在社会主义经济运动中,消费究竟具有什么作用,占有什么地位?这是社会主义政治经济学中的一个重要的理论问题,在国民经济体制改革的时候,尤其需要对这个问题作深入的研究。现在,我们重温一下马克思《<政治经济学批判>导言》中有关消费的论述,无疑对这个问题的认识,会有极大的帮助。在《导言》中,马克思首先把消费分为两类:社会消费和个人消费。这对阐明消费在社会主义经济运动中的地位作用具有重要的方法论的意义。生产消费与生产同一,并不形成与生产不同的特殊阶段。个人消费,从简单再生产来看,也许只是在直接生产过程之外,作为经济运动的一个外部条件,执行生活的职能。但如把它放在全社会范围内,从不断反复进行的社会再生产过程来看,它和生产、交换、分配都有内在联系, What is the role of consumption in the socialist economic movement and what position does it occupy? This is an important theoretical issue in the socialist political economy. In particular, this issue needs to be studied in depth when the national economic system is being reformed. Now, we revisit the exposition on consumption in the Introduction to Critique of Political Economy by Marx, which undoubtedly will bring great help to our understanding of this issue. In the “Introduction,” Marx first divided consumption into two categories: social consumption and personal consumption. This has important methodological significance for clarifying the role of consumption in the socialist economic movement. Consumption and production of the same, does not form a special stage of production and different. In the simple reproduction of personal consumption, personal consumption may be merely an external condition of the economic movement and an executive function of life outside the direct production process. However, if we put it in the whole society and from the repeated social reproduction process, it is intrinsically linked with production, exchange and distribution,