A Political-Economic Critique of Contemporary Western Cognitive Capitalism Exploitation Theory

Cognitive capitalism is an academic concept that has emerged in recent years. It emphasizes the core role of elements such as knowledge, information, emotion, and creativity in capital accumulation and economic growth. However, unlike the concept of the knowledge economy, cognitive capitalism more deeply presents the new changes in capitalism under a mode of production dominated by cognition and digital information, paying greater attention to the underlying relations of capital operation, power, and exploitation—that is, how capital achieves valorization through controlling elements such as cognition. Viewed from the history of capitalist industrial production, the early Manchester model and the subsequent Fordist production system drove Western societies to adopt large-scale standardized centralized production methods. These factory systems not only compressed labor costs through detailed division of labor and assembly-line production, but also, by restricting workers’ skills to fixed processes, gradually turned complex production into repetitive, low-skill labor, drastically compressing workers’ range of skills and knowledge and thereby stripping them of autonomy and creativity. Faced with diversified market demand, globalized competition, and the constraints of workers’ resistance movements themselves, the Fordist production model prompted a gradual shift in capitalist production methods toward flexibility, individualization, and knowledge intensity. Over the past few decades, Western capitalism has undergone profound structural changes, with traditional large-scale industries and enterprises gradually giving way to new giants relying on digital technology. Companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, relying on data, technology, and artificial intelligence, have risen rapidly to become dominant forces in the global market. Unlike the industrial giants of the past, these digital companies do not center on manufacturing material products; instead, they build their business models on data collection, platform control, and intelligent technology, forming new modes of capital accumulation. These digital giants not only control the tech industry but, by leveraging intelligent innovation technology and massive user data, gradually penetrate all walks of life, thereby wielding unprecedented dominance in the economic, cultural, and social spheres. Correspondingly, the object of capitalist exploitation has also changed. Unlike industrial capitalism, which extracts surplus value through material production labor, cognitive capitalism is no longer limited to the exploitation of physical labor; instead, through control over knowledge, information, and emotion, it utilizes the fruits of cognitive and mental labor to obtain surplus value.

认知资本主义（Cognitive Capitalism）是近些年涌现出来的一个学术概念。它强调知识、信息、情感和创造力等要素在资本积累和经济增长中的核心作用。但是，与知识经济概念不同，认知资本主义这个概念更深入地呈现资本主义在认知和数字信息主导的生产方式下的新变化，更加关注其背后的资本运作和权力、剥削等关系，即资本如何通过控制认知等要素来实现增殖。从资本主义工业化生产的历史看，早期的曼彻斯特模式和随后的福特主义生产体系推动了西方社会采用大规模标准化的集中生产方式。这些工厂系统不仅以分工细化、生产线组装的方式压缩劳动成本，而且通过将工人技能限制在固定流程之内，使复杂性生产逐渐成为重复性、低技术性的劳动，工人们的技能和知识范围被极度压缩，从而失去自主性和创造性。面对市场需求多元化、竞争全球化和工人反抗运动自身的制约性，福特主义的生产模式使得资本主义生产方式逐步向灵活性、个性化和知识密集型转型。在过去数十年里，西方资本主义经历了深刻的结构性变化，传统大型工业、企业逐渐让位于依托数字技术的新兴巨头。亚马逊、微软和谷歌等公司依靠数据、技术和人工智能迅速崛起，成为全球市场的主导力量。与过去的工业巨头不同，这些数字公司不以制造物质产品为核心，而是以数据收集、平台控制和智能技术为基础建立其商业模式，形成了新的资本积累方式。这些数字巨头不仅掌控着科技行业，而且凭借智能创新技术和海量用户数据逐渐渗透到各行各业，从而在经济、文化和社会领域拥有前所未有的支配力。相应地，资本主义的剥削也有了新的对象。不同于工业资本主义通过物质生产劳动榨取剩余价值，认知资本主义不再局限于体力劳动的剥削，而是通过对知识、信息和情感的控制，利用认知和脑力劳动的成果来获取剩余价值。

Overall, cognitive capitalism theory roughly takes three forms. The first form, mainly represented by French scholars Yann Moulier Boutang and Carlo Vercellone, deeply analyzes the transformation and economic operation mechanisms of cognitive capitalism, discussing how capitalism has shifted from traditional industrial production to an economic form primarily based on knowledge, information, and emotion as factors of production, and how capital accumulation no longer depends on material products but is based on the exploitation of knowledge production and immaterial labor. The second form, mainly represented by Italian scholar Andrea Fumagalli and Italian autonomists such as Hardt and Negri, focuses on the fact that capital is no longer confined to traditional factories and production sites but extends to the entire society; individual creativity, emotional labor, and the like can all be utilized by capital, becoming part of profit production, so that all areas of society become sites of capital accumulation and exploitation. The third form, emerging against the backdrop of the rapid development of artificial intelligence and brain-neural technology today, is mainly represented by Italian philosophers Franco “Bifo” Berardi and Maurizio Lazzarato, among others. It delves into how capital uses artificial intelligence to deepen exploitation into the brain-neural domain, activating neural energy for work and making it cater to the accelerating pace of production development, forcing cognitive activity to keep up with the rhythm of capitalist commodified production.

总体来说，认知资本主义理论大致存在三种形态。第一种形态以法国学者扬·穆利耶·布唐（Yann Moulier Boutang）、卡罗·维塞隆（Carlo Vercellone）为主要代表，深入分析认知资本主义的转型和经济运作机制，讨论资本主义如何从传统的工业生产转向主要以知识、信息和情感为生产要素的经济形态，以及资本积累不再依赖于物质产品，而是基于知识生产和非物质劳动的剥削。第二种形态以意大利学者安德烈亚·富马加利（Andrea Fumagalli）以及哈特、奈格里等意大利自治主义者为主要代表，关注的重点是资本不再局限于传统的工厂和生产场所，而是扩展到整个社会，个体的创造力、情感劳动等都可能被资本所利用，成为利润生产的一部分，从而社会的所有领域都变成资本积累和剥削的场所。第三种形态则是在当今人工智能和脑神经技术迅速发展的背景下，以意大利哲学家弗兰科·比弗·贝拉尔迪（Franco “Bifo”Berardi）、毛里齐奥·拉扎拉托（Maurizio Lazzarato）等人为主要代表，深入探讨资本如何利用人工智能将剥削深化至脑神经领域，将神经能量激活投入工作，并使其迎合不断加快的生产发展速率，迫使认知活动跟上资本主义商品化生产的节奏。

Combining the three forms of cognitive capitalism theory, we attempt to analyze two core issues for understanding cognitive capitalism: “the object of exploitation in cognitive capitalism” and “the mode of power operation through which cognitive capitalism carries out exploitation.” We then return to Marx’s critique of political economy to re-examine the strengths and weaknesses of cognitive capitalism exploitation theory. In an era where algorithmic capitalism has become a key driver of capital accumulation, we need to deeply grasp the changes in how cognitive capitalism continuously expands the sources of surplus value and analyze the power operations that enable these sources. More importantly, we must recognize that although cognitive capitalism theory, in focusing on the exploitation of the general intellect, life itself, and the brain-neural domain, reveals changes in the forms of exploitation in the modern economy, it fails to deeply critique the capitalist mode of production and does not question the preconditions under which cognition becomes an object of capital absorption. The production logic of capitalism has always been rooted in the pursuit of surplus value; this mechanism exists not only in the fields of cognition and information production but also continues and intensifies in traditional material production labor through global supply chains, industrial production, and the exploitation of workers. Therefore, by limiting its perspective to the subjective exploitation dimension of “cognition,” cognitive capitalism theory obscures the capitalist mode of production, conceals the preconditions that always link cognition with capital accumulation, and ultimately, in the face of the reality that capital exploits cognition to maintain its rule, contemporary Western cognitive capitalism theory can only emphasize individual resistance.

结合认知资本主义理论的三种形态，我们试图分析“认知资本主义的剥削对象”“认知资本主义进行剥削的权力运作方式”这两个理解认知资本主义的核心问题，进而回到马克思的政治经济学批判，重新审视认知资本主义剥削理论的深刻之处与不足之处分别是什么。在算法资本主义已经成为资本积累的重要驱动力的时代，我们需要深入把握认知资本主义不断扩展剩余价值来源的变化，分析这些来源是在怎样的权力运作支撑下得以实现的。更重要的是，我们要看到，虽然认知资本主义理论在聚焦剥削的一般智力、生活本身与脑神经这些来源时揭示了现代经济中剥削形式的变化，却没有深入批判资本主义生产方式，没有追问认知何以成为资本吸纳对象的前提条件。资本主义的生产逻辑始终根植于对剩余价值的追逐，这一机制不仅存在于认知和信息生产领域，而且依然体现在传统的物质生产劳动中，通过全球供应链、工业生产和劳动者剥削等形式得以延续和强化。因此，认知资本主义理论将视角局限于“认知”的主体剥削维度，导致对资本主义生产方式的遮蔽，掩盖了认知与资本积累始终联系在一起的前提条件，最终使得当代西方认知资本主义理论在资本剥削认知以维持其统治的现实面前只能偏重于个体的抵抗。

I. The Objects of Exploitation in Cognitive Capitalism: The General Intellect, Life Itself, and the Brain-Neural Domain

一、认知资本主义的剥削对象：一般智力、生活本身与脑神经

According to Marx’s exposition, capital exploitation primarily refers to “producing surplus value through the direct appropriation of another’s labor.” However, in the stage of cognitive capitalism, the sources of capital accumulation have changed, shifting from production labor to the “immaterial” dimensions of the subject—intellect, cognition, spirit, etc. This expands the scope of capital exploitation and intensifies its degree. Based on the sources of capital accumulation, the objects of exploitation can be divided into three types.

按照马克思的阐释，资本剥削主要是指“通过直接占有他人的劳动来生产剩余价值”。但是，进入认知资本主义阶段，资本积累的来源发生了变化，从生产劳动转向主体“非物质性”层面的智力、认知、精神等，这扩展了资本剥削的范围，更加重了资本剥削的程度。依据资本积累的来源，可以将剥削的对象分为三种。

First, the general intellect has gradually become an important object of capital accumulation and thus the most important object of exploitation in cognitive capitalism. Marx pointed out in the *Grundrisse* (1857–1858) that “the development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie* (1857–1858), Notebook VII. The English translation follows the standard version: “the development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it.” Surplus value originally depended mainly on material production labor; today it derives from the general intellect as social knowledge. Cognition can increasingly be produced and invested, playing a core role in resource allocation and economic growth. This transformation means that knowledge has become a means of production that can be accumulated, managed, and optimized. Thus, “the capitalist gradually appropriates scientific knowledge and uses it to complete the domination of the worker (fixed capital and the management process), and the worker’s labor is entirely reduced to material or physical labor separated from knowledge.” If we merely note the mutual promotion between cognition and the economy, we see only the enormous role of intellect in the material production process—“the entire production process appears not as subsumed under the direct skill of the worker, but as the application of science in technology.” [2]2 Ibid. The English translation follows the standard version: “the entire production process appears as not subsumed under the direct skill of the worker, but as the application of science in technology.” However, cognitive capitalism focuses more on the absorption of the general intellect, thereby completing a new type of exploitation of capitalist surplus value. Furthermore, earlier knowledge economics entirely failed to see the antagonistic relationship between capital’s “dead knowledge” and labor’s “living knowledge,” concealing the sources of capitalist accumulation and the mode of operation of capital power. Through the absorption and domination of knowledge production and cognitive labor by capital power, cognitive capitalism transforms them into new sources of surplus value production in the intelligent age, further deepening the oppression of workers, and masking this domination through various illusions of freedom and innovation.

首先，一般智力逐渐成为资本积累的重要对象，因而也成为认知资本主义最重要的剥削对象。马克思在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中指出，“固定资本的发展表明，一般社会知识，已经在多么大的程度上变成了直接的生产力，从而社会生活过程的条件本身在多么大的程度上受到一般智力的控制并按照这种智力得到改造”。剩余价值原先主要依赖物质生产劳动，今天则来源于作为社会知识的一般智力。认知逐渐可以被生产和投资，并在资源分配和经济增长中发挥核心作用，这种转变意味着知识成为可以被积累、管理和优化的生产资料。所以，“资本家逐步占有科学知识，并运用科学知识来完成对工人的统治（固定资本和管理过程），工人的劳动完全沦为与知识分离的物质劳动或体力劳动”。如果我们仅仅注意到认知与经济之间的相互促进，这只是看到了物质生产过程中智力的巨大作用，“整个生产过程不是从属于工人的直接技巧，而是表现为科学在工艺上的应用”。但是，认知资本主义更注重对一般智力的吸纳，从而完成资本主义剩余价值的新型剥削。进一步说，以往的知识经济学根本没看到资本的“死知识”和劳动的“活知识”之间的对抗关系，掩盖了资本主义的积累来源以及资本权力的运作方式。认知资本主义通过资本权力对知识生产和认知劳动的吸纳和支配，将其转变为智能时代新的剩余价值生产的来源，进一步加深对劳动者的压迫，并通过各种自由和创新的幻象掩盖这种支配。

On the one hand, capital uses cognition to push forward its accumulation more ruthlessly: “Science, directly appears as a weapon, a weapon that is used in part to throw the worker onto the street, to make him superfluous.” Cognitive intellectual activity is no longer confined to professionals or specific fields but permeates every aspect of people’s lives, work, and society. With the development of digitalization and information technology, the intellectual activity of individuals and groups has become broader and more open; anyone can participate in the creation, sharing, and application of the general intellect. Since cognition and intellect are created and developed in the process of social labor, a large number of cognitive laborers or immaterial laborers have emerged.

一方面，资本借助认知更残酷地推进其积累，“科学，直接表现为一种武器，这种武器部分是用来把工人抛向街头，把他变成多余的人”。认知的智力活动不再局限于专业人员或特定领域，而是渗透到人们的生活、工作以及社会的方方面面。随着数字化和信息技术的发展，个体和群体的智力活动变得更加广泛和开放，任何人都可以参与一般智力的创造、共享和应用。由于认知和智力是在社会劳动过程中被创造和发展的，便出现了大量的认知劳动者或非物质劳动者。

On the other hand, workers have also formed new forms of resistance. The post-workerists, as important proponents of the theory of cognitive capitalism, believe that “the negation based on subjectivity (where the subject manifests itself as dissolution, destruction, fluidity, and independence) gives a new foundational meaning to the antagonism against the category of capital.” It is precisely the contradiction between workers and capitalists that drives the latter, under the pressure of workers’ struggles, to attempt to dismantle the resistance groups organized by factories and trade unions through new modes of production such as automated systems. At the same time, capital’s reconstruction of accumulation cannot do without the manipulation of the subject. Thus, individual cognition, mind, and emotion become important objects of capital accumulation. Capital achieves a more concealed domination over the subject by influencing individual cognition, mind, and emotion, thereby providing support for capital’s valorization and expansion.

另一方面，工人也形成了新的抵抗形式。作为认知资本主义理论重要推进者的后工人主义者认为，“基于主体性的否定（主体在此表现为消融、破坏、流动性和独立性）给予资本范畴的对抗一个新的基础意义”。正是由于工人与资本家之间矛盾的推动，迫于工人斗争所带来的压力，资本家试图以自动化系统等新的生产方式解构工厂与工会组织起来的反抗团体。与此同时，资本若要进行积累的重构，也离不开对主体的操控。由此，个体的认知、心灵、情感等成为资本积累的重要对象，资本通过影响个体的认知、心灵、情感更隐蔽地实现对主体的支配，从而为资本增殖和扩张提供支持。

Capitalism can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage is commercial capitalism from the 15th to the 18th century, which primarily achieved wealth growth through foreign trade and commodity circulation, laying the foundation for capital accumulation. Some European countries accumulated substantial wealth and prompted the transition from an agricultural to an industrial society. The second stage is from the end of the 18th century to the mid-20th century. With the comprehensive promotion of mechanization and factory production, and the decline of mercantilism, the mode of capital accumulation shifted from foreign trade to large-scale industrial production. At this time, “the labor process, and hence labor and the worker himself, are in all respects subject to the supervision and control of capital.” The exploitation in this stage mainly relied on absolute surplus value derived from formal subsumption. The third stage is from the 1960s to the present. Breakthroughs in information technology, especially the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and biotechnology, have reshaped the mode of human existence and also provided a realistic basis for the shift of exploitation toward real subsumption: “Real subsumption develops in all those forms which produce relative surplus value, in contrast to absolute surplus value.” The shift from extracting surplus value by extending labor time to extracting relative surplus value through intangible elements makes it impossible to recognize the extraction of surplus value through empirical thinking; it can only be perceived and revealed through “abstract power.” The change in the object of exploitation in cognitive capitalism is an inevitable result of the collusion between capital and technology. In the traditional capitalist model, workers produce material products through mechanized division of labor, and capitalists exploit surplus value by absorbing workers’ labor. However, cognitive capitalism proposes a new form of labor, namely general intellectual labor or cognitive labor. Here, “general intellect” does not refer to the thinking labor of an individual worker, but to the collective intelligence generated by workers in social cooperation, which is manifested in forms such as cognitive labor, affective labor, and innovative labor. Capitalists pay more attention to capturing and transforming the intellectual value created by workers through collective cooperation. This intellectual value promotes the development of social productive forces, especially driving technological innovation and added-value growth. The value of many commodities increasingly comes from the social intellectual achievements they rely on, including creative labor based on social thinking and mental cooperation. In short, cognitive capitalism reshapes the forms of labor and the elements of value, making intelligence, creativity, and social collective thinking new economic drivers. By exploiting these immaterial forms of labor, capital continuously expands its control over social intellectual resources.

资本主义大体上可以分为三个阶段。第一个阶段是15世纪至18世纪的商业资本主义，这一阶段主要通过对外贸易和商品流通来实现财富增长，为资本积累奠定了基础，欧洲一些国家积累了大量财富，并促使农业社会向工业社会转型。第二个阶段是18世纪末至20世纪中期，随着机械化和工厂生产的全面推广，以及重商主义走向衰败，资本积累的方式从对外贸易转向大规模工业生产。此时，“劳动过程，从而劳动和工人本身，在所有这些方面都受到资本的监督和支配”，这一阶段的剥削主要依靠形式从属带来的绝对剩余价值。第三个阶段是20世纪60年代至今，信息技术的突破，特别是人工智能、物联网和生物技术等新兴科技的涌现，使人类的生存方式得到重塑，也为剥削向实际上的从属转变提供了现实基础，“实际上的从属是在创造与绝对剩余价值不同的相对剩余价值的一切形式中发展起来的”。从依靠延长劳动时间榨取剩余价值转向依靠无形要素榨取相对剩余价值，这一过程使得剩余价值的榨取靠经验主义思维已经无法认识了，只有通过“抽象力”才能将其透视并呈现出来。认知资本主义剥削对象的变化是资本与技术合谋的必然结果。在传统的资本主义模式中，工人通过机械化的分工生产物质产品，资本家通过对工人劳动的吸纳来实现对剩余价值的剥削。然而，认知资本主义提出了一种新的劳动形式，即一般智力劳动或认知劳动。这里的“一般智力”并非指单个工人的思维劳动，而是指工人在社会性合作中产生的集体智慧，这种智慧通过认知劳动、情感劳动、创新性劳动等形式体现出来。资本家更加注重捕捉和转化工人通过集体合作所创造的智力价值，这种智力价值推动了社会生产力的发展，尤其是推动了科技创新和附加值增长。许多商品的价值更多地来自其依托的社会智力成果，包括社会思维和脑力合作的创意劳动。总之，认知资本主义重塑了劳动的形式和价值的元素，使得智力、创造力和社会集体思维成为新的经济驱动力，资本通过对这些非物质劳动的剥削，不断扩大对社会智力资源的控制。

Secondly, in order to fully appropriate the “general intellect,” the exploitation of cognitive capitalism needs to penetrate deeply into the sphere of social life, realizing the exploitation of life itself through the method of “social factory.” The so-called “social factory” refers to the process by which capitalist society extends labor and relations of production to all aspects of society, thereby transforming the entire social structure into a production system resembling a “factory.” This process means that not only traditional factories and workplaces, but also various fields such as the family, school, culture, and consumption are dominated by the logic of capitalist production; all activities in society are closely linked to the process of capital valorization. The exploitation of life implies a new change: life itself becomes productive. For example, when users post content, interact, and participate in activities on social media, although these appear to be free social interactions, they actually create value for the platform, such as increasing advertising revenue and appropriating user data. Users’ online activities become immaterial labor, which is then used by capital to extract value. According to Maurizio Lazzarato, the “social factory” triggers the immaterial transformation of labor; modern capitalism increasingly relies on immaterial labor such as affective labor, cognitive labor, and cultural production. This involves two aspects: on the one hand, the labor process of workers in industrial and tertiary-sector enterprises changes. In these enterprises, technologies related to direct labor are gradually replaced by technologies controlled by cybernetics and computers, and the labor process is automated and informatized. On the other hand, immaterial labor includes a series of activities that are not usually considered “work.” These activities involve both affective labor that provides basic support for capital valorization, and the definition and determination of cultural and artistic standards, fashion, taste, consumer norms, and public opinion. It is worth noting that the concept of the social factory is also used to describe the role of domestic labor in the capitalist economy. Some critical theorists of cognitive capitalism argue that domestic labor is a form of social reproductive labor that maintains and reproduces labor power, including bearing and raising the next generation, educating children, and family care. However, people usually regard it merely as unproductive labor, believing that it does not directly generate market value, thereby distinguishing domestic labor from other forms of labor in the capitalist market. This leads to the “naturalization” of women’s labor forms, treating domestic labor, care work, and reproductive labor as women’s “natural duties.” This is a strategy of capitalism to maintain its logic of exploitation; the exploitation of women is also a domain of the object of exploitation in cognitive capitalism. Thus, the social factory makes everything in life “productive,” thereby supporting the needs of capital valorization. What was once considered belonging to the family, such as emotion, love, and even life itself, has now been transformed into means of production, constituting elements of hidden exploitation. All production in contemporary capitalism is nothing but the production of human life activities themselves and the production of social relations created by people. As Fumagalli says, cognitive capitalism is a “cognitive life capitalism”: “In cognitive life capitalism, life itself is put to work and produces value, so the labor theory of value should be renamed the life theory of value.” Life as an object of exploitation becomes the basic mode of manifestation of the generalization of exploitation in cognitive capitalism.

其次，为了能够全面地占有“一般智力”，认知资本主义的剥削需要深入社会生活领域，以“社会工厂化”的方式实现对生活本身的剥削。所谓“社会工厂化”，是指资本主义社会将劳动和生产关系扩展到社会的各个方面，从而使整个社会结构变成类似于“工厂”的生产体系。这一过程意味着，不仅仅是传统意义上的工厂和工作场所，甚至家庭、学校、文化、消费等各个领域都被资本主义生产逻辑所主导，社会中的一切活动都与资本增殖过程紧密相关。对生活的剥削意味着一种新变化，那就是生活本身具有了生产性。譬如，用户在社交媒体上发布内容、互动和参与活动，虽然表面上是免费的社交，但这些活动实际上为平台创造了价值，如提高广告收入、占有用户数据等。用户的在线活动成了非物质劳动，从而被资本用来获取价值。按照毛里齐奥·拉扎拉托的看法，“社会工厂化”引发了劳动的非物质化转型，现代资本主义越来越依赖于情感劳动、认知劳动和文化生产等非物质劳动。这涉及两个方面：一方面，工业和第三产业的企业中工人的劳动过程发生变化。在这些企业中，与直接劳动相关的技术逐渐被控制论和计算机控制的技术所取代，劳动过程实现了自动化和信息化。另一方面，非物质劳动包括一系列通常不被视为“工作”的活动。这些活动既涉及为资本增殖提供基础性支撑的情感劳动，又涉及文化和艺术标准、时尚、品味、消费者规范以及舆论的界定和确定。值得关注的是，社会工厂的概念也被用来描述家务劳动在资本主义经济中的角色。一些认知资本主义批判理论家认为，家务劳动是一种维持和再生产劳动力的社会再生产劳动，包括生育抚养下一代、教育子女和家庭照料等。但是，人们通常将其仅仅视为非生产性劳动，认为其不直接产生市场价值，从而将家务劳动与资本主义市场中的其他劳动区分开来。这就导致将女性的劳动形式“自然化”，将家务劳动、照料劳动和再生产劳动视为女性的“自然职责”。这是资本主义维系其剥削逻辑的一种策略，对女性的剥削也是认知资本主义剥削对象的领域。由此，社会工厂让生活中的一切都具备“生产性”，从而支撑起资本增殖的需要。曾经被认为属于家庭的东西，譬如情感、爱乃至生命本身，如今都转化为生产资料，构成隐性剥削的元素。当代资本主义的一切生产不过是围绕人自身的生命活动的生产和人们创造的社会关系的生产。诚如富马加利所说，认知资本主义是一种“认知生命资本主义”，“在认知生命资本主义中，生命本身被投入工作并产生价值，因此劳动价值论应该被重新命名为生命价值理论”。生活作为剥削的对象成为认知资本主义剥削泛化的基本呈现方式。

Finally, with the impetus of digital technology, cognitive capitalism has further extended the object of exploitation to the neurological domain. “Capitalism feeds on human emotions while simultaneously reproducing them, to a degree unprecedented in any other social system. Without delirium and hubris, capital cannot function.” This is particularly pronounced in the accumulation of capital under cognitive capitalism. People are forced to survive in a fiercely competitive environment, facing constantly shifting market demands and economic uncertainty. Capital achieves its own valorization and expansion by manipulating and exploiting the human mental state. Individual happiness, psychological health, and mental state are often relegated to a secondary position, serving the larger economic goal of capital accumulation. In digital existence, neurological exploitation has become an important mechanism for the continued operation of capitalism, and the brain has become a key site for capital speculation. This manifests as capital’s deep involvement in neuroscience, using neuroscientific discoveries to simulate the human brain and mind, thereby regulating or intensifying control over individuals. Thus, the possession of the neurological means being able to mine individual neural changes and use these data to customize advertisements, consumption patterns, and lifestyles for individuals. In this process, individual spiritual needs can be reset through mental computation and intelligent substitution; the human spirit and mind are no longer autonomous but are controlled and shaped by external capital forces. Therefore, cognitive capitalism is deeply concerned with neuroscience. Brainwave monitoring, brain-computer interfaces, and neural enhancement technologies are being applied in the commercial sphere. Some companies can use brain-computer interface technology to monitor employees’ brainwaves to assess work efficiency, measuring employees’ attention levels, mental state, and degree of fatigue in real time to adjust task allocation. In other words, capital can more precisely monitor and stimulate individual brains, making them a powerful support for enhancing capitalist production efficiency. It is worth noting that, from the perspective of surveillance capitalism, neural technology obtains more refined data by monitoring brainwaves and neural responses, collecting people’s conscious, unconscious, and even non-conscious states, ultimately converting them all into surplus data. Through further processing of this surplus data, it is transformed into means of production to serve capital valorization.

最后，在数字技术发展的助推下认知资本主义进一步将剥削对象扩大到脑神经领域。“资本主义既以人的情绪为食，又在再生产这些情绪，其程度放到任何其他社会系统中都是史无前例的。没有谵妄和自恃，资本就无法运作。”这在认知资本主义的资本积累中尤为显著。人们被迫在竞争激烈的环境中生存，面对不断变化的市场需求和经济的不确定性，资本通过操控和利用人类的精神状态达到其资本增殖与扩张的目的。个体的幸福、心理健康以及精神状态往往被置于次要地位，服务于更大的资本积累的经济目标。在数字化生存中，脑神经意义上的剥削成为资本主义持续运转的重要机制，大脑也成为资本投机的重要场所。这表现为，资本深度参与脑神经科学，通过脑神经科学的发现来模拟人脑、心灵，调节或强化对个体的控制。所以，脑神经的占有就意味着能够挖掘个体的神经变化，并利用这些数据为个体定制广告、消费模式和生活方式。在这一过程中，个体的精神需求可以通过心灵计算和智能置换等方式来重新设置，人的精神、心灵不再是自主的，而是被外部资本力量控制和塑造的。所以，认知资本主义十分关心脑神经科学。脑波监测、脑机接口、神经增强技术等正在被运用于商业领域，一些公司可以利用脑机接口技术监控员工的脑电波以评估工作效率，实时测量员工的注意力水平、精神状态和疲劳程度来调整任务分配。也就是说，资本可以更精准地监控和刺激个体的大脑，使之成为提升资本主义生产效率的有力支撑。值得注意的是，从监控资本主义的角度来说，脑神经技术通过监测脑电波和神经反应获取更精细的数据，收集人们的意识、无意识甚至非意识等，最终将它们都转化为剩余数据，然后通过对剩余数据的进一步加工，将其转化为生产资料为资本增殖服务。

II. The Power Forms of Exploitation in Cognitive Capitalism: “Techno-Feudalism,” Psychopolitics, and Machine Servitude

二、认知资本主义剥削的权力形式：“技术封建化”、精神政治与机器奴役

Marx pointed out in *Capital* that capitalist exploitation is realized through the value created by workers in the production process that exceeds the portion of their wages. Regarding the production and appropriation of surplus value, he identified two forms: absolute surplus value and relative surplus value. For cognitive capitalism, the reason the object of exploitation shifts to cognition, life, and the neurological is that capital has found new forms of exploitation. In Marx’s view, capital’s power is the core form through which capital exploits workers, while simultaneously, through institutional power and ideological shaping, “all so-called highest forms of labor—intellectual labor, artistic labor, etc.—become objects of exchange.” [9]9 Karl Marx, *Theories of Surplus Value*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, part 1 (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1972), p. 159. However, in the stage of cognitive capitalism, the mode of exploitation exhibits feudal characteristics, namely, the high concentration of power and wealth, the monopolization of social resources by a few technological oligarchs, and the economic status of workers resembling that of medieval serfs, forming a new type of dependency. The institutionalization of exploitative power is embodied in capital’s comprehensive management and control over individual life, no longer merely controlling the time and space of labor but directly penetrating the individual’s body, psychology, emotions, and life processes. Capital also, through machine servitude and technology, comprehensively controls individual consciousness, gradually weakening individual free will and independent thinking ability, dissolving the traditional sense of “subjectivity,” and turning people into a part of the capitalist machine.

马克思在《资本论》中指出，资本主义的剥削是通过劳动者在生产过程中创造的超出其工资部分的价值来实现的。在剩余价值的生产和占有上，他给出了绝对剩余价值与相对剩余价值两种形式。对于认知资本主义来说，剥削的对象之所以转向认知、生活、脑神经，是因为资本找到了新的剥削形式。在马克思看来，资本权力是资本剥削劳动者的核心形式，同时通过制度权力和意识形态塑造，使得“一切所谓最高尚的劳动——脑力劳动、艺术劳动等都变成了交易的对象”。但是，在认知资本主义阶段，剥削方式呈现出封建化的特征，即权力和财富高度集中，社会资源被少数技术寡头垄断，劳动者的经济地位与中世纪的农奴相似，形成了一种新的依附关系。剥削权力的制度化体现为资本对个体生命的全面管理和控制，不再仅仅控制劳动的时间和空间，而是直接渗入个体的身体、心理、情感和生命过程。资本还通过机器奴役和技术全面控制个体意识，逐渐削弱个体的自由意志和独立思考能力，消解了传统意义上的“主体性”，使人成为资本主义机器的一部分。

The first form of exploitation in cognitive capitalism is manifested at the economic level as “techno-feudalism.” In cognitive capitalism, capital gradually shifts its source of profit from traditional material production activities to the appropriation and rent extraction of social resources such as knowledge, technology, and data. This leads capital valorization to shift from the traditional profit-driven model to a “rentalization”-driven model. “The core dynamic of capitalism is the investment demand related to competition and the extensive reliance on markets. But the rise of intangible assets is overturning this traditional logic.” [10]10 Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, *Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), p. 4. This transformation reflects that capital valorization no longer primarily relies on directly controlling the means of production and exploiting workers’ surplus value, but instead depends more on forms of revenue such as intellectual property, digital platform economies, and financialization. Intellectual property revenue has become an important tool of exploitation; capital monopolizes technology and cultural products through patents, copyrights, and cultural symbols, collecting usage fees from society. “As digital assets become inseparable from their users, the mobility of individuals and organizations is hindered. This dependency breaks the competitive dynamic, giving those who control intangible assets an advantage over competitors, allowing them to extract value without truly engaging in production.” [11]11 Ibid., p. 5. That is to say, the capital profit model relies on rents formed through the appropriation of traffic and data transactions. Furthermore, capital further shifts from the production sphere to the financial sphere through financialization, extracting surplus value via investment, equity, and financial instruments, gradually detaching from the value creation process of traditional production. From the perspective of the industrial chain of multinational enterprises, the trend toward rentalization has also been strengthened, for example, by transferring labor-intensive production costs through global supply chains, while simultaneously leveraging advantages in general intellect and market control to obtain super-profits. This rentalization exploitation model marks a profound transformation of capitalism: capital gradually detaches from direct production activities, instead continuing to strengthen its appropriation and control over the fruits of labor through knowledge monopolies, platform rules, and financialization. The completion of this task relies on the power operation model of “techno-feudalism.” Just as feudal lords possessed fiefs, tech giants like Google and Microsoft possess “cloud fiefs”; their revenue no longer primarily depends on genuine technological innovation, but on “collecting rent” from dependent parties under the protection of intellectual property rights. Specifically, this is manifested in three aspects: First, the emergence of “techno-lords.” Large digital technology companies play the role of modern lords, controlling core resources such as data, infrastructure, and algorithms. These resources, in the capitalist economy, are like land in feudal society, becoming the key to acquiring wealth and power. Second, the realization of the “techno-enclosure movement.” [12]12 A reference to the historical enclosure movement in England, where common lands were privatized, dispossessing peasants; here applied metaphorically to the privatization of digital data and public knowledge by tech platforms. Platforms appropriate user data through algorithms and privacy agreements, achieving the appropriation and privatization of data, while simultaneously using intellectual property mechanisms such as patents and copyrights to privatize public knowledge and creative achievements. The formulation of rules by technology platforms is an even more important link; similar to feudal lords dominating peasants, they allocate and restrict resources for consumers, small and medium-sized enterprises, or low-end production links. Third, the dependency of workers. In the platform-based economic environment, workers increasingly rely on the infrastructure, market, and traffic resources provided by technology platforms to sustain their production and daily life. For example, ride-hailing drivers, freelancers, and content creators all depend on platforms to allocate orders and traffic resources; workers cannot find labor opportunities outside the platform.

认知资本主义的第一种剥削形式体现为经济层面上的“技术封建化”。在认知资本主义中，资本逐渐将利润来源从传统物质生产活动转向对知识、技术和数据等社会性资源的占有和租金提取。这导致资本增殖从传统的利润驱动模式转向“租金化”驱动模式。“资本主义的核心动力是与竞争相关的投资需求和对市场的广泛依赖。但无形资产的崛起正在颠覆这一传统逻辑。”这种转变反映了资本增殖不再主要通过直接控制生产资料和剥削劳动者的剩余价值，而是更多依赖于知识产权、数字平台经济和金融化等形式的收益。知识产权收益成为重要的剥削工具，资本通过专利、版权和文化符号等对技术和文化产品进行垄断，向社会征收使用费。“随着数字资产与其用户变得密不可分，个人和组织的流动性受到阻碍。这种依附性打破了竞争态势，使那些控制无形资产的人比竞争对手更具优势，无须真正投入生产即可获取价值。”也就是说，资本盈利模式依赖于占有流量和数据交易而形成的租金。此外，资本进一步通过金融化手段从生产领域转向金融领域，通过投资、股权和金融工具等获取剩余价值，逐渐脱离了传统生产过程的价值创造。从跨国企业的产业链来说，租金化的趋势也得到了强化，譬如通过全球供应链转移劳动密集型生产成本，同时利用一般智力方面的优势和市场控制来获取超额利润。这种租金化剥削模式标志着资本主义的深刻转型，资本逐渐脱离直接生产活动，转而通过知识垄断、平台规则和金融化手段继续强化对劳动成果的占有和控制。这一任务的完成依靠的便是“技术封建主义”的权力运作模式。如同封建领主拥有封地一般，谷歌和微软等科技巨头拥有“云封地”，其收入不再主要依靠真正的技术革新，而是在知识产权的保护下向依附的一方“收租”。具体来说，这体现在三个方面：第一，“技术领主”的出现。大型数字技术公司扮演现代的领主角色，掌控数据、基础设施和算法等核心资源，这些资源在资本主义经济中如同土地之于封建社会，成为获取财富和权力的关键。第二，“技术圈地运动”的实现。平台通过算法和隐私协议占有用户数据，实现数据的占有与私有化，同时利用专利、版权等知识产权机制，将公共知识和创意成果据为私有。技术平台制定规则是更重要的一环，类似于封建领主支配农民，对消费者、中小企业或低端生产环节进行资源分配和限制。第三，劳动者的依附化。在平台化经济环境中，劳动者越来越依赖技术平台提供的基础设施、市场和流量资源，来维持其生产和日常生活。譬如，网约车司机、自由职业者、内容创作者都依赖平台分配订单和流量资源，劳动者也无法离开平台找到劳动的机会。

The second form of exploitation in cognitive capitalism manifests as spiritual politics at the micro-political level. This form of exploitation results from the joint advance of cognitive capitalism and spiritual politics. Foucault’s “biopower” emphasizes how modern society achieves the goal of power domination through the governance of the body and biological needs, whereas spiritual politics primarily operates power through “spiritual power,” which dominates and controls the individual’s spiritual domain. This form of power targets intangible fields such as thought, emotion, desire, and attention, aiming to shape the individual’s inner world, thereby implementing social control in a more covert and efficient manner. “It makes the individual start from the self, influence the self, allows the law of the environment to form spontaneously, and at the same time interprets this law as freedom. Self-optimization and conquest, freedom and exploitation, are all merged into one.” [13]13 Byung-Chul Han, *Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power*, trans. Erik Butler (London: Verso, 2017), p. 29. [The original Chinese text cites a Chinese translation of Han’s work; the English rendering here follows the published English edition.] Specifically, unlike traditional forms of power, spiritual power no longer relies on external coercion or violence to negate the subject’s will and spirit; instead, through internalization, it induces the individual to actively accept and participate in the power structure. In the era of big data, capitalism collects and analyzes human behavioral data to uncover the relationship between collective consciousness and behavioral drives, thereby guiding and regulating human productive efficiency. This form of power appears in a friendly, free guise, masquerading as a form of “caring” for the individual, and further extends to the stimulation and shaping of the spirit. Therefore, this spiritual power takes “winning hearts and minds” (攻心) as its core strategy, encouraging people to share, confide, participate, and communicate, to display their thoughts, needs, and life details. Within this cultural control, individuals are guided to constantly express themselves and unconsciously accept the domination of the logic of power. People endlessly exhaust themselves in a cultural atmosphere of “meritocracy,” and life itself is comprehensively incorporated into the logic of capital. According to Fumagalli’s view, the absorption of life (生命吸纳) can be concretized into four modes of operation: expropriation, extraction, financial absorption, and imprinting. First, expropriation is the continuation of primitive accumulation in the contemporary era, that is, the process of privatizing the means of production. Through the penetration of the individual spirit by spiritual power, the scope of expropriation expands from external material resources to the subject’s spiritual and cognitive domains. Second, extraction focuses on the deep exploitation of the spiritual dimension. By shaping collective consciousness, spiritual power prompts individuals to actively participate in social cooperation, viewing their own creative contributions as part of self-realization. This “self-exploitation” manifests in cognitive labor; through the guidance of spiritual power, this extraction appears more voluntary and natural. Capital no longer concerns itself with specific labor relations but directly captures social cooperation and the endogenous motivation of the subject. The concept of extraction better reflects than the concept of expropriation the fact that capital is concerned with how to obtain more impetus for valorization from within social relations; only then does it concern itself with the forms of cooperation among laborers. Only in this way can we understand why spiritual power constantly manipulates the degree of fit between people and society, making people adapt to so-called social operational requirements. Third, the financialization of lifestyle relies on the spiritual guidance of personal indebtedness and self-optimization, causing individuals to internalize financial burdens as part of self-management. Behind this internalization of debt lies the inherent requirement of spiritual power to strengthen capital’s comprehensive control over the laborer’s mode of existence. Finally, the spiritual power of cognitive capitalism manifests as “imprinting.” Through spiritual power, capital deeply implants normative and standardized behavioral patterns into individuals’ thinking and behavioral habits. Through the repeated input of information, such as likes, comments, and content recommendations, various social media “imprint” specific values and behavioral preferences into people’s inner world. This process is one of “imprinting” and shaping the individual; people’s modes of existence, work habits, and ways of thinking begin to be transformed according to the requirements of the logic of capital. This operation of power, disguised as freedom and choice, conceals the exploitative essence of capital. The operation of spiritual power deepens the logic of the absorption of life, extending exploitation to life itself and the subjectivity of the individual; surplus value directly originates from the mining and control of life activities and the spiritual domain.

认知资本主义的第二种剥削形式体现为微观政治层面上的精神政治。这种剥削形式是认知资本主义与精神政治共同推进的结果。福柯的“生命权力”强调现代社会如何通过对躯体和生物性需求的治理来达到权力统治的目的，精神政治则主要通过“精神权力”支配和控制个体精神领域来进行权力运作。这一权力形态着眼于思想、情感、欲望和注意力等无形领域，旨在塑造个体的内心世界，从而以更隐蔽、更高效的方式实施社会控制。“让个体从自身出发，自己去影响自己，让环境威力法自发形成，同时，还会把这种法则诠释为自由。自我优化和征服、自由和剥削都合而为一。”具体来说，不同于传统的权力形式，精神权力不再依赖外部强制或暴力来实现对主体意志和精神的否定，而是通过内化的方式，让个体主动接受并参与到权力结构中。在大数据时代，资本主义通过收集和分析人的行为数据，挖掘集体意识与行为驱动之间的关系，从而引导和调节人的生产效率。这种权力形态以友好、自由的姿态出现，伪装成一种“关爱”个体的形式，并进一步扩展到对精神的激励和塑造。所以，这种精神权力以“攻心”为核心策略，鼓励人们分享、倾诉、参与和交流，展示自己的想法、需求和生活细节。在这种文化的控制中，个体被引导着不断表达自我，并在无意识中接受权力逻辑的支配。人们在“优绩主义”的文化氛围中无限地内耗，生活本身得以被全方位地纳入资本逻辑。按照富马加利的看法，生命吸纳可以被具体化为剥夺、榨取、金融吸纳和印刻等四种运作方式。首先，剥夺是原始积累在当代的延续，也就是生产资料私有化的过程。精神权力通过对个体精神的渗透，使剥夺的范围从外部的物质资源拓展到主体的精神和认知领域。其次，榨取注重对精神维度的深度剥削。精神权力通过塑造集体意识，促使个体主动参与社会合作，将自身的创造性贡献视为自我实现的一部分。这种“自我剥削”体现在认知劳动中，通过精神权力的引导，这种榨取就显得更加自愿和自然。资本不再关注具体的劳动关系，而是直接捕获社会合作和主体的内生动力。榨取概念比剥夺概念更能映射的事实是，资本关心的是如何能够从社会关系内部获取更多的增殖动力，唯有如此，才关注劳动者之间的协作形式。这样一来，我们才能理解为何精神权力始终操纵人与社会的契合度，让人适应所谓的社会运行要求。再次，金融化生活方式依赖于对个人债务感和自我优化的精神引导，使个体将财务负担内化为自我管理的一部分。这种债务内化的背后，是精神权力强化资本对劳动者生存方式全面掌控的内在要求。最后，认知资本主义的精神权力体现为“印刻”。通过精神权力，资本将规范性和标准化的行为模式深深植入个体的思维和行为习惯。通过不断重复的信息输入，如点赞、评论和内容推荐，各类社交媒体将特定的价值观和行为偏好“印刻”进人的内心世界。这种过程是“印刻”与塑造个体的过程，人们的存在方式、工作习惯和思维方式开始按照资本逻辑的要求得到改造。权力的这一运行过程以自由和选择为伪装，隐藏了资本的剥削本质。精神权力的运作深化了生命吸纳的逻辑，将剥削扩展到生命本身和个体的主体性，剩余价值直接来源于对生命活动和精神领域的挖掘和控制。

The third form of exploitation in cognitive capitalism is “machinic enslavement” (机器奴役), which comprehensively captures the nervous system through de-subjectification. Unlike capital’s use of cultural mechanisms, including language, education, media, and other means, to discipline the subject, machinic enslavement does not require the individual to become a new subject; instead, it achieves control over the individual through functional and operational symbols. Against the background of the widespread application of artificial intelligence in social production and life, the entire society is shaped into an intelligent workshop of operations. Humans are no longer the dominant masters of technology but objects dominated and enslaved by machines; humans degenerate from masters controlling machines into a part of the machine system. “In machinic enslavement, the individual is no longer an ‘independent subject,’ an ‘economic subject’ (human capital, entrepreneur of the self), or a ‘citizen.’ On the contrary, he is considered a cog.” [14]14 Maurizio Lazzarato, *Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity*, trans. Joshua David Jordan (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2014), p. 26. Machinic enslavement achieves comprehensive control over the individual, from external behavior to the brain and nerves, primarily through three steps. First, machinic enslavement must complete the datafication of the brain, nerves, and consciousness. When digital technology and biotechnology can connect the brain to the internet, everything about the individual is unreservedly selected and utilized by capital, to the point where life itself becomes an object of capital’s exploitation. Second, capital continuously stimulates the nervous system, prompting it to accelerate its operation. This neural acceleration is not limited to information workers; individuals in non-information fields are also affected by it. As the overall pace of society accelerates and media information expands, people’s thinking patterns inevitably undergo subtle changes, forcing them to gradually adapt to this high-intensity neural demand. Finally, the brain’s nervous system is reshaped. Physiologically, human brain functions are not entirely fixed but possess plasticity. Capital uses various biotechnologies and intelligent technologies to reconstruct the brain’s nervous system, directly intervening in the direction of neural change. Supported by neuroscience, capital “pre-sets” the brain functions it requires through neural power and neural technology. Neural power, supported by brain neuroscience and neural technology, has greatly enhanced control over the brain, while capitalism uses brain neuroscience to promote the spread and deepening of machinic enslavement.

认知资本主义的第三种剥削形式是“机器奴役”，它以去主体化的方式全面吸纳神经系统。与资本利用文化机制，包括语言、教育、媒体等手段，对主体进行规训不同，机器奴役不需要个体成为新的主体，而是通过功能性和操作性符号来实现对个体的控制。在人工智能广泛应用于社会生产生活的背景下，整个社会被塑造成一个智能化的操作车间。人不再是驾驭技术的主导者，而是被机器支配和奴役的对象，人从控制机器的主人沦为机器系统的一部分。“在机器奴役中，个人不再是‘独立的主体’、‘经济主体’（人力资本、自我的企业家）或‘公民’。相反，他被认为是一个齿轮。”机器奴役主要通过三个步骤实现对个体从外在行为到脑神经的全方位控制。首先，机器奴役要完成脑神经和意识的可数据化。当数字技术和生物技术可以使大脑连接至互联网时，个体的一切都将毫无保留地被资本挑选利用，以至于生命成为资本剥削的对象。其次，资本通过不断刺激神经系统，促使其加速运作。这种神经加速并不仅仅限于信息工作者，非信息领域的个体同样受到其影响。随着社会整体节奏的加快和媒介信息的膨胀，人们的思维模式必然也会潜移默化地发生变化，迫使自身逐渐去适应这种高强度的神经需求。最后，重塑大脑神经系统。从生理学看，人的大脑功能并非完全固定不变，而是具有可塑性。资本利用各种生物技术、智能技术重新建构脑神经系统，直接干预神经变化的方向。在神经学科的支撑下，资本通过神经权力和神经技术“前置”了其所需要的大脑功能。神经权力得到脑神经科学与神经技术的支持，极大提升了对大脑的控制，资本主义则利用脑神经科学推动机器奴役的蔓延与深化。

III. The Capitalist Mode of Production, Capitalist Globalization, and a Critique of Cognitive Capitalism’s Theory of Exploitation

三、资本主义生产方式、资本全球化与认知资本主义剥削理论批判

As can be seen from the above, the exploitation theory of cognitive capitalism ostensibly inherits the basic connotation of Marx’s concept of exploitation, yet it consistently focuses on the key question of how knowledge, information, and creative labor are absorbed by capitalist relations of production and become an important source of surplus value. Objectively speaking, there is a certain connection between the above views of cognitive capitalism and Marx’s critique of political economy. First, Marx’s critique of political economy reveals the reality that labor manifests as value in capitalist society, and it is precisely at this level that cognitive capitalism theory conducts its analysis, especially as knowledge labor becomes a key component in the process of commodification, and workers’ cognitive, emotional, and other activities are transformed into quantifiable and controllable resources. However, like classical political economy, cognitive capitalism does not, as Marx did, ask “why labor manifests as value,” but rather “mistakes the bourgeois relations of production for the eternal natural form of social production.” [15]15 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, Afterword to the Second German Edition. The original phrase is from Marx’s critique of classical political economy. That is to say, cognitive capitalism theory’s description of cognitive exploitation is profound, but it does not inquire into the deeper question of why cognition is absorbed by capital, nor into the roots of this phenomenon. Second, cognitive capitalism theory attaches great importance to the general intellect, regarding it as a widely existing shared resource and taking it as the foundation of all social production practice, thereby one-sidedly exaggerating the role of cognition and the like. Marx did emphasize that “the mission of science becomes: to become a means of producing wealth, a means of enrichment,” while also clearly recognizing that “capital does not create science, but it utilizes science, appropriates science, for the needs of the production process.” [16]16 Karl Marx, “Economic Manuscripts of 1861–63,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 34 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1994), p. 353. The first quotation is a paraphrase; the second is from the same source. By appropriating and controlling the general intellect, capitalism makes it a link in the capitalist mode of production, while the workers, especially the working class, are forced to break with the creativity, initiative, and freedom of the general intellect, degenerating into “stunted monstrosities.” [17]17 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, ch. 15, section 5. The phrase “stunted monstrosities” (or “crippled monstrosities”) refers to the deforming effect of the division of labor under capitalism. Third, the form of power in cognitive capitalism is the concrete embodiment in the contemporary era of what Marx described as “the abstract power of capital.” Capital no longer controls workers solely through direct material production; it also forms a more concealed and abstract form of domination through control over information, technology, and cognitive resources. In the era of economic globalization and informatization, workers are drawn into complex technological and ideological networks, making it difficult to identify and resist these abstract powers, and thus hard to break free from the constraints of the global capitalist system. Marx’s critique of capitalism, especially his analysis of the abstract domination and abstract power of capital, provides a profound theoretical framework for understanding the operation of power in cognitive capitalism. Marx’s theory of exploitation consistently emphasizes the capital power relations derived from the ownership of the means of production: “Capital is the all-dominating economic power of bourgeois society.” [18]18 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (Penguin, 1973), p. 107. It is precisely on this foundation that cognitive capitalism theory further develops, emphasizing how, in the new technological and information environment, capital deepens the antagonism between workers and capital by expanding the forms of exploitation.

从上文可以看出，认知资本主义剥削理论表面上继承了马克思剥削概念的基本内涵，但始终聚焦知识、信息和创造性劳动如何被资本主义生产关系吸纳并成为剩余价值的重要来源这一关键问题。客观地说，上述认知资本主义的观点与马克思的政治经济学批判之间存在一定的联系。第一，马克思的政治经济学批判揭示了资本主义社会中劳动表现为价值的现实，认知资本主义理论正是在这一层面展开分析，尤其是知识劳动成为商品化过程中的关键组成部分，劳动者的认知、情感等活动被转化为可量化和控制的资源。但是，与古典政治经济学一样，认知资本主义没有像马克思那样追问“为什么劳动表现为价值”，而是“把资产阶级生产方式误认为是社会生产的永恒的自然形式”。也就是说，认知资本主义理论对认知剥削的描述是深刻的，但没有追问为什么认知会被资本吸纳这一更深层次的问题及其根源。第二，认知资本主义理论重视一般智力，认为它作为共享资源广泛存在，把它作为整个社会生产实践的基础，从而片面地夸大了一般智力等认知的作用。马克思确实强调了“科学获得的使命是：成为生产财富的手段，成为致富的手段”，同时他也清楚地认识到，“资本不创造科学，但是它为了生产过程的需要，利用科学，占有科学”。资本主义通过占有和控制一般智力，使它成为资本主义生产方式的一个环节，而劳动者尤其是工人阶级却被迫与一般智力的创造性、主动性和自由性断裂，沦为“愚钝的畸形物”。第三，认知资本主义的权力形式是马克思所描述的“资本的抽象权力”在当代的具体体现。资本不再仅仅通过直接的物质生产控制劳动者，还通过对信息、技术和认知资源的控制，形成了一种更加隐蔽、抽象的统治形式。在经济全球化和信息化时代，劳动者被卷入复杂的技术和意识形态网络，很难识别和反抗这些抽象权力，从而难以突破全球资本主义体系的制约。马克思对资本主义的批判，尤其是关于资本的抽象统治和抽象权力的分析，为理解认知资本主义的权力运作提供了深刻的理论框架。马克思的剥削理论始终强调生产资料占有权衍生出来的资本权力关系，“资本是资产阶级社会的支配一切的经济权力”。认知资本主义理论正是在这一基础上进一步发展的，强调在新的技术和信息环境中，资本如何通过拓展剥削形式加深工人与资本之间的对抗性。

The problem with the exploitation theory of cognitive capitalism is that it merely examines the subjective dimension of the phenomenon of exploitation from an empiricist perspective, failing to penetrate to the essential dimension of understanding how cognitive exploitation presupposes the capitalist mode of production. The general intellect, life itself, and the brain and nerves, which are the objects of exploitation in cognitive capitalism, constitute the means of production of capital only because they exist under capitalist relations of production. “Are the means of subsistence, the instruments of labor, and the raw materials that constitute capital not produced and accumulated under given social conditions, under given social relations? Are they not employed for new production under given social conditions, under given social relations?” [19]19 Karl Marx, “Wage Labour and Capital,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 9 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 204. Starting from the two questions of “whether the evolution of the production and accumulation of cognitive capitalism has changed the source of value” and “whether the evolution of the production and accumulation of cognitive capitalism has changed the essence of social relations,” we can clearly point out that cognitive capitalism represents merely a formal change; it has still not altered capitalist relations of production, and it continues to perpetuate the fundamental contradictions of capitalism. A political-economic critique of cognitive capitalism must transcend the subjective dimension of exploitation and return to a holistic understanding of the capitalist mode of production. This holistic understanding not only helps reveal the limitations of cognitive capitalism but also helps clarify its position within class struggle and the global capitalist system, thereby laying the foundation for promoting a fundamental transformation of the capitalist mode of production.

认知资本主义剥削理论的问题在于，它只是基于经验主义审视了剥削现象的主体性维度，未能深入本质维度理解认知剥削如何以资本主义生产方式为前提条件。作为认知资本主义剥削对象的一般智力、生活本身与脑神经，之所以构成资本的生产资料，只是因为它们在资本主义的生产关系之下。“构成资本的生活资料、劳动工具和原料，难道不是在一定的社会条件下，不是在一定的社会关系内生产出来和积累起来的吗？难道这一切不是在一定的社会条件下，在一定的社会关系内被用来进行新生产的吗？”从“认知资本主义生产和积累的演变是否改变了价值的来源”“认知资本主义生产和积累的演变是否改变了社会关系的本质”这两个问题出发，我们可以明确地指出，认知资本主义仅仅是一种形式上的变迁，依然没有改变资本主义生产关系，依旧延续了资本主义的基本矛盾。对认知资本主义的政治经济学批判，必须超越剥削的主体性维度，回到对资本主义生产方式的整体性理解。这种整体性理解不仅有助于揭示认知资本主义的局限性，而且有助于明确其在阶级斗争和全球资本主义体系中的位置，从而为推动资本主义生产方式的根本性变革奠定基础。

First, the exploitation of cognitive capitalism still falls within the scope criticized by Marx’s theory of exploitation. The reason the general intellect, life itself, and the brain and nerves become objects of exploitation is precisely because they are placed within capitalist relations of production. Capitalist exploitation is not a natural phenomenon but a historical social product, premised on the capitalist mode of production based on private ownership of the means of production. To understand the mechanism of exploitation in cognitive capitalism, we must recognize that “means of production and means of subsistence, as the property of the direct producer, are not capital. They become capital only under conditions in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation and domination of the worker.” [20]20 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, ch. 25, section 2. That is to say, the transformation of means of production and means of subsistence into capital depends on the wage-labor system, i.e., workers must sell their labor power to obtain the conditions for production and subsistence. Marx’s theory of exploitation consistently emphasizes the objective dimension of exploitation under the wage-labor system; exploitation is revealed as a systematic, structural social relation, not merely an individual act between capitalist and worker. This objective dimension is demonstrated through the framework of the labor theory of value and becomes the core of understanding the essence of capitalist exploitation. If subjective exploitation is used to explain the exploitation of cognitive labor and the general intellect, the structural and systemic characteristics of this exploitation will be overlooked, and the fact that it always exists within capitalist relations of production will be ignored. Marx focused not only on the physical labor of workers in the era of industrial capitalism but also on the intellectual factor. “The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. It indicates to what degree the social productive forces are produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice, of the real life process.” [21]21 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (Penguin, 1973), p. 706. In terms of textual evidence, the theorists of the critique of cognitive capitalism have not understood Marx’s discussion of the general intellect in the *Grundrisse* from the perspective of the overall development of Marx’s thought. In the *Grundrisse*, Marx had not yet clearly distinguished between value production and wealth production, nor had he discovered the dual character of labor. In his later works, he came to recognize the adaptive capacity of capitalism and the flexibility of its forms of exploitation, abandoning the simple logic that capitalist exchange-value production would inevitably collapse. In *Capital*, he places greater emphasis on a critique of the essence of the capitalist mode of production. According to *Capital*, although knowledge and skill are part of the social intellect, they are not inherently productive. Only within capitalist relations of production, through the appropriation of capital, can these elements be transformed into factors of production and become means for the valorization of capital. The exploitation theory of cognitive capitalism neglects the mediating role of capitalist relations of production between labor and knowledge, falling into the error of directly regarding cognition or life itself as factors of production. Thus, understanding the core logic of capitalist relations of production is key to analyzing the capitalist mode of production and the essence of its exploitation. As Marx said, “The accumulation of knowledge and of skill, of the general productive forces of the social brain, is thus absorbed into capital, as opposed to labor, and hence appears as an attribute of capital, and more specifically of fixed capital, insofar as it enters into the production process as a means of production proper.” [22]22 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (Penguin, 1973), p. 694.

其一，认知资本主义的剥削依然属于马克思剥削理论所批判的范畴。一般智力、生活本身、脑神经之所以成为剥削的对象，正是源于它们被置于资本主义生产关系之中。资本主义的剥削不是一种自然现象，而是一种具有历史性的社会产物，以基于生产资料私有制的资本主义生产方式为前提条件。要理解认知资本主义的剥削机制，我们必须认识到，“生产资料和生活资料，作为直接生产者的财产，不是资本。它们只有在同时还充当剥削和统治工人的手段的条件下，才成为资本”。也就是说，生产资料和生活资料转化为资本依赖于雇佣劳动制度，即劳动者必须通过出卖劳动力才能获得生产和生活的条件。马克思剥削理论始终强调雇佣劳动制度下剥削的客观性维度，剥削被揭示为一种系统性、结构性的社会关系，而不仅仅是资本家与劳动者之间的个人行为。这种客观性维度通过劳动价值论的框架得以展现，成为理解资本主义剥削本质的核心。如果用主体性剥削来解释对认知劳动与一般智力的剥削，就会忽视这些剥削的结构性和系统性特征，就会忽视它们始终处于资本主义生产关系之中。马克思既关注工业资本主义时代工人的体力劳动，也关注智力要素。“固定资本的发展表明，一般社会知识，已经在多么大的程度上变成了直接的生产力，从而社会生活过程的条件本身在多么大的程度上受到一般智力的控制并按照这种智力得到改造。它表明，社会生产力已经在多么大的程度上，不仅以知识的形式，而且作为社会实践的直接器官，作为实际生活过程的直接器官被生产出来。”从文本依据看，认知资本主义批判理论家没有从马克思思想发展的整体性上理解马克思在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中对一般智力的论述。在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中，马克思还没有明确区分价值生产与财富生产，也没有发现劳动二重性。在后面的著作中，他才认识到资本主义的适应能力和剥削形式的灵活性，放弃了资本主义交换价值生产必然崩溃的简单逻辑。在《资本论》中，他更强调对资本主义生产方式本质的批判。依据《资本论》，知识和技能虽然是社会智力的一部分，但它们并不天然具有生产性。只有在资本主义生产关系中，通过资本的占有，这些要素才能转化为生产要素，成为资本增殖的手段。认知资本主义剥削理论忽视了资本主义生产关系对劳动和知识的中介作用，陷入了将认知或生活直接视为生产要素的误区。由此，理解资本主义生产关系的核心逻辑是分析资本主义生产方式及其剥削本质的关键。如马克思所说，“知识和技能的积累，社会智力的一般生产力的积累，就同劳动相对立而被吸收在资本当中，从而表现为资本的属性，更明确些说，表现为固定资本的属性，只要后者是作为真正的生产资料加入生产过程”。

Within capitalist relations of production, capital not only expands the scope of exploitation by absorbing knowledge and skills and transforming them into fixed capital, bringing workers’ cognitive abilities, creativity, and even emotions within the scope of exploitation, but also increases the intensity of exploitation through the continuous development of fixed capital. For cognitive workers, this exploitation manifests as technological monopoly, intellectual property regimes, and ever-increasing work intensity. Through the application of technology and fixed capital, capital gradually alters the relationship between capital and workers. The Industrial Revolution further depressed the value of workers’ labor, changing the relationship between workers and capitalists. This means that workers no longer primarily engage in labor directly but participate in production through a mode of cooperation dominated by technology and capital. In cognitive capitalism, cognitive workers are also integrated by capital, through technology and platforms, into a system of production cooperation, losing possession of the fruits of their own labor. Whether it is physical labor or cognitive labor, the core logic of exploitation is the same: seizing and controlling the value of labor through fixed capital, thereby strengthening the dominance of capitalist relations of production and the subordinate position of workers. As Marx pointed out when studying the relationship between capitalism and worker cooperation, “On the one hand, the capitalist mode of production presents itself as a historical necessity for the transformation of the labor process into a social process; on the other hand, this social form of the labor process presents itself as a method employed by capital for the more profitable exploitation of the labor process by increasing its productive forces.” [23]23 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 13, Section 4. The English translation follows the standard edition. In cognitive capitalism, although cognitive workers ostensibly enjoy the freedom to create and cooperate, their labor has long since been incorporated by capital into a highly organized intelligent production network. Cognitive workers are merely a functional organ within the entire production process, fulfilling a specific function. This method means that workers’ labor no longer holistically realizes the creation of cognitive products but is fragmented into countless segmented links, subordinated to the production chain under capital’s control: “It suffices for him to be one of the organs of the collective worker, to perform one of its subordinate functions.” [24]24 Ibid., Chapter 14, Section 4. The “free cooperation” of cognitive workers is merely a further domination of workers by capital, its purpose being to strengthen the appropriation of surplus value in a more covert and efficient manner. The general intellect of workers, their life itself, and even their brain nerves are capitalized and integrated into the production process, becoming resources for capital accumulation. For example, workers’ cognitive abilities and skills are appropriated by capital, monopolized and commodified in the form of patents, copyrights, algorithms, and the like. Although workers contribute cognitive labor in their work, the fruits of that cognitive labor—ideas, technical solutions, etc.—ultimately belong to capital.

在资本主义生产关系中，资本不仅通过吸纳知识和技能将其转化为固定资本，扩大了剥削的范围，将劳动者的认知能力、创造力甚至情感都纳入剥削范围，而且通过固定资本的不断发展提高了剥削的强度。对于认知劳动者来说，这种剥削表现为技术垄断、知识产权制度和工作强度的不断加大。资本通过技术和固定资本的应用，逐渐改变了资本与劳动者之间的关系。工业革命使得劳动者的劳动价值被进一步压低，改变了工人与资本家之间的关系，这意味着劳动者不再直接以劳动为主，而是以技术和资本支配的协作方式参与生产。在认知资本主义中，认知劳动者也被资本通过技术和平台整合为生产协作体系的一部分，失去了对自身劳动成果的占有。无论是体力劳动还是认知劳动，其剥削的核心逻辑都是通过固定资本攫取和控制劳动价值，强化资本主义生产关系的支配性和劳动者的从属地位。正如马克思在研究资本主义与工人协作的关系时所指出的，“一方面，资本主义生产方式表现为劳动过程转化为社会过程的历史必然性，另一方面，劳动过程的这种社会形式表现为资本通过提高劳动过程的生产力来更有利地剥削劳动过程的一种方法”。在认知资本主义中，认知劳动者虽然表面上享有创造和协作的自由，但他们的劳动实际上早已被资本纳入一个高度组织化的智能生产网络。认知劳动者仅仅是整个生产过程中的一个功能性器官，完成某种特定的职能即可。这种方式使得劳动者的劳动不再整体地实现认知产品的创造，而是被分解为无数片段化的环节，隶属于资本控制下的生产链条，“只要成为总体工人的一个器官，完成他所属的某一种职能就够了”。认知劳动者的“自由合作”不过是资本对劳动者的进一步支配，其目的是通过更隐蔽、更高效的方式强化对剩余价值的占有。劳动者的一般智力、生活本身和脑神经等都被资本化并融入生产过程，成为资本积累的资源。譬如，劳动者的认知能力和技能被资本占有，通过专利、版权、算法等形式进行垄断和商品化。劳动者虽然在工作中贡献了认知劳动，但是创意、技术方案等认知劳动成果最终归资本所有。

Therefore, cognitive capitalism merely focuses on new phenomena arising from the exploitation of subjectivity, without seeing that the cognitive subject exploited by capital is itself the inevitable result of the personification of economic relations: “The characters who appear on the economic stage are merely personifications of the economic relations that exist between them.” [25]25 Ibid., Chapter 2, note added to the 2nd German edition. Based on Marx’s critique of political economy, one can clearly state that individuals are shaped by social relations, and capitalism, through “real abstraction,” continuously imposes a powerful domination over individuals: “The silent compulsion of economic relations sets the seal on the domination of the capitalist over the worker.” [26]26 Ibid., Chapter 28. The exploitation theory of cognitive capitalism fails to note that Marx’s theory of exploitation is precisely grounded in the most essential feature of the capitalist mode of production: the separation of the means of production from labor. It can be said that cognitive capitalism has not broken through the basic framework of capitalist relations of production; it has merely strengthened capital’s domination over workers through new technologies and forms.

因此，认知资本主义只是着眼于主体性剥削中出现的新现象，而没有看到资本剥削的认知主体本就是经济关系人格化的必然结果，“人们扮演的经济角色不过是经济关系的人格化”。基于马克思的政治经济学批判可以明确一点，个人是被社会关系塑造的，资本主义以“现实抽象”的方式不断地对个体实施强有力的统治，“经济关系的无声的强制保证资本家对工人的统治”。认知资本主义的剥削理论没有注意到，马克思的剥削理论正是立足于资本主义生产方式中生产资料与劳动分离这一最本质的特征。可以说，认知资本主义并未突破资本主义生产关系的基本框架，而仅仅是通过新的技术和形式强化了资本对劳动者的支配。

Second, from the perspective of capital globalization, cognitive capitalism has always constructed a more deeply exploitative system based on the uneven production structure of global capitalism. Significant disparities exist between different countries and regions in terms of data, resources, technology, and capital, further leading to uneven global development. Developed countries, by controlling knowledge, technology, and data, maintain absolute dominance over the global market through advanced production technologies and完善的产业体系 [27]27 “完善的产业体系” (wánshàn de chǎnyè tǐxì): “complete industrial system,” a common Chinese term referring to a comprehensive and well-developed industrial structure., while developing countries are forced to play the role of low-tech, low-value producers within this system, thereby creating new forms of exploitation and inequality. Although cognitive capitalism has promoted technological innovation and the development of the general intellect, especially the application of information technology and artificial intelligence, within the global capitalist production system, technological innovation is merely used to further accelerate the pace of capital accumulation and expand new fields for capital absorption. This technological innovation has not brought about a fundamental improvement in the global production power structure and the固化 [28]28 “固化” (gùhuà): “solidification” or “rigidification,” here referring to the hardening or entrenchment of the global division of labor. of the division of labor; on the contrary, it has exacerbated uneven development between developed and developing countries, and the exploitation suffered by global workers has become more severe. The new imperialism, supported by new technologies, has as its core goal the consolidation of the dominant position of developed countries within the global capitalist system. By controlling property rights in technology, data resources, and the cognitive domain, it locks developing countries into a dependent economic status. As an important tool and manifestation of the new imperialism, cognitive capitalism, through technological monopoly and the platform economy, constructs a globalized system of exploitation, using the advantages of cognitive capital to achieve the purpose of capital valorization, maintaining the unequal structure of global capitalism, and realizing influence and control over other countries. Therefore, we cannot confine our understanding of cognitive capitalism to the level of subjectivity. Instead, through a holistic critique of the capitalist mode of production and the global capitalist system, we must truly reveal the exploitative essence of cognitive capitalism, providing a theoretical basis and practical path for resisting capitalism.

其二，从资本全球化的角度来说，认知资本主义始终以全球资本主义不平衡的生产结构为基础构建起一个剥削更加深入的体系。不同国家和地区在数据、资源、技术、资本等方面存在显著差距，进一步导致了全球发展的不平衡。发达国家通过控制知识、技术和数据，以先进的生产技术和完善的产业体系保持对全球市场的绝对主导地位，而发展中国家被迫在这一体系中充当低技术、低价值的生产角色，从而造成新的剥削和不平等形式。认知资本主义虽然推动了技术革新和一般智力的发展，尤其是信息技术和人工智能的应用，但在全球资本主义生产体系下，技术革新只是被用来进一步推动资本积累的速度，拓展资本吸纳的新领域。这种技术革新不仅没有带来全球生产权力结构和分工固化的根本改善，反而加剧了发达国家与发展中国家之间的不平衡发展，全球劳动者遭受的剥削更加严重。新帝国主义以新技术为支撑，其核心目标是巩固发达国家在全球资本主义体系中的主导地位，通过控制技术、数据资源和认知领域的产权，将发展中国家锁定在依附性的经济地位上。作为新帝国主义的重要工具和表现形式，认知资本主义借助技术垄断和平台经济构建起一个全球化的剥削体系，以认知资本的优势实现资本增殖的目的，维护全球资本主义的不平等结构，实现对其他国家的影响和控制。因此，我们不能停留在主体性层面理解认知资本主义，而要通过对资本主义生产方式和全球资本主义体系的整体性批判，真正揭示认知资本主义的剥削本质，为反抗资本主义提供理论基础和实践路径。

On the one hand, the high-yield value creation in cognitive capitalism originates from the exploitation network constructed by the new imperialism through economic globalization, specifically manifested in the control of global value chains, technological monopoly, the export of financial capital, and the extraction of data resources. Through intellectual property regimes and technological barriers, the new imperialism concentrates high value-added value creation links in the hands of developed countries, while outsourcing low value-added, labor-intensive production to developing countries. This structural exploitation channels the surplus value of global labor to developed countries; the high returns from cognitive production actually depend on workers in the low-end production links of economic globalization. More importantly, through data collection and the expansion of digital platforms, cognitive capitalism transforms the behavior, preferences, and information of global users into new data capital, realizing the colonization and valorization of global data. This model of capital accumulation further strengthens the dominant position of developed countries, indicating that cognitive capitalism is essentially a contemporary manifestation of the new imperialism. The new imperialism, by means of the global exploitation system of cognitive capitalism, aims to maximize capital valorization and maintain the hegemonic position of developed countries within the global capitalist system. Therefore, a political economy critique of cognitive capitalism must transcend the subjective dimension of exploitation, return to a holistic analysis of the global capitalist system and the logic of the new imperialism, and reveal the complexity and globality of its exploitation. The new imperialism has constructed a highly unequal global economic order, keeping developing countries in a long-term state of exploitation. This structural exploitation reinforces the global ruling logic of capitalism, indicating that capital accumulation has transcended the traditional mode of industrial production and entered a new era reliant on technology, data, and cognition. To break this system, one must contemplate the inherent contradictions of capitalism on a global scale and seek new paths of struggle against capitalism.

一方面，认知资本主义中高收益的价值创造来源于新帝国主义通过经济全球化构建的剥削网络，具体表现为对全球价值链的控制、技术的垄断、金融资本的输出以及数据资源的攫取。新帝国主义通过知识产权制度和技术壁垒，将高附加值的价值创造环节集中在发达国家手中，而将低附加值的劳动密集型生产外包给发展中国家。这种结构性剥削将全球劳动的剩余价值汇聚到发达国家，认知生产所带来的高收益实际上依赖于经济全球化中低端生产环节的劳动者。更重要的是，通过数据采集和数字化平台的扩张，认知资本主义将全球用户的行为、偏好和信息转化为新的数据资本，实现了对全球数据的殖民和价值化。这种资本积累模式进一步强化了发达国家的主导地位，表明认知资本主义本质上是新帝国主义在当代的全新呈现。新帝国主义借助认知资本主义的全球剥削体系，其目的是实现资本增殖最大化，维护发达国家在全球资本主义体系中的霸权地位。因此，对认知资本主义的政治经济学批判，必须超越剥削的主体性维度，回归对全球资本主义体系和新帝国主义逻辑的整体性分析，揭示其剥削的复杂性与全球性。新帝国主义构建了一个高度不平等的全球经济秩序，使发展中国家长期处于被剥削的地位。这种结构性剥削强化了资本主义的全球统治逻辑，表明资本积累已经超越传统的工业生产方式，进入新的依靠技术、数据和认知的时代。要打破这一体系，必须从全球范围内思考资本主义的内在矛盾，并寻求新的反抗资本主义的斗争路径。

On the other hand, cognitive capitalism is a completely new mode of governance and domination by the new imperialism in the era of economic globalization. Its connotation extends far beyond exploitation in the economic sphere, encompassing also the regulation of global economic operations and the deep shaping of ideology. From the perspective of global economic operations, cognitive capitalism, through technological means such as cognitive creation, algorithms, data analysis, and artificial intelligence, has realized the “intellectualization” of production, thereby enabling capital to maximize profits. Its economic regulatory function is manifested on two levels: on the one hand, through the restructuring of global value chains, it integrates the resources, labor, and markets of developing countries into the center of capitalism; on the other hand, through real-time analysis of big data, it optimizes the processes of production and distribution, making capital accumulation faster and more precise. From the perspective of ideological shaping, the new imperialism no longer relies solely on traditional state power or military force for direct control. Instead, through cognitive capitalism, it constructs a transnational network of technology and culture, placing the power of cultural regulation in the hands of developed countries. For instance, Amazon is not merely an e-commerce platform but also a cultural dissemination machine; through its platform and media operations, it exports consumerist and individualist values. By controlling technology and digital resources, the new imperialism can redefine the value chain and organizational mode of production on a global scale, determine the direction of new technology flows and the forms of digital resource possession, thereby constructing a world economic order favorable to the capitalist center. The new imperialism always creates regional developmental unevenness through the mode of cognitive capitalism. “Without uneven geographical development and its contradictions, capital would have long since become rigid and fallen into chaos. This is a key means by which capital periodically recreates itself.” [29]29 David Harvey, *Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography* (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), p. 247. This unevenness is very widespread; cognitive capitalism expands wealth globally in the form of the platform economy. Although these digital platforms operate globally, their valorization is concentrated in developed countries, while developing countries can only obtain returns from low-end or downstream segments of the industrial chain. It is evident that the main purpose of cognitive capitalism is to better serve the capital accumulation of the new imperialism, providing a more concealed and more efficient tool for the continuous operation of exploitation.

另一方面，认知资本主义是新帝国主义在经济全球化时代的一种全新治理与统治方式，其内涵远不止于经济领域的剥削，还包括对全球经济运行的调节和对意识形态的深度塑造。从全球经济运行的角度看，认知资本主义通过认知创造、算法、数据分析和人工智能等技术手段，实现了生产的“智能化”，从而使资本也实现了利润最大化。它的经济调节功能表现在两个层面：一方面，它通过对全球价值链的重组，将发展中国家的资源、劳动力和市场整合到资本主义的中心；另一方面，它通过大数据的实时分析，优化了生产和分配过程，使资本积累更快、更准。从意识形态塑造的角度看，新帝国主义不再单纯依赖传统的国家政权或军事力量进行直接控制，而是通过认知资本主义构建起一个跨国的技术与文化网络，使得文化的调节权掌握在发达国家手中。譬如，亚马逊不仅是一个电商平台，更是一个文化传播机器，它通过平台和媒介业务输出消费主义和个人主义价值观。通过控制技术和数字资源，新帝国主义能够在全球范围内重新定义生产的价值链和组织方式，决定新技术的流动方向和数字资源的占有形式，从而构建一个对资本主义中心有利的世界经济秩序。新帝国主义始终以认知资本主义的方式制造地区发展的不均衡性，“如果没有不均衡的地域发展及其矛盾，资本早已僵化并陷入混乱。这是资本不时自我再造的一种关键手段”。这种不均衡非常普遍，认知资本主义以平台经济的方式在全球范围内扩张财富。这些数字平台虽然在全球运营，但其价值增殖集中于发达国家，发展中国家仅能获得低端或下游产业链的收益。可见，认知资本主义的主要目的是更好地服务于新帝国主义的资本积累，为剥削的持续运转提供更隐蔽、更高效的工具。

Conclusion

结 语

According to Marx’s critique of political economy, cognitive capitalism exploitation theory neglects the inherent contradictions of capitalist relations of production and the globalized character of the structural exploitation of the new imperialism. On the one hand, cognitive capitalism exploitation theory only focuses on explaining the subjective dimension of exploitation, neglecting the critique of the capitalist mode of production, which leads to resistance against cognitive capitalism being unable to target the capitalist system itself, ultimately sliding into a “self-liberation” in the sense of spiritual redemption. On the other hand, cognitive capitalism is not an economic form independent of the global capitalist system, but a new stage in the development of the global capitalist system. Through cognitive capitalism, the globalization of capital further abstracts and digitizes the labor process into a factor of production, thereby incorporating it into its exploitation system and expanding the scope of capital accumulation.

依据马克思的政治经济学批判，认知资本主义剥削理论忽视了资本主义生产关系所固有的矛盾以及新帝国主义结构性剥削的全球化特质：一方面，认知资本主义剥削理论仅注重阐释剥削的主体性维度，忽视对资本主义生产方式的批判，导致对认知资本主义的抵抗无法指向资本主义制度本身，最终只能滑向心灵救赎意义上的“自我解放”。另一方面，认知资本主义并不是独立于全球资本主义体系的经济形态，而是全球资本主义体系发展的新阶段。资本的全球化通过认知资本主义将劳动过程进一步抽象化和数字化为生产要素，从而纳入其剥削体系，拓展了资本积累的范围。

Faced with the reality of the development of contemporary Western cognitive capitalism, we must return to Marx’s critique of political economy to grasp the essence of the problem. On the one hand, analyzing the new modes of capital valorization in cognitive capitalism can help us deeply understand new quality productive forces and their logic of emergence. On the other hand, this analysis reminds us that “under the socialist market economy system, capital is an important bond driving the agglomeration and allocation of various production factors, and an important force promoting the development of social productive forces. The positive role of capital in promoting the development of social productive forces should be brought into play. At the same time, it must be recognized that capital has a profit-seeking nature,” [30]30 Xi Jinping, “Correctly Understanding and Grasping the Major Issues Concerning China’s Development Strategy in the Medium to Long Term,” *Qiushi Journal*, no. 10 (2021). which includes being vigilant against capital’s absorption of cognitive labor and preventing it from bringing about new social inequalities. In short, we must focus on achieving a balance between technological development and social equity, be vigilant against the problem of structural domination by cognitive capitalism in the process of capital globalization, and promote China’s independent innovation in global technological competition.

面对当代西方认知资本主义发展的现实，我们必须回到马克思的政治经济学批判才能切中问题的实质：一方面，分析认知资本主义新的资本增殖方式，能够帮助我们深刻把握新质生产力及其出场逻辑；另一方面，这一分析提醒我们，“在社会主义市场经济体制下，资本是带动各类生产要素集聚配置的重要纽带，是促进社会生产力发展的重要力量，要发挥资本促进社会生产力发展的积极作用。同时，必须认识到，资本具有逐利本性”，其中就包括警惕资本对认知劳动的吸纳，防止其带来新的社会不平等。总之，我们要注重实现技术发展与社会公平之间的平衡，警惕资本全球化过程中认知资本主义的结构性支配问题，推动我国在全球技术竞争中实现自主创新。

(Author’s biography: Sun Liang, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor, Department of Philosophy and Institute of Modern Chinese Thought and Culture, East China Normal University)

（作者简介：孙亮，华东师范大学哲学系暨中国现代思想文化研究所教授、博士生导师）

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心