The Shaping of the Proletariat in the Era of Digital Capitalism

Since the 1990s, with the accelerated advancement of networking, informatization, intellectualization, and digitalization, the mode of operation of capital has undergone drastic changes. Knowledge capital, information capital, intelligent capital, and digital capital have gradually embedded themselves in the social mode of production, becoming important engines driving political and economic transformation. The fragmentation, transformation, and reorganization of the forms of capital have pushed capitalism into a brand-new stage, giving rise to new forms such as “cognitive capitalism,” “communicative capitalism,” and “digital capitalism.” Among these, “digital capitalism represents a ‘purer,’ more universal form.” [1]1 Christian Fuchs, *Digital Labour and Karl Marx* (New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 3. From the perspective of the Marxist discursive system, although the hegemony of digital capitalism has not altered the contradiction between the logic of capital (capital) and the logic of labor (labor), the forms of manifestation of this contradiction are no longer comparable to those of the era of industrial capitalism. In particular, under the domination and rule of digital capital, does the political subject (the proletariat) that Marx shaped for overthrowing capitalism still remain present? This question has already become a theoretical focus of widespread concern among contemporary Western left-wing scholars. Within the Western left-wing camp, some scholars believe that in the era of informatization and digitalization, “the industrial working class is steadily shrinking, and the identity marker of the working class is no longer important for many ‘workers.’” [2]2 Jan Breman, “The Study of the Working Class: A Time for Stocktaking,” *Economic and Political Weekly*, Vol. 48, No. 32 (2013), p. 89. Even more extreme voices point out that “the working class has been thoroughly ‘co-opted’ by capitalist culture,” [3]3 Peter Meiksins, “The ‘Revolt of the Engineers’ Reconsidered,” *Science & Society*, Vol. 52, No. 2 (1988), p. 165. and that the proletariat has been completely submerged in the torrent of digital capital, becoming a “salaried class” and “digital labor” that has been “absorbed” and “assimilated” by capital. However, another group of Western left-wing scholars, represented by Paolo Virno, Franco Berardi, Yann Moulier Boutang, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Jodi Dean, Slavoj Žižek, Christian Fuchs, Giorgio Agamben, and others, [4]4 These scholars are associated with Italian autonomist Marxism, post-Marxism, and critical digital media theory. focusing on the subjective logic of “immaterial production” and “digital labor,” have proposed new subject forms such as the “cognitive proletariat,” “cognitariat,” “multitude,” “the separated,” “the part of no part,” “cyber-proletariat,” and “digital workers,” crafting a “new version” of the proletariat in the era of digital capitalism. So, can these new political subjects, like the proletariat of the era of machine-based large-scale industry,凝聚 revolutionary动力, raise the banner of resistance, and thereby achieve their own emancipation? To answer this question, we need to conduct a theoretical identification and image reshaping of these new political subjects.

20世纪90年代以来，随着网络化、信息化、智能化、数字化加速推进，资本的运行方式发生了剧烈变化，知识资本、信息资本、智能资本和数字资本等逐渐嵌入社会生产方式，成为推动政治经济变革的重要引擎。资本形态的分裂、变革和重组，把资本主义推向崭新的阶段，涌现了“认知资本主义”(Cognitive Capitalism)、“交往资本主义”(Communicative Capitalism)和“数字资本主义”(Digital Capitalism)等新形态，其中，“数字资本主义代表了一种‘更纯’,更为普遍的形式”。从马克思主义的话语体系看，尽管数字资本主义的霸权并没有改变资本逻辑(资本)与劳动逻辑(劳动)的矛盾，但这种矛盾的表现形式却与工业资本主义时代不可同日而语。尤其是，在数字资本的宰制和统治下，马克思所塑造的推翻资本主义的政治主体(无产阶级)是否依旧在场?这个问题已然成为当代西方左翼学者普遍关注的理论焦点。在西方左翼阵营中，有学者认为，在信息化、数字化时代，“产业工业阶级正不断减少，工人阶级的身份标志对许多‘工人’来说已经不再重要”。更有甚者指出，“工人阶级已经被资本主义文化彻底地‘收编’了”,无产阶级已经被彻底淹没在数字资本的洪流之中，成为被资本“吸收”和“同化”了的“薪水阶层”和“数字劳工”。然而，以保罗·维尔诺、弗朗哥·贝拉尔迪、扬·穆里耶·博当、迈克尔·哈特、安东尼奥·内格里、乔迪·迪恩、斯拉沃热·齐泽克、克里斯蒂安·福克斯、吉奥乔·阿甘本等为代表的另一些西方左翼学者4,着眼于“非物质生产”和“数字劳动”的主体逻辑，提出了“认知无产阶级”“智识工人”“诸众”“被分离者”“无分者”“赛博无产阶级”以及“数字工人”等新的主体样式，打造了数字资本主义时代无产阶级的“新版本”。那么，这些新的政治主体能否像机器大工业时代的无产阶级那样凝聚革命的动力、举起反抗的大旗，进而实现自身的解放?要回答这一问题，我们需要对新的政治主体进行理论辨别和形象再塑。

I. Reopening Class Discourse: New Forms of Left-Wing Subject Theory in the Era of Digital Capitalism

一、重启阶级话语：数字资本主义时代左翼主体理论的新样式

Digital capitalism is the latest manifestation of the transformation of the mode of production in the process of human modernization. It incorporates humanity’s “general intellect”—knowledge, intelligence, data, etc.—into capital and makes it a new growth pole, thereby confirming the significance of “immaterial labor” in the development of human society today. Based on this, Western left-wing scholars argue that digital capitalism drives intelligent machines and digital media technologies to encircle global resources and absorb information and data with a spatiotemporally transcendent communicative power, greatly altering humanity’s mode of production, and especially changing the class structure of society. As a result, the proletariat in the Marxist sense has already retreated to the “backstage,” replaced by entirely new political subjects that have shed the本色 of the proletariat. These are the contemporary new-born subjective forces immanent within cognitive capitalism, communicative capitalism, and digital capitalism.

数字资本主义是人类现代化进程中生产方式变革的最新表现形式，它使人类的知识、智力、数据等“一般智力”并入资本并成为新的增长极，从而确证了“非物质劳动”在当今人类社会发展中的意义。基于此，西方左翼学者认为，数字资本主义驱动智能机器、数字媒体技术以超时空的传播力在全球圈占资源、吸纳信息和数据，极大地改变了人类的生产方式，特别是改变了社会的阶级结构，从而使马克思主义意义上的无产阶级已然退居“幕后”,取而代之的是褪去了无产阶级本色的全新的政治主体，他们是内在于认知资本主义、交往资本主义和数字资本主义的当代新生主体力量。

(A) The “Cognitive Proletariat”: Personified “General Intellect”

(一)“认知无产阶级”:人格化的“一般智力”

Western left-wing scholars argue that contemporary capitalism has fully realized the category of “general intellect” (also called “universal intelligence”) that Marx discussed in the *Grundrisse*: “the extent to which general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and hence the extent to which the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it.” [5]5 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy* (Penguin, 1973), p. 706. This passage by Marx, along with the forward-looking prophecy of the “system of machines” in the “Fragment on Machines,” is often hailed by the left as a “biblical text,” serving as a theoretical key to understanding capitalism in the digital age. In the view of the Italian left-wing scholar Virno, in the era of digitalization and intellectualization, “universal intelligence” as general social knowledge has become a core element of capital’s valorization; contemporary capitalism is the empirical manifestation of Marx’s category of “general intellect.” “Today, universal intelligence primarily embodies the communication, abstract thought, and self-reflection of living subjects.” [6]6 Paolo Virno, *A Grammar of the Multitude* (Semiotext(e), 2004), p. 106. Virno emphasizes that in the era of digitalized production, the specific meaning of “general intellect” should be re-understood from the subjective dimension: “general intellect” is the embodiment of the cognitive activities, forms of communication, linguistic exchange, and emotions of subjects; it is the potential and intelligence possessed by “living labor.” In this sense, Virno believes that in the era of intellectualization and post-Fordism, “universal intelligence” has reshaped the class structure of society. It has gradually replaced “physical” labor, so that the traditional “proletariat” engaged in “physical” labor has been gradually replaced by the “multitude” engaged in the production of “universal intelligence.” The labor subject of contemporary capitalism is the multitude, which is “intellectual labor power,” i.e., “mass intellectuality.” [7]7 “Mass intellectuality” (massa intellettuale) is a term used by Virno to denote the collective cognitive and communicative capacities of the multitude. In Virno’s context, the multitude is a depoliticized existence; they engage in “hidden labor,” because their intellectual production (thinking, knowledge, imagination, memory, communication, emotions, etc.) is often not counted as social productive force. Therefore, they are precarious and indeterminate “marginal workers” in their work.

西方左翼学者认为，当代资本主义已经全面实现了马克思在《政治经济学批判大纲》中所论及的“一般智力”(又称“普遍智能”)范畴，即“一般社会知识，已经在多么大的程度上变成了直接的生产力，从而社会生活过程的条件本身在多么大的程度上受到一般智力的控制并按照这种智力得到改造”。马克思的这段论述以及在“机器论片段”中对“机器体系”的前瞻性预言，常常被左翼冠之以“圣经式文本”的美名，作为理解数字时代资本主义的理论锁钥。在意大利左翼学者维尔诺看来，在数字化和智能化时代，作为一般社会知识的“普遍智能”已然成为资本增殖的核心要素，当代资本主义就是马克思“一般智力”范畴的经验化呈现。“今天，普遍智能首先体现着活生生的主体的交往、抽象思考和自我反思。”维尔诺强调，在数字化生产时代，应该从主体维度重新理解“一般智力”的特定意涵，即“一般智力”是主体的认知活动、交往形式、语言交流和情感等非物质活动的体现，它是“活劳动”所具有的潜能和智力。在此意义上，维尔诺认为，在智能化和后福特制时代，“普遍智能”重塑了社会的阶级结构，它已经逐渐取代了“体能”劳动，使得从事“体能”劳动的传统“无产阶级”逐渐被从事“普遍智能”生产的“诸众”取代了，当代资本主义的劳动主体是诸众，是“智力劳动力”,即“大众知性”。在维尔诺的语境中，诸众是去政治化的存在，他们所从事的是“隐性劳动”,因为其智力生产(思考、知识、想象、记忆、交往、情感等)往往不被计入社会生产力，所以他们在工作中属于摇摆不定的隐性“边缘工人”。

The Italian left-wing scholar Berardi, belonging to the same autonomist camp as Virno, also argues that the “general intellect” discussed by Marx in the “Fragment on Machines” cannot be assigned or incorporated into “fixed capital.” On the contrary, “general intellect” in the contemporary era should be subjectivized as an element of “living labor,” i.e., belonging to the “creativity” or “intellectual capital” of the subject. Berardi thus emphasizes that in the era of cognitive capitalism, where information, communication, and knowledge are the main forms of value, cognitive activity, intellectual labor, and information production are the dominant forms of labor. This means that the laboring class of cognitive capitalism is no longer simply the working class or the proletariat, but the “cognitive proletariat,” i.e., “the social entity engaged in cognitive labor.” [8]8 Franco Berardi, *The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy* (Semiotext(e), 2009), p. 112. In Berardi’s context, the “cognitive proletariat” is sometimes also called “information workers”; the labor they perform is cognitive-type work directly related to processing information, data, and the like. The “cognitive proletariat” and the “multitude” have clear differences in their fields of existence and their own characteristics. If the “multitude” is a product of post-Fordism, the totality of “living labor” in the post-Fordist era, then the “cognitive proletariat” is the “cognitariat” parasitic within “cognitive capitalism,” a group representing “general intellect” that is in a state of anxiety and panic.

意大利左翼学者贝拉尔迪与维尔诺同属自治主义阵营，他也认为，不能把马克思在“机器论片段”中所论及的“一般智力”划归或并入“固定资本”之中，相反，“一般智力”在当代应该被主体化为“活劳动”的要素，即归属于主体的“创造力”或“智力资本”。贝拉尔迪由此强调，在以信息、通讯和知识为主要价值形式的认知资本主义时代，认知活动、智力劳动和信息生产是占主导地位的劳动形式，这意味着认知资本主义的劳动阶级不再是单纯的工人阶级或无产阶级，而是“认知无产阶级”,即“从事认知劳动的社会实体”。在贝拉尔迪的语境中，“认知无产阶级”有时也被称为“信息工人”,他们所从事的劳动是与处理信息、数据等直接关联的认知型工作。“认知无产阶级”与“诸众”在存在场域和自身特征方面有着明显的区别，如果说“诸众”是后福特制的产物，是后福特制时代“活劳动”的整体，那么“认知无产阶级”则是寄生于“认知资本主义”之中的“智识工人”,是处于焦虑和恐慌之中的代表着“一般智力”的群体。

From the perspective of the economic transformation and upgrading of contemporary capitalism, Paul Boudon of the Université de Technologie de Compiègne has reconstructed the class discourse of “cognitive capitalism” and revealed the essence of the “cognitive proletariat.” In Boudon’s view, cognitive capitalism is a new accumulation model in which knowledge is the main object of accumulation. In this model, knowledge becomes the basic source of value and the main site of the valorization process. The exploitation of labor by capital is no longer merely the absorption of labor power by capital, but rather the absorption of “creativity” represented by knowledge, information, emotion, codes, and the like. Boudon argues that the “creativity” of cognitive capitalism is a kind of “intellectual capital,” which is the dominant factor in valorization. On this basis, cognitive capitalism is a “new capitalism” containing “new contradictions.” Its class relations are no longer the traditional opposition between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but the opposition between capitalists who own the means of intellectual production and the “cognitive proletariat.” Boudon further distinguishes two forms of exploitation in contemporary capitalism: primary exploitation (capital exploits physical labor power) and secondary exploitation (capital exploits creativity). These two forms of exploitation coexist in the production process of contemporary capitalism, while cognitive capitalism intensifies and accelerates the development and expropriation of human creativity and innovative capacity, thereby transforming the class logic of capitalism: it treats workers engaged in intellectual creation and innovation activities as new “living labor” and valorizing “living capital.” Thus, Boudon reopens the class discourse and political subject of cognitive capitalism, identifying the cognitive proletariat, the network proletariat, market-dependent cognitive workers, freely creative cognitive workers, the self-employed, and others as the dominant forces of cognitive capitalism. Boudon argues that capitalism is not only a stable regime and an accumulation model, but also a trend in the transformation of exploitation patterns. Cognitive capitalism is a new form of capitalism dominated by secondary exploitation (capital exploits creativity).

法国贡比涅技术大学的博当从当代资本主义经济转型升级的视角重构了“认知资本主义”的阶级话语，揭示了“认知无产阶级”的本质。在博当看来，认知资本主义是一种以知识为主要积累对象的新的积累模式，在这种模式中，知识成为价值的基本来源以及价值增殖过程的主要场所，资本对劳动的剥削不再仅仅表现为资本对劳动力的吸纳，而是表现为资本对以知识、信息、情感、符码等为代表的“创造力”的吸纳。博当认为，认知资本主义的“创造力”是一种“智力资本”,它是价值增殖的主导因素。基于此，认知资本主义是一种“新资本主义”,内蕴“新的矛盾”,其阶级关系已经不再是传统的资产阶级与无产阶级的对立，而是掌握知识型生产资料的资本家与“认知无产阶级”的对立。博当进一步区分了当代资本主义的两种剥削形式：一级剥削(资本剥削体力劳动力)和二级剥削(资本剥削创造力)。这两种剥削形式共存于当代资本主义的生产过程中，而认知资本主义强化和加速了对人的创造力、创新力的开发与剥夺，由此转换了资本主义的阶级逻辑，即把从事智力创造和创新活动的劳动者作为新的“活劳动”和增殖的“活资本”。由此，博当重启了认知资本主义的阶级话语和政治主体，把认知无产阶级、网络无产阶级、依赖于市场的认知工作者、自由从事创造性劳动的认知工作者、自雇人员等作为认知资本主义的主导力量。博当认为，资本主义不仅是一种稳定的政权、一种积累模式，而且是一种剥削模式转变的趋势。认知资本主义就是以二级剥削(资本剥削创造力)为主导的资本主义的新形态。

(2) The “User Proletariat”: Symbolic “Intellectual Workers”

(二)“用户无产阶级”:符号化的“智识工人”

Another representative figure of the Italian autonomist school, Maurizio Lazzarato, starting from the transformation of human labor forms under the dominance of knowledge and information, analyzes the differentiation and recomposition of social classes against the backdrop of the hegemony of “immaterial labor,” and thereby introduces concepts such as the “intellectual proletariat” and “intellectual workers.” Lazzarato argues that with the development of networking and digitalization, social knowledge, abstract intelligence, and immaterial signals have become the “soft power” of social productive forces. Consequently, the production form of capitalism has expanded into the realm of “immaterial labor,” which mainly involves audiovisual products, software, advertising, information, and cultural activities. Immaterial labor is “a labor model that exists in the form of networks and flows,” that is, “labor that produces the information and cultural content of commodities.” In this context, Lazzarato believes that post-industrial capitalism is a “mass intellectuality” society. In such a society, intellectual labor is an important driving force shaping the mode of social production. It is precisely in mass intellectual labor that a nascent laboring class resides: the intellectual proletariat. Like the proletariat described by Marx, they suffer from deep control and excessive exploitation by capital. Similar to Lazzarato, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri also assert that the labor form of contemporary capitalism is “information production” and “knowledge production,” involving fields such as knowledge, communication, and language, mainly including communicative labor, interactive labor, and labor that produces and manipulates emotions. Since the forms of capital and labor have changed, the concept of the proletariat as “personified labor” should also be re-corrected and redefined. In response, Hardt and Negri rewrite the political subject meaning of the proletariat, proposing a general formula for organizing class in the digital age: “C-M-C′,” that is, “class-multitude-diverse class.” This formula indicates that class in the digital age has diverse and inclusive characteristics. The proletariat is already contained within the “diverse class”; it is an upgraded version of the “multitude,” a mass that has lost ownership of the “commons” such as public resources, knowledge production, and emotional production, and is controlled and exploited by digital capital. If Lazzarato, Hardt, and Negri, from the perspective of labor ontology, have reshaped the proletariat in digital production, then Slavoj Žižek, from the dimensions of “Internet politics” and social reality, has introduced the concept of the “user proletariat.” Žižek points out that in Internet politics, society is no longer a hierarchical whole, but an open complex composed of different networks. In this network system, an Internet aristocratic elite has emerged, possessing power and the ability to access key information, while the vast majority of users become objects of manipulation. The direct consequence of this is that “a new class antagonism between the ‘Internet aristocracy’ and the ‘user proletariat’ has replaced the class struggle between capitalists and the proletariat.” In response, Žižek repeatedly emphasizes, borrowing Hardt and Negri’s concept of the subject, that even if the revolutionary subject of Internet politics is the “multitude in power,” such a “multitude” would likely find it difficult to form a collective force resisting the globalized network.

意大利自治主义学派的另一位代表人物毛里齐奥·拉扎拉托从知识、信息主导下的人的劳动形态的转变入手，分析了“非物质劳动”霸权背景下社会阶级的分化与重组，进而推出了“知识型无产阶级”和“智识工人”等概念。拉扎拉托认为，随着网络化、数字化的发展，社会知识、抽象智力和非物质的信号成为社会生产力的“软力量”,由此资本主义的生产形式已经扩展至“非物质劳动”领域，这个领域主要涉及音像制品、软件、广告、信息以及文化活动。非物质劳动就是“以网络和流动的形式存在的劳动模式”,即“生产商品信息和文化内容的劳动”。在此背景下，拉扎拉托认为，后工业时代的资本主义是一种“大众智能”型社会，在这种社会中，智力劳动是塑造社会生产方式的重要驱动力，正是在大众智力劳动中，寄存着一种新生的劳动阶级，即智识型无产阶级，他们同马克思笔下的无产阶级一样遭受着资本的深度控制和过度剥削。与拉扎拉托相似，哈特和内格里也断定，当代资本主义的劳动形式是“信息生产”和“知识生产”,它涉及知识、交往和语言等领域，主要包括通讯交往劳动、交互式劳动以及生产和操纵情感的劳动。由于资本形态和劳动形式发生了转变，作为“人格化的劳动”的无产阶级概念也应该被重新矫正和定义。对此，哈特和内格里改写了无产阶级的政治主体意义，提出了数字时代组织阶级的一般公式：“C-M-C′”,即“阶级—诸众—多样性阶级”。这一公式表明，数字时代的阶级具有多样性、包容性特征，其中的无产阶级已经容纳在“多样性阶级”之中，就是“诸众”的升级版，是丧失了公共资源、知识生产和情感生产等“公共领域”的所有权并遭受数字化资本控制与剥削的大众。如果说，拉扎拉托、哈特和内格里着眼于劳动本体论视域对数字化生产中的无产阶级进行了重塑，那么齐泽克则是从“因特网政治”和社会现实维度推出了“用户无产者”概念。齐泽克指出，在因特网政治中，社会不再是等级化的整体，而是一个由不同网络组成的开放的复合体，在这个网络系统中，产生了因特网贵族精英，他们拥有权力和获取关键信息的能力，广大用户成为被操纵的对象，由此带来的直接后果是，“‘因特网贵族’与‘用户无产者’之间的新的阶级抵抗代替了资本家与无产阶级之间的阶级斗争”。对此，齐泽克借用哈特和内格里的主体概念反复强调，即便因特网政治的革命主体是“掌权的大众”,这样的“大众”恐怕也很难形成一个抵抗全球化网络的集体力量。

(3) The “Separated People”: The “Mass” in the Power-Law Distribution of Networks

(三)“被分离的人”:网络幂律分布中的“群众”

Jodi Dean, focusing on network media, big data, and traffic, reshapes the image of the proletariat in the digital age, discerning the subject of resistance in contemporary capitalism from the reality of digital and communicative capitalism. Dean argues that in the era of digital production, big data, networks, and mass media are forging new political forces. “‘The digital’ leads us to the momentum of communicative capitalism.” Digitalization and network media are “aggregating” or “concentrating” social groups. These aggregated “masses” constitute a new force, providing a breakthrough for understanding the political subject of the digital age and an opportunity for spawning new social classes. Dean believes that emphasizing the masses allows us to find the “gravediggers” within the power-law distribution of the complex networks on which communicative capitalism operates and depends. Of course, Dean does not endorse directly treating the broad and vague “masses” as the political subject. She argues that the true subject is the divided part within the masses, that is, the “separated people” lodged in the symbolic system of the communicative capitalist network. Dean emphasizes that the powerful data and complex algorithms of the digital age drive capital valorization, gathering the masses into the symbolic system of digitalization and networking. However, only a few occupy the pinnacle of the symbolic system’s pyramid and enjoy immense wealth, while the majority of the masses are excluded and squeezed by complex algorithms and digital capital. These squeezed masses are a potential political force. Since the masses parasitic on digital capitalism are an aggregate of collective, diverse strata, Dean advocates using the term “long tail” of the power-law distribution as a “symbol” to describe the masses in the age of big data, because “in complex networks, the scale and quantity of the masses are organized according to the hierarchy of the power-law distribution, that is, 1% versus 99%.” Dean uses the 1% to identify the “superstars” and “elite class” of communicative capitalism, who possess unlimited prestige, the highest attention, and the most frequent click-through rates, while the 99% are the ordinary masses in the “long tail,” a symbolic mass composed of users, fans, and so on. Dean points out: “This number does not specify a person’s identity, but highlights a differentiation and a gap, the wealth gap between the richest 1% and the rest of us. … It declares that we are divided, divided into the expropriators and the expropriated.” Therefore, according to Dean’s analytical framework, in the era of communicative capitalist hegemony, social class antagonism has shifted to the antagonism between the 1% and the 99% in the digital network system. The potential political subject of digital capitalism is the “remainder people” who are expropriated, controlled, and exploited by digital capital and intelligent algorithms. They are the masses engaged in actual communicative activities but separated by capital.

迪恩着眼于网络媒体、大数据和流量对数字化时代的无产阶级进行了形象再塑，从数字化和交往资本主义的现实中窥见了当代资本主义的反抗主体。迪恩认为，在数字化生产时代，大数据、网络、大众传媒正在锻造新的政治力量，“‘数字’将我们引向了交往资本主义之势”,数字化、网络传媒正在将社会人群进行“集聚”或“集中”,这些集合起来的“群众”是一种新力量，为理解数字时代的政治主体提供了突破口，也为催生新的社会阶级提供了契机。迪恩认为，对群众的强调，能使我们在交往资本主义所运行和依赖的复杂网络及其链接的幂律分布中找到“掘墓人”。当然，迪恩并不赞同把大而泛的“群众”直接当作政治主体，她认为，真正的主体是群众中的分裂的部分，即那些寄存于交往资本主义网络符号系统中的“被分离的人”。迪恩强调，数字时代强大的数据和复杂算法驱动着资本增殖，使群众集聚于数字化和网络化的符号系统，但仅有少数人占据符号系统的金字塔顶峰并享有巨额财富，大多数群众受到复杂算法和数字资本的排斥与挤压，这些被挤压的群众是潜在的政治力量。由于寄生于数字资本主义的群众是集合性、多样性阶层的聚合体，因而迪恩主张把幂律分布的“长尾”这一术语作为描述大数据时代的群众的“符号”,因为“在复杂的网络中，群众的规模、数量是按照幂律分布的层级来组织的，即1%比99%”。迪恩用1%来标识交往资本主义中的“超级巨星”和“精英阶级”,他们拥有无限的声望、最高的关注度和最频繁的点击率，而99%则是“长尾”中的普通大众，是由用户、粉丝等构成的符号群众。迪恩指出：“这个数字并没有指明人的身份，而是凸显了一种分化和一个差距，即最富有的1%人群和我们剩余之人之间的财富差距。……它宣称我们是分裂的，分裂为剥夺者和被剥夺者。”所以，按照迪恩的分析框架，在交往资本主义霸权时代，社会的阶级对抗已经转向了数字网络系统中的1%与99%之间的对抗，数字资本主义潜在的政治主体就是被数字资本和智能算法征用、宰制和剥削的“剩余之人”,他们是从事实际交往活动但却被资本分离的大众。

(4) “Cyber-Proletariat”: The “New Poor” in the Digital Whirlwind

(四)“赛博无产阶级”:数字旋风中的“新穷人”

The Canadian scholar Nick Dyer-Witheford both inherits the subject theory of the Italian autonomist school and, starting from the “cybernetics” engendered by new technologies and intelligent algorithms, innovates and extends Marx’s concept of the proletariat, proposing the new subject of the “cyber-proletariat.” Dyer-Witheford argues: “The spread of computers and networks in the global capitalist economy has greatly changed the working conditions and unemployment situation of a generation.” Most importantly, the combination of information technology, networking, digitalization and globalization has greatly enhanced the new dynamism and new intensity of contemporary capitalist development, while also absorbing more global workers into the capitalist production system. These global working classes are not “free laborers” but are forced to lodge themselves in the vast system of “cyber-capitalism” as the “cyber-proletariat.” In Dyer-Witheford’s view, contemporary capitalism has realized automated and intelligent production through networks and algorithms. This form of production arises from the application of new technologies such as websites, videos, games, Facebook, and chat rooms. This trend makes capitalist labor gradually tend toward digital labor and capital gradually tend toward digital capital. The changes in the forms of labor and capital in contemporary capitalism inevitably cause its political subject to change. Dyer-Witheford likens this trend of capital informatization and digitalization to “a huge vortex storm,” and the proletariat are the “digital artisans” and “new poor” drawn into this super-storm; their consciousness of resistance is weakened and devoured by intangible capital. Although Dyer-Witheford reveals the political subject and its predicament in the current digital whirlwind, he does not penetrate into the subject context of Marx’s critique of political economy, but merely bases himself on the reality of the internet and replaces the Italian left’s concept of the “cognitive proletariat.” In contrast, the British scholar Christian Fuchs focuses on the great changes in labor forms brought about by social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. By examining concepts such as “digital labor” and “digital work” in the era of “transnational information capitalism,” he advances a subject theory for the post-revolutionary era. Fuchs argues that digital labor is the most important form of labor in contemporary capitalism; this labor is a new type of exploited labor and unpaid labor, and “the exploitation of digital labor includes processes of coercion, alienation, and appropriation.” In Fuchs’s view, digital labor is alienated digital work, labor monitored by digital capitalists and exploited by private shareholders; it creates a new political subject: the digital worker. On platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, users are not only consumers of information but also producers, i.e., prosumers. “They produce documents, content, connections, social relations, networks and communities as use-values. They are creative, active, networked digital workers.” So how can digital workers resist the exploitation of digital capital? Fuchs’s answer is “the political strategy of class struggle unity of the digital working class”; this strategy is the “occupy the internet movement,” in order to achieve common control of information and the revolution of social media.

加拿大学者尼克·迪尔-维斯福特既继承了意大利自治主义学派的主体理论，又从新技术、智能算法催生的“控制论”出发创新和扩展了马克思的无产阶级概念，提出了“赛博无产阶级”这一新主体。迪尔-维斯福特认为：“计算机和网络在全球资本主义经济中的普及，极大地改变了一代人的工作条件以及失业情况。”最为重要的是，信息技术、网络化、数字化与全球化的结合大大提升了当代资本主义发展的新动力和新强度，同时也吸纳了更多的全球工人加入资本主义的生产体系之中，这些全球工人阶级并不是“自由劳动者”,而是被迫寄存于“赛博资本主义”这个庞大体系中的“赛博无产阶级”。在迪尔-维斯福特看来，当代资本主义通过网络和算法实现了自动化、智能化生产，这种生产形式是基于网站、视频、游戏、脸书、聊天室等新技术的应用而产生的，这一趋势使资本主义劳动逐渐趋向数字劳动，使资本逐渐趋向数字资本，当代资本主义劳动形式和资本形态的变化必然促使其政治主体发生改变。迪尔-维斯福特把资本信息化、数字化的这种趋势比喻为“一个巨大的漩涡风暴”,而无产阶级就是被卷入这种超级风暴的“数字工匠”和“新穷人”,他们的反抗意识被无形的资本削弱和反噬了。尽管迪尔-维斯福特揭示了当前数字旋风中的政治主体及其遭遇，但他并没有深入到马克思政治经济学批判的主体语境，而只是立足互联网现实并改换了意大利左翼的“认知无产者”概念。与此不同，英国学者福克斯聚焦脸书、推特、谷歌等社交媒体带来的劳动形式的巨大改变，通过考察“跨国信息资本主义”时代的“数字劳动”和“数字工作”等概念，推出了后革命时代的主体理论。福克斯认为，数字劳动是当代资本主义最重要的劳动形式，这种劳动是新型的剥削劳动和无酬劳动，“数字劳动的剥削包括胁迫、异化和占用过程”。在福克斯看来，数字劳动是异化了的数字工作，是受数字资本家监控和被私有股东剥削的劳动，它创造着新的政治主体：数字工人。在脸书、推特、谷歌等平台上，用户不只是信息的消费者，也是生产者，即生产性消费者。“他们生产文档、内容、联系、社会关系、作为使用价值的网络和社区。他们是具有创造性、积极性、网络化的数字工人。”那么，数字工人如何才能反抗数字资本的剥削呢?福克斯给出的答案是“数字工人阶级的阶级斗争联合政治战略”,这一战略就是“占领互联网运动”,以便实现信息的共同控制和社交媒体的革命。

2. Examining Theoretical Misconceptions: The Predicament of Left-Wing Subject Theory in the Era of Digital Capitalism

二、检视理论误区：数字资本主义时代左翼主体理论的困境

Contemporary foreign left-wing scholars have theoretically constructed and shaped political subjects from a radical standpoint, providing a brand-new perspective for people to deeply examine the forms of labor, class structure, and antagonistic contradictions in the era of digital capitalism. Theoretically, they have made up for the problem of the “exit” and “absence” of the revolutionary subject in the digital age, expanded the subject theory of digital capitalism, and provided a pioneering theoretical horizon for studying the new “global landscape” and “labor organization” brought about by digital technological change. However, if the subject concepts advanced by left-wing scholars are examined within the theoretical horizon and discursive logic of Marx’s construction of the proletariat as a revolutionary subject, then these political subjects, seemingly radical subjects of resistance, actually degenerate into the passive “rabble” and “mob” criticized by Marx, descending into a “nameless void” and a “subjectivity without substance.” The reason for this is that left-wing scholars maintain a certain distance from Marxism in terms of revolutionary stance and methodology, causing the “new proletariat” they shape to both invert the ontological foundation of historical materialism and lack the theoretical perspective of the critique of political economy. Thus, within the discourse of postmodern philosophy, they displace the conditions for the generation of the political subject, expand its scope of reference, dissolve its political identity as the “gravedigger,” and ultimately turn it into a “constellation-like subject” and a “multiplicity.”

当代国外左翼学者以激进的立场对政治主体进行了理论建构和形象塑造，为人们深入考察数字资本主义时代的劳动形式、阶级结构和对抗性矛盾提供了全新的视角，在理论上弥补了数字时代革命主体“退场”和“缺位”的问题，扩写了数字资本主义的主体理论，为研究数字技术变革所带来的新的“全球景观”和“劳工组织”提供了开创性的理论视野。然而，如果把左翼学者推出的主体概念置于马克思建构无产阶级革命主体的理论视域和话语逻辑中加以考察，那么这些政治主体看似是激进的反抗主体，实则沦为马克思所批判的消极“贱民”和“乌合之众”,降格为一种“无名之空”和“无实体的主体性”。究其缘由，是因为左翼学者在革命立场和方法论上同马克思主义保持一定的距离，导致他们塑造的“新无产阶级”既颠倒了历史唯物主义的存在论基础，又缺乏政治经济学批判的理论视野，从而在后现代哲学话语中置换了政治主体的生成条件，扩大了其指涉范围，消解了其“掘墓人”的政治身份，最终使之成为“星丛式的主体”和“多在”。

(1) The Replacement of Generative Conditions: From “Labor Power” to “General Intellect”

(一)生成条件的改换：从“劳动力”到“一般智力”

In the perspective of historical materialism, the genuine political subject is not the “substantive estate” or “universal estate” in Hegel’s sense, but rather the “particular class” immanent in social history. By answering the question “what is the proletariat,” Marx demonstrated the ontological situation and conditions of formation of the proletariat as a political subject. In Marx’s view, the political subject is not deduced through sensory experience but is embedded in the concrete historical context of human material productive activity; one must judge “what it accomplishes in history.” The historical accomplishment of the proletariat is conferred by “its own life situation and the entire organization of modern bourgeois society” — that is, the confirmation of the proletariat’s subject identity is determined by the “universal suffering” and “absolute poverty” it endures, and the root of these “inhuman conditions of life” is modern capitalism and its private property. In terms of origin, the proletariat, as “a class of civil society which is not a class of civil society,” is not external to the mode of production of humanity but is “a product of large-scale industry itself”; the historical conditions of its emergence are the social transformation of property (capitalist private property) brought about by the Industrial Revolution and “universal injustice.” Particularly in capital-driven large-scale industrial production, the proletariat, having lost its means of production due to the domination of capital, can only enter the capital-dominated market and sustain itself by selling its labor power, because “their only property is their labor power.” Therefore, unlike other classes, the proletariat is a subject that parasitically depends on capitalism and obtains its means of subsistence entirely by selling its labor power; the identity trait of this class is “the personification of labor,” more precisely “labor power itself.” Different from Marx’s context, Western left-wing scholars have altered the conditions of formation and the actual predicament of the proletariat. They argue that the proletariat in the digital age cannot be identified by “labor power” as its identity marker but should take “general intellect” as its prerequisite. Virno inverted Marx’s relationship between living labor and dead labor, replacing “living labor” with “general intellect,” holding that “general intellect” is not an attribute of fixed capital but the capacity, potential, and life-form of living labor. In post-Fordism, “labor power” is no longer the sole element confirming the subject identity of the proletariat; on the contrary, “general intellect appears as a pillar of immortal wage labor, hierarchy, and the production of surplus value.” Virno takes “general intellect” as the core measure for identifying the subject identity (the multitude), thereby regarding the proletariat as personified immaterial laborers engaged in intellectual production. Similarly, left-wing scholars such as Berardi, Hardt, and Negri have also reordered the relationship between “labor power” and “intellect,” arguing that “labor power” should incorporate “collective general intellect,” and that the realization of labor value in the digital age lies precisely in incorporating new productive forces (intellect) into labor; thus, labor power is increasingly embodied in new forms of intellect such as knowledge, language, communication, and codes, and traditional labor power “is increasingly replaced by intellectualized, immaterial labor forces in the field of communication and information.” In this way, they advocate constructing a “new theory of the subject” based on a new labor theory of value, smoothly transforming the proletariat into individuals controlled and enslaved by the network empire and digital capital; these constellated individuals, when aggregated, form the “new proletariat.” Clearly, the left-wing scholars’ sleight of hand not only discards the theoretical implications of the critique of political economy but also overlooks the specific precondition of Marx’s concept of the political subject: “the modern class of wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.” Therefore, the subject shaped by left-wing scholars is neither the personification of labor nor the representative of labor power, nor the “propertyless” who have lost their means of production, nor the antithesis of the capitalist; rather, it is the dematerialized “rabble” and the virtual, inclusive “multitude,” a “substantive composition of diverse, indeterminate, and chaotic ‘differences’,” and thus is not Marx’s “living labor power stripped of all possessions” nor a revolutionary force of resistance.

在唯物史观视域中，真正的政治主体并不是黑格尔意义上的“实体性等级”和“普遍等级”,而是内在于社会历史的“特殊阶级”。马克思通过回答“无产阶级究竟是什么”,论证了作为政治主体的无产阶级的存在论境遇和生成条件。在马克思看来，政治主体不是通过感性经验推导出来的，而是蕴含在人类物质生产活动的具体历史情境之中，需要判断其“在历史上有什么作为”。无产阶级的历史作为是由“它自己的生活状况和现代资产阶级社会的整个组织”赋予的，即无产阶级主体身份的确证是由其自身所遭受的“普遍苦难”和“绝对贫困”决定的，而产生这种“非人性的生活条件”的根源就是现代资本主义及其私有制。从起源上看，无产阶级作为“非市民社会阶级的市民社会阶级”,并不外在于人类的生产方式，而是“大工业本身的产物”,其产生的历史条件是工业革命引发的社会财产变革(资本主义私有制)和“普遍的不公正”。特别是在资本驱动的大工业生产中，无产阶级由于资本宰制而丧失了自己的生产资料，他们只能走向资本主导的市场并靠出卖自己的劳动力维持生计，因为“他们唯一的财产是他们的劳动能力”。所以，与其他阶级不同，无产阶级是寄生于资本主义并完全靠出卖自己的劳动力来获得生活资料的主体，这个阶级的身份特质是“劳动的人格化”,更确切地说是“劳动力本身”。与马克思的语境不同，西方左翼学者改换了无产阶级的生成条件和现实遭遇，他们认为，数字时代的无产阶级并不能以“劳动力”作为身份标识，而应该以“一般智力”作为前提条件。维尔诺倒置了马克思关于活劳动与死劳动的关系，用“一般智力”替换了“活劳动”,认为“一般智力”并不是固定资本的属性，而是活劳动的能力、潜力和生命形式。在后福特制中，“劳动力”不再是唯一确证无产阶级主体身份的要素，相反，“普遍智能表现为不朽的雇佣劳动、等级制度、生产剩余价值的一个支柱”。维尔诺把“一般智力”作为标识主体身份(诸众)的核心尺度，从而把无产阶级看作从事智力生产的人格化的非物质劳动者。同样，贝拉尔迪、哈特、内格里等左翼学者也重新构序了“劳动力”与“智力”的关系，认为“劳动力”中应该容纳“集体的一般智力”,数字时代劳动价值的实现正在于把新型生产力(智力)并入劳动，由此劳动力则更多地体现为知识、语言、交往、符码等新型智力，传统的劳动力“越来越被通讯交往领域智力化、非物质化的劳动力量所取代”。如此一来，他们主张建构新劳动价值论基础上的“新主体理论”,把无产阶级顺理成章地转化为遭受网络帝国和数字资本控制、奴役的个人，这些星丛式的个人凝聚起来就形成了“新无产阶级”。显然，左翼学者偷梁换柱的做法不仅抛弃了政治经济学批判的理论意蕴，而且还忽略了马克思政治主体概念独特的前提条件：“没有自己的生产资料，因而不得不靠出卖劳动力来维持生活的现代雇佣工人阶级。”所以，左翼学者塑造的主体并不是劳动的人格化和劳动力的代表，也不是丧失了生产资料的“无产者”,更不是资本家的对立面，而是去物质化的“群氓”和虚拟性、包容性的“诸众”,是“多种多样、非决定性和杂乱无章的‘差异’的实体构成”,因而并不是马克思意义上的“一贫如洗的活劳动力”和革命性的反抗力量。

(II) Expansion of the Scope of Reference: From “the Mass of Workers” to “the Assembled Crowd”

(二)指涉范围的扩大：从“工人大众”到“集合群众”

In classical Marxist political subject theory, the proletariat is not the great mass but “the oppressed mass of workers,” the “wage workers” standing in opposition to capital, the real subject of alienated labor. In fact, Marx and Engels used “subtraction” when constructing the political subject — that is, their concept of the subject has a specific scope of reference, being that particular “class in chains with radical chains” among the many classes. In contrast, left-wing scholars use “addition” when constructing the political subject in the digital age — that is, their concept of the subject is the “flowing crowd” or “multitude” attached to the empire, the network, and digital platforms. To summarize in Dean’s words: it is the remaining 99% after removing the richest 1%, “the 1% have appropriated most of the common wealth, while the remaining 99% possess the leftovers.” Dean’s summary represents the contemporary direction of Western left-wing subject theory, which consistently expands the “mass of workers” as the subject to the “anonymous masses,” “network multitudes,” and “digital artisans” of the post-Marxist era, thereby shifting the actual field of the subject’s existence. This shift includes four logical approaches: first, the “evental subject” constructed by Žižek and Alain Badiou based on the “evental site” of the globalization era, including global migrants, refugees, slum dwellers, and Agamben’s “homo sacer” whose life is abandoned and reduced to bare life — these subjects “are the social ‘surplus’ excluded from the welfare of citizens; they are uprooted and helpless”; second, the “sign class” constructed by scholars such as Boudin, Dean, Dyer-Witheford, and Berardi, including programmers, digital workers, network users, traffic fans, and “media consumers who produce social meaning” — these subjects are distributed according to the power law of complex networks and are “parasites” in the network; third, the “multitude” constructed by Hardt and Negri, “broader than the concept of the working class,” a fluid and unstable mass; fourth, the “digital workers” constructed by scholars such as Fuchs and Ursula Huws from the perspective of the political economy of communication, including data analysts, information processors, electronic workers, and knowledge workers — they are “high-tech proletarians” engaged in virtual work in the real world. Clearly, Western left-wing scholars have deviated from class analysis, so the political subjects they construct are no longer “wage workers” or “proletarians,” nor are they Marx’s “exploited” or “social revolutionaries,” because such political subjects encompass almost all “diverse groups” such as the poor, the marginalized, the self-supporting, the lower-middle class, and the bottom of society; they include every individual who directly or indirectly parasitically depends on the capitalist mode of production. Since these groups expand the scope of reference of the proletariat, they dilute its collective, revolutionary, and class character. More importantly, these all-encompassing, inclusive subjects do not all engage in productive labor, nor are they the creators of surplus value as Marx discussed; rather, they are individuals scattered parasitically across cyberspace and various social strata. They are composites that have lost the “group identity” of the proletariat, “a retreat from an economic and political category to an abstract collection of atomized individuals.”

在经典马克思主义的政治主体理论中，无产阶级并不是大写的群众，而是“被压迫的工人大众”,是处于资本对立面的“雇佣工人”,是异化劳动的现实主体。实际上，马克思恩格斯在建构政治主体时使用的是“减法”,即他们的主体概念具有特定的指涉范围，是众多阶级中那个特定的“被戴上彻底的锁链的阶级”。相反，左翼学者在建构数字时代的政治主体时使用的是“加法”,即他们的主体概念是依附于帝国、网络和数字平台的“流众”或“多众”,用迪恩的话来概括就是：除去1%最富有的人之后剩余的99%,“那1%的人占有了大部分的共有物，而剩下的那99%的人拥有剩余的东西”。迪恩的概括代表了西方左翼主体理论的当代走向，他们一贯把作为主体的“工人大众”扩展至后马克思主义时代的“无名群众”“网络大众”和“数字工匠”,从而使主体存在的现实场域发生了转移。这种转移包括四种逻辑进路：一是齐泽克和阿兰·巴迪欧基于全球化时代的“事件性场所”建构的“事件主体”,包括全球移民、难民、贫民窟居民以及阿甘本推出的生命遭到弃置并被缩减为赤裸生命的“神圣人”,这些主体“是被排斥在公民福利之外的社会‘额外’因素；他们背井离乡，无依无靠”;二是博当、迪恩、迪尔-维斯福特、贝拉尔迪等学者建构的“符号阶级”,包括程序员、数字工人、网络用户、流量粉丝以及“生产社会意义的媒体消费者”,这些主体按照复杂网络的幂律分布排列，是网络中的“寄生者”;三是哈特和内格里建构的“诸众”,“它比工人阶级的概念更宽泛”,是具有流动性、不稳定性的群众；四是福克斯、乌苏拉·胡斯等学者从传播政治经济学视角建构的“数字工人”,包括数字分析员、信息处理员、电子工人以及知识工人，他们是在真实世界里从事虚拟工作的“高科技无产阶级”。显然，西方左翼学者偏离了阶级分析法，所以他们建构的这些政治主体已经不再是“雇佣工人”和“无产者”,也不再是马克思主义意义上的“被剥削者”和“社会革命者”,因为这样的政治主体涵括了几乎所有的穷人、边缘人、自食其力者、中下层阶级和社会底层群众等“多样性群体”,囊括了一切直接或间接寄生于资本主义生产方式的单个个人，由于这些群体扩大了无产阶级的指涉范围，从而稀释了其本身的集体性、革命性和阶级性特质。更为重要的是，这些大而全的包容性主体并不都从事生产性劳动，也不是马克思所论及的剩余价值的创造者，而是分散地寄生于网络空间和各个社会层面的个体，他们是丧失了无产阶级“群体身份”的复合体，是“从一个经济和政治的范畴退缩为一种抽象的原子化的个人之集合”。

(III) Loss of Essential Determination: From “the Proletarian” to “the Part of No Part”

(三)本质规定的丧失：从“无产者”到“无分者”

In Marx’s perspective, the most essential determination of the proletariat is “having no means of production.” Because they are “propertyless” and create social wealth by selling their own labor power, they are the genuine laboring class within the social collective. From a broader viewpoint, the proletariat represents “a social function that both constructs history and realizes itself in socialism,” and is therefore the most revolutionary class in social transformation. However, it must be clarified that the political subjects constructed by Western left-wing scholars do not possess the identity of “propertied-less persons”; or rather, the “new proletariat” they propose has shed the foundational character of “propertied-less persons.” In their view, in the era of digital production, the judgment of the proletariat is no longer based on the criterion of “having no property” but on the criterion of “having no part.” [13]13 “Having no part” (无分) is a concept drawn from Jacques Rancière’s political philosophy, referring to those who are excluded from the established order of counting and recognition. The so-called “having no part” refers to “not being counted as a constituent part” or “having no share in participation.” Thus, the proletariat in the era of digital capitalism consists of the “invisible ones” excluded from the mainstream classes, that is, “those who have no part.” Dean argues: “As the code name for the contemporary communist subject, it is better to use ‘the surplus people’ or ‘those who have no part’ than ‘the proletariat’ or ‘the multitude.’” [14]14 Jodi Dean is an American political theorist associated with the contemporary communist movement. In the view of left-wing scholars, the political subject today is those excluded by capital, those differentiated by capital; within the social community they are both emptiness and absence, namely the impoverished marginalized and the shareless. Whether it is Fuchs’s emphasis on digital workers and the precarious “information lower-middle class” struggling for survival, or Dean’s construction of “the surplus people,” or other left-wing scholars’ constructions of “intellectual workers,” “the sign class,” and “the network multitude,” their common characteristic is that they are “the excluded” and “the invisible” abandoned by the social elite and mainstream classes. Therefore, “the actual proletarians are precisely the identityless ones who are rejected and expelled on another invisible sensory level within bourgeois society.” From this perspective, the commonality of the new subjects constructed by left-wing scholars is “the excluded marginal other”; they are the speechless rabble, no longer the “propertyless” and “employed” masses, but the “shareless” and “nameless” crowd.

在马克思的视域中，无产阶级最本质的规定是“无生产资料”,由于他们“无产”并靠出卖自己的劳动力创造社会财富，所以他们是社会群体中真正的劳动阶级。从更为宏观的视角看，无产阶级代表的“是一种社会功能，它既构建了历史，又在社会主义中实现了自身”,因而是社会变革中最具革命性的阶级。然而，需要辨明的是，西方左翼学者建构的政治主体并不具有“无产者”的身份，或者说，他们推出的“新无产阶级”褪去了“无产者”的底色。在他们看来，在数字化生产时代，对于无产阶级的判定不再以“无产”为标尺，而是以“无分”为尺度。所谓“无分”,是指“不被计算为组成分子”或“没有参与之分”,由此，数字资本主义时代的无产阶级就是被排除在主流阶级之外的“不可见者”,即“无分者”。迪恩认为：“作为当代共产主义主体的代号，使用‘剩余之人’‘无分者’要比‘无产阶级’和‘诸众’更好一些。”在左翼学者看来，如今的政治主体是被资本排除的人，是资本分化出来的人，他们在社会共同体中既是空无，也是缺失，即穷苦边缘人和无份额者。无论是福克斯强调的数字工人以及岌岌可危并为生存奋斗的“信息中下阶层”,还是迪恩建构的“剩余之人”,抑或其他左翼学者建构的“智识工人”“符号阶级”和“网络群众”,他们的共同特质即是一种被社会精英和主流阶级抛弃的“被排除者”和“不可见者”。所以，“现实中的无产者恰恰是资产阶级社会中另一个看不见的感性层面上被排斥和被驱逐的无身份者”。由此观之，左翼学者建构的新主体的共性是“被排斥的边缘他者”,他们是无言的群氓，已经不再是“无产”且“受雇”的大众，而是“无分”且“无名”的群众。

(4) Dissolution of the Historical Mission: From “Gravediggers” to “New Poor”

(四)历史使命的消解：从“掘墓人”到“新穷人”

According to Marx’s understanding, in the process of capital’s frantic pursuit of profit, plunder of wealth, enclosure of resources, and absorption of labor power, it inevitably causes some people to lose their means of production, thereby nurturing and forging its own “gravediggers.” History and facts have already proven that the historical mission of the proletariat is to use its own weapons to blast apart the superstructure of official society, “to overthrow the capitalist mode of production and finally abolish classes.” This historical mission determines that the proletariat must liberate itself “through the political form of workers’ emancipation,” that is, through the real communist movement to destroy the old world, thereby “abolishing the opposite—private property—that restricts it and makes it the proletariat.” Thus, the proletariat is inherently endowed with indignation at the absolute poverty and inhuman living conditions they face, possesses firm class consciousness, and is a revolutionary class capable of great tasks, hence able to “expropriate the expropriators.” Unlike the identity of “gravediggers” constructed by Marx, the political subjects constructed by Western left-wing scholars are either the “shareless” and “useless” masses, or illusory individuals in digital networks. Some are symbol manipulators, some are routine laborers, some are unemployed drifters, some are the poor, refugees, and slum dwellers at the bottom of the power pyramid. These groups are not entirely the “working class” but rather the dispersed precariat of the digital age. In other words, the subjects depicted by left-wing scholars resemble the “new poor” discussed by Zygmunt Bauman, “a completely heterogeneous and extremely diverse collection.” Such political subjects are fragmented individuals gathered within an illusory community formed by digitalization; they do not possess radical revolutionary demands and have lost the identity of “gravediggers.” On the contrary, for such political subjects, “access to limited information and social circles is far more important than money.” They may not even harbor expectations for the common ownership of the means of production, nor will they form the class consciousness of the proletariat, let alone consolidate the political sentiment of human liberation. Therefore, the new subjects constructed by left-wing scholars are far removed from the revolutionary class in Marx’s sense; they can neither bear the historical responsibility of political subjects nor lead the practices and movements to transform social relations; instead, they are the “to-be-liberated” of the digital age.

按照马克思的理解，资本在疯狂追逐利润、掠夺财富、圈占资源和吸纳劳动力的过程中，必然使一部分人丧失生产资料，孕育和锻造自己的“掘墓人”。历史和事实已经证明，无产阶级的历史使命是运用自己的武器炸毁官方社会的上层建筑，“推翻资本主义生产方式和最后消灭阶级”,这一历史使命决定了无产阶级必须“通过工人解放这种政治形式”来解放自己，即通过现实的共产主义运动摧毁旧世界，从而“消灭制约着它而使它成为无产阶级的那个对立面——私有财产”。所以，无产阶级与生俱来具有对他们面临的绝对贫困和非人性的生活状况的愤慨，具有坚定的阶级觉悟，是堪当大任的革命阶级，因而能够“剥夺剥夺者”。与马克思建构的“掘墓人”身份不同，西方左翼学者建构的政治主体要么是“无分”和“无用”的大众，要么是数字网络中虚幻的个体。他们有的是符号操纵者，有的是常规劳动者，有的是无业游民，有的是权力金字塔底端的穷人、难民和贫民窟居民，这些群体不全是“劳工阶级”,而是数字时代分散的流众(precariat)。换言之，左翼学者笔下的主体类似于齐格蒙特·鲍曼所论及的“新穷人”,“是一个完全异质的极端多样的集合”,这样的政治主体是碎片化的个人集聚于数字化结成的虚幻共同体之中，他们并不具有激进的革命要求，丧失了“掘墓人”的身份。相反，对这样的政治主体而言，“对于限量信息和社交圈的接近比金钱要重要得多”,他们甚至不会对生产资料的共同占有抱有期待，也不会形成无产阶级那样的阶级觉悟，更不会凝聚起人类解放的政治情怀。因此，左翼学者建构的新主体已经与马克思意义上的革命阶级相去甚远，他们既不能担负起政治主体的历史责任，也无法领导变革社会关系的实践和运动，而是数字时代的“被解放者”。

3. Reconstructing Class Logic: The Presence and Return of the Proletariat in the Era of Digital Capitalism

三、重构阶级逻辑：数字资本主义时代无产阶级的在场与回转

The excavation and shaping of the revolutionary subjectivity and collective consciousness of the proletariat in the era of digital capitalism by Western left-wing scholars contain a fundamental logical flaw: they abandon the Marxist approach of constructing class logic based on capital logic, instead focusing on new production elements such as “social knowledge,” “immaterial labor,” and “creativity.” They take “intellect” as the fundamental basis for class division, severing the unity of “physical labor” and “intellectual labor” as necessary elements of work, and confusing the essential difference between “labor” and “activity” in the digital age. Consequently, they misjudge the logic of the proletariat’s presence, and the proletariat they shape ultimately degenerates into a broad and vague, diverse and abstract “pseudo-subject.” In reality, whether in the era of industrial capitalism or the era of digital capitalism, as long as capital logic is the ruling logic of society, as long as capital rules and dominates labor, and as long as laborers “rent out or sell their own labor power” under the domination of capital, then the proletariat, as the personification of labor, remains present. It can be said that the proletariat in the era of digital capitalism itself does not need to be reconstructed or rewritten; only their mode of labor and form of presence have changed. Today, to reconstruct the political subject of the digital age, it is necessary to return to the Marxist class logic: from “intellectual logic” back to “capital logic,” from “virtual subject” back to “substantive subject,” from “digital actor” back to “digital laborer,” and to construct a theory of the subject that conforms to the mode of capitalist operation in the digital age.

西方左翼学者对数字资本主义时代无产阶级革命主体性和集体自觉性的挖掘与塑造存在着根本的逻辑漏洞，即放弃了马克思主义依循资本逻辑建构阶级逻辑的致思理路，而是聚焦于“社会知识”“非物质劳动”“创造力”等新型生产元素，把“智力”作为划分阶级的根本依据，割裂了作为劳动必备要素的“体力”和“智力”的同一性，混淆了数字时代“劳动”与“活动”的本质差别，从而误判了无产阶级的在场逻辑，他们塑造的无产阶级最终沦为了广大而空泛、多样而抽象的“伪主体”。实际上，无论是工业资本主义时代，还是数字资本主义时代，只要资本逻辑是社会的统治逻辑，只要资本统治和支配着劳动，只要劳动者在资本的宰制下“出租或出卖自己的劳动力”,那么作为劳动人格化的无产阶级就依旧在场。可以说，数字资本主义时代的无产阶级本身不需要被重构，也不需要被改写，只不过他们的劳动方式和在场形式发生了转变而已。如今，要重构数字时代的政治主体，必须回到马克思主义的阶级逻辑，从“智力逻辑”回到“资本逻辑”,从“虚拟主体”回到“实体主体”,从“数字活动者”回到“数字劳动者”,建构符合数字时代资本主义运行方式的主体理论。

(1) From “Intellectual Logic” Back to “Capital Logic”

(一)从“智力逻辑”回到“资本逻辑”

Western left-wing scholars firmly grasp the production logic of “general intellect” in the era of digital production and take “intellectual production” as the main criterion for constructing the proletariat in the digital age, thereby turning all groups associated with “intellectual labor” into a “new proletariat.” This mode of thinking completely ignores the “capital logic” root of the emergence of political subjects and thus fails to correctly position the relationship between “general intellect” and “the proletariat.” In Marx’s classical theory of the subject, “intellectual logic” is not the criterion for dividing classes; “intellect” is the species-characteristic of human beings as humans, while “class” is a reflection of relations of production. Marx points out: “Intellect does not make a person a representative of the estates; it only makes the representative of the estates a person.” [15]15 Karl Marx, “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 1, p. 262. [Translator’s note: This is a paraphrase; the exact English wording may vary slightly in standard editions.] “Intellect” is a common characteristic of human beings, but not a special basis for dividing classes, because “intellect is by no means an attribute of the estate”; [16]16 Ibid. on the contrary, estates or classes are formed by people possessing intellect within social relations of production (especially economic relations), and relations of production are the true stage on which classes emerge. Therefore, Engels points out: “Social classes are at all times the products of relations of production and exchange, in a word, of the economic relations of their own time.” [17]17 Friedrich Engels, *Anti-Dühring*, *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 25, p. 252. Since a given class is the product of given relations of production, the different positions people occupy in production or labor can divide them into different classes. For example, some people own the means of production, so they are the propertied; others cannot obtain the means of production, so they are the propertyless; some rely on physical labor, so they are manual workers; others rely on intellectual labor, so they are intellectual workers. However, it must be clarified that judging who is the proletariat is not based on the labor distinction between “intellect” and “physical strength,” because the process of labor more or less consumes both a person’s “physical strength” and “intellect.” Marx and Engels “understand by labor-power or labor capacity the aggregate of those physical and intellectual faculties existing in the physical body, the living personality, of a human being, which he sets in motion whenever he produces a use-value of any kind.” [18]18 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Penguin Classics, 1990, p. 270. Thus, “digital labor,” “immaterial labor,” “creative production,” etc., in the digital age are merely new forms of the “intellectual” factor in the labor process; they are insufficient to serve as the basis for determining the proletariat. The most fundamental criterion for determining the proletariat is the relationship of ownership of the means of production and the “employment relationship” arising from it. Specifically within capitalist relations of production, the most direct root of the emergence of the proletariat is “capital logic.” The essence of capital is “accumulated labor,” it is “a social relation of production.” In relations of production where the hegemony of capital logic exists, labor is degraded to capital’s “prey”; capital devours labor, and labor is subordinate to capital. “If capital does not employ workers, the workers will perish. If capital does not exploit labor-power, capital will perish, and to exploit labor-power, capital must purchase it.” [19]19 Karl Marx, “Wage Labour and Capital,” *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 9, p. 203. In the exchange relationship between capital and labor, wage workers emerge; they “have no other way out than to be employed by the capitalist.” [20]20 Ibid., p. 202. Under the domination of capital logic, “the increase of capital is the increase of the proletariat, i.e., the working class.” [21]21 Ibid., p. 205. Therefore, in the digital age, “capital logic” remains the key to understanding the proletariat, except that capital logic in the digital age uses networks, digital technology, and intelligent technology to achieve expansion, causing the complete separation of intellect from physical strength in the digital production process, “intellect is transformed into capital’s power to dominate labor.” [22]22 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Penguin Classics, 1990, p. 799. In relations of production where cognitive capital, intelligent capital, and digital capital jointly enjoy hegemony, although people possess deeper and broader “knowledge,” obtain more diverse “data,” and form more pluralistic “network social circles,” these “social intellects” are not the basis for confirming who is the proletariat. The proletariat is not a “polyhedron” in the digital network; the proletariat in the era of digital capitalism must necessarily be those who do not own their own digital means of production and are employed by digital platforms, not the “multitude,” “the excluded,” “the dispossessed,” “the network crowd,” and “the surplus people” that foreign left-wing scholars construct in a sweeping and undifferentiated manner.

西方左翼学者牢牢抓住数字化生产时代“一般智力”的生产逻辑，并将“智力生产”作为建构数字时代无产阶级的主要尺度，从而把与“智力劳动”相关的群体全部打造成“新无产阶级”。这种致思方法完全忽略了政治主体产生的“资本逻辑”根源，从而无法摆正“一般智力”与“无产阶级”之间的准确位次。在马克思的经典主体理论中，“智力逻辑”并不是划分阶级的尺度，“智力”是人之为人的类特性，而“阶级”则是生产关系的映现。马克思指出：“智力并不使人成为等级会议代表，它只是使等级会议代表成为人。”“智力”是人的共同特性，但不是划分阶级的特殊依据，因为“智力决不是等级的属性”,相反，等级或阶级是拥有智力的人在社会生产关系(特别是经济关系)中形成的，生产关系才是阶级产生的真正舞台。所以，恩格斯指出：“社会阶级在任何时候都是生产关系和交换关系的产物，一句话，都是自己时代的经济关系的产物。”既然一定的阶级是一定的生产关系的产物，那么人在生产或劳动中所处的地位的不同就可以把人划分为不同的阶级。比如，有的人拥有生产资料，他就是有产者，有的人无法获得生产资料，他就是无产者；有的人依靠体力劳动，他就是体力劳动者，有的人依靠智力劳动，他就是智力劳动者。但是，需要说明的是，判断谁是无产阶级，并不以“智力”和“体力”的劳动差别为依据，因为劳动的过程或多或少都会耗费人的“体力”和“智力”,马克思恩格斯就“把劳动力或劳动能力，理解为一个人的身体即活的人体中存在的、每当他生产某种使用价值时就运用的体力和智力的总和”。由此，数字时代的“数字劳动”“非物质劳动”“创造力生产”等仅仅是劳动过程中“智力”因素的新形态，它们不足以成为判定无产阶级的依据。判定无产阶级最根本的尺度是生产资料的占有关系以及由此产生的“雇佣关系”。具体到资本主义生产关系，无产阶级产生的最直接根源是“资本逻辑”。资本的本质是“积累起来的劳动”,是“社会生产关系”,在存在资本逻辑霸权的生产关系中，劳动降格为资本的“猎物”,资本吞噬着劳动，劳动依附于资本。“如果资本不雇用工人，工人就会灭亡。如果资本不剥削劳动力，资本就会灭亡，而要剥削劳动力，资本就得购买劳动力。”在劳资交换关系中产生了雇佣工人，他们“除了受雇于资本家就没有别的出路”。在资本逻辑的宰制下，“资本的增加就是无产阶级即工人阶级的增加”。所以，在数字时代，“资本逻辑”依然是理解无产阶级的锁钥，只不过数字时代的资本逻辑借用网络、数字、智能技术来实现扩张，使数字生产过程中的智力同体力彻底分离，“智力转化为资本支配劳动的权力”。在认知资本、智能资本、数字资本共同享有霸权的生产关系中，尽管人们拥有了更深广的“知识”,获取了更多样的“数据”,形成了更多元的“网络交际圈”,但是这些“社会智力”并不是确证谁是无产阶级的根据。无产阶级并不是数字网络中的“多面体”,数字资本主义时代的无产阶级必然是那些没有自己的数字化生产资料并受雇于数字平台的人，而不是国外左翼学者以偏概全、不加区分地打造的“诸众”“无分者”“被排除者”“网络群众”和“剩余之人”。

(II) From “Virtual Subject” to “Entity Subject”

(二)从“虚拟主体”走向“实体主体”

Western left-wing scholars extend the political subject from the “real field” to the “virtual scene.” Relying on big data, network technology, and virtual reality, they construct the “cognitive proletariat,” “user proletariat,” “cyber-proletariat,” “separated people,” “digital workers,” etc. The greatest commonality of these political subjects is their virtuality; they are “virtual subjects” and “anonymous masses” residing in the network world and digital interfaces. Virtual subjects emerge with the emergence of virtual capital. Especially in the digital age, capital devours network and intelligent technology, dominating labor in a more hidden and abstract form, thereby forming an extremely illusory “digital capital community.” Within it, “the subject as a decision-making entity of will, freedom, representation, and the subject of power, knowledge, and history has disappeared, replaced by a vague, floating, and non-substantial subjectivity.” [23]23 This appears to be a paraphrase or composite citation; the original source is not immediately identifiable in standard English editions of Marx or contemporary theorists. Clearly, in the virtual community constructed by digital capital, people’s real relationships are rewritten. The person existing as an entity interacts with others in the identity of a “virtual entity”; the subject’s labor is also stamped with the mark of the “virtual entity.” The virtual entity is the reflection of the substantive person in the digital network; one substantive person can interact on multiple platforms and digital interfaces, meaning one entity can correspond to multiple virtual entities. Therefore, left-wing scholars regard the “long tail” and “masses” distributed according to power laws in communicative capitalism, digital interfaces, and cyberspace as political subjects. These virtual identities do not conform to the realistic and substantive characteristics of the proletariat. Similarly, the “virtual identity” of laborers in communicative capitalism and digital capitalism cannot serve as the criterion for confirming the identity of the proletarian. On the contrary, to construct the political subject of digital capitalism, one should follow the opposite logical path, moving from the “virtual subject” to the “entity subject.” From the perspective of historical materialism, the political subject is a specific group situated within relations of production, an entity composed of real individuals. Marx holds: “Only as a worker can he maintain himself as a physical subject, and only as a physical subject can he be a worker.” [24]24 Karl Marx, “Wage Labour and Capital,” *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 9, p. 203. That is to say, as a political subject, the working class is an “entity subject” composed of real individuals; they rely on wage labor to satisfy their immediate physical needs. In the digital age, people’s subject identity is dual and plural. To judge the political subject of digital capitalism, one cannot mechanically regard all “separated people” and “immaterial laborers” in the digital symbol system as entity subjects, nor can one regard all social groups controlled by algorithms as proletarians. Just imagine, if all those engaged in spiritual production and intellectual labor could serve as political subjects and bear the great historical mission, would this not be the “gospel” of digital capitalism? The political subject of digital capitalism is precisely those substantive people who are deeply controlled by intelligent algorithms, engaged in digital labor, and do not own their own means of production.

西方左翼学者把政治主体从“现实场域”延伸到“虚拟场景”,他们依托大数据、网络技术和虚拟现实，建构了“认知无产阶级”“用户无产阶级”“赛博无产阶级”“被分离的人”“数字工人”等，这些政治主体的最大共性就是虚拟性，他们是寄存于网络世界、数字界面的“虚拟主体”和“无名大众”。虚拟主体是伴随着虚拟资本的出现而出现的，特别是在数字时代，资本吞噬着网络和智能技术，以一种更加隐匿和抽象的形式主宰着劳动，由此形成了一个极端虚幻的“数字资本共同体”,在其中，“作为意志、自由、表征之决策体的主体和权力、知识、历史的主体已经消失，取而代之的是一种模糊、漂浮而无实体的主体性”。显然，在数字资本建构的虚拟共同体中，人的现实关系被重新改写了，作为实体存在的人以一种“虚体”的身份与他人交往，主体的劳动也打上了“虚体”的印迹，虚体则是实体性的人在数字网络中的映现，一个实体性的人可以在多个平台和数字界面中交往，即一个实体可以对应多个虚体。所以，左翼学者把交往资本主义、数字界面、赛博空间中按照幂律分布的“长尾”和“大众”看作政治主体，这些虚拟的身份并不符合无产阶级的现实性、实体性特质。同样，交往资本主义、数字资本主义中的劳动者的“虚拟身份”并不能作为确证无产者身份的尺度。相反，要建构数字资本主义的政治主体，应该依循相反的逻辑理路，从“虚拟主体”走向“实体主体”。从唯物史观来看，政治主体是处于生产关系中的特定群体，是由现实的个体组成的实体。马克思认为：“只有作为工人才能维持自己作为肉体的主体，并且只有作为肉体的主体才能是工人。”也就是说，作为政治主体，工人阶级是现实的个体组成的“实体主体”,他们依靠雇佣劳动满足直接的肉体需要。在数字时代，人们的主体身份是二重化和多元的，要判断数字资本主义的政治主体，不能机械地将数字符号系统中“被分离的人”“非物质劳动者”全部看作实体主体，也不能将受算法操控的社会群体全部看作无产者。试想，如果所有从事精神生产、智力劳动的人都可以充当政治主体并堪当历史大任，这又何尝不是数字资本主义的“福音”呢?数字资本主义的政治主体正是那些深受智能算法控制、从事数字劳动且没有自己的生产资料的实体人。

(III) From “Digital Activity Participant” to “Digital Laborer”

(三)从“数字活动者”走向“数字劳动者”

In the mode of production of digital capitalism, people’s mode of labour has undergone a revolutionary transformation; all people’s lives are absorbed into the virtual scenes woven by digital technology, and people’s “wishes, cravings, dreams, and oppressions are all infected by informational elements.” [25]25 The original Chinese phrase “信息化的要素” is translated as “informational elements”; the quotation is from a Western left-wing scholar, but the source is not specified in the original text. Against this backdrop, Western left-wing scholars argue that in the digital age “the subject of revolution is no longer the traditional proletariat, but extends to all individual subjects at the level of the whole of social life,” including the “user class” wearing headphones and manipulating keyboards, the “playbour” freely active on digital platforms in the form of play, and the “labourers” addicted to games, short videos, livestreaming, online shopping, and so on. However, a deeper analysis shows that in the digital age there remains a clear boundary between people’s “activity relations” and “labour relations.” Strictly speaking, digital activity is a kind of labour that creates no value; it may be passive or active, it may be a form of laziness or a pastime or entertainment; in short, it has the meaning of life. Digital labour is value-creating labour, i.e., “positive, creative activity”; it is labour that takes social intellect as its premise, produces digital commodities, and has the character of work. Only by distinguishing these two different types of social relations can we distinguish “digital labourers” from “digital activity participants,” and thereby construct a political subject within “digital relations of production” rather than “digital relations of life.” As Marx said: “Only the worker who produces surplus value for the capitalist, or who serves the self-valorisation of capital, is a productive worker.” [26]26 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 16, “Absolute and Relative Surplus Value.” Similarly, only digital labourers who are monitored by digital platforms and produce surplus value for digital capitalists or serve the self-valorisation of digital capital are digital workers. As for those digital activity participants (netizens, users, etc.) trapped in the digital cage, although their activities are alienated and they may even fall into poverty, in the strict sense they cannot yet be called “proletarians”; after all, “the poor and the working class have always existed; and the working class has usually been poor. But the poor and the workers living under the conditions described above, i.e., the proletarians, have not always existed.” [27]27 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The Communist Manifesto*, Chapter 1, “Bourgeois and Proletarians.”

在数字资本主义生产方式中，人们的劳动方式发生了革命性变革，所有人的生活都被吸纳进数字编织的虚拟场景中，人们的“愿望、渴求、梦想、压迫，全都被信息化的要素侵染”。在此背景下，西方左翼学者认为，数字时代“革命的主体不再是传统的无产阶级，而是扩展到整个社会生活层面的所有的个人主体”,包括戴着耳机、操纵键盘的“用户阶级”,以玩耍的形式在数字平台自由活动的“玩工”(playbour),以及沉迷于游戏、短视频、直播、线上购物等的“劳动者”。然而，深入辨析可以看到，数字时代人的“活动关系”与“劳动关系”仍然有着明确的界限。从严格意义上讲，数字活动是一种不创造任何价值的劳动，它可能是消极的，也可能是积极的；可能是一种懒惰，也可能是一种消遣、娱乐，总之它具有生活的意义；数字劳动是创造价值的劳动，即“积极的、创造性的活动”,它是一种以社会智力为前提、生产数字商品的劳动，是带有工作性质的劳动。只有区分了这两类不同的社会关系，才能区分出“数字劳动者”和“数字活动者”,进而才能在“数字生产关系”而非“数字生活关系”中建构政治主体。正如马克思所言：“只有为资本家生产剩余价值或者为资本的自行增殖服务的工人，才是生产工人。”同样，只有受数字平台监控并为数字资本家生产剩余价值或为数字资本的自行增殖服务的数字劳动者，才是数字工人。而那些深陷数字牢笼之中的数字活动者(网民、用户等),尽管其活动存在异化，甚至陷入贫困，但在严格的意义上还不能被称作“无产者”,毕竟“穷人和劳动阶级一向就有；并且劳动阶级通常都是贫穷的。但是，生活在上述条件下的这种穷人、这种工人，即无产者，并不是一向就有的”。

In short, digital capitalism, as the latest landscape of global capitalism, has brought humanity into the abstract community woven by digital capital, plunging the “substantive human beings” within it into the “logic of thing-domination” that Marx criticised, causing people to gradually “fall” within the vast “empire” jointly constructed by digital technology and capital, and even to become “marginalised people,” “particulate people,” and the “new poor.” Although digital capitalism has changed the form and mode of operation of capital, and digital capital rules and controls people in a more hidden and virtual form, becoming a new form that dominates people’s production and life, it has not changed the constriction of capital logic over the logic of labour. Western left-wing scholars have deeply examined the changes in class structure triggered by the “alliance” between capital and digital technology, analysed the new alienation of people’s labour in the digital age and its actual manifestations, and attempted to forge a new subject to resist digital capitalism. Their theoretical courage deserves recognition. However, digital capitalism is still capitalism in essence; its greatest contradiction remains the contradiction between capital and labour, and its valorisation logic and operational mechanism still lie within the theoretical context of Marx’s critique of the logic of capital. Therefore, the political subject (the proletariat) constructed by Marx to overthrow capitalism remains valid. Marx pointed out: “Philosophy cannot become reality without abolishing the proletariat; the proletariat cannot abolish itself without making philosophy a reality.” [28]28 Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s *Philosophy of Right*: Introduction.” At present, the domination of human beings by digital capitalism is an undeniable “reality”; the mission of the proletariat has not been completed, and it still possesses the logic of being present within the control of capital. Therefore, the political subject shaped by Marx will neither retreat behind the scenes, nor need to be “rewritten,” nor need to be “replaced.” We can neither mythologise the proletariat because of the deep alienation caused by digital capitalism, nor abandon the proletariat because digital capitalism has created the “new poor.” As long as the logic of capital is present, its opposite will not withdraw. (Notes omitted)

总之，数字资本主义作为全球资本主义的最新景观，已经将人类带进了数字资本编织的抽象共同体之中，使置身于其中的“实体性的人”陷入了马克思批判的“物役逻辑”之中，使人在数字和资本共同构筑的庞大“帝国”中渐渐“失坠”,甚至沦为“边缘人”“微粒人”和“新穷人”。尽管数字资本主义改换了资本的形态和运行方式，数字资本以更加隐匿和虚拟的形式统治人、控制人，成为主导人的生产生活的新形式，但是它并没有改变资本逻辑对人的劳动逻辑的钳制。西方左翼学者深入检视资本与数字技术“结盟”所引发的阶级结构的变革，分析数字时代人的劳动的新异化及其现实表征，尝试打造反抗数字资本主义的新主体，他们的理论勇气值得肯定。但是，数字资本主义在本质上还是资本主义，其最大的矛盾依然是资本与劳动的矛盾，其增殖逻辑和运行机制依然处在马克思资本逻辑批判的理论语境之中，由此，马克思所建构的推翻资本主义的政治主体(无产阶级)依然有效。马克思指出：“哲学不消灭无产阶级，就不能成为现实；无产阶级不把哲学变成现实，就不可能消灭自身。”当下，数字资本主义对人的宰制是不可否认的“现实”,无产阶级的使命并没有完成，其在资本的控制中依然具备在场的逻辑。所以，马克思所塑造的政治主体既不会退居幕后，也不需要被“改写”,更不需要被“置换”。我们既不能因为数字资本主义引发的深度异化而将无产阶级神话，也不能因为数字资本主义制造了“新穷人”而将无产阶级抛弃，只要资本逻辑在场，其对立面就不会退场。（注释略）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑