On the New Alienation of Emotional Labor in Digital Capitalism and Its Resolution

In the era of industrial capitalism, Marx used the theory of alienated labor to analyze the real reasons for the increasing impoverishment of the working class under capitalist conditions, thereby exposing the phenomenon of total alienation in capitalist society. With the advent of Western consumer society and the rise of the tertiary sector in developed countries, human “emotion” has demonstrated immense potential for service-oriented labor, and emotional labor has gradually become a new growth point for capital accumulation under capitalism. Due to the significant phenomena of alienation in emotional labor, such as the deprivation of emotional resources and emotional estrangement between labor subjects, the critique of emotional labor alienation has become an important topic in academia. Entering the era of digital capitalism, the digital transformation of capital accumulation methods and the platform-based shift in labor forms have not only given rise to new forms of emotional labor, such as short-video economies, live-streaming host economies, virtual emotional economies, and fan emotional economies, but have also brought emotional labor alienation to a depth and breadth unmatched by previous eras, thereby exerting far greater negative impacts on the development of human society than before. However, current academic research on emotional labor alienation mainly focuses on disciplines such as sociology, psychology, management, and education, with most studies tending to center on emotional labor alienation in specific industries or specific fields. In view of this, basing itself on the theoretical perspective of Marxist political economy to conduct an essential analysis of the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism and to explore specific paths for resolving the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism holds important theoretical value and practical significance.

在工业资本主义时代，马克思曾以异化劳动理论剖析了资本主义条件下工人阶级日益贫困的现实缘由，并由此揭露出资本主义社会的全面异化现象。伴随西方消费社会的到来和发达国家第三产业的崛起，人类“情感”展现出巨大的服务性劳动潜能，情感劳动逐渐成为资本主义进行资本增殖的新增长点。由于情感劳动中存在显著的对情感资源的剥夺、劳动主体间的情感疏离等异化现象，情感劳动异化批判因此构成学界重要议题。迈入数字资本主义时代，资本增殖方式的数字化转变和劳动形式的平台化转向，不仅催生出短视频经济、网络主播经济、虚拟情感经济、粉丝情感经济等情感劳动新形态，也使情感劳动异化达到了既往时代所无法比拟的深度和广度，继而对人类社会发展产生了远甚以往的消极影响。然而，现阶段学界关于情感劳动异化的研究主要聚焦于社会学、心理学、管理学和教育学等学科，研究内容大多偏向于围绕具体行业或具体领域的情感劳动异化所展开。鉴于此，立足马克思主义政治经济学的理论视域对数字资本主义情感劳动新异化进行本质透视，探索消解数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的具体路径，具有重要的理论价值和现实意义。

I. Analysis of the Connotation of the New Alienation of Emotional Labor in Digital Capitalism

一、数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的内涵辨析

Regarding the definition of emotional labor, there is still a certain degree of ambiguity in academia. From the perspective of the conceptual history of the term, “emotional labor” mainly includes two meanings: “emotional labor” as proposed by American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild and “affective labor” as proposed by Italian autonomists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Emotional labor (Hochschild’s sense) focuses on the emotional management and emotional performance that workers in the service industry undertake to obtain corresponding wages and meet relevant professional requirements; its essence is the standardization and commercialization of private emotional management. Affective labor, on the other hand, is proposed as a main component of immaterial labor; it is committed to achieving unconscious, deep-level emotional control over the objects of labor by constructing interactive emotional connections and creating a common emotional atmosphere; its essence is the “production and manipulation of emotions” based on the worker’s own subjective construction. In comparison, emotional labor (Hochschild’s sense) is a specific and micro-level labor process, primarily demonstrating the specific behaviors of the labor subject and their consequences during labor, while affective labor is a deeper form of emotional control at a more macro and abstract level, primarily depicting the emotional interaction and mutual influence between the labor subject and object. Although emotional labor (Hochschild’s sense) and affective labor are two different concepts, they share common characteristics: first, both are internally driven by meeting the emotional needs of the labor object; second, both ultimately aim to better promote consumption by creating a good emotional experience; third, under the domination of capitalist relations of production, both have a significant exploitative character regarding the labor subject’s emotions. Furthermore, with the acceleration of economic modernization, emotional labor (Hochschild’s sense) and affective labor are increasingly overlapping, showing a trend of mutual integration and mutual transformation.

关于情感劳动的界定，学界目前仍存在一定程度的歧义。从概念学术史来看，“情感劳动”主要包括由美国社会学家阿莉·拉塞尔·霍克希尔德提出的情绪劳动和由意大利自治主义者麦克尔·哈特与安东尼奥·奈格里提出的情动劳动两种意涵。情绪劳动关注劳动者在服务业中为获得相应薪酬和达到相关职业要求所展开的情绪管理和情绪表演，其实质是被标准化和商业化的私人情感整饰;而情动劳动是作为非物质劳动的主要构成被提出的，它致力于通过构建交互情感联系和营造共同情感氛围以实现对劳动对象不自觉的、深层次的情感控制，其实质是劳动者基于自身的主体性建构来“生产和操纵情感的劳动”。相较而言，情绪劳动是一种具体而微观的劳动过程，它重点展示的是劳动主体在劳动中的具体行为及其后果，而情动劳动则是在更为宏观抽象意义上的深层情感控制形式，它重点刻画的是劳动主客体之间的情感交互及相互影响。情绪劳动和情动劳动尽管是两个不同概念，但两者具有共性特征:其一，两者都是以满足劳动对象的情感需求为内在驱动;其二，两者都是通过营造良好的情感体验以更好地促进消费为最终目的;其三，在资本主义生产关系支配下，两者对劳动主体都具有显著的情感剥削特质。此外，伴随经济现代化的加速，情绪劳动和情动劳动越来越具有交叉性，呈现出相互融合和相互转化的发展态势。

Although emotional labor is a non-material activity aimed at satisfying people’s emotional needs, under certain conditions it can also transform into its opposite, becoming an alien or hostile force. It should be pointed out that “the alienation of man from the product of his own labor” is what Marx’s theory of alienated labor refers to, whereas under capitalist conditions, emotional labor is essentially a form of unproductive labor. In responding to Smith’s two definitions of “productive labor,” Marx deeply analyzed the “standard of productive labor.” In his view, Smith’s first definition, namely “the production of surplus value,” touched the essence of the issue and was “the correct definition,” while the second definition, namely “material production,” was influenced by the Physiocrats and was “an erroneous view.” The reason Marx criticized Smith’s second definition was that Smith “misapplied the standard and definition applicable to the simple labor process to capitalist productive labor.” In fact, in Marx’s view, “material production” and “the production of surplus value” respectively constitute the “material determination” and “essential determination” of capitalist productive labor. Among them, “material production” embodies the “commonality” of all commodity production, thus constituting the prerequisite for capitalist productive labor; while “the production of surplus value,” as the fundamental purpose of capitalist production, embodies the “particularity” of capitalist commodity production, thus constituting the essential characteristic of capitalist productive labor. Furthermore, “material production” needs to be presented through commodity production and material carriers, while “the production of surplus value” needs to be measured through socially necessary labor time. For emotional labor, whether it is the emotional labor proposed by Hochschild, such as emotional performance in the service industry, or the emotional labor proposed by Negri and Hardt, such as producing emotional experiences like “peace, joy, pleasure, happiness,” neither is essentially connected to “material commodities,” nor can it be defined by “necessary” “labor time.” In this sense, emotional labor is by no means a form of productive labor.

情感劳动虽然是一种旨在满足人的情感需求的非物质性活动，但在一定条件下，也可能向人的对立面转化，变成异己的或敌对的力量。需要指出的是，“人同自己所生产的劳动产品相异化”为马克思异化劳动理论所指，而在资本主义条件下，情感劳动本质上却是一种非生产性劳动。马克思在回应斯密关于“生产性劳动”的两个定义时曾深入分析了“生产性劳动的标准”。在他看来，斯密所提出的第一个定义即“剩余价值生产”触及了问题的本质，是“正确的定义”,而第二个定义即“物质生产”则受到重农学派的影响，是“错误的见解”。马克思之所以批判斯密的第二个定义，是因为斯密把“适用于简单劳动过程的标准和定义张冠李戴地用于资本主义生产劳动”。实际上，在马克思看来，“物质生产”和“剩余价值生产”分别构成了资本主义生产性劳动的“物质规定性”和“本质规定性”。其中，“物质生产”体现了一切商品生产的“共性”，从而构成了资本主义生产性劳动的前提条件;而“剩余价值生产”作为资本主义生产的根本目的，体现了资本主义商品生产的“个性”，从而构成了资本主义生产性劳动的本质特征。此外，“物质生产”需要通过商品生产和物质载体加以呈现，而“剩余价值生产”则需要通过社会必要劳动时间予以衡量。对于情感劳动而言，无论是霍克希尔德所提出的诸如服务业中的情绪表演等情感劳动，还是奈格里与哈特所提出的诸如生产“安宁、快乐、愉悦、幸福”等情感体验的情感劳动，两者都既不与“物质商品”构成本质性联系，也无法通过“必要”的“劳动时间”加以界定。就此而言，情感劳动绝不是一种生产性劳动。

However, the crux of the issue is that although emotional labor does not produce “material commodities” or surplus value, this does not mean that emotional labor cannot give “emotion” a “commodity form.” In fact, Marx had already pointed out in *Capital* that “some things, which are not commodities in themselves, such as conscience, honor, etc., can nevertheless be sold by their possessors for money, and thus, through their price, acquire the commodity form.” The process by which emotion acquires a commodity form precisely reflects the logic of capital transforming all social relations into exchangeable commodity relations. Especially from the perspective of the overall capitalist production process, the commodification of emotional labor is essentially an intermediate link serving the overall accumulation of capital. For example, “emotional services” in the retail industry can indirectly promote commodity sales by increasing customer loyalty, thereby realizing surplus value in the sphere of circulation. Marx pointed out in this regard: “Merchant’s capital creates neither value nor surplus value... But since it helps to shorten the time of circulation, it can indirectly help to increase the surplus value produced by the industrial capitalist.” Furthermore, although emotional labor does not directly produce surplus value, capitalists can make it participate in the realization of surplus value by extending labor time, increasing labor intensity (e.g., requiring service personnel to maintain “positive emotions” for long periods), or by reducing the difference between wages and the cost of emotional labor (e.g., paying a fixed wage but requiring excessive emotional output). In other words, under capitalist conditions, the commodification of emotional labor and its products indicates that emotional labor has already been drawn into the system of capital accumulation, becoming an important link in the realization of value and surplus value. Thus, the alienation of emotional labor is an inevitable result of the capitalist logic of reification and the logic of commodity fetishism. It not only transforms private emotions, which should be subjective human experiences, into transactions for capitalists to extract high profits, but also degrades emotional laborers into functional and functionalized existences aimed at promoting capital accumulation, thereby profoundly reflecting the colonial expansion of capitalist relations of production into the non-material sphere, as well as the deep alienation of commodity relations and capital relations over laborers.

然而，问题的关键在于，情感劳动尽管不生产“物质商品”和剩余价值，但这并不意味着情感劳动不能使“情感”获得“商品形式”。事实上，马克思在《资本论》中早已指出，“有些东西本身并不是商品，例如良心、名誉等等，但是也可以被它们的占有者出卖以换取金钱，并通过它们的价格，取得商品形式”。情感获得商品形式的过程恰恰体现了资本逻辑将一切社会关系转化为可交换的商品关系的过程。尤其是从资本主义生产过程的整体来看，情感劳动的商品化本质上是服务于资本整体积累的中间环节，例如零售业的“情感服务”能够通过提高顾客忠诚度间接促进商品销售，从而在流通领域实现剩余价值。马克思对此指出:“商人资本既不创造价值，也不创造剩余价值……但既然它有助于流通时间的缩短，它就能间接地有助于产业资本家所生产的剩余价值的增加。”此外，情感劳动虽然不直接生产剩余价值，但资本家却可以通过延长劳动时间、提高劳动强度(如要求服务人员长时间保持“积极情绪”)，或通过压低工资与情感劳动成本的差额(如支付固定工资却要求超额情感付出)等方式使其参与剩余价值的实现。换言之，在资本主义条件下，情感劳动及其成果的商品化表明情感劳动已然被卷入资本增殖体系的范畴，成为参与价值和剩余价值实现的重要环节。由此可见，情感劳动异化是资本主义物化逻辑和商品拜物教逻辑的必然结果，它不仅使本应属于人的主观体验的私人情感变成了资本家攫取高额利润的交易买卖，同时也使情感劳动者被贬低为一种旨在促进资本增殖的功能性和职能性的存在，从而深刻体现出资本主义生产关系对非物质领域的殖民化扩张，以及商品关系和资本关系对劳动者的深层异化。

Entering the era of digital capitalism, “digitalization” has accelerated capitalism’s systematic restructuring of labor-capital relations, while also triggering a deeper and more comprehensive new alienation of emotional labor in capitalist society. In 2000, Italian scholar Tiziana Terranova first proposed the concept of “digital labor,” arguing that emotional labor in the digital age is both a form of “digital labor” and “free labor,” thereby expanding the conceptual scope of emotional labor. Emotional labor under digital capitalism not only retains the general characteristics of emotional labor during industrial capitalism but also takes on entirely new forms due to the transformative development of technologies such as digital information and artificial intelligence. These include, but are not limited to: first, the emotionally charged digital performances of “internet celebrity” groups, represented by emotional streamers, who seek online tips and traffic revenue; second, the digital labor of fan groups under the commercialized operation model of “celebrity-fan” emotional interaction, such as posting, liking, sharing, and commenting; third, virtual emotional companionship services represented by online psychological counseling, paid chat, and virtual lovers, which achieve direct transactions and standardized management through digital platforms; fourth, in a broader sense, the expression, sharing, and dissemination of “emotional content” by ordinary netizens on social media platforms for the purpose of gaining attention or economic benefits. Overall, emotional labor under digital capitalism is a form of non-productive labor dominated by capitalist relations of production, driven internally by the need to satisfy the emotional needs of the labor object, externally manifested as digital labor, and fundamentally aimed at promoting the “traffic monetization” of digital capital. Compared with traditional emotional labor, emotional labor under digital capitalism constructs virtual emotional relationships in digital space through workers’ digital emotional performances to promote capital accumulation. The “emotional commodities” it produces can be stored, circulated, exchanged, and consumed in data form, thus possessing greater “circulability,” “profitability,” and “exploitability.” Furthermore, in order to extract more surplus profit in the sphere of consumption, digital capitalism not only deprives workers of their private emotions but also digitally transforms them, and, with the aid of digital technology, completely overturns traditional modes of production, organizational forms, and labor patterns, making the exploitation of emotional laborers by capitalists increasingly widespread, more concealed, and deeper.

迈入数字资本主义时代，“数字化”加速了资本主义对劳资关系的系统性重构，同时也进一步引发了资本主义社会更深层次、更加全面的情感劳动新异化。2000年，意大利学者蒂齐亚纳 ·泰拉诺瓦首次提出了“数字劳工”概念，认为数字时代的情感劳动既是一种“数字劳动”，也是一种“免费劳动”，由此拓展了情感劳动的概念范围。数字资本主义情感劳动既具有工业资本主义时期情感劳动的普遍特征，也因为数字信息和人工智能等技术的变革性发展而呈现出全新样态，具体包括但不限于:一是以情感主播为代表的“网红”群体为获得在线打赏和流量等收益所进行的充满情感的数字化表演活动;二是基于“明星－粉丝”情感交互中的粉丝群体在商业化运作模式下所开展的诸如发帖、点赞、转发、评论等在内的数字化劳动;三是以在线心理咨询、付费陪聊、虚拟恋人等为代表的虚拟情感陪伴服务通过数字平台实现的直接交易和标准化管理;四是在更宽泛的意义上，社交媒介平台上大众网民以获得关注度或经济利益为目的所进行的“情感内容”的表达、分享和传播等行为。总的来看，数字资本主义情感劳动是一种在资本主义生产关系支配下，以满足劳动对象的情感需要为内在驱动、以数字劳动为外在表现、以促进数字资本的“流量变现”为根本目的的非生产性劳动。相较于传统的情感劳动，数字资本主义情感劳动通过劳动者的数字化情感演绎，得以在数字空间构建虚拟情感关系来促进资本增殖，其所生产的“情感商品”能够以数据形态得以存储、流通、交换与消费，从而更具有“可流通性”“可获利性”和“可剥削性”。此外，为了能够在消费领域榨取更多超额利润，数字资本主义在将劳动者的私人情感进行剥夺的同时对其进行数字化改造，并借助数字技术彻底颠覆了传统的生产方式、组织形式和劳动样态，从而使资产者对情感劳动者的剥削变得愈加普遍、愈加隐晦、愈加深入。

II. Concrete Manifestations of the New Alienation of Emotional Labor in Digital Capitalism

二、数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的具体表征

The new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism is the result of the extension of the capitalist application of digital technology into the field of traditional emotional labor, leading to alienation. The new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism also contains the fourfold determination of alienation found in Marx’s theory of alienated labor. Specifically, digital capitalism, through algorithmic personalized recommendation, traffic competition monopoly, emotional panopticon surveillance, and platform-based covert discipline, respectively gives rise to “addictive emotional commodities,” “persona-based emotional performances,” “unconscious spiritual colonization,” and “multi-layered emotional exploitation,” thereby creating new characteristics of the emotional laborer’s alienation from the product of labor, the process of labor, the species-being of humanity, and the laborer themselves.

数字资本主义情感劳动新异化是数字技术的资本主义应用向传统情感劳动领域异化延伸的结果。数字资本主义情感劳动新异化同样存在马克思异化劳动理论中的四重异化规定。具体而言，数字资本主义通过算法个性推荐、流量竞争垄断、情感全景监控和平台隐秘规训分别催生出“致瘾性情感商品”“人设化情感表演”“无意识精神殖民”和“多层级情感剥削”，由此造成情感劳动者出现与劳动产品、劳动过程、人的类本质以及劳动者自身相异化的新特征。

(I) Algorithmic Personalized Recommendation Induces “Addictive Emotional Commodities”

(一)算法个性推荐诱生“致瘾性情感商品”

Algorithmic personalized recommendation is a digital technological means centered on algorithmic technology and developed through deep integration with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data. The operational principle of algorithmic personalized recommendation mainly includes four aspects: first, using data algorithm technology to efficiently filter and accurately identify massive amounts of information to form “information labels”; second, using intelligent algorithm technology to mine users’ emotional preferences and emotional trends to form “user profiles”; third, using algorithm matching technology to match information labels with user profiles for suitability; and finally, accurately pushing information and content that users are interested in based on their personalized emotional needs. In the era of digital capitalism, algorithmic personalized recommendation serves as the “accelerator” and “compass” for emotional laborers to carry out digital labor. For example, in the emotional labor of short videos/live streaming represented by YouTube, emotional streamers and viewers who engage in emotional interaction on the live streaming platform carry out two-way emotional labor under the “catalysis” and “guidance” of algorithmic personalized recommendation. On the one hand, emotional streamers, in the form of “emotional performances,” turn their bodies into virtualized “emotional commodities” for public consumption. With the technical support of algorithmic personalized recommendation, they can quickly and accurately sell these “emotional commodities” to target groups, thereby seeking user tips and platform wages. On the other hand, viewers can accurately find their preferred emotional streamers through algorithmic personalized recommendation. While consuming the “emotional commodities” provided by the emotional streamers through gifts and tips, they also voluntarily create traffic and attract popularity for the streamers’ “emotional commodities” through posting, sharing, commenting, and liking during emotional interaction. Algorithmic personalized recommendation, as a technical intermediary bonding emotional streamers and viewers, enhances the quality and value of “emotional commodities” by stimulating emotional resonance and communication between the two parties, thereby significantly increasing the value realization of emotional labor in live streaming.

算法个性推荐是以算法技术为核心，并通过与人工智能、大数据等新兴技术深度融合发展而出现的数字技术手段。算法个性推荐的作用原理主要包括四方面，先是通过数据算法技术对海量信息进行高效筛选与精准识别以形成“信息标签”，接着通过智能算法技术挖掘用户的情绪偏好与情感动向以形成“用户画像”，之后通过算法适配技术对信息标签与用户画像进行适用度匹配，最终根据用户的个性化情感需求精准推送用户感兴趣的信息和内容。在数字资本主义时代，算法个性推荐是情感劳动者开展数字劳动的“加速器”与“指向针”。例如在以“油管”(YouTube)为代表的短视频/网络直播情感劳动中，直播平台中彼此进行情感互动的情感主播和观看用户在算法个性推荐的“催化”与“引导”下进行着双向情感劳动。一方面，情感主播以“情感表演”的形式将自身的身体打造成可供大众消费的虚拟化“情感商品”，通过算法个性推荐这一技术支持，能够快速精准地将“情感商品”售卖给目标意向群体，以此谋求用户打赏和平台工资;另一方面，观看用户通过算法个性推荐能够精准找到自己心仪的情感主播，在通过礼物打赏等方式消费情感主播所提供的“情感商品”的同时，在与情感主播进行情感互动中又自愿通过发帖、转发、评论、点赞等方式为情感主播的“情感商品”创造流量和吸引人气。算法个性推荐作为黏合情感主播与观看用户的技术中介，通过激发两者间的情感共振与情感交流来为“情感商品”提质赋能，从而大幅提高了网络直播情感劳动的价值变现。

The generation of the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism is, to some extent, because the production and consumption of “emotional commodities” are no longer purely used to meet the real needs of emotional laborers and emotional consumers. Instead, they become an inner impulse and false desire induced by algorithmic personalized recommendation, thereby dominating the two-way emotional labor of emotional streamers and viewers. This implies an addictive mechanism that leads emotional laborers and emotional consumers from indulgence to addiction. Under the domination of digital capitalist relations of production, the combination of algorithmic personalized recommendation with commercial profit motives produces a clear utilitarian orientation. Algorithmic personalized recommendation is deeply embedded in various scenarios of emotional consumers’ daily information acquisition, leisure and entertainment, and social interaction consumption. By precisely providing personalized emotional experiences, it maximizes the stimulation of emotional consumers’ emotional needs, thereby continuously inducing emotional streamers and viewers to indulge in the production and consumption of “emotional commodities” without being able to extricate themselves. On the one hand, algorithmic personalized recommendation, based on traffic logic, either “guides traffic” to or “limits traffic” for the emotional labor of emotional streamers. Tempted by the huge potential for traffic monetization, emotional streamers tirelessly produce “emotional commodities” for viewers’ entertainment. This behavior, which “turns human dignity into exchange value” for the sake of money, undoubtedly reflects the greatest degree of alienation of the human subject by digital capitalism. On the other hand, algorithmic personalized recommendation, based on consumption logic, carries out precision marketing to viewers. Using means such as content creation, visual packaging, and marketing promotion, it induces viewers to develop a consumption obsession with “emotional commodities,” gradually shifting them from “active consumption” to “precisely being consumed.” Under the inducement of algorithmic personalized recommendation, viewers not only unconsciously and actively participate in the secondary creation of “emotional commodities” but also further deepen their own deformed, materialized, and symbolized consumption psychology and behavior. More seriously, the “emotional commodities” produced during the period when emotional streamers and viewers are immersed in emotional labor, along with their profits, are almost entirely occupied by the digital platform without compensation. Emotional streamers only receive a small portion of the profit share, while viewers actively become free laborers for the digital platform. With the support of algorithmic personalized recommendation, digital capitalism not only “creates a new type of ‘consumptive free labor’ that combines the production of commodities with the consumption of services” but also creates “addictive emotional commodities” that combine emotional reification with commodity fetishism. This ultimately causes emotional laborers to become addicted to the cycle of production and consumption of “emotional commodities,” willingly accepting the exploitation and oppression of digital capital.

数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的生成，一定程度上由于“情感商品”的生产与消费已经不再是纯粹用来满足情感劳动者和情感消费者的现实需求，而是成为一种被算法个性推荐诱导起来的内在冲动和虚假欲望，并以此支配着情感主播与观看用户的双向情感劳动，其背后暗含着使情感劳动者和情感消费者从沉迷走向成瘾的致瘾机制。在数字资本主义生产关系支配下，算法个性推荐与商业盈利目的相结合产生了明确的功利化导向，算法个性推荐深度嵌入情感消费者的日常信息获取、休闲娱乐生活、社会交往消费等各种场景之中，通过精准提供个性化情感体验来最大程度地激发情感消费者的情感需求，以此不断诱导情感主播和观看用户沉溺于“情感商品”的生产与消费之中不能自拔。一方面，算法个性推荐根据流量逻辑为情感主播的情感劳动进行“引流”或“限流”，情感主播在巨大流量变现诱惑下乐此不疲地生产“情感商品”以供观看用户玩乐，这种为了获得金钱而“把人的尊严变成了交换价值”的行为无疑体现了数字资本主义对人类主体最大程度的异化;另一方面，算法个性推荐根据消费逻辑向观看用户进行精准化营销，利用内容打造、视觉包装和营销宣传等手段诱使观看用户对“情感商品”产生消费迷恋，使其逐渐从“主动性消费”变成“精准被消费”。在算法个性推荐的诱导下，观看用户不仅无意识地主动参与到“情感商品”的二次创作之中，更进一步加深了自身畸形化、物欲化和符号化的消费心理与消费行为。更严重的是，情感主播与观看用户沉迷于情感劳动期间所生产的“情感商品”及其利润几乎全部被数字平台无偿占有，情感主播只是获得少部分利润提成，而观看用户更是主动沦为数字平台的免费劳工。数字资本主义在算法个性推荐的加持下，不仅“创造了生产商品与消费服务相结合的新型‘消费性免费劳动’”,也创造了情感物化与商品拜物教相结合的“致瘾性情感商品”，最终致使情感劳动者沉迷于“情感商品”的生产与消费的循环往复之中，甘愿接受数字资本的剥削与压榨。

(II) Traffic Competition Monopoly Stimulates “Persona-Based Emotional Performances”

(二)流量竞争垄断激发“人设化情感表演”

In the datafied space dominated by digital capitalism, the direction of traffic flow signifies not only the distribution of attention and visibility but also the capacity for market capture and profit realization. As a manifestation of data generation, flow, and aggregation, “traffic” intuitively reflects the degree of attention and recognition users grant to a given object. The greater the traffic, the more user attention the digital platform captures, and the more market transaction opportunities arise. Consequently, competitiveness and monopolization constitute the fundamental traits and key advantages of traffic. In the era of digital capitalism, traffic competition and monopolization are necessary means for digital capital to pursue excess profits and maximize surplus value. The essence of traffic competition and monopolization lies in digital platforms, which occupy an information-advantageous position, leveraging the information asymmetry brought about by digital technology to gain a competitive monopoly over transaction opportunities within the digital market, thereby achieving control over the digital consumer market. In the process of emotional labor under digital capitalism, digital platforms utilize the competitiveness and monopolization of traffic not only to set standards for measuring performance-based remuneration for emotional laborers but also to tame and incentivize ordinary emotional laborers aspiring to become “internet celebrities” through the monopolistic revenue advantages they create. To narrow the distance between emotional consumers and “emotional commodities,” emotional laborers often resort to “persona-based emotional performance” for traffic-driving operations, using meticulously crafted and deliberately packaged emotional displays to stimulate users’ desire to watch, psychological infatuation, and consumption impulses. The so-called “persona” refers to character setting, a virtualized self-personality and its behavioral manifestations corresponding to the “true self.” “Persona-based emotional performance” is a stylistic attempt by emotional laborers to move from “surface acting” to “deep acting,” and also a symbolic imaginary carrier for emotional communication between emotional laborers and the objects of their emotional labor. For example, in short-video or online emotional live-streaming scenarios, emotional streamers habitually use personas such as friends, lovers, or family members to create intimate relationships with viewing users, thereby forming stable emotional communities. “Persona-based emotional performance” requires emotional laborers to perform according to the “persona script” set by capital, by meticulously grooming their appearance, repeatedly refining their speech and rhetoric, and fully showcasing their personality traits to encourage viewing users to make online tips for their emotional displays, thereby obtaining traffic and the material returns traffic brings.

在数字资本主义统摄的数据化空间里，流量的走向不仅意味着注意力和能见度的分配，也意味着市场占有能力和利润变现能力。作为数据产生、流动和聚合的呈现形式，“流量”直观体现了用户给予某种事物的关注度和认同度。流量越大，代表数字平台获取的用户注意力就越多，市场交易机会也就越多。因而，竞争性和垄断性构成流量的基本特质和重要优势。在数字资本主义时代，流量竞争垄断是数字资本进行超额利润追逐和实现剩余价值最大化的必要手段。流量竞争垄断本质上是处于信息优势地位的数字平台利用数字技术带来的信息不对称，获得对数字市场内交易机会的竞争垄断，进而实现对数字消费市场控制的行为。在数字资本主义情感劳动过程中，数字平台利用流量的竞争性和垄断性不仅为情感劳动者制定了计量绩效报酬的标准，同时也利用其所创造的垄断性收益优势驯化和激励了一群想要成为“网红”的普通情感劳动者。为了能够拉近情感消费者与“情感商品”之间的距离，情感劳动者往往需要通过“人设化情感表演”进行引流运作，利用精心炮制和蓄意包装的情感展演激发用户的观看欲望、心理迷恋和消费冲动。所谓“人设”指的是人物设定，是一种与“真实自我”相对应的虚拟化了的自我人格及其行为表现。“人设化情感表演”是情感劳动者从“浅层表演”向“深层表演”所展开的一种风格化尝试，也是情感劳动者与情感劳动对象之间进行情感交流的符号想象载体。例如在短视频/网络情感直播场景中，情感主播惯常利用塑造朋友、恋人或亲人等“人设”来创制与观看用户的亲密关系，以此形成稳定的情感共同体。“人设化情感表演”要求情感劳动者必须能够按照资本设定的“人设脚本”进行表演，通过精心装扮外貌形象、反复斟酌话语话术、充分展示个性特征等方式鼓动观看用户为其情感展演进行在线打赏，进而获得流量以及流量带来的物质回报。

However, under the accelerating mechanism of traffic competition and monopolization, “persona-based emotional performance” easily causes emotional laborers to suffer dual damage to their physical and mental capacities, resulting in the alienation of emotional laborers from their own labor process. On the one hand, to maintain high popularity and high exposure on digital platforms over the long term, emotional laborers must continuously perform “persona-based emotional performances” and strive to achieve real-time updates to ensure sustained “attention-grabbing and fan-gathering.” To sustain algorithmic traffic, some emotional laborers are even forced to accept excessive labor such as “24/7 online availability” or “10-hour daily live-streaming.” This extreme demand on labor cycles and intensity easily leads to “emotional exhaustion,” a damage to the physical and emotional capacities of emotional laborers. On the other hand, “persona-based emotional performance” is typically characterized by comfortable surface-level interactions, shaping an emotional immersion experience dominated by pan-entertainment content. This surface-level emotional interaction deviates from the original meaning of the emotional laborer’s natural performance and true self-emotion; its essence is a kind of false modification and false performance at the emotional level. “Persona-based emotional performance” not only weakens the emotional laborer’s authentic emotional expression but also easily leads to short-sightedness and a preference for timeliness and novelty over accuracy and depth in value, thereby causing “depersonalization,” a damage to the emotional laborer’s cognitive aesthetics, free will, and other mental capacities. More seriously, deep and sustained “persona-based emotional performance” can easily evolve into “the living of performance” and “the performing of life.” This means that this alienated labor not only fully permeates the daily life of emotional laborers but also becomes “an activity that is independent of him, does not belong to him, and turns against him.”

然而，在流量竞争垄断的加速机制下，“人设化情感表演”容易使情感劳动者受到肉体能力与精神能力的双重损伤，造成情感劳动者与自身的劳动过程相异化。一方面，为了能够在数字平台中长期维持高人气度和高曝光度，情感劳动者必须不间断地进行“人设化情感表演”并尽力达到实时更新的效果，才可能确保持续“吸睛圈粉”。为了维持算法流量，部分情感劳动者甚至被迫接受“7×24小时在线”“日播10小时”的超额劳动，这种对劳动周期和劳动强度的极限要求极易造成情感劳动者的生理情感等肉体能力损伤的“情感衰竭”;另一方面，“人设化情感表演”往往是以舒适型表层互动为典型特征，形塑的是一种以泛娱乐化内容为主导的情感沉浸体验。这种表层情感互动背离了情感劳动者的自然表演和真实自我情感的本义，其实质是一种情感层面的虚假修饰和虚假表演。“人设化情感表演”不仅会削弱情感劳动者的真实情感表达，也容易导致情感劳动者的短视以及对时效性、新颖性的偏好胜于准确性、深刻性的价值，进而造成对情感劳动者的认知审美、自由意志等精神能力摧残的“人格解体”。更严重的是，深层次、持续性的“人设化情感表演”极易演变成“表演的生活化”和“生活的表演化”。这将意味着，这种异化了的劳动不仅会全面渗透于情感劳动者的日常生活之中，而且也会成为一种“不依赖于他、不属于他、转过来反对他自身的活动”。

(3) Emotional Panopticon Surveillance Intensifies “Unconscious Spiritual Colonization”

(三)情感全景监控强化“无意识精神殖民”

In the era of digital capitalism, the bourgeoisie uses digital surveillance technology to conduct panopticon surveillance over emotional laborers, aiming to comprehensively control the entire process of production and consumption of “emotional commodities,” thereby rendering capital’s control over emotional laborers all-pervasive. French philosopher Michel Foucault, in his work *Discipline and Punish*, used the example of the “panopticon prison” to reveal the mechanism by which people in capitalist society are gradually alienated under the panoptic surveillance of modern technology. In Foucault’s view, the panopticon prison is a large-scale stage for the exercise of power, which uses various technical means and disciplinary mechanisms to manage and discipline those within it, placing them in a state of “spatial isolation, absent surveillance, and hidden gaze.” In the digital media space, digital platforms, with the aid of digital surveillance technology, construct a “digital emotional panopticon surveillance system” boosted by big data for emotional laborers. Through digital surveillance devices such as cameras, sensors, recording equipment, and smart wearable devices, they can automatically and continuously monitor the behavior and state of emotional laborers during work, and use real-time data dashboards to analyze the labor data created by emotional laborers, thereby achieving real-time evaluation and dynamic control of the effects of emotional laborers’ emotional labor. To maximize the commercial value of emotional labor, the bourgeoisie also tailors a complete set of operational procedures for emotional performance (such as linguistic rhetoric, facial expressions and gestures, persona acting, etc.) for different emotional laborers, and uses digital surveillance technology to strengthen the regulation and control of emotional laborers’ emotions, feelings, will, and other perceptual content. Under the domination of the emotional panopticon, emotional laborers are forced to perform emotional displays according to the principles of the “emotional exchange market” and the operational procedures for emotional performance. This not only makes emotional labor a crucial link in the chain of capital valorization but also gradually disciplines emotional laborers into one-dimensional, impersonal beings devoid of the capacity for thought.

在数字资本主义时代，资产者借助数字监控技术对情感劳动者进行全景监控，以期全面掌握“情感商品”的生产与消费全过程，由此导致资本对情感劳动者的控制变得无孔不入。法国哲学家福柯在其著作《规训与惩罚》中曾以“全景敞视监狱”为例揭示了在资本主义社会里，人们在现代技术的全景监控中被逐步异化的作用机理。在福柯看来，全景敞视监狱是一个大型的权力实施布展舞台，它利用各种技术手段和规则机制对身处其中的人进行管理与规训，从而使人们处于一种被“空间隔离、不在场的监视和隐蔽的凝视”的状态。在数字媒介空间，数字平台借助数字监控技术对情感劳动者构建起大数据助推的“数字化情感全景监控体系”，通过带有摄像头、传感器、录音设备、智能穿戴设备等数字化监控设备，能够自动且连续地监测情感劳动者工作时的行为和状态，并利用实时数据看板分析情感劳动者创造的劳动数据，进而实现对情感劳动者的情感劳动效果的即时评估和动态支配。为了能够最大限度地挖掘情感劳动的商业价值，资产者还为不同的情感劳动者量身设计出一整套完整的情感展演操作流程(如语言话术、表情动作、人设扮演等)，并利用数字监控技术来强化对情感劳动者的情绪、情感、意志等感性内容的调节和把控。在情感全景监控统摄下，情感劳动者不得不按照“情感交换市场”的原则和情感展演操作流程进行情感表演，这不仅使情感劳动成为资本增殖链条中的重要一环，更使情感劳动者逐渐被规训为一种单向度的、无个性的、丧失思考能力的存在。

Emotional panopticon surveillance, in the form of spiritual power discipline, covertly dominates the spiritual world of emotional laborers, placing them in a comprehensive, unconscious mode of emotional labor control and gradually plunging them into a state of spiritual colonization, suffering the pain of spiritual crisis and spiritual alienation, thereby forming a new form of labor alienated from the species-being of humanity, namely “unconscious spiritual colonization.” Marx pointed out in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* that the species-being of humanity is manifested in the fact that humans, unlike animals, “make his life activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness. He has conscious life activity,” and only in free and conscious labor can humans truly realize their species-being. However, digital capitalism places emotional laborers in a panoptic cage of emotional surveillance. It operates through the power of spiritual surveillance, fully penetrating the spiritual life sphere of emotional laborers. By using algorithmic surveillance to spy on and clamp down on the emotions and thoughts of emotional laborers, it not only incorporates all controllable domains and scopes, including the private and public spaces of emotional laborers, into the realm of surveillance but also suppresses the essential human powers of emotional laborers through digital technology, turning them into “puppets of capital valorization” without the capacity for critical resistance. Emotional panopticon surveillance strips away the rich life-emotional experiences of the emotional labor subject, making emotional labor no longer a free and conscious form of labor for the laborer but rather a customized, routinized, and professionalized commercial activity merely aimed at pleasing emotional consumers, thereby causing emotional laborers to become one-sidedly developed, non-autonomous tools of capital valorization in spiritual alienation.

情感全景监控以精神权力规训的形式隐匿支配着情感劳动者的精神世界，使情感劳动者处于全方位的、无意识的情感劳动控制模式中，并逐渐陷入精神殖民化的境地，遭遇着精神危机与精神异化之痛，从而形成了“无意识精神殖民”这一类与人的类本质相异化的新型劳动形式。马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中指出，人的类本质表现为人是能区别于动物而“使自己的生命活动本身变成自己意志的和自己意识的对象。他具有有意识的生命活动”,而只有在自由自觉的劳动之中，人才能使自身的类本质获得真正实现。然而，数字资本主义将情感劳动者置于全景式的情感监控牢笼之中，它以精神权力监控的方式运作，全方位渗透于情感劳动者的精神生活领域，通过算法监控窥视和钳制情感劳动者的情感思想，不仅将情感劳动者的私人与公共空间等一切可控领域和范围都纳入窥视的界域，更使情感劳动者作为人的本质力量被数字技术压制，成为无思辨抗争意识的“资本增殖傀儡”。情感全景监控祛除了情感劳动主体丰盈的生命情感体验，使情感劳动不再是劳动者自由自觉的劳动形式，而是沦为一种仅仅是为取悦情感消费者所定制化、流程化和职业化的商业活动，并由此造成情感劳动者在精神异化中变成了片面发展着的、没有自主意识的资本增殖工具。

(4) Platform Covert Discipline Intensifies “Multi-Layered Emotional Exploitation”

(四)平台隐匿规训加剧“多层级情感剥削”

If material labor indirectly changes the relations between people by reshaping the relationship between humans and nature, then emotional labor can directly shape the relations between people through inter-subjective emotional communication. In the era of industrial capitalism, the alienation of social relations between people was often formed on the basis of the coercive oppression of capitalists. Although laborers, under the squeeze of capitalists, passively engaged in "overwork that exhausts life," this also, in the process of triggering deeper and deeper labor-capital contradictions, forced laborers to rise up in resistance to strive for labor liberation. By the era of digital capitalism, the mode of production mediated by intelligent technology has greatly optimized the working environment and work autonomy of laborers. However, at the same time, the discipline of digital capitalism, centered on algorithmic personalized recommendations, traffic competition monopolies, and emotional panoramic surveillance, has strengthened the domination and subjugation of emotional laborers by asset holders in a hidden and non-obvious manner, causing them to become automatically tamed puppets manipulated by capital power. In the emotional labor of digital capitalism, the hidden discipline of the platform is mainly manifested in the digital platform following the profit-seeking instinct of capital logic, seamlessly transforming the exploitation of laborers by asset holders into the laborers' conscious and voluntary self-enslavement, while the asset holders are able to hide behind the digital platform, acting as seemingly impartial "operators." This not only causes the traditional labor-capital contradiction to be invisibly transformed into an "internal contradiction among laborers," but further exacerbates the cruel reality of emotional laborers being subjected to "emotional exploitation."

如果说物质劳动通过重塑人与自然的关系间接改变了人与人的关系，那么情感劳动则可以通过主体间的情感交流直接塑造人与人的关系。在工业资本主义时代，人与人之间的社会关系异化往往是基于资本家的强制性压迫而形成的，劳动者尽管在资本家的压榨下被动从事“把生命耗尽的过度劳动”,但也由此在引发一次次更深层次的劳资矛盾过程中迫使劳动者不得不奋起反抗以争取劳动解放。到了数字资本主义时代，智能科技介导的生产方式极大优化了劳动者的工作环境和工作自主性，但与此同时，以算法个性推荐、流量竞争垄断和情感全景监控为核心的数字资本主义规训，却以隐而不显的方式强化了资产者对情感劳动者的支配与征服，致使其成为资本权力摆布下被自动驯服的提线木偶。在数字资本主义情感劳动中，平台隐匿规训主要表现为数字平台遵循资本逻辑的逐利本能，将资产者对劳动者的剥削毫无痕迹地转换为劳动者自觉自愿的自我奴役，而资产者却得以隐匿在数字平台背后充当看似公正的“操盘手”，这不仅导致传统的劳资矛盾无形中转化为“劳动者的内部矛盾”，更进一步加剧了情感劳动者被“情感剥削”的残酷现实。

In the emotional labor of digital capitalism, the emotional exploitation of emotional laborers by the platform's hidden discipline exhibits a "multi-layered nature." Taking online emotional live streaming as an example, in the "labor-capital relations" constituted by the "digital platform (asset holder) – emotional streamer – viewing user," the "multi-layered emotional exploitation" of emotional laborers by asset holders is specifically manifested in three aspects: First, based on the "first layer of exploitation" formed by the digital platform (asset holder) charging emotional streamers and viewing users (dual emotional laborers) through methods such as intermediary fees and membership fees; Second, based on the "second layer of exploitation" formed by emotional streamers selling "emotional commodities" to viewing users; Third, based on the "third layer of exploitation" formed by the large amount of trace data left by viewing users in the process of emotional interaction with emotional streamers being occupied and used by the digital platform without compensation. Among these, the "first layer of exploitation" manifests as the asset holder's expropriative possession of emotional labor and its outcomes, and is a digitalized presentation of the traditional "labor-capital contradiction." However, because the asset holder proactively provides emotional laborers with digital technology media as a platform for emotional performance, hiding themselves behind the digital platform without direct contact with emotional laborers, this easily leads emotional laborers to overlook the fact of their exploitation by the asset holder. The "second layer of exploitation" manifests as the "exploitation" of emotional consumers by the producers of "emotional commodities." On the surface, the emotional streamer, by selling "emotional commodities," constitutes the exploiting subject of the "second layer of exploitation." However, since the vast majority of the profits obtained during this process are ultimately still occupied by the digital platform and form the basis for capitalist reproduction, the "second layer of exploitation" is essentially still the exploitation of laborers by the asset holder. The "third layer of exploitation" manifests as the self-exploitation of emotional consumers who are simultaneously emotional laborers. It is an important way for the asset holder to use the hidden terms of the digital platform to occupy user data resources without compensation and realize value monetization. It can be seen that the "multi-layered emotional exploitation" formed by asset holders against emotional laborers through the platform's hidden discipline not only fails to change the nature of capitalist production exploitation but, while concealing the traditional labor-capital contradiction, further strengthens the degree of exploitation of emotional laborers and the internal conflicts among emotional laborers, thereby triggering a deeper alienation of interpersonal relations.

在数字资本主义情感劳动中，平台隐匿规训对情感劳动者的情感剥削呈现出“多层级性”。以网络情感直播为例，在“数字平台(资产者)－情感主播－观看用户”构成的“劳资关系”中，资产者对情感劳动者的“多层级情感剥削”具体表现在三方面:一是基于数字平台(资产者)对情感主播和观看用户(双重情感劳动者)通过收取中介费、会员费等方式所形成的“第一层剥削”;二是基于情感主播对观看用户通过售卖“情感商品”所形成的“第二层剥削”;三是基于观看用户在与情感主播进行情感互动的过程中留下的大量痕迹数据被数字平台无偿占有和使用所形成的“第三层剥削”。其中，“第一层剥削”表现为资产者对情感劳动及其成果的剥夺性占有，是传统“劳资矛盾”的数字化呈现。然而，由于资产者向情感劳动者主动提供数字技术媒介作为情感展演平台，而将自身隐匿在数字平台背后不与情感劳动者发生直接接触，这就容易使情感劳动者忽视自身被资产者剥削的事实。“第二层剥削”表现为“情感商品”的生产者对情感消费者的“剥削”。表面上看，情感主播通过售卖“情感商品”构成“第二层剥削”的剥削主体，但由于期间获取的绝大部分利润最终仍被数字平台所占有并构成资本主义再生产的基础，因而“第二层剥削”本质上依然是资产者对劳动者的剥削。“第三层剥削”表现为情感消费者同时作为情感劳动者的自我剥削，是资产者利用数字平台的隐匿条款无偿占有用户数据资源并实现价值变现的重要方式。由此可见，资产者利用平台隐匿规训对情感劳动者所形成的“多层级情感剥削”，不仅没有改变资本主义生产剥削的性质，反而在隐匿传统劳资矛盾的同时进一步强化了对情感劳动者的剥削程度以及情感劳动者之间的内部矛盾冲突，由此引发了更深层次的人际关系异化。

III. The Generative Logic of the New Alienation of Emotional Labor in Digital Capitalism

三、数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的生成逻辑

Although digital capitalism has promoted changes in the form of emotional labor, it has not changed the essence of labor alienation under capitalist relations of production. Digital capitalism embeds capital logic within emotional labor, driving it to ally with digital technology, ideology, and social systems, forming a "capital-technology logic" centered on the capitalization of digital platforms, a "capital-consumption logic" centered on the commodification of private emotions, and a "capital-system logic" centered on the privatization of emotional commodities. It is based on these three logics that asset holders impose direct or hidden domination on emotional laborers, causing the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism to have a greater impact, a wider scope, and a deeper degree than the labor alienation of the industrial capitalist era.

数字资本主义尽管推动了情感劳动的形态变化，却没有改变资本主义生产关系下劳动异化的本质。数字资本主义将资本逻辑内嵌于情感劳动之中，驱使其与数字技术、意识形态和社会制度联姻，形成了以数字平台资本化为核心的“资本－技术逻辑”、以私人情感商品化为核心的“资本－消费逻辑”和以情感商品私有化为核心的“资本－制度逻辑”。资产者正是依据这三个逻辑对情感劳动者施以直接或隐蔽的宰制，致使数字资本主义情感劳动新异化比工业资本主义时代的劳动异化影响更大、范围更广、程度更深。

(I) The Capitalization of Digital Platforms is the "Capital-Technology Logic" for the Generation of the New Alienation of Emotional Labor in Digital Capitalism

(一)数字平台资本化是数字资本主义情感劳动新异化生成的“资本－技术逻辑”

The capitalization of digital platforms creates new channels for profit acquisition and new methods of labor exploitation for the realization of value augmentation in digital capitalism, while also providing the latest technological carrier for asset holders to suck out emotional labor and extend the exploitation of emotional laborers' production and life into the digital production and life sphere. As a digital-intelligent infrastructure composed of various digital technologies, the digital platform not only breaks down physical spatiotemporal barriers and provides emotional laborers with a vast virtual field for emotional performance, but also, by virtue of its own technological advantages such as labor model innovations like digital gig work, online office work, and flexible work, as well as low entry barriers, low skill requirements, and high-yield characteristics, helps emotional laborers to a certain extent achieve the "de-territorialization" of labor space, the "autonomization" of labor time, and the "unlimited upper limit of income" from labor profits. However, under the domination of capital logic, the digital platform is not an objective and impartial connector, but the biggest player actively promoting the realization of capital augmentation goals. The "technological logic" of the digital platform's inherent tendency to pursue maximum efficiency deeply aligns and overlaps with the profit-seeking nature of capital augmentation, permeating the tool rationality of technology supremacy and the logic of reification throughout the entire digitalized society. It uses its own powerful capabilities in data augmentation, resource extraction, and intelligent algorithms to select and cultivate "digital slaves" that can bring it higher profits, while abandoning and excluding those "digital poor" without economic value. The capitalization of digital platforms carries out profitable quantitative production of the embodied emotions of emotional laborers, exploiting them through the occupation and commodification of their private emotional resources, specifically manifested in charging emotional laborers "advertising fees," "intermediary fees," and profit shares through methods such as gift tipping, brand endorsements, and live-streaming e-commerce. Furthermore, the capitalization of digital platforms continuously adjusts the distribution of emotional laborers' labor outcomes and attention resources by constructing rules and manipulating algorithms, using the method of linking traffic with income to force emotional laborers to voluntarily quantify their labor time, life time, and even leisure time into "unregulated quantified" surplus labor time, thereby completely reducing them to "self-exploiters" and "active coerced persons."

数字平台资本化为数字资本主义实现价值增殖创造了新的利润获取渠道和新的劳动剥削方式，同时也为资产者吮吸情感劳动并对情感劳动者生产生活的剥削延伸至数字生产生活领域提供了最新技术载体。作为一种集各类数字技术复合而成的数智基础设施，数字平台不仅打破了物理时空壁垒而为情感劳动者提供了广阔的虚拟情感展演场域，而且凭借自身所具有的数字零工、线上办公、弹性工作等劳作模式创新和低准入门槛、低技能要求、高收益特性等技术优势，一定程度上帮助情感劳动者实现了在劳动空间的“去场域化”、劳动时间的“自主化”和劳动盈利的“收益无上限”。然而，在资本逻辑支配下，数字平台不是客观公正的连接者，而是积极促成资本增殖目标实现的最大玩家。数字平台的“技术逻辑”内在追求效率最大化倾向和资本增殖求利本性深度契合、二元交叠，把技术至上的工具理性和物化逻辑渗透到整个数字化社会，利用自身强大的数据增殖、资源汲取与智能算法等技术能力挑选和培养能够为其带来更高利润的“数字奴隶”，放弃和排斥那些没有经济价值的“数字穷人”。数字平台资本化将情感劳动者的具身情感进行盈利性量化生产，通过对情感劳动者的私人情感资源的占有及其商品化利用来进行剥削，具体表现为通过礼物打赏、品牌代言、直播带货等方式向情感劳动者收取“广告费”“中介费”和利润提成等。此外，数字平台资本化还通过建构规则和操纵算法等方式不断调整情感劳动者的劳动成果和注意力资源的分配，利用将流量与收益相挂钩的方式迫使情感劳动者自愿将劳动时间、生活时间甚至休闲时间“无规制量化”为超额劳动时间，从而使其彻底沦为“自我剥削者”和“主动受迫者”。

(II) The Commodification of Private Emotions is the "Capital-Consumption Logic" for the Generation of the New Alienation of Emotional Labor in Digital Capitalism

(二)私人情感商品化是数字资本主义情感劳动新异化生成的“资本－消费逻辑”

The commodification of private emotions refers to the process by which private emotions, under the domination of capital’s logic, no longer manifest as the authentic spiritual state of human beings but instead become tools for capital’s valorization, acquiring the potential for commodity exchange value in the monetary sense. The commodification of private emotions is the process by which capital incorporates private emotions into the systematic schema of its own movement and accumulation of valorization, materializing private emotions into “emotional commodities” through the domination of emotional labor, and then maximizing profits under the disciplinary logic of consumerism. In Marx’s view, valorization is the nature and driving force of capital; the process of capital’s valorization is “to explore the whole earth in all directions, to discover new useful things and the use properties of existing things... likewise to discover, create, and satisfy new needs arising from society itself.” [20]20 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy* (Rough Draft), in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 30 (New York: International Publishers, 1975), p. 389. Entering the era of digital capitalism, digital capital, in conjunction with digital technology, continuously opens up and creates new domains of human emotional needs. Through spiritual dissection of the human body, stimulation of desires, and the production of emotions, it constantly embeds consumerist ideology deep within the consciousness structure of the masses, thereby prompting people to ceaselessly excavate the potential emotional consumption desires within their lives through frantic consumption and self-exploitation. The deep-rooted source of the commodification of private emotions is the logic of consumerism; promoting emotional consumption is the ultimate goal of emotional labor in digital capitalism. Under the coercion of capital’s logic, private emotions are transferred, amplified, processed, packaged, and sold within a marketization principle dominated by interest calculation, even forming a scaled “emotional commodity” industrial chain. In terms of manifestation, the commodification of private emotions exhibits a two-way movement logic: the commodification of emotions and the emotionalization of commodities. The commodification of emotions means that private emotions are assigned value by capital, acquiring the attribute of market exchangeability, becoming a virtual commodity that can be directly consumed and purchased. The emotionalization of commodities means that private emotions, under capital’s manipulation, are attached to general commodities, using consumers’ emotional needs to increase the emotional attributes of the commodities, thereby obtaining more profits by significantly raising the “emotional added value” of the commodities. However, under the domination of consumerist ideology, whether it is the commodification of emotions or the emotionalization of commodities, the behavior of emotional consumption subjects does not take satisfying their own reasonable emotional needs as the ultimate goal. Instead, they regard the unlimited pursuit of “pseudo” emotional needs constructed by capital as their ultimate meaning. Therefore, the commodification of private emotions is filled with emotional disguise and false hypocrisy. It causes the authentic emotional state that should contain human nature to be replaced by the false emotional consumption desires possessed by capital, and it is an important inducement for the generation of the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism.

私人情感商品化是指私人情感在资本逻辑支配下，不再呈现为人的本真精神状态，而是沦为资本增殖工具，获得了货币意义上商品交换价值的潜能。私人情感商品化是资本将私人情感纳入自身运动和增殖积累的系统图式之中，通过支配情感劳动将私人情感物化为“情感商品”，进而在消费主义逻辑规训下牟取利润最大化的过程。在马克思看来，增殖是资本的本性和动力，资本增殖过程就是“要从一切方面去探索地球，以便发现新的有用物体和原有物体的使用属性……同样要发现、创造和满足由社会本身产生的新的需要”。迈入数字资本主义时代，数字资本联合数字技术不断打开和创造人的新的情感需求域，通过对人体进行精神解剖、欲望刺激以及情感生产等，不断将消费主义意识形态深嵌于大众的意识结构之中，从而启示人们以疯狂消费和自我剥削的方式不断挖掘生命中潜在的情感消费欲望。私人情感商品化的深层根源是消费主义逻辑，促进情感消费是数字资本主义情感劳动的终极目标。私人情感在资本逻辑的裹挟下被转移、放大、置于以利益计算为主导的市场化原则中进行加工、包装和兜售，以至形成规模化的“情感商品”产业链。在表现形态上，私人情感商品化表现为情感的商品化与商品的情感化的双向运动逻辑。情感的商品化是指私人情感被资本所赋值，拥有了市场交易属性，成为一种可以被直接消费和购买的虚拟商品;而商品的情感化是指私人情感在资本操纵下附加于一般商品之中，利用消费者的情感需求来增加商品的情感属性，从而通过大幅提升商品的“情感附加值”来获取更多利润。然而，在消费主义意识形态支配下，无论是情感的商品化还是商品的情感化，情感消费主体的行为都不是以满足自身的合理情感需求为最终目的，而是把无限度追求由资本所构建的“伪”情感需求作为自身的终极意义。因此，私人情感商品化充斥着情感伪装和虚假伪善，它使本应蕴含着人性的本真的情感状态被资本占有的虚假消费情感欲望所取代，是引发数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的重要诱因。

(III) The Privatization of “Emotional Commodities” is the “Capital-Institutional Logic” for the Generation of the New Alienation of Emotional Labor in Digital Capitalism

(三)“情感商品”私有化是数字资本主义情感劳动新异化生成的“资本－制度逻辑”

The privatization of “emotional commodities” means that the capitalists possess the ownership and right of disposal over emotional labor and its outcomes. It separates the emotional laborers from the elements of emotional labor, so that emotional laborers can only exist within an employment relationship with the capitalists. The privatization of “emotional commodities” manifests as capitalists using institutionalized means, through digital platform monopolies (such as traffic distribution rights, data ownership) and control over circulation links (such as tipping commissions), to convert income that should belong to emotional laborers into capital profits. This is the institutional root of the generation of the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism. In Marx’s view, “The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor.” [21]21 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35 (New York: International Publishers, 1996), p. 751. The fundamental contradiction of capitalism under the dominance of private property, and the periodic crises of overproduction resulting from it, can only be temporarily reconciled and repaired through capital’s continuous innovation and expansion of the means and methods of value augmentation. Precisely for this reason, entering the digital era where physical commodities are gradually becoming surplus while emotional needs and emotional consumption are continuously expanding, capitalists have discerned the resource infinity and commercial imaginability of the emotional element. They attempt to seek new profit-making opportunities by turning to the emotional domain, thereby saving themselves and achieving the goal of further valorization and expansion. That is to say, the generation of emotional labor in digital capitalism is essentially a realistic response to the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. Hidden behind it are the increasingly tense labor-capital antagonistic contradictions, the increasingly fierce class conflicts, and the insurmountable gap between rich and poor in capitalist society. However, under the premise of private property, although emotional labor does not directly produce surplus value, the traffic data it creates is processed by digital platforms into “data commodities” (such as user profiles, consumption preferences), becoming free means of production for advertisers. This data exploitation not only reduces emotional laborers to unpaid raw material suppliers for capital accumulation, but also causes emotional labor to cease being a free and autonomous activity of the laborers, becoming instead “an activity which is for someone else, under the domination, coercion, and pressure of someone else.” [22]22 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1975), p. 275. In other words, the result of the privatization of “emotional commodities” is that emotional laborers and capitalists are respectively placed in a severely unequal situation of “labor” and “gain.” The profits created by emotional laborers do not belong to them, but to “an alien, hostile, powerful object independent of them.” [23]23 Ibid., p. 275. This inevitably leads to emotional laborers being in a position of being exploited, enslaved, and dominated. Therefore, the generation of the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism ultimately stems from the institutionalization of the exploitation of emotional labor under capitalism. It embodies the existence of an alienated social system, and its emergence has a fundamental connection with capitalist private property.

“情感商品”私有化是指资产者拥有对情感劳动及其成果的所有权和支配权，它使情感劳动者同情感劳动要素相分离，从而情感劳动者只能处于与资产者的雇佣关系之中。“情感商品”私有化表现为资产者利用制度化手段通过数字平台垄断(如流量分配权、数据所有权)和流通环节控制(如打赏抽成)，将本应属于情感劳动者的收入转化为资本利润，是数字资本主义情感劳动新异化生成的制度根源。在马克思看来，“从资本主义生产方式产生的资本主义占有方式，从而资本主义的私有制，是对个人的、以自己劳动为基础的私有制的第一个否定”。而私有制主导下的资本主义基本矛盾以及由此导致的周期性生产过剩危机，只有通过资本不断创新和拓宽价值增值的手段与方式才能予以暂时性的调和与修复。正因如此，迈入实体商品逐渐过剩而情感需要与情感消费获得不断拓展的数字时代，资产者洞察到情感要素的资源无限性和商业想象性，试图通过转向情感领地来寻求新的逐利商机，以此挽救自我和实现进一步增殖扩张的目标。也就是说，数字资本主义情感劳动的生成本质上是对资本主义基本矛盾的一种现实回应，其背后隐匿的是资本主义社会日益紧张的劳资对抗矛盾、愈益激烈的阶级冲突以及无法逾越的贫富鸿沟等现实困境。然而，在私有制前提下，情感劳动虽然不直接生产剩余价值，但其创造的流量数据被数字平台加工为“数据商品”(如用户画像、消费偏好等)，成为广告商的免费生产资料。这种数据剥削不仅使情感劳动者沦为资本积累的无偿性原材料供应者，同时也导致情感劳动不再是劳动者自由自主的活动，而是“替他人服务的、受他人支配的、处于他人的强迫和压制之下的活动”。换言之，“情感商品”私有化的结果就是情感劳动者和资产者分别处在“劳”与“获”的严重不对等境遇，情感劳动者所创造的利润不属于本人，而是属于“一个异己的、敌对的、强有力的、不依赖于他的对象”,这就不可避免造成情感劳动者处于被剥削、被奴役和被支配的地位。因此，数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的生成，归根究底根源于资本主义情感劳动剥削的制度化，它体现的是作为一种异化了的社会制度的存在，其产生与资本主义私有制具有根本性关联。

IV. Possible Paths to Resolve the New Alienation of Emotional Labor in Digital Capitalism

四、消解数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的可能路径

To resolve the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism, it is necessary not only to sublate digital capital, so that emotional laborers no longer suffer the discipline and exploitation of digital platforms, but also to sublate “emotional labor” itself, so that emotional activities that are originally not commodities and belong to the private sphere return to the private sphere, thereby enabling people to obtain the means of subsistence without having to “sell” their emotions. Therefore, the fundamental way to resolve the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism is to rebuild individual property on the basis of abolishing capitalist private property. That is, by transforming the capitalist mode of production based on the private ownership of the means of production, establishing a form of ownership where the means of production are commonly owned, so that “under conditions in which everyone is obliged to work, everyone will also equally and increasingly obtain the means of subsistence, means of enjoyment, and means for the development and exercise of all physical and intellectual faculties,” [24]24 Friedrich Engels, “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1975), p. 422. ultimately achieving the liberation of labor. However, at the present stage, digital capitalism, aided by digital technology, is still showing a booming trend, and we cannot completely eradicate it in a short time. Marx also emphasized: “A society can neither skip over the natural phases of its development nor decree them out of existence by legal enactment. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs.” [25]25 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35 (New York: International Publishers, 1996), p. 10. In view of this, we need to explore countermeasures and possible paths to resolve the new alienation of emotional labor within the holistic perspective of Marxist critique of political economy, combined with the new characteristics, new situations, and new laws of the era of digital capitalism, striving to restore the free and conscious form of emotional labor to the greatest extent possible.

消解数字资本主义情感劳动新异化，不仅要扬弃数字资本，让情感劳动者不再遭受数字平台的规训与盘剥，还应该扬弃“情感劳动”本身，让本来不是商品的、属于私人领域的情感活动回归私人领域，从而使人们无需通过“出卖”自己的情感而获得生活资料。因此，消解数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的根本出路，就是要在废除资本主义私有制的基础上重建个人所有制，即通过变革以生产资料私有制为基础的资本主义生产方式，建立生产资料共同占有的所有制形式，以此“在人人都必须劳动的条件下，人人也都将同等地、愈益丰富地得到生活资料、享受资料、发展和表现一切体力和智力所需的资料”,最终实现劳动解放。然而，现阶段数字资本主义借助数字技术仍呈现勃兴态势，我们短时间内还无法将其彻底根除。马克思也强调:“一个社会即使探索到了本身运动的自然规律……它还是既不能跳过也不能用法令取消自然的发展阶段。但是它能缩短和减轻分娩的痛苦。”鉴于此，我们需要在马克思主义政治经济学批判的整体性视域中，结合数字资本主义时代的新特征、新情况和新规律，探索消解情感劳动新异化的对策和可能路径，力求最大限度地恢复情感劳动的自由自觉样态。

(I) Reconstructing Technological Logic, Breaking the “Platform Discipline” of Emotional Labor

(一)重构技术逻辑，破除情感劳动的“平台规训”

To break the hidden discipline imposed by digital platforms on emotional labor, it is necessary to curb the capitalist application of digital platforms, returning them to the development logic of “technology serving humanity,” so that they become a new means of liberating emotional labor and the “primary productive force” driving social development, rather than a new tool for exacerbating the alienation of emotional labor under the dominance of capital logic. In fact, emotional labor differs from ordinary labor; emotional labor inherently contains the rich and free emotional elements of the emotional laborer and the natural and harmonious emotional expression of interpersonal relationships. However, under the domination of capital logic, digital platforms, through panoramic surveillance and all-round exploitation of emotional labor, prevent emotional laborers from authentically and autonomously expressing and exchanging emotions, thereby causing many rich life elements originating from the inner world of emotional laborers—such as genuine experiences and wonderful insights—to remain unmanifested. Precisely for this reason, compared to other forms of labor, emotional labor more urgently requires digital platforms to embody the value principle of “technology for good” and the development concept of “people-centeredness.” In terms of practical pathways: first, it is necessary to empower the rational system of digital platforms with humanistic spirit and value rationality. For example, by improving relevant laws and regulations to enhance the transparency and explainability of digital platform algorithm logic, reducing algorithmic discrimination and technical bias, protecting the right to know and privacy of emotional laborers, and using institutionalized means to prevent digital platforms from engaging in hidden exploitation of emotional labor such as “unfair traffic distribution and emotional performance scoring”; strengthening algorithm ethics design and improving the ethical review mechanism of digital platforms, making algorithms a “good core” with a moral sense. Second, it is necessary to strengthen diversified governance of the dissemination of emotional information on digital platforms. For example, establishing and improving emotional labor norms and information access and exit mechanisms applicable within digital platforms; striving to enhance the level of diversified governance of digital platforms and third-party supervision, and smoothing technical channels for complaints and supervision against false emotional performances and malicious emotional hype. Third, it is necessary to actively develop non-profit digital infrastructure. For example, relying on government funding to develop public cloud services, open-source algorithm libraries, etc., to reduce the technological monopoly advantages of commercial platforms; carrying out socialized platform operations, replacing traffic competition with emotional sharing and public discussion, reducing the dependence of emotional laborers on private digital platforms, and breaking the structural oppression caused by the “digital divide.”

破除数字平台对情感劳动的隐匿规训，需要遏制数字平台的资本主义应用，让数字平台回归“技术为人服务”的发展逻辑，使其成为解放情感劳动的新手段和推动社会发展的“第一生产力”，而不是资本逻辑主导下加剧情感劳动异化的新工具。实际上，情感劳动不同于一般劳动，情感劳动内蕴着情感劳动者丰富自由的情感要素和人际关系自然和谐的情感表达。而数字平台在资本逻辑的支配下，却通过对情感劳动的全景式监控和全方位盘剥使情感劳动者无法真实自主地进行情感表达和情感交流，由此造成缘起于情感劳动者内心世界的诸多真实体验、美妙感悟等丰富性生命要素无法得到呈现。正因如此，相较于其他劳动形态，情感劳动更需要数字平台能够展现“技术向善”的价值原则和“以人为本”的发展理念。就现实路径而言，一是要强化对数字平台的理性系统进行人文精神赋权和价值理性赋能。如通过完善相关法律法规增强数字平台算法逻辑的透明性和可解释性，减少算法歧视和技术偏见，保护情感劳动者的知情权和隐私权，以制度化手段防范数字平台对情感劳动进行诸如“流量分配不公、情感绩效评分”等隐性剥削;加强算法伦理设计和完善数字平台伦理审查机制，令算法成为具有道德感的“良芯”等。二是要加强对数字平台中情感信息传播的多元管治。如建立健全适用于数字平台内部的情感劳动规范和信息准入退出机制;着力提升数字平台的多元治理水平和第三方监管力度，畅通针对虚假情感表演和恶意情感炒作进行投诉和监管的技术通道等。三是要积极开发非营利性数字基础设施。如依托政府资助开发公共云服务、开源算法库等，降低商业平台的技术垄断优势;开展社会化平台运营，以情感共享和公共讨论替代流量竞争，降低情感劳动者对私有数字平台的依赖度，打破“数字鸿沟”造成的结构性压迫。

(II) Reconstructing the Consumption Logic to Resist the “Commodification” of Emotional Resources

(二)重构消费逻辑，抵御情感资源的“商品化”

The generation of the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism is, to a certain extent, due to the fact that emotional resources originally belonging to the private sphere are, under the domination of the “capital-consumption logic,” materialized into a calculation of interests, becoming “commodities” that can be exchanged for currency in the circulation sphere. The “commodification” of emotional resources is essentially the transformation by capital of the “use value” originally directly satisfying people’s genuine emotional needs into the “exchange value” purely satisfying its own need for self-expansion. The marriage of digital capital and consumerism accelerates the vanity display of emotional consumption and the expansion of emotional consumption impulses, causing people to unconsciously immerse themselves in “false emotional desire consumption” and become unable to extricate themselves, thereby further exacerbating the reality of the commodification of emotional resources. In response, it is necessary to reconstruct the “capital-consumption logic,” striving to return emotional consumption from a tool of capital expansion to an activity that satisfies people’s genuine needs. In Marx’s view, consumption and production are inseparable; consumption, as a subjective activity satisfying human needs, is an intrinsic element of social production activities and constitutes the final link in the operation of the socio-economic system. Therefore, the practical path to reconstructing the consumption logic can be carried out from two levels: the “production end” and the “demand end.” Regarding the “production end,” it is possible to strengthen the unified construction of digital platforms from the national strategic level, continuously enhancing the public and public-welfare nature of emotional labor. For example, in institutional construction, establish a public emotional labor system and a national emotional security system, incorporating emotional services such as psychological companionship and educational empathy into basic public services, implementing distribution according to need rather than market pricing; in platform construction, establish non-profit emotional mutual-aid platforms led by the government, implementing non-commercial operations to avoid emotional data being appropriated by capital without compensation; in policy orientation, provide tax reductions and other policy support to commercial digital platforms offering public-welfare emotional services, while legislating that digital platforms must not use users’ emotional data for commercial profit. Regarding the “demand end,” it is necessary to adhere to theoretical critique and conceptual guidance as the starting point, and ideological education and public opinion propaganda as the means, using the Marxist worldview and methodology to continuously enhance people’s ability to consciously identify and resist consumerism, preventing them from becoming victims of capital expansion due to indulgence in false emotional consumption; by advocating for self-reflection and a quality consciousness, guide people to continuously improve their emotional consumption literacy and aesthetic, enabling them to actively choose high-quality emotional products and services for consumption, and consciously resist the vulgarized and superficial emotional consumption dominated by consumerism, thereby continuously curbing and eliminating the living space of consumerism.

数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的生成，一定程度上是由于本属于私人领域的情感资源在“资本－消费逻辑”的支配下被物化为一种利益化计算，成为流通领域可以被货币交易的“商品”。情感资源的“商品化”本质上是资本将原本直接满足于人们真实情感需求的“使用价值”转换为纯粹是满足自身增殖需求的“交换价值”。而数字资本与消费主义的联姻，则加速了人们的情感消费虚荣展现和情感消费冲动扩张，使人们无意识地浸淫在“虚假情感欲望消费”之中不能自拔，从而进一步加剧了情感资源被商品化的现实。对此，必须重构“资本-消费逻辑”，努力将情感消费从资本增殖的工具复归为满足人的真实需求的活动。在马克思看来，消费与生产密不可分，消费作为满足人的需求的主体性活动，是社会生产活动的一个内在要素，构成社会经济体系运转的最终环节。故而，重构消费逻辑的现实进路可以从“生产端”和“需求端”两个层面开展。就“生产端”而言，可以从国家战略层面加强数字平台统一建设，不断提升情感劳动的公共性与公益性。例如在制度建设方面建立公共性情感劳动体系和全民情感保障制度，将心理陪伴、教育共情等情感服务纳入基本公共服务，实行按需分配而非市场定价;在平台建设方面建立以政府为主导的非营利性情感互助平台，实行非商业化运作，避免情感数据被资本无偿占有;在政策导向方面对提供公益性情感服务的商业性数字平台给予税收减免等政策支持，同时立法规定数字平台不得将用户情感数据用于商业牟利等。就“需求端”而言，要坚持以理论批判和观念引导为抓手、以思想教育和舆论宣传为手段，运用马克思主义的世界观和方法论，不断增强人们自觉辨别和抵制消费主义的能力，避免其因沉迷于虚假情感消费而成为资本增殖的牺牲品;要通过倡导自省观念和精品意识，引导人们不断提升自身的情感消费素养和情感消费审美，使其能够主动选择高质量的情感产品和情感服务进行消费，自觉抵制由消费主义所主导的庸俗化、肤浅化的情感消费，从而不断遏制和消灭消费主义的生存空间。

(III) Reconstructing the Institutional Logic to Break the “Private Monopoly” of Emotional Data

(三)重构制度逻辑，打破情感数据的“私人垄断”

Breaking the “private monopoly” of emotional data to ensure that emotional laborers receive fair and reasonable labor returns is an inevitable requirement for resolving the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism. Although emotional labor does not directly create surplus value, the emotional data it generates, after being processed by digital platforms, not only serves as “emotional commodities” bringing high “intermediary fees” and profit commissions to the asset-holders, but also indirectly increases the advertising revenue and transaction conversion rates of digital platforms by creating high popularity and high traffic. However, since the process of “emotional data” participating in the realization of surplus value often involves multiple subjects (such as various emotional laborers generating original “emotional data,” various technical participants in the processing of “emotional data,” providers of digital equipment, etc.), how to determine the rights to “emotional data” to ensure that emotional laborers receive returns based on “actual contribution” becomes the key to breaking the “private monopoly” of emotional data. The determination of rights to “emotional data” must follow at least two dimensions: first, starting from the attribute of “data,” based on the diversified characteristics of the subjects forming “emotional data” and different data forms, carry out graded and classified rights determination and authorization, such as exploring “the establishment of a data property rights system framework with ‘three rights separation’ of data resource holding rights, data processing and use rights, and data product management rights”; second, starting from the attribute of “emotion,” consider “emotion” as a result of human spiritual and intellectual activity, especially incorporating “emotional commodities” with originality and high quality into the scope of copyright protection, exploring the copyright determination and attribution of “emotional commodities,” thereby better safeguarding the genuine labor rights of emotional laborers. It must be emphasized that in the process of criticizing the new alienation of emotional labor in digital capitalism, we should objectively view digital platforms themselves, strip away their institutional attributes, and on the basis of fully affirming digital productive forces, explore the possibility of combining digitalization with new forms of ownership. Particularly regarding the issue of “emotional data” rights determination, its ultimate value lies in enabling the labor returns created by “emotional data” to truly belong to all emotional laborers, preventing asset-holders and tech elites from controlling, depriving, and enslaving emotional laborers through monopolizing and manipulating digital platforms.

打破情感数据的“私人垄断”以保障情感劳动者获得公平合理的劳动收益，是消解数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的必然要求。情感劳动尽管不直接创造剩余价值，但其所产生的情感数据经过数字平台处理之后不仅作为“情感商品”为资产者带来了高额的“中介费”和利润提成，同时还通过创造高人气和高流量间接提高了数字平台的广告收入和交易转化率。然而，由于“情感数据”在参与剩余价值实现的过程中往往会涉及多元主体(如生成原始“情感数据”的各类情感劳动者、“情感数据”处理过程中的各类技术参与者、数字设备的提供者等)，如何对“情感数据”进行确权，以确保情感劳动者根据“实际贡献量”获得收益，成为打破情感数据的“私人垄断”的关键所在。“情感数据”确权至少需要遵循两个向度:一是从“数据”的属性出发，根据“情感数据”形成主体的多元化特点和不同数据形态来进行分级分类确权授权，如探索“建立数据资源持有权、数据加工使用权、数据产品经营权‘三权分置’的数据产权制度框架”;二是从“情感”的属性出发，将“情感”作为人类精神和智力活动的成果考虑进去，尤其是要将具有独创性、高品质的“情感商品”纳入版权保护范畴，探索“情感商品”的版权确权及归属问题，以此更好地维护情感劳动者的真实劳动权益。需要强调的是，在批判数字资本主义情感劳动新异化的过程中，我们应当客观看待数字平台本身，剥离其制度属性，在充分肯定数字生产力的基础上探讨数字化与新型所有制形式结合的可能性，特别是就“情感数据”确权议题而言，其终极价值在于能够使“情感数据”所创造的劳动收益真正归属于全体情感劳动者，避免资产者和科技精英通过垄断、操控数字平台而控制、剥夺、奴役情感劳者。

[The author is a lecturer and master’s supervisor at the School of Marxism, China University of Petroleum (East China)]

[作者系中国石油大学(华东)马克思主义学院讲师、硕士研究生导师]

Online Editor: Ma Jingren

网络编辑：马京仁