Platform Capitalism and the Industrial Reserve Army

Current labor research, while focused on digital platforms, lacks theoretical analysis. This theoretical impoverishment in many cases leads to an insufficient understanding of the present situation. By reducing social processes merely to market transactions, the new reified forms of labor "subsumption" and the composition of the "industrial reserve army" are obliterated. Within this framework, this article proposes to theoretically deepen the principal social relations of digital platform work, emphasizing the main contradictions in current debates, and how digital platforms reshape the subsumption and formation processes of the industrial reserve army in new reified ways, so as to ultimately attempt to explore the new dynamics and new limits of capitalist class struggle.

目前的劳动研究虽聚焦于数字平台，但缺乏理论分析。这种理论匮乏在许多情况下导致人们对现状缺乏足够的理解。由于将社会进程仅仅简化为市场交易，劳动“从属关系”（subsumption）的新具象化形式和“产业后备军”（reserve army）的构成就被抹杀了。在此框架下，本文提出从理论上深化数字平台工作的主要社会关系，强调当前争论中存在的主要矛盾，以及数字平台如何以新的具象方式重塑产业后备军的从属关系和组建过程，以便最终尝试探索资本主义阶级斗争的新动力和新界限。

This kind of digital platform work has drawn attention through ride-hailing and food delivery applications, but currently also encompasses a variety of different kinds of work, which will be explained in the first section. Although these activities differ, in their degree of complexity, territoriality, and modes of control, from the standpoint of the logic of capitalist relations, some processes are common. Despite enormous and important differences in geographical terms and types of work, work obtained through digital platforms still possesses certain similarities in the process of the constitution of capitalist work.

此种数字平台工作因打车和外卖应用程序而备受关注，但目前还包括了各种不同的工作，这一点将在第一节中进行说明。尽管这些活动各不相同，其复杂程度、地域性和控制方式也不尽相同，但从资本主义关系的逻辑角度来看，有些过程却是共通的。尽管在地理角度和工作类型上存在着巨大而重要的差异，但通过数字平台获得的工作，在资本主义工作的构成过程中仍具有一定的相似性。

Through digital platforms, new reified dynamics of labor control and the composition of the relative surplus population have been intensified. However, most recent research has not classified this platform work within the specific logic of the constitution of capitalist work. As noted in the first section, even the most critical research finds it difficult to achieve this conceptualization, partly because such research is strictly descriptive or affirmative in nature, and partly because it adopts generalizing methods that seek to identify a new universal sociality in the current historical stage. The most critical concrete studies possess the great advantage of understanding the particularities of the new mechanisms of platform work, which usually involve regional or sectoral determinants. However, because of this particularity, they ultimately fail to unify these works across digital platforms as a more universal social process. Moreover, although generalizations about digital work show important tendencies, they also bear the burden of obliterating the particularities of concrete forms of work.

通过数字平台，工作控制和相对过剩劳动力构成的新具象化动态得到了加强。然而，大多数的最新研究都没有将这些平台工作归类到资本主义工作构成这一特定的逻辑中。正如第一节所述，即使是最具批判性的研究也难以实现这种概念化，一部分原因是这些研究具有严格的描述性或积极性，另一部分原因则是这些研究采用了概括性的方法，试图在当前的历史阶段中找出一种新的通用社会性。最具批判性的具体研究具有理解平台工作新机制特殊性的巨大优势，这些新机制通常涉及地区或部门的决定因素。然而，由于这种特殊性，它们最终没有将跨数字平台的这些作品统一为更普遍的社会过程。此外，尽管关于数字工作的概括显示出重要动向，但它们也背负着抹杀具体工作形式特殊性的负担。

Against the broad backdrop of transformations in the world of work in recent years, it is necessary to distinguish the different social processes underway, in order to understand the contradictions and tendencies emerging in this context. In the recent literature, mainly critical articles, there is a strong tendency to homogenize platform work, whether by bringing work closer to social networks through digital platforms with the development of neoliberalism in the early 21st century, or by homogenizing platforms within the framework of "labor precarity." In this attempt at generalization, several different classifications have been established, such as uberization, on-demand or just-in-time work, the platformization of work, and platform capitalism.

在近年来工作领域广泛变革的大背景下，有必要区分正在发生的不同社会进程，以便理解在这一背景下出现的矛盾和趋势。在近年来的文献中，主要是批判性的文章，有一种强烈地将平台工作同质化的倾向，即随着21世纪初新自由主义的发展，通过数字平台使工作更贴近社会网络，或在“工作不稳定”的框架内将平台同质化。在这一归纳总结的尝试中，建立了几种不同的分类，例如优步化（uberization）、随需或适时工作（on-demand or just-in-time work）、工作平台化（the platformization of work）以及平台资本主义（platform capitalism）。

To understand the contradictions and struggles in the constitution of capitalist relations, a more comprehensive description of changes in concrete forms of work is necessary, but without obliterating the various existing processes, equating platform work, digital work, social networks, and new labor regulations. Each of these elements must be analyzed within the scope of its particularity as a moment in the constitution of capitalist work, in order to construct a more global picture of transformation.

要理解资本主义关系构成中的矛盾和斗争，就必须对具体工作形式的变化进行更全面的描述，但不能抹杀现有的各种流程，将平台工作、数字工作、社交网络和新劳动法规等同看待。这些要素中的每一个都必须作为资本主义工作构成的一个时刻，在其特殊性的范围内加以分析，以构建更具全球性的变革图景。

The research presented in this article focuses only on work carried out through digital platforms, both to demystify the purely contractual form and to identify new elements in the processes of labor subsumption and the composition of the industrial reserve army, according to Marx's theoretical framework in *Capital*. The overall scope of research on digital platform work does not deny more concrete critical research, whether for reasons of region or type of work, as will be explained in the following sections. This study will analyze more abstractly the existing capitalist identity among these jobs offered by recruitment platforms. Therefore, this study does not intend to cover all the particularities of all platforms in the world, but rather, by drawing on Marx's analysis, to understand the common processes existing in these new realized forms of capitalist work.

本文所介绍的研究只关注通过数字平台开展的工作，其既是为了揭开单纯的契约形式的神秘面纱，也是为了根据马克思在《资本论》中的理论框架，确定劳动从属和产业后备军构成过程的新要素。无论是由于地域原因还是工作类型，对数字平台工作的总体研究范围并不否认更具体的批判性研究，这一点将在接下来的章节中说明。本研究将更抽象地分析招聘平台提供的这些工作之间现有的资本主义同一性。因此，本研究无意涵盖世界上所有平台的全部特性，而是要通过借助马克思的分析，理解这些新的资本主义工作实现形式中存在的共同过程。

Through digital platforms of different activities, new concrete capitalist forms of commodification and labor control are formed, whose core elements are the new separation of workers from the means of production, and the control of the means of production through the implementation of algorithmic systems. In addition to these new reified forms of subsumption, it also incorporates great fluidity into the logical process of composing the reserve army, breaking the rigidified state between employed and non-employed workers.

通过不同活动的数字平台，形成了新的具体资本主义形式的商品化和工作控制，其核心要素是工人与生产资料的新分离，以及通过实施算法系统对生产资料的控制。除了这些新的具象从属形式，它还在后备军的逻辑构成过程中融入了极大的流动性，打破了在职工人和非在职工人之间的固化状态。

Within this briefly introduced framework, the first section will present the characteristics of work carried out through digital platforms and highlight some deficiencies in recent debates. In the two subsequent sections, we will theoretically explore the logical role of this work in the process of constituting capitalist relations: first, the subsumption of labor under capital; second, its impact on the composition of the industrial reserve army, and its unfolding of new dynamics and new fields of capitalist class struggle. The final section presents some concluding remarks.

在简要介绍的这一框架内，第一节将介绍通过数字平台开展工作的特点，并强调近期争论中的一些不足之处。在其后的两节中，我们将从理论上探讨这种工作在资本主义关系构成过程中的逻辑作用：首先是劳动从属于资本，其次是对产业后备军构成的影响，及其对资本主义阶级斗争新动态和新领域的展开。最后一节提出了一些结论性内容。

Qualifying labor through platforms and raising questions

通过平台对劳动进行定性并提出问题

In recent years, research on changes in labor has proliferated, mainly focusing on digital integration. The quantity of this research reflects the creation of a broad range of categories to understand these changes, such as "gig economy," "platform economy," "sharing economy," "crowdsourcing," "on-demand economy," "uberization," "crowd work," "digital work," and "platform capitalism." This diversity of categories stems both from the various existing approaches and from a certain confusion in defining the forms of labor analyzed. Many approaches treat digital labor, social network users, cognitive labor, and platform labor as homogeneous groups, ultimately failing to understand the particularities of these new reified forms.

近年来，关于劳动变化的研究大量涌现，主要集中在数字化融合方面。这些研究的数量众多，反映了为理解这些变化而创造了广泛的类别范围，如“零工经济”“平台经济”“共享经济”“众包”“随需经济”“城市化”“众包工作”“数字工作”和“平台资本主义”。这种类别的多样性既源于现有的各种方法，也源于对所分析劳动形式的界定存在某种混乱。许多方法将数字劳动、社交网络用户、认知劳动和平台劳动视为同质群体，最终导致无法理解这些新的具象化形式的特殊性。

Although the application of digital technologies has brought about many changes in the concrete forms of labor, the focus here is on work carried out through applications or digital platforms. Within this scope of labor activity, it is worth noting that the online connection between producers and consumers, or between workers and companies, through computers or mobile devices has become a common feature—devices that allow for the large-scale processing of digital data and the organization and control of activities through algorithms.

尽管数字技术的应用使劳动的具体形式发生了许多变化，但这里的重点是通过应用程序或数字平台开展的工作。在这一劳动活动范围内，值得注意的是，生产商与消费者或工人与公司之间通过电脑或移动设备形成线上联系已成为共性，这些设备允许对数字数据进行大规模处理，并通过算法对活动进行组织和控制。

Urban mobility companies, whether serving the movement of people or the transport of goods, are the most well-known representatives of these platforms. However, besides passenger transport giants like Uber, and food delivery companies such as iFood, and freight companies such as Loggi, there are many other types of activities, many of which are highly complex. Engineering and information technology activities are served by platforms such as Turing, which hire engineers and programmers for specific projects, usually decomposed into multiple highly complex small tasks. Activities that make extensive use of applications include marketing and design services (such as Upwork), childcare services (such as Care.com), and elderly care services (such as KindlyCare).

城市出行公司，无论是服务于人的出行还是货物的运输，都是这些平台最广为人知的代表。然而，除了像优步（Uber）这样的乘客运送的巨型企业，以及食品配送企业（如Ifood）、货运企业（如Loggi），还有许多其他类型的活动，其中许多都具有高度的复杂性。工程和信息技术活动由图灵（Turing）等平台提供服务，这些平台为特定项目雇佣工程师和程序员，这些项目通常被分解为多个高度复杂的小任务。大量使用应用程序的活动包括营销和设计服务（如Upwork）、儿童看护服务（如Care.com）以及老年人看护服务（如KindlyCare）等。

From this simple qualification, some evident differences emerge among the aforementioned categories. Some research takes a very uncritical stance, using categories such as "sharing economy" and "crowdsourcing economy" to homogenize relations on platforms as beneficial to all parties. These studies focus solely on descriptive analysis, starting from the assumption that these activities benefit workers because they reduce the costs and formalities of labor transactions, and that, due to their potential for delocalization, the supply of jobs also increases.

从这一简单的定性出发，上述类别存在一些明显的差异。一些研究的态度非常不具有批判性，使用诸如“共享经济”和“众包经济”等类别来将平台上的关系同质化，使之对各方都有利。这些研究仅侧重于描述性分析，其出发点是假设这些活动是因为降低了劳动力交易的成本和手续而对工人有利，同时由于其可能实现去地域化，工作岗位的供应也会增加。

Platform employment is positively evaluated because companies reduce costs and provide new job opportunities, which are supposedly “shared” with workers through the role of tech companies as pure intermediaries. As the next two sections will discuss, this positive aspect is the inverse reflection of new forms of labor control and the creation of a reserve army. The bond between capitalists and workers is broken by the emergence of tech companies that are merely “intermediaries” between “consumers and producers,” “sharing” products and services. Although this strategy of rendering work invisible is not new in the history of capitalism, companies use new information technology to actually purchase the labor power that produces goods and services. If there is an exchange of goods and services and a purchase of labor power on the market, then this is not sharing.

平台就业之所以受到积极评价，是因为公司降低了成本并提供了新的就业机会，这些机会本应该通过科技公司作为纯粹中介的角色“共享”给工人。正如接下来两节将要论述的，这种积极的一面是新形式劳动控制和后备军产生的逆向反映。资本家与劳动者之间的纽带在科技公司的出现中被打破，这些公司仅仅是“消费者和生产者”之间的“中介”，通过“共享”产品和服务。尽管这种试图使工作变得不可见的策略在资本主义历史上并非新近出现，但公司利用新的信息技术来实际购买生产商品和服务的劳动力。如果市场上有商品和服务的交换以及劳动力的购买，那么这就不是共享。

This defense of flexibility and equality has been severely criticized in a large body of literature that seeks to correctly understand the dynamics of work through digital platforms within the broader framework of so-called neoliberalism. Within this more critical framework, categories such as “Uberization,” “on-demand or just-in-time work,” “platformization of work,” and “platform capitalism” have been emphasized. The main effort of these scholars is to understand platform labor within the larger context of labor precarity, so that changes brought by new technologies like apps and platforms become a general trend in new labor arrangements.

这种为灵活性平等辩护的观点在很大一部分文献中受到了严厉批评，这些文献试图在所谓新自由主义的更广泛框架内，正确理解通过数字平台的工作动态。在这个更具批判性的框架内，人们强调了诸如“城市化”“随需或适时工作”“工作平台化”和“平台资本主义”等类别。这些学者的主要努力是在工作不稳定的更大背景下理解平台劳动，因此应用程序和平台等新技术带来的变化将成为新劳动安排的一般趋势。

Within this more general framework of the trend toward labor precarity in the 21st century, earlier understandings of platforms become concepts for grasping new pressures for outsourcing and labor deregulation. Uberization has come to refer not only to platform workers but to the entire recent trend of worker individualization. From this perspective, neoliberal capitalist labor tends toward labor individualization, transforming labor into individual contracted activities, unregulated. Similarly, “on-demand or just-in-time work” has extended beyond apps to encompass the intentions of enterprises and labor reforms, namely to provide enterprises with the most suitable labor (in terms of quantity and time availability). The allocation of labor and workers is entirely aimed at maximizing the profits of stock-, cash-, and demand-flow companies, just like any other commodity, without considering human needs or labor regulations.

在21世纪工作不稳定趋势这一更为普遍的框架内，以前对平台的理解范畴成为理解外包和工作放松管制的新压力的概念。优步化不仅开始指代平台工人，而且开始指代近期工人个体化的整个趋势。从这一角度来看，新自由主义资本主义劳动将趋向于劳动个体化，劳动将转变为个人承包的活动，不受监管。与此类似，“随需或适时工作”已超出了应用程序的范畴，并延伸到企业和劳动力改革的意图，即为企业提供最合适的劳动力（在数量和时间可用性方面）。劳动力和工人的分配将完全以股票、现金和需求流公司的利益最大化为目的，就像任何其他商品一样，而不考虑人的需求和劳动法规。

Undoubtedly, these analyses correctly understand how the so-called neoliberal movement has carried out campaigns to lower work standards and compensation; in this sense, new technologies are incorporated as part of it and influence labor organization through competitive pressure. In this way, these scholars have made important contributions by emphasizing how work conducted through the integration of new technologies fits within the framework of worker precarity. However, this process of precarity should not be understood merely as a historical peculiarity of this moment of capitalism, but as a logical characteristic of this social relation, which takes different concrete forms of constitution. Within these concrete forms, its different moments and contradictions must be understood in order to correctly grasp the dimensions of the different fronts of struggle in the constitution of these labor relations.

毫无疑问，这些分析正确地理解了所谓新自由主义是如何开展降低工作标准和报酬的运动的，在这个意义上，新技术被纳入其中，成为其中的一部分，并通过竞争压力影响劳动组织。通过这种方式，这些学者做出了重要贡献，他们强调了通过融入新技术而开展的工作如何符合工人不稳定的框架。然而，这一不稳定性过程不应仅被理解为资本主义这一时刻的历史特殊性，而应被理解为这一社会关系的逻辑特征，它具有不同的具体构成形式。在这些具体的形式中，必须理解其不同的时刻和矛盾，以便正确理解在这些劳动关系的构成中不同斗争阵线的维度。

In the world market, labor patterns have always been diverse, and the so-called Global South is characterized by widespread informality and low wage levels. However, caution should be exercised when speaking of “the marginal character of informal work in the Global South and its tendency toward globalization.” Even within the neoliberal framework of declining labor standards, international differences in work standards remain enormous and are indeed widening. Moreover, the incorporation of these platforms and apps should not be reduced merely to informality, which already exists in the Global South. Otherwise, the widespread dissemination of these resources in these countries would be meaningless. What must be precisely understood is how these platforms relate to historically existing processes of labor inequality, highlighting the new logic that capitalist work incorporates in the constitution of its precarious forms.

在世界市场中，劳动模式向来多种多样，所谓全球南方地区的特点就是非正规性广泛且工资水平低。然而，在谈及全球南方地区“非正式工作具有边缘性特征，并趋于全球化”时，应持谨慎态度。即使在劳动标准不断降低的新自由主义框架下，工作标准方面的国际差异依然巨大，且确实在不断扩大。此外，不应将这些平台和应用程序的纳入仅仅归结为非正式性，这在全球南方地区已经存在。否则，这些资源在这些国家的广泛传播就毫无意义了。必须精确理解的是，这些平台如何与历史上存在的劳动不平等过程相关联，突出资本主义工作在其不稳定形式构成过程中融入的新逻辑。

Although the lowering of work standards is a current global trend, there are also different processes. Many forms of precarity involving these new technologies cannot be directly extended to other activities that do not use these new technologies, even though they exert strong indirect pressure and shape workers’ subjectivity. Therefore, it is necessary to conceptualize the capitalist constitution of this work through platforms, that is, to seek an understanding of these technological mechanisms within the logical constitution of capitalist relations themselves.

尽管工作标准的降低是当前世界性的趋势，但也有不同的进程。涉及这些新技术的许多不稳定形式无法直接延伸到不使用这些新技术的其他活动中，尽管它们施加了强大的间接压力并构成了工人的主体性。因此，有必要通过平台对这种工作的资本主义构成进行概念化，即在资本主义关系的自身逻辑构成中寻求对这些技术机制的理解。

The Actual Consumption of Service Sector Workers

服务业工人的实际消费情况

Concrete forms of labor in capitalist society cannot be understood as static. On the contrary, they must be understood within the movement of capital’s reproduction. In Marx’s exposition of labor, the transformation of the labor process is understood through the categories of subsumption. However, in Marx’s main work *Capital*, the concept of the subsumption of labor is not fully developed. Marx elaborated this category better in his “unpublished Chapter VI,” also known as “Results of the Direct Production Process.” Although it was not included in the final version of Volume I of *Capital*, it is of great importance for clarifying the logical process of the transformation of concrete labor into the sphere of capitalist relations. Therefore, this section analyzes the innovations brought by labor through digital platforms using Marx’s concepts of formal and real subsumption.

资本主义社会中的具体劳动形式不能理解为静态的。相反，它必须在资本再生产的运动中加以理解。在马克思对劳动的论述中，劳动过程的转变是通过从属范畴来理解的。然而，在马克思的主要著作《资本论》中，劳动从属的概念并未得到充分的展开。马克思在其“未发表的第六章”中更好地阐述了这一范畴，该章也被称为“直接生产过程的结果”。尽管它并未被纳入《资本论》第一卷的最终版本，但阐明具体劳动向资本主义关系领域转变的逻辑过程具有极大的重要性。因此，本节通过马克思提出的从属和实际从属的概念，分析通过数字平台进行的劳动所带来的创新。

The first important point concerns the process of formal subsumption and labor through platforms. Specifically, capitalist labor involves the worker’s alienation from the material conditions of labor as a free person. Thus, the worker becomes dependent on selling his or her labor power, which is consumed in capitalist production to create surplus value for the buyer. In this way, the sale and purchase of labor power becomes “a necessary social form of labor for capitalist production.” Therefore, although this purchase of labor capacity does not directly enter production, it enters the constitution of this labor relation as a whole.

第一个重要观点涉及形式上的从属过程和通过平台进行的劳动。具体地说，资本主义劳动涉及工人作为自由人同劳动的物质条件相异化。因此，工人变得依赖于出售其劳动力，这种劳动力在资本主义生产中被消耗，为买者创造剩余价值。这样，劳动力的买卖就成了“对资本主义生产来说是劳动的一种必要的社会形式”。因此，尽管这种劳动能力的购买并不直接进入生产，但它作为一个整体进入了这种劳动关系的构成。

In selling his or her labor power to produce surplus value, the worker separates himself or herself from that labor power, allowing the buyer to control it. This alienation of labor does not occur through direct personal domination and dependency relations, but arises from the presumed social differences in economic functions. Thus, in the alienating act of selling labor power, the specificity of capitalist relations is constituted, in which forms of domination and dependency are indirectly conferred by economic coercion. Therefore, although “the purchase and sale of labor power is a process separate from, independent of, and prior to the direct production process, when we consider the capitalist production process as a whole… the purchase and sale of labor power constitutes the absolute foundation of the capitalist production process, an element of this production process itself.”

在出售自己的劳动力以产生剩余价值的过程中，工人将自己与劳动力相分离，让买者控制自己的劳动力。这种劳动异化并不是通过直接的个人支配和依赖关系发生的，而是产生于经济职能中假定的社会差异。因此，在出卖劳动力的异化行为中，构成了资本主义关系的特殊性，其支配和依赖形式是由经济强制间接赋予的。因此，尽管“劳动能力的买和卖，是同直接生产过程分开的、独立的、先于直接生产过程的一个过程，但当我们把资本主义生产过程作为一个整体来看……劳动能力的买和卖就构成资本主义生产过程的绝对基础，构成这种生产过程本身的一个要素”。

Although this alienation, as the absolute foundation of capitalist production, does not exist directly, it also has an impact on capitalist production, because the labor power is now at the disposal of the buyer, which Marx calls the formal subsumption of labor under capital. “The labor process is subsumed under capital (it is capital’s own process), and the capitalist enters this process as manager, director; for the capitalist, this process is simultaneously a process of directly exploiting the labor of others. I call this the formal subsumption of labor under capital.”

尽管作为资本主义生产绝对基础的这种异化并不直接存在，但它也会对资本主义生产造成影响，因为现在的劳动力是由买者支配的，也就是马克思所说的劳动力在形式上从属于资本。“劳动过程从属于资本(它是资本本身的过程)，资本家作为管理者、指挥者进入这个过程；这个过程对资本家来说，同时又是直接剥削他人劳动的过程。我把这称为劳动对资本的形式上的从属。”

The labor power purchased by the capitalist is entirely directed and disposed of by the capitalist, placing the worker in a passive position with respect to his or her own capacities. Thus, if viewed in isolation, the worker uses the means of production in the labor process, but from the capitalist’s perspective, the worker is used as a means of production to create surplus value.

资本家购买的劳动能力完全由资本家指挥和支配，使工人在自身能力方面处于被动地位。这样，如果孤立地看，工人在工作过程中使用生产资料，但从资本家的角度看，工人被当作生产资料来创造剩余价值。

This description by Marx of formal subsumption contains elements crucial for understanding the transformation of work carried out through platforms. Workers defined as self-employed were previously owners of their means of production or means of subsistence, whether computers and software for engineers and designers, or cars, motorcycles, and trucks for drivers and delivery personnel. As the market is implemented through digital platforms, their work begins to separate from the material conditions through which work is realized. The implementation of these platforms signifies not merely a new commercial option, but also the constitution of capitalist production processes, whereas previously these activities were not fully incorporated into the formal subsumption of labor under capital.

马克思对形式从属的这一描述包含了对理解通过平台进行的工作变革至关重要的要素。被定义为自营职业者的工人在此之前是其生产资料或生活资料的所有者，无论是工程师和设计师的计算机和软件，还是司机和送货员的汽车、摩托车和卡车，随着市场通过数字平台的实施，他们的工作开始与实现工作的物质条件相分离。这些平台的实施不仅意味着一种新的商业化选择，还意味着资本主义生产流程的构成，而在此之前，这些活动并没有被完全纳入劳动对资本的正式从属中。

Marx himself already noted the distinction between labor formally subsumed under capital through the logic of capitalist accumulation and the autonomy workers enjoy as owners of the means of production. In the capitalist mode of production, some sectors still lack a relationship of buying and selling labor power, being limited solely to the sale of commodities themselves. However, once capitalism becomes the dominant mode of production, even these “works cannot be judged in reality; it can be said they exist in thought.” What digital platforms provide is precisely the constitution of labor subsumed under capital in these service sectors, where workers have not yet been fully separated from the means of production.

马克思本人已经提到，在资本主义积累逻辑下进行的劳动在形式上归于资本，但工人作为生产资料的所有者享有自主权，两者之间存在区别。在资本主义生产方式中，有些部门还不存在劳动力的买卖关系，仅限于商品本身的销售。然而，一旦资本主义成为主导生产方式，即使这些“作品在现实中也无法判断，可以说它们是在思想中”。数字平台所提供的正是这些服务行业中没有与生产资料完全分离的、从属于资本的劳动构成。

Although engineers, drivers, programmers, lawyers, caregivers, designers, and others were already in formal subsumption when employed by “traditional companies,” on digital platforms this subsumption acquires a new mechanism of realization: workers appear as self-employed individuals. Clearly, this process is one where capital adapts to the constraints of labor regulations, but the provision of the content of formal subsumption is inseparable from the emergence of the individual entrepreneur.

尽管工程师、司机、程序员、律师、护理人员、设计师等在受雇于“传统公司”时已是正式从属，但在数字平台上，这种从属有了新的实现机制，即工人以自营职业者的身份出现。显然，这一过程是资本适应劳动法规限制的过程，但提供正式从属的内容与个体企业家的出现是不可分割的。

Through these platforms, work begins to be completed by selling one’s capacity, because the material conditions for completing the work have already been expropriated. Work previously typically done by freelancers is now purchased by a large company (the owner of the digital platform), whose sole purpose is to create surplus value. On the one hand, individuals use the platform to work; on the other hand, their capacity to work is consumed by that platform to generate surplus value.

通过这些平台，工作开始通过买卖其能力来完成，因为完成工作的物质条件已经被剥夺。过去通常由自由职业者完成的工作，现在被一家大公司（数字平台的所有者）购买，其唯一目的就是创造剩余价值。一方面，个人使用平台工作；另一方面，他们的工作能力被该平台消耗，以产生剩余价值。

Previously, whether owning a car, truck, or computer allowed them to obtain the status of self-employed individual, now this becomes another cost of their ability to join the digital work platform. Cars, roads, computers, and software are still used and paid for by the worker, but now the digital platform has been incorporated, alienating the worker’s material capacity to engage in work. They become wage workers, yet still bear the costs of part of the equipment used in production.

以前，无论是拥有汽车、卡车还是电脑，都能让他们获得个体经营者的身份，而现在，这成为他们让自己加入数字工作平台的能力的另一种成本。汽车、道路、电脑和软件仍由工人使用和支付，但现在数字平台已被纳入其中，使工人从事工作的物质能力被异化，他们变成了有偿工人，但仍需承担生产中使用的部分设备的费用。

However, the transformative process of work on digital platforms is not limited to the process of formal subsumption. Since this work is now directed and controlled by capital, its form itself will undergo fundamental changes. To understand these transformations of work carried out through platforms, it is necessary to grasp Marx’s concept of “real subsumption.” While formal subsumption refers to the process of creating absolute surplus value, the concept of “real subsumption” refers to the constitution of relative surplus value, i.e., through the process of raising labor productivity. Therefore, within capitalist relations, the real subsumption of labor involves the continuous material (and social) transformation of the production process into a more complete form for extracting surplus value. “With the real subsumption of labor under capital, a complete [continuous and repeated] revolution takes place in the mode of production itself, in labor productivity, and in the relationship between capitalist and worker.”

然而，数字平台工作的转变过程并不局限于形式上的从属过程。由于这种工作现在由资本指导和支配，其形式本身也将发生根本性的变化。为了理解平台所开展工作的这些转变，就有必要理解马克思提出的“实质从属”（real subsumption）概念。虽然形式上指的是创造绝对剩余价值的过程，但“实质从属”概念是指相对剩余价值的构成，即通过提高劳动生产率的过程。因此，在资本主义关系中，劳动的实质从属涉及不断从物质上（和社会上）将生产过程转化为榨取剩余价值的更充分的形式。“随着劳动对资本的实际上的从属，在生产方式本身中，在劳动生产率上，在资本家与工人的关系上，都发生了完全的[不断继续和重复的]革命。”

Once the worker’s labor power is alienated, it begins to be controlled and directed, with the sole purpose of producing surplus value. This is because new technologies and innovations must be continuously absorbed to raise productivity and intensify labor. Thus, the integration of new technologies is not to meet needs or “to compensate for a shortage of labor power, but to compress the existing large quantity of labor power to the necessary limit.” Consequently, the control over labor capacity under real subsumption aims to adapt the concrete forms of labor to the interests and specific needs of creating surplus value.

工人的劳动力一旦被异化，就开始被控制和支配，其唯一目的就是生产剩余价值，这是因为要不断吸收新技术和创新，以提高生产率和增强劳动强度。这样一来，新技术的融入就不是为了满足需要或者“不是为了弥补劳动力的不足，而是为了把现有的大量劳动力压缩到必要的限度”。因此，在实质从属中对劳动能力的控制，其目的是使具体的劳动形式适应创造剩余价值的利益和具体需要。

And the need for the expansion of surplus value is itself determined by the specific conditions of the capitalist relations in which they are situated. As Marx states: “This change in material form constitutes the basis for the development of the capital relation, so that the appropriate form of the capital relation corresponds to a certain level of development of labor productivity.” Therefore, the concrete forms of labor are constantly transformed to adapt to capital’s requirements in creating surplus value. These transformations imparted by real subsumption do not occur randomly, but are intended to improve the control and domination of labor in order to create surplus value.

而剩余价值扩张的需要又是由它们所处的资本主义关系的具体条件所决定的。正如马克思所言：“物质形态的这种变化又构成资本关系发展的基础，所以资本关系的适当的形态是与劳动生产力的一定发展程度相适应的。”因此，劳动的具象化形式不断发生变化，以适应资本在创造剩余价值方面的要求。这些由实质从属所赋予的转变并不是随机发生的，而是为了改善对劳动的控制和支配，以创造剩余价值。

However, the process of transforming labor forms through new technologies and new techniques cannot be separated from the process of forming capitalist relations in which workers are alienated. Capital’s alienation of productive capacity causes labor to be formally subsumed under capital. Prior to this, the integration of new production technologies causes labor to be really subsumed under capital, and these new production technologies reproduce the relations of alienation and capitalist domination on a new concrete basis. Therefore, the adoption of new technologies in the control of work cannot be understood merely as a way to enhance monitoring or productivity, because it is also the basis for reproducing capitalist relations themselves, i.e., the separation of workers from the means of production and means of subsistence.

然而，新技术和新工艺对劳动形式的转变过程，不能脱离工人异化的资本主义关系的形成过程。资本对生产能力的异化使劳动在形式上从属于资本，在此之前，新生产技术的融入使劳动在实质上从属于资本，而新生产技术又在新的具体基础上再现了异化和资本主义统治的关系。因此，在工作控制中采用新技术不能仅仅被理解为提高监控或生产率的方式，因为它也是在复制资本主义关系本身的基础，即工人与生产资料和生存资料的分离。

The integration of digital platforms is precisely the reproduction of this totalitarian form of capitalist sociality, i.e., the alienation of labor capacity within new concrete forms of control in order to intensify the production of surplus value. It is within this framework that the impact of platform algorithmic calculation needs to be understood: the process of reproducing new forms of alienated labor on a new capitalist social basis, in order to create surplus value.

数字平台的融入正是这种资本主义社会性的极权形式的再现，即在新的具象化控制形式中异化劳动能力，以强化剩余价值的生产。正是在这一框架下，需要理解平台算法计算的影响，即在新的资本主义社会基础上异化劳动新形式的再生产过程，以创造剩余价值。

The dissemination of work through digital platforms not only promotes the alienation of material working conditions and formal subsumption, but also, through the implementation of algorithmic systems to manage and control work carried out through the platforms, promotes the intensification of surplus value creation. All these companies that carry out work through digital platforms—whether transport companies or engineering firms, computer graphics companies or marketing companies—use algorithmic systems to manage their activities. In other words, behind the platform, they create a set of instructions to collect and analyze as much data as possible from users, including both workers and contractors.

通过数字平台传播作品，不仅促进了物质工作条件的异化和形式上的从属，而且还通过实施算法系统管理和控制通过平台开展的工作，促进了剩余价值创造的强化。所有这些通过数字平台开展工作的公司，无论是运输公司还是工程公司，无论是计算机制图公司还是市场营销公司，都使用算法系统管理其活动。换句话说，在平台背后，它们创建了一套指令，以尽可能多地收集和分析来自用户（包括工人和承包商）的数据。

Although algorithmic systems have been widely described in the relevant literature (as shown in the works cited in the previous section), in recent years there has been a tendency to misinterpret the logic behind algorithmic dissemination. Besides partially confusing labor contract platforms with social networks, there is a growing belief that digital feudalism is taking shape, involving a process of monopoly and revenue extraction at the expense of producing surplus value. What is to be shown here is precisely the opposite: how recruitment platforms, precisely in sectors where work was previously typically carried out with greater worker autonomy, intensify the production of surplus value.

尽管算法系统已在相关文献中被广泛描述（如上节提到的作品所示），但近年来，算法传播背后的逻辑却出现了被误读的趋势。除了在一定程度上混淆了劳动合同平台和社交网络之外，还有越来越多的人认为数字封建主义正在形成，其中存在一个以生产剩余价值为代价的垄断和收入榨取过程。这里要展示的恰恰相反，即招聘平台如何在以前通常由工人以更大的自主权开展工作的部门，恰恰强化了剩余价值的生产。

The creation of algorithmic instructions behind platforms must be understood as an integration of new technologies to increase work efficiency, which, as Marx argued, promotes the intensification of work and the production of relative surplus value held by these large companies. By collecting vast amounts of data and information about workers and the work being performed, companies can adjust activity management to maximize the activities carried out and minimize the costs paid. Workers, constantly indexed, inspected, and controlled, become a kind of “information machine” for calculating company profits. The application of these new technologies increases enterprise productivity and profit rates, but this should not be confused with a feudal-style extraction of wealth; rather, it should be confused with the capitalist processes of formal and real subsumption. The adoption of these algorithmic systems both extends and intensifies working time for producing absolute surplus value (formal subsumption) and generates relative surplus value (real subsumption), because productivity is higher relative to other activities in the same sectors that have not adopted these technologies.

平台背后的算法指令的创建必须被理解为一种新技术的融入，以提高工作效率，正如马克思所认为的那样，促进工作的强化和这些大公司所持有的相对剩余价值的生产。通过收集大量有关工人和所从事工作的数据和信息，公司可以调整活动管理，以最大限度地提高所从事的活动，并最大限度地减少所支付的费用。不断被索引、检查和控制的工人成为计算公司利润的一种“信息机器”。这些新技术的应用提高了企业的生产率和利润率，但这不应与封建主义式的财富攫取相混淆，而应与资本主义形式上和现实中的从属过程相混淆。这些算法系统的采用，既延长和加强了生产绝对剩余价值的工作时间（形式从属），又产生了相对剩余价值（实质从属），因为相对于未采用这些技术的相同部门的其他活动而言，生产率更高。

These algorithms can map workers’ preferences and individually manage the distribution and execution of work. The generation of these personalized profiles provides concrete incentives to extend the working day as much as possible, not necessarily to take on the best-paid work, but to maximize the company’s total revenue. On the driver-side application, this process is already well known: certain areas in the city are set up with more attractive pay rates and “bonuses” so that, in each worker’s specific circumstances, trips are sequentially extended.

这些算法可以映射出工人的偏好，并对分配和执行的工作进行个性化管理。这些个性化档案的生成为尽可能延长工作日提供了具体的激励措施，不一定要从事报酬最好的工作，但一定要使公司的总收入最大化。就司机端的应用程序而言，这一过程已广为人知，在城市中设立了一些区域，提供更有吸引力的报酬率和“奖金”，以便在每个工作人员的具体情况下依次延长行程。

However, on deterritorialized platforms, for highly complex work such as engineering, programming, and design, the degree of individualization of work and control is even higher. On these platforms, the work itself is fragmented in order to generate more revenue for the company. Based on the worker’s profile, the various available projects are split up and assigned to different workers distributed across different countries. While considering the worker’s expertise, the cost of hiring workers relative to the available supply of work is also taken into account, including the workers’ living conditions and local regulations. In this way, a pattern of work allocation across different regions of the world is formed, using the inequality patterns and education levels of each country as a measure of company performance, which tends to reinforce and worsen the global division of labor structure.

然而，在去地域化的平台上，对于工程、编程和设计等高度复杂的工作而言，工作和控制的个性化程度更高。在这些平台上，工作本身被分割开来，以便为公司创造更多收入。根据工人的资料，现有的各种项目被分割开来，分配给分布在不同国家的不同工人。在考虑工人特长的同时，还要考虑与现有工作供应相比雇用工人所需的成本，其中包括工人的生活条件和所在地区的法规。这样，世界不同地区的工作分配模式就形成了，并将各国的不平等模式和教育水平作为公司业绩的衡量标准，这往往会强化和恶化世界范围内的分工结构。

However, the construction of these forms of work control and management is not made public and is not negotiated with workers. One major advantage of these large companies is precisely the concealment of the patterns created by the algorithms designed by their managers. This one-sided transparency in platform operations leads to a process of “information hegemony,” in which the lack of information from workers is used as a mechanism to weaken bargaining power and intensify competition among workers.

然而，这些工作控制和管理形式的构建并不公开，也不与工人协商。这些大公司的一大优势恰恰是其管理者设计的这些算法所创造的模式的隐蔽性。平台运作中存在的这种单方面的透明度导致了“信息霸权”过程，在这一过程中，缺乏来自工人的信息被用作削弱讨价还价的机制，并加剧了工人之间的竞争。

Even if workers eventually begin to understand the formation of patterns, the algorithms themselves, through newly generated data, begin to change their responses in order to establish new forms of control and maximize company revenue. In this way, a new form of conflict between capital and labor is established under the imposition of wages and working hours, in which the company has full knowledge of the algorithm’s operation, while workers can only gain some intuition through daily practice. Workers’ choices are influenced; they try to secure a certain income by extending working hours as much as possible, and companies precisely exploit these motivations for management, imposing a kind of “subordinate self-management” on workers.

即使工人最终开始理解模式的形成，算法本身也会通过新生成的数据开始改变他们的反应，以建立新的控制形式和公司报酬的最大化。这样，一种新形式的资本与劳动的冲突就在工资和工时的强加下建立起来了，在这种冲突中，公司对算法的运作了如指掌，而工人只能通过日常实践获得一些直觉。工人的选择受到影响，他们试图通过尽可能延长工作时间来获得一定的收入，而企业恰恰利用这些动机来进行管理，将一种“从属的自我管理”强加给工人。

Workers are forced to see themselves as self-entrepreneurs, deciding their own schedules and planning their own remuneration, while in reality, the construction of these expectations and feelings is itself exploited by algorithmic calculations to extract surplus value. Working hours and remuneration are never formally negotiated, forming informal patterns of dispute during the execution of work, which brings enormous benefits to the company. This process of precarization obviously leads to an increase in working hours and a decrease in wages, increasing the production of absolute surplus value and relative surplus value.

工人被迫将自己视为自我创业者，决定自己的行程，规划自己的报酬，而实际上，这些期望和感受的构建本身就被算法计算所利用，以获取剩余价值。工作时间和报酬从未经过正式协商，在工作执行过程中形成了非正式的争议模式，为公司带来了巨大的利益。这种不稳定的过程显然会导致工时的增加和工资的减少，增加绝对剩余价值和相对剩余价值的生产。

In this reified form of new work relations, consumers are also incorporated into the logic of capital. Whether it is companies contracting engineering and programming services or passengers using transportation apps, they all become informal managers of the companies that own the apps. These contractors begin to pressure both sides to reduce remuneration and increase workload. By creating user evaluation strategies, the platform outsources part of the role of work management, relieving the platform company of some of the burden of conflict in negotiating work relations. User evaluations of workers become a new, abnormal social form, in which competition and hierarchy in work are reinforced. This procedure not only reduces costs but also intensifies competitive social interaction and profit-seeking in everyday social relations.

在这种新的工作关系的具象化形式中，消费者也被资本逻辑纳入其中。无论是承包工程和编程服务的公司，还是使用交通应用软件的乘客，都成为拥有应用软件的公司的非正式管理者。这些承包商开始向双方施压，要求减少报酬，增加工作量。通过创建用户评价策略，平台外包了工作管理的部分角色，使平台公司卸下了谈判工作关系中冲突的部分负担。用户对工人的评价成为一种反常的社会新形态，在这种形态中，工作的竞争和等级制度得到了反馈。这一程序不仅降低了成本，而且强化了日常社会关系中的竞争性社交和收益。

Therefore, the problem lies in the constitution of the entire set of social relations, in which labor power is alienated to generate more value, imposing the logic of competition and self-monitoring on people. This does not represent a break with capitalist logic. On the contrary, this change in the form of material production, together with the form of labor, corresponds to the reproduction of more value on a larger scale. Thus, this process of change in the reified form of labor—which Marx described as formal subsumption and real subsumption—alters the reified totality of capitalist relations. As we will see in the next section, these changes are not limited to “subsumption” itself, but also, through the pressure of competition and the formation of new reified forms of the industrial reserve army, change the constitution of workers as capitalist individuals and of other production sectors.

因此，问题在于整个社会关系的构成，在这种关系中，劳动力被异化以产生更多的价值，将竞争逻辑和自我监督强加给人们。这并未与资本主义逻辑相决裂。恰恰相反，物质生产形式的这一变化与劳动形式足以在更大的规模上再生产更多的价值相对应。因此，这种具象化劳动形式的变化过程（马克思将其描述为形式上的从属和实际上的从属）改变了资本主义关系的具象整体。正如我们在下一节将看到的那样，这些变化不仅限于“从属”本身，而且还通过竞争的压力和产业后备军新的具象化形式的形成，改变了作为资本主义个体的工人和其他生产部门的构成。

New Reified Forms of the Social Constitution of the Industrial Reserve Army

产业后备军社会构成的新具象化形式

The subsumption of labor brought about by digital platforms, in addition to new forms of control and work intensity, also changes the form of social constitution through capitalist work. On digital platforms, the previously established distinction between employed and non-employed workers becomes more blurred, often with no clear separation between employed and unemployed workers. However, the fluidity of the industrial reserve army does not mean the elimination of social pressure and the process of wage level control; on the contrary, it means the opposite. Therefore, this section theoretically explores how digital platforms enable new reified forms of the constitution of the industrial reserve army, which Marx described as a necessary consequence of the reproduction process of capital itself. In this way, the concept of “on-demand or just-in-time work” will be reconsidered, based on the fact that capitalism needs to constitute a relative surplus population in order to ultimately attempt to establish new dynamics and boundaries of capitalist class struggle.

数字平台带来的劳动从属，除了新的控制形式和工作强度，还通过资本主义工作改变了社会构成形式。在数字平台上，以前建立的在职工人和非在职工人的概念变得更加模糊，往往没有明确区分在职工人和失业工人。然而，产业后备军的流动性并不意味着社会压力和工资水平控制过程的消除，而是恰恰相反。因此，本节从理论上探讨数字平台如何使产业后备军的构成实现新的具象化形式，马克思将其描述为资本再生产过程本身的必然结果。这样，“随需或适时工作”的概念将被重新考虑，其基础是资本主义需要构成相对过剩的人口，以便最终尝试建立资本主义阶级斗争的新动力和边界。

In Marx’s *Capital*, the chapter on “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation” elaborates more deeply on the formation of the industrial reserve army as a necessary movement in the process of capitalist accumulation. On the one hand, accumulation leads to an increase in production, which requires more workers. If demand increases to the point where all workers are employed, then the increase in production means that wages must rise, and if wages rise to a certain level, it leads to the extinction of surplus value production, and workers might conquer their means of production. However, this increase in production achieved with more labor power also makes possible more constant capital. With the level of production unchanged, an increase in labor productivity (manifested as a rise in the organic composition of capital) leads to a decrease in the demand for labor power; that is, it becomes possible to economize on labor power. In the accumulation process, as production increases, both absorbing more constant capital and expelling part of the labor force are inherent requirements of capitalist logic.

在马克思的《资本论》中，“资本主义积累的一般规律”一章更深入地阐述了产业后备军的形成是资本主义积累过程中的必要运动。一方面，积累导致生产的增加，而生产的增加需要更多的工人。如果需求增加到所有工人都被雇用的地步，那么生产的增加就意味着必须增加工资，而工资增加到一定程度，就会导致剩余价值生产的消亡，工人就有可能征服他们的生产资料。然而，这种以更多劳动力实现的生产增长也使更多的不变资本成为可能。在生产水平不变的情况下，劳动生产率的提高（表现为资本有机构成的提高）导致对劳动力的需求减少，也就是说，有可能节约劳动力。在积累过程中，随着生产的增加，吸纳更多的不变资本和驱逐部分劳动力都是资本主义逻辑的内在要求。

Marx called the mass of workers who are forced to sell their labor power but cannot find a buyer the industrial reserve army. The natural increase of the population does not provide a sufficient quantity of labor power to meet the needs of capitalist reproduction; “it requires an industrial reserve army independent of this natural limitation.” [1]1 Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 25, Section 3. Therefore, the constitution of this industrial reserve army is a necessary condition for the continuation and expansion of capitalist relations, in order to accumulate more value. The surplus population becomes a necessary product of accumulation and, at the same time, its own lever, becoming “a condition of existence of the capitalist mode of production.” [2]2 Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 25, Section 3.

马克思把被迫出卖劳动力却找不到买者的大批工人称为产业后备军。人口的自然增长所提供的劳动力数量不足以满足资本主义再生产的需要，“它需要有一支不以这种自然限制为转移的产业后备军”。因此，这支产业后备军的构成是资本主义关系得以延续和扩张的必要条件，以便积累到更多的价值。过剩人口成为积累的必要产物，同时也是其自身的杠杆，成为“资本主义生产方式存在的一个条件”。

The core issue of the relationship between the accumulation process and the labor force employed is not merely a question of distribution, let alone the potential benefits of material growth. The central dilemma of surplus-value accumulation is the tendency toward the increasing intensification of the exploitation of human beings, in which the bonds of domination and extraction of greater value continuously expand, thereby depending on the maintenance of the foundation of this relationship. In the chapter on “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation,” Marx summarized this essence of capitalist relations, even in their various objectified forms of production, emphasizing that the process of domination and expansion of capitalist relations is eternal, regardless of the level of workers’ wages. “But all methods for the production of surplus value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes, conversely, a means for the development of these methods. It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. Finally, the law which always holds the relative surplus population or industrial reserve army in equilibrium with the extent and energy of accumulation rivets the worker to capital more firmly than the wedges of Hephaestus held Prometheus to the rock. This law establishes an accumulation of misery corresponding with accumulation of capital.”

积累过程与所使用的劳动力之间关系的核心问题不仅仅是分配问题，更不是物质增长可能带来的收益问题。剩余价值积累的核心困境是对人的剥削日益加剧的趋势，在这种趋势中，支配和榨取更多价值的纽带不断扩大，从而取决于这种关系基础的维持。在“资本主义积累的一般规律”一章中，马克思总结了资本主义关系的这一本质，即使在各种对象化的生产形式中也是如此，强调资本主义关系的支配和扩张过程是永恒的，无论工人报酬的高低。“但是，一切生产剩余价值的方法同时就是积累的方法，而积累的每一次扩大又反过来成为发展这些方法的手段。由此可见，不管工人的报酬高低如何，工人的状况必然随着资本的积累而恶化。最后，使相对过剩人口或产业后备军同积累的规模和能力始终保持平衡的规律把工人钉在资本上，比赫斐斯塔司的楔子把普罗米修斯钉在岩石上钉得还要牢。这一规律制约着同资本积累相适应的贫困积累。”

The formation of this industrial reserve army is a necessity of accumulation, but it is neither automatic nor a predetermined objective law. On the contrary, it is an antagonistic process that, through the emergence of capital accumulation (the transformation of surplus value into additional capital), maintains the formation, expansion, and intensification of capitalist social relations. The intensification and expansion of work increase the size of the reserve army, and it “imposes on the layers of workers actively employed an increased pressure through competition, which in turn forces them to submit to overwork and to subordination to capital.” In the process of capitalist reproduction, the industrial reserve army is a torrent that drags all workers into commodifying themselves in the manner most suitable for sale. Not working (in the form of unemployment) becomes a more degrading condition, while working becomes a privilege.

这支产业后备军的形成是积累的需要，但它不是自动的，也不是预先确定的客观规律。相反，它是一个对立的过程，通过资本积累（剩余价值转化为追加资本）的出现，保持资本主义社会关系的形成、扩张和强化。工作的强化和扩张增加了后备军的规模，而它“通过竞争加在就业工人身上的增大的压力，又反过来迫使就业工人不得不从事过度劳动和听从资本的摆布”。在资本主义再生产过程中，产业后备军是一股洪流，它牵引着所有工人以最适合销售的方式将自己商品化。不工作（以失业的形式）成为一种更加有辱人格的条件，而工作则成为一种特权。

In Marx, the accumulation process is understood as a struggle that determines the continuous growth of surplus-value production, and therefore as an open process, not a closed tendency of an autonomous process. Consequently, as a necessary condition for the realization of capitalist accumulation, the formation of the industrial reserve army must itself be understood as a moment of the struggle over class composition. Since the constitution of capitalist society is an open process with different historical specificities, the formation of the industrial reserve army should not be understood as something fixed. Unlike a static process, the formation of the relative surplus population must be understood in the characteristics of each specific form of production in different historical periods of capitalism.

在马克思那里，积累过程被视为决定剩余价值生产不断增长的斗争，因此是一个开放的过程，而不是一个自主过程的封闭趋势。因此，作为实现资本主义积累的必要条件，产业后备军的形成本身也必须被理解为阶级构成斗争的一个时刻。由于资本主义社会构成是一个具有不同历史特殊性的开放过程，产业后备军的形成也不应被理解为固定不变的东西。与静态的过程不同，相对过剩人口的形成必须在资本主义不同历史时期的每种具体生产形式的特点中加以理解。

The formation of the industrial reserve army must be understood as a historical process of struggle to expand and intensify work, not as the solidification and naturalization of a group of workers who have not found employment. As Edward Palmer Thompson said: “The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time. It was present at its own making... I do not see class as a ‘structure,’ nor even as a ‘category,’ but as something which in fact happens in human relationships.”

产业后备军的形成必须被理解为扩大和加强工作的斗争的历史进程，而不是一群没有找到工作的工人的固化和自然化的东西。正如爱德华·帕尔默·汤普森（Edward Palmer Thompson）所说：“工人阶级并不像太阳那样在指定的时间冉冉升起。它是自己创造出来的……不把阶级看作是一种‘结构’，甚至也不把它看作是一种‘类别’，而是看作是在人际关系中实际发生的事情。”

It is within this specific historical relationship that the concrete context of the constitution of the relative surplus population through digital platforms must be understood, as well as the new forms of realization of the struggle to constitute and expand more value within this framework. As discussed in the previous section, work carried out through digital platforms is precarious, characterized by an “on-demand or just-in-time” labor relationship in which workers are employed only for an activity with a specific purpose, but with a continuous supply of job positions. Whether in complex project platforms (engineering, programming, design, etc.) or in travel and logistics, workers work only for the brief period during which the activity is carried out. The next moment, when the activity ends, the worker immediately forms part of the industrial reserve army, seeking new work.

正是在这种特定的历史关系中，必须理解通过数字平台构成相对人口过剩的具体背景，以及在这一框架内为构成和扩大更多价值而斗争的新实现形式。如上一节所述，通过数字平台开展的工作并不稳定，其特点是“随需或适时”劳动力关系，在这种关系中，工人只受雇于具有特定目的的一项活动，但有持续的工作岗位供应。无论是在复杂的项目平台（工程、编程、设计等）中，还是在旅行和物流中，工人只在开展活动的短暂时间内工作。下一刻，当活动结束时，工人就会立即组成产业后备军，寻找新的工作。

Through work platforms, the working class in a broad sense, whether as the active working class or as the reserve working class, is constituted in a more fluid manner, in which the distinction between active and reserve is blended. The intrinsic pressure of exploitation imposed by the segmented labor market becomes more intense, incorporating the “reserve army of labor” of capitalist society in its own mode of working.

通过工作平台，广义上的工人阶级，无论是作为活跃的工人阶级还是作为后备的工人阶级，都以一种更加流动的方式构成，其中活跃和后备之间的区别被混合在一起。被隔离的劳动力市场所施加的内在剥削压力变得更加强烈，以其自身的工作方式包含了资本主义社会的“劳动力后备军”。

The pressure exerted by the relative surplus population on the expansion and intensification of work through digital platforms is no longer merely reflected in the competitive risk of becoming part of the industrial reserve army; the very mode of carrying out work internalizes this formation of surplus. Even the most active workers participating in work through digital platforms face the continuous pressure of becoming part of the industrial reserve army, because they always join the vast ranks of the relative surplus population after carrying out work activities. As discussed in the previous section, through individualized recruitment mechanisms and variations of digital platforms, the intensity of competition brought by the industrial reserve army multiplies, because in the search for new activities, active workers themselves are simultaneously displaced.

相对过剩人口对通过数字平台扩大和加强工作所施加的压力，不再仅仅体现在成为产业后备军的竞争风险上，而开展工作的方式本身就内化了这种剩余的形成。即使是通过数字平台参与工作的最活跃的工人，也面临着成为产业后备军的持续压力，因为他们总是在开展工作活动后加入相对过剩人口的庞大队伍。如上一节所述，通过个性化的招聘机制和数字平台的变体，产业后备军所带来的竞争强度成倍增加，因为在寻找新活动的过程中，活跃工人本身也会同时被取代。

This specificity of the formation of the industrial reserve army through digital platforms, as a concrete form, differs from the historical process of relative surplus population in recent times due to the so-called neoliberal globalization process and the formation of global value chains. The formation of global value chains within the framework of globalization, combined with the integration of new technologies, has driven a substantial expansion of the world’s relative surplus population by greatly increasing labor productivity and adjusting the production structure from a geographical perspective, incorporating large numbers of people into the capitalist industrial reserve army. Additionally, although the industrial reserve army of digital platforms is also related to the globalization process, beyond the growth of the relative surplus population due to increased productivity, it also allows for the generation of this industrial reserve army in a new concretized form, because it is constituted in a manner integrated with currently employed workers.

通过数字平台组建产业后备军的这种特殊性，作为一种具体形式，不同于近代由于所谓的新自由主义全球化进程和全球价值链的形成而导致的相对人口过剩的历史进程。全球化框架下全球价值链的形成，加上新技术的融入，通过极大地提高劳动生产率，以及从地理角度调整生产结构，将大量人口纳入资本主义产业后备军，推动了世界人口相对过剩的大幅扩张。另外，数字平台的产业后备军虽然也与全球化进程有关，但除因生产率提高而导致相对人口过剩的增长外，还允许以一种新的具象化形式产生这种产业后备军，因为它是以一种与在职工人相结合的方式构成的。

Within this framework, it can be said that the fluid industrial reserve army of digital platforms is a new subcategory within the concept of the fluid industrial reserve army established by Marx. In the chapter on “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation,” Marx defined the disposable industrial reserve army as: a group that changes constantly between active workers and reserve workers according to the expansionary cycles of capitalist accumulation and the dynamics of reproduction, forming a more structurally entrenched industrial reserve army. The industrial reserve army of digital platforms also has this alternation between active and reserve, but it does not brew within the cyclical dynamics of capital accumulation; rather, it proceeds permanently and ordinarily in the daily process of generating surplus value.

在此框架内，可以说数字平台的流动产业后备军是马克思所建立的流动产业后备军概念中的一个新的子类别。在“资本主义积累的一般规律”一章中，马克思将可供支配的产业后备军定义为：根据资本主义积累和再生产动力的扩张周期，在活跃工人和后备工人之间不断变化的群体，形成结构性更强的产业后备军。数字平台的产业后备军也有这种活跃与后备之间的交替，但不是在资本积累的周期性动态中酝酿，而是在剩余价值的日常生成过程中永久而普通地进行。

When the “fluid population” regulates the continuous intensification and expansion of labor exploitation across different accumulation cycles, the form of the industrial reserve army of digital platforms regulates this intensification, which is constantly internalized in the process of generating surplus value from these production activities. The fluctuation of the relative surplus population serves to regulate the high and low cycles of capitalist accumulation, whereas in digital platforms, the pressure of this industrial reserve army becomes constant, varying not only with accumulation cycles but also within the micro-logic of the activity itself. Within the vast disposable population, this fluid industrial reserve army is determined by the just-in-time accumulation dynamics of each activity, establishing the wage level required for the reproduction of capital at the end of each specific task.

当“流动人口”在不同的积累周期中调节劳动剥削的持续强化和扩展时，数字平台产业后备军的形式则调节这种强化，这一强化在产生这些生产活动剩余价值的过程中不断内化。相对过剩人口的波动是为了调节资本主义积累的高低周期，而在数字平台中，这种产业后备军的压力变得恒定，不仅在积累周期中变化，而且在活动本身的微观逻辑中变化。在可供支配的庞大人口队伍中，这支流动的产业后备军是根据每项活动的适时积累动态决定的，它确定了每项具体工作结束时资本再生产所需的工资水平。

Theorizing digital platform work as a new concretized form of the constitution of the industrial reserve army also helps to understand a recurring issue in recent research: the rapid rise of organization and resistance among these workers. Around the world, with the development of these digital work platforms, there has been a strong increase in mobilization activities, with new strikes and movements to interrupt activities emerging. Although this movement initially appears contradictory due to the substantial increase in competitiveness and the relaxation of labor regulation, it must be understood in conjunction with the process of internalization of the pressure of the relative surplus population.

将数字平台工作理论化为产业后备军构成的一种新的具象化形式，还有助于理解近期研究中反复出现的问题，即这些工人的组织和反抗迅速崛起。在世界各地，随着这些数字工作平台的发展，动员活动也出现了强劲增长，出现了新的罢工和中断活动的组织和运动。尽管由于竞争力的大幅提高和劳动力管制的放松，这一运动最初似乎是矛盾的，但我们必须将其与人口相对过剩压力的内化过程结合起来理解。

If, on the one hand, working through digital platforms internalizes the pressure of the industrial reserve army and increases competitiveness, on the other hand, it also internalizes the struggles of these unemployed workers. Marx himself pointed out this movement in his description of the industrial reserve army: “As soon as the workers discover that the intensity of competition among themselves depends entirely on the pressure of the relative surplus population”; they “therefore try to organize a planned cooperation between the employed and the unemployed through trade unions, etc.” In the case of digital platforms, by internalizing the industrial reserve army into active work itself, this cooperation between the employed and the unemployed is also established, because they now belong to the same group.

如果说，一方面，通过数字平台开展工作使产业后备军的压力内部化，提高了竞争力，另一方面，它也使这些失业者的斗争内部化。马克思本人在对产业后备军的描述中就指出了这种运动：“一旦工人发现，他们本身之间竞争的激烈程度完全取决于相对过剩人口的压力”；他们就“因此试图通过工联等等在就业工人和失业工人之间组织有计划的合作”。数字平台的情况是，通过将产业后备军内化到积极的工作本身，同时也在就业者和失业者之间建立了这种合作，因为他们现在已经成为同一群体。

Platform worker organizations differ from traditional labor organizations in that they simultaneously unite employed workers and the industrial reserve army. A major difficulty for the workers’ movement is precisely how to unify employed workers and the unemployed, a point visible throughout the entire development of the trade union movement, where a “labor aristocracy” is forming. The struggle of employed workers is to increase income, benefits, and stability, while the industrial reserve army struggles to enter the labor market, creating a logic of separation from the working class.

平台工人组织与传统的劳工组织不同，它同时团结在职工人和产业后备军。工人运动的一大难题正是如何将在职工人和失业工人统一起来，这一点在工会运动的整个发展过程中都可以看到，“工人贵族”正在形成。在职工人的斗争是为了增加收入、福利和稳定，而产业后备军则是为了进入劳动力市场而斗争，这就形成了一种与工人阶级分离的逻辑。

As employed workers and the industrial reserve army are unified in the same person through digital platforms, this separation in the workers’ struggle movement is weakened by its own internal logic. In the struggles of workers on digital platforms, employed workers and the industrial reserve army are unified in the same direction, and do not constitute the separation of interests seen in traditional workers’ movements and trade unions.

随着在职工人和产业后备军通过数字平台统一在同一个人身上，工人斗争运动的这种分离被其自身的内在逻辑所削弱。在数字平台上的工人斗争中，在职工人和产业后备军朝着同一个方向统一，并不构成传统的工人运动和工会的利益分离。

Even without considering digital platforms, and only considering new concrete forms of the expansion of capitalist exploitation, the self-contradiction of class struggle ultimately indicates new fields of social mobilization struggle. The need for unity and cooperation in the class struggle between active workers and the reserve army becomes more evident, contradicting the demobilization movement brought about by neoliberal relations. This unity in the struggles of platform workers partly explains why in recent years they have become one of the most intense fields of mobilization and social confrontation.

即使不考虑数字平台，只考虑资本主义剥削扩张的新的具象化形式，作为阶级斗争的自我矛盾也最终表明了社会动员斗争的新领域。活跃工人与后备工人之间的阶级斗争需要统一与合作，这一点变得更加明显，与新自由主义关系所带来的遣散运动相矛盾。这些平台工人斗争的统一在一定程度上解释了为什么近年来他们成为动员和社会对抗最激烈的领域之一。

However, the opening of this possibility for unified class struggle should not be understood as an inevitability, but only as a possible new fissure in capitalist relations. Within this open framework of class struggle, while workers seek new forms of unity and competition for capitalist work, application owners are also seeking new tools to recreate this separation between the active and the reserve, such as customized distinctions between different labor models. The constitution of social relations is an open process of struggle, where exploitation seeks to intensify, and competition and liberation also seek new forms, as seen among workers on digital platforms.

然而，这种统一阶级斗争的可能性的开放不应被理解为一种必然，而只能被理解为资本主义关系的一种可能的新裂痕。在这种开放的阶级斗争框架内，当工人寻求资本主义工作的统一和竞争的新形式时，应用程序持有者也在寻找新的工具来重新创造这种资产和储备之间的分离，例如不同劳动模式之间的定制区分。社会关系的构成是一个公开斗争的过程，剥削在寻求增强，竞争和解放也在寻求新的形式，正如数字平台上的工人所看到的那样。

Conclusion

结论

Research on working through digital platforms has become one of the main topics of current studies, but due to an emphasis on descriptive results and attempts at broader classification within the neoliberal framework, it still lacks deeper theoretical discussion. This article precisely attempts to achieve this theorization through the Marxist concepts of “subsumption” and the “industrial reserve army.” Through this theorization, it is possible to understand the specific characteristics of these new capitalist modes of work, which also means understanding the new dynamics of social struggle.

通过数字平台开展工作的研究已成为当前研究的主要课题之一，但由于对描述性成果的重视，以及试图在新自由主义范围内进行更广泛的分类，因此仍缺乏理论上更深入的讨论。本文正是试图通过马克思主义的“从属关系”和“产业后备军”概念来实现这一理论化。通过这种理论化，我们有可能理解这些新的资本主义工作方式的具体特点，这也意味着理解社会斗争的新动力。

Contrary to the argument of so-called “digital feudalism” that no surplus value is produced, this article argues precisely the opposite. The first section shows that digital labor platforms are new concrete forms of the formal and real subsumption of labor under capitalist relations.

与所谓“数字封建主义”不产生剩余价值的论点不同，本文的论点恰恰相反。第一节表明，数字劳动平台是劳动在形式上和实际上从属于资本主义关系的新的具象化形式。

Through formal subsumption, digital labor platforms allow for the removal of the means of realization of activities that previously had a certain autonomy. In this way, these activities are now incorporated by large companies owning digital platforms into a process entirely aimed at producing surplus value. Beyond formal subsumption, digital platforms also significantly increase productivity and work intensity through the integration of a series of technologies, especially algorithmic systems. The sole purpose of this productivity increase is to produce relative surplus value, which Marx considered the essence of the process of real subsumption under capital.

通过形式上的从属，数字劳动平台允许取消以前具有一定自主权的活动的实现手段。通过这种方式，这些活动现在被拥有数字平台的大公司纳入了一个完全以产生剩余价值为目的的过程。除了形式上的“从属”，数字平台还通过融入一系列技术，特别是算法系统，大大提高了生产率和工作强度。这种生产率提高的唯一目的是产生相对剩余价值，马克思认为这是真正从属于资本的过程的本质。

The importance of digital platforms for forming new concrete forms of capitalist labor relations must also be understood through the formation of the industrial reserve army. Digital platforms no longer strictly distinguish between employed workers and the reserve army, but merge these two categories of workers together, because after each activity ends, the worker again seeks work to obtain the remuneration needed to sustain life. The pressure exerted by the relative surplus population on the expansion and intensification of work through digital platforms no longer exists solely in the competitive risk of becoming a member of the industrial reserve army. The very mode of realization of work internalizes this formation of the surplus population. Even the most active workers on digital platforms constantly face the pressure of becoming part of the industrial reserve army.

数字平台对于形成资本主义劳动关系新的具象化形式的重要性还必须通过产业后备军的形成来理解。数字平台不再严格区分在职工人和后备军，而是将这两类工人合并在一起，因为在每次活动结束后，工人都会再次寻找工作，以获得维持生计所需的报酬。相对过剩的人口对通过数字平台扩大和加强工作所造成的压力，不再仅仅存在于成为产业后备军成员的竞争风险中。工作的实现方式本身就内化了这种人口过剩的形成。即使是数字平台上最活跃的工作者，也时刻面临着成为产业后备军的压力。

The formation of this more fluid industrial reserve army also brings new dynamics of social struggle to this concrete form of capitalist work. On the one hand, work through digital platforms internalizes the pressure of the industrial reserve army, increasing competitiveness; on the other hand, it also internalizes the struggles of these unemployed workers. In the case of digital platforms, by internalizing the industrial reserve army into active work itself, cooperation between the employed and the unemployed is also established, because they now belong to the same group. However, this possibility of unified class struggle cannot be understood as an inevitability, but only as a possible new fissure in capitalist relations. While workers seek new methods of unity and resistance to capitalist work, application owners are also seeking new tools to create separation between active workers and the reserve army. As embodied in the concrete forms of digital platform workers, the constitution of social relations is an open process of struggle, where exploitation seeks to intensify, and competition and liberation also seek new forms.

这支流动性更强的产业后备军的形成，也为这种资本主义工作的具象化形式带来了新的社会斗争动力。一方面，通过数字平台进行的工作将产业后备军的压力内部化，提高了竞争力；另一方面，它也将这些失业工人的斗争内部化。数字平台的情况是，通过将产业后备军内化到积极的工作本身，同时也在就业者和失业者之间建立了这种合作，因为他们现在已经成为同一群体。然而，这种统一阶级斗争的可能性并不能被理解为必然，而只能被理解为资本主义关系中可能出现的新裂缝。在工人们寻求统一和抗争资本主义工作的新方法的同时，应用程序所有者也在寻找新的工具来制造积极工人和后备工人之间的分离。正如数字平台工人的具象化形式所体现的那样，社会关系的构成是一个开放的斗争过程，剥削在寻求增强，竞争和解放也在寻求新的形式。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心