Reflecting on Digital Capitalism from the Perspective of Marxist Political Economy

Entering the 21st century, with the rapid development of digital technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence, capital and technology have become deeply coupled, giving rise to a new form of digital capitalism. In the era of digital capitalism, digital technology is not only a tool for promoting social development but also becomes the core carrier for digital capital to pursue capital accumulation. Marx pointed out that, on the one hand, capital presupposes the existing development of productive forces; on the other hand, capital promotes the further development of productive forces. This means that digital capital also possesses the general characteristics of capital: it is closely integrated with digital technology to promote the development of productive forces, while also relying on existing productive force conditions composed of labor power, science and technology, and means of production, continuously carrying out more concealed exploitation. The nature of capital to pursue surplus value is the core driving force of digital capitalism. In the process of the continuous expansion of digital capital, digital capitalism presents a distinct dual effect: first, a civilizing effect that promotes social development and progress; second, a barbaric effect that implements comprehensive exploitation and domination over people. General

进入21世纪，随着大数据、人工智能等数字技术的快速发展，资本与技术深度耦合，催生了数字资本主义新形态。在数字资本主义时代，数字技术不仅是促进社会发展的工具，也成为数字资本追逐资本积累的核心载体。马克思指出，一方面，资本以现有生产力的发展为前提；另一方面，资本又促进生产力向前发展。这意味着，数字资本也具有资本的一般特性，既与数字技术紧密结合推动生产力发展，也依赖着现有的由劳动力、科学技术、生产资料等构成的生产力条件，不断进行更加隐秘的剥削。资本追求剩余价值的本性是数字资本主义的核心驱动力，在数字资本不断扩张的过程中，数字资本主义呈现出鲜明的双重效应：一是促进社会发展进步的文明效应，二是对人实施全面剥削和宰制的野蛮效应。习近平总书记强调，“必须深化对新的时代条件下我国各类资本及其作用的认识，规范和引导资本健康发展，发挥其作为重要生产要素的积极作用”。在新的时代条件下，从马克思主义政治经济学视角科学把握并反思数字资本主义的双重效应，既是规避发展风险、推进中国式现代化的需要，也是促进人的自由全面发展的需要。

The Enrichment of Social Relations and the Dissolution of Human Subjectivity

社会关系的丰富与人的主体性的消解

Marx and Engels held that "the development of an individual depends on the development of all others with whom he is directly or indirectly in contact." [1]1 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology* (1845-46). In Marx's view, only through interaction among people and the constant transformation of existing social relations can the all-round development of the individual be promoted. In the era of digital capitalism, human social relations have broken through the boundaries of geography, time, and space, constructing a network of social relations based on algorithmic recommendations. Unlike the singular social relation networks centered on blood ties and geography in the era of industrial capitalism, digital capitalism leverages the interconnectivity advantages of digital platforms, enabling individuals to participate in activities across different groups and fields and to establish complex connections. People can freely participate in online forums, cloud-based activities, and virtual community events that interest them. This not only promotes the sharing of information resources in virtual space but also, to a certain extent, enriches the connotation and extension of social relations.

马克思恩格斯认为，“一个人的发展取决于和他直接或间接进行交往的其他一切人的发展”。在马克思看来，只有通过人与人之间的交往，不断变革原有的社会关系，才能推动人的全面发展。在数字资本主义时代，人的社会关系打破了地域、时空的界限，建构起以算法推荐为基础的社会关系网络。与工业资本主义时期以血缘、地缘为核心的单一性社会关系网络不同，数字资本主义利用数字平台的互联互通优势，使个体能够参与不同群体、不同领域的活动，并且建立起复杂的联系。人们可以自由参与感兴趣的网络论坛、云端活动以及虚拟社群活动，这不仅促使人们在虚拟空间进行信息资源共享，也在一定程度上丰富了社会关系的内涵和外延。

However, beneath the surface of this seemingly diverse interweaving of social relations in virtual space, the information individuals encounter, and the choices and behaviors based on it, are subtly dominated by the logic of capital. People's relationship with their own productive practice, their spatial presence, and their emotional expression are increasingly dissolved. On the surface, individual independence and people's rich practical activities appear to be strengthened in the digital trend, but the control logic of digital capital distorts the real foundation of digital social relations. Digital virtual space detaches people's social relations from local ties; laborers exist in the form of data; social relations are degraded into data interactions and tradable assets; and human subjectivity and autonomy face the risk of dissolution. John Cheney-Lippold argues that "digital technology is, without a doubt, a hijacking of the very foundations of our subjectivity." [2]2 John Cheney-Lippold, *We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves* (New York: New York University Press, 2017), p. 4. This "hijacking" is not simple information theft, but a systematic expropriation of individual autonomy by capital using digital technology as an efficient tool. Through technical means, it conceals the fact that people have lost control over their own social relations, pushing human social relations in the direction of an "abstract thing."

然而，在看似多样化社会关系交织的虚拟空间表象之下，个体所接触的信息以及以此为基础的选择和行为却受到资本逻辑的无形支配，人与自身的生产实践、空间在场及情感表达日渐消解。从表面上看，人的独立性及人们丰富的实践活动在数字化趋向中看似被强化，但数字资本的控制逻辑却扭曲了数字化社会关系的实在基础。数字虚拟空间使人的社会关系从地域性关联中脱离，劳动者以数据的形式存在，社会关系降格为数据交互与可交易资产，人的主体性与自主性面临被消解的风险。约翰·切尼-利波尔德认为，“毫无疑问，数字技术是对我们主体性根基的打劫”。这种“打劫”不是简单的信息窃取，而是资本借助数字技术这一高效工具，对个体自主权的系统性褫夺，并通过技术手段掩盖人对自身社会关系失控的事实，使人的社会关系朝着“抽象物”的方向发展。

The Enhancement of Productive Forces and the Intensification of Contradictions

生产力的提升与矛盾的激化

Digital capitalism's pursuit of maximum profit stimulates technological innovation and improvements in production efficiency, thereby raising the level of productive forces in human society. To gain the initiative in fierce competition and obtain more profit, digital capitalism increases investment in technological research and development, thus promoting the iterative upgrading of core technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and computing power. At the same time, digital capitalism applies core technologies to social production, replacing a large amount of repetitive labor, thereby enhancing the precision and stability of social production. However, in this historical process, digital capitalism, as a profound transformative form driven by contemporary digital technology, increasingly reveals deep-seated internal contradictions. These mainly include the contradiction between the public's demand for using data resources and the digital oligopoly's monopolization of data resources, the contradiction between the increasing socialization of data production and capital's control over social production, and the contradiction between digital technology promoting human freedom and liberation and the infinite accumulation of capital. Marx pointed out that "production appears as the purpose of man, and wealth as the purpose of production." [3]3 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (1857-58), Notebook M. Similarly, the production logic of digital capitalism is neither the pursuit of "abundant" production nor the satisfaction of human needs for "necessities"; its fundamental purpose remains capital's maximal extraction of surplus value.

数字资本主义对利润最大化的追求，激发了技术创新和生产效率的提升，提高了人类社会的生产力水平。数字资本主义为了在激烈的竞争中占据主动权、获得更多的利润，加大技术研发投入，从而推动了人工智能、大数据、算力等核心技术的迭代升级。同时，数字资本主义将核心技术投入社会生产，替代了大量重复性劳动，从而提升了社会生产的精确性与稳定性。但是，在这一历史进程中，数字资本主义作为当代数字技术驱动下的深刻转型形态，日益显现出深刻的内在矛盾，这主要包括大众使用数据资源的需求与数字寡头垄断数据资源之间的矛盾、数据生产日益社会化与资本控制社会生产之间的矛盾、数字技术促进人的自由解放与资本无限积累之间的矛盾。马克思指出，“生产表现为人的目的，而财富则表现为生产的目的”。同样，数字资本主义的生产逻辑既不是追求“充裕”的生产，也不是满足生产“必需品”的人的需求，其根本目的始终是资本对剩余价值的最大化攫取。

In the era of industrial capitalism, relying on the capitalist wage-labor system and mode of production, capitalists achieved the exploitation and oppression of workers through the production of absolute and relative surplus value. In the era of digital capitalism, digital platforms have evolved into the fundamental intermediaries and core means of production for modern economic and social activities. The power to control platforms is highly concentrated in the hands of a few digital capital groups. These capital groups, by intellectualizing and commodifying digital resources, systematically use digital technology and artificial intelligence to achieve capital appreciation. This approach leads to cloud data and cloud knowledge being divided up by various platforms, forming isolated "digital territories" and triggering a "data enclosure movement." [4]4 A term used by critics of digital capitalism to analogize the privatization of digital resources (data, platforms, user-generated content) to the historical "enclosure movement" in England, which privatized common land. Platform owners are like "technological lords" of the digital age, enjoying absolute control over key digital resources within their "digital fiefdoms," and major platforms engage in fierce competition over the expansion of their "digital territories." This "enclosure movement" of the digital age not only grants digital capitalism the power to monopolize and analyze user data but also alienates digital resources, which should be open and shared, into tools for private capital to seek profit, thereby intensifying the fundamental contradictions of capitalism.

在工业资本主义时期，依赖资本主义的雇佣劳动制度和生产方式，资本家通过绝对剩余价值和相对剩余价值的生产，实现对工人的剥削和压榨。在数字资本主义时代，数字平台演变为现代经济社会活动的基础性中介和核心生产资料。平台的支配权高度集中于少数数字资本集团手中，这些资本集团通过将数字资源知识产权化和商品化，系统性地运用数字技术和人工智能来实现资本增值。这种方式导致云数据和云知识被各大平台割据，形成相互隔离的“数字领地”，引发“数据圈地运动”。平台所有者如同数字时代的“技术领主”，在其“数字采邑”内享有对关键数字资源的绝对支配权，各大平台围绕“数字疆域”的扩张展开激烈竞争。这场数字时代的“圈地运动”不仅赋予了数字资本主义对用户数据独占和分析的权力，也将本应开放共享的数字资源异化为私人资本牟利的工具，加剧了资本主义的基本矛盾。

The Expansion of Digital Interaction and the Distortion of Real Relationships

数字交往的拓展与真实关系的偏斜

According to the views of Marx and Engels, only through interaction among people and the constant transformation of existing social relations can the all-round development of the individual be promoted. Currently, the rapid development of digital technology has broken the traditional interaction model based on geographical space and blood ties, reshaped the mechanisms of information production, dissemination, and reception, and promoted the development of interaction models in an intelligent direction. In concrete practice, digital technology, with the help of big data analysis and intelligent algorithms, can accurately identify and respond to people's interaction needs. Interaction subjects can break through the limitations of their real identities, express emotions through various means, thereby achieving instant information transmission and real-time interaction, expanding the breadth of interpersonal connections to a certain extent.

按照马克思恩格斯的观点，只有通过人与人之间的交往，不断变革原有的社会关系，才能推动人的全面发展。当前，数字技术的迅猛发展打破了传统基于地理空间和血缘关系的交往模式，重塑了信息的生产、传播和接收机制，推动交往模式向智能化方向发展。在具体实践中，数字技术借助大数据分析和智能算法，能够精准识别与响应人们的交往需求，而交往主体可突破现实身份限制，通过多种方式表达情感，从而实现信息的即时传递和实时互动，在一定程度上拓展了人际连接的广度。

However, compared with the public interactions maintained by traditional media, although digital technology has dissolved physical boundaries, with the intervention of digital capital, people's interaction activities are passively placed under the dominance and control of digital platforms, and the relationships between people have also become seriously distorted. On the one hand, when capital penetrates the field of digital interaction, real people become subjects of virtual interaction. Algorithms build digital barriers through data filtering. They not only block and destroy real social interaction but also obscure the social identities, interaction relationships, and genuine emotions of the interacting subjects, simplifying them into standardized, labeled virtual symbols. This symbolic expression causes people to lose their ability to discern complex emotions, resulting in the alienation of interpersonal relationships. On the other hand, the collusion between capital and technology blurs the temporal boundaries of digital interaction, making people's interaction behaviors increasingly profit-oriented under the manipulation of digital capital. Digital capitalism uses digital platforms to collect vast amounts of data as means of production. The general data generated by people's daily interactions in virtual space becomes a direct source for digital capital to extract surplus value, and the pure interaction relationships between people are transformed into calculable "digital commodity" relationships.

然而，与传统媒体维系的公共交往相比，虽然数字技术消解了物理边界，但随着数字资本的介入，人们的交往活动便被动地处于数字平台的主导和控制之下，人与人的关系也产生了严重的偏斜。一方面，当资本渗透到数字交往领域，现实的人变成了虚拟交往的主体，算法通过数据过滤构建了数字壁垒，它不仅阻断和破坏了真实的社会交往，还使交往主体的社会身份、交往关系和真实情感被遮蔽，被简化为标准化、标签化的虚拟符号。这种符号化的表达使人们丧失了对复杂情感的辨析能力，造成了人与人之间交往关系的疏离。另一方面，资本与技术的合谋模糊了数字交往的时间界限，使人们的交往行为在数字资本操纵下渐趋利益化。数字资本主义利用数字平台搜集大量数据作为生产资料，人们在虚拟空间日常交往时产生的一般数据，便成为数字资本获取剩余价值的直接来源，人与人之间的纯粹交往关系变成了可计算的“数字商品”关系。

The development of digital capitalism both intensifies the fundamental contradictions of capitalism and nurtures the forces and conditions that negate it. Faced with the profound impact of the dual effects of digital capitalism, we need to transcend the myth of technological determinism and correctly harness digital capital, restoring it to its instrumental essence. First, we must regulate the operation of digital capital through institutional design, strengthening the management and supervision of digital capital by improving the basic system for data factors and establishing a regulatory mechanism for technological application. Second, we must adhere to a people-centered value orientation, correctly handling the relationships between people and capital, and between people and technology, replacing the logic of capital with the logic of the people, ensuring that technology always serves the comprehensive development of human beings. Third, we must build a data production and ownership system compatible with Chinese-path modernization, ensuring that digital enterprises do not deviate from the socialist direction in the process of data production and uphold digital justice. Only in this way can we effectively prevent and overcome the negative effects of digital capital and transform it into an internal driving force for the healthy development of Digital China.

数字资本主义的发展既激化了资本主义的基本矛盾，也孕育了否定自身的力量和条件。面对数字资本主义双重效应带来的深刻影响，我们需要超越技术决定论的迷思，正确驾驭数字资本，使其复归工具本质。其一，要以制度设计规范数字资本的运行，通过健全数据要素基础制度、建立技术运用监管机制，加强对数字资本的管理和监督。其二，要坚持以人民为中心的价值取向，正确处理人与资本、人与技术之间的关系问题，以人民逻辑取代资本逻辑，确保技术始终服务于人的全面发展。其三，要构建与中国式现代化发展相适应的数据生产与所有权体系，确保数字企业在进行数据生产过程中不偏离社会主义方向，维护数字正义。只有这样，才能有效防范和克服数字资本的负面作用，将其转化为推动数字中国健康发展的内在动力。

(The author is a researcher at the Center for Contemporary Foreign Marxism Studies at Fudan University and a professor at the School of Marxism at Beijing University of Chemical Technology.)

（作者系复旦大学当代国外马克思主义研究中心研究员、北京化工大学马克思主义学院教授）