce the value and the class of capitalists who retain the value to themselves32.

马克思的主要贡献在于，他把批判矛头指向了资本主义的核心原则，即商品的价值与价格。然而，马克思的分析存在内在缺陷。他最大的错误在于，其论述与分析建立在他自己对价值所下的定义之上。“剩余价值”概念既是马克思反资本主义理论的力量所在，也是其软肋所在，在这一点上它很像阿喀琉斯之踵。只需指出：农夫可以在两块相邻的土地上种植同一类作物，使用相同的工具，但两块地所得的产品却截然不同。显然，产品的价值会因数量和质量的不同而有所差异，而农夫的劳动在两种情况下却是相同的，因此产品的价值不可能等同于农夫的劳动。类似的例子还可以举出许多，以说明剩余价值概念的不准确与缺陷。

The main contribution of Marx is the fact that he directed his criticism to the core principles of capitalism, namely, the value and the price of goods. Marx’s analysis is inherently flawed. His major error is that he based his discussion and analysis on his own definition of the value. The “surplus value” concept is at once the point of strength and the point of weakness in Marx’s theory of anti-capitalism; in this respect it resembles the Achilles’ heel. It is sufficient to point out that the farmer may cultivate and farm two pieces of adjacent lands with the same type of crops, using the same tools, and still receive two different results for his products. Obviously, the value of the products, which may be different in quantity and quality, cannot be equal to the labor of the farmer which is the same in both cases. Many examples of the like can be cited to show the inaccuracy and flaw of the surplus value concept.

最近，Sorin Cucerai 在其文章《对资本主义的恐惧及其根源之一》39中就资本主义发表了以下评论：

More recently, Sorin Cucerai makes the following comments on capitalism in his article “The Fear of Capitalism and One of Its Sources”39:

讽刺的是，资本主义的"自由与繁荣"恰恰是以剥夺人们直接获取食物和住所的途径为前提才得以实现的。要拥有这种资本主义式的自由，我们就必须与自身的天性相疏离。生活在资本主义秩序之中的任何个体，本质上都是一种脆弱不堪的存在，其根基极其不稳。

Paradoxically, the “freedom and prosperity of capitalism” are possible only by denying people direct access to food and shelter. In order to have this capitalist freedom, we must be alienated from our own nature. Any individual that lives in the capitalist order is a fundamentally precarious being, of a radical frailty.

资本主义框架内的学者对资本主义最主要的批评，集中在政府对社会经济事务的干预程度上。最纯粹的资本主义主张政府尽可能少地介入，均衡通过价格机制实现；这就是自由放任的资本主义（laissez-faire，意为“任其自然”）。每当发生金融和经济危机、经济衰退和大萧条时，自由放任的资本主义便遭到猛烈抨击和批评。2009年2月19日，《福布斯》网络杂志发表了一篇题为《自由放任的资本主义已经失败》的文章，作者是努里尔·鲁比尼，他在文中写道：“如今，这场危机有演变为更糟糕的、持续多年的、L形的、日本式滞胀（停滞、衰退与通货紧缩的致命组合）的风险正在上升。” 著名的伊斯兰思想家，即塔基丁·纳布哈尼和穆罕默德·巴基尔·萨德尔，对资本主义的基本原则提出了严肃而重大的批评。纳布哈尼在其著作《伊斯兰的经济制度》41中详细阐述了他对资本主义的批判。萨德尔则在其著作《我们的经济——Iqtisaduna》42中详细论述了资本主义的种种错误。纳布哈尼聚焦于资本主义的三大原则（相对稀缺性、价值和价格机制）。萨德尔的主要关注点则是私有财产与所有权。

The main criticism that came from scholars within the framework of capitalism focused on the level of government intervention in the economics affairs of a society. The purest form of capitalism calls for the least government involvement where equilibrium is achieved through the price mechanism; this is the laissez-faire capitalism (translated to “leave it to be”). Laissez-faire capitalism comes under severe attack and criticism during financial and economic crisis, recessions, and depressions. The Forbes.com online magazine published an article on Feb 19, 2009, under the title “Laissez-Faire capitalism Has Failed” authored by Nouriel Roubini, where he writes, “There is now a rising risk that this crisis will turn into an uglier, multiyear, L-shaped, Japanese-style stag-deflation (a deadly combination of stagnation, recession and deflation.” Serious and significant criticisms of the fundamental principles of capitalism were made by prominent Islamic thinkers, namely, Taqiuddin al-Nabhani and Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr. Al-Nabhani detailed his critique of capitalism in his book The Economic System in Islam41. Al-Sadr provided a detailed account of the errors of capitalism in his book Our Economy—Iqtisaduna42. Al-Nabhani focused on the three principles of capitalism (relative scarcity, value, and price mechanism). Al-Sadr’s main focus was on the private property and ownership.

在接下来的章节中,我们将考察资本主义的一些主要缺陷,然后说明这些缺陷如何在资本主义实践的多年间导致了错误的行为。这些缺陷一直作为潜伏的隐患存在,并一再引发严重的错误。政府干预被用来遏制这些缺陷和错误的影响,并试图防止体系的彻底崩溃。2008年4月3日,美联储主席伯南克在向国会委员会作的陈述中说:"如果贝尔斯登任其倒闭,违约的不利影响将不会局限于金融体系,而是会通过其对资产价值和信贷可得性的影响,广泛波及实体经济"47。

In the following sections, we will investigate some of the major flaws within capitalism and then show how these flaws have led to the creation of erroneous behavior over the years of capitalism application. These flaws have remained as dormant faults and have caused serious errors time and time again. Government intervention had been utilized to contain the impact of these flaws and errors and have attempted to prevent a complete failure of the systems. In a statement made to a congressional committee on April 3, 2008, the Fed Reserve chief Bernanke said that “if Bear Stearns had been allowed to fail, the adverse impact of a default would not have been confined to the financial system but would have been felt broadly in the real economy through its effects on asset values and credit availability”47.

资本主义的主要缺陷和弊病根植于其基本原则之中，这些原则由亚当·斯密和大卫·李嘉图提出（34，35）。这些原则包括“相对稀缺性”、“产品价值”和“价格机制”。在接下来的各节中，我们将逐一讨论这些原则及其中存在的缺陷。

The main flaws and defects within capitalism are embedded within its main principles, which were developed by Adam Smith and David Ricardo (34, 35). These principles are the “relative scarcity,” the “value of a product,” and the “price mechanism.” We will discuss each one of these principles and the flaws within them in the following sections.