The Western Left’s Critique of the “New Alienation” of Humans in Digital Capitalism and Its Implications

Humanity today is personally experiencing the “digital-intelligent revolution.” The social acceleration and rapid life changes triggered by digitalization and intelligentization have become iconic “ontological events” in the era of economic globalization. This ongoing, accelerating, and far-reaching drastic transformation has greatly improved the existential conditions of human beings and enhanced their overall well-being, but it has also led humans into a “world of extremes.” In this world, capital and digital technology are constantly “marrying” and “conspiring” with each other; digital-intelligent technology gradually “loses its footing” and is reduced to an object for capital to “enclose,” while capital emerges in a digitalized form. It should be said that the currently burgeoning “digital capitalization” and “capital digitalization” are leading humanity into a “new empire” governed by the logic of capital, forming international digital capital oligopolies represented by Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. In this vast empire jointly constructed by digital technology and capital, humans as historical subjects suffer a “fall,” and the subject position of humans is deeply dominated by an “abstract empire.” This trend manifests as: the more powerful technology becomes, the more the human subject who creates technology tends toward “dehumanization.” The young German scholar Hartmut Rosa also believes that in the present era, where digital technology is linked with capital, humans are ruled by a new alien abstract force (the logic of digital capital). The real sphere of human existence is gradually contaminated by digital capital, and new forms of alienation occur in human space, the material world, action, time, the self, and society. This indicates that in the era of digital capitalism, human existence seems once again to fall into the “logic of thing-worship” criticized by Marx. Humans in the digital age are transforming from the real to the virtual, from the substantive to the insubstantial, from the independent to the singular. This transformation is a new challenge posed by digital capitalism to human development. Based on this, this paper systematically examines the Western Left’s critique of the “new alienation” of humans in digital capitalism, reviews the “ontological transformation” of humans triggered by the alliance of capital and digital technology, analyzes the real manifestations of human “new alienation,” with the aim of returning to the horizon and path of human liberation pioneered by Marx, and exploring possible solutions for transcending the “new alienation” of humans in the era of digital capitalism.

当下人类正亲历“数字-智能革命”，数字化、智能化引发的社会加速和生活遽变，已经成为经济全球化时代标志性的“存在论事件”。这场持续生成、加速推进和影响深广的剧烈变革，极大改善了人的存在境遇、增进了人的整体福祉，但同时也把人引向了一个“极端事物的世界”。在这个世界，资本与数字技术不断“联姻”和“共谋”，数字-智能技术逐渐“失守”，沦为资本“圈占”的对象，资本也以数字化的形态横空出世。应该说，当下方兴未艾的“数字资本化”和“资本数字化”正在把人类引向资本逻辑宰控的“新帝国”，形成了以脸书、推特、谷歌、亚马逊、苹果、微软为代表的国际数字资本寡头。在这个由数字和资本共同构筑的庞大帝国中，作为历史主体的人发生“失坠”，人的主体地位深受“抽象帝国”的宰制，这一趋势显现为：技术越是强大，作为技术创造主体的人就越趋向“非人化”发展。德国新锐学者哈特穆特·罗萨也认为，在数字技术与资本勾连的现时代，人被一种新的异己的抽象力量（数字资本逻辑）所统治，人的真实的生存界域逐渐被数字资本所侵染，人的空间、物界、行动、时间、自我和社会等都发生了“新异化”。这说明，数字资本主义时代人的存在似乎再度陷入马克思所批判的“物役逻辑”，数字时代的人正在从真实向虚拟、从实体向虚体、从独立向独异转变，这种转变是数字资本主义对人的发展的新挑战。基于此，系统梳理西方左翼对数字资本主义人的“新异化”的批判，检视资本与数字技术结盟所引发的人的“存在论变革”，分析人的“新异化”的现实表征，以期能够回到马克思所开创的人的解放视界和道路，探寻扬弃数字资本主义时代人的“新异化”的可能方案。

I. The Western Left’s Ontological Critique of the “New Alienation” of Humans in Digital Capitalism

一、西方左翼对数字资本主义人的“新异化”的存在论批判

In the era of big data, the hegemony of artificial intelligence, and the rise of the metaverse, digitalization seems to have constructed a more transparent, open, and democratic social structure, greatly promoting social progress and human development. Yet it is undeniable that “today, the entire planet is the factory of capitalism.” [1]1 This is a paraphrase or direct quote from a Western leftist thinker, likely referring to the global reach of capitalist production. Under the dominance and seduction of the logic of capital, the “capitalization of digital technology” and the “personification of digital capital” together pose an unprecedented challenge to modern society and the existential conditions of humans, to the extent that Bernard Stiegler points out that the development of artificial intelligence technology makes the convergence of digital technology and capital possible. In this sense, “technology has produced all kinds of unprecedented new devices: machines are applied to circulation, communication, sight, sound, entertainment, calculation, work, ‘thinking,’ and all other fields; in the near future, they will also be applied to sensation, avatars (remote imaging, remote sensing, simulated reality), and destruction. Life machines: life wonders like the ‘sphinx’ now not only touch the organization of inorganic matter but also affect the reorganization of organic matter.” [2]2 Bernard Stiegler, *Technics and Time, 2: Disorientation*, trans. Stephen Barker (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), p. 153. The Western Left believes that the “marriage” of the logic of digital technology and the logic of capital accumulation accelerates the alienation of modern society. The disorderly development and frenzied expansion of digital-intelligent technology, hijacked by capital, are threatening human subjectivity and empathy, and are even leading humans into a state of virtualization, particleization, symbolization, and singularization, causing the mechanized and one-sided development of humans. Zygmunt Bauman points out: “The disappearance of time-space distance due to technological factors has not led to a homogenization of the human condition but rather to its polarization.” [3]3 Zygmunt Bauman, *Globalization: The Human Consequences* (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 18. In the era of digital capitalism, the forces of control humans face are more complex, diverse, and immense. To some extent, the real situation of humans is undergoing an ontological transformation.

在大数据、人工智能霸权和元宇宙崛起的时代，数字化似乎建构了更加透明、公开和民主的社会结构，极大促进了社会进步和人的发展。但不可否认，“今天，整个星球都是资本主义的工厂”。在资本逻辑的主导、引诱下，“数字技术资本化”和“数字资本人格化”共同对现代社会及人的生存境遇发起了前所未有的挑战，以至于贝尔纳·斯蒂格勒指出，人工智能技术的发展使数字技术与资本的聚合成为可能，在此意义上，“技术产生了各种各样前所未有的新型装置：机器被应用于流通、交往、视、声、娱乐、计算、工作、‘思维’等一切领域，在不久的将来，它还会被应用于感觉、替身（遥控显像、遥感、模拟现实）以及毁灭。生命机器：类似‘狮身人面兽’的生命奇观现在不仅触及无机物的组织，而且也影响到有机物的再组织”。西方左翼认为，数字技术逻辑与资本增殖逻辑的“联姻”加速了现代社会的异化，资本裹挟下的数字-智能技术的无序发展和疯狂扩张正在威胁着人的主体性和共情性，甚至正在把人引向虚拟化、微粒化、符号化、独异化的境地，造成了人的机械化、片面化发展。齐格蒙特·鲍曼指出：“由于技术因素而导致的时间-空间距离的消失并没有使人类状况向单一化发展，反而使之趋向两极分化。”在数字资本主义时代，人面临的控制力量更加复杂、多元和庞大，在某种程度上，人的现实境遇正发生着存在论意义上的变革。

1. Critique of Digitalized Existence: From “Real Substance” to “Abstract Virtual Entity”

1.数字化生存批判：从“现实实体”到“抽象虚体”

The radical left-wing scholar Slavoj Žižek, focusing on the datafication of reproduction and the ghostly characteristics of digital commodities in the digital age, launches a fierce critique of digital capitalism. He reveals the new alienation caused by human obsession with things in the realm of digital capitalism and conducts a critique of fetishism without “things.” Žižek argues that digitalization leads to a deep fission of humans: “Human individuals themselves become ‘things’; their states and activities are continuously recorded and disseminated without their knowledge: their bodily actions, financial transactions, health conditions, eating habits, what they buy and sell, what they read, listen to, and watch—all of this is collected in digital networks that know them better than they know themselves.” [4]4 Slavoj Žižek, *The Relevance of the Communist Manifesto* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2019), p. 52. Žižek believes that, from an ontological perspective, the Real cannot be symbolized; it can only appear in the form of a “symptom,” while humans are real substances in the Real. As Marx said: “Shape, existence, substance are the same real idea. One cannot separate thought from thinking matter… Only my own existence is certain and reliable.” [5]5 Karl Marx, “The Holy Family,” in *Marx & Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 4 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975), p. 128. That is, “my own existence” is the existence of the real subject. Shrouding “me” in an abstract “substance” is unreliable; the true subject is “me,” the human being as real existence. Žižek argues that the conspiracy and fusion of capital and digital technology transform human substantive existence, causing humans to shift from “real substantive humans” to “abstract virtual humans.” In particular, digital capitalism changes the substantive representation of humans, incorporating human relations into digital platforms that were originally externalized. The “real substance” of humans transforms into a “digital virtual entity” within digital networks, and the digital products humans create “are no longer material objects but new social (interpersonal) relations themselves.” [6]6 Slavoj Žižek, *The Relevance of the Communist Manifesto*, p. 53. In digital production, humans are degraded into “subjectivity without substance,” degraded into a digitalized “virtual presence.”

西方激进左翼学者斯拉沃热·齐泽克着眼于数字时代再生产的数据化和数字商品的幽灵化特征发起了对数字资本主义的激烈批判，揭示了数字资本主义界域中人对物的迷恋引发的新异化，并对其进行了无“物”的拜物教批判。齐泽克认为，数字化导致了人的深层裂变，即“人类个体也变成了‘物’，他们的状态和活动在其不知情的情况下持续不断被记录和传播：他们的身体行动、金融交易、健康状况、饮食习惯，他们买卖什么，读什么，听什么，看什么，所有这些都被收集在数字网络中，数字网络比他们自己更了解他们”。齐泽克认为，从存在论看，实在界是不能被符号化的，它只能以“征兆”的方式显现，而人则是实在界中现实的实体。正如马克思所言：“形体、存在、实体是同一种实在的观念。不能把思想同思维着的物质分开……只有我自己的存在才是确实可信的。”也就是说，“我自己的存在”是现实的主体的存在，把“我”遮蔽在抽象的“实体”中是不可靠的，真实的主体是“我”，即作为现实存在的人。齐泽克认为，资本与数字技术的共谋和融合改造着人的实体存在，使人正在从“现实的实体人”向“抽象的虚拟人”转变。特别是数字资本主义改变了人的实体表征，把人的关系纳入本是外在化的数字平台，人的“现实实体”在数字网络中转变为“数字虚体”，人所创造的数字产品也“不再是物质性的客体，而是新的社会（人际）关系本身”。人在数字生产中降格成“无实体的主体性”，降格为一种数字化的“虚在”。

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri similarly argue that digital capitalism has given rise to a transformation in the mode of human existence, particularly driving human activities and forms of labor toward immaterialization and digitalization, giving rise to intellectual labor, affective labor, technological labor, and cyborg labor. They emphasize that the “computerization” of labor has caused a crisis of human subjectivity, namely, that “subjectivity is stripped of all seemingly organic qualities, gushing out of the factory to become an intelligent technological configuration.” [7]7 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, *Empire* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 292. In the realm of digital capitalism, human subjectivity undergoes a dual differentiation: humans possess both humanity and machine-nature. In the scene of digital capitalism, humans become “bodies without organs, humans without essence, cyborgs: these are the subject-images that are currently being produced on the horizon and that can actively produce themselves.” [8]8 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, *Empire*, p. 293. In the era of digitalized existence, everyone’s mode of existence is absorbed into the communication platforms and virtual interfaces constructed by digital capitalism. Almost everyone possesses a “digital identity.” In digitalized communication activities, the substantive identity of humans is split, and the “digital identity” derived from it becomes the dominant “symbolic identity.” It is the virtualization of the “substantive human” in digital networks, i.e., the virtual body (vir-body). The virtual body is the “objectification” and “virtual reflection” of human substantive relations in the digital interface. Digital capitalism is a digital production relation constructed by massive digital capital absorbing “virtual bodies.” In this illusory digital capital community, “substantive humans” gradually participate in communication as “virtual humans,” are labeled or replaced by “virtual humans,” and the activities of “substantive humans” also tend toward “immaterialization.”

迈克尔·哈特和安东尼奥·奈格里同样认为，数字资本主义催生了人的存在方式的转变，特别是正在促使人的活动方式和劳动形式走向非物质化、数字化，出现了智识劳动、情感劳动、科技劳动和赛博格劳动。他们强调，劳动的“计算机化”造成了人的主体性危机，即人的“主体性被剥去了所有看似有机的特质，从工厂中涌出来，成为智能的技术配置体”；在数字资本主义界域中，人的主体性出现了二重分化，即人既具有人性，也具有机器性，人在数字资本主义场景中变成了“没有器官的身体，没有本质的人类，赛博格：这些就是当下在地平线被生产出同时又能够主动生产的主体形象”。在数字化生存时代，每个人的存在方式都被吸纳进数字资本主义构造的交往平台和虚拟界面之中，几乎人人都拥有了“数字身份”，在数字化交往活动中，人的实体性身份被分割了，从中衍生出的“数字身份”成为主导性的“符号身份”，是“实体人”在数字网络中的虚拟化，即虚体（vir-body）。虚体是人的实体关系在数字界面的“对象化”和“虚拟映现”。数字资本主义就是由庞大数字资本吸纳“虚体”而建构的数字生产关系，在这个虚幻的数字资本共同体中，“实体人”渐渐以“虚拟人”的身份参与交往，被“虚拟人”所标注或替代，而“实体人”的活动也趋向于“非物质化”。

The Western Left believes that digital capitalism accelerates the alienation of the “subject-object” relationship, producing a severe “tearing” between the physical entity and the virtual entity. The various platforms and virtual spaces constructed by digital capitalism are collapsing the boundary between subject and object. Humans are adorned by multiple identities in the realms of the real and the virtual, the secular and the political, the material and the spiritual. Humans are no longer merely a subset of real relations of production, but rather “contain some information and events that have no demographic or statistical significance whatsoever.” [9]9 Maurizio Lazzarato, *The Making of the Indebted Man*, trans. Joshua David Jordan (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2012), p. 90. It should be noted that Marx held that, within capitalist relations of production, capital is a thing that stands above humans, and “human relations appear as pure products of relations of production and exchange” — that is, humans do not depend on other humans, but on things (capital), and in the world of capital humans are “ruled by abstractions.” [10]10 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 28 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986), p. 100. Accordingly, the Western Left argues that, in digital capitalism, the human “subject-object” relationship is further differentiated: humans not only depend on things (capital), but also form a “severe dependence on virtual relations.” Human interactions and thought activities are objectified in virtual space; humans form a dependence on “non-substantial subjects” in virtual reality; and human activity manifests as a mode of interaction of “human (body) → virtual thing (virtual entity) — virtual thing (virtual entity) ← human (body).” In the digital age, “the most intriguing new religion is precisely ‘dataism,’ which worships neither gods nor humans, but data.” [11]11 Yuval Noah Harari, *Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow* (New York: Harper, 2017), p. 351. At present, human existence is already inseparable from virtual things (virtual entities). In the virtual community constructed by the logic of digital capital, “the subject has disappeared — the subject as a decision-making entity of will, freedom, representation, and the subject of power, knowledge, and history has vanished, replaced by a vague, floating, and non-substantial subjectivity,” [12]12 Paul Virilio, *The Information Bomb*, trans. Chris Turner (London: Verso, 2005), p. 145. and human substantive subjectivity faces a serious challenge.

西方左翼认为，数字资本主义加速了“主-客”关系的异化，使实体与虚体之间产生了严重“撕裂”。数字资本主义所建构的各种平台和虚拟空间使主体与客体的界分正在坍塌，人被现实与虚拟、世俗与政治、物质与精神等领域的多重身份所装饰，人不再仅仅是真实生产关系的一个子集，而是“包含了一些在人口学或统计学上不具丝毫意义的信息和事件”。需要说明的是，马克思认为，在资本主义生产关系中，资本是凌驾于人之上的物，“人的关系则表现为生产关系和交换关系的纯粹产物”，即人不是依赖于人，而是依赖于物（资本），人在资本的世界里“受抽象统治”。据此，西方左翼认为，在数字资本主义中，人的“主-客”关系进一步分化，人不仅依赖于物（资本），而且形成“对虚拟关系的严重依赖”，人的交往和思维活动对象化在虚拟空间中，人在虚拟现实中形成对“非实体的主体”的依赖，人的活动体现为“人（身体）→虚拟物（虚体）—虚拟物（虚体）←人（身体）”的交往模式。在数字时代，“最耐人寻味的新兴宗教正是‘数据主义’，它崇拜的既不是神也不是人，而是数据”。当下，人的存在已经离不开虚拟物（虚体），在数字资本逻辑构造的虚拟共同体中，“主体消失了——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”，人的实体主体性受到严重挑战。

2. Critique of Digital Rights: From “Personhood with Identity” to “Identity without Personhood”

2.数字化权利批判：从“有身份的人格”到“无人格的身份”

Human existence is manifested not only in human substantiality and subjectivity, but also in the fact that humans are beings with identity and personhood. Human identity and personhood are the rights-based representations of humans as social-relational beings. Hegel pointed out that the subject is the human, and only “a person, when examined as possessing a certain identity, becomes a human.” [13]13 G.W.F. Hegel, *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, ed. Allen W. Wood, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), § 35, Addition. In this sense, humans are a kind of “personhood with identity.” “Identity-personhood” confirms the social attributes of human life, image, reputation, privacy, etc., and is the manifestation of rights as a “subject-human” within social relations. Of course, personhood is not abstract or unlimited, but has its internal determinations and boundaries. “Personhood with identity” is precisely the concrete thing and actual manifestation of human subjectivity; humans can truly confirm their identity and personhood only within real social relations. Marx believed that, in a world of capitalist hegemony and domination, the identity-personhood of humans and the personhood of things (capital) become inverted, and the “personhood of things” gradually replaces the “identity-personhood” of humans, giving rise to “the opposition between the personification of things and the reification of persons.” [14]14 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1996), p. 105. Theoretically, human “identity-personhood” is the “theme” of what makes humans human, while the “personhood of things” is the objectification of human identity-personhood, the “sub-theme” of what makes humans human. But within capital-dominated relations of production, capital achieves the unity of “thingness” and “humanity,” and often issues commands to humans in the personified form of the capitalist. Marx emphasized that, within capitalist relations of production, capital acquires an independent personhood, elevating itself into a personified existence that dominates human life, while the subject of labor (the human) is degraded, reduced to a tool-like existence without personhood, becoming a kind of “reified human.” Capitalist relations of production are in essence “the personification of things and the reification of persons.” In these relations, capital as a thing is continuously personified, while humans as subjects are continuously reified. The direct consequence is that the “personhood of capital” transcends and replaces the “personhood of humans.”

人的存在除了表现为人的实体性和主体性，还表现为人是有身份、有人格的存在。人的身份和人格是人作为社会关系存在的权利表征。黑格尔指出，主体就是人，只有“一个人作为具有一定身份而被考察时，才成为人”。从这个意义上说，人是一种“有身份的人格”存在。“身份人格”确证了人的生命、肖像、名誉、隐私等社会属性，是作为“主体人”在社会关系中的权利呈现。当然，人格并不是抽象的、无限的，而是有其内在规定和边界的。“有身份的人格”正是人的主体性的实在之物和现实彰显，人只有在真实社会关系中才能真正确证自己的身份和人格。马克思认为，在资本霸权和统治的世界，人的身份人格与物（资本）的人格发生了倒置，“物的人格”逐渐替代了人的“身份人格”，衍生出了“物的人格化和人格的物化的对立”。从理论上讲，人的“身份人格”是人之为人的“主题”，“物的人格”是人的身份人格的客体化，是人之为人的“副题”。但在资本主导的生产关系中，资本实现了“物性”与“人性”的统一，并经常以人格化的形象（资本家）对人发号施令。马克思强调，在资本主义生产关系中，资本获得了独立的人格，升格为主导人的生活的人格化存在，而劳动的主体（人）则发生降格，沦为没有人格的工具性存在，成为一种“物化的人”，资本主义生产关系在本质上是“物的人格化和人格的物化”，在这种关系中，作为物性的资本不断人格化，作为主体的人不断物化，由此带来的直接后果是“资本的人格”超越和替代了“人的人格”。

On this basis, the Western Left scholar Giorgio Agamben argues that, within the logic of digital capitalist hegemony, human “identity-personhood” is further reified (digitized), the personhood of things (capital) is further virtualized, and humans are further reified from “personhood with identity” into “identity without personhood,” becoming marginal others in the modern landscape of capitalism. Agamben emphasizes that the original meaning of personhood — the “identity” that humans acquire in social relations — is a cultural and social recognition between subjects. But in an era of collusion between modern digital technology and capital, “for the first time, identity no longer has the function of social ‘personhood’ and recognition by others, but only the function of biological data; it can have nothing to do with personhood.” [15]15 Giorgio Agamben, *The Use of Bodies*, trans. Adam Kotsko (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), p. 212. In Agamben’s view, humans in the age of digital capitalism are, more than humans, “pure biological data,” because digitization has completely torn up the “social mask” and “relational recognition” of humans, replacing them with a “false mask” woven from virtual imprints such as fingerprints, genetic codes, digital photographs, digital information, and electronic identities. In the modern capitalist community woven by digital-intelligent technology and the power of capital, “humans once again fall into an animal-like state of non-human existence,” [16]16 Giorgio Agamben, *The Open: Man and Animal*, trans. Kevin Attell (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 37. manifested in humans constantly disguising themselves with false masks in the virtual digital field, continuously reducing their social identities, thereby constructing a rift between real identity and digital masks (false identities). Agamben emphasizes that contemporary capitalism is “forging” living, embodied humans into life-stripped “living dead.” Their lives are discarded, leaving only speechless bodies, falling into an animalized existence, becoming “contemporary homo sacer,” [17]17 “Homo sacer” (sacred man) is a figure from archaic Roman law whom Agamben uses to describe a life stripped of legal and political status, reduced to bare life that can be killed without legal consequence. and ultimately turning into a kind of “identity without personhood.” “The new identity without personhood confirms such an illusion: it is not a whole, but an infinitely multiplying mask. When an individual is reduced to a purely biological, non-social identity, he is simultaneously endowed with the ability to put on various masks, to live a second or third life online, even though none of it truly belongs to him.” [18]18 Agamben, *The Use of Bodies*, p. 215. Therefore, within the networked, digitized relations constructed by digital capitalism, humans interact relying on the virtual spaces built by intelligent machines. Humans increasingly lose intimate relationships, personal identity, and all kinds of real possessions. Humans gradually become “virtual digital humans” under machine recognition and intelligent analysis. In this sense, the confirmation of human existence relies more on the digital field, because digital-intelligent machines record human activity data and digital information, and thus humans are not forgotten.

基于此，西方左翼学者吉奥乔·阿甘本认为，在数字资本主义霸权的逻辑中，人的“身份人格”进一步物化（数字化），物（资本）的人格进一步虚拟化，人从“有身份的人格”进一步物化为“无人格的身份”，成为资本主义现代景观中处于边缘的他者。阿甘本强调，人格的原初意蕴即人在社会性关系中获得的“身份”，是主体间的文化认同和社会认同。但在现代数字技术与资本合谋的时代，人的“身份第一次不再有社会‘人格’和他者认同的功能，而只有生物数据功能，它可以和人格没有任何关系”。在阿甘本看来，数字资本主义时代的人，与其说是人，不如说是“纯粹的生物学数据”，因为数字化彻底撕毁了人的“社会性面具”和“关系性认同”，取而代之是由人的指纹、基因编码、数字照片、数码信息、电子身份等虚拟印记编织的“虚假面具”。在数字-智能技术与资本权力编织的现代资本主义共同体中，“人再一次落入动物式的非人存在之境”，表现为人在虚拟数字场域中不断以虚假的面具伪装自己，不断缩减自己的社会性身份，从而构造了真实身份与数字面具（虚假身份）之间的裂缝。阿甘本强调，当代资本主义正在把身体化的活人“锻造”成生命赤裸化的“活死人”，他们的生命遭到弃置，只剩下无语言的身体，坠入了动物化的存在，成为“当代神圣人”，最终变成了一种“无人格的身份”。“新的无人格的身份确证了这样一种幻觉，它不是一个整体，而是一种无限倍增的面具。当个体被归结为纯粹生物性的非社会身份时，他同时也被赋予了这样一种能力，可以戴上各种面具，可以在网络上过第二种或第三种生活，尽管所有这一切都不真正属于他。”所以，在数字资本主义构造的网络化、数字化关系中 ，人依赖于智能机器营建的虚拟空间进行交往，人越来越失去了亲密关系、人格身份和各种真实的拥有，人逐渐变成了机器识别和智能解析下的“虚拟数字人”。在此意义上，人的存在的确证更多依赖于数字场域，因为数字-智能机器记录了人的活动数据和数码信息，由此人不被遗忘。

3. Critique of Digital Interaction: From “Independent Individuals” to “Singularized Groups”

3.数字化交往批判：从“独立性个体”到“独异性群体”

Marx believed that capitalist relations of production are “the most developed social relations to date.” [19]19 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 28, p. 100. Within these relations, humans establish “universal interaction” in ever-expanding communities or territories, and humans acquire “human independence based on dependence on things” — that is, humans possess independent interaction with self-consciousness, constructing relatively independent social relations. Especially in the highly developed commodity economy of capitalism, fine division of labor makes humans independent “private producers,” and buyers and sellers in commodity exchange also achieve mutual independence; at least superficially, each person can express their own power and individuality within these relations. However, capitalist relations of production are, in the final analysis, a form of community in which capital dominates and controls humans. Human independence is merely relative and temporary, while the independence of capital is absolute and eternal. “In bourgeois society, capital has independence and individuality, while the living individual has neither independence nor individuality.” [20]20 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 487. Or, put differently, the independence of humans within capitalist relations of production is ultimately a “limited” independence under the domination of the independence of capital. In these relations, “the mutual independence of persons is supplemented by a system of universal dependence of things on things.” [21]21 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35, p. 105.

马克思认为，资本主义生产关系是“迄今为止最发达的社会关系”，在这种生产关系中，人在不断扩大的共同体或地域中建立“普遍交往”，人获得了“以物的依赖性为基础的人的独立性”，即人拥有了自我意识的独立交往，建构了相对独立的社会关系。特别是在资本主义高度发达的商品经济中，精细的分工使人成为独立的“私人生产者”，商品交换中的买者和卖者也都实现了相互独立，至少每个人在表面上可以在这种关系中表现自己的力量和自己的个性。但是，资本主义生产关系归根到底是资本主宰人、控制人的共同体形式，人的独立性仅仅是相对的、暂时的，而资本的独立性则是绝对的、恒久的。“在资产阶级社会里，资本具有独立性和个性，而活动着的个人却没有独立性和个性。”或者说，资本主义生产关系中的人的独立性归根到底是资本的独立性宰制下的“有限”的独立性，在这种关系中，“人与人的互相独立为物与物的全面依赖的体系所补充”。

The Western left-wing scholar Andreas Reckwitz argues that, unlike the independence of humans in the era of industrial capitalism in which Marx lived, digital capitalism accelerates the autonomization of human interaction, moving humans from “independent individuals” gradually toward “singular groups.” Reckwitz holds that digital capitalism is a completely new value-added system derived from the process of humanity’s transition from mechanical technology to digital technology, and it engenders the singularization of humans with unprecedented depth and breadth. In the modern society paved by digital technology, what humans pursue is no longer the “universal” but the “unique”; humans expect themselves to be outstanding and one of a kind in the online world. Digitalization ceaselessly produces “phenomena of singularization,” i.e., “the personal images and social networks that constantly compete for distinctiveness and attention, from tracking users’ ‘digital footprints,’ to unique online communities, to digital ‘tribes’ with their own worldviews—all of these it includes.” How exactly is “singularization” to be understood? Reckwitz emphasizes that digitalization is singularization: “It is precisely the intensification of universalizing logic in the digital-algorithmic domain that enables subjects, objects, and collectives to singularize.” In reality, the singularization of humans is the process by which humans, in order to gain the attention and recognition of others on digital interfaces, reproduce themselves in a form of “being unconventional or unorthodox,” hoping to deeply attract others, thereby raising their level of attention and obtaining “value assignment.” In the social platforms and interfaces primarily constructed by digital capitalism, the self-shaping of digital subjects is precisely the process of pushing themselves to be singular relative to others. Because digital subjects, in order to achieve “traffic armament” and “value assignment,” must display their own singularity (being different from others) in the competition for attention and assignment, shaping their own strangeness and “personalized ‘I’” according to the principle of individuation, thereby “continuously accumulating singular capital in the virtual environment, ensuring their position and recognition in the social game… Only by being seen can social recognition be guaranteed; not being seen means the death of the subject in the digital world. This is a fundamental principle of the singular society, a fundamental consequence brought about by the media technology of the singular society.” From this perspective, digital capitalism actually draws humans into a vortex of virtualization and singularization, causing them to abandon universality and commonality and to display heterogeneous activity characteristics on digital interfaces. These activity characteristics evolve into “commodities” in the market, constantly competing for visibility and assignment.

西方左翼学者安德雷亚斯·莱克维茨认为，与马克思所处的工业资本主义时代人的独立性不同，数字资本主义加速了人的交往的独立化，使人从“独立性个体”逐渐走向了“独异性群体”。莱克维茨认为，数字资本主义是人类从机械技术向数字技术转变过程中衍生出的全新价值增值体系，它以前所未有的深度和广度催生着人的独异化。在数字技术铺就的现代社会中，人追求的不再是“普遍”，而是“独特”，人期望自己在网络世界卓尔不群、独一无二，数字化不断制造着“独异化现象”，即“追求与众不同和关注度而不断竞争的个人形象、社交网络，从用户的‘数字足迹’追踪，到独特的网络社群，再到有自己世界观的数字‘部落’，所有这些它都包括”。究竟如何理解“独异化”？莱克维茨强调，数字化即独异化，“正是数字—算法领域中普适性逻辑的强化，使得主体、客体和集体能够进行独异化”。实际上，人的独异化就是人为了在数字界面获得他者的关注、认同，以一种“标新立异”的形式再现自我，希望深深吸引他者，以提升关注度和获得“价值赋值”。在数字资本主义主构的社交平台和界面中，数字性主体的自我塑造就是推动着自己独异于他者的过程，因为数字主体要想实现“流量武装”和“价值赋值”，就必须在关注度竞争和赋值竞争中表现出自我的独异性（与众不同），以个性化的原则塑造自己的奇异性和“个性化的‘我’”，从而在虚拟环境中“不断积累独异性资本，保证自己在社会游戏中的地位和认可度……只有被人看见，才能保证社会认可，而不被人看见就意味着主体在数字世界中的死亡。这是独异性社会的一个根本原则，是独异性社会媒体技术造成的一个根本后果”。由此来看，数字资本主义实际上把人卷入了虚拟化和独异化的旋涡，使人抛弃了普遍性和共同性而在数字界面展现出异质性的活动特征，这些活动特征在市场上演变成“商品”，不断争夺着可见度和赋值。

Therefore, Reckwitz emphasizes that digital capitalism not only produces the multifaceted nature of humans but also promotes the singularization of collectives. The singularization of humans is not the singularization of individual persons but the singularization of the entire collective absorbed into the digital capitalist system. Digital capitalism constructs entirely new “social circles,” and singularization is the “collective fall” that occurs within countless “social circles.” On platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, whoever receives attention is likely to gain even more attention; people determine their own level of attention by means of page views, shares, likes, and number of friends. In reality, links and likes are accelerating the singularization of collectives. In the communication circles primarily constructed by digital capitalism, individual persons obtain value assignment according to the rule of “the winner takes all,” while the vast majority degenerate into a singular mass, whose existence is not confirmed through their real identities. The “link” and “like” functions embedded in Facebook precisely illustrate the existence of the singular mass, i.e., “I link, therefore I am”; “I like, therefore I am.”

所以，莱克维茨强调，数字资本主义不仅制造着人的多面性，也促成了集体的独异化。人的独异化不是单个个体的奇异化，而是被吸纳进数字资本主义体系中的整个集体的独异化。数字资本主义建构了全新的“社交圈子”，而独异化就是在数不清的“社交圈子”中产生的“集体失坠”。在脸书、推特、YouTube等平台中，谁受到了关注，谁就有可能获得更多的关注，人们借助于访问量、转发量、点赞量、好友数量确定自己的关注度。实际上，链接和点赞正在加速集体的独异化。在数字资本主义主构的交往圈子中，个别个体按照“赢者通吃”的法则获得了价值赋值，绝大多数人沦为独异的大众，他们的存在不是通过真实身份来确证的。内嵌在脸书中的“链接”和“点赞”功能恰好说明了独异大众的存在，即“我链故我在”“我赞故我在”。

II. The Western Left’s Critique of the Political Economy of the “New Alienation” of Humans in Digital Capitalism

二、西方左翼对数字资本主义人的“新异化”的政治经济学批判

Capitalism is the highest actual expression of human self-alienation; it causes humans to undergo “de-realization,” “externalization,” and “reification,” ultimately leading to “the alienation of humans from humans.” The Western left holds that, in the digital age, humanity remains within the logic of alienation revealed by Marx; far from having escaped the domination and exclusion of human logic (labor) by the logic of capital (capital), humanity is instead disciplined, squeezed, and overshadowed by the new empire and new spectacle primarily constructed by digital capitalism. As Hardt and Negri state, contemporary capitalism deepens the contradiction between capital and labor to an extreme: “Capital increasingly becomes a machine that plunders the common, seizes the value produced by the common, and in this process creates various forms of suffering and destruction.” The Western left argues that in the era of industrial capitalism, human alienation was mainly manifested as bodily alienation and labor alienation, whereas in the era of digital capitalism, because digital capital doubly screens labor, intelligent algorithms deeply monitor humans, and humans’ digital activities are forcibly expropriated by capital, human alienation penetrates into humans’ communicative activities, spiritual life, and the sphere of life itself. This causes humans, within the hegemonic logic of digital capital, to become impoverished, marginalized, and atomized, gradually degenerating into “digital poor,” “surplus people,” and “virtual particle humans.”

资本主义是人的自我异化的最高实际表现，它使人发生了“非现实化”“外化”和“物化”，最终导致了“人同人相异化”。西方左翼认为，在数字时代，人类仍然处在马克思所揭示的异化逻辑之中，人类非但没有摆脱资本逻辑（资本）对人的逻辑（劳动）的宰控和排斥，反而被数字资本主义主构的新帝国和新景观所规训、挤压和笼罩。正如哈特和奈格里所言，当代资本主义使资本与劳动之间的矛盾深度激化，“资本越来越成为一种掠夺公共性的机器，掠取公共性产生的价值，并在这个过程中制造各种形式的痛苦和破坏”。西方左翼认为，工业资本主义时代人的异化主要表现为身体异化和劳动异化，而在数字资本主义时代，由于数字资本对劳动的双重筛选，智能算法对人的深度监控，人的数字活动被资本强制征用，人的异化则深入到人的交往活动、精神生活和生命领域，使人在数字资本的霸权逻辑中贫穷化、边缘化、微粒化，渐渐沦为“数字穷人”“剩余之人”和“虚拟微粒人”。

1. The Double Screening of Digital Capital: Human “Surplus” and “Uselessness”

1.数字资本的双重筛选：人的“剩余”和“无用”

The core problem of capitalism is the contradiction between the logic of capital (capital) and the logic of humans (labor). As the two sides of the contradiction, the relationship between capital and labor can be expressed as: capital absorbs labor, or labor is subordinate to capital. In the *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863*, Marx comprehensively examined the formal subsumption and real subsumption of labor under capital, which Hardt and Negri call the formal and real subsumption of labor by capital. The former refers to the stage in which capital extracts absolute surplus value, where labor is formally dominated by capital; the latter refers to the stage in which capital extracts relative surplus value, where, due to the development of natural forces, technology, and the “intervention” of machinery, labor is subsumed under capital in all respects, and humans’ bodies, intellect, and spirit are all controlled by capital. The Western left holds that digital capitalism is the universal realization of the real subsumption of labor under capital, a product of the development of post-Fordism, and “the empirical realization of Marx’s ‘Fragment on Machines.’” At this stage, capital has become intelligent, networked, and digital, thereby invading humans’ productive activities and daily life, penetrating into humans’ communication, desires, intellect, and emotions, continuously screening, enclosing, and expropriating humans’ activities, and is causing a portion of humanity to tend toward “surplus” and “uselessness.”

资本主义最核心的问题是资本逻辑（资本）与人的逻辑（劳动）的矛盾。作为矛盾的双方，资本与劳动的关系可以表述为：资本吸纳劳动或劳动从属于资本。马克思在《1861—1863年经济学手稿》中全方位审视了劳动对资本的形式从属和实际从属，哈特和奈格里将之称作资本对劳动的形式吸纳和实质吸纳。前者是指在资本榨取绝对剩余价值阶段，劳动在形式上受到资本的宰制，后者是指在资本榨取相对剩余价值阶段，由于自然力、工艺的发展和机器的“介入”，劳动全方位地从属于资本，人的肉体、智力和精神都受到资本的操控。西方左翼认为，数字资本主义就是资本对劳动的实质吸纳的普遍实现，是后福特制发展的产物，是“马克思‘机器论片段’的经验实现”。在此阶段，资本实现了智能化、网络化、数字化，进而侵入人的生产活动和日常生活，渗透到人的交往、欲望、智力和情感之中，不断筛选、圈占和征用人的活动，正在使一部分人趋向于“剩余”和“无用”。

First, from the perspective of things, digital capital’s screening and expropriation of technology causes human “surplus.” The Western left argues that, in the digital age, the process of capital accumulation is precisely the process of capital absorbing labor and screening technology (digital machines), i.e., the process of ceaselessly augmenting “things.” In this process, the means of labor are continuously transformed into a system of digital machines, while living labor is transformed into a “mere appendage” of this machine system, becoming a “conscious organ” within the machine. Jodi Dean points out that, in the virtual system constructed by contemporary digital capitalism, digital capital still operates according to the laws of capital’s absorption and screening as expounded by Marx. Especially in the production systems woven by big data and artificial intelligence, “through the internet, through interpersonal communication and information technology, capitalism has found even more direct ways to extract value.” This is concentratedly manifested in digital capital’s penetration into cutting-edge fields such as intelligent production, biomedicine, financial transactions, and genetic engineering, continuously screening new technologies with strong capital-augmenting power and merging with them, while those who lack digital skills degenerate into “discarded items” and “the driven-out,” becoming alien others in the data network, becoming “marginal people” excluded by digital capital. In the cutting-edge fields of knowledge, skills, and social intellect absorbed by digital capital, digital technology is incorporated by capital into new modes of exploitation and accumulation, and humans’ independent forms of labor (physical labor) become “superfluous.” Because humans become disconnected from the new technologies screened, swept up, and enclosed by digital capital, large numbers of laborers are freed from the field of digital capital’s hegemony, becoming “separated people” and “the excluded,” ultimately degenerating into “surplus people” in the power-law distribution of the digital network, i.e., “proletarianized people.”

第一，从物的视角看，数字资本对技术的筛选和征用造成了人的“剩余”。西方左翼认为，数字时代资本积累的过程就是资本吸纳劳动和筛选技术（数字机器）的过程，就是使“物”不断增殖的过程。在这一过程中，劳动资料不断转变为数字机器体系，而活劳动则转变为这个机器体系的“单纯的附件”，成为机器中的“有意识的机件”。乔蒂·狄恩指出，在当下数字资本主义建构的虚拟体系中，数字资本依然遵循马克思所论述的资本的吸纳和筛选规律来运转。特别是在大数据、人工智能编制的生产体系中，“通过互联网，通过个人之间的交往和信息技术，资本主义已经找到了更为直接的榨取价值的方式”，这集中体现为数字资本渗透到智能生产、生物医疗、金融交易、基因工程等前沿领域，不断筛选具有强大资本增殖力的新技术并与之合而为一，而那些不具备数字技能的人则沦为“淘汰品”和“被驱赶者”，成为数据网结中的另类他者，成为被数字资本排斥的“边缘人”。在数字资本吸纳的知识、技能、社会智力等前沿领域，数字技术被资本纳入新的剥削和积累模式，人的独立形式的劳动（体能劳动）成为“多余”的东西。由于人与数字资本筛选、裹挟和圈占的新技术发生脱钩，大量劳动者从数字资本霸权的场域中游离出来，成为“被分离的人”和“被排除者”，最终沦为数字网络幂律分布中的“剩余之人”，即“无产阶级化的人”。

Second, from the human perspective, digital capital’s screening and absorption of labour power causes human “uselessness.” In capitalist production, the social forms of human labour are twofold: the subjective form, which is the exertion of human conditions in the labour process, and the objective form, which is the exertion of the conditions of things (machinery) in the labour process. “With the development of machine production, the conditions of labour also come to dominate labour technologically, while at the same time replacing labour, oppressing it, and making independent forms of labour superfluous.” [27]27 Karl Marx, *Economic Manuscripts of 1861–63*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 34 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1994), p. 31. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese citation is to a Chinese edition of Marx’s works; the English edition is given here for reference.] On this basis, the Western Left emphasises that capital’s screening of the objective form of labour means “using machinery to displace people,” while capital’s screening of the subjective form of labour means “using labour power to displace labour power.” Capital’s screening of labour power causes some people to be incorporated into capital’s valorisation system, while others fall into unemployment and poverty—that is, “the richest become richer and more influential, while those lacking skills become poorer and more marginalised.” [28]28 Jeremy Rifkin, *The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era* (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), p. xv. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese citation is to a Chinese translation; the English edition is given here for reference.] The current expansion and valorisation process of digital capital is profoundly embodied in the screening and absorption of labour power. On the one hand, digital capital always tries by every means to absorb those knowledge elites, technical experts, and intellectual superstars who represent “general intellect,” while the majority of labourers are not “favoured” by digital capital and may ultimately be reduced to a “useless class.” On the other hand, digital capital continuously screens the data generated by human activities, constantly datafying everyday life—such as human interactions, emotions, and experiences—and assigning capitalist value to people’s words and habits. Ultimately, activities such as bodily movements, health, eating habits, and consumption records are all incorporated into digital systems loaded with apps. Under digital capital’s screening and appropriation of human activities, individuals seem to become useless “things”; the data of human activities become the “raw material” of digital capital. “Data is a substance to be extracted, refined, and used in various ways. The more data, the more uses.” [29]29 Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier, *Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think* (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), p. 6. Whoever possesses more data holds greater power of domination. Conversely, those left behind after digital capital’s screening become “functionally stupid zombies” and “black holes of information capitalism.” [30]30 The phrase “functionally stupid zombies” is a reference to the concept of “functional stupidity” in organisational theory, critiqued here as a condition induced by digital capital’s screening. “Information capitalism’s black holes” is a metaphor for those excluded from digital value extraction.

第二，从人的视角看，数字资本对劳动力的筛选和吸纳造成了人的“无用”。在资本主义生产中，人的劳动的社会形式有两种，即主观形式和客观形式，前者是劳动过程中人的条件的发挥，后者是劳动过程中物（机器）的条件的发挥。“随着机器生产的发展，劳动条件在工艺方面也表现为统治劳动的力量，同时又代替劳动，压迫劳动，使独立形式的劳动成为多余的东西。”据此，西方左翼强调，资本对劳动客观形式的筛选即“利用机器排挤人”，而资本对劳动主观形式的筛选即“利用劳动力排挤劳动力”。资本对劳动力的筛选使得一部分人被纳入资本的增殖体系，而另一些人则陷入失业和贫困，即“最富有的人会变得更加富有、更有影响力，而缺乏技能的人则会变得更穷、更加边缘化”。当下数字资本的扩张和增殖过程深刻体现为对劳动力的筛选和吸纳。一方面，数字资本总是想方设法吸纳那些代表“一般智力”的知识精英、技术专家和智力巨星，而多数劳动者则不被数字资本“光顾”，他们最终可能会沦为“无用阶级”。另一方面，数字资本不断筛选人的活动所生成的数据，不断把人的交往、情感、经验等日常生活数据化，对人的言行和习惯进行资本化赋值，最终使人的身体行动、健康、饮食习惯、消费记录等活动都被纳入装载着APP的数字系统之中。在数字资本对人的活动的筛选和征用下，个体似乎变成了无用之“物”，人的活动数据成为数字资本的“原材料”，这种“数据是一种被提取、被精炼并以各种方式被使用的物质。数据越多，用途越多”。谁占有更多的数据，谁就拥有更强的统治力。相反，那些被数字资本筛选后剩下的人，则变成了“功能性愚蠢的僵尸”和“信息资本主义的黑洞”。

Third, in terms of consequences, digital capital’s dual screening of things and people causes human “impoverishment.” In the capitalist production system, “machinery not only replaces living labour but also replaces the labourer and his hand tools.” [31]31 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (London: Penguin, 1976), p. 557. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese citation is to a Chinese edition; the English edition is given here for reference.] The Western Left argues that the current process of digital machinery replacing labour is precisely the dual screening process of capital over the subjective condition of labour (labour power) and the objective condition (machinery, etc.). The direct consequence of this replacement and screening is “the impoverishment of the worker,” giving rise to “social entities engaged in cognitive labour” who are “information workers” mired in poverty, anxiety, and panic. [32]32 The term “social entities engaged in cognitive labour” and “information workers” are drawn from the Western Left discourse on cognitive capitalism, notably by authors such as Yann Moulier Boutang. Fuchs emphasises that, in the era of digital production, digital capital, as the latest form of development of fixed capital such as machinery, is also the capitalist form of digital technology. It issues orders to labourers in an alien, abstract form, absorbing users into digital interfaces and platforms, thereby giving rise to a precarious “information lower-middle class” that struggles for survival within digital capitalism. [33]33 Christian Fuchs, *Digital Labour and Karl Marx* (New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 104. They are the hidden “digital poor,” the undoubted weaklings of the digital capitalist era; they do not own digital means of production but instead consume their lives and time in virtual spaces, becoming a “mass of the poor” dwelling in the edifice of digital capital. On this basis, Dean points out, “These masses need to be understood through the term ‘long tail’ of a power-law distribution—that is, 99% versus 1%.” [34]34 Jodi Dean, *The Communist Horizon* (London: Verso, 2012), p. 7. The “long tail” refers to the statistical distribution where a small number of items (the “head”) account for most activity, while a large number of items (the “tail”) account for little. Among them, the 1% are the “superstars” at the top of digital capital’s “food chain,” while the 99% are the “bottom masses.” The “digital poor” are those excluded and abandoned by digital capital.

第三，从后果看，数字资本对物与人的双重筛选造成了人的“贫穷化”。在资本主义生产体系中，“机器不仅代替了活劳动，而且还代替了劳动者及其手工工具”。西方左翼认为，当下数字机器代替劳动的过程就是资本对劳动主观条件（劳动力）和客观条件（机器等）的双重筛选过程。这种代替和筛选引发的直接后果是“工人的贫乏化”，催生了“从事认知劳动的社会实体”，他们是处于贫穷、焦虑和恐慌之中的“信息工人”。福克斯强调，在数字化生产时代，数字资本作为机器等固定资本的最新发展形式，也是数字技术的资本化形式，它以一种异己的、抽象的形式对劳动者发号施令，把用户吸纳在数字界面和平台中，由此催生了寄存于数字资本主义中岌岌可危并为生存而奋斗的“信息中下阶层”，他们是隐匿的“数字穷人”，是数字资本主义时代毋庸置疑的弱者，他们并不占有数字生产资料，而是把自己的生命和时间耗费在虚拟的空间，成为寄居在数字资本大厦中的“穷人大众”。据此，迪恩指出，“这些群众需要用幂律分布的‘长尾’这一术语来理解——即99%比1%”。其中，1%是处于数字资本“食物链”顶端的“超级巨星”，而99%则是“底层大众”。“数字穷人”就是被数字资本所排斥和抛弃的人。

2. The Deep Control of Intelligent Algorithms: Human Digitalisation and “Microparticlisation”

2.智能算法的深度控制：人的数字化与“微粒化”

The Western Left argues that, in Marx’s era, the highest point of social technological development was “using machinery to produce machinery,” but in the digital capitalist era, the highest point of technological development is using intelligence to produce intelligence, using algorithms to produce algorithms, and using data to produce data. In the landscape of deep control by intelligent algorithms and the global spread of surveillance capitalism, the existential conditions of modern people have been overturned. Subject to the deep control of intelligent machines and algorithms, humans increasingly resemble machines, while machines increasingly resemble humans.

西方左翼认为，在马克思所处的时代，社会技术发展的最高点即“利用机器生产机器”，但在数字资本主义时代，技术发展的最高点即利用智能生产智能，利用算法生产算法，利用数据生产数据。在智能算法深度控制和监视资本主义全球布展的景观中，现代人的生存境遇发生了翻转，受到智能机器和算法的深度控制，人越来越像机器，而机器则越来越像人。

On the one hand, capital-driven intelligent algorithms gradually extend the subject-person into the “data person.” Western Left scholars point out that, within the production logic of digital capitalism, “algorithmic production” is its dominant form; algorithms and surveillance have become the core internal driving force of digital capital’s valorisation. This means that digital capitalism incorporates individuals’ daily life trajectories, preferences, emotions, and so on into the scope of “surveillance,” while the person as subject becomes an object tracked, analysed, and monitored by algorithmic technology. “In the logic of surveillance capitalism, there are no individuals, only organisms spanning the world and all their tiniest elements.” [35]35 Shoshana Zuboff, *The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power* (New York: PublicAffairs, 2019), p. 376. The Korean-German scholar Byung-Chul Han holds a pessimistic view of surveillance capitalism in the digital age, stating, “Big data can indeed be used very effectively for control… The digital panopticon actually enables 360-degree surveillance of everyone within it.” [36]36 Byung-Chul Han, *In the Swarm: Digital Prospects*, trans. Erik Butler (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), p. 45. The “digital panopticon” is a reference to Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison design, adapted here to describe digital surveillance. If, in the machine production system constructed by industrial capitalism, humans were “attachments” to machines—a kind of “tool-person”—then, in the digital production system constructed by digital capitalism, humans are the “prey” of algorithmic surveillance—a kind of “data person.” The “data person” is the result of the humanisation of data and the datafication of humans; they are persons parasitic within a “servo system” determined by surveillance, datafication, and behavioural control. They are the subjects of digital capitalist reproduction, subordinated to the domination of calculative rules within the logic of digital production, and controlled by algorithms driven by digital capital. As one scholar notes: “The fundamental purpose of digital capitalism is to continuously produce data persons, making them suitable objects for algorithmic governance.” [37]37 The quotation is from a Chinese scholar; the original source is not identified in the text. Within the domain of digital capitalism, algorithms and digital capital jointly absorb real humans as “objects of domination,” reducing them to abstract digital persons without biological life, becoming “cyborg”-like “fake persons”—“a hybrid of machines and organisms that constantly crosses the boundary between material and immaterial labour.” [38]38 The term “cyborg” (cybernetic organism) originates from Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985), describing a hybrid of machine and organism.

一方面，资本驱动智能算法使主体之人渐渐延伸为“数据人”。西方左翼学者指出，在数字资本主义的生产逻辑中，“算法式生产”是其主导形式，算法和监视已然成为数字资本增殖的核心内驱力，这意味着数字资本主义把个人的日常生活轨迹、意愿偏好、情感等纳入“监控”范围，而作为主体的人则成为被算法技术跟踪、解析和监控的对象。“在监控资本主义的逻辑中，没有个人，只有跨越世界的有机体和其中所有最微小的元素。”韩裔德国学者韩炳哲对数字化时代的监控资本主义持悲观的态度，他指出，“大数据的确可以非常有效地进行控制……数字化全景监狱实际上让人能够360度全方位监视其中的每个人”。如果说，在工业资本主义构筑的机器生产体系中，人是机器的“附件”，是一种“工具人”，那么，在数字资本主义构筑的数字化生产体系中，人则是算法监控的“猎物”，是一种“数据人”。“数据人”是数据的人化和人的数据化的结果，是寄生在由监视、数据化和行为控制所决定的“伺服系统”中的人，他们是数字资本主义再生产的主体，他们在数字生产逻辑中屈从于计算性法则的支配，是被数字资本驱动的算法所掌控的人。正如有学者所指出的：“数字资本主义的根本目的就在于不断地生产出数据人，让它们成为适宜于算法治理的对象。”在数字资本主义界域中，算法与数字资本共同把真实的人吸纳为“宰控对象”，使之沦为不具有生物生命的抽象数字人，成为“赛博格”式的“假人”，他们是“一个不断穿越物质劳动与非物质劳动边界的由机器与有机体组成的杂合体”。

On the other hand, capital-driven intelligent algorithms gradually degrade the subject-human into a “granular person.” The Western Left emphasizes that, within capitalist relations of production, humans become “one-sided persons” due to the domination of things (or capital), that is, they become “one-dimensional persons.” [39]39 “One-dimensional persons” (单向度的人) is a reference to Herbert Marcuse’s concept of the “one-dimensional man,” describing individuals in advanced industrial society who lose their critical and oppositional capacities. Now, within the domain of digital capitalism, humans, subjected to the manipulation of intelligent things, digital capital, and algorithms, have transformed from “one-dimensional persons” into “granular persons.” A “granular person” is a digitalized form of the human being, engendered by the monitoring, identification, and analysis of digital program algorithms, a person captured and highly analyzed by digital algorithmic technology. Christoph Kucklick, in *The Granular Society*, points out: “Due to the development of digitalization, we are all, step by step, entering a society of fine-grained analysis.” [40]40 Christoph Kucklick, *Die granulare Gesellschaft: Wie das Digitale unsere Wirklichkeit auflöst* (Berlin: Ullstein, 2014), p. 9. It is precisely because of the large-scale conscription of intelligent machines by digital capital that the modern world is maximally “analyzed” by intelligent algorithms, and the humans dwelling within it work alongside digital machines, “unable to understand themselves without the aid of machines.” [41]41 Kucklick, *Die granulare Gesellschaft*, p. 10. If the “tool person” represents the collusion of machine and capital in the belittlement of human development, then the “granular person” represents the capital-driven intelligent algorithm’s digital “dismantling” of the human being—that is, the use of digital mapping technology to precisely identify or programmatically encode human body organs, personality preferences, health indices, movement trajectories, life consumption patterns, etc., turning them into digital life forms that can be clearly distinguished, calculated, and evaluated through data aggregation. In this sense, some scholars argue that intelligent algorithms have swept humanity into a never-ending “24/7 capitalism” world, [42]42 “24/7 capitalism” refers to Jonathan Crary’s concept in *24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep* (London: Verso, 2013), describing a non-stop, time-disciplined capitalist system. wherein human individuals are transformed, beautified, simulated, and constructed by intelligent technology. Humanity has entered a “post-human” era, in which humans are no longer purely natural or biological persons, “but rather an ‘artificial person’ formed through technological processing or the effects of electronization and informatization.” [43]43 See Cao Rongxiang, “The ‘Post-Human’ Turn in the Era of Intelligent Algorithms,” *Social Science Front*, no. 3 (2020), p. 143.

另一方面，资本驱动智能算法使主体之人渐渐降格为“微粒人”。西方左翼强调，在资本主义生产关系中，人由于物（或资本）的宰控而成为“片面的人”，即成为“单向度的人”。而今，在数字资本主义界域中，人由于受到智能物、数字资本和算法的操控而从“单面人”变成了“微粒人”。“微粒人”是数字化的程序算法对人的监控、识别和解析而催生的人的数字化形态，是被数字算法技术捕捉和高度解析的人。克里斯多夫·库克里克在《微粒社会》中指出：“由于数字化进程的发展，我们所有人都在一步步地进入精细解析的社会。”正是因为数字资本对智能机器的大规模征用，现代世界才最大限度地被智能算法所“解析”，而寄居其中的人则与数字化机器共事，他们“在没有机器帮助的情况下将无法理解自己”。如果说“工具人”是机器与资本共谋对人的发展的贬抑，那么“微粒人”则是资本驱动智能算法对人的数据化“拆解”，即利用数字图绘技术对人的身体器官、性格偏好、健康指数、行动轨迹、生活消费等进行精准识别或程序化编码，使之成为通过数据集合就能清晰可辨、计算评估的数字生命体。在此意义上，有学者认为，智能算法将人类裹挟进永不停歇的“24/7式的资本主义”世界，在其中，人类个体被智能技术进行改造、美化、模拟和建构，人类进入了“后人类”时代，在此阶段，人类不再是纯粹的自然人或生物人，“而是经过技术加工或电子化、信息化作用形成的一种‘人工人’”。

3. Digital activities are forcibly conscripted: the reification of human intelligence and the alienation of spirit

3.数字活动被强制征用：人的智力物化与精神异化

Humans are beings of conscious activity; “conscious life activity directly distinguishes human life activity from animal life activity.” [44]44 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2000), p. 57. Humans’ free, conscious activity marks their subjectivity and is the foundation of human existence. The Western Left argues that, in the digital age, human activity has extended from the “real sphere” to the “virtual scene”; people’s “wishes, longings, dreams, and oppressions are all infected by informational elements.” [45]45 Mark Poster, *The Second Media Age* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), p. 28. Particularly within the domain of digital capitalism, as human interaction accelerates and becomes capitalized, human creativity and intellectual activity are forcibly conscripted by capital, and human emotions, spirit, and interaction once again undergo alienation.

人是有意识的活动体，“有意识的生命活动把人同动物的生命活动直接区别开来”。人的自由自觉的活动标定了人的主体性，是人存在的基础。西方左翼认为，在数字时代，人的活动从“现实场域”延伸到“虚拟场景”，人们的“愿望、渴求、梦想、压迫，全都被信息化的要素侵染”。特别是在数字资本主义界域中，随着人的交往活动的加速化和资本化，人的创造力和智力活动被资本强制征用，人的情感、精神、交往活动再度发生异化。

First, digital capital conscripts human intellectual activity, causing human intelligence and creativity to be continuously reified. The Western Left argues that, in the production system driven by digital capital, human intelligence and creativity become the main internal driving force for the valorization of digital capital. The production of digital capital is, in the final analysis, an “immaterial production” led by intelligence and creativity. [46]46 “Immaterial production” is a term from autonomist Marxist theory, notably developed by Maurizio Lazzarato and Michael Hardt/Antonio Negri, referring to labor that produces informational, cultural, or affective commodities. Within this relation of production, traditional labor power “is increasingly replaced by intellectualized, immaterial labor power in the field of communication and interaction”; [47]47 Maurizio Lazzarato, “Immaterial Labor,” in Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt, eds., *Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics* (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 133. human intelligence and creativity are forcibly conscripted and dominated by digital capital. Unlike industrial capitalism, which exploited human physical labor and caused its alienation, digital capitalism not only exploits human physical labor but also exploits human intelligence and creative activity. Yann Moulier Boutang points out that contemporary capitalism has two levels of exploitation: Level I is capital’s exploitation of physical labor, and Level II is capital’s exploitation of intelligence and creativity; “these two forms of exploitation can coexist in the same activity.” [48]48 Yann Moulier Boutang, *Cognitive Capitalism* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011), p. 57. Digital capitalism is an accumulation model dominated by the conscription and exploitation of human intelligence and creativity. In this model, as long as a person “acts” within the interface constructed by digital capital, his intellectual-type activities (online gaming, entertainment, leisure) are conscripted, encoded, and assigned value, and the results of his activities (data, etc.) become an independent, reified existence separate from him.

首先，数字资本征用人的智力活动，使人的智力和创造力不断物化。西方左翼认为，在数字资本驱动的生产体系中，人的智力和创造力成为数字资本增殖的主要内驱力。数字资本的生产归根到底是以智力、创造力为主导的“非物质生产”。在这种生产关系中，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”，人的智力和创造力受到数字资本的强制征用和支配。与工业资本主义剥削人的体能劳动并使之发生异化不同，数字资本主义不仅剥削人的体能劳动，更剥削人的智力和创造力活动。扬·穆里耶·博当指出，当代资本主义存在着两级剥削：Ⅰ级是资本剥削体能劳动，Ⅱ级是资本剥削智力和创造力，“这两种剥削形式可以在同一活动中共存”。数字资本主义就是以征用和剥削人的智力、创造力为主导的积累模式，在这种模式中，只要人在数字资本主构的界面中“活动”，他的智力型活动（网络游戏、娱乐、消遣）就会被征用、编码和赋值，他的活动的结果（数据等）成为独立于他的物化的存在。

Second, digital capital infects human emotional activity, causing the alienation of human emotion and spiritual activity. Emotions, feelings, and desires are instinctual human existences, but under the inducement of digital technology and capital, human emotions, feelings, and desires are also deeply manipulated by capital. Human “emotional activity” gradually evolves into “affective labor” within the digital interface; “this labor is immaterial, even if it is collective and emotional, because its product is intangible, a feeling of relaxation, well-being, satisfaction, excitement, or stimulation.” [49]49 Michael Hardt, “Affective Labor,” *boundary 2*, vol. 26, no. 2 (1999), p. 96. Within the domain of digital capitalism, social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter construct a “circle of friends”-style interactive model, enabling the self-expression of users’ emotions. Users can vent emotions, record moods, share joy, and even attract followers (traffic), expressing “fan emotions,” etc. This kind of emotional interaction is no longer a valueless instinctual interaction but an activity manipulated by digital capital that can create economic value. “In the era of digital capitalism, billions of people use Facebook, Google, Twitter, Weibo, iPhones, music players, online banking, online news sites, and other media in their work, politics, and daily lives”; [50]50 Christian Fuchs, *Digital Labour and Karl Marx* (New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 247. these are all sites where human affective labor occurs. In the affective labor of the digital interface, individuals seemingly gain channels for unlimited autonomous emotional expression, but these channels are gray passages through which digital capital incorporates human emotions, feelings, desires, and attention into a “digital colonial system” for the sake of valorization. In this process, capital monitors and utilizes subjective elements such as human emotions, feelings, sense of participation, sense of existence, and thoughts to achieve comprehensive control over the human spiritual world.

其次，数字资本侵染人的情感活动，使人的情感和精神活动发生异化。情绪、情感和欲望是人的本能性存在，但在数字技术和资本的诱导下，人的情绪、情感和欲望也深受资本的操纵，人的“情感活动”在数字界面中逐渐演变为“情感劳动”，“这种劳动是非物质的，即使它是群体的和感情性的，因为它的产品是不可触摸的，是一种包含放松、幸福、满意、兴奋或激动的感觉”。在数字资本主义界域中，诸如脸书、推特等社交平台构筑了“朋友圈”式的交互模式，实现了受众情感的自我表达，用户可以发泄情绪、记录心情、分享喜悦，甚至可以吸引粉丝（引流），表达“粉丝情感”等。这种情感性交往已经不再是毫无价值的本能性交往，而是数字资本操纵的能够创造经济价值的活动。“在数字资本主义时代，数十亿人在工作以及政治和日常生活中使用脸书、谷歌、推特、微博、苹果手机、音乐播放器、网上银行、在线新闻网站以及其他媒体”，这些都是人的情感劳动的发生场域。在数字界面的情感劳动中，个人看似获得了无限自主表达情感的渠道，但这种渠道是数字资本为了增殖而将人的情绪、情感、欲望、注意力纳入“数字殖民体系”的灰色通道，在此过程中，资本监视并利用人的情感、情绪、参与感、存在感和意念等主观要素实现了对人的精神世界的全面操控。

Finally, digital technology quantifies human interaction, making human relations increasingly “out of control.” Digital interaction is an important manifestation of contemporary human practical activity. This interaction is a kind of “virtual interaction”; it degrades humans’ real relations of interaction, causing human social relations to be gradually replaced by illusory relations. At present, “digitalization has taken control of the world to an unprecedented degree. The distance between the world and us is just a couple of swipes on a screen.” [51]51 Hartmut Rosa, *The Uncontrollability of the World* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020), p. 1. Rosa emphasizes that, for us, the entire world seems to be fully visible and comprehensively controllable via smartphones and search engines; even human body indices (blood pressure, heart rate, steps, blood sugar, sleep duration, etc.) can be “around-the-clock controlled” through smart wristbands. [52]52 Hartmut Rosa, *Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2019), p. 3. However, paradoxically, people’s real interactive activities today are becoming increasingly “out of control,” because the more people expand their interaction within the digital interface, the more they narrow their real relationships; the richer their digital relationships, the poorer their real relationships; the more they value the construction of interaction through the “digital body,” the more they depend on interaction through the “digital body.” In the digital age, people construct their virtual selves every day, browsing the virtual world of the internet, engaging in interaction, and enriching their spiritual world. Yet, once people detach from the virtual self and leave the digital world, feelings of loneliness and anxiety arise spontaneously, even multiplying. The more people construct themselves in the digital world, the more they depend on it; the richer their digital world, the lonelier, emptier, and less emotionally connected they feel once they leave it, and the more they feel excluded by the masses. “The day-and-night work we face in contemporary society is rarely pleasant, often feeling boring and monotonous, even painful and torturous. The work of capitalist society repeats day after day, like a prison enslaving our strength; it steals our time, and the remaining leisure time seems only to make us feel passive and powerless.” [53]53 David Frayne, *The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work* (London: Zed Books, 2015), p. 1. Today, “the more people publish genuine self-expressions and engage in more interpersonal interaction in the virtual world, the more reified they become, and the more de-alienated they become. From another perspective, the more they labor, creating more surplus value, the deeper the degree of their exploitation.” [54]54 Fuchs, *Digital Labour and Karl Marx*, p. 258. Therefore, the alienation of humans in the era of digital capitalism has expanded into the alienation of humans’ digital interactive relations and the alienation of the human mind and spirit.

最后，数字技术量化人的交往活动，使人的交往关系越来越“不受掌控”。数字交往是当下人类实践活动的重要表征，这种交往是一种“虚拟交往”，它贬黜了人的真实交往关系，使人的社会关系渐渐被虚幻的关系所取代。当前，“数字化前所未有地掌控了世界。世界和我们之间也就是屏幕上滑个两下的距离”。罗萨强调，对我们而言，整个世界似乎借助于智能手机和搜索引擎就能被一览无余和全面掌控，甚至人的身体指数（血压、心跳、步数、血糖、睡眠时长等）亦可通过智能手环而被“全天候掌控”。然而，吊诡的是，今天人们的真实交往活动却变得越来越“不受掌控”，因为人们越是在数字界面中扩大交往，他就越是窄化自己的真实关系；他的数字关系的交往越丰富，他的现实关系就越贫乏；他越重视对“数字身体”交往的塑造，他就越依赖于“数字身体”的交往。在数字时代，人们每天都在建构自己的虚体，浏览网络虚拟世界，人们从中展开交往，丰富精神世界。然而，人们一旦脱离虚体、离开数字世界，人的孤独感、焦虑感就会油然而生，甚至会成倍增加。人越是在数字世界中建构自我，他就越依赖于数字世界；人越是有丰富的数字世界，一旦离开数字世界，他就越孤独、越空虚，越没有亲情感，越觉得被大众所排斥。“我们在当下社会所面对的夜以继日的工作很少令人愉悦，常常让人感到无聊和单调，甚至痛苦和折磨。资本主义社会的工作日复一日地重复，像是奴役我们力量的监狱，它偷走我们的时间，余下的闲暇时间似乎只让我们感到消极和无力。”今天，人们在虚拟世界中“发布更多的真实的自我表达，参与更多的人际交往，他们就将更为物化，也就更去异化。换个角度看，他们劳动的越多，创造越多的剩余价值，他们被剥削的程度也就越深”。所以，数字资本主义时代人的异化已经扩展为人的数字交往关系的异化以及人的心灵、精神的异化。

III. The Chinese Implications of the Western Left’s Critique of the “New Alienation” of Humans in Digital Capitalism

三、西方左翼对数字资本主义人的“新异化”批判的中国启示

With great theoretical courage, the Western Left has subjected the “new alienation” of humans in digital capitalism to a philosophical-ontological critique and a critique of political economy, revealing the existential situation and actual circumstances of humans within the hegemonic logic of Western digital capitalism, and to a certain extent writing a “new chapter” in Marx’s critical theory of alienated labor. However, the analysis and critique by Western left-wing scholars of the existential situation of humans in digital capitalism have not transcended Marx’s critical logic, nor have they delved into the “confrontation” between the logic of capital and the logic of humans in the digital age. In contemporary China, our Party has successfully advanced and expanded Chinese-path modernization. This type of modernization has successfully resolved the paradox between the “logic of capital” and the “logic of humans,” both activating the “civilizing aspect of capital” and effectively promoting “human development,” forging a new path that coordinates “promoting the comprehensive enrichment of things and the comprehensive development of humans,” effectively avoiding the “alienation” caused by digital capitalism to human development. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized at the 20th National Congress of the CPC that we

西方左翼以强大的理论勇气对数字资本主义人的“新异化”进行哲学存在论批判、政治经济学批判，揭示了西方数字资本主义霸权逻辑中人的存在境遇和现实处境，在一定程度上书写了马克思异化劳动批判理论的“新篇章”。然而，西方左翼学者对数字资本主义之人的存在境遇的分析和批判并没有超越马克思的批判逻辑，也没有深究资本逻辑与人的逻辑在数字时代的“较量”。在当代中国，我们党成功推进和拓展了中国式现代化，这种现代化成功破解了“资本逻辑”与“人的逻辑”的悖论，既激活了“资本的文明面”，又有效促进了“人的发展”，走出了一条协同“促进物的全面丰富和人的全面发展”的新路，有效规避了数字资本主义对人的发展造成的“异化”。习近平总书记在党的二十大报告中强调，要“加快发展数字经济，促进数字经济和实体经济深度融合，打造具有国际竞争力的数字产业集群”。面向未来，我们在建设“数字中国”和发展“数字经济”的过程中，要积极应对数字资本对人的发展的挑战，就应该回到马克思资本主义批判的经典论域，并结合西方左翼对数字资本主义批判的“新语境”，积极探索有效规避数字时代人的“新异化”的应对之道，进而在中国特色社会主义实践中促进人的自由而全面发展。

1. Upholding the People as Supreme: Harnessing the Logic of Human Labor to Steer the Logic of Digital Capital

1.坚持人民至上：以人的劳动逻辑驾驭数字资本逻辑

Western left-wing scholars have perceived the challenges that digital capitalism poses to human existence and have analyzed the manifestations of the “new alienation” of humans within the domain of digital capitalism. However, they have not found a feasible path to break the control and suppression of humans by digital capital. They remain stuck in superficial analyses and pessimistic outcries over wealth polarization, class antagonism, and social fragmentation in Western societies in the digital age, yet they have not discovered a way to sublate “new alienation.” Even though Rosa proposed a “theory of resonance” to sublate alienation in the “accelerated society,” he overlooked the proliferative essence of the logic of digital capital. In fact, Marx long ago pointed out that “communism is the positive transcendence of private property, as human self-estrangement, and therefore is the real appropriation of the human essence through and for man.” [55]55 Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 296. It should be said that within the logic of digital capitalist hegemony, the chief culprit of the “new alienation” of humans remains the logic of capital and the expansion of digital technology it controls. Therefore, to sublate human alienation within the logic of digital capital and to promote human liberation and all-round development, it is necessary to uphold the people as supreme and advocate the logic of human labor.

西方左翼学者看到了数字资本主义对人的存在发起的挑战，分析了数字资本主义界域中人的“新异化”的表征，但他们并没有找到一条破解数字资本控制人、压制人的可行性道路，他们停留在对数字化时代西方社会的财富分化、阶级对抗、社会撕裂的表象性分析和悲观性呐喊，却并没有找到扬弃“新异化”的道路。即便罗萨提出了在“加速社会”中扬弃异化的“共鸣理论”，但他却忽视了数字资本逻辑的增殖性本质。实际上，马克思早已指出，“共产主义是对私有财产即人的自我异化的积极的扬弃，因而是通过人并且为了人而对人的本质的真正占有”〖。应该说，在数字资本主义霸权的逻辑中，人的“新异化”的罪魁祸首依然是资本逻辑及其控制的数字技术扩张。因此，要在数字资本逻辑中扬弃人的异化、促进人的解放和全面发展，必须坚持人民至上，倡扬人的劳动逻辑。

First, upholding the people as supreme means upholding the logic of human labor. Capitalist production is production driven by capital, in which capital is the subject and labor is the subtheme, capital is the end and labor is the means, capital is the ruler and labor is the appendage. “The purpose of capitalist production (and hence the purpose of productive labor) is not the survival of the producer, but the production of surplus value.” [56]56 Karl Marx, “Results of the Immediate Process of Production,” in Capital, vol. 1 (Penguin Classics, 1990), p. 1038. In production dominated by the logic of capital, a severe rupture between capital and labor occurs, resulting in the personification of capital and the reification of humans, the proliferation of capital and the devaluation of labor, and the abundance of capital and the poverty of labor. To break the “alienation” of humans within the domain of the logic of capital, it is necessary to carry out a “complete economic revolution” against capitalism, to liberate and develop humans from the logic of capital, and ultimately to reshape the logic of human labor. In Marx’s view, the most direct path to sublating human alienation is to abolish the enslavement of labor by capital, “to convert capital into common property, into the property of all members of society,” [57]57 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 498. and ultimately to make the logic of human labor the dominant logic of social production. In contemporary China, we consistently uphold the people as supreme and adhere to the logic of human labor.

第一，坚持人民至上就是坚持人的劳动逻辑。资本主义生产是资本驱动劳动的生产，在这种生产中，资本是主题，劳动是副题，资本是目的，劳动是手段，资本是统治者，劳动是依附物。“资本主义生产的目的（从而生产劳动的目的）不是为了生产者的生存，而是剩余价值的生产”。在资本逻辑主导的生产中，出现了资本与劳动的严重撕裂，造成了资本的人化与人的物化、资本的增殖与劳动的贬值、资本的丰饶与劳动的贫困。要破除资本逻辑界域中人的“异化”，必须对资本主义进行“完全的经济革命”，从资本逻辑中解放人、发展人，最终重塑人的劳动逻辑。在马克思看来，扬弃人的异化的最直接道路是消灭资本对劳动的奴役，“把资本变为公共的、属于社会全体成员的财产”，最终使人的劳动逻辑成为社会生产的主导性逻辑。在当代中国，我们始终坚持人民至上，坚持人的劳动逻辑。

Second, harnessing the logic of digital capital with the logic of human labor. The logic of digital capital is fundamentally a mode of development that elevates “materiality” and degrades “humanity.” It takes digital capital as the supreme being, treats humans as appendages and tools of capital, and inverts the “subject-object” relationship between humans and capital. In contrast, the logic of human labor is a mode of development that transcends the logic of digital capital. It revolves around the living conditions, common destiny, and individual freedom of contemporary people to construct modes of labor and life that belong to humans in the digital age, advocates human subjectivity in the digital era, takes human development as the goal of digital technological progress, and focuses on solving the common problems facing humanity in the digital age. Marx pointed out: “The whole of history is a preparation, a development, for ‘man’ to become the object of sensuous consciousness and for the need of ‘man as man’ to become [his] need.” [58]58 Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 306. In the digital age, upholding the logic of human labor means treating human intellectual labor, creative activity, and so on as elements of value creation, respecting the subject status and creative spirit of humans in digital production. It is the “logic of the good” inherent in the laws of history, a value logic that conforms to human nature and promotes human survival and development. In the digital age, harnessing the logic of digital capital with the logic of human labor means upholding the primacy of labor and the primacy of life, so that “productive labor gives everyone the opportunity to develop and display all their abilities, both physical and intellectual,” [59]59 Friedrich Engels, “Anti-Dühring,” in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 25 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987), p. 270. and so that digital labor is not enslaved by digital capital but becomes a means of human liberation.

第二，以人的劳动逻辑驾驭数字资本逻辑。数字资本逻辑在根本上是高抬“物性”贬低“人性”的发展方式，它以数字资本为最高存在，把人作为资本的附庸和工具，在人与资本的关系上颠倒了“主-客”体关系。相反，人的劳动逻辑是超越数字资本逻辑的发展方式，它围绕当代人的生存境遇、共同命运和个性自由构筑数字化时代属于人的劳动方式、生活方式，倡扬人在数字时代的主体性，把人的发展作为数字技术进步的目标，集中解答数字时代人类所面临的共同难题。马克思指出：“全部历史是为了使‘人’成为感性意识的对象和使‘人作为人’的需要成为需要而作准备的历史（发展的历史）。”在数字时代，坚持人的劳动逻辑就是把人的智力劳动、创造力活动等作为价值创造的要素，尊重人在数字化生产中的主体地位和创造精神，它是历史规律内蕴的“善的逻辑”，是合乎人性、促进人的生存发展的价值逻辑。在数字时代坚持以人的劳动逻辑驾驭数字资本逻辑，就是坚持劳动至上、生命至上，让“生产劳动给每一个人提供全面发展和表现自己的全部能力即体能和智能的机会”，让数字劳动不被数字资本所奴役，而是变成解放人的手段。

Third, setting limits on digital capital and constructing a distribution mechanism that conforms to the logic of human labor. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: “To promote the healthy development of the digital economy, we must adhere to both promoting development and regulating and supervising, grasping both aspects with equal firmness, regulating in the course of development, and developing in the course of regulation.” [60]60 Xi Jinping, “Speech at the 34th Collective Study Session of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee,” October 18, 2021. Currently, to curb the encroachment of the logic of digital capital on human labor, it is necessary to set limits on digital capital. Specifically, within digital production relations, “traffic lights” should be set for digital capital in accordance with the principle of ownership, to prevent digital platform monopolies and the disorderly expansion of digital capital. At the same time, it is necessary to continuously improve the property rights attribution of digital labor, build a basic data system, establish and improve a data rights confirmation mechanism, clarify the rights of possession and use of data, clarify the status of different subjects such as data users, digital enterprises, and digital technicians, and construct a distribution mechanism based on data elements. For example, adhere to the principle of “people-first” in constructing the principle of subjectivity in digital labor, emphasize the subject status of “living labor” in human-machine interactive labor, digital wage labor, or digital free labor, and construct a distribution according to work mechanism under the principle of people-first. For another example, adhere to the principle of “equal possession” in constructing the principle of ownership in digital labor. In digital production relations, there are both possessors of digital means of production and digital laborers. The principle of equality in the participation of data elements in income distribution should be explored based on these two subjects, insisting on the equal possession of digital means of production and the distribution according to work of digital products simultaneously.

第三，为数字资本设限，建构符合人的劳动逻辑的分配机制。习近平总书记指出：“推动数字经济健康发展，要坚持促进发展和监管规范两手抓、两手都要硬，在发展中规范、在规范中发展。”当前，要抑制数字资本逻辑对人的劳动的圈占，需要为数字资本设限。具体来说，在数字生产关系中，要按照所有权原则为数字资本设置“红绿灯”，防止数字平台垄断和数字资本无序扩张。同时，要不断健全数字劳动的产权归属，构建数据基础制度，建立健全数据确权机制，明确数据的占有权、使用权，明确数据用户、数字企业、数字技术员等不同主体的地位，建构基于数据要素的分配机制。比如，坚持以“属人优先”建构数字劳动的主体性原则，在人机交互性劳动、数字化雇佣劳动或数字化自由劳动中注重“活劳动”的主体地位，建构属人原则下的按劳分配机制。再比如，坚持以“平等占有”建构数字劳动的所有权原则。在数字生产关系中，既有数字生产资料的占有者，也有数字劳动者，要按照以上两种主体探索数据要素参与收入分配的平等原则，坚持数字生产资料平等占有和数字产品按劳分配并举。

2. Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace: Regulating the Digital Capital Community with a Genuine Community

2.构建网络空间命运共同体：以真正的共同体规约数字资本共同体

In a society dominated by the logic of capital, “capital is the recognized universality and power of the community.” In the era of digitalized production, digital capitalism reduces human relations to relations between virtual objects and virtual objects, takes the valorization of digital capital as its end, degrades human subjectivity to a means, and extends human relations from actuality to virtuality. Marx pointed out: “The essence of man is man’s true community.” But within the domain of digital capitalism, humans gradually detach themselves from their true communal essence, from actually existing communal relations, and become humans in a virtual community. Fromm once said: “The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.” Humans in the digital age have not become “robots,” but they are suffused with virtuality, digitality, and mask-like character, becoming living “false persons” dwelling in a virtual community. This “false person,” stamped with a digital label, is entirely produced by the alliance of digital technology and capital. At present, “in the digitalized ‘globalization’ era, social proximity and physical proximity are increasingly disconnected”; humans’ sense of closeness and empathy gradually “fade”; humans’ actual spatial positions and temporal sequences become “disembedded” in the digitalized virtual community; humans slavishly obey data and games within the virtual community, becoming producers of and appendages to virtual reality or data. It can be said that today, “the flood of precise information and the prevalence of tedious games, while enhancing human intelligence, also make people more foolish.” Therefore, to sublate the alienation of humans within the domain of digital capitalism is to continuously regulate the virtual community formed by digitalization, to enable humans to return to true communal relations, and to guide and regulate the communication institutions, morality, and culture of the virtual community with true communal relations. Marx believed that the essence of humans’ social relations constitutes the core of human essence, and that the goal of human development and human emancipation is to construct “human society or socialized humanity.” This goal is the key guiding human development today. To sublate human alienation in the digital age is to advance along the path of human liberation conceived by Marx, to continuously transcend the “encirclement” of human developmental space by digital capitalism, to take Marx’s envisioned “true community” and “association of free individuals” as guidance, to continuously transcend the negative effects of “virtual reality,” to “strive to promote the building of a community with a shared future in cyberspace,” and to continuously enable “man to appropriate his comprehensive essence in a comprehensive way, that is, as a complete man.”

在资本逻辑主导的社会，“资本是共同体的公认的普遍性和力量”。在数字化生产时代，数字资本主义把人与人的关系贬斥为虚拟物与虚拟物的关系，把数字资本的增殖作为目的，把人的主体性降格为手段，使人的关系从现实性延伸到虚拟性。马克思指出：“人的本质是人的真正的共同体。”但在数字资本主义界域中，人逐渐脱离了自己真正的共同体本质，脱离了真实存在的共同体关系，变成了虚拟共同体中的人。弗洛姆曾言：“过去的危险是人成为奴隶。将来的危险是人可能成为机器人。”数字时代的人并没有成为“机器人”，但却充溢着虚拟性、数字化和面具性，成为生活在虚拟共同体中的有生命的“假人”，这种刻印着数字化标签的“假人”完全是由数字技术与资本的结盟造成的。当前，“在数字化的‘全球化’时代当中，社会亲近性与物理邻近性之间越来越脱节了”，人的亲近感、共情性渐渐“褪色”，人的现实空间位置与时间序列在数字化的虚拟共同体中发生“脱嵌”，人在虚拟共同体中对数据、游戏唯命是从，成为虚拟现实或数据的制造者和依附物。可以说，当下“精确信息的泛滥，枯燥游戏的普及，在提高人的才智的同时，也使人变得更加愚蠢”。因此，扬弃数字资本主义界域中人的异化，就是要不断规约数字化结成的虚拟的共同体，使人回归真正的共同体关系，以真正的共同体关系为指引规范虚拟共同体的交往制度、道德和文化。马克思认为，人的社会关系本质构成了人的本质之内核，人的发展和人类解放的目标即建构“人类社会或社会的人类”，这一目标是指引当下人的发展的锁钥。在数字时代扬弃人的异化，就是要依循马克思建构的人类解放的道路前行，不断超越数字资本主义对人的发展空间的“围堵”，以马克思设想的“真正共同体”和“自由人联合体”为指引，不断超脱“虚拟现实”的负面效应，“努力推动构建网络空间命运共同体”，不断使“人以一种全面的方式，就是说，作为一个完整的人，占有自己的全面的本质”。

3. Adhering to Public Ownership of Digital Means of Production: Bridging the “Digital Divide” through Data Co-ownership and Sharing

3.坚持数字生产资料公有制：以数据共有共享弥合“数字鸿沟”

In the capitalist mode of production, the most typical manifestation of human alienation is the alienation of human labor, which is marked by the domination of humans by private property. Marx held that “the positive supersession of private property, as the appropriation of human life, is the positive supersession of all alienation.” Similarly, within the domain of digital capitalism, the alienation of humans is ultimately the capitalization and privatization of humans’ activity relations, their digital products, and their digital property. Especially in the domain dominated by digital capital, the privatization of digital means of production and the capitalization of humans’ digital activities widen the developmental gap between people, thereby giving rise to the “digital divide.” The “digital divide” is a new inequality created by digital capitalism, a global information divide, digital knowledge inequality, and data deficit. From a broader perspective, “the digital divide refers to the social power gap in formulating policies for the production and distribution of information resources.” In reality, digital capitalism is leading humanity toward outright digital imperialism; it profoundly alters the pattern of ownership of digital technology, further widens the developmental gap between countries, and triggers new divisions and contradictions worldwide. It can be said that digital capitalism is suffused with inequality and injustice due to the private ownership of digital means of production, and that, because of the new logic of exploitation it contains, it places humanity deep within the shackles of capital. Therefore, to sublate digital alienation and bridge the digital divide, it is necessary to return to the public ownership of the means of production advocated by Marx, to promote and activate communism in the digital age, and to “replace the logic of capital with the logic of public ownership, transforming digital labor into digital work.” To sublate the alienation of humans within the domain of digital capitalism is to insist on bridging the “digital divide” through data co-ownership and sharing, to effectively curb the privatization and capitalization of public data, and to avoid social injustice caused by digital technology monopolies and data exclusivity.

在资本主义生产方式中，人的异化最典型的表现即人的劳动异化，这种异化以私有财产对人的统治为标志。马克思认为，“对私有财产的积极的扬弃，作为对人的生命的占有，是对一切异化的积极的扬弃”。同样，在数字资本主义界域中，人的异化归根到底是人的活动关系、人的数字产品以及人的数字财产的资本化、私有化，特别是在数字资本主导的界域中，数字生产资料的私有化和人的数字活动的资本化使得人与人的发展差距拉大，由此产生了“数字鸿沟”。“数字鸿沟”是数字资本主义制造的新的不平等现象，是全球范围内的信息鸿沟、数字知识不平等和数据赤字。从更宏观的视角看，“数字鸿沟指的是在制定信息资源生产和分配政策方面的社会权力差距”。实际上，数字资本主义正在将人类引向十足的数字帝国主义，它深深改变了数字技术的占有格局，进一步扩宽了国家之间的发展差距，在世界范围内引发新的分化和矛盾。可以说，数字资本主义因数字生产资料的私人占有而充溢着不平等和不正义，因内蕴的新的剥削逻辑而使人类深处资本的枷锁之中。为此，要扬弃数字异化，弥合数字鸿沟，必须回到马克思所倡导的生产资料公有制，在数字时代倡扬和激活共产主义，“用公有化逻辑取代资本逻辑，把数字劳动转化成为数字工作”。扬弃数字资本主义界域中人的异化，就是要坚持以数据共有共享弥合“数字鸿沟”，有效抑制公共数据的私有化、资本化，规避数字技术垄断和数据独占造成的社会不公。

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that we must “promote the implementation of the national big data strategy, accelerate the improvement of digital infrastructure, advance the integration and open sharing of data resources, ensure data security, accelerate the construction of a Digital China, and better serve China’s economic and social development and the improvement of people’s lives.” In the development of China’s contemporary digital economy, we have consistently adhered to the principle of sharing, constructed and improved a digital sharing mechanism under the people-centered principle, cultivated a value chain of shared interests in the digital age, promoted the value compensation of “private data” and the co-management and sharing of “public data,” actively explored institutional mechanisms for the participation of data factors in distribution, and provided a completely new Chinese solution for humanity to escape the grip of digital capital. In summary, guided by the strategic goal of achieving common prosperity in the New Era, contemporary China continuously stimulates the vitality of the digital economy, narrows the distribution gap in digital labor, promotes the healthy and orderly development of the digital economy, effectively curbs the encroachment of digital capital on people’s production and life, and lays a new foundation for sublating human alienation and reaching the “human society” envisioned by Marx.

习近平总书记指出，要“推动实施国家大数据战略，加快完善数字基础设施，推进数据资源整合和开放共享，保障数据安全，加快建设数字中国，更好服务我国经济社会发展和人民生活改善”。在当代中国数字经济发展中，我们始终坚持共享原则，建构和完善以人为本原则下的数字共享机制，培育数字时代利益共享的价值链，推动“私人数据”的价值补偿和“公共数据”的共管共享，积极探索数据要素参与分配的体制机制，为人类摆脱数字资本的钳制提供了全新的中国方案。总而言之，当代中国在新时代实现共同富裕战略目标的指引下，不断激发数字经济活力，缩小数字劳动中的分配鸿沟，推动数字经济健康有序发展，有效抑制了数字资本对人的生产生活的圈占，为扬弃人的异化、通达马克思所设想的“人类社会”铺垫了新的路基。

(Author’s bio: Gong Yongdan, Assistant Professor at the School of Marxism, Beihang University, and Researcher at the Capital University Party Building Research Base)

（作者简介：巩永丹，北京航空航天大学马克思主义学院助理教授，首都高校党建研究基地研究员）

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心