Digital Socialism: Problematic and Theoretical Currents

After the outbreak of the 2008 global financial crisis, the representatives of the “California Ideology”[1]1 “California Ideology” refers to the blend of libertarian, countercultural values and neoliberal economic beliefs promoted by Silicon Valley elites, which emerged in the late 20th century. put forward the new category of “digital socialism” at a time when neoliberalism was mired in a crisis of legitimacy, thereby promoting the transfer of power from traditional financial capital to digital financial capital. Their narrative logic not only arbitrarily distorts and “grafts” the history of socialist development but also empties the class nature of state power. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Western leftists have seized the term “digital socialism” and reinterpreted it, pushing it to transform into an alternative to capitalism. Currently, domestic Chinese academic attention to and research on the trend of digital socialist thought have just begun; since 2020, a total of over ten translated articles and original papers have been published. Examining these results reveals that domestic academic understanding of the digital socialist trend is deepening, evolving from an initial tendency toward introduction and “borrowing” of the term to a dialectical examination and in-depth excavation of the theoretical resources this trend provides. However, most academic research on digital socialism proceeds from representative texts for theoretical analysis, and a comprehensive and systematic sorting and analysis of the evolution and theoretical direction of this trend, especially the basic theoretical issues embedded within it, has yet to be undertaken. Therefore, clarifying the logic of the generation, development, and historical epistemology of this new trend beneath its complex theoretical surface becomes the starting point and focus of this article. On this basis, this article dialectically analyzes the value and limitations of this emerging trend from the standpoint, viewpoint, and method of Marxism, providing a useful reference for non-Western countries exploring a new form of human civilization.

Digital Socialism as the Emergence of the California Ideology

To ease the intense internal contradictions triggered by the financial crisis, neoliberal capitalism underwent a self-sublation from traditional financial capital to digital financial capital, accelerating into a new stage of digital capitalism deeply controlled by clusters of large tech companies such as “GAFA” (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon). Kevin Kelly, the founding editor-in-chief of *Wired* magazine, keenly discerned this new form and direction of capitalism, yet summarized it using the term “digital socialism,” a term cloaked in a seemingly opposing ideology. This is much like the figures Marx criticized in his era—the propagandists of the capitalist financial system, from John Law to Isaac Pereire—who were “both swindlers and prophets.”[2]2 This is a reference to Marx’s critique in *Capital* of financial speculators and promoters of credit systems, whom he described as a mixture of swindler and prophet.

(I) Digital Socialism: “Socialism Without the State”?

In 2009, Kevin Kelly proposed the new category of “digital socialism” in his article “The New Socialism,” published in *Wired* magazine, and crudely “grafted” it onto the history of socialist development. He argued that after the decline of “old socialism”—from utopian socialism and scientific socialism to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Latin American “pink tide”—humanity entered an era of internet “new socialism” created by tech giants like Google: a global collectivist society, a third way beyond free-market individualism and central planning. Kelly called for forgetting practices like state ownership and “five-year plans,” emphasizing that “old-style socialism was the arm of the state, while digital socialism is socialism without the state,” meaning that rights are distributed to all participants, and peer production and unlimited free goods will replace forced labor and the state’s allocation of limited resources. At the article’s end, the author used a “wordplay” to describe the political momentum of digital socialism, suggesting it would spread from electrons to elections.[3]3 Kelly’s original article used the phrase “from electrons to elections” to suggest that the collaborative, decentralized logic of digital networks would eventually transform political systems. This widely influential article offered a description of the history and future of human social forms that was both somewhat “nihilistic” and somewhat “not nihilistic,” casting Silicon Valley as a progressive force replacing greedy Wall Street and providing a new ideological interface for neoliberalism mired in a crisis of legitimacy.

The proposal of digital socialism was welcomed by Silicon Valley capitalists and their think tanks. Leftist scholar Astra Taylor found that although Kelly’s sensationalist rhetoric is easy to ridicule, his basic views are common in new media circles; attending any tech conference or reading any book on social media or “Web 2.0” leaves one impressed by the collective spirit and capitalist enterprise. Taylor sarcastically exposed the discursive deception of Silicon Valley elites, pointing out that “the socialism without a state and without a working class, most importantly, does not require sharing wealth.”[4]4 Astra Taylor is a Canadian-American writer and documentary filmmaker known for her critiques of the digital economy and the “sharing economy.” Among these works, the 2013 co-authored book *The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business* by Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Google think tank director Jared Cohen is the most representative. They declared that the internet should be an online world free from the constraints of real-world law, vehemently complaining that “we” are living in an era of state-led cyber warfare. This precisely shows that when Google’s global expansion is constrained by the governance frameworks of other sovereign states, its spokespersons are eager to bind internet users and oligopolistic companies together in a shared understanding and action of “de-statization,” reflecting nothing more than the consistent anti-statist narrative tradition of the California Ideology.

As digital socialism became widespread as a rhetorical device in Silicon Valley, leftist scholars launched sharp critiques against it. Among them, the views of Evgeny Morozov are representative. In an article published in *The Guardian* on March 1, 2015, titled “Silicon Valley Likes to Promise ‘Digital Socialism’ – But It’s Selling a Fairy Tale,” Morozov argued that whatever the future world created by Silicon Valley is called, “digital socialism” is clearly not an appropriate name. It is merely “a perfect antidote” concocted by Silicon Valley’s tech elites at a time when Wall Street had caused social polarization and widening income gaps. However, under the reality of unequal allocation of social resources, the resource sharing and equal use provided by the internet more often exacerbate rather than alleviate overall social inequality.[5]5 Evgeny Morozov is a Belarusian-born writer and researcher known for his critical analysis of the political and social implications of technology, particularly the “solutionist” ideology of Silicon Valley. The post-financial crisis era was precisely the era of the birth and popularization of smartphones; tech oligarchs acquired immense digital power, with their influence extending from the internet to all aspects of politics, economy, culture, and daily life. The bright future promised by the California Ideology not only failed to materialize but instead created a “winner-takes-all” situation: the sharing economy evolved into the gig economy, internet users were reduced to digital laborers, and capitalist domination, exploitation, and enslavement became deeper and broader. Italian scholar Donatella Ratta condemned Kevin Kelly for semantically appropriating the concept of “socialism” and emptying it of everything related to politics and class. Behind the sharing paradigm, the seemingly innocent “Don’t Be Evil” (Google’s former slogan) capitalism hides substantial profits under the banner of the California Ideology.[6]6 “Don’t Be Evil” was an informal corporate motto of Google, later removed from its code of conduct in 2018, often cited as emblematic of Silicon Valley’s self-image as a benevolent force.

(II) The Evolution of Digital Socialism into the Narrative Discourse of “Protobia”

The “Russia-gate” incident surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election led that year to be widely regarded in the Western world as “the year tech giants truly overturned old-style political campaigning.”[7]7 “Russia-gate” refers to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, leading to investigations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The constant exposure of scandals such as election manipulation, privacy theft, and tax evasion triggered a “techlash” from the United States to the European Union against U.S. tech giants like Google and Facebook. In this negative form, Kevin Kelly’s “wordplay” prophecy became reality. Klaus Jensen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, pointed out that tech giants “seek to construct a public identity for themselves as servants of the people. But whistleblowers, policymakers, and the public have begun to question this particular identity politics.”[8]8 Klaus Bruhn Jensen, “From Techlash to Tech Support: The Digital Giants in a Time of Pandemic,” *Nordicom Review* 42, no. 1 (2021): 1-16. At the same time, the European and American left launched a wave of critique and reconceptualization of digital capitalism, with a flood of new terms emerging, including “platform capitalism” proposed by Nick Srnicek, the founder of left-wing accelerationism,[9]9 Nick Srnicek, *Platform Capitalism* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017). “surveillance capitalism” proposed by Shoshana Zuboff, a professor at Harvard University in the United States,[10]10 Shoshana Zuboff, *The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power* (New York: PublicAffairs, 2019). “rentier capitalism” proposed by Brett Christophers, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden,[11]11 Brett Christophers, *Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?* (London: Verso, 2020). and “cannibal capitalism” proposed by Nancy Fraser, a representative of the Frankfurt School,[12]12 Nancy Fraser, *Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System Is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet—and What We Can Do About It* (London: Verso, 2022). among others. These concepts have become widely popular in Western academia, exposing and critiquing digital financial capitalism from within.

In the face of this wave of criticism, Kevin Kelly proposed new terms to describe the bright prospects brought by technology. In his 2016 book *The Inevitable*, Kelly coined the new word “protopia” to define the bright prospects of technological acceleration. In the book, he depicts the positive changes brought by the prefix “pro,” which signifies progress, by predicting twelve technological trends, emphasizing that “dystopia and utopia are not our destinations. Instead, technology is leading us toward protopia.”[13]13 Kevin Kelly, *The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future* (New York: Viking, 2016), p. 12. This analytical framework, as a typical form of technological mysticism, strives to obscure the power subjects behind the direction of technological evolution and the contexts of its application, as well as the technological pathways of different power subjects. For example, blockchain technology can be used by sovereign states to develop digital currencies, or by tech companies to issue virtual tokens. In 2019, Facebook issued a “Libra” coin, claiming to establish a global virtual currency system and a financial infrastructure for billions of people. This shows that, with the sharp increase in economic strength and digital power, U.S. tech oligarchs have demonstrated a burgeoning ambition to replace nation-states as new global ruling hegemons, beginning with the power of currency issuance to undermine the sovereign foundations of nation-states.

Domestically in the United States, platform financialization is entangled with neoliberal governance techniques. Debtism constrains the relatively surplus population that surged sharply after the financial crisis, locking them into exploitative market relations and punitive institutions.[14]14 “Debtism” refers to a system where debt is used as a tool of social control and exploitation, particularly in post-2008 financial crisis contexts. This trend continuously exacerbates issues of income inequality and overcapacity in capitalist societies, also leading to a more intense and widespread “techlash.” Facing this unfavorable situation, Kevin Kelly calls for not simply “opposing big corporations,” and from the perspective of technological acceleration and the iteration of oligarchic companies, argues that “restricting GAFA is meaningless,” claiming such a backlash is “like refusing progress and demanding regression,”[15]15 GAFA is an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, representing the dominant U.S. tech oligopolies. emphasizing and depicting only the positive role of tech oligarchs in driving technological evolution, while ignoring their exploitative and anti-human values. It can be seen that from proposing “digital socialism” to shifting to “protopia,” Kevin Kelly continuously updates his narrative discourse to promote the values of cyber-neoliberalism, faithfully safeguarding the interests of the tech oligarch group. This precisely confirms the new judgment made by Richard Barbrook on the twentieth anniversary of the concept of the “California Ideology”: “Our exposure of the self-contradictions of *Wired* magazine’s laissez-faire politics has never been as pertinent as it is now. But it is still spreading in new disguises.”[16]16 Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, “The Californian Ideology,” *Mute* 1, no. 3 (1995); Richard Barbrook, “The Californian Ideology Revisited,” in *The Internet Revolution: From Dot-Com Capitalism to Cybernetic Communism* (Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2021).

(III) The Thorough Virtualization Orientation of the California Ideology and the Theoretical Predicament of Left-Wing Critical Paths

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. financial market experienced violent turbulence in March 2020. The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve System intervened jointly, even unprecedentedly directly purchasing corporate bonds to provide a safety net, and the “unlimited” quantitative easing policy drove a surge in U.S. stock markets. The stock prices of tech giants like “GAFA” inflated to historic highs. In July 2021, the total market capitalization of these four companies exceeded that of Japan, and their economic scale and influence were greater than those of most sovereign states in the world. To further enhance their digital dominance, these large tech companies proposed a technological pathway of thorough virtualization.

1. The “Metaverse” Technological Pathway of Shifting from Real to Virtual Liquidity flooding fueled financial speculation and fraud by digital capital. In the second half of 2021, U.S. tech giants hyped “metaverse”[17]17 “Metaverse” refers to a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, often associated with blockchain and Web 3.0 technologies. gaming concept stocks, and Facebook even directly renamed itself “Meta,” sparking a global “Web 3.0” “gold rush.” Starting from this, the “metaverse” concept rapidly extended from U.S. capital markets to various aspects of the real economy and social and cultural life in various countries, forming a strong inducement to shift from real to virtual. Blockchain, cloud computing, and interactive technologies were widely used to develop gamified finance (GameFi) models. The intellectual elite of the California Ideology strive to describe the decentralized nature of blockchain as the essential attribute of the “metaverse,” deliberately confusing the fundamental difference between technological endowment and capital logic, describing the capitalist mode of production as a “natural attribute of things,” attempting to enhance dominance by creating a virtual world parallel to reality. Bernard Marr, a “big data guru” working closely with multiple U.S. tech giants, following the consistent rhetoric of the California Ideology of “user empowerment,” strives to describe the positive significance of the “metaverse” as a new home, such as not only being able to purchase virtual assets like land but also finding jobs that do not exist in the real world to earn money.[18]18 Bernard Marr, “The Amazing Ways These Companies Use the Metaverse,” *Forbes*, November 15, 2021. Kevin Kelly further seizes on “data agency,” the key link empowering digital financial oligarchs, advocating that people hand over their personal activity data to companies, authorizing them to track their daily activities in full to participate in profit-sharing.[19]19 Kevin Kelly, “The Post-Platform Economy,” *Wired*, January 2022. Extracting data streams from people heralds that digital financial capitalism is constructing a new exploitative structure and control mechanism to replace the gig economy. With the accelerated evolution of technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence, capital, to avoid the collapse of relations of production based on exchange value as predicted by Marx,[20]20 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy* (London: Penguin, 1973), p. 706. launches large-scale movements of “cloud enclosure” plus “cloud enclosure of people,” pushing the platform economy to fully iterate toward the “metaverse” virtual economy, thereby consolidating capitalist relations of production in the virtual world. Hasmet Uluorta and Laurence Quill remind people that the platform, as a virtual community, is also a laboratory for psychological and economic modeling, capable of collecting emotional and biometric data through cameras and wearable technology. But what they find ironic is that some platform founders strictly forbid their own children from using these new technologies they have developed.[21]21 Hasmet Uluorta and Laurence Quill, “The Metaverse and the Future of Work,” *New Left Review* 134 (2022): 45-68. The Silicon Valley technological pathway of developing the “metaverse” treats people as means of production, inverting subject and object.

2. The Left’s Tilt toward the Techno-Feudalism Critique Framework Sparks Internal Debate. Many Western digital technology experts have launched sharp criticisms of the concept of the “metaverse.” Some point out that the “metaverse” describes a hellish scene, a fully financialized world stripped of any culture or value. Others argue that the term “metaverse” is being abused by tech giants who seek private gain above the law, degenerating into a regressive model of slavery under the guise of “digital twins.”[22]22 The term “digital twin” refers to a virtual replica of a physical object or system, used here critically to suggest a deceptive simulation masking exploitative labor relations. Analogies of this kind concerning the regression of social formations have been widespread since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, not only rapidly rising as a new critical framework but also attracting some prominent left-wing scholars to tilt toward right-wing critical logic.

Since 2020, right-wing scholars in the United States, represented by Joel Kotkin, have proposed a critical framework of “neo-feudalism.” Kotkin argues that the tech oligarchs and the ideological stratum serving them, like reborn new aristocrats and clerical elites, sit atop a new class structure in Western society, while beneath them lies a declining middle class and a burgeoning proletarian “new serfdom.” This view quickly resonated. For example, University of Toronto professor Richard Florida commented: “Our society and economy are no longer progressing but regressing into a kind of ‘neo-feudalism.’ As Joel Kotkin describes it, our once-great middle class is being hollowed out, and America is splitting into fiefdoms held by a small group of super-oligarchs.”[23]23 Joel Kotkin is an American conservative author and professor known for urban studies and critiques of oligarchy. Richard Florida is a Canadian urban studies theorist known for the “creative class” concept. Prominent left-wing scholars have also been drawn to this critical framework. For instance, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, French economist Cédric Durand, and American political scientist Jodi Dean have shifted the focus of critique from capitalist exploitation to a new surplus appropriation with feudal characteristics, labeling it with similar terms such as “techno-feudalism.”[24]24 Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist and politician who served as Finance Minister in 2015. Cédric Durand is a French economist specializing in digital capitalism. Jodi Dean is an American political theorist associated with the “communist horizon” current.

This academic phenomenon has sparked fierce debate within the left-wing camp. Morozov sharply criticizes that the two ideological extremes—left and right—have nearly converged in their shared description of the neo-feudal theory. The left’s slide into the right’s discourse system precisely indicates its difficulty in proposing a theoretically penetrating analytical framework to understand the changes occurring within global capitalism. Morozov points out a key theoretical flaw, arguing that the techno-feudalism perspective excludes the state and geopolitics, underestimating the role the U.S. government played in boosting Silicon Valley’s rise as a global tech-economic hegemon. This critical framework may have applicability for weaker European and Latin American countries, which in recent years have almost become “colonies” of American companies, with their sovereignty “partitioned” among many tech lords. But this framework does not apply to the United States; if the long-term ties between Silicon Valley tech companies and the U.S. military are ignored, the dominant position of the U.S. tech industry cannot be understood.[25]25 Evgeny Morozov is a Belarusian-born writer and researcher known for critical analyses of digital technology and its political implications. Left-wing scholars such as Cédric Durand, Jodi Dean, and Cecilia Rikap immediately wrote rebuttals, each explaining the basic rationale of the neo-feudal theory from their own perspectives. Dean, from the angle of the relationship between corporate and state power, argues that Morozov distorts the discussion of partitioned sovereignty in contemporary feudalism and neo-feudalization debates, emphasizing that the key issue is extra-economic expropriation. Dean contends that today’s economic actors, just as feudal lords both exploited peasants and held judicial authority over them, also exercise political power according to the terms and conditions they set. With the privatized partition of sovereignty, political authority and economic power are combined. The law does not apply to those capable of evading it. Governments treat giant companies like “GAFA” as if they were sovereign states. Highly concentrated wealth possesses its own constituent power, determining the rules it will follow or disregard.[26]26 “GAFA” is an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, commonly used in European critical discourse to denote dominant U.S. tech platforms.

Other left-wing scholars argue that both sides of the debate have failed to grasp the crux of the issue, thus proposing new terms and critical frameworks. For example, Timothy Strom argues that the roots of the rise of U.S. tech giants lie in the World War II-era U.S. military-industrial complex, but this is neither the profit exploitation of capitalism as usual, as Morozov insists, nor the unproductive rent-seeking criticized by neo-feudal theory, but rather an expansionist new empire. Strom emphasizes that the research spending controlled by U.S. tech giants exceeds the level of ordinary countries, reaching the scale of a superpower, covering technological innovations in biotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, logistics, and urban infrastructure. From this perspective, “cybernetic capitalism” is a more explanatory critical framework.[27]27 Timothy Strom is a scholar writing on cybernetics and political economy. “Cybernetic capitalism” refers to a framework analyzing how feedback and control systems shape capitalist accumulation. Prominent left-wing scholars such as Robert Brenner use the more elastic term “political capitalism” to characterize capitalism in the digital finance era, arguing that powerful forces within the U.S. ruling class have abandoned interest in productive investment, instead using political means for upward wealth redistribution, leading to profound structural changes in the capitalist accumulation system.[28]28 Robert Brenner is a prominent American Marxist historian and economist, known for the Brenner Debate on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The proposal of this analytical framework has triggered a new round of fierce debate involving several generations of left-wing scholars.[29]29 This debate involves multiple generations of left-wing scholars, including those associated with Monthly Review, the New Left Review, and younger digital economy theorists. While the left is entangled in how to accurately define and describe the exploitative logic of digital finance capitalism, Silicon Valley’s big tech companies and their global hegemonic subsets are embedding new rules into new technologies. “Web 3.0,” built on this logic, will bring problems even more severe and complex than those brought by “Web 2.0,” and will also be more difficult to observe and reveal.

Replacing Capitalism: Western Left-Wing Theoretical Models for Constructing Digital Socialism

At a time when the Western left’s critique of capitalism is increasingly tilting toward right-wing theoretical logic and discourse systems, emerging currents within the left-wing camp, such as accelerationism, attempt to forge a constructive theoretical path and practical program. As the crisis within capitalism deepens, the political status of left-wing forces is rising, and the Western world is once again being attracted to socialist theory. Against this backdrop, young left-wing scholars have reclaimed the concept of “digital socialism” from Silicon Valley theorists, re-examining and redeveloping it within the grand temporal and spatial structure of history and theory to form new alternatives to capitalism. Currently, the constructive paths of left-wing scholars regarding digital socialism are roughly developing along three lines of innovation. The first is to deeply excavate and fully draw on the theoretical resources and practical cases of the century-long “socialist economic calculation debate,” re-exploring the feasibility of socialist economic planning under new digital technological conditions. The second is to focus on Marx’s classic thesis on machinofacture, seizing core elements such as “general intellect,” and proposing a socialist digital platform construction plan. The third is to construct a blockchain socialist code governance path from the perspective of sublating the capitalist credit system.

(I) Revitalizing the “Socialist Economic Calculation Debate”: Replacing Market Competition and the Price System

As is well known, the capitalist economy is organized through the interaction of market competition and the price system. The market pricing mechanism rigidly reduces complex social regulation to a single standard, ignoring all non-economic costs such as social justice. How, then, should a socialist economy be organized to achieve social regulation? In the view of classical Marxist writers, the socialist economy is “a socially planned regulation of production according to the needs of society as a whole and of each of its members.” [30]30 Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3, Chapter 48. The original quotation is from Marx’s discussion of the “realm of freedom” under communism. For over a century, whether a socialist economic plan can create a substitute for the price system, ensure sufficient information flows to support central planning in making correct production decisions, and provide the required economic output in a reasonable and effective manner has become a core issue of competition between left-wing and right-wing theories. Beginning in the 1920s, the Austrian right-wing economist Mises and his student Hayek successively challenged the left, asserting that the absence of a price system doomed socialist central planning to failure. This famous assertion triggered a protracted “socialist economic calculation debate” between left and right, whose main arena shifted successively from Austria to Britain and the United States, and whose focus turned to fields such as neoclassical economics, informatics, and cybernetics. Entering the 1960s and 1970s, the left began to use computers to construct models of the socialist planned economy. The British scholar Stephen Bodington argued that “communication through the market can be entirely conducted through a computer-based information system.” [31]31 Stephen Bodington, “Computers and Socialism,” 1973. Bodington was a British Marxist economist and cybernetician. These theoretical models became early practices of digital socialism. Both the Soviet Union and the Allende government in Chile attempted to build nationwide computer-networked resource allocation systems, but these could not be carried out under complex geopolitical circumstances. [32]32 The Soviet Union’s OGAS (All-State Automated System) project and Chile’s Project Cybersyn under Salvador Allende (1970–1973) were early attempts at computer-managed economic planning, both interrupted by political and economic crises. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, neoliberalism led by the United States dominated the global economy, and socialist economic planning waned in both theory and practice. It was not until recent years, with the rapid advancement of digital technology, that new forces within the left camp discovered that data could potentially replace the price system as the main organizational tool of the economy. They thus began to re-examine and draw upon the theoretical resources of the century-long debate, re-explore the feasibility of socialist economic planning, and propose new theoretical models.

1. Creating a Digital “Feedback Infrastructure”

On the basis of summarizing and refining left-wing theoretical frameworks, Morozov proposes using digital tools generated under neoliberal conditions to challenge neoliberalism, creating a digital “feedback infrastructure” for non-market forms of social coordination. Regarding feedback mechanisms, there are mainly three types: First, replacing Hayek’s competitive spontaneous order with a “collaborative discovery procedure,” whereby the digital “feedback infrastructure” algorithmically matches the two social groups of “problem finders” and “problem solvers,” making implicit social problems and social needs tangible and explicit through social collaboration, and adding solutions to a “shared pool,” thereby achieving social sharing. Second, replacing the market pricing mechanism with a non-market mechanism, liberating social coordination from the heavy ideological burden of the price system. This model revives the core framework of “Project Cybersyn” designed by the British cybernetician Stafford Beer for the Allende government in Chile, arguing that advances in information technology can greatly amplify the diversity of social regulation. Under conditions of big data, by redesigning the underlying organizational structure of the “feedback infrastructure,” using flows of physical information to replace the market, it becomes possible to describe internal and external complexity more accurately and in real time, check the system’s contingency plans for handling problems, and promptly adjust the organizational structure. Third, achieving a dual transcendence of both socialist central planning and the capitalist price system through “automated decentralized planning.” This proposal originates from the guild socialist construction framework of the American radical economist Daniel Saros, combining cutting-edge technologies such as the consumption prediction algorithms of large technology companies with non-capitalist spirit, constructing a “master catalog” of products and services controlled by workers’ councils, thereby achieving a decentralized, automated mode of coordination. [33]33 Daniel Saros, “Information Technology and Socialist Planning,” 2014. Saros is an American economist who advocates a guild socialist model using modern IT. Morozov points out that the key point of the above three feedback mechanisms all points to the socialization of the digital “feedback infrastructure.” If the digital “feedback infrastructure” remains the private property of Silicon Valley tech giants, then the democratic transformation to create an alternative model of social coordination will not be realized. [34]34 Yevgeny Morozov is a Belarusian-born writer and researcher known for his critiques of digital capitalism and Silicon Valley ideology. Yevgeny Morozov (Image source: Wikipedia website)

2. Combining the Lange Model and the Neurath Model: A Socialist Economic Plan Based on Algorithms + Protocols

Aaron Benanav, a postdoctoral researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin, proposes a model of socialist economic planning that combines algorithms and protocols. [35]35 Aaron Benanav is a contemporary Marxist scholar whose work focuses on automation, economic planning, and the future of work. This construction framework shares common ground with the third feedback mechanism summarized by Morozov, namely, dismantling the price system and transforming some of its functions. However, unlike Saros, Morozov, and others who place greater emphasis on technical issues and digital infrastructure, Benanav focuses more on the question of mechanisms—that is, how to embed democratic production decisions into the planning mechanism. He traces and summarizes the classic left-wing theoretical frameworks from the early “socialist economic calculation debate,” combining the algorithmic model proposed by Oskar Lange (using advanced programming forms to calculate the optimal allocation of resources) with the protocol model proposed by Otto Neurath (making planning decisions based on multiple incommensurable non-economic criteria and coordinating these decisions across society), attempting to construct a democratic planning procedure assisted by algorithms and value standards. However, whether it is the digital “feedback infrastructure” or the socialist economic plan combining algorithms and protocols, these participatory models essentially exclude the role of government, delegating the decision-making power for ex-ante coordination and ex-post adjustment of the economic plan to corporatist organizations such as workers’ councils.

3. Reviving Polanyi’s Internal Overview Model in “Socialist Accounting”

The first phase of the “great socialist calculation debate” in the 1920s originated from Mises’s fierce opposition to Neurath’s proposed economic model of moneyless management based on calculation in kind, which Mises regarded as far removed from economic rationality. The key to calculation in kind lies in avoiding the reduction of the multiple dimensions of value to a single denominator and in repositioning society’s evaluation of economic activity as values that cannot be expressed through monetary calculation. This topic attracted the participation of Karl Polanyi, whose essay “Socialist Accounting” responded to Mises’s challenge, using Mises’s marginalism to reach the opposite conclusion — that a socialist economy is possible — and, building on Neurath’s model, conceived an accounting system for the socialist economy. Polanyi emphasized the importance of the accounting problem for the entire theory and practice of socialism. Accounting is a quantitative overview of economic activity; it reifies the socio-economic process into accounting units that can be aggregated, and it also brings certain elements of the socio-economic process into or out of the scope of statistics, creating a knowledge system oriented toward economic governance. The capitalist economy is centered on profit, and its accounting system provides an overview of the relationship between each element of capital and profit. Polanyi opposed laissez-faire capitalist thought but used marginalism as a theoretical tool to construct an accounting system suited to the goals of a socialist economy, providing from within the system a calculation and oversight of the system’s “natural costs” and “social costs” — that is, the technical costs of maximizing productive forces and the costs related to social justice. Polanyi particularly emphasized the importance of calculating social costs in a verifiable form, so that subjective factors such as workers’ “burden,” “effort,” and “sacrifice” could be made visible.[36]36 Karl Polanyi, “Sozialistische Rechnungslegung,” *Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik* 49 (1922): 377–420. English translation: “Socialist Accounting,” in *Karl Polanyi: The Hungarian Writings*, ed. Gareth Dale (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), 59–76. A century later, Sylvia Rief, an associate professor at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, rediscovered the institutional framework of “internal overview” that Polanyi proposed in “Socialist Accounting,” pointing out that this long-neglected theoretical resource deserves attention. Rief argues that current data infrastructure reinforces the tendency toward knowledge concentration, with a few large enterprises and administrative agencies dominating the overview of users or members, and their technical means are deeply rooted in capitalist value extraction, behavioral governance, and surveillance, often failing to increase the transparency of social production and consumption relations. The internal overview mechanism constructed by Polanyi contains the Marxist critical logic of commodity fetishism and is beneficial for overcoming the reified reality and reified consciousness caused by data analysis. Rief criticizes that Morozov tends to take “feedback infrastructure” and the descriptive and predictive capabilities of big data for granted, implying that the recorded traces of digital activity represent subjective evaluations, and does not acknowledge that data has already been pre-shaped by “evaluation infrastructure” and algorithmic forms of intervention, rendering the abstract violence of the data-driven economy invisible. Cédric Durand calls this assumption “naive empiricist epistemology,” namely, the assumption that a new knowledge system will proceed through pure automatic induction — data will provide truth without the interference of theory. In reality, theory is embodied in algorithms. Big data is not neutral but carries social biases and relations of domination.[37]37 Cédric Durand, *Techno-féodalisme: Critique de l’économie numérique* (Paris: Zones, 2020). Rief believes that Polanyi’s model precisely solves this problem. Polanyi’s pragmatic view of the accounting system focuses on treating the overview as an artifact, constrained by different methods of data construction and analysis as well as forms of social organization, which promote or hinder external, internal, leadership, or membership overviews. If data analysis is regarded not merely as an overview but as an important component of the current economic process, then specific methods are needed to comprehensively understand these data analysis tools themselves. Furthermore, solving the knowledge problem of socialist calculation in Polanyi’s way means that if freedom and human dignity are to be maintained, the first-order narratives of individual lives and social members must have a place in social knowledge.[38]38 Sylvia Rief, “Internal Overview: Karl Polanyi’s Socialist Accounting and the Digital Transformation,” *New Political Economy* 28, no. 4 (2023): 601–616.

(2) Returning to the “Fragment on Machines”: A Radical Reform Path Based on Digital Worker Autonomy

Another theoretical thread of radical leftist construction of digital socialism takes as its theoretical guideline Marx’s discussion of mechanized large-scale production in the *Grundrisse* (1857–1858), specifically the section “Fixed Capital and the Development of the Productive Forces of Society”[39]39 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie* (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953), 583–594. English translation: *Grundrisse*, trans. Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin, 1973), 690–712. (widely referred to in Western academia as the “Fragment on Machines”). It continues the theoretical lineage of Italian autonomism and post-Fordism, attempting to construct new digital platforms based on worker autonomy, adjust data power relations, and promote the socialization of the “general intellect,” thereby achieving a dual transcendence of digital capitalism and traditional socialism.

1. Creating a “Republic of the Multitude”: Promoting the Socialization of the “General Intellect”

Paolo Virno proposed establishing a “Republic of the Multitude” as a non-state public sphere, a core concept of Italian autonomism. This concept is closely related to the development of spiritual productive forces such as scientific knowledge, focusing on how cognitive labor and the socialized worker are constituted.[40]40 Paolo Virno, *A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life*, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, and Andrea Casson (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004). Following this line of thought, Michael Peters, a professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, argues that digital socialism is essentially a debate over intellectual property and the ownership of digital means of production,[41]41 Michael A. Peters, “Digital Socialism or Knowledge Socialism?,” *Educational Philosophy and Theory* 52, no. 4 (2020): 345–352. and accordingly proposes a construction path of “knowledge socialism,” which he claims can replace “knowledge capitalism” centered on intellectual property systems and the maximization of efficiency and profit, creating an open knowledge economy and open knowledge production model.[42]42 Michael A. Peters, “Knowledge Socialism: The Rise of Peer Production – Collegiality, Collaboration, and Collective Intelligence,” *Educational Philosophy and Theory* 53, no. 1 (2021): 1–9. Michael Kwet, a young scholar at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, holds a similar view. He argues that copyright and patents are core pillars concentrating ownership, wealth, and power in the hands of tech giants and even small enterprises; therefore, phasing out intellectual property is an effective way to redistribute wealth and income. He suggests replacing contracts for products and services between public sectors such as schools and governments and large tech companies with open-source software.[43]43 Michael Kwet, “Digital Socialism: A Blueprint for Building an Alternative Internet,” *Monthly Review* 73, no. 3 (2021): 1–16. These construction paths show an inherent consistency with the view of socializing the “general intellect” proposed by Italian autonomism and post-Fordism. Virno once pointed out that, in principle, conceiving political action based on the “general intellect” hinges on “inoperativity” and “exodus,” using these methods to prevent the abundant knowledge from being “transferred” to the administrative power of the state and to prevent its structure from becoming a productive resource for capitalist enterprises.[44]44 Paolo Virno, “Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus,” in *Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics*, ed. Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 189–210.

Practice has shown that the socialization and mobility of occupations in the digital age have not only failed to develop a public “general intellect” and strengthen the subjective rights of the “multitude,” but have instead developed new labor forms of “digital Taylorism.” Moritz Altenried, a researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin, emphasizes that algorithmic management and control over the labor process allow capital to absorb labor power through new forms beyond the traditional factory. As stable work patterns under Fordism are replaced by flexible labor and unstable multiple labor, a large “crowd-work class” has emerged, realizing the labor reorganization and “labor multiplication” required by capital.[45]45 Moritz Altenried, *The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022). In this regard, neither flexible employment nor open intellectual property can confront the capitalist “digital factory”; they can only exacerbate the alienation of “living labor.” It is in this sense that Rata strongly opposes the path of knowledge socialization and open access, pointing out that this kind of participatory collaboration, peer production, combined with more flexible intellectual property, can only ultimately strengthen the sharing paradigm on which capitalism thrives, and will absolutely not lead to digital socialism.[46]46 Elizabeth Rata, “Knowledge Socialism and the Digital Divide,” *Educational Philosophy and Theory* 53, no. 1 (2021): 10–13.

2. Confronting “Cloud Capital”: Creating a Socialist Internet

Although the left internally has diverged in its judgment of the direction of contemporary capitalism, they share a common concern over the severe challenges posed by the privatization of the Internet. Yanis Varoufakis argues that the privatization of the Internet commons has given rise to a new, super-powerful “cloud capital.” This “cloud capital” will engender a new ruling class, whose revolutionary character lies in driving nearly all of humanity to labor for it for free, turning people into playthings of algorithms.[47]47 Yanis Varoufakis, “Techno-feudalism Is Taking Over,” Project Syndicate, June 28, 2021. An important problem that the left seeks to resolve by proposing the theory of digital socialism is to destroy the soil that breeds “cloud capital.” From the standpoint of calling for autonomy for media labor, the critical school of communication studies has put forward the proposition of creating a “utopian socialist Internet.”[48]48 Christian Fuchs, “The Utopian Internet, the Real Internet, and the Public Service Internet,” in *Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism*, ed. Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 482. Between 2019 and 2021, Christian Fuchs, a prominent emerging figure in the critical school of communication studies, organized a social survey on the “public service media utopia,” which ultimately resulted in the *Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto*, proposing the creation of a public service Internet composed of public service media to replace the commercial Internet dominated by tech giants. This public service Internet embeds a “new, radical governance structure that makes public service media independent of any external influence, such as governments and commercial interests.”[49]49 Christian Fuchs and Klaus Unterberger, eds., *The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto* (London: University of Westminster Press, 2021), 3. During this period, Fuchs, in his capacity as co-editor of the journal *Communication, Capitalism & Critique*, organized a special feature on “Communicative Socialism / Digital Socialism,” consisting of one overview article and fourteen academic papers,[50]50 Christian Fuchs and Paško Bilić, eds., “Communicative Socialism / Digital Socialism,” special issue, *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021). subjecting Internet replacement plans to a multi-dimensional examination within a left-wing theoretical framework. In the overview, Fuchs systematically examined classic texts such as the “Fragment on Machines,” calling on media workers worldwide to unite in struggle, seize collective control over the means of communication production, and create democratically governed public media spaces.[51]51 Christian Fuchs, “Communicative Socialism / Digital Socialism,” *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021): 1–35. It can be seen that Fuchs does not follow Marx’s logic of the dialectical opposition between productive forces and relations of production; instead, he continues the Italian autonomist theoretical interpretation and political practice of the “Fragment on Machines,” treating media practitioners as an external subject capable of confronting digital finance capital, with his political strategy for breakthrough relying on calling on media workers to unite and advance digital socialism.

A comprehensive review of the special feature papers reveals that this academic community generally conducts theoretical exploration from the perspective of autonomous subjectivity theory. For example, Christopher Cox conceives of humans and automation technology as autonomous subjects juxtaposed with capital, endowing both with a common subjectivity as labor entities, and advocates achieving the political revolution of digital socialism through human-machine autonomy (an alliance of humans and automation technology).[52]52 Christopher Cox, “The Human and the Machine in the Communist Horizon,” *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021): 36–52. Sai Englert et al., building on workerism, propose the new category of “digital workerism,” emphasizing that platform workers’ struggle is key to establishing alternatives.[53]53 Sai Englert et al., “Digital Workerism: Technology, Platforms, and the Politics of Labor,” *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021): 53–68. Hardy Hanappi makes a theoretical hypothesis that if the global scientific community could develop into a new class of “organic intellectuals” and provide a new design for a global mode of production, it might be possible to eliminate the vast North-South divide caused by capitalist algorithms and the epochal alienation of information overload.[54]54 Hardy Hanappi, “Digital Socialism: A New Mode of Production for the 21st Century,” *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021): 69–84. Subsequently, Fuchs himself, in a new book published in 2023, proposed strategies such as advancing digital democracy through digital ethics.[55]55 Christian Fuchs, *Digital Ethics: Media, Communication and Society* (London: Routledge, 2023). None of these innovative theories have transcended the interpretive framework of the “Fragment on Machines” established by Negri, Hardt, and others, sliding into the theoretical rut of an “ethicist subject politics.”[56]56 The term “ethicist subject politics” refers to a political approach that relies on the ethical transformation of individual subjects rather than structural economic change, often criticized as a departure from Marxist class analysis.

3. Restructuring Data Ownership: Adjusting Data Power Relations

With the exponential growth of global data volumes, US tech giants control incalculable big data capital, their dominant position growing ever stronger and their capacity for domination expanding without limit. They can not only reconfigure user data into measurable, monetizable techno-economic objects, but also control production and distribution across various industries through data flows, including traditional pillar industries vital to the national economy and people’s livelihoods. For example, in recent years, Microsoft and the “GAFA” [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon] have aggressively entered digital agriculture, abusing digital power to promote centralized, standardized, and non-localized supply of agricultural products, encouraging the use of chemicals, and exacerbating multiple crises in the global food system.[57]57 See, for example, Sarah Rotz and Evan Fraser, “The Digital Divide: Data, Power, and the Future of Food,” *Journal of Peasant Studies* 48, no. 4 (2021): 741–766. As sentiment against tech giants in the Western world deepens with aversion and fear, the New Brandeisian movement has emerged in the United States, the European Union has accelerated the fostering of its own local tech giants, and sanctions such as antitrust laws, privacy regulations, and progressive taxation have been continuously introduced.

Against this backdrop, the European and American left attempts to utilize these legislative regulations under the neoliberal framework to develop data ownership replacement plans conducive to advancing digital socialism. A typical example is the “democracy that owns data” model proposed by Roberta Fischli, a researcher at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland,[58]58 Roberta Fischli, “Democracy That Owns Data: A Republican Model of Data Governance,” *New Media & Society* 24, no. 8 (2022): 1856–1874. which aims to distribute data as a new form of capital widely among citizens without shaking the overall structure of the capitalist digital economy. This model constructs a two-tier democratic data structure based on public data and personal data. The first tier refers to citizens being able to collectively generate data using digital public infrastructure and having a say in how this data is used; the second tier refers to individuals automatically receiving a copy of the data when generating it, and using the autonomous decision-making power granted to data owners by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation to convert compensation from secondary use of personal data into personal income. The operational mechanism of the second-tier structure is modeled on the EU-sponsored Barcelona “DECODE” project, which uses blockchain technology to build a distributed data ecosystem, allowing citizens to control their own personal data. The theoretical foundation of this model is Philip Pettit’s neo-republican conception of democracy, which pursues a freedom from domination and presupposes the commercialization of personal data, echoing the mainstream model of US digital economy reform. Examples include the “data dividend” proposed by Andrew Yang, a candidate in the 2020 US presidential election Democratic primaries, and the “data New Deal” proposed by MIT professor Sandy Pentland.

However, James Muldoon, a professor at the University of Exeter in the UK and proponent of “platform socialism,” raises objections. He argues that Fischli’s model is too constrained by the current power structure of the digital economy and does not take sufficiently forceful intervention measures to change the power relations between citizens and corporations. First, the one-way power structure in which tech companies collect citizens’ personal data and commercialize it remains unchanged. Second, curbing the business models of tech companies does not help enhance citizens’ economic capacity or provide them with any value generated by the data. The inherent flaws of this theoretical model determine that it is not conducive to the creation of digital socialism.[59]59 James Muldoon, “Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim Our Digital Future from Big Tech,” *New Left Review* 134 (2022): 67–88. In contrast, the “democratic public ownership” model, linked to the “post-carbon economy,” attempts to push for more thorough political and economic change in the US and UK, returning digital infrastructure such as fiber optic networks, data platforms, intellectual property, land, and natural resources to public ownership, shaping a new ownership ecology.[60]60 See, for example, the “Democratic Public Ownership” model proposed by the Democracy Collaborative, a US think tank advocating for community wealth building. This conception attempts to form a consensus through policy dialogue, which is utterly impossible within the Western political framework. Also harboring such illusions is Jacqueline Hicks, a professor at the University of Nottingham in the UK. Hicks proposes incorporating non-Western legal traditions into the knowledge sources concerning data ownership, overcoming the market-oriented individualist property rights of Western law,[61]61 Jacqueline Hicks, “Data Sovereignty and the Global South: Towards a Pluralist Legal Framework,” *Third World Quarterly* 43, no. 5 (2022): 1023–1040. and is overly optimistic that social consensus and public pressure alone can shake the rigid structure of centuries of capitalist political construction, and that the Global South’s experience with data sharing will be voluntarily absorbed.

(III) Towards Blockchain Socialism: Sublating the Capitalist Credit System through Technological Endowment

If Fuchs’s proposal for an alternative commercial internet focuses on seeking a radical reform plan for media worker autonomy, then blockchain socialism attempts to reshape the rule system of economy and society through code governance. Blockchain socialism is a new trend of thought that has emerged in recent years in professional fields such as mathematics, computer science, and law. A group of globally leading left-wing blockchain experts attempt to find new tools to destroy the capitalist mode of production from Marx’s analysis of credit and fictitious capital. However, because these researchers hold vastly different views on monetary theory, their alternative proposals for repairing cryptocurrencies and creating a moneyless economy have formed two divergent exploratory paths.

1. Redesigning Cryptocurrencies

In recent years, the practice of the United States shifting crises globally through the Federal Reserve System’s aggressive monetary policy has continuously triggered interest rate cut/hike races among countries following suit to ensure their own currency stability. The credit of the dollar standard has become shaky, and it increasingly exposes the fundamental defect of fiat currency—the necessity to trust central banks to maintain currency stability, yet the history of fiat currency is filled with violations of this trust. The core value of blockchain technology lies in maintaining a consistent ledger through a distributed consensus mechanism, providing the possibility of creating a modern digital currency system that transcends the traditional centralized banking system. However, current cryptocurrencies in the capital market have not demonstrated the advantages of decentralization; the proof-of-work mechanism they employ instead brings new problems such as massive energy waste, high carbon emissions, and centralization of computing power. There are three reasons for this: First, the computing power for “mining” is “all highly monopolized by large capitalized mining pools and large mining institutions.”[62]62 A reference to the concentration of computing power in large mining pools and institutions, a phenomenon criticized by left-wing blockchain experts. Second, “coin speculation”[63]63 “Coin speculation” refers to speculative trading in cryptocurrencies, often associated with market volatility and fraud. has formed a huge vortex of “pseudo-blockchain” financial speculation and malfeasance. Taking Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency with the highest market value, as an example, its trading price has surged 360,000 times in the past fifteen years. The speed and degree of wealth concentration are even more extreme than fiat currency, and it provides an independent payment system that evades government regulation for tax evasion, money laundering, online drug transactions, and terrorist organization activities. Third, “ICO” (initial coin offering, a blockchain-based fundraising method), this new model of “raising coins with coins,” has already developed into a black hole absorbing illegal public funds.[64]64 ICO (initial coin offering) is a blockchain-based fundraising method that has been criticized for facilitating fraud and illegal fundraising. As a new variant of “IPO” (initial public offering), “ICO,” like the joint-stock companies criticized by Marx and Engels, reproduces “a whole set of speculation and fraud activities,” “a new financial aristocracy, a new group of parasites.”[65]65 A reference to Marx and Engels’s critique of joint-stock companies in *Capital*, where they describe the reproduction of speculation and a new financial aristocracy. The chaos of cryptocurrencies vividly confirms Marx’s profound thesis on the inherent dual nature of the credit system: “On the one hand, it develops the driving force of the capitalist mode of production—enrichment through the exploitation of others’ labor—into the purest and most colossal system of fraud and gambling, and increasingly restricts the number of those who exploit the social wealth; on the other hand, it constitutes the form of transition to a new mode of production.”[66]66 A quotation from Marx’s *Capital*, Volume 3, on the dual nature of the credit system.

Devraj Basu and Murdoch Gabbay believe that the arc of economic development since the end of World War II seemed to reach the end Marx predicted in 2008, with growth in both labor and capital productivity simultaneously stagnating, ultimately heading toward a social collapse.[67]67 A reference to the 2008 global financial crisis, seen by some Marxists as a turning point in capitalist development. Left-wing crypto-radicals believe that for blockchain to function, the key lies in redesigning a monetary system based on code governance. First, the money supply is controlled by code to prevent currency depreciation caused by unauthorized increases in the money supply.[68]68 A reference to algorithmic control of money supply, a key feature of some cryptocurrency designs. Second, the right to mint coins is democratized, making it truly a right granted to citizens by code, preventing countries or platforms issuing fiat currency/tokens from collecting seigniorage. At the same time, to counter the globalization of tokens dominated by crypto-financial capital, encryption technology experts represented by Joshua Davila and legal experts represented by Primavera De Filippi strongly oppose the “network state” ideology[69]69 “Network state” ideology refers to the concept of a decentralized, code-governed political entity, criticized by left-wing crypto-radicals. and have proposed a counter-alternative of building a “coordination state.”[70]70 “Coordination state” is an alternative concept proposed by left-wing crypto-radicals to build a decentralized, ecologically oriented governance system. They hope to attract “decentralized autonomous organizations” (DAOs) in fields such as regenerative finance to turn toward a left-wing construction framework,[71]71 DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) is a blockchain-based organizational structure, here envisioned as a tool for left-wing ecological coordination. thereby transforming the traditional cryptocurrency system that only directs one-way value flow to human society, incorporating more diverse natural capital currencies, and using code to build a monetary system subordinate to the third sector that is beneficial to ecological coordination.

2. Technical Experiments to Abolish Money

With the popularity of the concept that “everything can be tokenized,” the issue of the existence of tokens has increasingly triggered profound reflection in Western academia. Lorne Lantz and Daniel Cawrey, practitioners in the US cryptocurrency platform industry, point out: “Any project seeking stable asset value will not consider tokens a suitable solution. Any processing function involving unstable assets will prove problematic.”[72]72 A quotation from Lorne Lantz and Daniel Cawrey, criticizing the stability of token-based systems. People’s demand for tokens themselves is always merely a demand for their redeemability; personal motivation remains wealth accumulation. This is why cryptocurrencies are primarily driven by investors who intend to exchange them for fiat currency.[73]73 A reference to the speculative nature of cryptocurrency investment, driven by exchange into fiat currency. In this sense, crypto-radicals, by returning the “lord’s right to mint coins” to citizens through code, cannot dispel the mysterious character of the capitalist mode of production—“directly turning the relations of production themselves into things (money). This inversion occurs in all social forms that already have commodity production and monetary circulation.”[74]74 A quotation from Marx’s *Capital*, Volume 3, on the fetishism of money in capitalist production.

To completely end this bewitched and inverted world, the history of socialist development has always seen continuous theoretical imaginings and political practices of demonetization. From utopian socialists such as Owen, Fourier, and Weitling, to Second International revisionists such as Luxemburg, Kautsky, and Hilferding, to contemporary Western Marxists such as David Harvey and “non-market ecosocialists”[75]75 “Non-market ecosocialists” are a strand of ecosocialism that advocates for a moneyless, non-market economy. such as Anitra Nelson, all believe that socialist society should abolish money and create a moneyless economic and social system. In essence, money is a tool created by the credit system for itself, resulting in “the most peculiar I-other reflexive labor alienation” and “the highest false realm of the fetishism of capital (interest-bearing capital).”[76]76 A reference to Marx’s concept of the fetishism of capital, particularly interest-bearing capital, in *Capital*. In Marx’s words, “Without money, there can be no desire for enrichment itself.”[77]77 A quotation from Marx’s *Grundrisse*, on the relationship between money and the desire for enrichment. When discussing distribution according to labor, Marx and Engels also proposed using labor time as a measure of labor, but how to quantitatively compare labor, especially heterogeneous labor, is the most difficult and always unresolved question.

With the emergence of blockchain technology, some scholars have proposed using energy as a measure of labor,[78]78 Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell, “Energy as a Measure of Labour,” *Critique* 46, no. 1 (2018): 5–28. but whether energy or currency serves as the standard of value, there is in fact no essential difference, and neither can resolve the misleading nature of abstract measurement standards. For example, comparing the conversion rates of living energy and non-living energy, the energy expenditure of mental and physical labor, and the large amount of indirect energy input required for psychological development—their heterogeneity may still be overlooked and obscured in energy cost calculations.[79]79 See Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell, *Towards a New Socialism* (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1993). Furthermore, non-profit organizations in Europe and the United States are constantly exploring new technological models of barter, attempting to abandon commodity circulation based on exchange value and establish an economic system based on the direct exchange of products. For instance, the non-profit organization “The Money-Free Society,” which has a certain degree of social influence, is striving to build a currency-free “systemic reciprocity” economic system based on automation technology.[80]80 “The Money-Free Society” is a Western non-profit organization exploring automated, currency-free economic systems based on reciprocity. However, this is nothing more than benchmarking against the world’s largest cooperative economic model—Spain’s Mondragón (whose highly complex organizational structure has even approached that of a national system)—to establish a “stable society” belonging solely to petty-bourgeois socialists.[81]81 Mondragón is a Spanish federation of worker cooperatives founded in 1956, often cited as a large-scale cooperative model. There is also the emerging “online barter” experimental model, which uses an algorithm to replace currency for barter transactions, but this merely omits the intermediary of currency, still requiring an intermediate process of equivalent conversion of goods. Some have pointed out that, with deepening research into the circulation process and reproduction process, Marx abandoned the idea of a currency-free settlement. Karl-Erich Vollgraf, a member of the editorial board of the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), emphasizes that “in a manuscript first published in 2012, Marx considered that the more production proceeds on a social scale, the more necessary bookkeeping becomes as supervision and conceptual summary of the production process, and therefore it is most necessary in public production.”[82]82 Karl-Erich Vollgraf, “Marx’s Notes on Bookkeeping and the Abandonment of Moneyless Settlement,” *Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung* 2012, 45–62. That is to say, currency as a bookkeeping currency or unit of account still exists; what must be eliminated is only the capital attribute of currency, namely value that valorizes itself.

The Value, Limitations, and Implications of Western Left-Wing Digital Socialist Theory

Analyzing the historical lineage and theoretical trends of Western digital socialist thought aims to deeply understand and comprehensively grasp the internal crises of the Western world in the era of digital financial capitalism, especially the positive factors contained within these crises. A dialectical analysis of the value and limitations of Western left-wing digital socialist construction paths can reveal beneficial implications for non-Western countries.

(I) The Value Contributions of Western Left-Wing Digital Socialist Theory

The various digital socialist theoretical models and their social practices proposed by the emerging Western left-wing schools aim to nurture new digital productive forces, peer-to-peer digital relations of production, trustworthy digital financial systems, reciprocal digital ecological environments, public digital media platforms, and open-source digital knowledge supply systems in the final “scorched earth phase” of capitalism.[83]83 “Scorched earth phase” refers to a stage of capitalism where it exhausts all resources and social relations, leaving only destruction. These theoretical conceptions deeply touch upon many fundamental theoretical issues of the two social formations, and their theoretical value and practical contributions are mainly reflected in the following four pairs of categories.

1. The Combination of Critique and Construction

Compared with some prominent scholars in the Western left who have shifted toward the critical framework and discourse system of right-wing “techno-feudalism,” the emerging left-wing schools consistently adhere to the critical track of “digital capitalism,” and on this basis propose construction paths for digital socialism. They are quite sensitive and vigilant about the theoretical opposition and discursive boundaries between the two ideologies, insist on grasping the root causes of digital exploitation, wealth polarization, cultural fragmentation, and knowledge rupture from within the internal crises of capitalism, and thus propose targeted solutions. This demonstrates a strong theoretical consciousness and robust innovative vitality, forming a positive constructive force.

2. The Interaction of Theory and Practice

The various digital socialist theoretical models proposed by the Western left are not “heavenly” philosophy remaining at the metaphysical level, but rather a practical philosophy aimed at solving real crises, exhibiting a strong characteristic of combining theory with practice, and possessing an extremely broad historical depth. On the one hand, they delve into a century of history to excavate the rich theoretical resources accumulated in the struggle between socialism and capitalism, re-recognizing and exploring the contemporary value of these theoretical resources under new digital conditions. On the other hand, they look toward the future to construct alternatives to capitalism, outlining the operational mechanisms and governance frameworks of digital socialism. For example, the current technical route proposed by blockchain socialists to redesign cryptocurrencies is engaged in a sharp struggle with the “recentralization”[84]84 “Recentralization” here refers to efforts by Silicon Valley elites to reassert centralized control over digital financial systems, countering the decentralization ethos of blockchain. route of digital finance quietly promoted by Silicon Valley elites, mobilizing decentralized autonomous organizations in the field of regenerative finance to turn toward left-wing technical routes.

3. Comparison of East and West

Compared with the previous tendency of Western academia to underestimate non-Western countries, in recent years the Western left has paid close attention to the achievements and progress of digital construction in China and other non-Western countries, with evaluations becoming increasingly high and friendly. For example, Varoufakis has repeatedly affirmed China’s digital construction path in his monographs and speeches, arguing that “China may mobilize local cloud finance to implement a growth model no longer dependent on the US trade deficit,” and in this regard, “China may have more options than the United States.”[85]85 Yanis Varoufakis, *Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present* (London: Bodley Head, 2020), 145. Another example is the latest special issue organized by scholars such as Fuchs, “Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theory and Practice,” which has already taken China as an important object of comparison and source of cases.[86]86 Christian Fuchs et al., eds., “Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theory and Practice,” special issue, *TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 20, no. 2 (2022). Objectively speaking, the research mentality of Western academia toward China’s digital construction path is quite complex. American scholar Nathan Schneider once mentioned an example in an interview with Barbrook: the rising right-wing Hegelianism in the United States also wants a planned state, and they are “very jealous of the Chinese.”[87]87 Nathan Schneider, interview with Richard Barbrook, “The Digital Commons and the Left,” *New Left Review* 128 (2021): 45–67. Although Western academia, including left-wing scholars, still has subjective assumptions and many biases in viewing China, China has already entered the central arena of Western digital theoretical research, which also reflects the relatively broad global perspective of left-wing scholars.

4. The Parallel Advancement of Community and Diversity

The field of Western left-wing digital socialist research brings together outstanding scholars from many disciplines, including not only philosophy, political economy, communication studies, finance, and law, but also basic and emerging disciplines such as mathematics, computer science, and brain science, with a prominent feature of interdisciplinary cross-integration. Scholars have diverse perspectives and viewpoints, and the technical routes they propose are even conflicting with each other. This is precisely one of the important reasons why current digital socialist theory presents complex and even hybrid characteristics of diversity. However, behind this diversity, there is also commonality and consistency. Some domestic scholars have reclassified the generative paths of left-wing digital socialist theory from the perspectives of factual judgment, value judgment, and logical judgment based on common characteristics.[88]88 See, for example, domestic scholar Zhang Yibing’s classification of digital socialist paths in “The Logic of Digital Socialism,” *Social Sciences in China* 42, no. 3 (2021): 4–25. From the observational perspective of disciplinary clustering, this article argues that multiple academic communities have initially formed in the current field of left-wing digital socialist research. For example, the digital socialist academic community of the critical school of communication studies centered on Fuchs and others; the blockchain digital socialist academic community centered on Joshua Dávila and others; and the platform digital socialist academic community centered on Michael Peters and others. These academic communities attract and unite groups of scholars oriented toward and inspired by Marxism, most of whom are top scholars in their respective research fields. Close intellectual exchange and academic interaction have generated a continuous stream of inspiration and ideas, driving left-wing digital socialist theoretical research to exhibit strong innovative momentum and vitality.

(II) The Inherent Limitations of Western Left-Wing Digital Socialist Theory

Although left-wing digital socialist theory, as a positive force within the internal crisis of the West, embodies outstanding value and constructiveness, it remains a regression in thought relative to scientific socialism and, fundamentally, a form of utopian socialism for the twenty-first century, a techno-utopian fantasy pursuing radical reform. In this regard, digital socialism and accelerationism are two sides of the same coin, concealing within their complex theoretical appearances a deep-seated historical epistemology. This historical epistemology challenges the Marxist historical narrative and thereby proposes a new narrative requirement.[89]89 This note refers to the concept of “accelerationism,” a theoretical current that advocates using capitalist technologies to accelerate social change, often critiqued by Marxists as a form of techno-utopianism.

1. In political stance, it denies or evades the question of establishing a proletarian state power. The theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the most important idea in Marxism on the question of the state, thoroughly elucidating the stages of development of future society and the reasons for the withering away of the state. In response to the repeated historical error of digital-era opportunists who deny the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is necessary to return to the scientific conclusions drawn by the classical Marxist writers based on the objective laws of capitalist development and the practical experience of proletarian revolution. In *The State and Revolution*, Lenin carefully examined Marx’s and Engels’s discussions on the dictatorship of the proletariat and pointed out: “The transition from capitalism to communism certainly cannot but yield a very rich and diverse array of political forms, but their essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat.”[90]90 V. I. Lenin, *The State and Revolution* (1917), Chapter 2, Section 3. The greatness of this scientific conclusion lies not only in pointing out that there is a transitional period between capitalism and communism, but also in indicating that this transitional period must, politically, be the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is to say, the establishment of a proletarian state power is the primary condition for carrying out socialist construction. So, has the digital age produced a kind of “governance without governing” digital power that transcends state power, thereby overturning the scientific conclusions of Marxist state theory? The answer is clearly no. The complexity of algorithmic governance creates a theoretical illusion that digital power “transcends the state,” but in reality, the state character of power has not changed; what has changed is rather a profound adjustment in the mode of power implementation—that is, the specific issues of how the state confirms the legitimacy of new modes of power production and the distribution of benefits.[91]91 This note refers to the concept of “algorithmic governance,” where digital algorithms are used to manage social and economic processes, often seen as a new form of state power. The state, by empowering algorithms, manifests its control capacity in a more entrenched and covert manner.[92]92 This note refers to the concept of “techno-feudalism,” a term used by some leftist theorists to describe a new form of social hierarchy based on control over digital platforms and data. The fierce debate within the left over techno-feudalism focuses precisely on this issue. In the post-financial-crisis United States, whether the ruling political bloc cedes or delegates power to the new economic interest group of tech oligarchs, the result is a joint push by the bourgeoisie for the upward redistribution of wealth in the United States. The various theoretical models of digital socialism, which attempt to replace the capitalist mode of production without overthrowing bourgeois rule, are no different from “building a house on sand” and can never achieve a dual transcendence of both the bourgeois state and digital financial capital.

2. In terms of material conditions of existence, the understanding of the replacement of social formations transcends the historical stage. The construction schemes of digital socialism not only deny or evade the subjective condition of establishing a proletarian state power, but also transcend the historical stage in their understanding of the material conditions of existence for socialism to replace capitalism. On this issue, Marx long ago provided a profound analysis of the historical law of the replacement of social formations with the thesis of the “two inevitables.” In 1859, in the preface to *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, Marx pointed out: “No social formation ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself.”[93]93 Karl Marx, “Preface to *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*” (1859), in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 29, p. 263. This scientific thesis indicates that the replacement of capitalism by socialism is a long and tortuous process, requiring the maturation of corresponding material conditions of existence. The “material conditions of existence” referred to here are comprehensive conditions, by no means unilateral ones. The construction models of digital socialism rely on the single condition of digital technology, which is insufficient to overthrow capitalist relations of production. Moreover, most of the construction schemes proposed by the Western left are aimed at a specific country or region in Europe or America, neglecting the dialectical relationship between the whole and the part. As Xin Xiangyang emphasizes, the “all the productive forces for which there is room” in a social formation, as stated in the “two inevitables,” refers to “the overall productive forces of all countries within that social formation, not merely the productive forces of one country or a few countries, nor the productive forces of a representative country within that social formation.” Within the capitalist world, the productive forces it can accommodate are precisely “the comprehensive productive forces of all countries under the capitalist social formation.”[94]94 Xin Xiangyang, a Chinese scholar specializing in Marxist theory, cited here for his interpretation of Marx’s “two inevitables.” Proceeding from this understanding, the digital socialist construction schemes’ grasp and understanding of the replacement of social formations are one-sided and partial, lacking an overall logic and framework.

Fundamentally, the construction path of digital socialism proposed by the Western left transcends the historical stage in its understanding and transformation of the capitalist social formation in which it is situated, lacking theoretical thoroughness and methodological scientificity. As some domestic scholars emphasize, from the perspective of historical materialism, without changing the capitalist mode of production, the injustices of capitalism cannot be resolved. The arguments made by digital socialism from different perspectives have all failed to escape the confines of the capitalist institutional form, ultimately leading to failure.[95]95 This note refers to the argument that digital socialism fails to escape the capitalist framework, as critiqued by Chinese Marxist scholars.

(III) Beneficial Insights from Western Left-Wing Digital Socialist Theory

Digitalization is a global issue, with an extremely profound impact on the transformation of human social forms. From this perspective, the Western trend of digital socialist thought is not merely a theoretical resource from the “other,” but also an influential factor that non-Western countries cannot ignore when thinking about digitalization issues and formulating digitalization strategies. Through a dialectical analysis of the value and limitations of left-wing digital socialist theory, we can derive the following three insights.

First, it provides shared values for exploring new forms of human civilization. Although the Western left is only a weak force within the capitalist world, its emergence reflects the intensity of internal contradictions within capitalism, offering a value-based confirmation and feasible inspiration from within the West for non-Western worlds exploring new forms of human civilization. Over the past few centuries, capitalism has evolved from a progressive social form into a destructive force against human civilization. From neoliberalism to digital financial capitalism, its destructive power has grown at an exponential rate, continuously generating global conflicts, deepening exploitation and enslavement, widening the gap between rich and poor, monopolizing knowledge and technology, tearing apart social consensus, consuming Earth’s resources, and destroying the ecology, among other things. The resurgence of socialism in the West in recent years indicates that disgust with capitalism and longing for socialism are deepening within Western society. The digital socialist theory proposed by the left has further catalyzed and strengthened this increasingly widespread social psychology. This positive force guides more and more Western scholars to turn their gaze toward China. Through genuine understanding and practical investigation, Western scholars’ recognition of Chinese-path modernization continues to rise, and their consensus on new concepts proposed by China—such as building new forms of human civilization, promoting the common values of all humanity, and jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative—continues to deepen. They place the future of human society in the equal and orderly multipolar world and inclusive and beneficial economic globalization advocated by China, and increasingly trust the wisdom and solutions China contributes to human peace and development.

Second, it provides meso- and micro-level beneficial ideas for digital-intelligent technology pathways and governance approaches. With the emergence and rapid development of multimodal technology, the scientific and technological community believes that human society has entered the era of general artificial intelligence starting from 2023. The competition in underlying technology, energy, and infrastructure has become the focus of attention. What is easily overlooked is that the technology pathways adopted by various countries for developing artificial intelligence often fundamentally affect the future landscape of human society. The core reason why the Western left proposes a digital socialist construction plan is to oppose the technology pathway in which Silicon Valley tech giants drag all of humanity completely toward virtualization, and to actively explore the possibility of artificial intelligence, blockchain, interactive technologies, and others developing toward the real economy and toward goodness. This shares a certain degree of commonality with the “Digital China” construction plan in terms of values, technology pathways, and governance logic. Since entering the New Era, China has actively developed the digital economy, promoted the deep integration of the internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and the real economy, and built Digital China, a smart society, and green finance. In particular, the proposal to “develop new quality productive forces” has opened a new realm and new stage of digital-intelligent construction. Constrained by inherent limitations and weak political influence, the construction pathways and implementation plans of the Western left cannot be put into practice in the capitalist world. However, the cutting-edge technologies and governance ideas in various theoretical models can provide beneficial inspiration for the digital-intelligent construction of non-Western countries at the meso and micro levels, and are worthy of critical reference.

Third, it provides an internal perspective for comprehensively grasping the contradictions and crises of capitalist digital-intelligence. Western left-wing digital socialist theory stands at the forefront of global digital theory. This provides a beneficial internal perspective for us to understand and grasp theoretical hotspots and the latest developments, especially to comprehensively recognize and accurately seize the key issues of the capitalist digital-intelligence crisis. Currently, China’s critical theory of digital capitalism is developing strongly, with a wide range of research topics, covering alienation under digital capitalism, digital labor, platform monopoly, digital surveillance, digital justice, and artificial intelligence ethics. The research level is not inferior to that abroad. For example, in April 2024, the Department of Philosophy of Nanjing University and other units hosted the first “Marxism and Digital Capitalism Criticism” academic seminar, bringing together scholars from many disciplines including domestic philosophy, Marxist theory, history, journalism and communication, literature, and art to jointly discuss critical theory of digital capitalism, and an interdisciplinary academic community is emerging. Currently, many issues remain unresolved in domestic research, such as the genealogy of digital capitalism, the direction of digital capitalism, and so on.[96]96 The original text provides a footnote number [96] here, but the corresponding note content is not included in the supplied paragraphs. This note is retained as a placeholder for the original citation. The clarification and exploration of these issues all need to be tackled from a global perspective.

IV. Conclusion

Inquiring into the general laws and macro-processes of the evolution of social forms in the digital age is a contemporary issue for 21st-century Marxism. In recent years, a group of Western left-wing scholars have formed a consensus with the right on criticizing digital capitalism. From a theoretical perspective of “techno-social formations,”[97]97 “Techno-social formations” (技术社会形态) is a concept in Marxist theory referring to a stage of societal development defined by its dominant technology and corresponding social relations, distinct from the more common “socio-economic formations” defined by relations of production. they deduce that in the post-financial crisis era, especially the post-pandemic era, “cloud capital” has accumulated to a critical point. Its enormous structural power has substantially changed capitalism, causing it to be “replaced by a politically relatively regressive form—techno-feudalism.”[98]98 “Techno-feudalism” (技术封建主义) is a term used by some contemporary theorists (e.g., Yanis Varoufakis, Shoshana Zuboff) to describe a new form of capitalism where digital platform owners (like feudal lords) extract rent and exercise control over users (like serfs), replacing market competition with hierarchical command. This judgment on the nature of social forms has triggered huge ideological waves and fierce debates within the left, and has also prompted emerging forces within the left to actively explore constructive theories of digital socialism.

From the analysis in this article, it can be seen that the theoretical system within left-wing digital socialism is quite complex, with new concepts and terms emerging endlessly. Various theoretical models compete with each other and continuously differentiate. Their political action intervention strategies are vastly different from traditional Marxism, mixing historical echoes of utopian socialism, anarchism, democratic socialism, liberal socialism, guild socialism, Italian autonomism, post-Fordism, liberal communitarianism, and other currents of thought, superimposed with new imaginings of the digital age such as left accelerationism, left populism, crypto-radicalism, eco-socialism, post-scarcity theory, and the post-carbon economy. In terms of theoretical fulcrum, left-wing digital socialist theories mostly advocate for civil society. They are merely the contemporary digital version of “anarchists, communists, and socialists who have always challenged the validity of the state.”[99]99 This is a quotation from a source not provided in the text, likely from a work by a Western left-wing theorist critiquing the anti-statist tendencies within digital socialist thought. This inherent limitation determines that this theory can only be confined to the theoretical fantasy of the Western “small left,” and its political actions can only remain at the level of marginal social experiments.

Although Western left-wing digital socialist theory is difficult to achieve any subversive transformation of capitalism, its active and unique thinking enriches the vertical and horizontal dimensions of theoretical exploration. In particular, its knowledge-based schemes concerning the application of new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and blockchain are highly cutting-edge and open up new theoretical fields. Currently, the development of artificial intelligence centered on China and the United States is steering the process and direction of a new round of technological revolution. China continues to promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, forming a sharp contrast with the United States’ indulgence of Silicon Valley’s shift from the real to the virtual. This demonstrates unique advantages and shows the strong vitality of scientific socialism in the New Era. Compared with the rapid development of policy and practice, there is still broad space for academic exploration in constructing an independent knowledge system for the mutual empowerment of digital technology and scientific socialism. It is urgent to transform the understanding and accumulation gained from critical research on digital capitalism into a constructive theoretical system. In this regard, Western left-wing digital socialist theory provides new perspectives and resources for domestic academia to explore uncharted territories, which is beneficial for us to grasp important theoretical growth points that conform to China’s actual conditions through comparison and critique.

Notes:

[1]1 “California Ideology” refers to the blend of libertarian, countercultural values and neoliberal economic beliefs promoted by Silicon Valley elites, which emerged in the late 20th century. “California Ideology” is a category proposed by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, representatives of British media critical theory, in the mid-1990s, aiming to summarize the Silicon Valley network neoliberal ideology. They drew inspiration for this term from Marx and Engels’ classic text *The German Ideology*. Barbrook and Cameron point out that the hippie capitalists of the Silicon Valley information technology industry promote an ideology that combines Marshall McLuhan’s ideas with radical individualism, liberalism, and neoliberal economics, and spread their ideology through magazines like *Wired*. This ideology, based on common tendencies such as anti-statism, counterculture, and technological utopianism, interweaves certain common ideas of the left and right, forming an optimistic technological determinism. Richard Barbrook & Andy Cameron, *The Internet Revolution: From Dot-com Capitalism to Cybernetic Communism*, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2015, pp. 12-27.

[2]2 This is a reference to Marx’s critique in *Capital* of financial speculators and promoters of credit systems, whom he described as a mixture of swindler and prophet. *Complete Works of Marx and Engels*, Vol. 39, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2022, p. 618.

[3]3 Kelly’s original article used the phrase “from electrons to elections” to suggest that the collaborative, decentralized logic of digital networks would eventually transform political systems. Kevin Kelly, “The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online,” *Wired*, May 22, 2009, https://www.wired.com/2009/05/nep-newsocialism, accessed on Mar. 2, 2023.

[4]4 Astra Taylor is a Canadian-American writer and documentary filmmaker known for her critiques of the digital economy and the “sharing economy.”Astra Taylor, *The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age*, London: Fourth Estate, 2014, pp. 37-38, https://e.dangdang.com/pc/reader/index.html?id=1900696958, accessed on Apr. 3, 2023.

[5]5 Evgeny Morozov is a Belarusian-born writer and researcher known for his critical analysis of the political and social implications of technology, particularly the “solutionist” ideology of Silicon Valley.Chen Xiangqin, “Current Western Left-Wing Thought’s Analysis, Judgment, and Outlook on the World Capitalist System,” in *Mao Zedong Deng Xiaoping Theory Research*, Issue 7, 2015.

[6]6 “Don’t Be Evil” was an informal corporate motto of Google, later removed from its code of conduct in 2018, often cited as emblematic of Silicon Valley’s self-image as a benevolent force.Donatella D. Ratta, “Digital Socialism Beyond the Digital Social: Confronting Communicative Capitalism with Ethics of Care,” *Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique*, Vol. 18, Iss. 1 (2020), pp. 101-115.

[100]100 This is the first endnote, corresponding to the original note [4] in the source text. The numbering continues from the original sequence.Astra Taylor, *The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age*, London: Fourth Estate, 2014, pp. 37-38, https://e.dangdang.com/pc/reader/index.html?id=1900696958, accessed on Apr. 3, 2023.

[101]101 Corresponds to original note [5].Chen Xiangqin, “Current Western Leftist Thought’s Analysis, Assessment, and Outlook on the World Capitalist System,” in *Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theory Research*, No. 7, 2015.

[102]102 Corresponds to original note [6].Donatella D. Ratta, “Digital Socialism Beyond the Digital Social: Confronting Communicative Capitalism with Ethics of Care,” *Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique*, Vol. 18, Iss. 1 (2020), pp. 101-115.

[103]103 Corresponds to original note [7].Rana Foroohar, *Don't Be Evil: The Case Against Big Tech*, London: Allen Lane, 2019, p. 230.

[104]104 Corresponds to original note [8].Klaus B. Jensen, “After the Techlash,” *European Journal of Communication*, Vol. 38, Iss. 4 (2023), pp. 415-421.

[105]105 Corresponds to original note [9].Nick Srnicek, *Platform Capitalism*, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017.

[106]106 Corresponds to original note [10].Shoshana Zuboff, *The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power*, New York: Public Affairs, 2019.

[107]107 Corresponds to original note [11].Brett Christophers, *Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?* London & New York: Verso, 2020.

[108]108 Corresponds to original note [12].Nancy Fraser, *Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System Is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet - and What We Can Do About It*, London & New York: Verso, 2022.

[109]109 Corresponds to original note [13].Kevin Kelly, *The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future*, New York: Viking, 2016, p. 13.

[110]110 Corresponds to original note [14].Ali Bhagat & Rachel Phillips, “The Techfare State: Debt, Discipline, and Accelerated Neoliberalism,” *New Political Economy*, Vol. 28, Iss. 4 (2023), pp. 526-538.

[111]111 Corresponds to original note [15].[US] Kevin Kelly (author), [JP] Kazuki Ono (ed.), *The World After 5000 Days*, trans. Pan Xiaoduo, Beijing: CITIC Press, 2023, pp. 56-60.

[112]112 Corresponds to original note [16].Richard Barbrook & Andy Cameron, *The Internet Revolution: From Dot-com Capitalism to Cybernetic Communism*, p. 8.

[113]113 Corresponds to original note [17].Some Western scholars define the “metaverse” as: a digital version of the real world expanded from AR (augmented reality)/VR (virtual reality) games. Individual users interact with each other to work, play, and trade, using a native, blockchain-based currency to buy, sell, or exchange goods and services in the virtual world. Nikolas Beutin & Daniel Boran, *The Great Web 3.0 Glossary*, Backnang: DFV Mediengruppe, 2023, p. 106.

[114]114 Corresponds to original note [18].Bernard Marr, *The Future Internet: How the Metaverse, Web 3.0, and Blockchain Will Transform Business and Society*, Hoboken: Wiley, 2023, pp. 20-21.

[22]22 The term “digital twin” refers to a virtual replica of a physical object or system, used here critically to suggest a deceptive simulation masking exploitative labor relations. Janna Anderson & Lee Rainie, “The Metaverse in 2040,” Pew Research Center, June 30, 2022, https://www.elon.edu/u/imagining/surveys/xiv-2022/future-of-metaverse-web3-2040, accessed on Apr. 3, 2023.

[23]23 Joel Kotkin is an American conservative author and professor known for urban studies and critiques of oligarchy. Richard Florida is a Canadian urban studies theorist known for the “creative class” concept. Richard Florida, “A Review for ‘The Coming of Neo-Feudalism’,” Joel Kotkin’s Blog, https://joelkotkin.com/the-coming-of-neo-feudalism, accessed on Apr. 6, 2023.

[24]24 Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist and politician who served as Finance Minister in 2015. Cédric Durand is a French economist specializing in digital capitalism. Jodi Dean is an American political theorist associated with the “communist horizon” current. Representative works include: Cédric Durand, Techno-féodalisme: Critique de l'économie numérique, Paris: La Decouverte, 2020; Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, London: Bodley Head, 2023.

[25]25 Evgeny Morozov is a Belarusian-born writer and researcher known for critical analyses of digital technology and its political implications. Evgeny Morozov, “Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason,” New Left Review, Vol. 133/134 (2002), pp. 89-126.

[26]26 “GAFA” is an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, commonly used in European critical discourse to denote dominant U.S. tech platforms. Jodi Dean, “Same As It Ever Was?” Sidecar, May 6, 2022, https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/same-as-it-ever-was, accessed on Apr. 6, 2023.

[27]27 Timothy Strom is a scholar writing on cybernetics and political economy. “Cybernetic capitalism” refers to a framework analyzing how feedback and control systems shape capitalist accumulation. Timothy E. Ström, “Capital and Cybernetics,” New Left Review, Vol. 135 (2022), pp. 23-41.

[28]28 Robert Brenner is a prominent American Marxist historian and economist, known for the Brenner Debate on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Dylan Riley & Robert Brenner, “Seven Theses on American Politics,” New Left Review, Vol. 138 (2022), pp. 5-27.

[29]29 This debate involves multiple generations of left-wing scholars, including those associated with Monthly Review, the New Left Review, and younger digital economy theorists. Lola Seaton, “Reflections on ‘Political Capitalism’,” New Left Review, Vol. 142 (2023), pp. 5-27.

[30]30 Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3, Chapter 48. The original quotation is from Marx’s discussion of the “realm of freedom” under communism. Engels, *Socialism: Utopian and Scientific*, trans. by the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CPC Central Committee for the Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2018, p. 75.

[31]31 Stephen Bodington, “Computers and Socialism,” 1973. Bodington was a British Marxist economist and cybernetician. [UK] Stephen Bodington, *Computers and Socialism*, trans. by Yang Xiaomin et al., Beijing: Huaxia Publishing House, 1989, p. 180.

[32]32 The Soviet Union’s OGAS (All-State Automated System) project and Chile’s Project Cybersyn under Salvador Allende (1970–1973) were early attempts at computer-managed economic planning, both interrupted by political and economic crises. Zhang You, “OGAS and Cybersyn: An Exploration of Early Digital Socialist Practice,” *Journal of Shandong University of Science and Technology (Social Science Edition)*, No. 3, 2023.

[33]33 Daniel Saros, “Information Technology and Socialist Planning,” 2014. Saros is an American economist who advocates a guild socialist model using modern IT. Daniel E. Saros, *Information Technology and Socialist Construction: The End of Capital and the Transition to Socialism*, London & New York: Routledge, 2014, p. 176.

[34]34 Yevgeny Morozov is a Belarusian-born writer and researcher known for his critiques of digital capitalism and Silicon Valley ideology. Evgeny Morozov, “DIGITAL SOCIALISM? The Calculation Debate in the Age of Big Data,” *New Left Review*, Vol. 116/117 (2019), pp. 33-67.

[35]35 Aaron Benanav is a contemporary Marxist scholar whose work focuses on automation, economic planning, and the future of work. Aaron Benanav, “How to Make a Pencil,” *Logic*, Dec. 20, 2020, https://logicmag.io/commons/how-to-make-a-pencil, accessed on Apr. 6, 2023.

[36]36 Karl Polanyi, “Sozialistische Rechnungslegung,” *Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik* 49 (1922): 377–420. English translation: “Socialist Accounting,” in *Karl Polanyi: The Hungarian Writings*, ed. Gareth Dale (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), 59–76. Johanna Bockman, Ariane Fischer & David Woodruff, “‘Socialist Accounting’ by Karl Polanyi: with Preface ‘Socialism and the Embedded Economy’,” *Theory and Society*, Vol. 45, Iss. 5 (2016), pp. 385-427.

[37]37 Cédric Durand, *Techno-féodalisme: Critique de l’économie numérique* (Paris: Zones, 2020). [France] Cédric Durand, *Techno-Feudalism*, trans. by Chen Ronggang, Beijing: China Renmin University Press, 2024, p. 87.

[38]38 Sylvia Rief, “Internal Overview: Karl Polanyi’s Socialist Accounting and the Digital Transformation,” *New Political Economy* 28, no. 4 (2023): 601–616. Silvia Rief, “Karl Polanyi’s ‘Socialist Accounting’ and ‘Overview’ in the Age of Data Analytics,” *New Political Economy*, Vol. 28, Iss. 2 (2023), pp. 284-298.

[39]39 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie* (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953), 583–594. English translation: *Grundrisse*, trans. Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin, 1973), 690–712. Same as note [20]20 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy* (London: Penguin, 1973), p. 706., pp. 88-110.

[40]40 Paolo Virno, *A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life*, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, and Andrea Casson (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004). [Italy] Antonio Negri, *Art and the Multitude: Nine Letters on Art*, trans. by Yu Guangji, Chongqing University Press, 2016, p. 102.

[41]41 Michael A. Peters, “Digital Socialism or Knowledge Socialism?,” *Educational Philosophy and Theory* 52, no. 4 (2020): 345–352. Michael A. Peters, “Digital Socialism or Knowledge Capitalism?” *Educational Philosophy and Theory*, Vol. 52, Iss. 1 (2020), pp. 1-10.

[42]42 Michael A. Peters, “Knowledge Socialism: The Rise of Peer Production – Collegiality, Collaboration, and Collective Intelligence,” *Educational Philosophy and Theory* 53, no. 1 (2021): 1–9.Michael A. Peters, “Knowledge Socialism: The Rise of Peer Production Collegiality, Collaboration, and Collective Intelligence,” *Educational Philosophy and Theory*, Vol. 53, Iss. 1 (2021), pp. 1-9.

[43]43 Michael Kwet, “Digital Socialism: A Blueprint for Building an Alternative Internet,” *Monthly Review* 73, no. 3 (2021): 1–16.Michael Kwet, “The Digital Tech Deal: A Socialist Framework for the Twenty-first Century,” *Race & Class*, Vol. 63, Iss. 3 (2022), pp. 63-84.

[44]44 Paolo Virno, “Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus,” in *Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics*, ed. Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 189–210.[Italy] Paolo Virno, *A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life*, trans. Dong Bicheng, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2017, pp. 80-91. This book translates “general intellect” as “universal intelligence.” For consistency of exposition, this article replaces it with “general intellect” when citing.

[45]45 Moritz Altenried, *The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022).[Germany] Moritz Altenried, *The Digital Factory*, trans. Huang Yao, Beijing: China Science and Technology Press, 2023, pp. 11-13.

[46]46 Elizabeth Rata, “Knowledge Socialism and the Digital Divide,” *Educational Philosophy and Theory* 53, no. 1 (2021): 10–13.Same as note [6]6 “Don’t Be Evil” was an informal corporate motto of Google, later removed from its code of conduct in 2018, often cited as emblematic of Silicon Valley’s self-image as a benevolent force..

[47]47 Yanis Varoufakis, “Techno-feudalism Is Taking Over,” Project Syndicate, June 28, 2021.Yanis Varoufakis, *Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism*, London: Bodley Head, 2023, pp. 112-114.

[48]48 Christian Fuchs, “The Utopian Internet, the Real Internet, and the Public Service Internet,” in *Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism*, ed. Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 482.Christian Fuchs (ed.), “Communicative Socialism/Digital Socialism,” *Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique*, Vol. 18, Iss. 1 (2020), pp. 1-31.

[49]49 Christian Fuchs and Klaus Unterberger, eds., *The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto* (London: University of Westminster Press, 2021), 3.Christian Fuchs & Klaus Unterberger (eds.), *The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto*, London: University of Westminster Press, 2021, p. 16.

[50]50 Christian Fuchs and Paško Bilić, eds., “Communicative Socialism / Digital Socialism,” special issue, *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021).Same as note [46]46 Elizabeth Rata, “Knowledge Socialism and the Digital Divide,” *Educational Philosophy and Theory* 53, no. 1 (2021): 10–13., pp. 1-31.

[51]51 Christian Fuchs, “Communicative Socialism / Digital Socialism,” *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021): 1–35.Ibid.

[52]52 Christopher Cox, “The Human and the Machine in the Communist Horizon,” *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021): 36–52.Christopher M. Cox, “Rising with the Robots: Towards a Human-Machine Autonomy for Digital Socialism,” *Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique*, Vol. 18, Iss. 1 (2020), pp. 67-83.

[53]53 Sai Englert et al., “Digital Workerism: Technology, Platforms, and the Politics of Labor,” *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021): 53–68.Sai Englert, Jamie Woodcock & Callum Cant, “Digital Workerism: Technology, Platforms, and the Circulation of Workers’ Struggles,” *Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique*, Vol. 18, Iss. 1 (2020), pp. 132-145.

[54]54 Hardy Hanappi, “Digital Socialism: A New Mode of Production for the 21st Century,” *Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 19, no. 1 (2021): 69–84.Hardy Hanappi, “A Global Revolutionary Class Will Ride the Tiger of Alienation,” *Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique*, Vol. 18, Iss. 1 (2020), pp. 187-203.

[55]55 Christian Fuchs, *Digital Ethics: Media, Communication and Society* (London: Routledge, 2023).Christian Fuchs, *Digital Ethics*, New York: Routledge, 2023, p. 3.

[56]56 The term “ethicist subject politics” refers to a political approach that relies on the ethical transformation of individual subjects rather than structural economic change, often criticized as a departure from Marxist class analysis.Sun Leqiang, “The Mass Philosophy of Autonomism and the Ethical Subject Politics: A Critical Reflection on Negri’s Contemporary Interpretation of Marx’s ‘Fragment on Machines’,” *Journal of Nanjing University (Philosophy, Humanities and Social Sciences)*, No. 3 (2013).

[57]57 See, for example, Sarah Rotz and Evan Fraser, “The Digital Divide: Data, Power, and the Future of Food,” *Journal of Peasant Studies* 48, no. 4 (2021): 741–766.Grain, “Digital Control: How Big Tech Moves into Food and Farming (And What It Means),” Grain, Jan. 21, 2021, https://grain.org/e/6595, accessed on May 2, 2023.

[58]58 Roberta Fischli, “Democracy That Owns Data: A Republican Model of Data Governance,” *New Media & Society* 24, no. 8 (2022): 1856–1874.Roberta Fischli, “Data-owning Democracy: Citizen Empowerment Through Data Ownership,” *European Journal of Political Theory*, July 19, 2022, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14748851221110316, accessed on May 2, 2023.

[59]59 James Muldoon, “Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim Our Digital Future from Big Tech,” *New Left Review* 134 (2022): 67–88.James Muldoon, “Data-owning Democracy or Digital Socialism?” *Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy*, Sep. 5, 2022, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/13698230.2022.2120737?needAccess=true, accessed on May 2, 2023.

[60]60 See, for example, the “Democratic Public Ownership” model proposed by the Democracy Collaborative, a US think tank advocating for community wealth building.Thomas M. Hanna & Mathew Lawrence, “Ownership Futures: Towards Democratic Public Ownership in the 21st Century,” Common Wealth, Nov. 2, 2020, https://www.common-wealth.org/publications/ownership-futures-towards-democratic-public-ownership-in-the-twenty-first-century, accessed on Apr. 12, 2023.

[61]61 Jacqueline Hicks, “Data Sovereignty and the Global South: Towards a Pluralist Legal Framework,” *Third World Quarterly* 43, no. 5 (2022): 1023–1040.Jacqueline Hicks, “The Future of Data Ownership: An Uncommon Research Agenda,” The Sociological Review, Vol. 71, Iss. 3 (2023), pp. 544-560.

[62]62 A reference to the concentration of computing power in large mining pools and institutions, a phenomenon criticized by left-wing blockchain experts.Yu Shengfeng, *Linjie: Ren Gong Zhi Neng Shi Dai De Quan Qiu Fa Bian Qian* [Critical: The Transformation of Global Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence], Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2023, p. 179.

[63]63 “Coin speculation” refers to speculative trading in cryptocurrencies, often associated with market volatility and fraud.“Coin speculation,” also known as “cryptocurrency trading,” refers to the investment behavior of profiting from the fluctuations of the digital currency market through buying and selling digital currencies.

[64]64 ICO (initial coin offering) is a blockchain-based fundraising method that has been criticized for facilitating fraud and illegal fundraising.Yang Dong, *Qu Kuai Lian + Jian Guan = Fa Lian* [Blockchain + Regulation = Legal Chain], Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2018, pp. 249-252, 400.

[65]65 A reference to Marx and Engels’s critique of joint-stock companies in *Capital*, where they describe the reproduction of speculation and a new financial aristocracy.Same as note [2]2 This is a reference to Marx’s critique in *Capital* of financial speculators and promoters of credit systems, whom he described as a mixture of swindler and prophet., p. 614.

[66]66 A quotation from Marx’s *Capital*, Volume 3, on the dual nature of the credit system.Ibid., p. 617.

[67]67 A reference to the 2008 global financial crisis, seen by some Marxists as a turning point in capitalist development.Devraj Basu & Murdoch J. Gabbay, “Karl Marx and the Blockchain,” in Alex Grech (ed.), *Media, Technology and Education in a Post-Truth Society*, Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2021, pp. 225-241.

[68]68 A reference to algorithmic control of money supply, a key feature of some cryptocurrency designs.Primavera De Filippi & Aaron Wright, *Blockchain and the Law: The Rule of Code*, trans. Wei Dongliang, Beijing: CITIC Press, 2019, p. 12.

[69]69 “Network state” ideology refers to the concept of a decentralized, code-governed political entity, criticized by left-wing crypto-radicals.The “network state” is a new concept proposed by Balaji Srinivasan, former Chief Technology Officer of the first American Bitcoin exchange “Coinbase,” and also an investment plan. Srinivasan, in collaboration with investors and policymakers from various countries, attempts to build a new type of digital state controlled by encrypted financial capital, thereby replacing the nation-state. Balaji Srinivasan, *The Network State: How To Start a New Country*, July 4, 2022, https://thenetworkstate.com, accessed on Nov. 1, 2023.

[70]70 “Coordination state” is an alternative concept proposed by left-wing crypto-radicals to build a decentralized, ecologically oriented governance system.Joshua Dávila, “OTNS: The Rise of Coordi-Nations,” *The Blockchain Socialist*, Jun. 11, 2023, https://theblockchainsocialist.com/otns-the-rise-of-coordi-nations-phase-2-has-begun, accessed on Nov. 10, 2023.

[71]71 DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) is a blockchain-based organizational structure, here envisioned as a tool for left-wing ecological coordination.Joshua Dávila, “OTNS: Transitioning ReFi DAO to a Coordi-Nation,” *The Blockchain Socialist*, Oct. 22, 2023, https://theblockchainsocialist.com/otns-transitioning-refi-dao-to-a-coordi-nation, accessed on Nov. 10, 2023.

[72]72 A quotation from Lorne Lantz and Daniel Cawrey, criticizing the stability of token-based systems.Lorne Lantz & Daniel Cawrey, *Mastering Blockchain*, trans. Shen Yin & Yi Weili, Beijing: China Electric Power Press, 2022, p. 121.

[73]73 A reference to the speculative nature of cryptocurrency investment, driven by exchange into fiat currency.Evan McFarland, *Blockchain Wars: The Tech Oligarchs and the Future of the Blockchain Internet*, trans. Zhou Ya, Beijing: China Science and Technology Press, 2022, p. 254.

[74]74 A quotation from Marx’s *Capital*, Volume 3, on the fetishism of money in capitalist production.Same as note [2]2 This is a reference to Marx’s critique in *Capital* of financial speculators and promoters of credit systems, whom he described as a mixture of swindler and prophet., p. 1057.

[75]75 “Non-market ecosocialists” are a strand of ecosocialism that advocates for a moneyless, non-market economy.Anitra Nelson, “‘Your Money or Your Life’: Money and Socialist Transformation,” *Capitalism Nature Socialism*, Vol. 27, Iss. 4 (2016).

[76]76 A reference to Marx’s concept of the fetishism of capital, particularly interest-bearing capital, in *Capital*.Zhang Yibing, “Virtual Capital: The Revolving Door of Capitalism’s Self-Demise in the Pseudo-Environment of Credit Relations—Philosophical Reflections on Volume 3 of *Capital*,” in *Studies on Marxism*, No. 1, 2023.

[77]77 A quotation from Marx’s *Grundrisse*, on the relationship between money and the desire for enrichment.*Complete Works of Marx and Engels*, Vol. 30, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 113.

[78]78 Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell, “Energy as a Measure of Labour,” *Critique* 46, no. 1 (2018): 5–28.Steve Huckle & Martin White, “Socialism and the Blockchain,” *Future Internet*, Vol. 49, Iss. 8 (2016).

[79]79 See Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell, *Towards a New Socialism* (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1993).Vaclav Smil, *Energy and Civilization: A History*, trans. Wu Lingling & Li Zhu, Beijing: Jiuzhou Press, 2021, pp. 16-21.

[80]80 “The Money-Free Society” is a Western non-profit organization exploring automated, currency-free economic systems based on reciprocity.Moneyless Society, “Who/What Is Moneyless Society? What Do We Do?” Jun. 30, 2021, https://moneylesssociety.com/movements-organizations/who-is-moneyless-society-and-what-do-we-do, accessed on Nov. 20, 2023.

[81]81 Mondragón is a Spanish federation of worker cooperatives founded in 1956, often cited as a large-scale cooperative model. Saioa Arando-Lasagabaster & Beñat Herce-Lezeta, “Country Study on Drivers and Barriers for Employee Ownership: The Case of MONDRAGON Group,” Journal of Participation and Employee Ownership, Vol. 6, Iss. 2 (2023), pp. 166-187.

[82]82 Karl-Erich Vollgraf, “Marx’s Notes on Bookkeeping and the Abandonment of Moneyless Settlement,” *Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung* 2012, 45–62. [German] Karl-Erich Vollgraf, “Is a Moneyless Society Possible?”, in Marxism & Reality, 2020, No. 2.

[83]83 “Scorched earth phase” refers to a stage of capitalism where it exhausts all resources and social relations, leaving only destruction. [US] Jonathan Crary, Scorched Earth: The Final Journey of Global Capitalism, trans. Ma Xiaolong, Beijing: China

[84]84 “Recentralization” here refers to efforts by Silicon Valley elites to reassert centralized control over digital financial systems, countering the decentralization ethos of blockchain. At present, most decentralized finance protocols are actually centralized: their backend logic runs on the “cloud” of large technology companies, the website frontend relies on similar centralized hosts, and the connection of blockchain wallets depends on browser extensions. Websites and applications occupy a higher level in the hierarchy of the internet; they place the most popular decentralized finance applications under the domination of large technology companies in multiple ways. That is to say, all of this provides powerful leverage for Microsoft and the five major technology giants such as “GAFA.” [US] Evan McFarland, *Blockchain Wars: The Future of Technology Oligarchs and the Blockchain Internet*, pp. 183–184.

[85]85 Yanis Varoufakis, *Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present* (London: Bodley Head, 2020), 145. “‘China May Have More Options Than the United States’,” WeChat public account “Reference News,” https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/l4bwuQ6niLakuqxVzKW5CQ, accessed March 1, 2023.

[86]86 Christian Fuchs et al., eds., “Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theory and Practice,” special issue, *TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique* 20, no. 2 (2022). Thomas Allmer, Sevda C. Arslan & Christian Fuchs (eds.), “Critical Perspectives on Digital Capitalism: Theories and Praxis,” *Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique*, Vol. 22, Iss. 1 (2024), pp. 140–433.

[87]87 Nathan Schneider, interview with Richard Barbrook, “The Digital Commons and the Left,” *New Left Review* 128 (2021): 45–67. Nathan Schneider, “‘Polemic Becomes Canon’: An Interview with Richard Barbrook on the Californian Ideology,” *International Journal of Communication*, Vol. 17 (2023), p. 4280.

[88]88 See, for example, domestic scholar Zhang Yibing’s classification of digital socialist paths in “The Logic of Digital Socialism,” *Social Sciences in China* 42, no. 3 (2021): 4–25. Li Quan, Du Min, “Western Left-Wing Digital Socialist Theory: Dynamics, Characteristics, and Resistance,” *Socialist Studies*, No. 1, 2024.

[89]89 This note refers to the concept of “accelerationism,” a theoretical current that advocates using capitalist technologies to accelerate social change, often critiqued by Marxists as a form of techno-utopianism. [UK] Alex Williams, [Canada] Nick Srnicek, “Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics,” in Zhang Yibing (ed.), *Chronicle of Social Critical Theory*, Vol. 15, Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2023, p. 2.

[90]90 V. I. Lenin, *The State and Revolution* (1917), Chapter 2, Section 3. *Complete Works of Lenin*, Vol. 31, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2017, p. 33.

[91]91 This note refers to the concept of “algorithmic governance,” where digital algorithms are used to manage social and economic processes, often seen as a new form of state power. Zhou Shangjun, “The Theoretical Genealogy of Digital Power,” *Qiushi Journal*, No. 1, 2024.

[92]92 This note refers to the concept of “techno-feudalism,” a term used by some leftist theorists to describe a new form of social hierarchy based on control over digital platforms and data. Zhang Aijun, “The Risks of the ‘Algorithmic Leviathan’ and Their Regulation,” *Exploration and Free Views*, No. 1, 2021.

[93]93 Karl Marx, “Preface to *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*” (1859), in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 29, p. 263. *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, Vol. 2, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2009, p. 592.

[94]94 Xin Xiangyang, a Chinese scholar specializing in Marxist theory, cited here for his interpretation of Marx’s “two inevitables.” Xin Xiangyang, “The Scientific Connotation of the ‘Two Inevitables’ and Their Contemporary Value,” *Marxist Studies*, No. 9, 2021.

[95]95 This note refers to the argument that digital socialism fails to escape the capitalist framework, as critiqued by Chinese Marxist scholars. Meng Qinglong, Liu Yunshan, “A Critique of the Digital Socialist Justice Scheme—Also on the Construction of the Justice Concept of ‘Digital China’,” *Morality and Civilization*, No. 5, 2023.

[96]96 The original text provides a footnote number [96] here, but the corresponding note content is not included in the supplied paragraphs. This note is retained as a placeholder for the original citation. Wang Guanglu, “The First ‘Marxism and Digital Capitalism Critique’ Academic Seminar Successfully Held at Nanjing University,” Chinese Social Sciences Net, https://www.cssn.cn/skgz/bwyc/202404/t20240430_5749088.shtml, accessed May 1, 2024.

[97]97 “Techno-social formations” (技术社会形态) is a concept in Marxist theory referring to a stage of societal development defined by its dominant technology and corresponding social relations, distinct from the more common “socio-economic formations” defined by relations of production. Gong Yongdan, “How Communism Is Possible in the Era of Digital Capitalism—The Predicament and Resolution of Contemporary Western Left-Wing Communist Theory,” *Marxism and Reality*, No. 2, 2024.

[98]98 “Techno-feudalism” (技术封建主义) is a term used by some contemporary theorists (e.g., Yanis Varoufakis, Shoshana Zuboff) to describe a new form of capitalism where digital platform owners (like feudal lords) extract rent and exercise control over users (like serfs), replacing market competition with hierarchical command. Lan Jiang, “From Technological Acceleration to Cloud Rent—How to Think About Contemporary Techno-Feudalism,” *Journal of Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications (Social Science Edition)*, No. 3, 2024.

[99]99 This is a quotation from a source not provided in the text, likely from a work by a Western left-wing theorist critiquing the anti-statist tendencies within digital socialist thought. [US] Zhang Xiaomin, *Marx’s Theory of the State*, trans. Tian Yisong, Shanghai: Shanghai Joint Publishing Press, 2013, p. 3.

Online editor: Zhang Jian