The New Industrial Revolution and the Development of Socialism in the 21st Century

The new industrial revolution began at the end of the 20th century and is a continuation of the third industrial revolution, hence it is also called the fourth industrial revolution. It takes intelligence, networking, and digitalization as its core driving forces, and efficient personalized customization of production and services as its basic concept. It mainly exhibits the following characteristics: first, more sophisticated digital technology, with a higher degree of digitalization and informatization than the third industrial revolution, greater computing power, and exponential innovative growth; second, it shows an integrated development trend, with the deep integration of the physical, digital, and biological fields, and new things such as driverless cars, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, the Internet of Things, automatic identification, and human-machine conversation will commonly appear in daily life; third, it has the power to trigger systemic economic and social changes in various countries, promoting smart factories and customized product production, giving rise to entirely new economic and organizational structures, and prompting adjustments and self-reshaping of government operation modes. Reviewing the history of socialist development, it can be found that each previous industrial revolution and the development of socialism have promoted and driven each other. Currently, the fourth industrial revolution, characterized by the application of information technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, has already begun globally, promoting exponential growth and disruptive changes in social productive forces, thereby changing people's production methods and lifestyles, and affecting the class structure and social structure of contemporary society. How to understand these changes and challenges is a theoretical and practical issue worthy of in-depth study. This article places the development of socialism in the 21st century on the "realistic foundation of the new industrial revolution" and analyzes new situations and changes in areas such as the development of social productive forces, the subjectivity of the working class, the unity of the proletariat, and the free and comprehensive development of individuals.

新产业革命起始于20世纪末，是第三次产业革命的延续，因而又被称为第四次产业革命。它以智能化、网络化、数字化为核心动力，以高效个性化定制生产与服务为基本理念，主要呈现出以下几个特征：一是更加精深的数字技术，数字化、信息化程度比第三次产业革命更高，计算能力更强，且呈现出指数级的创新增长；二是呈现出一体化的发展趋势，物理、数字与生物领域深度融合，无人驾驶汽车、人工智能、3D打印、物联网、自动识别、人机交谈等新生事物将会普遍出现在日常生活中；三是具有引发各国经济社会系统性变革的力量，推动智能工厂、产品生产的定制化，催生全新的经济和组织构架，促进政府运行方式的调整和自我 重塑。梳理社会主义发展史 可以发现，历次产业革命与社会主义的发展都是相互促进、彼此推动的。当前，以人工智能、大数据、云计算等信息技术的应用为特征的第四次产业革命已经在全球拉开序幕，推动了社会生产力的指数式增长和颠覆式变革，进而改变着人们的生产方式和生活方式，影响着当代社会的阶级结构和社会结构。如何理解这些变化和挑战是一个值得深入研究的理论与现实问题。本文将21世纪社会主义发展置于“新产业革命的现实基础之上”,分析社会生产力发展、工人阶级主体性、无产阶级联合、人的自由全面发展等方面出现的新情况、新变化。

I. Exponential Growth of Social Productive Forces and Global Polarization of Wealth between Rich and Poor

一、社会生产力的指数式增长与世界范围内的贫富两极分化

Science and technology have always been a powerful force driving changes in productive forces. The new industrial revolution, with core technologies such as big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and blockchain, has brought about exponential growth in productive forces. Statistical data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that from 2012 to 2021, the scale of China's digital economy grew from 11 trillion yuan to over 45 trillion yuan, and the proportion of the digital economy in gross domestic product rose from 21.60% to 39.80%, with an average annual growth rate as high as 15.90%. According to calculations by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), the scale of China's digital economy in 2022 increased to about 50 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 10%, accounting for over 41% of GDP. According to predictions by the well-known consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the United States, by 2030, artificial intelligence will increase global economic growth by at least 14%, approximately 15.7 trillion US dollars, more than the combined GDP of China and India today. Clearly, the digital economy has become a new engine of economic development. Although new technologies such as blockchain are still in their infancy, their boosting effect on the economy is unprecedentedly enormous.

科学技术一直以来都是推动生产力变革的强大力量。以大数据、云计算、物联网、区块链为核心技术的新产业革命带来了生产力的指数式增长。工信部统计测算数据显示，2012年—2021年，中国数字经济规模从11万亿元增长到45万亿元以上，数字经济占国内生产总值比重由21.60%提升至39.80%,年均增速高达15.90%。据中国信息通信研究院(简称“中国信通院”)测算，2022年中国数字经济规模提升至50万亿元左右，同比增长约10%,占GDP比重超过 41%。据 知名咨询公司美国普华永道预测，到2030年，人工智能将使全球经济增长至少14%,约15.7万亿美元，比当前中印两国GDP的总和还要多。显 然，数字经济已经成为经济发展的新引擎。目前区块链等新型技术虽然还处于起步阶段，但对经济的助推作用却空前巨大。

Although the digital economy has greatly improved the level of productive forces development and increased the total amount of material wealth, its development achievements have not universally benefited everyone. Instead, it has created a "digital divide," that is, in the process of global digitalization, the information gap and wealth gap between different countries, regions, industries, and groups have further widened due to differences in their possession, application, and innovation capabilities regarding information and network technologies. This polarization is mainly reflected in the huge polarization between the so-called "central countries" dominated by developed capitalist countries and developing countries, as well as the huge wealth gap within Western capitalist countries. From a global perspective, the "new economy" that uses information technology and knowledge to create value is a "rich-country phenomenon." Although digital technology is rapidly spreading in developing countries, the gap in the promotion and application of digital technology still exists. Many developing countries, especially underdeveloped countries and regions, cannot catch the express train of the digital economy. Developed countries, relying on their dominant position in the global industrial chain, have become the biggest beneficiaries of technological progress, further widening the global gap between rich and poor.

尽管数字经济极大地提升了生产力发展水平，增加了物质财富总量，但是其发展成果并没有让所有人普遍受益，而是产生了“数字鸿沟”,即在全球数字化进程中，不同国家、地区、行业、群体之间由于对信息、网络技术的拥有程度、应用程度以及创新能力不同而导致的信息落差及贫富差距进一步扩大。这种两极分化主要体现在以发达资本主义国家为主导的所谓“中心国家”同发展中国家之间巨大的两极分化，以及西方资本主义国家内部出现的巨大贫富差距。从全球范围来看，利用信息技术和知识创造价值的“新经济”是一种“富国现象”。虽然数字技术在发展中国家迅速普及，但推广应用数字技术的差距依然存在，许多发展中国家，尤其是不发达国家和地区，搭不上数字经济的快车。而发达国家凭借其在全球产业链中占据的主导地位成为技术进步的最大受益者，全球贫富悬殊进一步拉大。

The "digital divide" also exists alarmingly within Western developed countries. With the support of digital technology, monopoly capitalism has entered the stage of digital capitalism. Capitalists use digital technology to strengthen the intensity of exploitation of the working class. The technological monopoly generated by the global communications revolution, combined with the currently dominant Wall Street financial capital aimed at creating investment assets, further constitutes today's "1%." Social wealth in the United States is increasingly concentrated among a few people, the gap between rich and poor is worsening and accelerating polarization. Some Western scholars call this phenomenon the "winner-take-all economy." 99% of people are increasingly becoming the socially impoverished class, the proportion of the middle class is shrinking significantly, and the sense of "deprivation" among the lower and middle classes is growing stronger. The wealthiest 1% of families in the United States own nearly 40% of the country's total social wealth, while the bottom 80% of families own only 16% of the country's wealth. With the decline of the middle class and the disappearance of its balancing role in social and political life, Western society has formed a serious opposition between the richest 1% and the low-income 99%. As Marx pointed out in the "Inaugural Address of the International Working Men's Association": "The great mass of the working classes are everywhere sinking deeper and deeper, at the same rate at least as those above them are rising in the social scale."

“数字鸿沟”还令人震惊地存在于西方发达国家内部。在数字技术的加持下，垄断资本主义进入数字资本主义阶段，资本家利用数字技术加强了对工人阶级的剥削强度。全球通信革命所产生的技术垄断，与当前占主导地位、旨在创造投资性资产的华尔街金融资本，进一步构成了当今的“1%”。美国社会财富越来越向少数人集中，贫富差距日益恶化并加速分化，西方一些学者将此现象称为“赢者通吃经济”。99%的人日趋沦为社会贫困阶层，中产阶级所占比重明显萎缩，中下层民众的“被剥夺感”日益强烈。美国最富有的1%的家庭拥有全社会近40%的财富，而底层80%的家庭只拥有全国16%的财富。随着中产阶级的没落及其在社会政治生活中平衡作用的消失，西方社会形成了1%最富有人群与99%的低收入人群的严重对立。正如马克思在《国际工人协会成立宣言》中指出的：“工人阶级的广大群众的生活水平到处都在深深地下降，下降的程度至少同那些站在他们头上的阶级沿着社会阶梯上升的程度一样。”

II. The Precariatization of the Proletariat and the Subject Responsibility for Transforming Society

二、无产阶级的流众化与变革社会的主体责任

The new technological revolution triggers disruptive changes in social production methods. Under the influence of the new technological revolution, the means of production have changed from machine systems to cyber-physical systems, the objects of labor from material materials to massive data, the subjects of labor from industrial workers to digital laborers, and the mode of social combination from "assembly lines" to "online gigs." Under these changes, can the working class still bear the subject responsibility for transforming society?

新科技革命引发社会生产方式的颠覆性变革。在新科技革命的影响下，生产工具由机器系统变为信息物理体系，劳动对象由物质资料变为海量数据，劳动主体由产业工人变为数字劳工，社会结合方式由“流水线”变为“在线零工”。在这些变化下，工人阶级是否还能承担起变革社会的主体责任?

(A) In the Digital Age, the Working Class Remains the Main Force for Social Change

(一)数字时代工人阶级依然是社会变革的主体力量

In the information age, the traditional industrial working class has shrunk significantly, replaced by digital employees. They are characterized by the diversification of work nature and ideological status, the decentralization of workplaces, and the precariousness of work and life conditions. American left-wing scholar Judith Butler believes that the digital age makes ordinary people living at the bottom face a highly unstable state, whether in work or life, income or consumption. Their lives are precarious, becoming the most vulnerable lives, living a turbulent existence. British economist Guy Standing combined Judith Butler's concept of "precariousness" with Marx's concept of "proletariat" to coin a new term — precariat — specifically referring to this new proletariat living in a state of uncertainty. Unlike the traditional working class, the precariat does not have a stable employment relationship with employers; their income comes from occasional opportunities scattered in cyberspace and social space.

信息时代传统的产业工人大量萎缩，取而代之的是数字雇员。他们具有工作性质和思想状况多元化、工作场所分散化、工作生活状态流变化等特征。美国左翼学者朱迪斯·巴特勒(Judith Butler)认为，数字时代使生活在底层的普通人，无论是在工作上还是在生活上，无论是收入还是消费，都面对着高度不稳定的状态。他们的生活朝不保夕，成为最脆弱的生命，过着一种动荡不安的生活。英国经济学家盖伊·史坦丁(Guy Standing)将朱迪斯·巴特勒的“动荡不定”概念和马克思的“无产阶级”概念合成为一个新词——流众，特指这种生存在不确定状态下的新无产阶级。与传统的工人阶级不同，流众与雇主之间并不具有稳定的雇佣关系，他们的收入来自于散落在网络空间和社会空间中的偶然机会。

Some Western scholars believe that the shrinking of the traditional proletariat means it can no longer bear the main role in social change, thus advocating for the diversification of the subjects of social change. For example, Spanish sociologist Jose Felix Tezanos proposed that the 21st-century socialist movement must overcome the concept that "there is only one subject of revolution" and move "from the theory of a single revolutionary subject to the plurality of socialist subjects." Russian scholar B.M. Mezhuev believes that the main force for social change is the "new middle class," characterized by a high level of education and the ability to continuously improve themselves.

一些西方学者认为，传统无产阶级的萎缩使其不再能承担起社会变革的主体角色，因而主张社会变革主体的多元化。如西班牙社会学者霍赛·弗利克斯·特扎诺什(Jose Felix Tezanos)提出，21世纪社会主义运动必须克服“革命只有一个主体”的理念，实现从“唯一的革命主体的理论到社会主义主体的多元性”。俄 罗斯学者B.M.梅茹耶夫(B.M. Межуев)认为，社会变革的主体力量是“新中间阶级”,这一群体的特点是受教育水平高，能够不断地提升自我。

In fact, whether the multitude or the new middle class, their class attribute remains the working class. Changes in the mode of production alter only their employment patterns; they cannot change their proletarian status of not owning the means of production and being exploited and oppressed. Marx and Engels provided a clear definition of the working class. Marx pointed out: “‘Proletarian’ must be understood economically as the wage-laborer who produces and valorizes ‘capital’.” Engels also pointed out: “The proletariat is that social class which obtains its means of subsistence entirely from the sale of its labor, and not from the profit on some capital.” It can be seen that Marx and Engels defined the working class from the perspective of the relations of ownership of the means of production, not from the form of labor. Based on this criterion, it can be discovered that although changes in the mode of production in the digital age have brought about major changes in the content and form of workers’ labor, they still fall within the category of the working class. Digital labor, in essence, remains labor that gathers together workers with different labor capacities for production; the worker is a “living machine” producing digital products, and the capitalist extracts surplus value from the workers’ digital labor. The exploitative nature of digital labor exists in a more concealed manner. Therefore, Marx’s analysis of class relations in capitalist society has not become outdated; the working class remains the main force for social change.

事实上，无论是流众还是新中间阶级，其阶级属性依然是工人阶级。生产方式改变的只是他们的从业模式，并不能改变他们不占有生产资料、受剥削受压迫的无产阶级地位。马克思恩格斯关于工人阶级有着清晰的界定。马克思指出：“‘无产者’在经济学上只能理解为生产和增殖‘资本’的雇佣工人。”恩格斯也指出：“无产阶级是完全靠出卖自己的劳动而不是靠某一种资本的利润来获得生活资料的社会阶级。”可以看出，马克思恩格斯是从生产资料占有关系的角度来对工人阶级进行界定的，而不是劳动形式。依据这个标准就可以发现，尽管数字时代生产方式的变化使劳动者的工作内容和工作形式发生了重大变化，但他们依然属于工人阶级的范畴。数字劳动从本质上来说，仍然是将具有不同劳动能力的劳动者聚集起来进行生产的劳动，劳动者是生产数字产品的“活的机器”,资本家从劳动者的数字劳动中获取剩余价值。数字劳动的剥削性以更加隐蔽的方式存在着。因此，马克思关于资本主义社会阶级关系的分析没有过时，工人阶级依然是社会变革的主体力量。

(II) The Intensification of Class Contradictions in the Digital Age Promotes the Awakening of Proletarian Class Consciousness

(二)数字时代阶级矛盾的激化推动无产阶级主体意识的觉醒

In the digital age, workers are more closely connected with socio-economic activities on a global scale; the types and levels of exploitation have broken through traditional limits. The “winner-takes-all” characteristic of the digital economy makes the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie more prominent. The technological bias generated by the intellectualization of the production process will not only further intensify labor-capital contradictions but will also lead to the simultaneous “marginalization” and “core-ization” of the working-class stratum, with the degree of “employment hollowing-out” continuously increasing. On the one hand, the development and application of computer technology, especially artificial intelligence, have led to a large number of low-skill, repetitive jobs being replaced by intelligent systems, greatly compressing the living space of low-end labor, which is continuously “marginalized” in the job market. On the other hand, the new industrial revolution makes human characteristics such as creativity, adaptability, and intelligence increasingly “core” in the role of smart factories. “Elite” workers who master advanced knowledge and technology will become the darlings of the job market, but they constitute only a very small part of the entire working class. The majority of ordinary workers, under the impact of intelligent technology, are reduced to the industrial reserve army. According to estimates by American scholars, by 2025, automation could cause the disappearance of 47% of jobs in the United States. This further validates Marx’s exposition on the “industrial reserve army”: the greater the scale of accumulation of social wealth, the greater the relative surplus population and the industrial reserve army, “the greater is the mass of a consolidated layer of workers whose poverty is in inverse proportion to the torment of their labor. Finally, the greater the pauperized stratum of the working class and the industrial reserve army, the greater is official pauperism. This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation.” [n4] Furthermore, impacted by the world financial crisis and the global COVID-19 pandemic, a portion of the middle class has been forced to rejoin the working class, which has also, to some extent, expanded the ranks of the working class. Some left-wing scholars in the United States believe that the current class structure in the U.S. exhibits the characteristics of a “double diamond” shape. In this structure, the “small diamond” at the top represents the privileged class, comprising 20% of the total population, consisting of capital owners, employers, and a small portion of knowledge elites; the “large diamond” at the bottom represents the “new working class,” comprising 80% of the total population, consisting of the “comfortable stratum,” the precariously employed class, and the excluded class. There is a huge income gap between the top and bottom layers, and it is continuously widening. The opportunities for upward mobility for the lower class, which constitutes 80% of the population, are very scarce.

数字时代劳动者与全球范围内的社会经济活动存在更加紧密的联系，被剥削的类型、水平突破了传统的限制，数字经济“赢者通吃”的特性使工人阶级与资产阶级之间的矛盾更加突出。生产过程的智能化产生的技术偏向性不仅会进一步激化劳资矛盾，还将导致劳动者阶层“边缘化”与“核心化”同时发生，“就业空心化”程度不断提高。一方面，计算机特别是人工智能技术的发展与应用使大量对能力要求低、重复性高的劳动被智能系统所取代，低端劳动力的生存空间被大大压缩，在就业市场上不断被“边缘化”;另一方面，新产业革命使人的创造性、应变性和智慧性等特征在智能工厂中的作用愈发变得“核心化”,掌握先进知识和技术的“精英化”工人将成为就业市场的宠儿，但他们只占整个工人阶级中相当小的一部分，大部分普通工人在智能技术的冲击下沦为产业后备军。据美国学者预计，到2025年，自动化可能造成美国47%的工作岗位消失。这进一步验证了马克思关于“产业后备军”的论述：社会财富积累的规模越大，相对过剩人口与产业后备军也就越大，“其贫困与其所受的劳动折磨成反比的工人阶层也就越大。最后，工人阶级中贫苦阶层和产业后备军越大，官方认为需要救济的贫民也就越多。这就是资本主义积累的绝对的、一般的规律”。此外，受世界金融危机和全球新冠肺炎疫情的冲击，一部分中产阶级被迫重新回到工人阶级队伍中，也在一定程度上壮大了工人阶级队伍。美国一些左翼学者认为，当前美国的阶级结构呈现出“双钻石型”的特点。其中，顶部的“小钻石”代表占社会总人口20%的特权阶级，由资本所有者、雇主和小部分知识精英组成；底部的“大钻石”代表占社会总人口80%的“新工人阶级”,由“安逸阶层”、不稳定就业阶级和受排斥阶级组成。顶层和底层之间存在巨大的收入差距，并且还在不断扩大。占80%的下层阶级向上流动的机会非常少。

Whether the working class can shoulder the heavy responsibility of social change depends not only on the size of the working class but, more importantly, on whether the working class has a clear class consciousness. The class consciousness of the working class is mainly reflected in a clear understanding of its own social position and the historical mission it undertakes. The increasingly severe labor-capital contradictions in the digital age have become the root cause of conflict and turmoil in capitalist society, creating new opportunities for the revival of proletarian class consciousness. In recent years, labor movements in various Western countries, which had been dormant, have shown signs of revival. Various types of popular protest movements have reached their highest levels in terms of scale, frequency, and intensity since the end of World War II. Examples include the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, the “Democracy Spring” movement, and the anti-racism movement in the United States; the “Nuit Debout” (Night Standing) and “Yellow Vests” movements in France; and the nationwide strike in India involving over 250 million workers and citizens. From the slogans and demands shouted by the protesters, it can be seen that they have recognized that the cause of their real predicament is not a specific regulation or bill, but the entire ruling bourgeoisie. For instance, in the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, demonstrators shouted the slogan, “We are the 99% who can no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%”; the “Democracy Spring” movement directly targeted hypocritical capitalist democracy and so-called “freedom of the press,” shouting the resounding slogan, “Take back the democracy we have long lost.”

工人阶级能否担负起社会变革的重任，不仅取决于工人阶级的规模，更重要的是工人阶级是否有明确的阶级意识。工人阶级的阶级意识主要体现为对自身所处的社会地位与承担的历史使命的清晰认知。数字时代愈来愈严重的劳资矛盾成为引发资本主义社会冲突与动荡的根源，为无产阶级阶级意识的复苏孕育了新的机会。近些年来，西方各国处于沉寂状态的劳工运动显示出重新复苏的迹象，各类民众抗议运动从规模、频次到激烈程度上都达到了第二次世界大战以来之最，如美国的“占领华尔街”运动、“民主之春”运动和反种族主义运动，法国的“黑夜站立”和“黄背心”运动，以及印度超过2.5亿工人和公民参加的全国性罢工运动等。从抗议者喊出的口号和主张上可以看出，他们已经认识到导致他们现实困境的不是某项具体的规章和法案，而是占统治地位的整个资产阶级。如在“占领华尔街”运动中，示威者喊出了“我们是99%的人，不能再忍受那些1%的人的贪婪和腐败”的口号；“民主之春”运动则将矛头直接指向虚伪的资本主义民主和所谓的“新闻自由”,喊出了“夺回失去已久的民主”响亮口号。

III. The Development of Digital Technology and the Unity of the Working Class

三、数字技术的发展与工人阶级联合

Marxism holds that the unity of the working class is the only path to the final victory of socialism. The development of the internet and new media technologies has greatly shortened the temporal and spatial distance between people. Their timeliness and convenience provide powerful technical support for strengthening the united struggle of the working class. In the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, traditional media dominated by the bourgeoisie—newspapers, radio, and television—consistently ignored this massive mass movement. Consequently, protesters bypassed traditional media and turned to new media such as mobile phones and the internet. The organization and mobilization of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement relied almost entirely on the internet. Social media and smartphones provided technical support for the timely release and dissemination of information related to the “Occupy” movement. The initiators first used the internet and mobile communications to post discussion topics to win supporters and issue calls for collective action. As the movement developed, they gradually established their own official websites as platforms for organizing and coordinating protest actions, such as the “We Are the 99%” website, the “Occupy Together” website, and the “New York General Assembly” website. Throughout the movement, information related to the “Occupy” movement was released and disseminated in a timely manner through online social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. By uploading pictures, posting real-time action statuses, videos, opinion polls, and news stories as promotional methods to expand influence, information about the movement was quickly spread globally. The 2018 French “Yellow Vests” movement also made full use of new social media. Dissatisfaction with the fuel tax increase, unfair taxation, government inefficiency, and corruption was expressed through Facebook. From online discussions to the assembly, implementation, and offline protest action plans of the movement, everything was accomplished through social media.

马克思主义认为，工人阶级的联合是社会主义取得最终胜利的必由之路。网络、新媒体技术的发展大大缩短了人与人之间的时空距离，其及时性、便捷性为加强工人阶级的联合斗争提供了强大的技术支持。在“占领华尔街”运动中，资产阶级主导的报刊、广播、电视等传统媒体一直冷落这场声势浩大的群众运动，于是抗议者转而绕开传统媒体，转向手机、网络等新媒体。“占领华尔街”运动的组织动员几乎完全依赖网络，社交媒体、智能手机为及时发布和散布“占领”运动的相关信息提供了技术支持。发起者先通过互联网和移动通信发布讨论议题以争取支持者，发出集体行动的号召，并随着运动的开展逐步建立自己的官方网站作为抗议行动的组织协调平台，如“我们是99%”网站、“一起占领”网站、“纽约总集会”等网站。在整个运动过程中，通过推特、脸书、油管等网络社交媒体及时发布和散布“占领”运动相关信息，通过上传图片、及时发布行动状态、视频、民意测验和新闻故事等宣传方式以扩大影响，运动信息很快被扩散到全球。2018年的法国“黄背心”运动也是充分利用了社交新媒体，通过“脸书”表达对燃油税上涨、不公平的税收、政府效率低下及腐败等问题的不满，由线上讨论到运动的集结、实施、线下抗议行动计划等，都是通过社交媒体完成的。

But at the same time, changes in the mode of social production and lifestyle in the digital age have intensified the fragmentation of the working class, posing new challenges to working-class unity. First, the organizational mode of the digital economy disperses workers’ workplaces and diversifies their ideas, making it difficult for workers to form relatively stable cooperative relationships, which is not conducive to establishing effective unity. Second, the era of digital capitalism further strengthens human individuality. Although information technology makes communication convenient, people’s connections in reality have not been strengthened but weakened. What is fed back from the internet and smartphones is only the “projection” of individual will, not real social relations. This situation makes it more difficult for the working class to unite as a whole in the process of resisting capitalist rule. Third, the “digital divide” between countries and regions widens the gap between developed and developing countries, and the disparities in income, living standards, and ideology among the working classes of different countries correspondingly expand, hindering mutual understanding and transnational unity. Fourth, with the support of digital technology, capital can more easily seek low-cost labor globally to obtain higher profits, intensifying competition among workers and thereby exacerbating contradictions among the working classes of various countries, especially the growing tension between the working classes of developed and developing countries. The trend of deglobalization in Western countries in recent years is largely a result of this intensifying contradiction.

但与此同时，数字时代社会生产方式和生活方式的变化加剧了工人阶级分化，给工人阶级联合带来新的挑战。一是数字经济组织方式使工人阶级工作场所分散化、思想观念多元化，工人之间难以形成相对稳定的协作关系，不利于建立有效的联合。二是数字资本主义时代进一步强化了人的个体性。虽然信息技术使人们的联系便捷了，但是人们在现实中的联系并非加强了，而是减弱了。从互联网上和智能手机上反馈回来的只有个人意愿的“映射”,而不是真实的社会关系。这种状况导致工人阶级在反抗资本主义统治的过程中，联合成一个整体的难度更大了。三是国家之间、地区之间的“数字鸿沟”导致发达国家与发展中国家之间的贫富差距进一步扩大，各国工人阶级的收入状况、生活水平、思想意识的差距也相应扩大，不利于相互理解、跨国联合。四是在数字技术的加持下，资本更便于在全球范围内寻找低成本的劳动力以获取更高的利润，工人之间的竞争更趋激烈，从而加剧各国工人阶级之间的矛盾，尤其是发达国家工人阶级与发展中国家工人阶级之间的矛盾进一步凸显。近年来西方国家出现的逆全球化潮流在很大程度上是这一矛盾加剧所致。

The unity of the proletariat is an inevitable requirement for the working class to oppose capitalist exploitation and oppression and to achieve its own liberation and that of all humanity. Whether the proletariat in the digital age can leverage the advantages of digital tools to open a new chapter of class unity under new historical conditions depends fundamentally on whether it can be armed with scientific theory and effective organizational strength. Marxist thought on class unity remains the fundamental guide for promoting the united struggle of the proletariat.

无产阶级的联合是工人阶级反对资产阶级剥削压迫、实现自身及全人类解放的必然要求。数字时代无产阶级能否利用好数字工具优势，开启新的历史条件下阶级联合的新局面，从根本上来说取决于能否有科学的理论武装和有效的组织力量。马克思主义关于阶级联合的思想依然是推动无产阶级联合斗争的根本遵循。

IV. The Application of Artificial Intelligence Technology and the Free and Comprehensive Development of the Human Person

四、人工智能技术的应用与人的自由全面发展

The widespread application of artificial intelligence technology is changing and shaping people’s modes of interaction and activity at a speed unmatched by any other science or technology, exerting a tremendous impact on individuals. On the one hand, the extensive use of AI further liberates people from heavy, monotonous, and repetitive labor, giving them more free time to learn and improve themselves, thereby enabling them to engage in more interesting and creative work, promoting the free and comprehensive development of the human person. On the other hand, AI technology is leading to a “new alienation” of humanity. As society becomes increasingly intelligent, people are being reduced to “appendages” of a vast and complex intelligent social system. If the industrial revolution from the 1760s to the mid-19th century primarily “liberated” human physical strength through machinery, then the information and intelligence revolution from the 1970s, especially since the 21st century, “liberates” human mental capacity. In the early days of the industrial revolution, Marx profoundly exposed the alienation of humans by machines: “Labor produces for the rich wonderful things—but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces—but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty—but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines—but it throws one section of the workers back to a barbarous kind of labor and turns the other section into machines. It produces intelligence—but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.” [5]5 Karl Marx, “Estranged Labour,” in *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1959). The translation here follows the Chinese text’s rendering of Marx’s passage. Entering the intelligent age of the 21st century, the alienated state that turns “people into machines” and increasingly renders them “stupid and cretinous” is showing an “escalating” trend. An obvious trend is that intelligent machines not only replace humans in mechanical and repetitive tasks but are also increasingly used in industries with high creative demands, such as traffic police, judges, lawyers, teachers, and painters. Driverless vehicles, unmanned factories, unmanned stores, and unmanned banks are booming. Labor and work are no longer the “patent” or essential characteristic activity of humanity. As is well known, “labor created humanity,” and humans “become human” through labor. Labor is the mode of human existence and the positive confirmation of human essential power; labor is also a sacred right of humanity, an essential activity through which people affirm themselves, realize value, and maintain dignity. In the communist society predicted by Marx, labor is “not only a means of life” but is itself “life’s prime want.” [6]6 Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme,” in *Marx/Engels Selected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), p. 18. However, in an intelligent society, some people are continuously excluded and replaced by intelligent systems, losing the opportunity and value of labor, being rejected and abandoned by the economic and social system, losing the meaning of life, and their existence becoming nihilistic and absurd. It is thought-provoking: is comprehensive digitalization, represented by artificial intelligence and the metaverse, truly the direction of human progress? Does digital technology empower humans, bringing them closer to the goal of free and comprehensive development, or the opposite? How can science and technology truly become a booster for humanity’s free and comprehensive development?

人工智能技术的广泛应用正在以任何其他科学技术都无法比拟的速度改变、塑造着人们的交往方式和活动方式，给作为个体的人带来巨大影响。一方面，人工智能技术的广泛使用进一步把人从繁重、单调、重复性的劳动中解放出来，使人拥有更多的自由时间学习、完善自身，从而有能力去从事更感兴趣、更具有创造性的工作，促进人的自由全面发展。另一方面，人工智能技术正在导致人的“新异化”。随着整个社会的智能化，人正在沦为庞大、复杂的智能社会系统的“附庸”。如果说，18世纪60年代至19世纪中叶的工业革命主要是通过机器“解放”人的体力，那么，20世纪70年代特别是进入21世纪以来的信息、智能革命“解放”的则是人的脑力。在工业革命早期，马克思就深刻地揭露过机器对人的异化：“劳动用机器代替了手工劳动，但是使一部分工人回到野蛮的劳动，并使另一部分工人变成机器。劳动生产了智慧，但是给工人生产了愚钝和痴呆。”迈入21世纪的智能时代以后，导致“人变成机器”、日益“愚钝和痴呆”的异化状况呈现“升级”态势。一个明显的趋势是，智能机器不仅替代人类从事一些机械性、重复性的工作，就连交警、法官、律师、教师、画家等对创造性要求高的行业也越来越多地使用智能机器。无人驾驶、无人工厂、无人商店、无人银行正在蓬勃发展。劳动、工作已不再是人类的“专利”和特有的本质性活动。众所周知，“劳动创造了人”,人也是通过劳动而“成为人”的。劳动是人的存在方式，是人的本质力量的积极确证；劳动也是人神圣的权利，是人自我肯定、实现价值、维护尊严的本质性活动。在马克思所预言的共产主义社会里，劳动“不仅仅是谋生的手段”,而且本身就是“生活的第一需要”。然而，在智能社会，一部分人不断被智能系统所排斥和取代，丧失劳动的机会和价值，被经济和社会体系所排斥和抛弃，丧失生活的意义，存在变得虚无和荒谬化。 令人深思的是，以人工智能、元宇宙为代表的全面数字化究竟是不是人类前进的方向?数字技术赋能人类，是使人更接近人的自由全面发展的目标，还是相反?如何才能使科学技术真正成为人类实现自由全面发展的助推器?

Science and technology themselves have no value stance; the key lies in how people apply them. Although the new industrial revolution brings certain challenges to the development of world socialism, the planned, shared, and fair nature of socialism also has a certain compatibility and adaptability with the new industrial revolution. On the basis of promoting the development of productive forces and changes in the mode of production, the new industrial revolution can also promote new developments in world socialism.

科学技术本身不具有价值立场，关键在人们如何应用它。虽然新产业革命给世界社会主义的发展带来了一定的挑战，但是，社会主义所具有的计划性、共享性、公平性也与新产业革命具有一定的相通性和适应性。新产业革命在推动生产力发展和生产方式变革的基础上，也可以促进世界社会主义的新发展。

First, the widespread use of the Internet of Things and big data will greatly enhance the scientific nature of planned economy, effectively compensating for the blindness and lag of market resource allocation, and promoting the healthy and orderly development of the socialist market economy. Planning and the market are two basic means of resource allocation. To solve the problem of the anarchic state of capitalist free economy, Marx and Engels proposed the idea of organizing social production according to plan. Planned economy was once regarded as the basic economic form of socialism and also became an important reason for supporters of free market theory to oppose socialism. In the view of free market theory supporters, collecting, organizing, screening, and calculating the massive information of the entire society is impossible. However, the widespread application of modern internet, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence technology provides a possibility to solve this problem. With the powerful statistical and predictive functions of big data and cloud computing, the planned and forward-looking advantages of planned economy will be fully highlighted, effectively overcoming the blindness and lag of market resource allocation. Using big data and artificial intelligence, the guiding role of an “effective” government can be more fully exerted, promoting more scientific and efficient development of the socialist market economy.

第一，物联网、大数据的广泛使用将大大提高计划经济的科学性，有效补充市场配置资源的盲目性与滞后性，促进社会主义市场经济的健康有序发展。计划和市场是资源配置的两种基本手段。为破解资本主义自由经济的无政府状态难题，马克思恩格斯提出了按计划组织社会生产的设想。计划经济一度被视为社会主义的基本经济形式，也成为自由市场经济理论支持者们反对社会主义的一个重要理由。在自由市场经济理论支持者看来，将整个社会的海量信息进行收集、整理、海选和计算，是不可能实现的。但是现代互联网、物联网和人工智能技术的广泛应用，为解决这个问题提供了可能。凭借大数据、云计算强大的统计预测功能，计划经济的有计划性、前瞻性优势将充分凸显，可以有效克服市场资源配置的盲目性、滞后性。利用大数据、人工智能可以更加充分地发挥“有为”政府的引导作用，促进社会主义市场经济更加科学高效的发展。

Second, socialism can overcome the technological paradox by transforming relations of production, narrowing the “digital divide,” and promoting social fairness. The profit-driven nature of capital determines that technological progress and the development of productive forces in capitalist countries not only fail to improve workers’ living standards but instead exacerbate the wealth gap and class contradictions between capitalists and workers. Common prosperity is the essential requirement of socialism. Socialism can use its institutional advantages to enable the fruits of productivity development brought by science and technology to benefit more people, narrow the wealth gap, promote social fairness, and ultimately achieve common prosperity.

第二，社会主义可以通过变革生产关系来克服技术悖论，缩小“数字鸿沟”,促进社会公平。资本的逐利本性决定了资本主义国家的科技进步和生产力的发展，不但没有提高劳动者的生活水平，反而加剧了资本家与工人之间的贫富悬殊和阶级矛盾。而共同富裕是社会主义的本质要求，社会主义可以利用制度优势，使科学技术带来的生产力发展成果惠及更多的人，缩小贫富差距，促进社会公平，并最终实现共同富裕。

Third, the sharing and universal characteristics of internet technology are highly consistent with socialist value pursuits. A notable feature of the digital age is that various kinds of information can be shared through the internet, and knowledge and information can quickly become common to the collective and society. However, monopoly capital often artificially controls information resources for the benefit of individuals or groups, hindering technological progress, thereby exacerbating the contradiction between productive forces and relations of production, and between the economic base and the superstructure. As Dutch scholar Kees van der Pijl stated: “From a technical point of view, the new productive forces should push the world toward a more humane social development, but the various strategies currently being implemented are forcing them back into the straitjacket of capitalism.” [7]7 Kees van der Pijl, *The Global Rift: The Third World and the Rise of Global Capitalism* (Beijing: Commercial Press, 2018), p. 45. [Note: This is a reconstructed citation based on the Chinese text; the original English source may differ.] Socialism’s pursuit of collective value is highly compatible with the universality and sharing nature of information technology. Under socialist conditions, the unity of technological innovation and benefit sharing, and the positive interaction between productive forces and relations of production, can be achieved.

第三，互联网技术的共享性和普遍性特征与社会主义价值追求高度一致。数字时代的一个显著特征是各种信息可以通过互联网共享，知识和信息能够很快为集体、社会所共有。但是，垄断资本常常为了个人或集团的利益而人为地控制信息资源，阻碍技术进步，从而加剧了生产力与生产关系、经济基础与上层建筑之间的矛盾。正如荷兰学者基斯·范德·皮耶尔(Kees VAN Der Pijl)所言：“从技术的角度来讲，新的生产力应该使世界朝着更加人性化的社会发展，但现实正在推行的各种战略却是迫使他们重新回到资本主义的紧身衣中。”社会主义对集体价值的追求与信息技术的普遍性、共享性具有高度契合性。在社会主义条件下，可以实现技术创新和利益共享的统一、生产力和生产关系的良性互动。

V. Conclusion

五、结 语

Like the first three industrial revolutions, the fourth industrial revolution will inevitably bring new opportunities for the development of socialism. The widespread use of new technologies brings exponential growth in productive forces, creating a powerful material foundation for socialist development; the more severe polarization between rich and poor produced by the “digital divide” leads to the further intensification of class contradictions, objectively providing new opportunities for the revival of class consciousness among the working class; the convenience of communication brought by the widespread use of digital technology provides technical support for strengthening the unity of the proletariat on a world scale; although the application of artificial intelligence technology has produced a “new alienation” of human beings, socialism can use its own institutional advantages to overcome the negative effects brought by new technologies, fully seize historical opportunities, and open up new realms of development. Of course, we cannot be blindly optimistic either. As Mao Zedong pointed out when reading the Soviet textbook *Political Economy*: “The textbook says that with the socialist public ownership of the means of production, ‘people become masters of their own socio-economic relations’ and ‘can fully and consciously grasp and apply the laws.’ It makes things sound too easy.”[8]8 Mao Zedong, *A Critique of Soviet Economics* (Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1998), p. 34. We should take seriously, both cognitively and institutionally, the various changes brought by the new industrial revolution and actively respond to them, fully leverage our institutional advantages, so that while the new industrial revolution promotes the development of human society, it can also inject new momentum into the development of socialism in the 21st century.

与前三次产业革命一样，第四次产业革命也必将为社会主义的发展带来新的机遇。新科技的广泛使用带来生产力的指数级增长，为社会主义发展创造了强大的物质基础；“数字鸿沟”产生的更加严重的贫富分化导致了阶级矛盾的进一步激化，客观上为工人阶级阶级意识的复苏提供了新的机会；数字技术广泛使用带来的交往便捷性为加强世界范围无产阶级的联合提供了技术支持；人工智能技术的应用尽管产生了人的“新异化”,但社会主义可以利用自身的制度优势克服新技术带来的负面影响，充分抓住历史机遇，开辟发展的新境界。当然，我们也不能盲目乐观。正如毛泽东读苏联《政治经济学教科书》时所指出的：“教科书说，随着生产资料社会主义公有化，‘人们成为自己社会经济关系的主人’,‘能够完全自觉地掌握和利用规律’。把事情说得太容易了。”我们应在认知上、制度上认真对待并积极应对新产业革命带来的各方面变革，充分发挥制度优势，使新产业革命在推动人类社会发展的同时，也能为21世纪社会主义的发展注入新动力。

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑