New Characteristics of Contemporary Capitalist Development

I. Introduction

一、引 言

McKenzie Wark, in his new book *Capital is Dead*, raises a provocative point: what if we are no longer in a capitalist society but in a worse one? The author responds to Wark’s question through trend analysis rather than a yes-or-no answer. Which trends are leading us from capitalist society toward a worse one? Drawing on Rosa Luxemburg’s famous formulation of “socialism or barbarism,” the author argues that we face a choice between communism and neo-feudalism. There are signs that capitalism is turning toward neo-feudalism. Our task is to reverse this trend and facilitate the transition from capitalism to communism. Trends do not determine everything. There is both necessity and space for political action.

麦肯齐·沃克(McKenzie Wark)在其新著《资本已死》(Capital is Dead)中提出了一个颇有挑衅意味的观点：如果我们不再处于资本主义社会，而是处于一个更槽糕的社会，情况会怎么样呢?笔者以趋势性分析，而非回答“是或否”来回应沃克的问题。哪种趋势正导致我们从资本主义社会转向更糟糕的社会?借助罗莎·卢森堡(Rosa Luxemburg)的“社会主义还是野蛮”的著名论断，笔者认为，我们是在共产主义与新封建主义(neo-feudalism)之间取舍。有迹象表明，资本主义正在转向新封建主义。我们的任务是扭转这一趋势，使资本主义向共产主义过渡。趋势并不决定一切。我们有必要也有空间采取政治行动。

By “capitalism” the author means a system in which private property, wage labor, and commodity production drive the self-expansion of value. To sustain its own development and achieve legitimation, the capitalist system requires a specific form of state—a bourgeois state under the rule of law that can ensure justice and neutrality. Today’s digital capitalism is a system that is becoming neo-feudalism, a process of self-evolution that is intensifying and closing in on itself.

笔者所说的“资本主义”是指由私有财产、雇佣劳动和商品生产推动价值自行增殖的一种制度。为了维护自身发展并实现合法化，资本主义制度需要一种特定的国家形式，一种可以确保公正和中立的资产阶级法治国家。当今的数字资本主义是正在变为新封建主义的制度，其自我演进的进程正在加剧，且闭关自守。

By “communism” the author does not mean that politics ends in a reconciled, harmonious whole. As we know from psychoanalysis, struggle is irreducible; it is always present. In the author’s view, communism is a political form aimed at realizing the common self-emancipation of the proletariat. In a communist society, production for the accumulation of capital by a minority will be replaced by production that meets the needs of the majority.

笔者所说的“共产主义”并不意味着政治终结于一种和解、和谐的整体。正如我们从精神分析中所了解到的，斗争是不可减少的，它一直都在。在笔者看来，共产主义是一种为了实现无产者的共同自我解放而存在的政治形式。在共产主义社会，那种为了少数人的资本积累的生产将被满足多数人需求的生产所替代。

The author’s response to Wark presupposes the following view: capitalism always coexists partially with other modes of production and accumulation, relying on and exploiting them. In fact, capitalism undermines the conditions under which other modes of production and accumulation operate, subjecting them to external regulations and making them worse.

笔者对沃克的回应是以如下观点为前提的，即资本主义总是与其他的生产和积累模式部分共生，并依赖和剥削它们。实际上，资本主义瓦解了其他生产和积累模式所适用的条件，使它们屈从于外来法规，变得更糟。

As the process of real subsumption closes in on itself, today’s capitalism is making itself worse. The monopolistic concentration of digital capitalism, rising inequality, and the subordination of government to the market are giving rise to a neo-feudalism. In this society, accumulation is achieved through rent, debt, and power. For example, in the global knowledge and technology industries, rental income from intellectual property exceeds income from commodity production. In the United States, the contribution of financial services to GDP surpasses that of manufacturing. More and more capital is no longer invested in production but is stored or redistributed as rent. The self-expansion of value is thus weakened. The valorization process has already moved far beyond the factory, entering a complex, speculative, and unstable closed loop that increasingly relies on surveillance, coercion, and violence.

随着其实质吸纳(real subsumption)进程的封闭，今天的资本主义正在使自身变得更糟。数字资本主义的垄断性集中、不平等加剧、政府对市场的屈从，正在导致一种新封建主义的诞生。在这种社会中，积累通过租金、债务和权力来实现。例如，在全球知识和科技产业里，从知识产权中获得的租金收入超过了商品生产的收入。在美国，金融服务对国内生产总值的贡献超过制造业。越来越多的资本不再投资于生产，而是作为租金而储存或再分配。价值的自行增殖因而被削弱。增殖过程已经远远超越工厂，进入了复杂、投机和不稳定的闭环，日益依赖监控、强迫和暴力。

II. Four Characteristics of Neo-Feudalism

二、新封建主义的四个特征

Neo-feudalism has four closely related characteristics. First, the fragmentation of sovereignty; second, new hierarchies of lords and peasants and their extraction; third, desolate hinterlands and privileged cities; fourth, insecurity and catastrophism.

新封建主义具有四个紧密相关的特征。一是主权的分割；二是新的领主与农民的等级制度和征收；三是荒凉的腹地与特权城市；四是不安全感和灾变论。

(1) Sovereignty is fragmented and splintered

(一)主权被分割而呈碎片化

Marxist historians Perry Anderson and Ellen Meiksins Wood regard the fragmentation of sovereignty as a key feature of feudalism. Two aspects of the fragmentation of sovereignty—splintering and extra-economic coercion—are very important for understanding neo-feudalism.

马克思主义历史学家佩里·安德森(Perry Anderson)和埃伦·米克辛斯·伍德(Ellen Meiksins Wood)将主权的分割视为封建主义的一个关键特征。主权分割的两个方面，即碎片化和超经济强制(extra-economic coercion),对理解新封建主义非常重要。

First, state functions are “vertically and horizontally divided.” Because different types of political and economic institutions seek power and jurisdiction, local power structures take diverse forms. Arbitration and conciliation replace the rule of law. The boundary between the legal and the illegal becomes more blurred.

首先，国家职能是“纵向和横向分裂”的。由于不同类型的政治和经济机构谋求权力和管辖权，因此地方的权力结构形式多样。仲裁与和解代替了法治。合法与非法之间的界限变得更加模糊。

Second, with the fragmentation of sovereignty, political power is intertwined with economic power. Feudal lords extracted surplus from peasants through legal coercion. This act was partly “legal” because the feudal lord had the authority to decide the laws imposed on peasants within his jurisdiction. New lords, such as global financial institutions and digital technology platforms, use debt to redistribute wealth between the world’s poorest and richest populations. Whether feudal or neo-feudal, economic subjects impose political power on specific groups under conditions set by the feudal lord. At the same time, political power, when exercised together with economic power, can even function as an economic power, including not only taxation but also fines, liens, asset seizures, licenses, patents, jurisdictions, and borders.

其次，随着主权的分割，政治权力与经济权力交织在一起。封建领主通过法律强制榨取农民的盈余。这一行为之所以“合法”的部分原因是，封建领主有权在其管辖范围内决定施加于农民的法律。全球金融机构和数字科技平台等新领主则利用债务在世界上最贫困人群与最富裕人群中再分配财富。无论是封建还是新封建，经济主体都是根据封建领主设置的条件将政治权力施加于特定的群体。与此同时，政治权力与经济权力一起实施时甚至会作为一种经济权力，不仅包括税收，还包括罚款、留置、资产扣押、许可、专利、管辖权和边境。

There are many examples illustrating this characteristic. One-tenth of global wealth is hidden in offshore accounts to avoid taxes. The law does not apply to billionaires powerful enough to evade it. The valuations of the largest technology companies far exceed the economies of most countries in the world. Big companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google act like sovereign states in the cities and states where they are located. Cities try to attract these companies, negotiate with them, and cooperate with them on their terms. Concentrated enormous wealth has its “constituent power” [n1], enabling it to make rules that it may or may not follow. Foreign investors also have the right to sue governments in international tribunals. They often do so when public-interest regulations designed to protect water resources, communities, and the environment threaten the value of their investments. Cases of Canadian mining companies suing Latin American governments are numerous. Manuel Perez-Rocha and Jen Moore point out: “These companies can bypass domestic courts and sue governments before private tribunals like the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, which is affiliated with the World Bank. The members of these tribunals are highly paid corporate lawyers who have no obligation to consider local interests or the importance of health and environmental protection.” In this situation, private tribunals replace national law.

有很多例证体现了这方面的特征。全球1/10的财富藏聚于离岸账户中以便避税。法律不适用于权势足以规避它的亿万富翁。最大的科技公司的估值远超世界上绝大多数国家的经济体量。苹果、亚马逊、微软、脸书、谷歌等大公司在其所在的城市和州就像主权国家一样。城市力图吸引这些公司，与它们协商，根据它们提出的条件与其展开合作。集中的巨额财富有其“制宪权”,能够制定它们有可能遵守、也有可能不遵守的规则。外国投资者还有权在国际法庭起诉各国政府。当为保护水资源、社区和环境而设计的公益法规威胁到其投资价值时，他们经常这样做。加拿大矿业开采公司起诉拉美政府的案例比比皆是。曼努埃尔·佩雷斯—罗查(Manuel Perez- Rocha)和耶恩·穆尔(Jen Moore)指出：“这些公司可以越过国内法院，向从属于世界银行的国际投资争端解决中心之类的私人法庭起诉政府。这些法庭的成员系高薪聘请的企业律师，他们没有义务考虑地方的权益或健康和环境保护的重要性。”在这种情况下，私人法庭代替了国家法律。

Within nation-states, sovereignty is also fragmented and splintered. For example, cash-strapped U.S. municipal governments use complex fine systems to directly exploit people, with a particularly pronounced impact on the poor. In her new book *Punishment without Crime*, Alexandra Natapoff documents the shocking extent to which misdemeanor law is applied within the already extraordinarily large U.S. prison system. Poor people, especially people of color, are arrested on false charges and persuaded to plead guilty to avoid the jail time they might face if they contested the charges. Pleading guilty not only results in a criminal record but also begins to accumulate fines; if fines are not paid promptly, they lead to more fines and charges. The “legal illegality” and judicial injustice that emerged in the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the killing of Michael Brown are typical. Natapoff writes: “The city’s municipal court and police department openly extracted millions of dollars from low-income African American populations.” Police were required to “make arrests and issue summonses for profit.” The city government used violence like a feudal lord’s retainers to confiscate people’s property. Aristocratic power marks a social relation of surplus appropriation. Is our relationship with media platforms in digital capitalism not the same? They appropriate our surplus using the metadata of our interactions and extract “information” resources through networked personal communication devices.

在民族国家内部，主权也被分割而呈碎片化。例如，资金拮据的美国市政当局使用复杂的罚款系统直接盘剥人民，这对穷人的影响尤为明显。亚力山德拉·纳塔波夫(Alexandra Natapoff)在其新著《无罪的惩罚》(Punishment without Crime)中记录了轻罪法在业已异常庞大的美国监狱体制中的应用范围之广，达到了令人震惊的程度。穷人，特别是有色人种，因虚假指控而被捕，并以避免他们在对指控提出异议时可能招致牢狱之灾为名被劝说认罪。而认罪不仅被记录在案，还会开始累积罚款，如果罚款未被及时缴纳，将会导致更多的罚款和指控。出现在因迈克尔·布朗(Michael Brown)被杀而在美国密苏里州弗格森引发的骚乱中的法定的非法行为(legal illegality)和司法不公颇为典型。纳塔波夫写道：“该市的市政法院和警察机构公开从低收入非裔人群中索取数百万美元。”警察被要求去“逮捕和发出传票以牟利”。市政府像封建领主的仆从一样使用暴力没收民众的财物。贵族权力标识着一种挪用盈余的社会关系。难道我们与数字资本主义中的媒体平台的关系不是一样的吗?它们利用我们交流互动的元数据侵占了我们的盈余，并通过网络化的个人通讯设备提取“信息”资源。

(2) New hierarchies lead to rising inequality

(二)新的等级制度导致不平等加剧

Inequality is a characteristic of feudal relations. Wood emphasizes that “the feudal lord exploited the peasantry under conditions of fragmented sovereignty” was a distinctive feature of Western feudalism. Anderson reminds us of exploitative monopolies such as the water mills controlled by feudal lords. Peasants were forced to bring their grain to the feudal lord’s water mill to be ground, and the water mill charged a fee. Peasants not only cultivated land that did not belong to them, but also lived in an environment where the feudal lord was “the manager and master of the production process and of the whole of social life.”

不平等是封建关系的特征。伍德强调，“封建领主在主权分割的背景下剥削农民”是西方封建主义的显著特征。安德森让我们想起了被封建领主控制的水磨坊之类的剥削性垄断。农民被迫将自己的谷物拿到封建领主的水磨坊去磨，而水磨坊是收费的。农民不仅耕种着不属于自己的土地，还居住在封建领主是“生产过程和整个社会生活的管理者和主人” 的环境中。

As early as 2010, the technologist Jaron Lanier, in his famous work *You Are Not a Gadget*, observed the emergence of the networked oppressed and the giants. As tech giants become richer and more attractive, their owners become billionaires, based on the cheap labor of workers, the outsourcing of many necessary tasks to third-party contractors, the free labor of users, tax breaks granted by cities eager to attract jobs, and the consolidation of their monopolies. Evgeny Morozov has pointed to the feudalization accompanying the rise of the tech giants. He writes: “In addition to the privacy disaster, these tech giants pay almost no taxes; their love of moon shots undermines any government-led innovation efforts; their welfarism cannot last forever. In fact, the latter is likely to lead to hypermodern forms of feudalism. We will have to pay for anything we get through a screen or a keystroke, at least as easily as swiping a bus card.” Tech giants are extractive; granting them tax breaks means taking money from municipalities. Their presence drives up rents and real estate prices, crowding out cheap apartments, small businesses, and people. Shoshana Zuboff’s research on surveillance capitalism reveals another dimension of techno-feudalism—service. Like lords and kings, Facebook and Google cooperate with powerful states, sharing with them information that the law prohibits these states from collecting themselves. In short, the information extraction of today’s internet technology is ubiquitous, intrusive, and unavoidable.

早在2010年，技术专家雅龙·拉尼尔(Jaron Lanier)在其名著《你不是一个器件》(You Are Not a Gadget)中就观察到了网络受压迫者和巨头的出现。随着科技巨头变得愈加富有和更具吸引力，它们的拥有者成为亿万富翁，其基础是工人的廉价劳动、将许多必要的工作外包给第三方承包商、用户的免费劳动力、迫切想吸引就业岗位的城市给予它们的税收优惠，以及其垄断地位的巩固。叶夫根尼·莫罗佐夫(Evgeny Morozov)指出了伴随着科技巨头的崛起而出现的封建化。他写道：“除了隐私灾难，这些科技巨头几乎从不交税；它们对登月的喜爱削弱了任何由政府主导的革新努力；它们的福利主义不可能永远持续下去。事实上，后者很可能导致超现代的封建主义形式。我们将不得不为通过屏幕或按键获取任何东西而付费，至少将会像刷公交卡一样简单。”科技巨头都是榨取型的，给它们税收优惠意味着从市政拿钱。它们的存在推高了租金和房地产的价格，挤出了廉价公寓、小商业和人群。肖莎娜·祖博夫(Shoshana Zuboff)关于监控资本主义(surveillance capitalism)的研究揭示了科技封建主义的另一个维度——服役。就像领主与国王一样，脸书和谷歌与强权国家合作，向后者分享法律禁止这些国家自己收集的信息。总之，当今网络科技的信息提取是无处不在的、侵入性的和不可避免的。

Therefore, although it is not quite appropriate to say that the present is an era of peasants and lords, it is indisputable to say that intensifying inequality (more billionaires, widening gap between rich and poor) and the solidification of differentiated legal frameworks (protecting the interests of big corporations and the rich, exploiting and imprisoning the working class and the底层民众 [n2]) are characteristics of contemporary capitalist society.

因此，尽管说当前是农民和领主的时代不是很恰当，但说不平等加剧(亿万富翁增多，贫富差距加大)、差异化法律框架的固化(保护大公司和富人的利益，剥削和监禁工人阶级和底层民众)是当代资本主义社会的特征，这是无可争议的。

Platformization and land privatization signify a trend toward new feudalism characterized by hierarchy and expropriation. As Nick Srnicek puts it, platforms are “digital infrastructures that enable two or more groups to interact.” Platforms position themselves as intermediaries, as the foundation for user activities, as the condition of possibility for generating interaction. Google makes it possible for people to find target information from a vast and constantly changing sea of information. Amazon allows people to easily search for and compare prices and purchase consumer goods from well-known and unknown suppliers. Uber makes it possible for strangers to share rides. Airbnb provides similar services in the realm of houses and apartments. All of this is achieved through the generation and circulation of massive amounts of data. The more people use them, the more effective and powerful they become, ultimately transforming the broader environment in which they operate. Therefore, platforms have a tendency toward monopoly.

平台化和土地私有化表征具有等级性和征用性特征的新封建主义趋势。正如尼克·斯尔尼切克(Nick Srnicek)所说的，平台是“使两个或更多群体的交流成为可能的数字设施”。平台将自身定位为中介，是用户活动的基础、产生交流的可能性条件。谷歌使人们有可能从海量且不断变化的信息中寻找目标信息。亚马逊让人们可以轻松地找寻、比较价格，并从知名和不知名的供应商那里购买消费品。优步使陌生人拼车共乘成为可能。爱彼迎在房屋和公寓领域也提供类似服务。所有这些都是通过海量数据的生成和流通来实现的。使用它们的人越多，它们就会变得越有效、越强大，最终改变它们所在的大环境。因此，平台具有垄断倾向。

Srnicek distinguishes between cloud platforms and lean platforms as two types of platforms. The now-familiar cloud is characterized by extensive on-demand computing services, typically storage, operating systems, and applications. Enterprises can subscribe to or rent software as needed, rather than purchasing or developing their own software. Like the purchase or re-circulation of land, cloud platforms extract rent and data. Lean platforms have a similar reflexivity, able to extract rent without ownership, relying on outsourced labor to handle their own maintenance, training, etc. Uber and Airbnb, which reset consumption items as means of accumulation, are typical examples. Uber’s cars are not used for the owner’s personal transportation, but to make money; Airbnb’s apartments are not the owner’s residence, but items for rent. In both platforms, individual ownership becomes a tool for the platform “lord” to accumulate capital and data. This trend of turning individuals into “peasants”—that is, people who own the means of production but whose labor increases the capital of the platform owner—is neo-feudal in nature.

斯尔尼切克将云(cloud)和精益平台(lean platform)视为平台的两种类型。现在为人所熟知的云以广泛的按需计算服务为特色，通常是存储、操作系统和应用程序。企业可以根据需要订阅或租用软件，而不必购买或开发自己的软件。就像土地的购买或重新流转一样，云平台提取租金和数据。精益平台具有类似的反身性(reflexive),能够在没有所有权的情况下，依靠外包劳动力负责自身的维护、培训等来提取租金。将消费项目重置为积累手段的优步和爱彼迎就是典型的例子。优步的车不是用于车主个人的交通出行，而是为了赚钱；爱彼迎的公寓不是业主的居住之所，而是出租之物。在这两个平台中，个人的所有权变成了平台“领主”积累资本和数据的工具。这种使个人变成“农民”的趋势，即成为拥有生产资料但其劳动却增加了平台拥有者的资本的人，是新封建性质的。

Consider land privatization. Over the past 40 years, more than 2 million hectares of public land in the UK (one-tenth of the UK’s total land area) have been sold to private hands. These land sales have occurred at all levels, from local to national, for various reasons, advancing as a “piecemeal process” under different circumstances. Marx regarded the enclosure movement as a key condition for capitalist development, because it drove peasants off the land, forcing them to sell their labor power for a livelihood. The following trends are crucial to the new round of privatization: “increased hoarding of land by the private sector; Britain’s increasing transformation into a rentier economy—where more and more people pay rent to a wealthy, landowning minority; widespread social disruption.”

再来看土地私有化。在过去的40年里，英国有超过200万公顷的公共用地(占英国总土地的1/10)被卖给了私人。这些土地售卖因各种因由出现在从地方到全国的各个层级，以一种“零碎的进程”在不同的情况下推进。马克思将圈地运动作为资本主义发展的关键条件，因为圈地运动将农民赶出了土地，迫使他们为了生计而出卖劳动力。以下趋势对新一轮私有化来说至关重要，即“私营部门囤积土地的现象增加；英国正日益转变为地租经济——越来越多的人向富裕的、拥有土地的少数人支付租金；广泛的社会混乱”。

As Marx emphasized in Volume 3 of *Capital*, “the monopoly of landed property is a historical precondition of the capitalist mode of production and remains its permanent foundation.” It is capitalism itself that creates this model; capitalism creates its own preconditions, putting new wine in old bottles, giving new forms to old objects and practices. The contemporary process of land privatization, far from providing a foundation for capitalist development, tends to shift toward a new feudalism worse than capitalism (billionaires buying up and hoarding large tracts of land).

正如马克思在《资本论》第3卷中所强调的，“土地所有权的垄断是资本主义生产方式的一个历史前提，并且始终是它的基础”。正是资本主义自身创建了这一模式，资本主义创建了自身的前提条件，新瓶装旧酒，为旧物品和实践赋予了新的形式。当代土地私有化进程非但没有为资本主义发展提供基础，反而倾向于向比资本主义更糟的新封建主义(亿万富翁购置囤积大量土地)的方向转变。

Land privatization also shows that, along with the individualization of consumption, intensifying inequality has led to the emergence of new lords and the oppressed. Not all consumers are the same; some are loyal followers who promise loyalty to the enterprise in exchange for points, discounts, benefits, and other rewards as consumer returns. As a global aristocracy and ruling class, the super-rich are increasingly protected. Their airplanes are private jets; their schools and clubs are also private. More importantly, they amass wealth through a large number of direct expropriation mechanisms—charging fees for every possible transaction, illegal foreclosures and illegal evictions, breaking down services into individually charged items, outright wage theft. These are routine and widespread, and those who cannot afford lawyers have difficulty successfully dealing with them. The financial sector systematically robs the poor to benefit the rich. As Richard Westra observes: “Much of the mystifying architecture of financialization and its opaque securitization instruments rests on a surge in debt on ordinary working people’s home mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and so on.” The same structure is repeated on an international scale, as entire countries submit to powerful creditors and are forced to cut social provisions.

土地私有化也表明，伴随着消费的个性化，不平等的加剧导致了新型领主和受压迫者的出现。并非所有的消费者都是一样的，有些人是忠诚的跟随者，他们承诺对企业忠诚以换取积分、折扣、福利等好处作为消费者的回报。作为全球贵族和统治阶级，超级富豪受到越来越多的保护。他们的飞机是私人飞机，学校和俱乐部也都是私人的。更重要的是，他们通过大量的直接征用机制——每笔可能的交易都收取费用，非法止赎和非法驱逐，将服务分解为单独收费的项目，直接盗取工资——聚集财富。这些都是经常性的、普遍的，负担不起律师费用的人难以成功地处理这些问题。金融部门系统地劫贫济富。正如理查德·韦斯特拉(Richard Westra)所观察到的：“金融化的许多神秘结构及其不透明的证券化工具建立在普通劳动人民住房抵押贷款、信用卡、学生贷款等方面的债务激增的基础上。”同样的结构在国际范围内重复上演，整个国家屈服于强大的债权人，被迫削减社会供给。

(3) The widening gap between urban and rural areas

(三)城乡差别拉大

The third characteristic of neo-feudalism is its spatiality, namely, protected, active central cities are flanked by agricultural and desolate hinterlands. We can also call this the urban-rural divide, or, more abstractly, the rift between inside and outside, the demarcation between safety and danger, prosperity and despair. Wood believed that medieval cities were oligarchic in nature, “the ruling class grew rich by providing commercial and financial services to kings, emperors, and popes. They jointly ruled the surrounding countryside… extracting wealth from it in one way or another.” [3]3 Ellen Meiksins Wood, *The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View* (London: Verso, 2002), p. 96. Anderson described the feudal rift between city and countryside as a “dynamic opposition” between commodity production and natural production. [4]4 Perry Anderson, *Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism* (London: Verso, 1974), p. 150. Associated with this rift are nomads and migrants, who, facing unbearable conditions, seek new places to live and work but often encounter closed doors. Their real situation on the edge of survival is reflected in the fear of those protected ones who never feel secure enough.

新封建主义的第三个特征是其空间性，即受到保护的、活跃的中心城市被农业和荒凉的腹地所拱卫。我们也可以称之为城乡差别，或者更为抽象地说，内部与外部之间的撕裂，安全与危险、繁荣与绝望之间的分野。伍德认为，中世纪的城市在本质上是寡头性质的，“统治阶级通过给国王、皇帝和教皇提供商业和金融服务而富起来。他们共同统治周边的乡村……通过这样或那样的方式从中榨取财富”。安德森将城乡之间的封建撕裂描述为一种商品生产与自然生产之间的“动态对立”。与此撕裂相关的是游牧民族和移民，他们因面对着难以忍受的条件而寻找新的生活和工作场所，但却常常碰壁。他们在生存边缘的真实状况反映在对那些永远都感觉不够安全的受保护者的恐惧中。

The American hinterland is a place of loss and dismantling, rumored to have a glorious capitalist past, which perhaps temporarily allows some to linger in dreams that their lives might become better. Emily Guendelsberger writes in *On the Clock*: “I saw so many ghost towns and abandoned factories in Kentucky, Indiana, and North Carolina, just a twenty-minute drive in any direction.” [5]5 Emily Guendelsberger, *On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane* (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2019), p. 17. The hinterland is ripe, waiting to accept new forms of exploitation worse than capitalism. People no longer make things; they get by through warehouse-style big-box stores, call centers, dollar stores, and fast-food restaurants.

美国的腹地是失落和被拆解之地，传说拥有辉煌的资本主义的过去，这或许暂时能让一些人流连忘返于其生活可能会变得更好的梦想之中。埃米莉·京德斯贝格尔(Emily Guendelsberger)在《为生计奔波》(On the Clock)一书中写道：“我在肯塔基、印第安纳和北卡罗莱纳看到了如此多的鬼城和废弃工厂，从任何方向随便开车20分钟就能看到。”腹地已成熟，等待着接受比资本主义更糟糕的新的剥削。人们不再制造东西，而是通过仓储式量贩卖场、呼叫中心、一元店和快餐店维持生计。

In the political sphere, the despair of the hinterland manifests in movements of residents outside the cities. These movements sometimes revolve around environmental issues (such as fracking and pipeline struggles), sometimes around land issues (such as privatization and expropriation), and sometimes around the reduction of services (such as the closure of hospitals and schools). In the United States, gun politics pits the hinterland against the cities. The way the hinterland is divided from the city is redefined within the city itself, reflected in the abandonment of impoverished areas and their gradual disappearance due to capitalist land grabs. Cities become wealthier, while more people become homeless.

在政治领域，腹地的绝望表现在城外居民的运动中。这些运动有时围绕环境问题(如水力压裂和管道斗争),有时围绕土地问题(如私有化和征收),有时围绕服务减少问题(如医院和学校被关闭)。在美国，枪支政治使腹地与城市对立。腹地与城市划分的方式在城市内部被重新定义，这体现为贫困地区被遗弃以及其因资本主义的土地掠夺而逐步消失。城市变得更为富有，而更多人却变得无家可归。

The renewed prominence of social reproduction theory is a response to “hinterlandization” — the loss of the general capacity to reproduce the basic conditions of life. Hinterlandization manifests as rising suicide rates, increased anxiety and drug addiction, declining fertility rates, reduced life expectancy, and, in the United States, the self-destruction of a psychotic society through mass shootings. The hinterland is inscribed on people’s bodies, on the land. As some hospitals and schools close and basic services diminish, life becomes more desperate and uncertain.

社会再生产理论(social reproduction theory)的新凸显是对腹地化(即再生产基本生活条件的一般能力的丧失)的一种回应。腹地化表现为自杀率上升、焦虑和吸毒成瘾者增加、生育率下降、预期寿命降低，以及在美国，大规模枪击事件导致的精神病性社会的自我毁灭。腹地刻在人们的身上，刻在土地上。随着一些医院和学校的关闭以及基本服务的减少，生活变得更加绝望和不确定。

Philip Cerny wrote as early as 1998: “Global innovation, communication, and resource nodes (global cities) are at one end, and unwanted, fragmented hinterlands are at the other, and the two are increasingly estranged.” [6]6 Philip G. Cerny, “Neomedievalism, Civil War and the New Security Dilemma: Globalisation as Durable Disorder,” *Civil Wars* 1, no. 1 (1998): 36–64. Cerny warned of the resulting exclusion and lumpenization. He pointed out that due to the lack of infrastructure and support in vast geographical spaces, “many people will be excluded from the ‘circle,’ rural ‘hicks’ or even wandering bands of the poor… like in the Middle Ages, they will again be forced to become predators or supplicants of the cities.”

菲利普·塞尔尼(Philip Cerny)早在1998年就写道：“全球革新、交流和资源节点(全球城市)是一端，不受欢迎的、支离破碎的腹地是另一端，两者日渐疏远。”塞尔尼对由此而导致的排斥和流氓化(lumpenization)发出了警告。他指出，由于大范围的地理空间缺乏基础设施和支持，“许多人将被排除在‘圈子之外’,乡村‘土包子’甚或流浪的贫困乐队……就像中世纪一样，再次被迫变成城市的掠夺者或求助者”。

(4) Amplified Insecurity

(四)不安全感被放大

The fourth characteristic is emotional and subjective, including insecurity, anxiety, and apocalypticism. These emotional orientations link the three preceding characteristics. We have ample reason to feel insecure. Against a backdrop of severe inequality and global warming, the disaster of capitalism plundering social surplus is real.

第四个特征是情感和主观方面的，包括不安全感、焦虑、世界末日。这些情感取向将前面三个特征联系起来。我们有充分的理由感到不安全。在一个严重不平等和全球变暖的背景下，资本主义掠夺社会盈余的灾难是真实存在的。

A loose and mystical neo-feudal ideology intertwines, amplifying apocalyptic insecurity. This insecurity seems to take shape in the process of embracing mysticism, techno-paganism, and anti-modernity. Examples include Jordan Peterson’s mystical Jungianism and Alexander Dugin’s mythological geopolitics of Atlantis and Hyperborea, as well as the rise of the so-called “Dark Enlightenment” and “neo-reactionaries.” For instance, PayPal founder and billionaire Peter Thiel believes that freedom and democracy are incompatible. In a 2012 speech, Thiel explained the connection between feudalism and tech startups, arguing that “no founder or CEO has absolute power. It’s more like an ancient feudal structure. People give leaders various powers and abilities, and then blame them when problems arise.” [7]7 Peter Thiel, “The End of the Future,” lecture at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., October 2012. The interesting point is how the feudal structure is rendered as a tool of freedom. Corey Robin links this move to American “democratic feudalism,” arguing that “democracy promises to rule another person exactly as a monarch rules his subjects.” [8]8 Corey Robin, *The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin* (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 4. Although Thiel is happy to completely discard the democratic element, he also sees freedom as the protection of privilege, and privilege as a manifestation of innate genius. Like other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Thiel cares about protecting his wealth from democracy, thus advocating for outward expansion and isolation strategies such as living on the sea and space colonization, avoiding taxes at all costs. In short, the emergence of this neo-reactionary ideology illustrates how extreme capitalism is stepping into the radical decentralization process of neo-feudalism.

松散和神秘的新封建意识形态交织在一起，放大了世界末日的不安全感。这种不安全感似乎正在拥抱神秘主义、科技异教和反现代的过程中形成。这方面的例子包括乔丹·彼德森(Jordan Peterson)的神秘荣格主义和亚历山大·杜金(Alexander Dugin)的亚特兰蒂斯和希柏里尔神话地缘政治，还有所谓的“黑暗启蒙”(dark enlightenment)和“新反动派”(neo-reactionaries)的兴起。例如，贝宝的创始人、亿万富翁彼得·蒂尔(Peter Thiel)认为，自由与民主是不相容的。蒂尔在2012年的一次演讲中解释了封建主义与科技初创企业之间的关联，认为“没有一个创始人或首席执行官拥有绝对的权力。这更像是古老的封建结构。人们赋予领导人各种权力和能力，然后在出现问题时指责他们”。有趣之处在于，封建结构是如何被渲染为自由的工具的。科里·罗宾(Corey Robin)将这一举动与美国的“民主封建主义”联系在一起，认为“民主承诺完全像君主统治他的臣民一样去统治另一个人”。尽管蒂尔乐于完全抛弃民主元素，但他也认为自由是对特权的保护，特权是内在天才的表现。与其他硅谷企业家一样，蒂尔也关心、保护其财富免受民主的冲击，因而提倡生活在海上和太空殖民等外拓和孤立策略，不惜一切代价避税。总之，这种新反动意识形态的出现说明了极端资本主义是如何步入新封建主义的激进去中心化进程的。

For those on the other end of the neo-feudal divide, anxiety and insecurity are alleviated through drugs, alcohol, food, and any items that can reduce despair, blindness, and endless drudgery, rather than through ideology. Guendelsberger describes the stress caused by continuous technological monitoring at work — being a few seconds late, failing to meet quotas, using the restroom too often, all risk getting fired. Repetitive, low-control, high-pressure jobs, like those under technological surveillance, are directly linked to “depression and anxiety.” [9]9 Guendelsberger, *On the Clock*, p. 142. Irregular schedules and unreliable wages feel immensely stressful and suffocating. For some, at least, the neo-feudal apocalypse may be individual, familial, or local. When one has experienced generations of suffering, it is hard to be troubled by climate catastrophe.

对于处在新封建主义鸿沟的另一端的人而言，焦虑和不安全感是借助药物、酒精、食物以及任何可以减轻绝望、盲目和无休止的苦差的物品而非意识形态来化解的。京德斯贝格尔描述了由工作中持续的技术监控引致的压力——迟到几秒钟、未完成配额、使用卫生间次数过多，都有被解雇的风险。重复、低控制、高压力的工作，就像受到技术监控的工作一样，直接与“抑郁和焦虑”挂钩。无规律的作息和不可靠的工资会让人感到压力巨大、令人窒息。至少对于一些人而言，新封建世界末日论可能是个体的、家庭的或地方性的。当一个人经历了数代人的苦难时，很难会为气候灾难而烦恼。

III. New Changes Brought by Neo-Feudalism

三、新封建主义带来的新变化

By naming this society “worse” than capitalism “neo-feudalism,” the author refutes the view that the current greatest antagonism is between democracy and fascism. In the United States, we often hear this rhetoric from liberal newspapers and mainstream capitalist politicians. However, considering that capitalist democracy is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a ruling system set up for the interests and enjoyment of power of capital, it is meaningless to think that the threat of fascism to democracy is the main issue. In fact, with the growing power of oligarchs such as financiers, media and real estate tycoons, and billionaires in the carbon and tech sectors, who doesn’t know this?

笔者通过将这种比资本主义“更糟糕”的社会命名为“新封建主义”来反驳如下观点，即当前最大的对抗是民主与法西斯主义之间的对抗。在美国，我们经常可以从自由主义的报纸和主流资本主义政治家那里听到这种论调。但是，考虑到资本主义民主是资产阶级的专政、统治制度是为资本的利益和享受权力而设置的，因此，认为法西斯对民主的威胁是主要问题是毫无意义的。实际上，随着金融家、媒体和房地产大亨、碳排放和科技领域的亿万富翁等寡头的权力与日俱增，谁不知道这一点?

Viewing the present from the perspective of democratic states threatened by the rise of fascism diverts attention from the primary role of global networked digital capitalism in intensifying popular anger and discontent. Fascist rhetoric hinders us from thinking about why ostensibly democratic societies appear to be turning to the right. Fascist discourse naturalizes hatred and processes it according to identity. It does not treat the turn to the right as a politicization. The factors behind right-wing politicization are economic: complex networks produce extreme inequality, winner-takes-all. The turn to the right is a response to this intensifying inequality. People’s lives have become more desperate and uncertain. Trade unions are weaker. Technology’s threat to the labor sector is unprecedented, further eroding the sites and opportunities for organized resistance. Capitalism is turning capitalist society into a worse society. When the left is weak, or is prevented by mainstream media and capitalist parties from expressing political discourse, popular anger is expressed by other forces. Currently, these “other forces” are the far right.

从民主国家受到法西斯主义抬头威胁的视角来看待当下，这种做法转移了对全球网络数字资本主义在加剧民众愤怒和不满中的主要作用的注意力。法西斯主义的花言巧语妨碍了我们思考为何表面上的民主社会似乎正在转向右翼。法西斯主义的言辞使仇恨自然化，并依据身份处理仇恨。它未将向右翼的转向视为一种政治化。右翼政治化背后的因素在经济方面：复杂的网络产生极端不平等，赢者通吃。向右转是对这种不平等加剧的回应。民众的生活变得更加绝望和不确定。工会的力量更弱。科技对劳动力部门的威胁前所未有，进一步削弱了有组织的抵抗的场所和机会。资本主义正在将资本主义社会变成一种更糟糕的社会。当左翼的力量薄弱，或者被主流媒体和资本主义政党阻止发表政治言论时，民众的愤怒就会由其他的力量所表达出来。当前，这些“其他的力量”是极右翼。

When people experience insecurity and deprivation, they want something to hold onto and someone to blame. At this point, the right offers an identity centered on nation, church, and family. It targets those who threaten this identity: immigrants, socialists, feminists, and sexual minorities. Thinking from the perspective of neo-feudalism, however, allows us to move beyond the stage of identity and confront the impact of extreme economic inequality on political society and institutions. It forces us to face the fact that billionaires hoard trillions of dollars in assets and seal themselves off in enclaves, while millions become climate refugees, hundreds of millions face bleak life prospects, and the struggle for survival intensifies. More bluntly, recognizing that capitalism is turning into neo-feudalism makes us abandon any illusion that elections or piecemeal reforms are sufficient to address the current catastrophe.

当民众经历不安全感和被剥夺时，他们想要一些可以抓得住的东西和一些可以责备的人。此时，右翼提供了一种围绕国家、教会和家庭的身份认同。它将矛头指向威胁到这种身份的人，即移民、社会主义者、女权主义者和性少数群体。而从新封建主义的角度思考，可以远离身份认同的阶段，直面极端经济不平等对政治社会和制度的影响。它让我们必须面对的事实是：亿万富翁囤积了数万亿美元的资产并将自己封闭在飞地之中，而数百万人却成为气候难民，数亿人的生活前景黯淡，为了生存而进行的斗争愈演愈烈。更坦率地说，认识到资本主义正在变成新封建主义，就会让我们不再奢望任何选举或小范围改革足以应对当前的灾难。

The author’s reference to current trends as “neo-feudal” also hints at changes in labor-capital relations. Today, the ideal of free contract labor, which defends and masks coercive class relations, is untenable. Even the crudest fantasy of “voluntary consent” is insufficient to explain the social relations of contemporary wealth accumulation. In the service-dominated economies of the Global North, the majority work in the service sector. Some find that their phones, bicycles, cars, and houses have lost their character as personal property and become means of production or instruments for extracting rent. Consumer goods and lifestyles now tied to platforms owned by others have become means of accumulation for platform owners. Some indulge in the fantasy that “our service is creative, and we are part of a privileged class of knowledge workers.” Yet knowledge workers, like temporary workers, often compete for contracts and, if they win, work for a wage. The majority constitute a propertyless underclass that survives only by serving the needs of high-income earners (e.g., as personal assistants, trainers, tutors, etc.). A report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the occupation adding the most jobs over the next decade will be personal care aides—not health workers, but aides who help people bathe and clean. In the past, such people were commonly called servants. The meager incomes of the working class are further plundered by unavoidable debts, fees, fines, and rents.

笔者将当前的趋势称为“新封建”也是在暗示劳资关系的变化。今天，为强制性阶级关系辩护、并为之打掩护的自由契约劳动的理想是站不住脚的。即使是“自愿同意”这一最赤裸裸的幻想也不足以解释当今财富积累的社会关系。在全球北方以服务业为主导的经济体中，多数人在服务行业工作。一些人发现，他们的手机、自行车、汽车和房子已经失去了作为个人财产的特性，而变成了生产资料或者赚取租金的手段。现在，与他人拥有的平台捆绑在一起的消费品和生活方式成为了平台拥有者的积累手段。有些人沉溺于“我们的服务是创造性的、我们是知识工作者这一特权阶层的一员”这样的幻想中。然而，知识工作者就像临时工一样，经常为合同而竞争，如果赢了，就可以为一份工资而工作。多数人构成了一个没有财产的下层阶级，只有通过为高收入者的需求服务(例如，做私人助理、培训师、家庭教师等)才能生存。美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)的一份报告称，未来十年增加工作岗位最多的职业将是个人护理辅助人员，不是卫生工作者，而是帮人洗澡和清洁的辅助人员。在以前，人们通常称他们为仆人。工薪阶层的可怜收入因不可避免的债务、费用、罚款和租金而被进一步掠夺。

IV. Neo-Feudalism Is Not Merely Parallel to Capitalism

四、新封建主义不只是并行于资本主义

Some may suspect that the author’s view of neo-feudalism is un-Marxist. Marx acknowledged the coexistence of different modes of production, and that this coexistence could intensify specific tendencies of those modes, making domination and economic impoverishment worse. Relatedly, Luxemburg discovered capitalism’s dependence on external non-capitalist modes of production. Primitive accumulation, which Marx situated in the feudal period, is a permanent feature of capitalism; direct appropriation (rather than exchange) is an attribute of capitalism. The development of capitalist industry presupposed slavery and colonialism. Capitalism relies on violence, extraction, dispossession, and entrenched, hereditary hierarchies.

有些人可能会怀疑笔者关于新封建主义的观点是非马克思主义的。马克思承认不同生产方式的共存，以及这种共存可能会加剧不同生产方式的特定趋势，使统治和经济贫困变得更糟糕。与此相关，卢森堡发现了资本主义对外部非资本主义生产方式的依赖。马克思置之于封建时期的原始积累是资本主义的一个长久特征，直接占有(而非交换)是资本主义的属性。资本主义工业的发展是以奴隶制和殖民主义为前提的。资本主义依赖于暴力、榨取、剥夺，以及根深蒂固、世代相传的等级制度。

Karen Orren, focusing on the United States, emphasizes the overlap between feudalism and capitalism, as well as labor-capital relations. Echoing Anderson and Wood’s analysis of feudalism through sovereignty divided under hierarchy, Orren writes: “Feudal society was a giant honeycomb of separate kingdoms with distinct privileges, disseminated and enforced by their respective judicial bodies. Each kingdom displayed its own unique morality within the larger feudal ethical hierarchy.” From the perspective of master-servant law, becoming a worker is not the result of a contract with an employer, but a status of dependence on a person. Robin similarly emphasizes the persistence of feudal relations in the United States. He writes that the priority of conservative political advocacy is to maintain a system of private power that allows men and women to be citizens of a democratic state while ensuring that in the family, factory, and field they remain feudal subjects. Thus, we again have powerful examples of the coexistence of different arrangements of power and production, especially the overlap of capitalist and feudal modes, such that the feudal relations of individualized hierarchy contribute to the generation and intensification of capitalist exploitation.

卡伦·奥伦(Karen Orren)聚焦美国，强调封建制度与资本主义制度以及劳资关系的重叠。与安德森和伍德用等级制度下的主权分割分析封建主义相呼应，奥伦写道：“封建社会是由一个个有着不同特权的单独王国组成的巨大蜂巢，由各自的司法机构传播和执行这些特权。每个王国都在更大的封建等级伦理中展现自己独特的道德。”从主仆法则的视角看，成为工人不是与雇主签订合同的结果，而是一种依附于人的地位。罗宾同样强调了封建关系在美国的持续存在。他写道，保守主义政治主张的优先考量是维护私人权力体制，允许男女成为民主国家的公民，确保他们在家庭、工厂和田地中依然是封建臣民。所以，我们再次有了强有力的例子来证明不同的权力与生产安排方式共存，特别是资本主义与封建主义模式的重叠，以致于个体化等级制度的封建关系助推了资本主义剥削的产生和加剧。

In discussions on “emerging feudal elements” held in Latin America, Andrew Gunder Frank long ago analyzed that what emerges as feudal elements is an effect of the “‘development’ of the capitalist economy,” and in Latin America, an effect of imperialism. Lenin viewed imperialism as the intensification of capital concentration, monopoly, and financial oligarchy. Today’s complex digital, communications, and information networks produce power-law distributions, strengthening the tendency toward greater inequality. As Frank pointed out in his analysis of Latin America, in today’s United States, Britain, and even globally, neo-feudalism is a continuation of imperialism. This becomes very clear when we analyze the structure of complex networks.

在拉美举办的关于“正在出现的封建因素”的讨论中，安德鲁·贡德·弗兰克(Andrew Gunder Frank)早就分析道，作为封建因素出现的，是“资本主义经济‘发展’”的一种效应，在拉美，则是帝国主义的效应。列宁将帝国主义视为资本集中、垄断和金融寡头的加剧。当今复杂的数字、通讯、信息网络导致了幂定律分布，增强了更加不平等的趋势。像弗兰克在其关于拉美的分析中曾经指出的那样，在今日的美国、英国，甚至全球，新封建主义是帝国主义的延续。当我们分析复杂网络的结构时，这一点变得非常清晰。

Albert-László Barabási, in his book *Linked*, elaborates on the formal characteristics of power-law distributions in complex networks: networks characterized by free choice, growth, and preferential attachment. These are networks people voluntarily link to or choose. The number of links to each node grows over time; people like something because others like it. For example, the most popular book, restaurant, or website typically has twice as many links (clicks) as the second most popular, the second has twice as many as the third, and so on, until differences at the bottom of the food chain or the tail of the distribution curve become negligible. This winner-takes-all effect is a power-law distribution. Those at the top have far more than those at the bottom. The shape of the distribution is not a bell curve but has a long tail. The most popular person on Twitter has over 100 million followers; the ninth or tenth most popular has about 50 million; the average person has about 200. To make the space equal, intervention is required.

艾伯特—拉斯洛·巴拉巴西(Albert-László Barabási)在其著作《链接》(Linked)中阐述了复杂网络中幂定律分布的形式特征，即以自由选择、增长和偏好链接为特征的网络。这些是人们自愿链接或选择的网络。每个站点的链接数量随着时间的推移而增长，人们喜欢某物是因为其他人喜欢。例如，最受欢迎的书籍、餐馆或网站的链接(点击)量通常是同类第二受欢迎的两倍，第二的链接量又是第三的两倍，依次类推，直到食物链的底端或分布曲线的尾端的差异微不足道。这种赢者通吃的效应是幂定律分布。顶端拥有的明显比底端拥有的要多得多。分布的形状不是钟形曲线，而是有一条长长的尾巴。推特上最受欢迎的人有过亿关注者，排名第九、第十的人大约有5000万关注者，而一般人只有大约200个关注者。要使空间平等，就需要进行干预。

The structure of complex networks demands inclusivity; the more projects within a network, the greater the returns for those at the apex of the pyramid. This triggers competition for attention, resources, money, work, and anything else given a network form, thereby leading to concentration. Consequently, free choice, growth, and preferential attachment result in hierarchy and power-law distributions, which enable those at the top of the pyramid to possess more wealth than those at the bottom. In other words, hierarchy is inherent to networks. To escape them and struggle against them requires destroying and abolishing the institutions that give rise to them. That is to say, abolishing inherent hierarchy requires political action.

复杂网络的结构要求包容性，网络中的项目越多，处于金字塔顶端的人获得的回报也就越大。这引发了对关注度、资源、金钱和工作等任何被赋予网络形式的东西的竞争，进而导致了集中。因而，自由选择、增长和偏好链接的结果是等级制度、幂定律分布，这就使得处于金字塔顶端的人比底端的人拥有更多的财富。换句话讲，等级制度是网络所固有的。要摆脱它们、与它们斗争，就要破坏、废除导致其产生的制度。也就是说，废除固有的等级制度需要政治行动。

When we realize that digital networks make us continuous producers of the primary resource of digital capitalism—data—we gain further insight into neo-feudalization. Our communication and interaction generate data used by others, not by ourselves. Our lives and interactions have been transformed into resources for capital accumulation. Capitalism has failed to sustain its profit rate through the exploitation of productive labor. It now utilizes consumption, extracting surplus by making the most of data as a resource, which in turn reacts back upon labor, production, circulation, finance, and debt.

当意识到数字网络使我们成为数字资本主义的主要资源——数据——的持续生产者时，我们对新封建化有了进一步的了解。我们的交流和互动生成了为他人、而非为我们自己所使用的数据。我们的生活和互动已经被变成了资本积累的资源。资本主义未能通过剥削生产性劳动力来维持其利润率。它现在利用消费，通过将数据作为一种资源，物尽其用地提取盈余，进而反作用于劳动力、生产、流通、金融和债务。

In a society as severely racist as the United States, after decades of movement struggles around gender, race, and ethnicity, it is difficult to imagine that the bourgeois fictions of freedom and equality could still provide legitimacy for market relations. Today, the wealthy and the white no longer feel the need to justify their unequal share. The rest bear the burden of proving why they deserve anything at all. Imperialism has closed in upon itself to the point where monopoly capital can compel states to reduce taxes, provide rebates and incentive policies, and enact treaties that replace state courts with private tribunals. For the sake of capital, states are forced to sell off public property and assets, seek deals that attract developers, and adopt strategies that curry favor with the rich while displacing the poor.

在像美国这样种族主义严重的社会，在围绕性别、种族和民族进行了数十年的运动斗争之后，很难想象资产阶级关于自由和平等的虚构能给市场关系提供合法性。今天，富人和白人不再觉得有必要为他们的不平等份额辩护。其余的人肩负着证明为什么自己应该得到任何东西的重任。帝国主义已自我封闭，以致于垄断资本能够迫使国家减税、提供回扣和激励政策，以及制定用私人法庭代替国家法院的条约。为了资本，各州不得不出售公共财产和资产，寻找吸引开发商的交易，并采取讨好富人、取代穷人的策略。

Neo-feudalism is not a conservative retreat to an earlier political-economic form. On the contrary, neo-feudalization is the continuation and reflexivity of imperialism under the conditions of digital capitalism. The structure of complex networks explains why contemporary capitalism is transforming into neo-feudalism. Complex networks undermine equality and reinforce hierarchy through inclusivity, free choice, and democratic participation. Hierarchy is an inherent attribute of networks characterized by free choice, growth, and preferential attachment. At the same time, in digital capitalist society, practices associated with democracy—such as freedom of speech and discussion—assemble and disassemble within affective networks. Here, politics is reduced to quotidian anger. Liberated from the shackles of democracy yet feigning democratic legitimacy, the state is refined into a tool of coercive force, surveillance, and control, as well as a means of maintaining order amid ongoing expropriation, dispossession, and fragmentation.

新封建主义不是保守地退回到原来的政治经济形式。相反，新封建化是帝国主义在数字资本主义条件下的持续和反身。复杂网络的结构说明了当代资本主义向新封建主义转变的原因。复杂网络通过包容、自由选择和民主参与破坏平等，并强化等级制度。等级制度是以自由选择、增长和偏好链接为特征的网络的固有属性。与此同时，在数字资本主义社会，言论和讨论自由等与民主相关联的实践集结、拆解于情感网络中。在这里，政治被简化为日常愤怒。从民主的枷锁中解脱出来，却又假装民主合法性，国家被炼化为矫顽力(coercive force)、监视和控制的工具以及在持续的征用、剥夺和分裂中维持秩序的手段。

V. The Political Bargain of the Neo-Feudal Hypothesis

五、新封建假说的政治交易

Currently, one of the problems facing the Left is that some widely supported ideas reinforce neo-feudalism. Localism endorses fragmentation. Technological and platform approaches reinforce hierarchy and inequality. Communitarianism confirms the urban-rural divide associated with hinterlandization.

当前，左翼面临的问题之一是：一些很受支持的观念强化了新封建主义。地方主义认可分割化。科技和平台路径强化了等级制度和不平等。地方自治主义坐实了与腹地化相关的城乡差别。

The emphasis on livelihood and survival makes small-scale peasant agriculture seem plausible, not only for the majority of the population living in cities (including 82% of North Americans and 74% of Europeans), but also for the millions displaced by climate change, war, and commercial land grabs. Of course, those living in the hinterlands face political, cultural, and economic conditions that prevent them from making a living through agricultural work (approximately 50 countries are classified as low-income food-deficit countries, most of which suffer from the impacts of climate change and are located in Africa). Universal Basic Income is an equally untenable survivalist approach. It promises that those living in the hinterlands can survive as long as they do not go to cities where the cost of living is unaffordable.

对生计和生存的强调使得小农经济貌似有理，不仅对生活在城市的那一多半人口(包括82%的北美人和74%的欧洲人)是这样，对因气候变化、战争和商业化土地侵占而流离失所的数百万人也是如此。当然，那些居住在腹地的人们面对的政治、文化和经济条件使他们无法通过农业工作谋生(大约50个国家被划入低收入食物短缺国家，这些国家大多遭受气候变化的冲击，且大多位于非洲)。全民基本收入(Universal Basic Income)是一个同样站不住脚的生存主义路径。它信誓旦旦地说，生活在腹地的人只要不去他们负担不起生活费用的城市，便足以生存下去。

Taken together, these positions envision a future of small groups engaged in subsistence agriculture and artisanal cheese production: perhaps there are survivalist enclaves on the urban fringe, with tech workers using drones conducting experiments in urban gardens. Such groups collectively remake their lives, but the communities they remake are necessarily small, local, and in a certain sense exclusive and elitist. This is like a basic vision of the future: "cool cities" surrounded by organic farms (with little attention paid to agricultural production methods). Do the farmers choose to become farmers, or are they born into it? Do they own their land? Do they share the land? Do they export their products? What are the underlying conditions that make "cool cities" possible (the builders, cleaners, and maintainers of infrastructure; the providers of transportation and communication; health, education, and childcare workers)? Are cities "cool" for them? How do these cities relate to one another? Are they fortified citadels (implying borders and walls, police and insecurity, and growing fear of the barbarians at the gate and the nomadic tribes of the hinterlands)? Does prosperity on a warming planet actually presuppose a larger, unmentioned state capable of seizing and dismantling the fossil fuel economy on a massive scale?

综上所述，这些立场展望了一个从事自给自足的农业和手工奶酪生产的小团体的未来：或许城市的边缘有生存主义者的飞地，使用无人机的科技劳动者在城市的花园进行试验。此类群体共同再造他们的生活，但他们再造的共同体必然是小的、地方性的，并且在某种意义上是排他性的和精英型的。这就像是对未来的基本看法：“酷城”(cool cities)被有机农场(很少关注农业生产方式)包围。是农民自己选择成为农民，还是他们生来如此?他们是否拥有自己的土地?他们共享土地吗?出口其产品吗?使“酷城”成为可能的潜在条件(基础设施的建设者、清洁工和维护者，交通和通讯的提供者，健康、教育和儿童护理员)是什么?城市对他们而言是“酷”的吗?这些城市如何彼此关联?它们是联合堡垒(意味着边界和围墙、警察与不安全感、对家门口的野蛮人和腹地游牧民族的恐惧与日俱增)吗?一个温暖星球上的繁荣，是否实际上预设了一个更大的、未被提及的、有能力攫取和摧毁大规模化石燃料经济的国家?

Popular left-wing views reflect the tendencies of neo-feudalism, converging by abandoning the forgotten hinterlands, rural areas, and small towns, while cultivating urban elements favorable to the rich and educated. This model ignores the working class and is far from a vision grounded in the emancipation of the working class. When work is imagined [some leftists believe we should adopt a "post-work imaginary"], it appears either as romantic, risk-free agricultural work or as tech work, as "immaterial labor." By now, the exposure of the drudgery of call center work, not to mention the traumatic labor caused by disturbing illegal content on surveillance sites like Facebook, has made the inadequacy of the "immaterial labor" perspective an undeniable fact. Equally evident is that the post-work imaginary also erases the vast amount of labor required for industry, manufacturing, infrastructure construction and maintenance, social reproduction, and the potential state structure. Given that most cities are located along coastlines, this model lacks the institutional foundation needed to address climate change.

流行的左翼观点反映了新封建主义的倾向，它们通过放弃被遗忘的腹地、农村地区和小城市以及培养有利于富人和受教育者的城市要素而融合。该模式无视工人阶级，远非以解放工人阶级为立足点的愿景。当工作被想象出来时[一些左翼人士认为，我们应该采用“后工作想象”(post-work imaginary)],它看起来要么是浪漫的无风险农业工作，要么是科技工作，是“非物质劳动”(immaterial labor)。到目前为止，对呼叫中心苦差的曝光，更不用说脸书等监控网站因令人不安的非法内容而引发的创伤性劳动，已经使“非物质劳动”观点的不足以成为不可否认的事实。同样显而易见的是，后工作想象同样抹去了工业、制造业、基础设施的建设和维护、社会再生产所需的大量的劳动力以及潜在的国家结构。鉴于大多数城市位于沿海地区，此模式缺乏应对气候变化所需的制度基础。

The neo-feudal hypothesis allows us to see both the appeal and the inadequacy of popular left-wing views. They are appealing because they resonate with mainstream consciousness; they are weak because this mainstream consciousness is a manifestation of neo-feudal tendencies.

新封建假说让我们看到了流行的左翼观点的吸引力和不足之处。它们之所以吸引人，是因为它们与主流意识产生了共鸣；它们之所以软弱，是因为这种主流意识是新封建主义倾向的表现。

VI. The Struggle for Communism

六、为实现共产主义而斗争

Some outside the left have already criticised the current situation with the term “new feudalism.” Someone has pointed out: “Economic feudalism … has no private sector, no capitalist relations, only vassals and feudal lords.” Analyses of this sort hold that the new feudalisation originates from the state. Conservative and liberal economists in the United States, for their part, argue that large-scale serfdom stems from sustainable green elitism and the currently fashionable “less is more” layoffs. For example, Joel Kotkin argues that sustainability is the liberal politics of the rich, harming the interests of the majority. Compared with high-tech and finance, energy, agribusiness and construction employ more people, which means they benefit the majority more. Kotkin writes: “The old economic system emphasised growth and upward mobility. In contrast, the new economic order focuses more on the concept of ‘sustainability’ than on rapid economic expansion, reflecting a feudal worldview.” Kotkin offers a way of dividing the members of the bourgeoisie, much like a division between the majority and the minority (i.e., a populist division), placing the oil and gas sector on the side of the people. He argues that high-tech, finance and globalisation are the enemy, threatening “to create a new social order that in some respects is more akin to a feudal structure than to chaotic industrial capitalism, with barriers to mobility that are often unbreakable.” In this liberal imagination, feudalism occupies the position of the “enemy.” The threat of centralised power and the threat to private property remain constant ideological elements.

左翼以外的一些人早已用新兴的新封建主义对当下的状况提出了批评。有人指出：“经济封建主义……没有私有部门，没有资本主义关系，只有家臣和封建领主。”诸如此类的分析认为，新封建化源于国家。美国的保守主义和自由主义经济学家则认为，大规模农奴制源于可持续的绿色精英主义和时下颇为流行的奉行“少即是多”的裁员。例如，乔尔·科特金(Joel Kotkin)认为，可持续性是富人的自由主义政治，损害的是多数人的利益。与高科技和金融业相比，能源、农业综合企业和建筑业雇佣的人更多，这意味着它们对大多数人更有利。科特金写道：“旧经济制度强调增长和向上流动。相反，新经济秩序则更关注‘可持续性’的概念而非快速经济扩张，这反映了封建的世界观。”科特金提供了一个关于资产阶级内部成员的划分方法，就像多数人与少数人(即一种民粹主义划分)的划分一样，他将石油和天然气部门划入民众的一方。他认为，高科技、金融和全球化是敌人，它们威胁“要创建一种在某些方面更类似于封建结构而非混乱的工业化资本主义的新社会秩序，其对流动性设置的障碍往往是牢不可破的”。在这种自由主义的想象中，封建主义占据了“敌人”的位置。集权的威胁和对私有财产的威胁是依然不变的意识形态要素。

These fears on the right point to what the left needs to accept, namely communism as an alternative to new feudalism. Returning to the four characteristics of new feudalism, we can identify possibilities for shifting the trends of new feudalism in another direction through political organisation and will. The fragmentation of sovereignty can be redefined as the weakening of nation-state power that must be confronted for the realisation of communism. It presents not fragmentation, but rather the separation of elements that could be reconfigured into the new global state structures needed to respond to catastrophe, including transnational organisations such as financial institutions, corporations, social media platforms, political parties, issue alliances and political organisations. This recalls the rationality of public structures that cross and transcend nation-states. It is not difficult to imagine them being repositioned as global communist institutions, devoted not to capital accumulation and the protection of billionaires’ wealth and privilege, but to the liberation, equality and abundance of the majority.

右翼的这些恐惧指向左翼所需要接受的东西，即共产主义对新封建主义的替代。回到新封建主义的四个特征，我们可以找出通过政治组织和意愿使新封建主义的趋势向另一个方向转变的可能性。主权分割化可以被重新界定为是为实现共产主义所必需面临的民族国家力量的削弱。它呈现的不是碎片化，而是可能被重新配置为应对灾难所需的新全球国家结构的要素的分离，包括金融机构、企业、社会媒体平台、政党、议题联盟(issue alliance)和政治组织在内的跨国组织。这让人想起跨越和超越民族国家的公共结构的合理性。不难想象，它们会被重新定位为全球共产主义机构，不致力于资本积累和保护亿万富翁的财富和特权，而是致力于多数人的解放、平等和富有。

The bourgeoisie will not let go of itself; achieving this depends on political struggle. The fragmentation of sovereignty reminds us that the power of the bourgeoisie is far more fragile than any of us think. This provides us with a way of thinking about how to form an international communist “realm” from a complex, tangled set of alliances (operating in a manner that transcends simple vertical and horizontal geometries or the clichés of geographical local and global).

资产阶级不会自己放手，实现这些要靠政治斗争。主权分割化提醒我们，资产阶级的力量远比我们任何人认为的要脆弱。这为我们考虑如何从一众复杂的、乱作一团的联盟(以超越简单的垂直和横向几何学或地理上地方和全球的陈词滥调的方式运作)中形成一个国际共产主义“国度”提供了思路。

Feudal lords and peasants, i.e., hierarchy, inequality, expropriation, provide a second opening. The communist path acknowledges this division and stands on the side of the peasant and the proletarian in class conflict. Such a trajectory has already gained momentum in the peasant organisations promoted by Via Campesina. Eliminate the feudal lords, abolish private property, and seize the means of production in production, circulation and other fields, letting production serve human needs. Dispersing trillion-dollar virtual capital is not very difficult; the capitalist system often does it, and we will do it too. We need to carefully consider what technology we want and need, and its actual costs. For example, are we willing to serve a sentence in a coltan mine for the sake of a mobile phone? Do we want to completely abolish the collection of metadata, or find ways to use it to better assess needs? Freed from the shackles of capital accumulation, we can finally grasp the fundamental choices about our collective life, rather than letting these choices be made behind our backs.

封建领主和农民，即等级制度、不平等、征用，提供了重启(second opening)的机会。共产主义道路承认这一分歧，并在阶级冲突中站在农民和无产者一边。此类轨迹早已在由农民之路(Via Campesina)推动的农民组织中获得了动力。消灭封建领主，废除私有制，并掌握生产、流通等领域的生产资料，让生产服务人的需求。分散万亿美元规模的虚拟资本并不是很难，资本主义制度经常这样做，我们也将这样做。我们需要仔细考虑我们想要、需要什么样的科技以及它们的实际成本。例如，我们是否愿意为了手机而在钶钽铁矿中服刑?我们是要彻底废除元数据的收集，还是想办法用它来更好地评估需求?摆脱资本积累的束缚，我们最终能抓住关于我们的集体生活的基本选择，而不是任由这些选择背着我们被决定。

As for the city and the hinterland, the end of the capital-accumulation economy makes possible the dissolution of the urban-rural divide and the division of labour that causes it. More concretely and immediately, a communist vision that takes the hinterland problem seriously opens up new possibilities for organised struggle based on current trends. We might think of Mao Zedong Thought’s strategy of the countryside encircling the cities.[16]16 The strategy of the countryside encircling the cities refers to the revolutionary path, developed by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party, of establishing rural base areas and using them to surround and eventually capture urban centres, in contrast to the orthodox Marxist focus on urban proletarian uprisings. In any case, the intensifying political game around immigration and refugees, the various forms of class struggle unfolding in urban suburbs, and the growing anger of the dispossessed in the hinterland, playing out in France, the United States (driven by electoral politics turning to the right), Hungary, Poland, Canada and elsewhere, provide the backdrop for real struggle, but we have not yet made a decision. The turn to the right is not inevitable. It is an organisational problem, a political problem of offering a possibility that can meet the broad needs and concerns of humanity, as well as prosperity.

至于城市和腹地，资本积累经济的终结使得城乡差别以及导致城乡差别的劳动分工的解体成为可能。更为具体和接近的是，我们秉持注意到腹地问题的共产主义愿景，开辟了基于当前趋势的有组织斗争的新的可能性，我们可能会想到毛泽东思想中关于农村包围城市的战略。无论如何，围绕移民和难民的政治博弈愈演愈烈，在城市郊区以各种形式开展的阶级斗争、腹地被剥夺者的日益增长的愤怒，在法国、选举政治驱动着向右转的美国、匈牙利、波兰、加拿大和其他地方上演，提供了开展真正斗争的背景，但我们尚未做出决定。向右转并非不可避免。这是一个组织问题，是提供一种能够满足人类广泛的需求和关切，以及繁荣的可能性的政治问题。

Finally, rather than being haunted by insecurity and apocalypticism, we can and must cultivate communist virtues such as solidarity, courage, discipline and self-confidence, virtues that arise from and produce a sense of comradeship. Lacking any of these, we are doomed to new feudalism.

最后，与其被不安全感和世界末日论所困扰，我们能且必须培养团结、勇气、纪律、自信等共产主义美德，这些美德源于并产生一种同志情谊。少了任何东西，都注定我们会走向新封建主义。

VII. Conclusion

七、结 语

We need to consider why we are no longer in capitalism, but in the worse condition of new feudalism. This does not mean that capitalist production and exploitation relations no longer exist; it means that other aspects of capitalist production, such as expropriation, domination and coercion, have become so powerful that organising free and equal subjects to confront each other in the labour market is no longer meaningful. It means that the role of rent and debt in accumulation equals or even exceeds the role of profit, and that work increasingly exceeds wage relations. It means that the state form associated with the bourgeoisie has been thoroughly transformed. Monopoly, finance and the territorial division of the world require another kind of analysis; new feudalism may give us a different understanding of the forces generated by digital capitalism itself. Luxemburg emphasised that imperialism is a sign that capitalism needs an “external” support; capitalism always depends on materials and labour power that it does not itself produce. What happens when capitalism is global? It closes in on itself, generating, surrounding and mining the characteristics of human life through digital networks and mass personalised media. This reflexivity produces power-law distributions, new lords and the oppressed, immense wealth and extreme inequality, and the fragmentation of sovereignty that ensures this inequality, with many wandering and suffering in the hinterland. To confront this situation and avoid it requires organised political struggle for the realisation of communism. (Notes omitted.)

我们需要考虑为什么我们不再处于资本主义，而是更糟糕的新封建主义。这并不意味着不再有资本主义生产和剥削关系，而是意味着征用、支配和强制等资本主义生产的其他方面已经变得如此强大，以致于组织自由和平等的主体在劳动力市场进行对抗已经没有意义。它意味着租金和债务在积累中的作用相当于甚至超过利润的作用，工作日益超过工资关系。它意味着与资产阶级相关联的国家形式已经被彻底改变。垄断、金融和世界的领土划分需要另一种分析，新封建主义或许会让我们对数字资本主义自身产生的力量有不同认识。卢森堡强调，帝国主义是资本主义需要“外部”支持的一个标志，资本主义总是依赖于它自身不生产的物质和劳动力。当资本主义是全球性的会发生什么呢?它闭关自守，通过数字网络和大众个性化媒体生成、包围和挖掘人类生活的特征。这种反身性产生了幂定律分布、新领主和受压迫者、巨额财富和极端不平等，以及确保这种不平等的主权分割，许多人在腹地彷徨和受苦。要直面这一局面、避免这一局面，就需要为实现共产主义而进行有组织的政治斗争。（注释略）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑