Capital Augmentation, Labor Alienation, and Algorithmic Power

In the era of big data, digital technology, as a tool and means of capital expansion, is naturally coupled with the logic of capital. It not only penetrates all aspects of society to become a key factor controlling people’s activities, but also, under the shelter of digital capital and algorithmic order, opens up broader spaces for profit-seeking and more concealed paths of exploitation. It is worth noting that, as the latest form of non-material labor, digital labor is a new pattern that inevitably emerges at the current stage of development of the productive forces. In capitalist society, on the one hand, digital labor, by attaching itself to specific technical means and social media, leaps to become a “paradise” that drives capital augmentation and releases economic potential; on the other hand, under the packaging and beautification of digital technology, digital labor degenerates into a “hell” that undermines the stability of labor and weakens the essential power of the laboring subject. In the technologically mediated labor process, capital no longer nakedly and directly seizes and exploits the surplus value created by laborers, but instead retreats behind technology, constructs an absolute power above the laborers under the guise of freedom, and becomes a “cancer” that the capitalist system itself cannot cure.

在大数据时代，数字技术作为资本扩张的工具和手段，与资本逻辑之间存在天然的耦合，不仅全方位渗入社会成为控制人们活动的关键因素，更在数字资本与算法秩序的庇护下开辟出更广阔的寻利空间和更隐匿的剥削路径。值得注意的是，作为非物质劳动的最新表现形式，数字劳动是当今生产力发展阶段中必然出现的新样态。在资本主义社会，一方面，数字劳动依附于特定的技术手段和社交媒介，一跃成为驱动资本增殖、释放经济潜能的“天堂”;另一方面，数字劳动则在数字技术的包装与美化之下，沦为瓦解劳动稳定性、削弱劳动主体本质力量的“地狱”。在技术中介化的劳动过程中，资本不再是赤裸裸地直接豪夺和剥削劳动者所创造的剩余价值，而是隐退至技术背后，被冠以自由的名义建构出一个凌驾于劳动者之上的绝对权力，成为资本主义制度自身无法治愈的“毒瘤”。

When considering the issue of digital labor under capitalism in the era of big data, representative contemporary Western left-wing figures and their main ideas include: first, the school of political economy of communication represented by Dallas Walker Smythe, who in *The Mass Communication System: A Blind Spot of Western Marxist Research* focuses on the economic value created by audience labor and the reproduction of ideology; second, the Italian autonomist Marxist school represented by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, who in *Empire*, *Multitude*, and *Commonwealth* explore the distinction and connection between non-material labor and biopolitics; third, Christian Fuchs, who in *Digital Labor and Karl Marx* constructs a systematic Marxist critical theory of digital labor centered on digital capitalism, digital labor, and Marxism in the digital age; fourth, the left-wing accelerationism represented by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, who in *The Accelerationist Manifesto* emphasize that productive forces and technological progress are powerful weapons for breaking through the fetters of capitalist production, and so on. Domestically, the main figures include: first, scholars represented by Lan Jiang and Wu Jing, who in *A Critique of Platform Capitalism in the Digital Age: Starting from Marxist Political Economy* and *Total Subsumption: New Features of Platform Capitalist Exploitation* conduct a critique of digital labor from the perspective of Marxist political economy, aiming to decipher the phenomenon of labor alienation and the essence of the logic of capital embedded within it; second, scholars represented by Tong Xin and Wu Dingming, who in *Digital Labor: Freedom and Cage* and *Research on “Digital Laborers” in the Internet Age* conduct critical research on digital labor from the perspective of biopolitics, analyzing from the meaning of life existence the existential issues of digital capitalism’s control over production and life; third, scholars represented by Yao Jianhua and Xia Bingqing, who in *Digital Labor: Theoretical Frontiers and Local Experiences* and *The Concept, Schools, and Subjectivity of Digital Labor: A Review of the Development of Western Digital Labor Theory* focus on the future prospects and development strategies of digital labor, striving to explore effective paths to escape digital shackles and sublate alienated labor, and to achieve the ultimate liberation of digital labor. These intellectual resources not only provide enlightening perspectives for the critique of capitalist modernity, but also offer useful reflections for domestic academic research on the issue of digital labor. They hold significant theoretical and practical importance for delving into the fact that, beneath the flourishing surface of digital technology and algorithmic power, capitalism has undergone marked changes in capital, labor, and social systems due to the emergence of digital technology. At the same time, it must be recognized that sustained deep cultivation is still needed in exploring paths to dissolve the limitations of digital capital and to manage the relationship of capital. Following the analytical framework of “capital augmentation—labor alienation—algorithmic power,” this article, by exposing the alienating phenomena of digital capitalism and conducting a critique of the exploitative essence of digital capital, creates positive conditions for us to grasp the opportunities of digital development and dissolve digital risks in a new practical context.

在大数据时代思考资本主义数字劳动问题，具有代表性的当代西方左翼代表及其主要思想为：其一，以达拉斯·W.斯迈兹(Dallas Walker Smythe)为代表的传播政治经济学派，在《大众传播系统：西方马克思主义研究的盲点》中重点关注受众劳动所创造的经济价值与意识形态的再生产问题；其二，以麦克尔·哈特(Michael Hardt)和安东尼奥·奈格里(Antonio Negri)为代表的意大利自治主义马克思主义学派，在《帝国》《诸众》《大同世界》中侧重探究非物质劳动与生命政治之间的区别与联系；其三，以克里斯蒂安·福克斯(Christian Fuchs)为代表，在《数字劳动与卡尔·马克思》中围绕数字资本主义、数字劳动、数字时代的马克思主义所创建系统化的马克思主义数字劳动批判理论；其四，以尼克·斯尔尼塞克(Nick Srnicek)、阿列克斯·威廉姆斯(Alex Williams)为代表的左翼加速主义，在《加速主义宣言》中强调生产力与技术进步是突破资本主义生产桎梏的强有力武器，等等。在国内主要有：其一，以蓝江、吴静为代表的学者，在《数字时代的平台资本主义批判——从马克思主义政治经济学出发》《总体吸纳：平台资本主义剥削的新特征》中，从马克思主义政治经济学视域开展数字劳动批判，旨在破解劳动异化现象及其背后所蕴含的资本逻辑本质；其二，以佟新、吴鼎铭为代表的学者，在《数字劳动：自由与牢笼》《互联网时代的“数字劳动者”研究》中，基于生命政治学视角进行数字劳动批判研究，从生命存在的意义剖析数字资本主义对生产及生活控制的存在论问题；其三，以姚建华、夏冰青为代表的学者，在《数字劳动：理论前沿与在地经验》《数字劳工的概念、学派与主体性问题——西方数字劳工理论发展述评》中，聚焦于数字劳动的未来图景及发展对策研究，力图探索摆脱数字枷锁以及找到扬弃异化劳动的有效路径、实现数字劳动的最终解放。这些思想资源不仅为展开资本主义现代性批判提供了启发性的观点，更为国内学界开展数字劳动问题研究提供了有益思考，对在数字技术和算法权力蓬勃发展的表象下，深入探究资本主义因数字技术的出现引发资本、劳动和社会制度的明显变化的事实，具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。但同时也要看到，在消解数字资本局限性以及驾驭资本关系的路径探索方面，仍需持续深耕。本文沿着“资本增殖—劳动异化—算法权力”的分析框架，通过揭露数字资本主义的异化现象以及开展对数字资本剥削本质的批判，为我们在新的实践语境中把握数字化发展机遇与消解数字风险创造出积极的条件。

I. Digital Technology Drives Capital Augmentation

一、数字技术驱动资本增殖

To date, capital remains the force that dominates everything in modern capitalism. In the era of big data, digital capital, as a new form of capital, uses various internet platforms to bind together capital owners, producers, consumers, and even the entire society more closely, gaining absolute power to manipulate the economic mechanism of capitalism. In the system of things connected through data, “all the digital information we collect can now be utilized in new ways. We can try new things and open up new forms of value.” The rise of digital technology is driving with maximum force the core of digital capitalism—the augmentation of digital capital. It should be acknowledged that when digital technology carries out an all-round “erosion” of social media, it also releases to the greatest extent the productive force of data elements, accelerating the velocity of capital turnover. Srnicek argues that “in the 20th century, the focus of developed capitalism’s development lay in extracting and utilizing a particular raw material—data.” As the core of the means of production, data is not only an “extensive” memory carrier, but also a key material that can be extracted, stored, analyzed, and used. Under the influence of an expansive market logic, data “as this raw material will inevitably represent a huge new resource awaiting extraction.” Clearly, once data becomes an indispensable basic factor in capitalist production and social interaction, it means that it becomes possible for digital technology to constitute the core driving force of capital augmentation.

迄今为止，资本依然是现代资本主义中主导一切的力量。在大数据时代，数字资本作为一种新型资本样态，借助各类互联网平台，将资本所有者、生产者、消费者乃至整个社会更为紧密地联合在一起，获得了操纵资本主义经济机制的绝对权力。在数据化关联的物的体系中，“我们收集的所有数字信息现在都可以用新的方式加以利用。我们可以尝试新的事物并开启新的价值形式”,数字技术的兴起正以最大力度驱动着数字资本主义的核心——数字资本的增殖。应当承认，当数字技术对社交媒介展开全方位“侵蚀”之时，也在最大程度地释放出数据要素生产力，加速资本周转的速度。斯尔尼塞克主张“在20世纪，发达资本主义的发展重心，在于提取和使用一种特殊的原材料——数据”。数据作为生产资料的核心，不仅是“外延”的记忆载体，更是一种能够提取、贮存、分析和使用的关键材料，在扩张性市场逻辑的影响下，数据“这种原材料不可避免地将会代表一种有待提取的巨大新资源”。显然，一旦数据成为资本主义生产和社会交往中必不可少的基础因素时，意味着数字技术构成资本增殖的核心驱动力将成为可能。

Entering the era of big data, the condition of labor as the entity and intrinsic measure of value still persists, “but, in the interconnected digital world, another principle of distinction or division has indeed emerged, namely the production principle based on data.” Once data acquires the attributes of capital, operators who possess large volumes of data rely on their monopoly over public data resources and core technologies to construct a “new order of digital capital” favorable to themselves—that is, digital capitalism emerges. This means that “all new mechanisms of the ‘accumulation by dispossession’ of contemporary capitalism have been set in motion.” Capital, leveraging the ubiquitous spatial advantage of data, attempts to display its powerful “subject” value and its capacity to “devour” the entire process of labor and virtual space from every domain. People become digital beings, trailing long “information tails” behind them, in which personal preferences, likes, location data, social circle information, and other private data all become “reservoirs” for capital augmentation. As a productive force, data is reshaping our era and reshaping the entirety of each person’s value; “surveillance capitalism,” as a distinctive landscape of the big data era, privatizes information infrastructure, which also leads to alienation. Under pervasive data tracking, people often choose to abandon personal privacy in exchange for what they need or desire, and privacy becomes a sharp tool for capital to reap enormous profits. Mark Andrejevic argues that the mode of exploitation based on the internet is a new development of the capitalist exploitation criticized by Marxism in the past, also known as “Exploitation 2.0.” In his view, as data capture technology continues to strengthen, “data is being collected, classified, and correlated on an unprecedented scale, promising to generate useful patterns far beyond the human brain’s capacity to detect or even interpret,” serving more comprehensive data mining. Within the framework of the digital myth, to ensure the benign functioning of society, all domains connected to capital control are opened up, and “all individuality and particularity are reduced to a unified measure—data (or information) and capital.” Internet platforms, as important carriers of data capitalization, not only acquire massive amounts of data but also master the rules of the game, becoming the reality of capital’s “hegemonic” governance; digital capital, through the development of media, constructs a public discourse system favorable to the development of the capitalist order, thereby providing guarantees for monitoring the masses and controlling the production system. This is as Neil Postman conveyed in *Amusing Ourselves to Death*: “the medium is the epistemology” and “the definition of truth is at least partly derived from the nature of the medium transmitting information.” Internet platform developers optimize algorithms to encourage users to upload and share content; on the surface, creating a good environmental experience for users seems reasonable, but in reality, it suppresses and restricts the masses’ freedom of expression, cutting off information exchange between users and the outside world. In short, social platforms dissolve the class struggle that was widespread in industrial society in a gentle and clever way, making those engaged in digital labor willingly “enjoy it,” so that while they reap pleasure and experience the paradoxical exploitation, continuously generating momentum for the development of the digital economy, they also suffer dual suppression from both economic and political levels.

进入大数据时代，劳动作为价值的实体和内在尺度的状况依然存在，“但是，在互联的数字世界中，的确产生了另一种区分或分工原则，即以数据为基底的生产原则”。一旦数据具备资本的属性，占有大量数据的经营者便会依靠对大众数据资源和核心技术的垄断，建构起有利于自身的“数字资本新秩序”,即数字资本主义出现。这意味着当代资本主义“剥夺性积累的全部新的机制已经开启”。资本借助数据无所不在的空间优势，试图从一切领域展示其强大的“主体”价值和掌控劳动全过程以及虚拟空间的“吞噬”能力。人们成为数字人，身后跟着长长的“信息尾巴”,其中，个人偏好、喜好、位置数据、社交圈信息等隐私数据都成为资本增殖的“蓄水池”,作为生产力，数据正在重塑我们的时代，重塑每个人的价值全部；“监视资本主义”作为大数据时代的独特景观，把信息基础设施私有化同样也会导致异化，在无孔不入的数据追踪下，人们往往选择放弃个人隐私来换取自身需要或渴望的东西，隐私成为资本牟取巨额利润的利器。马克·安德烈杰维奇(Mark Andrejevic)认为，基于互联网的剥削方式就是当年马克思主义批判资本剥削方式在网络上的新发展，亦被称为“剥削2.0”,在他看来，随着数据捕获技术的不断增强，“数据正在以前所未有的规模被收集、分类和关联，有望产生出远超人类大脑探测甚至是解释能力的有用模式”,服务于更全面的数据挖掘。在数字神话的框架内，为保证社会良性运转，所有与资本控制之间连接的领域都被打通，“一切的个体性和特殊性都被简化为统一的度量——数据(或信息)和资本”。互联网平台作为数据资本化的重要载体，在获得海量数据的同时，也掌握了游戏规则，成为资本实施“霸权式”治理的现实；数字资本凭借媒介的发展建构起有利于资本主义秩序发展的公共话语体系，进而为监控大众和控制生产体系提供保障。正如尼尔·波兹曼(Neil Postman)在《娱乐至死》中所传达的“媒介即认识论”“真理的定义至少有一部分来自传递信息的媒体的性质”的看法。互联网平台开发商通过优化算法鼓励用户上传共享内容，表面看来为用户打造良好的环境体验的行为看似合理，实则却是在压抑和限制大众的表达自由，隔绝了用户与外界之间的信息交流。简言之，社交平台以平和巧妙的方式化解了工业社会中普遍存在的两大阶级之间的斗争，使从事数字劳动的人抱着自愿的态度“乐在其中”,使其在收获愉悦和遭遇剥削悖论式体验、为数字经济发展持续创造动能的同时，遭受来自经济层面和政治层面的双重压制。

In sum, digital capital, as “a special mode of production with unique historical determinations,” undeniably releases positive forces in enhancing social productive forces. However, once “the digital economy becomes an increasingly common infrastructure in the contemporary economy,” this widespread phenomenon fuels the extreme expansion of digital capital, making it the latest form of enhancing capital’s capacity for exploitation and control. Compared with the era of machine-based large industry in Marx’s time, the digital economy has given rise to more diversified modes of labor and competition, becoming an effective means of capital augmentation. Among these, the emergence of “immaterial labor” transforms traditional wage labor into an internet platform economic model based on unpaid labor; today’s “audience labor” is no longer limited to the commodification of viewers but highlights the unique role of user-generated content (UGC) in the process of platform capital augmentation; the overwhelming “information flow” provides data sources for accurately predicting user behavior, and by leveraging hegemony over data and technology, it weaves an impenetrable “digital cage,” firmly binding users to the platform; internet platforms use various trending topics, gimmicks, or stimuli targeting users’ fragile emotions to gain massive public attention and generate enormous profits, thereby verifying the unpaid and productive expansion of “audience labor” as a subjective creative activity. Clearly, as a new stage for capital’s manifestation, internet platforms increasingly display powerful expansion capabilities, greatly accelerating the process of capital augmentation, and fully revealing the dual characteristics of capital in acquiring wealth augmentation and power deployment. The diversity of employment forms and outsourcing businesses not only expands the channels for platform capital augmentation but also accelerates the pace of time and commercial competition, “enabling contemporary capitalism to be legitimized to a greater extent.” As Marx stated: “the more fully the relationship between capital and wage labor develops in form, the more fully labor is formally subordinated to capital.” It is precisely this transformation that completes the shift Marx criticized in his time—capital’s erosion of society from “formal subsumption” to “real subsumption.”

总之，数字资本作为“一种特殊的、具有独特历史规定性的生产方式”,在提高社会生产力方面释放出的积极力量无可置疑，然而一旦“数字经济成为当代经济中日益普遍的基础设施”的普遍现象时，助长了数字资本的极度扩张，成为增强资本剥削能力和控制能力的最新样态。与马克思所处的机器大工业时代相比，数字经济催生出更加多元化的劳作方式和竞争方式，成为资本增殖的有效手段。其中，“非物质劳动”的出现，使传统的雇佣劳动向基于无酬劳动的互联网平台经济模式转变；如今的“受众劳动”不仅仅局限在观众被转化为商品，而是更加凸显用户生成内容(UGC,user generated content)在平台资本增殖过程中的独特作用；铺天盖地的“信息流”为精准预测用户行为提供数据来源，凭借对数据和技术的霸权，编织出密不透风的“数字牢笼”,将用户牢牢地捆绑在平台之上；互联网平台利用各种热搜、噱头或者刺激用户的脆弱情绪的方式获得大众极大的关注，并产生巨额利润，从而验证了“受众劳动”这种主观创造活动的无偿性和生产性的扩张。显然，作为资本表现的新舞台，互联网平台日益显现强大的扩张能力，极度加快了资本增殖的进程，使资本获取财富增殖和权力布展的双重特性表现得淋漓尽致。就业形式和外包业务的多样性不仅拓展了平台资本增殖的渠道，而且加速了时间运转与商业竞争，“能够更大程度地使当代资本主义合法化”。正如马克思所言：“资本和雇佣劳动之间的关系在形式上也就越是充分，从而劳动对资本的形式上的从属也就越是充分。”正是这一转变，使数字资本完成了当年马克思所批判的资本对社会的侵蚀由“形式吸纳”到“真正吸纳”的转变。

It must be acknowledged that the essential attribute of capital augmentation requires the constant opening of new channels for augmentation and modes of exploitation. Platforms, as data extraction devices, inherently possess the natural tendency toward capital monopoly. The digital economy, developing on the basis of internet platforms, is gradually forming a hegemonic model: production methods must be intelligent, workers must be efficient and productive, trade unions and industry organizations must be compliant, and employment methods must be flexible and diversified. These changes mean that capital’s influence and control are infinitely expanded. This is concretely manifested as follows: internet platforms collect data under the banner of “sharing,” but in essence, this is the true expression of the digital economy’s “exclusive” exercise of “hegemony,” and the continuous commodification of individuals’ lives across spatial and temporal dimensions. Digital capital’s exploitation of general intellect and unpaid labor, as a new way to create value, endlessly seizes and appropriates the surplus value of laborers—this is the concentrated expression of digital capital’s greedy nature. As Hardt and Negri state, “the developed capitalist exploitation factory has penetrated beyond the factory walls, redefining all social relations.” Digital capital extends far beyond the field of productive labor and spreads to all areas of society; the expansion of capital brings the entire society within the scope of capital’s rule, including “from muscles, language, emotions, codes to images, social intelligence, social relations, and the cognitive and collaborative elements of labor.” Furthermore, the dematerialization of labor “not only fundamentally changes the composition, management, and regulation of the labor force—the organization of production—but also more profoundly alters the role and function of intellectuals and their activities in society.” This phenomenon confirms what Marx mentioned in *Capital*: “science and technology endow functioning capital with an expansion capacity independent of its given magnitude.”

必须承认，资本增殖的本质属性要求不断开拓新的增殖渠道和剥削模式。平台作为数据的提取装置天生具有资本垄断的自然本性，依托互联网平台发展的数字经济正逐步形成一种霸权主义模式，生产方式必须智能，工人必须高效多产，工会和行业组织必须合理，就业方式必须弹性多元等变化，意味着资本的影响力、掌控力被无限扩大。具体表现为：互联网平台打着“共享”的名义收集数据，实质上是数字经济“独享”行使“霸权”的真实表现，是个体在时空维度下所有生活的不断商品化。数字资本对一般智力和无酬劳动的剥削作为创造价值的新途径，无尽地攫取和霸占劳动者的剩余价值，正是数字资本贪婪本性的集中表现。正如哈特和奈格里所说，“发达的资本主义剥削工厂已经渗透到工厂外墙，重新定义了所有的社会关系”,数字资本远超出生产劳动领域并蔓延至社会的各个领域，资本的扩张使整个社会被纳入到资本的统治范围，包括“从肌肉、语言、情感、代码到图像、社会智力、社会关系，以及劳动的认知和协作要素等”。除此之外，劳动的非物质化“不仅从根本上改变了劳动力的构成、管理和调控—生产组织，而且更深刻地改变了知识分子的作用和功能及其在社会中的活动”。这一现象印证了马克思当年在《资本论》中提到的，“科学和技术使执行职能的资本具有一种不以它的一定量为转移的扩张能力”。

II. Labor Alienation Triggered by Capital Exploitation

二、资本剥削引发劳动异化

Alienated labor is one of the most typical features of capitalism. In the era of big data, the emergence of digital labor has not eliminated alienation; “it exists in production work, in household consumption, and dominates politics and most of daily life.” Therefore, redefining labor under the conditions of digital capitalism and comprehensively examining and grasping the new changes in the forms of labor alienation brought about by digital labor have become issues of particular concern to contemporary Western leftists.

异化劳动是资本主义最典型的特征之一。在大数据时代，数字劳动的出现未能消除异化，“它存在于生产工作中，存在于家庭消费中，并且主导着政治和日常生活的大部分”。因此，在数字资本主义条件下重新定义劳动，全景式地思考和把握数字劳动带来劳动异化形式的新变化，成为当代西方左翼格外关注的问题。

First, from the dimension of the labor subject. Unlike the era in which Marx lived, “today exploitation can occur even without domination.” When the scope of exploitation extends from paid wage relations to unpaid daily life, it can be said that each of us has become a digital laborer. On the one hand, instant communication and convenient transportation seamlessly connect the two spatiotemporal spheres of work and life, turning both inside and outside the home into the workplace. On the other hand, in the process of digital transformation, laborers are “degraded” into the “powerless tools” of capital, slowing down their own “intellectual capacity for theorization and deliberation,” and falling into a predicament of deprivation and instability. Guy Standing uses the term “precariat” to describe the unstable living conditions of laborers today. In terms of its characteristics, the majority of the precariat live in a state of anxiety over precariousness; their sense of purpose and professional identity are shallow, their economic income is relatively low, and they cannot enjoy stable labor protections. They are as turbulent and adrift as small, replaceable parts on a machine. For this reason, some scholars have proposed that “the capitalist’s pursuit of surplus value drives them to treat workers as machines or objects—this is the root cause of ‘alienation’ (and also the essence of capitalist production).” The rise of immaterial labor precisely proves the intrinsic connection between the logic of capital and the alienation of the labor subject. With the rapid development of the ICT industry, the “knowledge-proletariat” [8]8 The term “知产阶级” (zhīchǎn jiējí) is a neologism combining “knowledge” (知识) and “proletariat” (无产阶级), referring to knowledge workers who, despite their education and skills, occupy a proletarianized position in the digital economy. composed of immaterial laborers has leaped to become the labor subject in the sphere of reproduction. The immaterial labor they engage in has become an important component sustaining the normal operation of the capitalist system. On the surface, the “knowledge-proletariat” appears to have more autonomy in terms of participation in labor rights. In reality, however, capital reduces people’s status “to that of silent gears”—able to speak, yet unable to become genuine political subjects. Furthermore, the productive activities engaged in by immaterial laborers, which coexist as both exploitation and “pleasure,” also serve as a trigger for psychological alienation. Individuals living long-term in an “information cocoon” are more likely to lose their subjective consciousness, developing social pathologies such as depression, anxiety, overwork syndrome, attention deficit, and social phobia, thereby intensifying the bonds of alienation on the labor subject.

首先，从劳动主体的维度上看。与马克思所处的年代不同，“如今即使没有统治也可能出现剥削”,当剥削范围从有酬的雇佣关系扩展到了无酬的日常生活，可以说，我们每一个人都成为数字劳动者。一方面，即时通讯与便捷交通将工作和生活两种时空无缝衔接，家里家外都变为了职场；另一方面，在数字化转型过程中劳动者被“降格”为资本的“无力工具”,减缓了自身“能够进行理论化和慎思的智力能力”,陷入被剥夺与不稳定的困境之中。盖伊·斯坦丁(Guy Standing)用“流众”(precariat)一词来描述当下劳动者不稳定的生存境况，就其特点而言，“流众”中的大多数人生活在朝不保夕的忧虑当中，他们的目标意识与职业认同感浅薄，经济收入相对较低且无法享受稳定的劳动保障，如同机器上可随时替换的小零件一般动荡飘摇。为此，有学者提出“资本家对剩余价值的追逐驱使他们将工人视为机器或者物品，这才是‘异化’的根本原因(也是资本主义生产的本质)”,而非物质劳动的崛兴，恰恰证明了资本逻辑与劳动主体异化之间的内在关联性。随着ICT产业的急遽发展，由非物质劳动者所组成的“知产阶级”一跃成为再生产领域中的劳动主体，他们所从事的非物质劳动成为维系资本主义体系正常运作的重要组成部分。表面看来，“知产阶级”在参与劳动权利方面拥有更多的自主权，然而实际上却是资本把人的地位“降低到无声的齿轮上”,虽然能够发言却不能成为名副其实的政治主体。此外，非物质劳动者从事的作为剥削与“愉悦”共存的生产性活动，也是诱发人们心理异化的导火索。长期生活在“信息茧房”的个体更容易丧失主体意识，产生抑郁症、焦虑症、过劳症、注意力涣散、社恐等社会病症，加剧了异化对劳动主体的束缚。

It must be acknowledged: “Capital is a wage relation between capital and labor; it is precisely this relation that opens a new era.” When the process of informatization is tightly interwoven with the spatial expansion of global capital, the “freedom” that accompanies the development of digital technology “is merely a substitute term.” In the past, people actively sought out information; today, information arrives uninvited. All kinds of information flood in, forcibly squeezing our living space. The tendency toward spectacle intensifies by the day. Data controls the masses in a “panoptic” manner, influencing people’s lifestyles through non-coercive “internal pastoral guidance,” causing the masses to fall into a “digital panoptic prison.” Members within this panoptic prison simultaneously bear a dual identity: they are both exploiters and the exploited, both perpetrators and victims, while also suffering exploitation from others and self-generated exploitation. Fundamentally, this new method, which aims to strip subjective consciousness and encroach upon subjective freedom, is a typical manifestation of alienation in the era of big data. As Byung-Chul Han states, “People today have an almost obsessive, compulsive relationship with digital devices. Here, freedom also transforms into compulsion. Social media greatly reinforces this compulsion,” infinitely magnifying the subject’s unfreedom. Ultimately, this compulsion originates from the logic of capital; the laws of capital’s operation imprison us all, and we can only do what capital wants us to do. Whether it is the “functional algorithm” linking the digital and capital, or the “active manipulation” under the neoliberal trend of thought, both reveal a passive state in which subjects voluntarily submit to enslavement and bondage, and laborers yield to technology without knowing it. The Western accelerationist Hartmut Rosa, in his *Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity*, also expresses a similar view. Borrowing from Hermann Lübbe’s concept of time, he argues that under the drive of competitive factors, modern Western society experiences a “shrinking of the present.” While operators seek by all means to extract labor time and drive the entire socioeconomic engine, they continuously compress the living space of laborers. Even a state of non-laboring existence may become the only “surplus existence” to be plundered.

应当承认：“资本是一种资本与劳动之间的雇佣关系，正是这种关系，开辟了一个新时代。”当信息化进程与全球资本的空间扩张紧密相扣，与数字技术发展相伴的“自由只是个代名词”。以往人们是主动获取信息，在当下，信息不请自来。各种信息铺天盖地，硬生生地挤压我们的生存空间，景观化趋向愈演愈烈，数据正在以“全景敞视”的方式掌控大众，以非强制的“内在牧领”影响人们的生活方式，使大众落入“数字化全景监狱”。身处全景监狱中的成员同时肩负着双重身份，他们既是剥削者和被剥削者，也是作案人和受害者，同时还遭受来自他人的剥削以及自我产生的剥削。从根本上说，这种以剥夺主体意识，侵占主体自由为目标的新型方式，就是异化在大数据时代的典型表现。正如韩炳哲所言，“如今人们与数码设备之间有一种近乎迷恋的、强制性的关系。在这里，自由也化身为强迫。社交媒体大大强化了这种强迫”,主体的不自由被无限放大。归根到底，这种强迫源自于资本逻辑，资本的运作规律囚禁着我们所有人，我们只能做资本想要我们做的事情。无论是数字与资本之间关联的“函数算法”,还是新自由主义思潮下的“主动操控”,都暴露出主体自愿被奴役、被束缚，劳动者屈从于技术而不为所知的被动状态。西方加速主义者哈特穆特·罗萨(Hartmut Rosa)在《新异化的诞生：社会加速批判理论大纲》中也提出类似的看法。他借用赫尔曼·吕柏(Hermann Lübbe)的时间概念，认为在竞争因素的驱动下，现代西方社会“当下时态的萎缩”,经营者在想方设法攫取劳动时间、推动整个社会经济运行的同时，不断挤压劳动者的生存空间，哪怕只是处在不劳作的存在状态，也有可能成为被掠走的仅有的“剩余存在”。

Second, from the dimension of the labor result. In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (hereinafter referred to as the *Manuscripts*), Marx discusses the possible consequences of labor alienation: “The external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another.” Even in the era of big data, the condition of labor alienation remains unchanged: various social activities, including production, are constrained and controlled by technology; the means of production, once determined by money and the market, are now manipulated by algorithms and platforms; internet platforms silently collect the potential data of the masses, sell it to merchants, and precisely deliver advertisements and product data corresponding to consumer demands, thereby achieving the goal of dominating the market and controlling people. Labor under digitalization undergoes “mutation,” not only updating the mode of capitalist production and accumulation but also, by breaking down traditional labor patterns, altering labor boundaries and the labor environment. “This further leads to the dissolution of industrial production relations, thus shifting toward more fluid and unstable digital production relations,” making capital’s exploitation of labor more concealed. Professor Edward Comer of the University of Western Ontario, who focuses on capitalist production under globalization, argues: “The process of systematically pursuing surplus value, which involves the ‘degradation’ of workers, produces another form of alienation—process alienation.” This means that the expanding role of alienation, eroding the social organism, has moved from the reification in the sphere of production to digitalization in the non-material sphere, transforming the alienated labor of production that Marx criticized into today’s digital alienated labor. Digital capital extends its scope of exploitation into the non-material sphere, to the point where “play,” “leisure,” “free time,” “social relations,” and “emotional activities” all fall within the scope of digital labor. Various forms of digital labor create value, giving rise to the new characteristics of “prosumption” and the “playbourer.” Although some Western scholars have raised questions on this theme, asking whether the unity of digital labor, as manifested in freedom and humanization, means the end of “alienation,” in reality, “prosumption” reveals the characteristic of digital labor as labor by all. In the process of self-commodification, laborers not only close the cycle between production and consumption, willingly becoming “machines” that create value, but also unconsciously strengthen the fusion of capital and technology, boosting capital’s colonization of people’s everyday life world, “rendering the capitalist order of rule invisible throughout the entire global factory.” The drastic expansion of the scope of digital labor in fact greatly intensifies the degree of labor alienation. The unabated increase in labor alienation caused by the exploitation of digital capital precisely proves that the idea that “alienation” has ended in today’s digital capitalist society can only be an illusion.

其次，从劳动结果的维度上看。马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》(以下简称《手稿》)中谈到劳动异化可能导致的结果：“对工人来说，劳动的外在性表现在：这种劳动不是他自己的，而是别人的；劳动不属于他；他在劳动中也不属于他自己，而是属于别人。”即便在大数据时代下，劳动异化的状况依然如故：包括生产活动在内的各种社会活动都受到技术的制约、掌控；生产资料从原先由货币和市场所决定转而被算法、平台所操控；互联网平台悄无声息地实施收集大众潜在的数据，售卖给商家，向消费者精准投放相应需求的广告和产品数据的收集方式，达到主宰市场和控制人的目的。数字化形态下的劳动产生“异变”,不仅更新了资本主义的生产和积累方式，而且因传统劳作模式被打破，造成劳动界限和劳动环境的改变，“这进一步导致了产业生产关系的解体，从而转向了更具有流动性和不稳定性的数字生产关系”,使资本对劳动的剥削变得更加隐蔽。加拿大韦仕敦大学的爱德华·科莫(Edward Comer)教授十分关注全球化背景下的资本主义生产，他认为：“涉及工人‘降格’产生的系统追逐剩余价值的过程，产生了另一种异化形式——过程异化。”这意味着异化的作用不断扩大并侵蚀社会机体的行为，已经从生产领域的物化走向了非物质领域的数字化，使当年马克思批判的生产异化劳动成为当今的数字异化劳动。数字资本将它的剥削范围延伸到非物质领域，乃至“玩”“休闲消遣”“自由时间”“社会关系”“情感活动”等都归属于数字劳动的范围，各式数字劳动方式都在创造着价值，形成“产消合一”和“玩工”的新特点。虽然也有西方学者就这一主题进行发问，提出数字劳动的合一性所表现出的自由和人性化现象，是否就意味着“异化”被终结的看法。但现实中“产消合一”揭示出数字劳动所具有的全员劳动的特性，劳动者在自我商品化的过程中不仅闭合了生产和消费之间的循环，甘愿成为创造价值的“机器”;“产消合一”还在无形中强化了资本与技术的融合、助推了资本对人们日常生活世界的殖民，“在整个地球工厂内将资本主义的统治秩序化于无形”。数字劳动范围急剧扩大实质上大大加剧了劳动异化的程度，数字资本剥削造成的劳动异化的有增无减，这些都恰恰证明了认为当今数字资本主义社会“异化”被终结的想法只能是一种幻想。

Alienation is both the precondition for exploitation and its result. In the eyes of contemporary Western leftists, the phenomenon that Marx once described — “the worker’s alienation in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him; it means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien” — has been infinitely expanded. Harvey argues that alienation is the core issue at stake in the capitalist economy, existing throughout the entire process of labor in capitalist society. The current problem of digital labor alienation has not escaped the analytical framework of the fourfold basic determinations of alienation that Marx laid out in the *Manuscripts* [the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*]; this requires us to deepen theory into reality and conduct a profound analysis of the contemporary forms of alienation. Furthermore, in *Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism*, Harvey exposes the contradiction between “pure capital production” and “reproduction,” pointing out that the current avenue for capital to obtain profit has already turned toward the reality of “rentierism.” Virtual capital will trigger an implosion of the capitalist world system, and the aggressive force released by alienation will fill the entire society with violence and aggression. Therefore, Harvey arrives at the judgment that the core contradiction of capitalism — alienation — will ultimately lead capitalism to its demise.

异化既是剥削的前提，也是剥削的结果。在当代西方左翼眼中，当年马克思所言“工人在他的产品中的外化，不仅意味着他的劳动成为对象，成为外部的存在，而且意味着他的劳动作为一种与他相异的东西不依赖于他而在他之外存在，并成为同他对立的独立力量；意味着他给予对象的生命是作为敌对的和相异的东西同他相对立”的现象被无限扩大了。哈维主张异化是资本主义经济攸关的核心问题，存在于资本主义社会劳动的全过程，当下的数字劳动异化问题并未跳出马克思在《手稿》中对异化的四重基本规定性的分析框架，需要我们将理论深入到现实，对当下的异化形式进行深层次探析。此外，哈维在《资本社会的17个矛盾》中，揭露了“纯粹的资本生产”与“再生产”之间的矛盾，指出当下资本获利的途径已经转向“食利者主义”这一现实，虚拟资本会引发资本主义世界体系的内爆，而异化释放出来的攻击力会导致整个社会充满暴力性和侵略性，因此，哈维得出资本主义的核心矛盾——异化终将会把资本主义引向灭亡的预判。

III. The Expansion of Algorithmic Power and the Path of Resistance

三、算法权力扩张及其抵抗径路

Today we are witnessing the birth of a new type of power — algorithmic power. This power differs from coercive discipline; it is mainly manifested in the all-round shaping of the order of things and the order of data by algorithmic rules. This means that in the era of big data, algorithms, as a highly lethal “weapon,” are sweeping through human society and exerting a profound influence, causing everyone living within it to be trapped in the “Adyton chamber” [9]9 In ancient Greek religion, the Adyton was a restricted inner sanctum of a temple, accessible only to priests or oracles. Here it is used metaphorically to describe a closed, inescapable space of algorithmic control. formed by algorithms, forced to accept the exploitation and control brought about by the unlimited expansion of algorithmic power.

今天我们正在目睹一种新型权力——算法权力的诞生，这种权力不同于强制性的规训，它主要体现在算法规则对物的秩序和数据秩序的全方位塑造。这意味着在大数据时代算法这种极具杀伤性的“武器”正在席卷人类社会并产生深刻影响，使生活在其中的每个人都深陷于算法形成的“阿底顿密室”,不得不接受因算法权力无限扩张带来的剥削和掌控。

In the era of big data, “algorithmic optimality” seems to have become the universally recognized rule that capital competes to pursue. Whoever controls enough general data and the best algorithm effectively holds absolute power over society. Byung-Chul Han uses the “transparent society” to describe the existential situation of people in modern society: the widespread availability of advanced information technology and electronic devices enables every individual to act as an information base station, continuously transmitting signals outward. The collection by internet platforms and the quantification and calculation of algorithms not only allow for the precise delivery of products and various services to each person but also, by virtue of the “optimal solution” attribute of digital technology, become a tool for controlling laborers in the labor process. For unpaid digital labor on internet platforms, the rationalization of intelligent algorithms accelerates the monopolization of communication resources and data collection, so that within the illusory, vacuum-like platform, “the digital economy has become an important experimental field for value and unpaid cultural and emotional labor,” and users become free laborers who produce data content without receiving any remuneration. Notably, in the process of digital transformation, although algorithmic order expands the infinite possibilities of production, it weakens the subject’s narrative of meaning for physical existence, turning them into “helpless ghosts suspended under the ‘24/7’ capitalist system.” As the rule for using data, algorithms are dedicated to transforming all things into quantifiable symbols or coded virtual entities, using these as intermediaries to communicate with the outside world in a mimetic digital space, thereby gaining the absolute power to control and dominate the real physical body. In this way, the virtual entity penetrated by coding is separated from concrete social relations, actively establishing new connections between virtual entities and between virtual entities and the world, incorporating all things into the domain of algorithmic action. At the same time, powerful algorithmic analysis technology is also accompanied by “side effects” such as the “echo chamber effect” and “filter bubbles.” It imprisons the subject in an “isolated island” that has been screened and filtered by algorithmic programs. Once the “soundproof wall” of information and concepts is constructed, the inherent value circles within the subconscious space become increasingly solidified, easily “causing obstacles to mutual understanding and communication, leading to the loss of publicness or even disorder.” As Viktor Mayer-Schönberger states: “Human beings themselves have gathered more and more data, invented better and better algorithms, and single-handedly created the era of data and intelligence. However, our creations themselves, as well as our indiscriminate overuse of these creations — such as the rampant dataism and algorithmism — may also bring very dangerous consequences to humanity.”

在大数据时代，“算法最优”似乎成了资本竞相追逐的公认规则，谁掌握了足够多的一般数据以及最佳算法，就相当于拥有了控制社会的绝对权力。韩炳哲用“透明社会”来描述现代社会人的生存境遇：发达的信息技术以及电子设备的普及使每个人都可以作为信息基站，源源不断地向外发射信号；互联网平台的收集以及算法的量化、测算，不仅能向每个人展开精准投放产品和各种服务，而且能借助数字技术的“最优解”属性，在劳动过程中成为控制劳动者的利器。对于互联网平台中的无酬数字劳动而言，智能算法的理性化加快了传播资源以及收集数据的垄断步伐，使在虚幻、真空的平台之中，“数字经济成为了价值以及无酬文化、情感劳动的重要试验田”,用户成为只生产数据内容而不获报酬的免费劳动者。其中，值得注意的是，在数字化的转向进程中，算法秩序虽扩大了生产的无限可能性，却弱化了主体对实体存在的意义叙述，成为“悬挂在‘24 /7’资本主义体制下的无助的幽灵”。算法作为数据的使用规则，致力于将一切事物转化为可量化的符号或符码虚体，并在拟态化的数字空间中以此为中介与外界进行交流，获得控制和支配真实肉身的绝对力量。这样，被编码穿透后的虚体也就从具体的社会关系中剥离开来，能动地建立起虚体与虚体、虚体与世界之间的新联系，将一切事物纳入算法的作用领域。与此同时，强大的算法分析技术也伴有“回音室效应”“过滤气泡”等“副作用”,它将主体禁锢在经算法程序筛选、过滤后的“孤岛”,一旦信息和观念的“隔音墙”被筑造起来，自我潜意识空间中的固有价值圈层会愈发坚固，易“引起相互理解和沟通上的障碍，导致公共性丧失甚至无序化”。正如维克托·迈尔-舍恩伯格(Viktor Mayer-Schönberger)所言：“人类自己汇聚了越来越多的数据，发明了越来越好的算法，一手缔造了数据与智能时代。然而，我们的创造物本身，以及我们对这些创造物不加分辨地过度使用，例如甚嚣尘上的数据主义和算法主义，也可能给人类带来十分危险的后果。”

At the nodal point of the era of rapid digital technology development and the surge of immaterial labor, the collusion of technological rationality and digital capital in the big data era means that while algorithmic power strengthens labor control and constrains people’s behavioral choices, it can also, by virtue of its influence in the ideological sphere, skillfully manipulate the thoughts and lives of laborers. “What capital demands is not a transcendent power, but a control mechanism built on the level of internalization.” Various digital labor methods — applications, software engineering, hardware assembly — inevitably incorporate a certain “political charm,” which is a distinctive hallmark of the phased development of capitalism. Contemporary Western leftists believe that the relations of production under the capitalist system are built upon a social contract that is euphemistically called “self-evident” and mutually tacit. Although it appears to be cloaked in the legitimate guise of “digital freedom” and “digital democracy,” in essence, the methods and means of capitalist exploitation have become more concealed, forcing labor and even culture to unconditionally submit to the logic of capital. Capital power shifts and expands into the political and cultural spheres, pushing the world toward an era of “psychopolitics” [10]10 A term used by Byung-Chul Han to describe a form of power that operates through the psychological manipulation and optimization of emotions, attention, and cognition, rather than through external discipline or coercion. hegemony. In Bernard Stiegler’s view: “The digital network is a technology of an absolute, thorough, collective, and spiritual individuation process, a process capable of absorbing all other individuation technologies... causing everything to be absorbed and reconfigured.” Needless to say, in the big data era, network subjects use digital ordering to increase the “negentropy of life,” but at the same time, they also produce a certain degree of “entropy increase,” as seen in behaviors such as “liking on Moments” or “retweeting and commenting on Weibo.” Although network subjects gain a deepened self-awareness, the blurring of the boundary between the network mirror image created by digital technology and true reality can easily trap people in a false ideological cycle and cause them to lose themselves. When labor is highly controlled by capital and algorithms and plays a dominant role in the political and ideological spheres — that is, when capital power and algorithmic power overflow the economic sphere and extend into the ideological sphere, resulting in the politicization of power — the inevitable consequence is that capital’s destructive power over society and humanity becomes greater and more severe.

在数字技术发展与非物质劳动狂飙突进的时代节点上，技术理性与数字资本在大数据时代的合谋，使算法权力在强化劳动控制、约束人们行为选择的同时，更可以凭借其在意识形态领域的影响，巧妙地左右着劳动者的思想和生活。“资本需求的不是一种超越的权力，而是建立在内在化层面上的控制机制”,各类应用程序、软件工程、硬件装配这些数字劳动方式不可避免掺杂一些“政治魅力”,这是资本主义发展进程中具有阶段性的明显标识。当代西方左翼认为，在资本主义制度下的生产关系是建立在一种美其名曰“不言自明”的、相互默认的社会契约之上的，看似披上了“数字自由”“数字民主”的合法外衣，实质上却是资本的剥削方式与剥削手段更隐蔽，使劳动乃至文化等无条件服从于资本逻辑，资本权力向政治和文化领域转移和扩张，推动着世界走向一个“精神政治”的强权时代。在贝尔纳·斯蒂格勒(Bernard Stiegler)看来：“数字网络是一种绝对的、彻底的、集体式的、精神个性化的新过程的技术，这种过程有能力吸收所有其他个性化的技术……使得一切都被吸收和重新配置。”不言而喻，在大数据时代下的网络主体利用数字构序来增加“生命的负熵”,但同时也产生了一定程度的“熵增”,就像“朋友圈点赞”“微博转发评论”等行为。网络主体虽然带来自我认知的加深，但由数字技术造成的网络镜像与真实现实之间界限的模糊，极易使人陷入虚假的意识形态怪圈而失去自我。当劳动被资本与算法高度掌控并对政治和思想领域起着主宰作用之时，即当资本权力与算法权力溢出经济领域延伸至意识形态领域，出现权力政治化时，其必然结果就是资本对社会乃至人类的破坏力愈大、愈严重。

In the eyes of the contemporary Western left, a crucial step toward escaping algorithmic control and reclaiming the fruits of labor is to find, in reality, a transformative revolutionary subject. The “precariat” within the cracks of algorithmic control—that is, the unstable proletariat—possesses the revolutionary potential to break free from the “algorithmic shackles”; they are a “new dangerous class.” Standing argues that the mission of the precariat is to strive for the redistribution of key resources including “economic security, time control, quality space, genuine educational liberation, financial knowledge, and financial and other capital”; they are an emerging potential force in Western leftist politics. Unlike Standing’s understanding of the revolutionary subject, Hardt and Negri argue that under the oppression of the new economic model, the social anomie caused by the infinite expansion of alienation inevitably invites confrontation and struggle centered on the “multitude” as the subject. They thus propose the abstract concept of “the common of labor,” focusing on the possibility of creating “common wealth” and realizing “democracy of the multitude,” attempting to curb the disorderly expansion of algorithmic power by gathering and awakening the power of the “multitude.” In fact, many of the views in Hardt and Negri’s exploration of paths to break the shackles remain at the level of abstract thought, without mentioning effective methods to overcome and solve the problems, still bearing a strong utopian character. When discussing the book *Empire*, Žižek argues that the mode of political struggle described by Hardt and Negri “does not fundamentally analyze how the current global socio-economic process will (if at all) create the necessary space for these radical measures.” To break the deadlock, the most important issue at present is to find a radical revolutionary subject, that is, to reconstruct a “new proletariat” more thorough than Marx’s “working class,” and to stimulate their revolutionary potential. In view of this, Žižek regards slum dwellers, refugees, and other social “outsiders” who “have nothing to lose but their chains” as the new revolutionary class, believing that only the “excluded,” who are outside the capitalist order, are the “new gravediggers” of the capitalist system. This line of thinking actually imitates Marx’s definition of the proletariat, but this reconstruction, which simply equates the proletariat with slum dwellers and refugees, is doomed to fail to find the real force to resist the expansion of algorithmic power. Furthermore, Žižek advocates returning to Lenin, “using Lenin’s pure political stance and resolute attitude against economic fragmentation” to fight.

在当代西方左翼眼中，要想摆脱算法掌控、夺回劳动果实，其中极为重要的一环就是要在现实中找到具有变革性的革命主体。算法控制裂缝中的“流众”,也就是不稳定的无产阶级，存在着挣脱“算法枷锁”的革命潜能，他们是“新的危险阶层”。斯坦丁主张，“流众”的使命在于争取包括“经济安全、时间控制、优质空间、真正的教育解放、金融知识以及金融和其它资本”等在内的关键资源的再分配，他们是西方左翼政治中涌现出的潜在力量。不同于斯坦丁对革命主体的理解，哈特和奈格里认为，在新经济模式的压迫下，异化的无限扩大所导致的社会失范现象必然招致以“诸众”为主体的对抗和斗争，从而提出“劳动共同性”的抽象概念，集中探讨了创造“财富共有”和实现“诸众民主”可能性的问题，试图以汇聚和唤醒“诸众”力量的方式来抑制算法权力的无序扩张。事实上，哈特和奈格里寻找突破枷锁的路径探索中的诸多观点仅仅停留在抽象的思考层面，并没有提及克服和解决问题的有效方法，仍旧带有浓厚的乌托邦色彩。齐泽克在谈及《帝国》一书时，认为哈特和奈格里所描述的政治斗争方式“没有从根本上分析目前全球社会经济进程将如何(如果有的话)为这些激进措施创造所需空间”,要想破局，当前最重要的问题是找到激进的革命性主体，也就是重构出比马克思笔下的“工人阶级”更为彻底的“新无产阶级”,激发他们的革命潜能。鉴于此，齐泽克将那些“除了他们的锁链，没有什么可失去”的贫民窟居民、难民等社会“编外人员”视为新的革命阶级，认为只有处在资本主义秩序之外的“被排斥者”(the Excluded)才是颠覆资本主义制度的“新掘墓人”,这一思路实际上是在效仿马克思对无产阶级的界定，这种将无产阶级简单等同于贫民窟居民和难民的重构，注定难以找到抵抗算法权力扩张的真正力量。此外，齐泽克主张更要回到列宁，“运用列宁纯粹的政治立场和反对经济分裂坚决的态度”来战斗。

Nick Dyer-Witheford offers a new approach to curbing internet platform monopoly and the further expansion of algorithmic power. In his view, 21st-century communism is an information-based sharing grounded in shared wealth; “the struggle potential of earth’s labor under digital conditions has become very obvious.” Therefore, Dyer-Witheford argues that the internet, as a site of capital exploitation, is also a site for the formation of resistance classes. If we do not want to become tools of algorithmic hegemony, we must unite in various innovative and cooperative labors, making full use of the internet as a revolutionary position to constrain the wantonly expanding algorithmic power.

尼克·迪尔-维斯福特(Nick Dyer-Witheford)为我们遏制互联网平台垄断以及算法权力的进一步扩张提供了一个新思路。在他看来，21世纪的共产主义是立足于共享财富基础上的信息化共享，“数字化条件下的地球劳动的斗争潜力已经变得非常明显”。因此，维斯福特主张互联网作为资本剥削的场域，也是抵抗阶级形成的场域，如果我们不想沦为算法施展霸权的工具，就要在各种创新和合作的劳动中联合起来，尽可能地利用网络这个革命阵地来约束肆意扩张的算法权力。

Perhaps there is another way to resist the hegemonic rule brought by the infinite expansion of algorithmic power: in the future intelligent world, “resist big data algorithmic governance through edge algorithms, and resist the centralized brave new world with more diffuse micro-intelligence”—that is, “resist algorithms with algorithms, resist intelligence with intelligence.” Of course, this is currently only a preliminary idea; the contemporary Western left has not proposed an effective solution. Following Marx’s exploration of the stages of social development, it is believed that only at the communist stage can we completely break free from the “digital shackles,” transforming the capital labor that “steals others’ labor time” and distorts human nature into what Marx called free and autonomous human activity, so that labor truly returns to humanity itself.

或许，要想抵抗因算法权力无限扩张带来的霸权统治，可以有另外一种途径，那就是在未来的智能化世界中，“通过边缘算法抵抗大数据算法治理，用更弥散的微智能抵抗中心化的美丽新世界”,即“用算法抵抗算法，用智能抵抗智能”。当然，目前这只是一个初步设想，当代西方左翼并未提出一个有效的解决方法。按照马克思对社会发展阶段的探索，相信只有到了共产主义阶段，我们才能彻底挣脱“数字枷锁”,将那种“盗窃他人的劳动时间”、扭曲人的本质的资本劳动，转变为马克思所说的人的自由自主的活动，使劳动真正完成向人自身的复归。

IV. Theoretical Reflections on the Three-Dimensional Critique of Digital Labor by the Western Left

四、对西方左翼数字劳动三维批判的理论省思

Currently, the development of digital technology is quietly and profoundly changing the mode of human production and life. With the rise of digital capitalism, the increasing complexity of the capitalist labor process and the resulting new changes in the forms of expression of labor subjects and social contradictions are real issues that contemporary Marxist researchers must face. Understanding the socio-historical effects of digital labor, a new form of labor, within the framework of “capital–technology–power” is not only an indispensable part of the critique of capital but also an important path for re-examining the development of contemporary capitalism from the perspective of historical materialism. In recent years, in response to the emergence of digital technology and the epochal interrogation of the comprehensive alienation of capitalist production and life, the contemporary Western left, represented by Europe and America, has actively responded to the new situations and problems arising in capitalism, especially showing high concern for new changes in labor forms, value augmentation, and discourse systems brought about by technological innovation. They realize that the complexity of real problems—such as changes in production modes brought by digital technological transformation, the dual commodification of labor and emotion, the concealment and intensification of digital exploitation and labor alienation, algorithmic governance under data stacks, labor control embedded in internet platforms, and acceleration of surplus value extraction—has far exceeded the explanatory scope of classical Marxist theory, urgently requiring new theoretical follow-up and supplementation. They strive to clarify the intricate relationship between “capital augmentation–labor alienation–algorithmic power” in the era of big data behind digital labor, revealing the essence of digital capitalist exploitation and inequality. At the same time, the contemporary Western left’s use of a social-pathological research method to conduct a “pathological analysis” of digital capitalist society also provides valuable insights and reflections for our in-depth research on digital capitalism and the comprehensive deepening of related theoretical issues such as digital labor in the era of big data.

当前，数字技术发展正悄然而深刻地改变着人类的生产及生活方式。随着数字资本主义的兴起，资本主义劳动过程日益复杂并由此带来的劳动主体、社会矛盾等表现形式上的新变化，是当代马克思主义研究者必须面对的现实问题。如何在“资本—技术—权力”的框架中理解数字劳动这种新型劳动形式所产生的社会历史效应，既是开展资本批判不可或缺的重要环节，也是在唯物史观视域下重新审视当代资本主义发展的一条重要路径。近年来，面对数字技术的出现，人们对资本主义生产及生活方式全面异化的时代诘问，以欧美为代表的当代西方左翼对资本主义出现的新情况和新问题给予了积极回应，尤其表现出对技术革新带来劳动形式、价值增殖以及话语体系等新变化的高度关注。他们意识到，数字技术变革带来的生产方式更迭、劳动力与情感的双重商品化、数字剥削和劳动异化现象的隐匿与强化、数据堆栈下的算法治理术、内嵌于互联网平台的劳动控制与剩余加速等现实问题的复杂性，已经远超于经典马克思主义理论的解释范围，亟须新的理论跟进和补充。他们竭力厘清数字劳动背后所呈现的大数据时代下“资本增殖—劳动异化—算法权力”之间“盘根错节”的复杂关系，揭示了数字资本主义剥削和不平等的实质。同时，当代西方左翼运用社会病理式的研究方式对数字资本主义社会作“病理分析”,也为我们今天深入开展数字化资本主义的研究、全面深化大数据时代下数字劳动等相关理论问题，提供了可资借鉴的启示和思考。

Furthermore, it should be noted that the fact that digital labor has brought about comprehensive changes in capitalist production relations and social fields proves that Marx’s comprehensive critique of capitalism still shines with the light of truth; “Marx’s classic problem of ‘alienated labor and private property’ has once again emerged in the digital age.” Whether it is the analysis of capital augmentation, labor alienation, or the expansion of algorithmic power and paths of resistance, all confirm Marx’s correct predictions about future society. “Over time, old capital will one day be renewed from head to toe, will shed its skin, and will be reborn in a technically more perfect form.” This requires that, when studying the issue of digital labor, we must, on the one hand, acknowledge that the contemporary Western left’s critique of today’s capitalism hits the mark. Whether it is focusing on the rapid rise in the importance of immaterial labor and the “simultaneous emergence of the increased importance of immaterial forms of property closely related to this emerging immaterial labor hegemony,” or the fact that the emergence of digital labor overturns traditional understandings of labor while intensifying capital accumulation and expansion, “constituting a global exploitation ecology,” or envisioning paths and scenarios for sublating the alienation of digital labor, these views all demonstrate the contemporary Western left’s sharp theoretical dissection and practical analytical capabilities. At the same time, it must also be seen that in the process of diagnosing current ills, the contemporary Western left reveals defects such as being dominated by the logic of capital, deviating from historical materialism, and compromising with liberalism, which are doomed to fail to transform into effective revolutionary practice and can at best become narrow “micro-politics.”

另外，应当看到的是，数字劳动带来资本生产关系和社会领域等全面变化的事实证明了马克思当年对资本主义展开全面批判的思想依然闪耀着真理的光芒，“马克思的‘异化劳动和私有财产’的经典问题再一次在数字时代浮现出来”。无论是对资本增殖、劳动异化，还是对算法权力扩张及其抵抗径路的剖析，无一不印证着马克思对未来社会的正确预判。“随着时间的推移，旧资本总有一天也会从头到尾地更新，会脱皮，并且同样会以技术上更加完善的形态再生出来。”这就要求我们在研究数字劳动问题时，一方面要承认当代西方左翼对当今资本主义的批判能切中要害，无论是在重点关注非物质劳动重要地位的迅速上升所带来的“与这种新兴的非物质劳动霸权同步出现的，是与之密切相关的非物质形式财产的重要性的提升”,还是数字劳动的出现颠覆了人们对传统劳动的认知，在加剧资本积累和扩张的同时“构成了一个全球性的剥削生态”,抑或设想扬弃数字劳动异化的图景与路径等观点上，都展现了当代西方左翼犀利的理论解剖与现实分析能力。与此同时，也要看到，当代西方左翼在诊治时弊的过程中暴露出受到资本逻辑的统摄、偏离历史唯物主义，以及向自由主义妥协等缺陷，注定无法转化为有效的革命实践，充其量只能成为狭隘的“微观政治”。

In short, we must always maintain a dialectical attitude toward digital labor as a new form of labor. We must face squarely the negative effects of the new exploitation mechanism brought about by the comprehensive intrusion of digital technology into human production and life, while also affirming its positive role in releasing enormous economic potential, adjusting labor relations, and accelerating the digital transformation of enterprises. By the same token, when we undertake a re-critique of contemporary Western leftist critical theories of capitalist digital labor, we must, in addition to recognizing the limitations of their critical theories of digital labor, also see that as a highly influential theory of contemporary capitalism, it can provide thought-provoking insights for the present. First, by drawing on the critique of the contemporary Western left, we can recognize that contemporary capitalism has entered the developmental stage of digital capitalism. As a brand-new productive force, data resources have become an important engine driving the development of the digital economy — this is an undeniable fact, and we must respond proactively with clear awareness. Second, we must recognize that beneath the surface of "peace and prosperity" in contemporary capitalism, the contemporary Western left has soberly perceived the fact that capital power is constructing a new logic and power structure in a more concealed and harsh manner, and has launched a critique of capitalist digital labor. This provides us with an excellent entry point for further understanding the essence of the expansion of digital capital logic. Third, it must be made clear that merely issuing a pathological diagnosis of capitalist digital labor, as the contemporary Western left does, without offering a concrete plan for transformation, is unworkable. At present, by placing the Western left's critique of contemporary capitalist digital labor under the dual coordinates of the Marxist critique of capital and the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New Era for comparative study, we can not only make correct judgments and achieve clear understanding of the Western left's views, but also, more importantly, highlight the institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics: its inherent capacity to activate the vitality of digital labor and to curb the negative effects that digital labor may bring. This provides important inspiration for better leveraging digital labor as a new quality productive force and promoting the healthy and orderly development of the digital economy. (Notes and references omitted)

简言之，我们要始终秉持辩证的态度看待数字劳动这种新型劳动样态，既要正视因数字技术全面入侵人类的生产及生活而带来新剥削机制的负面效应，也要肯定它在释放巨大经济潜能、调整劳动关系、加快企业数字化转型等方面发挥着积极的作用。同理，我们在对当代西方左翼的资本主义数字劳动批判理论进行再批判时，除了正视其数字劳动批判理论的局限性之外，还要看到它作为对当代资本主义批判颇具影响力的理论，亦能为当下提供启发性的思考。其一，能借助当代西方左翼的批判，认识当今资本主义已经进入数字资本主义的发展时期。作为全新的生产力，数据资源成为驱动数字经济发展的重要引擎是不容否认的事实，必须以清醒的认识主动应对。其二，要认识到在当代资本主义“一片祥和、繁荣”的景象下，当代西方左翼能清醒地认识到资本权力以更为隐匿和严酷的方式建构起全新的逻辑与权力架构的事实，并展开对资本主义数字劳动的批判，为我们进一步认清数字资本逻辑扩张的实质提供了很好的切入点。其三，要明确，仅仅像当代西方左翼那样，对资本主义数字劳动开出病理诊断书而无具体的变革方案，是行不通的。当前，我们把西方左翼对当代资本主义数字劳动的批判置于马克思主义对资本批判和新时代中国特色社会主义发展的双重坐标下加以比较研究，既能对西方左翼的观点做出正确的判断和清醒的认知，更能彰显中国特色社会主义内生具有激活数字劳动的活力，以及具有遏制数字劳动可能带来的负面效应的制度优势。这为更好地发挥数字劳动作为新质生产力的效用，推动数字经济健康有序发展，提供了重要的启示。（注释、参考文献略）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑