Digital Capitalism, Where Transformation and Predicament Intertwine

In today’s world, a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, represented by the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence, is unfolding with great momentum, profoundly reshaping the global economic structure, interest patterns, and development models. In this historical process, “digital capitalism,” as a profound transformative form of human capital civilization driven by information-based productive forces, is increasingly displaying both powerful shaping capacity and deep-seated internal contradictions. It systematically integrates new factors such as data, platforms, and algorithms into the capitalist structure of value augmentation and accumulation, unleashing enormous potential in productive forces, giving rise to new business forms and models, and optimizing the global allocation of resources, while also intensifying economic polarization, labor alienation, and governance challenges. Its structural tensions have become deeply embedded in the fabric of contemporary society. Faced with these world-changing, epoch-changing, and history-changing transformations, we must employ the theoretical weapon of Marxism to conduct a scientific analysis and a historical-materialist critique of digital capitalism, revealing its historical genesis, internal contradictions, and the essence of capital’s logic, and deeply understanding the real predicaments confronting digital capitalism.

当今世界，以互联网、大数据、人工智能为代表的新一轮科技革命和产业变革方兴未艾，深刻重塑着全球经济结构、利益格局与发展模式。在这一历史进程中，“数字资本主义”作为人类资本文明在信息生产力驱动下的深刻转型形态，正日益显现出强大的塑造力与深刻的内在矛盾。它系统地将数据、平台、算法等新型要素深度融入资本主义价值增殖与积累结构，既释放了巨大的生产力潜能，催生了新业态新模式，优化了全球资源配置，也加剧了经济极化、劳动异化与治理挑战，其结构性张力已深刻嵌入当代社会肌理。面对这一世界之变、时代之变、历史之变，要运用好马克思主义的理论武器对其进行科学剖析与历史唯物主义批判，揭示其历史生成性、内在矛盾性及资本逻辑本质，深刻认识数字资本主义所面临的现实困境。

The Historical Genesis of Digital Capitalism

数字资本主义的时代生成

Digital capitalism is a profound transformative form of human capital civilization driven by contemporary information-based productive forces. Its core lies in systematically absorbing and integrating digitized data, information, and knowledge, along with the digital platforms and intelligent algorithms that operate upon them, into the capitalist structure of value augmentation and accumulation. This profound change means that data has become a key means of production and a special commodity, platforms have become new spatial vehicles for organizing production, circulation, and consumption, and algorithms have profoundly restructured mechanisms of labor management, value distribution, and social control.

数字资本主义是人类资本文明在当代信息生产力驱动下的深刻转型形态。其核心在于将数字化的数据、信息与知识，以及运行其上的数字平台与智能算法，系统地吸纳并整合进资本主义的价值增殖与积累结构之中。这一深刻变化意味着数据成为关键的生产资料与特殊商品，平台成为组织生产、流通与消费的新型空间载体，算法则深刻重构了劳动管理、价值分配与社会控制机制。

Digital capitalism is capitalism in the information age, by no means a ruptured break from the capitalist tradition. Universal digital technologies represented by the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence have greatly compressed the constraints of time and space, creating unprecedented efficiency in production and circulation, giving rise to new business forms such as the platform economy and gig labor, and, relying on the non-rivalrous nature of data, constructing market structures tending toward monopoly. This has led to an unprecedented expansion of the rift between the subjects of value creation (users) and the subjects of value appropriation (platform capital). Yet, it inherently continues and deepens the core drive of capital for profit-seeking expansion, the extension of commodification, and the search for new ways to extract surplus value, embodying a historical adjustment strategy by capital to cope with its inherent contradictions and the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. This indicates that the fundamental logic of capital domination has not changed, the real position of laborers as being employed and creating surplus value for capitalists has not changed, and the historical trend of generating new inequalities and social divisions has not changed. Consequently, the positioning of digital capitalism as still falling within the basic categories of historical-materialist critique has also not changed.

数字资本主义是信息时代的资本主义，而绝非脱离资本主义传统的断裂性突变。以互联网、大数据、人工智能为代表的通用数字技术，极大地压缩了时空限制，创造出史无前例的生产流通效率，催生出平台经济、零工劳动等新业态，并依托数据的非竞争性特质构建出趋向垄断的市场结构，导致价值创造主体（用户）与价值占有主体（平台资本）之间的裂痕空前扩大。但其内在延续并深化了资本逐利扩张、深化商品化范围、寻求剩余价值提取新途径的核心诉求，体现了资本应对固有矛盾与利润率下降规律的历史性调整策略。这表明，资本主导的根本逻辑没有改变，劳动者仍处于被雇佣并为资本家创造剩余价值的现实地位没有改变，产生新的不平等和社会分化的历史趋势没有改变。因而，数字资本主义仍属于历史唯物主义批判的基本范畴这一定位也没有改变。

A Historical-Materialist Critique of Digital Capitalism

数字资本主义的历史唯物主义批判

First, digital capitalism did not descend from nowhere; it is a process of historical genesis. Marx pointed out that “the economic forms in which people produce, consume, and exchange are transitory and historical forms.” The digital mode of production is likewise a product of historical development, a contemporary form of capitalism evolving under the conditions of information and communication technology. Understanding digital capitalism lies in analyzing this emerging “digital mode of production.” In this form, platforms reshape labor organization and employment relations, while data and traffic become core indicators for measuring value and driving production and consumption. These new phenomena do not originate from the “autonomous logic” of technology, but rather from capital’s self-reconstruction of relations of production and forms of exchange under new technological conditions in pursuit of value augmentation.

第一，数字资本主义并非凭空降临，而是一个历史生成的过程。马克思指出，“人们借以进行生产、消费和交换的经济形式是暂时的和历史性的形式”。数字生产方式同样是历史发展的产物，是资本主义在信息通信技术条件下演进的当代形态。理解数字资本主义在于分析这种新兴的“数字生产方式”。在此形态下，平台重塑了劳动组织与雇佣关系，数据—流量则成为衡量价值、驱动生产与消费的核心指标。这些新现象并非源于技术的“自主逻辑”，而是资本在新的技术条件下，为追求价值增殖而对生产关系和交换形式进行的自我重构。

Second, production under digital conditions generally manifests as the concept of general data. Marx pointed out that production in general “belongs to a specific historical epoch.” In the digital age, general data has become the core governing production, exchange, and consumption. Users register and bind real-world information, and data relations replace interpersonal interaction. In the *Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy*, when discussing capital in general, Marx emphasized that “the determinations that apply to production in general must be singled out so that the essential differences are not forgotten.” General data is precisely such an abstraction; it unifies global production sectors yet conceals the inequality of capital control. Without general data, no digital activity is conceivable, but ignoring its connection to the real economy would reduce the critique of digital capitalism to empty talk.

第二，数字条件下的生产一般表现为一般数据概念。马克思指出，生产一般“属于某个具体历史时代”，在数字时代，一般数据成为支配生产交换消费的核心。用户注册绑定现实信息，数据关系取代了人际互动。马克思在《政治经济学批判导言》中论资本一般时强调，“对生产一般适用的种种规定要抽出来，是为了不忘本质差别”。一般数据正是这种抽象，它统一了全球生产部门，却掩盖了资本控制的不平等。没有一般数据，任何数字活动都无从设想，但忽略其与实体经济的联系，对数字资本主义的批判就会沦为空话。

Third, the secret of digital capitalism lies in capital controlling global production through platforms. On the surface, the digital economy appears independent of the real economy, but in reality it depends on the latter. Digital platforms are merely the ornate shell of digital capitalism’s logic; its inner logic is capital using general data to manipulate global industrial chains. Without the material support of factories, logistics, and the like, virtual currencies such as Bitcoin would undoubtedly collapse rapidly. Marx warned, “Here is Rhodes, jump here!” We must expose capital’s magic in reality. Under the conditions of digital capitalism, achieving human liberation still requires “real means.” Only by returning to the foundation of production and critiquing digital fetishism can true human freedom be realized. In the future, data monopolies must be broken, allowing technology to serve human liberation rather than capital accumulation.

第三，数字资本主义的奥秘在于资本通过平台控制全球生产。表面看，数字经济独立于实体经济，实则依赖后者。数字平台只是数字资本主义逻辑的华丽外壳，其内在逻辑是资本利用一般数据操控全球产业链。若脱离工厂物流等实体支撑，毫无疑问，比特币等虚拟货币便会迅速崩溃。马克思警示，“这里是罗陀斯，就在这里跳跃吧”，我们必须在现实中揭露资本魔法。在数字资本主义的条件下，想要实现人类解放，依然需要“现实手段”，唯有回归生产基础，批判数字拜物教，才能实现人的真正自由。未来，要打破数据垄断，让技术服务于人类解放而非资本积累。

The Real Predicaments of Digital Capitalism

数字资本主义的现实困境

Within the operational system of digital capitalism, the core position of data as a new type of means of production is increasingly prominent, yet the issue of its ownership falls into a structural contradiction. Vast amounts of data are generated from the daily activities of ordinary users (such as browsing records, location information, social interactions, etc.). Ordinary users, as the producers of data, are unable to claim control over their own data or the right to share in the economic returns. Enterprises, through their monopoly over the “data means of production”—that is, platforms—privatize user data, thereby forming monopolistic appropriation. This separation of data ownership from the subjects of production not only reconstructs traditional relations of production but also triggers deeper real predicaments.

在数字资本主义的运作体系中，数据作为新型生产资料的核心地位日益凸显，但其所有权归属问题却陷入结构性矛盾。海量数据生成于普通用户的日常（如浏览记录、位置信息、社交互动等），普通用户作为数据的生产者，却无法主张对自身数据的控制权与经济收益分配权。企业通过对“数据生产资料”也就是平台的垄断，将用户的数据私有化，进而形成了垄断性占有。这种数据所有权与生产主体的分离，不仅重构了传统的生产关系，也引发了更深层次的现实困境。

First, digital capitalism further deepens the anarchy of production within enterprises. Under the conditions of digital capitalism, market competition centers on algorithm optimization and the struggle for user attention. Enterprises continuously push boundaries to seize data resources. In the battle for user stickiness among platforms, the characteristics of extreme content推送 [n1], covert privacy mining, and algorithmic black-boxing become increasingly pronounced. For example, social platforms amplify user preferences through precise big-data推送 [n1], e-commerce platforms use consumption data to raise prices precisely, and ride-hailing systems dynamically adjust rates based on usage habits. These seemingly efficient personalized services actually exacerbate the risk of market失控 [n2]. Regulatory agencies, hampered by lagging technical capacity and legislative gaps, find it difficult to constrain the monopolistic behaviors enterprises create by leveraging their data advantages. “Winner-takes-all” has gradually become the final outcome of market competition under the conditions of digital capitalism, further intensifying the anarchy of enterprise production.

第一，数字资本主义使企业生产的无政府状态进一步加深。数字资本主义条件下，市场竞争以算法优化与用户注意力争夺为核心目标，企业为抢占数据资源不断突破边界。平台间为争夺用户黏性，内容推送极端化、隐私挖掘隐蔽化、算法黑箱化的特性日益显著。例如，社交平台通过精准的大数据推送放大用户偏好，电商平台利用消费数据精准抬价，网约车系统依据使用习惯动态调整费率等，这些看似高效的个性化服务，实则加剧了市场失控风险。而监管机构因技术能力滞后与立法缺位，难以约束企业利用数据优势制造的垄断行为，“赢家通吃”逐渐成为了数字资本主义条件下市场竞争的最终结果，企业生产的无政府状态进一步加剧。

Second, digital capitalism further intensifies the potential crisis of wealth polarization. The exclusive returns from data commodities are increasingly concentrated among tech giants, while the value returned to the subjects of data production (users and digital laborers) is negligible in comparison. Taking the platform economy as an example, although groups such as ride-hailing drivers and food-delivery couriers bear high-intensity labor and continuously generate key data on routes and timeliness, their actual income forms a huge gap compared with the magnitude of capital appreciation from platform data. Data shows that the market capitalization share of the world’s top ten tech companies rose from less than 5% in 2008 to 18% in 2022, while the wealth share of the bottom 50% of the global population continued to shrink to less than 2%. Leading platforms, by establishing data barriers based on their initial user scale, can automatically attract more users and capital, forming a positive feedback loop. Small and medium-sized competitors are either systematically excluded or can only attach themselves to one or another vast “digital lord.” Data monopoly becomes a potential trigger for distributional imbalance, leading to wealth polarization and new social crises.

第二，数字资本主义使贫富分化的潜在危机进一步加剧。数据商品的独占性收益越来越集中于科技巨头，而数据生产主体（用户与数字劳工）所获取的价值返还与前者相比显得微不足道。以平台经济为例，尽管网约车司机、外卖骑手等群体承担高强度劳动并持续生成路线、时效等关键数据，但实际收入与平台数据资本增值幅度形成巨大落差。数据显示，全球前十大科技企业市值占比从2008年的不足5%升至2022年的18%，而全球底层50%人口财富占比持续萎缩至不足2%。头部平台凭借初始用户规模建立数据壁垒后，可以自动吸附更多用户与资本形成正反馈循环，中小竞争者要么被系统性排除，要么只能依附于一个个庞大的“数字领主”。数据垄断成为分配失衡进而引发贫富分化和新的社会危机的潜在诱因。

Third, digital capitalism further intensifies the impoverishment of laborers. The poverty of traditional industrial workers manifests as wage compression and lack of security, while the impoverished situation of digital laborers is more concealed. On the one hand, algorithmic management abstracts laborers into quantifiable nodes within data flows, compressing labor autonomy in the name of efficiency, and the emotional labor and cognitive burden are implicitly shifted onto the laborers. On the other hand, laborers are forced to work under excessive loads. For example, they extend working hours to maintain platform ratings, create excessive content to gain algorithmic recommendations, and surrender personal privacy to meet system assessments. As digital capitalism continuously expands its control over traditional production fields, traditional laborers who are unwilling to participate in digital production or unable to use platforms lose job opportunities because they are not accepted by the platforms. Laborers can neither control the value of the data they create nor escape the survival system constructed by data capital; while digital capitalism continuously creates prosperity and wealth, it also creates a new type of poverty characteristic of this era.

第三，数字资本主义使劳动者的贫困化态势进一步加剧。传统产业工人的贫困表现为工资挤压与保障缺失，而数字劳动者的贫困化处境则更为隐蔽。一方面，算法管理将劳动者抽象为数据流中的可量化节点，以效率为名压缩劳动自主性，情感劳动与认知负担被隐性转嫁给劳动者。另一方面，劳动者被迫超负荷劳动。例如，为维持平台评分而延长工时，为获得算法推荐而超额创作内容，为满足系统考核而让渡个人隐私。伴随数字资本主义不断扩张对传统生产领域的控制，不愿参与数字生产或不会使用平台的传统劳动者因为不被平台所接纳而丧失了工作机会。劳动者既无法掌控自身创造的数据价值，又被迫依附于数据资本构建的生存系统，数字资本主义在不断创造繁荣和财富的同时，也在创造着属于这一时代的新型贫困。

(The author is a lecturer at the School of Marxism, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University)

（作者系浙江理工大学马克思主义学院讲师）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧