A New Interpretation of Marx’s Dialectics in the Algorithmic Society

To reactivate Marx’s dialectics within the technological fog of the algorithmic society is by no means a simple theoretical transplantation, but an epistemological revolution that pierces through the appearance of digital alienation and reaches directly the essence of relations of production. Marx’s dialectics always takes “concrete totality” as its methodological core, requiring that social phenomena be examined within the contradictory relations of historical movement. When the digital age arrives, with data becoming a key element for capital valorization, algorithms restructuring labor, and platforms reshaping power, the critical edge of dialectics must puncture the ideological illusion of technological neutrality, reveal the inherent antagonistic logic of the algorithmic society’s operation in the digital age, and point the way toward the development of a better society.

在算法社会的技术迷雾中重新激活马克思的辩证法，绝非简单的理论移植，而是一场穿越数字异化表象，直抵生产关系本质的认识论革命。马克思的辩证法始终以“具体总体性”为方法论内核，要求将社会现象置于历史运动的矛盾关系中考察。当数字时代来临，数据成为资本增殖、算法重构劳动、平台重塑权力的关键要素时，辩证法的批判锋芒必须刺破技术中立的意识形态幻象，揭示数字时代中算法社会运行的内在对抗性逻辑，为美好社会的发展指引方向。

The Continuation of the “Concrete Totality” of Marx’s Dialectics

马克思辩证法“具体总体性”的延续

The methodological core of the “concrete totality” of Marx’s dialectics is essentially an epistemological revolution that analyzes social existence historically, structurally, and in terms of contradiction. This methodology transcends both Hegel’s “abstract totality” and the fragmented cognition of empiricism, treating social reality as a “unity of diversity”—an organic whole that constantly negates and generates itself in historical movement. Concrete totality is not only a cognitive tool but also a practical guide for transforming the world. “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” The proletarian revolution is not a patch on some social link but “the most radical rupture with traditional property relations.” This thoroughgoing revolutionary character stems from grasping the overall contradictions of capitalist society—when the concentration of the means of production and the socialization of labor reach a point incompatible with their capitalist integument, this integument is burst asunder.

马克思辩证法“具体总体性”的方法论内核，本质上是对社会存在进行历史化、结构化与矛盾化分析的认识论革命。这一方法论既超越了黑格尔的“抽象总体性”，又克服了经验主义的碎片化认知，将社会现实视为“多样性的统一体”，即一个在历史运动中不断自我否定、自我生成的有机整体。具体总体性不仅是认知工具，更是改造世界的实践指南。“哲学家们只是用不同的方式解释世界，问题在于改变世界”，无产阶级革命不是对某个社会环节的修补，而是“同传统的所有制关系实行最彻底的决裂”。这种彻底的革命性，源自对资本主义社会总体矛盾的把握——当生产资料的集中和劳动的社会化达到同它们的资本主义外壳不能相容的地步时，这个外壳就要被炸毁。

In the process of examining the operational mechanisms of society in the digital age, the methodology of concrete totality remains incisive. When platforms restructure the labor process through algorithms, only by placing this within the framework of the concrete totality of dialectics, analyzing the historical generativity, contradictory unity, and structural interconnectedness of the digital age, and treating the algorithmic society presented by the digital age as a product of historical movement, a product of contradictions, and a product of the organic hierarchical structure formed by various social elements, can the deep essence of the digital age be truly revealed. The methodology of concrete totality always displays its critical edge on the foundation of historical specificity. It is neither a closed system of structuralism nor a fragmented narrative of postmodernism, but, in the dialectical movement of real contradictions, points toward the historical possibility of human emancipation.

在对数字时代社会运行机制的审视过程中，具体总体性方法论依然具有锐利性。当平台通过算法重组劳动过程时，只有将其置于辩证法的具体总体性框架中，分析数字时代的历史生成性、矛盾统一性和结构关联性，将数字时代呈现的算法社会视为历史运动的产物、矛盾的产物、社会各个要素形成有机的等级结构的产物，才能真正揭示数字时代的深层本质。具体总体性的方法论，始终在历史具体性的地基上展露其批判锋芒。它既不是结构主义式的封闭体系，也不是后现代主义的碎片化叙事，而是在现实矛盾的辩证运动中，指向人类解放的历史可能性。

The Transition of Contradictory Movement in the Algorithmic Society

算法社会中矛盾运动的跃迁

In *Capital*, Marx dissects capitalist society as “an organism,” whose contradictory movement follows the spiral ascending law of “thesis—antithesis—synthesis.” In the digital age, algorithms restructure the labor process and reshape the network of power, injecting new elements into the movement of social contradictions, thereby producing transitions in form, content, and space. But the fundamental social contradictions have not been dissolved; rather, they have undergone a creative transformation of dialectics within the digital interface. This transformation is neither a simple linear continuation nor a ruptural paradigm revolution, but a historical unfolding of the “concrete totality” of the digital age: the resolution of old contradictions gestates the embryo of new contradictions, while the antagonistic form of new contradictions contains the revolutionary potential to transcend the existing order.

在《资本论》中，马克思将资本主义社会解剖为“一个有机体”，其矛盾运动遵循着“正题—反题—合题”的螺旋上升规律。在数字时代，算法重构了劳动过程、重塑了权力网络，为社会矛盾的运动注入了新的要素，进而在形态、内容、空间等方面产生跃迁。但根本性的社会矛盾并未消解，而是在数字界面中完成了辩证法的创造性转化。这种转化既非简单的线性延续，也非断裂式的范式革命，而是数字时代“具体总体性”的历史性展开，旧矛盾的解决方式孕育着新矛盾的胚胎，而新矛盾的对抗形式又包含着超越现存秩序的革命潜能。

The formal transition of contradictory movement in the algorithmic society. In the algorithmic society of the digital age, the form of contradiction has developed anew, evolving from substantive opposition to the duality of data. Just as the commodity is the core concept through which Marx reveals the operation of capitalist society, data, as the core element of the contradictory movement of the algorithmic society, plays a crucial role. The duality of the commodity revealed by Marx in *Capital* evolves in the digital age into the paradox of the duality of data: as the crystallization of human communicative activity, data should by nature have a public character, becoming a “digital commons,” but under the domination of capital logic, it is privatized into exclusive means of production, becoming “digital private property.” This contradiction constitutes the ontological fissure of the algorithmic society—the fissure between the public nature of data production and the privatization of data appropriation. The task of dialectics lies precisely in penetrating this appearance, revealing how the split between data ownership and use rights reproduces new class relations: the antagonism between the “algorithmic bourgeoisie,” which owns the means of data production, and the “digital proletariat,” which is forced to cede data rights and interests.

算法社会中矛盾运动的形态跃迁。在数字时代的算法社会中，矛盾形态有了新的发展，从实体对立发展至数据二重性。如同商品是马克思揭示资本主义社会运行的核心概念一般，数据作为算法社会矛盾运动的核心要素，发挥着至关重要的作用。马克思在《资本论》中揭示的商品二重性在数字时代演化为数据的二重性悖论：作为人类交往活动的结晶，数据本应具有公共属性，成为“数字公地”，但在资本逻辑的支配下，它被私有化为排他性的生产资料，成为“数字私产”。这种矛盾构成了算法社会的本体性裂隙，即数据生产的公共性和数据占有的私有化之间的裂隙。辩证法的任务正在于穿透这种表象，揭示数据所有权与使用权的分裂如何再生产出新型阶级关系：占有数据生产资料的“算法资产阶级”与被迫出让数据权益的“数字无产阶级”之间的对抗。

The content transition of contradictory movement in the algorithmic society. In the algorithmic society of the digital age, when social media users’ “likes” are transformed into data raw materials for training recommendation algorithms, labor alienation presents a triple dialectical transition: first, the alienation of the product of labor expands from material products to the cognitive domain, as users lose control over the flow of the data value they create; second, the alienation of the labor process deepens from physical surveillance in the factory workshop to the cognitive discipline of algorithms, with workers’ work rhythms regulated by technical management systems down to the second; third, the alienation of species-being reaches a new height, as human emotional expression is quantified into tradable data tags, and social relations are alienated into node connections in interaction graphs.

算法社会中矛盾运动的内容跃迁。在数字时代的算法社会中，当社交媒体用户的点赞行为被转化为训练推荐算法的数据原料时，劳动异化呈现出三重辩证跃迁：首先，劳动产品异化从物质产品扩展至认知领域，用户在创造数据价值的同时丧失对其流向的控制权；其次，劳动过程异化从工厂车间的物理监控深化为算法的认知规训，劳动者的工作节奏被技术管理系统精确到秒级调控；最后，类本质异化达到新高度，人类的情感表达被量化为可交易的数据标签，社交关系异化为交互图谱中的节点连接。

The spatial transition of contradictory movement in the algorithmic society. In the digital age, the contradictory movement of the algorithmic society expands into the composite dimensions of digital space, cognitive space, and transnational governance space. This expansion is not a linear narrative of progress but a spatial fix strategy for the basic contradictions of capitalism. David Harvey’s theory of the “spatio-temporal fix” acquires new content in the digital context: Silicon Valley giants incorporate developing countries into the system of data colonialism through cloud computing infrastructure, both transferring local crises of overaccumulation and reproducing the center-periphery structure on a global scale. The dialectical character of this spatial restructuring lies in the fact that it both relies on the interconnectedness of digital technology to erase geographical barriers and creates new technological gaps through patent barriers and standard hegemony. In this process, the “accumulation by dispossession of the periphery by the center” criticized by Marx continues in a more concealed digital form.

算法社会中矛盾运动的空间跃迁。在数字时代，算法社会的矛盾运动扩张至数字空间、认知空间与跨国治理空间的复合维度。这种扩张并非线性进步叙事，而是资本主义基本矛盾的空间修复策略。大卫·哈维的“时空修复”理论在数字语境中获得新内涵，硅谷巨头通过云计算基础设施将发展中国家纳入数据殖民体系，既转移本土的过度积累危机，又在全球尺度再生产中心—边缘结构。这种空间重构的辩证性在于，它既依赖数字技术的互联性消弭地理障碍，又通过专利壁垒与标准霸权制造新的技术鸿沟。在这一过程中，马克思所批判的“中心对外围的剥夺性积累”正以更隐蔽的数字形态延续。

The contradictory movement of the algorithmic society is both a crisis and a turning point. From the capital hegemony of data monopoly to the institutional exploration of computing power commons, from the cognitive colonization of labor alienation to the technological democracy of open-source communities, the dialectical movement of technological alienation and emancipatory potential always exists. As Marx points out in *Capital*, “The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself.” The contradictory transition of the algorithmic society will ultimately drive the historical transformation of relations of production—not by negating digitalization, but through the critique of “concrete totality,” achieving the dialectical unity of technological rationality and humanistic value.

算法社会的矛盾运动既是危机也是转机。从数据垄断的资本霸权到算力公有的制度探索，从劳动异化的认知殖民到开源社区的技术民主，技术异化与解放潜能的辩证运动始终存在。正如马克思在《资本论》中指出的，“资本主义生产的真正限制是资本自身”，算法社会的矛盾跃迁最终将推动生产关系的历史性变革——不是否定数字化，而是通过“具体总体性”批判，实现技术理性与人本价值的辩证统一。

Marx’s Dialectics’ Solution to the Contradictions of the Digital Age

马克思辩证法对数字时代矛盾的求解

Marx’s dialectics bears the heavy responsibility of solving the essence of the contradictions of the digital age, reducing them from “technological appearance” to “the essence of relations of production.” The algorithmic society both continues the classic characteristic of commodity exchange, where “the relation between persons is presented as a relation between things,” and upgrades this logic of reification into the “autonomous illusion of data and algorithms.” In the digital age, the contradictory movement of the algorithmic society is by no means a natural result of technological development, but an inevitable extension of capitalist relations of production into digital space. When social media transforms users’ likes, comments, and dwell time into “micro-labor” for training recommendation models, the law revealed by Marx that “living labor is dominated by objectified labor” acquires a new form: data, as the crystallization of “dead labor,” achieves the intelligent exploitation of “living labor” through algorithmic systems. The thoroughness of this exploitation lies in the fact that it tends to erase the boundary between “productive labor and unproductive labor” in *Theories of Surplus Value*, turning every producer of a digital footprint into an unconscious collaborator in capital valorization.

马克思辩证法承担着对数字时代矛盾本质的求解之重任，将其从“技术表象”还原至“生产关系本质”。算法社会既延续了商品交换中“人与人的关系表现为物与物的关系”的经典特征，又将这种物化逻辑升级为“数据与算法的自主性幻象”。在数字时代，算法社会的矛盾运动绝非技术发展的自然结果，而是资本主义生产关系在数字空间的必然延伸。当社交媒体将用户的点赞、评论、停留时长转化为训练推荐模型的“微劳动”时，马克思揭示的“活劳动被对象化劳动支配”的规律便获得新形态：数据作为“死劳动”的结晶，通过算法系统实现对“活劳动”的智能化剥削。这种剥削的彻底性在于，它使《剩余价值理论》中“生产劳动与非生产劳动”的界限趋于消弭，每个数字足迹的制造者都沦为资本增殖的无意识协作者。

Activating Marx’s dialectics in the algorithmic society requires us to transcend the pessimistic narrative of technological determinism and to seize the material conditions for revolutionary change in the contradictory movement of digital relations of production. The institutional design of public data ownership, the governance experiments of algorithmic democracy, and the transnational solidarity of digital labourers — these practices are not a simple application of dialectics but rather its concrete embodiment in the digital age. When labourers achieve data rights confirmation through blockchain technology, when open-source communities break through patent barriers to reconstruct technical standards, and when global digital trade unions launch algorithmic transparency campaigns, Marx’s philosophical testament of “changing the world” is acquiring a new historical form. Its ultimate aim is not to construct some theoretical closed loop but to initiate a revolution in practical philosophy oriented toward “changing the world.” This revolutionary practice is neither a simple rejection of technological progress nor a moral indictment of digital alienation; rather, through the dialectical method of “concrete totality,” it tears through the ideological veil of technological neutrality in the entanglement of capital logic and technological rationality, thereby reconstructing the historical possibility of human emancipation. As Marx proclaimed in the *Theses on Feuerbach*: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” [2]2 Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” in *Marx/Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 8. The dialectics of the algorithmic age must ultimately be grounded in a three-dimensional dialectical synthesis: the revolutionary reconstruction of relations of production, the institutional practice of technological democratization, and the liberatory restoration of human subjectivity.

在算法社会中激活马克思的辩证法，要求我们超越技术决定论的悲观叙事，在数字生产关系的矛盾运动中捕捉革命性变革的物质条件。数据公有的制度设计、算法民主的治理实验、数字劳工的跨国团结——这些实践不是对辩证法的简单应用，而是辩证法在数字时代的具象化实践。当劳动者通过区块链技术实现数据确权，当开源社区突破专利壁垒重构技术标准，当全球数字工会发起算法透明度运动时，马克思“改造世界”的哲学遗嘱正在获得新的历史形态。其终极指向并非构建某种理论闭环，而是开启一场以“改变世界”为旨归的实践哲学革命。这种革命性实践既非对技术进步的简单拒斥，亦非对数字异化的道德控诉，而是通过辩证法的“具体总体性”方法，在资本逻辑与技术理性的纠缠中，撕破技术中立的意识形态面纱，重构人类解放的历史可能性。正如马克思在《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中所宣告的：“哲学家们只是用不同的方式解释世界，问题在于改变世界。”算法时代的辩证法最终要落脚于生产关系的革命性重构、技术民主化的制度实践与人类主体性的解放性复归的三维辩证综合。

The highest wisdom of dialectics lies in the fact that it never provides ready-made solutions but teaches us to find the leverage points for change in the unity of opposites of contradictions. The true revolution of the digital age consists not in negating algorithmic technology but in liberating it from the logic of capital through the epistemological revolution of dialectics. This liberation requires both the depth of the political-economic critique of *Capital* and the practical wisdom of the *Theses on Feuerbach*, so that technological tools are transformed from instruments of domination into media of emancipation. Only in this way can Marx’s dialectics radiate new theoretical vitality in the fog of algorithms, guiding humanity through the digital Valley of the Ka’fujian [3]3 “Valley of the Ka’fujian” is a classical allusion to the “Valley of the Ka’fujian” (卡夫丁峡谷) in ancient Roman history, where the Roman army suffered a humiliating defeat; Marx and Engels later used it as a metaphor for a historical stage of suffering that a society might bypass under certain conditions. and toward the communism of technological liberation. As Marx emphasized in *The Poverty of Philosophy*, “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill gives you society with the industrial capitalist.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *The Poverty of Philosophy*, in *Marx/Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 166. The algorithmic mill is now forging the power structure of the digital age. Only by wielding the critical weapon of dialectics can we both reveal the exploitative essence of the algorithmic society and grasp its self-negating revolutionary potential — this is the very proof that Marxism remains vital in the 21st century.

辩证法的最高智慧在于，它从不提供现成的解决方案，而是教导我们在矛盾的对立统一中寻找变革的杠杆点。数字时代的真正革命，不在于否定算法技术，而在于通过辩证法的认识论革命，将其从资本逻辑中解放出来。这种解放既需要《资本论》的政治经济学批判深度，又需要《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》的实践智慧，使技术工具从统治手段转化为解放媒介。唯有如此，马克思的辩证法才能在算法迷雾中焕发新的理论生机，指引人类穿越数字卡夫丁峡谷，迈向技术解放的共产主义。正如马克思在《哲学的贫困》中强调的，“手推磨产生的是封建主为首的社会，蒸汽磨产生的是工业资本家为首的社会”，算法磨坊正在铸造数字时代的权力结构。唯有运用辩证法的批判武器，才能既揭示算法社会的剥削本质，又把握其自我否定的革命潜能——这正是马克思主义在21世纪仍具生命力的明证。

(The author is a doctoral student at the Training and Research Center for Ideological and Political Work Teams in Higher Education Institutions (Shaanxi Normal University), Ministry of Education.)

（作者系教育部高校思想政治工作队伍培训研修中心（陕西师范大学）博士研究生）

Online editor: Tongxin

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