Techno-Feudalism: Connotations, Controversies, and Responses

In recent years, the widespread application of digital technology and artificial intelligence technology has not only changed people’s lifestyles but also driven transformations in social production methods. At the same time, their negative impacts on social structure and economic order have become increasingly evident. Under the capitalist mode of production, a small number of tech giants or platform enterprises, relying on technological advantages and monopolies over data resources, exploit the masses through predatory “rents,” while ordinary people are bound to various technological platforms like serfs, losing control over the data and labor products they themselves generate. In this context, some Western scholars have proposed concepts such as “Techno-Feudalism” to describe the phenomenon of capitalism’s “refeudalization” under new technological conditions. To gain a deeper understanding of the background, connotations, characteristics, and significance of the concept of “Techno-Feudalism,” our journal’s reporter Zhao Dingqi conducted an exclusive interview with French economist Cédric Durand, and translated and compiled the content of this interview.

近年来，数字技术、人工智能技术的广泛应用，不仅改变了人们的生活方式，也推动了社会生产方式的变革。与此同时，其对社会结构和经济秩序的消极影响也日益彰显。在资本主义生产方式下，少数科技巨头或平台企业凭借技术优势和对数据资源的垄断，通过掠夺性的“租金”剥削大众，普通民众则像农奴一样被束缚在各种科技平台上，失去了对其自身所生产的数据和劳动成果的控制权。在这种状况下，一些西方学者提出了“技术封建主义”(Techno-Feudalism)等概念，用来描述资本主义在新技术条件下的“再封建化”现象。为深入了解“技术封建主义”概念的提出背景、内涵特征及意义，本刊记者赵丁琪对法国经济学家塞德里克·迪朗(Cédric Durand)进行了专访，并翻译、整理本次访谈的内容。

Cédric Durand (born 1975) is a renowned French economist and social commentator, and a professor in the Department of Economics at Paris 13 University. Durand’s 2020 book *Techno-féodalisme* is the first work in international academia to systematically elaborate on the issue of techno-feudalism. The book deeply analyzes the new changes in capitalism in the digital age and its economic logic, exploring the impacts of techno-feudalism on social justice, democracy, and individual freedom, sparking a wave of research on techno-feudalism.

塞德里克·迪朗(1975— ),法国知名的经济学家和社会评论家、巴黎第十三大学经济系教授。迪朗于2020年出版的《技术封建主义》(Techno-féodalisme)一书，是国际学术界第一部系统阐述技术封建主义问题的著作。该书深入分析了数字时代资本主义的新变化及其经济逻辑，探讨了技术封建主义对社会公正、民主和个人自由所带来的影响，引发了技术封建主义的研究热潮。

I. The “California Ideology,” Virtual Capital, and the Proposal of Techno-Feudalism

一、“加州意识形态”、虚拟资本与技术封建主义的提出

○ (Zhao Dingqi, same below) At the dawn of the internet, some of its “subversive” features, such as decentralization and flattening, were seen by many as a hope and tool for breaking down conservative and rigid social organizational systems and achieving human freedom and liberation. After decades of development, it seems not to have played the previously anticipated role of “freedom” and “liberation,” but instead has increasingly been viewed as a tool for monopoly capital to oppress the masses. Internet giants have also gradually become conservative and right-wing in ideology. The performance of U.S. tech company giant Elon Musk in this U.S. election is a clear example. What are the reasons for this situation?

○ (赵丁琪，下同)互联网诞生之初，它所具有的一些“颠覆性”特征，如去中心化、扁平化等，曾经被很多人视为打破保守僵化的社会组织体系，实现人类自由解放的希望和工具。经过近几十年的发展，它似乎并没有起到之前所预期的“自由”和“解放”的作用，反而越来越被视为垄断资本压迫民众的工具。互联网巨头在意识形态上也渐趋保守化和右翼化。美国科技公司巨头埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)在这次美国大选中的表现就是一个明显的例子。这种状况出现的原因是什么?

● (Cédric Durand, same below) From 1993 to 1995, given that *Wired* magazine, U.S. Republican politician Newt Gingrich, and the Progress & Freedom Foundation formed a genuine alliance, a conservative understanding of the potential of new IT culture was taking shape among the countercultural tech enthusiast community, the business world, and the Republican New Right. It is noteworthy that the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s report *A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age* emphasized that the primary responsibility of government is to create clear and enforceable property rights. As the authors put it, “Creating new cyberspace environments is creating new property, i.e., creating new means of serving people’s goods (including ideas).” That is to say, only private property has the right to enter cyberspace.

● (塞德里克·迪朗，下同)1993年至1995年，鉴于《连线》(Wired)杂志、美国共和党政治家纽特·金里奇(Newt Gingrich)和进步与自由基金会(The Progress & Freedom Foundation)建立了真正的联盟，反主流文化的技术爱好者群体、商业界以及共和党新右翼对新IT文化潜力的保守理解正在形成。值得注意的是，进步与自由基金会发布的《知识时代的大宪章》(A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age)的报告强调，政府的主要责任是创造明确和可执行的产权。正如作者所说的，“创造新的网络空间环境就是创造新的财产，即创造服务于人民的商品(包括思想)的新手段”。也就是说，只有私有财产才有权涉足网络空间。

Mentioning Ayn Rand here would be very persuasive. As the author of best-selling novels with tens of millions of copies in circulation, even after her death in 1982, her ideas remain highly influential in the United States. Her works are constructed around a core opposition between the “prime movers” (“the wise”) and the “second-handers” (“the masses”). The authors of *A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age* spoke of the need to establish new property rights, referring to the “wise” of the new El Dorado (cyberspace). Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are intoxicated by the reflection in this mirror. The concept of “disruption” they cherish is closely related to Rand’s glorified ability to take risks, surpass others, and shape the future solely by one’s own intuition. The destructive aspect of the “disruption” concept is fully embraced: because it means overturning established rules in the name of innovation, in the spirit of Schumpeter. From Google to Uber to Facebook, Silicon Valley companies have never been ashamed to operate outside the legal framework, even flouting existing rules and imposing their innovations on others as a *fait accompli*. Trump authorizing Musk to “dismantle government bureaucracy” under the so-called proposed Department of Government Efficiency can be seen as a concentrated embodiment of this “internet spirit.” The inevitable failure of this mission—because such a complex society cannot be managed by entrepreneurs—is a dangerous moment for all of us.

在这里提到安·兰德(Ayn Rand)会非常有说服力。作为发行量达数千万册的畅销小说的作者，即使在1982年去世后，她的思想在美国仍然极具影响力。她的作品围绕“原动力”(“智者”)和“二手贩子”(“大众”)之间的核心对立而构建。《知识时代的大宪章》的作者谈到的需要建立新的财产权，指的是新埃尔多拉多(网络空间)的“智者”。硅谷的企业家们都在这面镜子的照耀下陶醉不已。他们所珍视的“颠覆”概念与兰德所颂扬的敢于冒险、超越他人、仅凭自己的直觉塑造未来的能力密切相关。“颠覆”概念的破坏性方面被完全接受：因为这意味着以创新的名义，以熊彼特精神的名义推翻既定规则。从谷歌(Google)到优步(Uber)再到脸书(Facebook),硅谷的公司从来不因在法律框架之外运作而羞耻，甚至藐视现有的规则，以既成事实的方式将自己的创新强加于人。特朗普授权马斯克，在所谓的拟成立的政府效率部领导下“废除政府官僚机构”,可以被视为这种“互联网精神”的集中体现。而这一使命必然遭遇的失败——因为如此复杂的社会不可能由企业家来管理——对我们所有人来说都是一个危险的时刻。

In my view, at the bottom of this conservative alliance, there exists a vague consciousness linked to the invisibility of the intrinsic social nature of digital technology. Big data consists of symbolic products originating from individuals; through the multiplication and aggregation of networks, the form of these symbolic products has become unrecognizable to those individuals. That is, big data is the “sea of data” utilized by algorithms, a “transcendence” derived from individual behavior, but through the aggregation process it transcends individuals and returns to them in a transformed form. Big data indeed belongs to society. The left should insist on the intrinsic social nature of the digital domain and call for democratic control over these means of coordination.

在我看来，在这个保守派联盟的最底层，存在着一种与数字技术内在社会性质的不可见性相联系的模糊意识。大数据由源自个人的符号产品组成，通过网络的倍增和聚合，这些符号产品的形式却已变得无法为这些个人所识别。也就是说，大数据是算法所利用的“数据之海”,是源自个人行为的“超越性”,但通过聚合过程又超越了个人，并以变形的形式回归个人。大数据确实属于社会。左翼应坚持数字领域的内在社会性质，呼吁其对这些协调手段享有民主的控制权。

○ Your book *Techno-Feudalism* is the first work in international academia to systematically elaborate on the issue of techno-feudalism from the perspective of political economy. Before you, which scholars have elaborated on related issues and concepts?

○ 您的《技术封建主义》一书是国际学术界第一部从政治经济学角度系统阐述技术封建主义问题的著作。在您之前，有哪些学者阐述过相关的问题和概念?

● The concept of “Techno-Feudalism” emerged in the early 1990s within the context of Western cyberpunk gaming culture. It was used to describe a dystopian future where ever-growing corporate power destroys the entire public sphere, especially state power. In this nightmare world, people live in a perpetual state of war between commercial fortresses. In this landscape, one is reminded of post-Roman Empire Europe, where a pervasive sense of uncertainty and insecurity forced individuals to accept corporate protection at the cost of economic and political autonomy. Later, commentators, including in the business media, occasionally used the term to refer to the monopoly conditions of big tech companies and their social and political consequences. Some variants of this concept, such as digital feudalism, have also been elaborated by scholars in the field of digital media studies, while I was mainly inspired by the arguments of McKenzie Wark. He argued that the development of information power has formed a new kind of ruling class power, creating something worse than capitalism. I published the French edition of *Techno-Feudalism* in 2020, systematically exploring this theme from a political economy perspective for the first time. In 2024, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis published a book with the same title in English, further popularizing techno-feudalism.

● “技术封建主义”概念是在20世纪90年代初西方赛博朋克游戏文化的背景下出现的。它被用来描述一个末日般的未来，在那里，不断增长的企业力量摧毁了整个公共领域，尤其是国家权力。在这个噩梦般的世界里，人们长期生活在商业堡垒之间的战争状态中。在这种格局下，人们会想起后罗马帝国时代的欧洲，普遍的不确定感和不安全感迫使个人以牺牲经济和政治自主为代价接受企业的保护。后来，包括商业媒体在内的评论家偶尔也会提到这个词，以指代大科技企业的垄断状况及其社会和政治后果。这个概念的一些变体，如数字封建主义，也被数字媒体研究领域的一些学者阐述过，而我则主要受到了麦肯齐·沃克(McKenzie Warck)的论点启发。他认为信息力量的发展形成了一种新的统治阶级权力，创造了比资本主义更糟糕的东西。我于2020年出版了法文版著作《技术封建主义》,第一次从政治经济学角度系统地探讨这一主题。2024年，希腊财政部前部长雅尼斯·瓦鲁法基斯(Yanis Varoufakis)用英文出版了一本同名著作，进一步普及了技术封建主义。

It must be noted that invoking the concept of “feudalism” in a capitalist context is nothing new. After Fourier, Marx himself wrote an article on “industrial feudalism” to describe the rapid concentration of capital in the 1850s under the support of the financial sector represented by the French Crédit Mobilier bank. The German philosopher Habermas, from another angle, offered a subtle analysis of the refeudalization of the public sphere, showing how capitalist development tends to undermine the political structures that historically accompanied it and to weaken its democratic potential. In his view, the development of mass media, driven by the logic of profit, destroys the conditions of possibility for democratic dialogue—namely, by placing individuals in the position of consumers of public discourse, it undermines the conditions for rational discussion of public affairs. These are merely the most famous examples; there are many more. They indicate that feudal tendencies in the digital age have deep roots in the immanent movement of capital in the political and economic spheres.

必须提醒的是，在资本主义背景下调用“封建主义”概念并不是什么新鲜事。在傅立叶之后，马克思就曾写过“工业封建主义”一文，以描述19世纪50年代在以法国动产信贷银行为代表的金融业支持下资本迅速集中的影响。德国哲学家哈贝马斯从另一个角度对公共领域的再封建化进行了精妙的分析，说明资本主义的发展如何趋向于破坏历史上伴随其出现的政治结构，并削弱其民主潜力。在他看来，大众传媒的发展以营利逻辑破坏了民主对话的可能性条件，即通过将个人置于公共对话的消费者地位，破坏了对公共事务进行理性讨论的条件。这些只是最著名的一些例子，除此之外还有更多。它们表明，数字时代的封建主义倾向在政治和经济领域的资本内在运动中有着深刻根源。

○ Your previous research has mainly focused on issues such as fictitious capital and financialization. The Chinese translation of your 2018 book *Fictitious Capital: How Finance Is Appropriating Our Future* was also published in China in 2024. What is the connection between the problem of techno-feudalism and your earlier research?

○ 您之前主要研究的是虚拟资本和金融化等问题。您2018年出版的《虚拟资本：金融怎样挪用我们的未来》(Fictitious Capital:How Finance Is Appropriating Our Future)一书的中译本也于2024在中国出版。技术封建主义问题与您之前的这些研究存在什么样的关联?

● My earlier research focused mainly on financialization and globalization. Although through studying these issues I came to understand some of the systemic constraints facing contemporary capitalism, I was also not entirely satisfied with these research findings. The coexistence of insufficient investment momentum and excessively high profit rates in contemporary capitalist societies (especially in the United States), the role of knowledge in global value chains, and the related issues of the international division of labor within production processes and the dynamics of value extraction all puzzled me. Consequently, I decided to delve deeply into the qualitative changes in relations of production that accompany the spread of digital technology, against the backdrop of a broad restructuring of social life.

● 我之前的研究主要集中在金融化和全球化方面。虽然通过对这些问题的研究我了解了当代资本主义所面临的一些系统性限制，但我也对这些研究成果并不完全满意。当代资本主义社会中存在投资动力不足和利润率过高并存的状况(尤其是在美国),知识在全球价值链中的作用以及与之相关的生产流程中国际分工、价值剥削动力等问题，都让我感到困惑。由此，我决定深入研究在社会生活广泛重构的背景下，伴随数字技术的普及而产生的生产关系的质变。

Furthermore, I was eager to critically engage with two currents of thought. First, I wanted to trace a concise genealogy of the “California ideology.” This ideology naively assumes a direct correlation between individual autonomy, collective prosperity, and digital technology, and to show how its enthusiasts, supported by neo-Schumpeterian mainstream economists, provided a neoliberal variant of technology that played a crucial role in the decision-making of the North Atlantic bloc at the turn of the millennium. Second, I wanted to examine the current state of a lack of critical political-economic thinking while studying the impact of the application of digital technology on capitalism. I wanted to scrutinize the complacent accelerationist thinking that assumes any qualitative change beyond capitalism must be progressive. I believe that discussing the historical limits of the mode of production is also an intellectual stance, aimed at revitalizing our ability to imagine a post-capitalist future.

此外，我还渴望批判性地参与研究两种思潮。一是我想梳理出“加州意识形态”的简明谱系。这种意识形态天真地认为个人自主、集体繁荣与数字技术之间存在着直接的相关性，并说明其狂热者是如何在新熊彼特主义主流经济学家的支持下提供了一种新自由主义的技术变体的，这种变体在千年之交的北大西洋集团决策中发挥了至关重要的作用。二是我想在研究数字技术的应用方式对资本主义影响的同时，阐释缺乏批判性政治经济学思维的现状。我想审视自满的加速主义思维，这种思维假定超越资本主义的质变一定是进步的。我认为对生产方式的历史局限的讨论也是一种思想立场，旨在重振我们想象后资本主义未来的能力。

Similarly, the “techno-feudal” hypothesis implies that in the operation of our contemporary political economy, there have emerged relations of appropriation enforced by political or coercive means—relations characteristic of the feudal era—and that these have produced similar effects in promoting economic stagnation and breeding astonishing inequality.

同理，“技术封建”假说意味着，在我们当代的政治经济运行中，出现了一些以政治或胁迫手段强制推行的占有关系，而这种关系正是封建主义时代的特征，并在促进经济停滞和滋生惊人的不平等方面产生了一些类似的影响。

II. Characteristics and Controversies of Techno-Feudalism

二、技术封建主义的特征与争议

○ How does the emergence of techno-feudalism change the capitalist mode of production and sources of profit?

○ 技术封建主义的出现，如何改变了资本主义的生产方式和利润来源?

● If current trends continue, techno-feudalism is the next stage of capitalism. This will be a terrible regression: the complete opposite of the promises made when the “knowledge economy” emerged in the 1990s—a decentralized, bright, democratic, and prosperous utopia. What do we see? We have entered an era of economic, ecological, and social chaos. Capitalism lacks dynamism, and growth has stagnated. As with feudalism, the logic of plunder and control takes precedence over the logic of production. In the feudal era, it was a matter of controlling land. Today, it is a matter of controlling data to monopolize knowledge and power.

● 如果按照目前的趋势继续下去，技术封建主义就是资本主义的下一个阶段。这将是一种可怕的倒退：与20世纪90年代“知识经济”出现时所许下的承诺——一个去中心化、光明、民主和繁荣的乌托邦——完全相反。我们看到了什么?我们进入了一个经济、生态和社会混乱的时代。资本主义缺乏活力，增长停滞不前。与封建制度一样，掠夺和控制的逻辑优先于生产的逻辑。在封建主义时代，这是一个控制土地的问题。如今，这是一个控制数据来垄断知识和权力的问题。

Data and digital services are as indispensable in contemporary social life as land was yesterday. Individuals or institutions are attached to them, just as serfs were attached to the land under feudalism. Serfs could, of course, flee, but in that case they would lose all their means of livelihood and social relations, and would have to face even harsher conditions. The same is true in the digital age—without the digital services provided by platforms like Google and Amazon, it would be very difficult for us to live normally. Another phenomenon similar to feudalism is the mixing of politics and economics, which we only broke free from—at least partially—after the emergence of capitalism. Lords collected the fruits of labor from their fiefs and made laws. Similarly, in the digital world, techno-lords derive income from our data and make the rules that organize social life.

数据和数字服务在当代社会生活中不可或缺，就像土地在昨天不可或缺一样。个人或机构依附于它们，就像封建制度下的农奴依附于土地一样。农奴当然可以逃离，但在这种情况下，他们将失去所有的生活来源和社会关系，不得不面对更加艰难的状况。数字时代也是如此——如果没有谷歌、亚马逊这样的平台提供的数字服务，我们会很难正常生活。另一个与封建主义相似的现象是政治和经济的混合，我们只是在资本主义出现后才摆脱了这种混合——至少是部分摆脱。领主收取封地的劳动果实并制定法律。同样，在数字世界，技术领主从我们的数据中获取收入并制定组织社会生活的规则。

○ In your book *Techno-Feudalism*, you analyze how the development of digital technology has revived the mechanism of rent transfer under the feudal system. What are the similarities and differences between this rent and feudal-era rent?

○ 在《技术封建主义》一书中，您分析了数字技术的发展如何复活了封建主义制度下的租金转移机制。这种租金和封建时代的租金有何异同?

● Current digital rent stems from powerful network effects and economies of scale, which create natural monopolies. This is clearly different from feudal land rent. However, what is often overlooked is that obtaining raw data that can be transformed into profitable services is becoming increasingly difficult. In this sense, diminishing returns are characteristic of both agriculture and natural resource extraction, as well as of the digital economy. It turns out that acquiring new raw data is a prominent obstacle to the further development of artificial intelligence. This fact further illustrates that knowledge monopolies and the associated knowledge rents arise not only from artificial scarcity related to intellectual property rights, but also from the absolute scarcity of raw data.

● 当前的数字租金源于强大的网络影响和经济规模，这些因素造成了自然垄断。这与封建时代的地租明显不同。然而，经常被忽视的是，获得可以转化为营利服务的原始数据越来越难。从这个意义上说，收益递减是农业和自然资源开发的特征，也是数字经济的特点。事实证明，获取新的原始数据是人工智能进一步发展的一个突出障碍。这一事实进一步说明，知识垄断及与之相关的知识租金所产生的原因，不仅是基于与知识产权相关的人为稀缺，而且是基于原始数据的绝对稀缺。

○ The concept of “techno-feudalism” has sparked widespread attention and discussion in the current global academic community, and many scholars have also offered critical opinions. What are the main criticisms of this concept? How do you respond to these criticisms?

○ “技术封建主义”概念在当前全球学术界引发了广泛关注和讨论，也有很多学者提出了批评意见。对这一概念的批评主要有哪些?您如何回应这些批评?

● There are three main types of criticism of techno-feudalism. The first two are easy to respond to, but they also point to some important issues that need clarification. The third type raises an open question.

● 对技术封建主义的批评主要有三种，前两种批评容易回应，但也指出了一些重要的、需要澄清的问题，第三种批评则提出了一个开放性问题。

The first type of critic insists that techno-feudalism has many differences from feudalism, which is obviously true. The French medievalist Guy Bois summarized the feudal mode of production with a formula: “It is the hegemony of small-scale individual production and the level of productive forces associated with this hegemony, plus the tribute ensured by extra-economic coercion.” This concise definition provides a reference for the critical positioning of techno-feudalism relative to feudalism. Contemporary society is clearly not “feudal” in the sense of the first part of Bois’s definition, i.e., small-scale individual production. The 21st century has not seen an involution of the division of labor or a regression of social cooperation in production. On the contrary, techno-feudalism is the result of what Ernest Mandel once defined as “the increasing objective socialization of labor,” the “basic historical tendency of capitalist development since the Industrial Revolution.” Every moment of our lives is embedded in this productive and interdependent dense network, which allows us to eat food grown and transported by others, warm ourselves in power plants built and operated by others, and communicate through electronic networks or printed forms maintained by others—we communicate in all sorts of complex ways. The increasing life of networks only adds to the complexity of these social connections. Ultimately, my point is that when very basic assets, like land, are monopolized, the appropriation of the resulting surplus value implies a predatory use of the surplus.

第一类批评家坚持认为，技术封建主义与封建主义有许多不同之处，这显然是事实。法国中世纪学家居伊·布瓦(Guy Bois)用一个公式概括了封建生产方式：“它是个体小生产的霸权以及与此霸权相联系的生产力水平，加上由政治或经济之外的强制所确保的佃农赋税。”这一简洁的定义为技术封建主义相对于封建主义的批判性定位提供了参考。当代社会显然不是布瓦定义中的第一部分意义上的‘封建’,即个体小生产。21世纪并没有出现劳动分工的内卷化或生产中社会合作的退化。恰恰相反，技术封建主义是欧内斯特·曼德尔(Ernest Mandel)曾定义为“劳动日益客观社会化”的结果，是“自工业革命以来资本主义发展的基本历史趋势”。我们生活中的每分每秒都蕴含在这个生产性且相互依赖的紧密网络中，它让我们能够通过别人种植和运输的食物果腹，别人建造和运营的发电厂取暖，别人参与维护的电子网络或印刷形式交流——我们以各种复杂的方式进行交流。越来越多的网络生活只会增加这些社会联系的复杂性。归根结底，我的观点是，像土地一样非常基本的资产被垄断，由此产生的剩余价值的占有意味着对剩余的掠夺性使用。

The second criticism holds that—in the words of Evgeny Morozov—to condemn techno-feudalism is to imply that capitalism is “a better, more comfortable, more progressive system,” meaning that people would abandon anti-capitalist critique. Although I clearly understand this political concern, I see no logical reason why exploring the specific dynamics of the digital economy would lead to whitewashing capitalism or loudly extolling the productive virtues of competition. Importantly, this is the case regardless of whether the techno-feudal hypothesis proves correct. If the hypothesis is wrong, or if the predatory dynamics of the digital sphere are only just beginning or have not yet materialized, then existing anti-capitalist critique remains valid as a challenge to the current state of the world. At the same time, if capitalism is undergoing a qualitative change that alters the laws of motion of the socioeconomic system, evoking feudalism, then this new conceptual tool will enable us to grasp and confront the emerging forms of social domination. Neither scenario requires a nostalgic glorification of the “old-style capitalism” of the past.

第二种批评认为——用叶甫盖尼·莫罗佐夫(Evgeny Morozov)的话来说，对技术封建主义的谴责就是暗示资本主义是“一种更美好、更舒适、更进步的制度”,也就是说，人们会抛弃反资本主义的批评。虽然我清楚地理解这种政治担忧，但我看不出探索数字经济的特定动力会导致粉饰资本主义或大肆宣扬竞争性的生产美德的逻辑理由。重要的是，无论技术封建主义假说是否被证明是正确的，情况都是如此。如果假说是错误的，或者如果数字领域的掠夺性动力只是刚刚开始或尚未实现，那么现有的反资本主义批判作为对世界现状的挑战就仍然有效。与此同时，如果资本主义正在发生质的变化，它改变了社会经济体系的运动规律，使人联想到封建主义，那么，这种新的概念工具将使我们能够把握并对抗新出现的社会统治形式。这两种情况都不需要对过去的“老式资本主义”进行怀旧式的赞美。

The third criticism concerns the degree of change in relations of production. This is the most difficult question, and I wish to offer a cautious response. My argument is that, with the ultra-large-scale dynamics of digital information power and the resulting monopolization, a tendency toward techno-feudalism is taking shape. But I believe that whether this tendency is actually being realized is, ultimately, a historically open question. Some cite the investment frenzy of big tech companies like Amazon as a reason to oppose techno-feudalism. Their massive spending on AI infrastructure also seems to support this argument. However, my response is that these investments in collaborative capacity promote control over general social activity, rather than control over production itself. Moreover, high investment at the sectoral level of production does not imply a similar dynamic at the macroeconomic level. On the contrary, my argument is precisely that ultra-high profits and high investment in certain production sectors are two sides of the same coin as low profits in other sectors and generally weak macroeconomic investment.

第三种批评是关于生产关系变革的程度。这是最困难的一个问题，我想作一个谨慎的回答。我的论点是，随着数字信息力量的超大规模动力和由此产生的垄断性，技术封建主义的趋势正在形成。但我认为，这一趋势是否正在实现，终究是一个历史性的开放问题。有人以亚马逊等大科技公司的投资狂热作为反对技术封建主义的理由。其在人工智能基础设施上的巨额支出似乎也佐证了这一论点。然而，我的回答是，这些对协作能力的投资促进了对一般社会活动的控制，而不是对生产本身的控制。此外，生产部门层面的高投资并不意味着宏观经济也会出现类似的动态。相反，我的论点恰恰是，某些生产部门的超高利润和高投资与其他部门的低利润和宏观经济的普遍投资疲软是一体两面。

Big tech companies are becoming a general political-economic force. They exploit workers like other capitalists, but also use their unique ability to navigate social structures to control small and medium capital, public institutions, and consumers. The extent to which antitrust policies or stringent regulation can curb these forces remains an open question. But if, as I anticipate, rentier hegemony has already gained the upper hand, this means the end of capitalism as we know it. Because a zero-sum game will replace the productive dynamic of capital accumulation, dominating the socioeconomic sphere.

大型科技公司正在成为一种普遍的政治经济力量。它们像其他资本家一样剥削工人，但也利用其驾驭社会结构的独特能力控制中小资本、公共机构和消费者。反托拉斯政策或严厉的监管能在多大程度上遏制这些力量，仍是一个悬而未决的问题。但是，如果正如我所预料的那样，食租者霸权已经占了上风，这就意味着我们所熟知的资本主义的终结。因为零和游戏将取代资本积累的生产性动力，主导社会经济领域。

III. Techno-Feudalism and the Historical Destiny of Capitalism

三、技术封建主义与资本主义的历史命运

○ There is much debate in academia over whether techno-feudalism has already replaced capitalism. What is your view on this?

○ 对于当前技术封建主义是否已经取代了资本主义的问题，学术界有很多争论。您对此如何看待?

● The logic of techno-feudalism stands in stark contrast to classical capitalism. Capitalism is based on a competitive dynamic that drives capital investment in the production of goods or services with specific use-values: clothing, food, furniture, transportation, etc. In techno-feudalism, the massive investments of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are not aimed at producing these goods and services, but at building information infrastructure to control the tools people use to coordinate and cooperate. They provide platforms for matching supply and demand, using data analysis to predict individual behavior and social processes. They are becoming indispensable tools in the operational processes of traditional companies. Thus, a contest for control has replaced the contest for production. Digital magnates no longer aim for product profitability like bosses of the past, but seek to control social activities in order to extract rent.

● 技术封建主义的逻辑与古典资本主义形成了鲜明对比。资本主义以竞争动力为基础，这种动力推动资本投资生产具有特定使用价值的商品或服务：衣服、食品、家具、交通等。在技术封建主义中，硅谷企业家们的大量投资不是为了生产这些商品和服务，而是为了建立信息基础设施，以便控制人们协调合作的工具。他们提供供需匹配的平台，利用数据分析预测个人行为和社会进程。它们正成为传统公司运营过程中不可或缺的工具。因此，控制竞赛取代了生产竞赛。数字大亨们不再像过去的老板那样以产品营利为目标，而是试图控制社会活动以攫取租金。

Therefore, my claim is based on a dual retrospection of feudal characteristics, which stems from the fact that the application of digital technology first and foremost involves the mode of coordination of society and economy. The fundamental distinction between the economic sphere and the political sphere under capitalism is increasingly blurred, and this blurring was the norm in feudal times. The profit-driven restructuring of news, social relations, and, more broadly, scientific and technological knowledge cannot be regarded as a purely economic issue. It also involves a political dimension, which is receiving increasing attention, yet its internal logic is not necessarily understood. For example, antitrust bills attempt to revive competition but ignore the inherent socio-political dimension of digital coordination mechanisms. Currently, at least in Western countries, public authorities increasingly rely on the infrastructural power of big tech companies to perform government functions, which further increases the latter’s political capacity, leading to a growing erosion of the government’s ability to curb the power of tech giants.

因此，我的主张基于对封建特征的双重回溯，这种回溯源于这样一个事实，即数字技术的应用首先涉及社会和经济的协调模式。资本主义经济领域与政治领域之间基础性的区别日益模糊，而这种模糊在封建时代是常态。对新闻、社会关系以及更广泛意义上的科学和技术知识的营利性重构，不能被视为一个纯粹的经济问题。它还涉及政治层面，这个层面越来越受到关注，其内在逻辑却未必为人所知。例如，反垄断法案试图重振竞争，但忽略了数字协调机制的内在社会政治维度。目前，至少在西方国家，公共当局越来越依赖大科技公司的基础设施力量来发挥政府职能，这进一步增加了后者的政治能力，导致政府遏制科技巨头公司力量的能力日益被削弱。

As economic and political power increasingly overlap in the hands of knowledge operators, private investment behavior is also changing. The trend identified here is a slide from a logic of productive investment, capable of generating positive economic returns through improved operational efficiency, toward a logic of control investment dominated by zero-sum gains. Due to the growing disconnect between value production and appropriation, predatory relationships develop, which evokes the second characteristic of feudalism. But this is ultimately an empirical question of thresholds. When expropriation exceeds capitalist exploitation, the system mutates, or this has already happened.

随着知识经营者手中的经济和政治权力日益重叠，私人投资行为也在发生变化。这里确定的趋势是，从能够通过提高运营效率产生积极经济收益的生产投资逻辑滑向以零和收益动力为主导的控制投资逻辑。由于价值生产和占有之间日益严重的脱节，掠夺性关系不断发展，这使人联想到封建主义的第二个特征。但这最终是一个阈值的经验问题。当剥夺超过资本主义剥削时，制度就会发生变异，或者这种情况已经发生了。

○ Faced with the transition from capitalism to techno-feudalism, how should people form new forms of resistance?

○ 面对从资本主义到技术封建主义的转变，人们应如何形成新形式的抵抗运动?

● Many studies supporting digital commons and free software, as well as the existing active communities associated with them, should be supported, because they are true gems of anti-capitalist alternatives. However, given the astonishing centralizing energy unleashed by tech giants, this is far from sufficient. The problem of tech giants should be addressed on its own terms.

● 许多支持数字公域、自由软件的研究、活动以及与之相关的现有的活跃社群都应得到支持，因为它们是反资本主义替代方案的真正瑰宝。然而，考虑到科技巨头公司所释放出的惊人的集中化能量，这还远远不够。科技巨头公司的问题应该从其本身来解决。

I do not agree that progressive forces should aim to restore full competition in the digital services industry. On the contrary, I believe the goal of progressive politics should be to use the rapid socialization driven by ultra-large-scale digital power to promote coordination and cooperation. In particular, I believe the old idea of digital public utilities should be revived. This should be achieved within the framework of the United Nations or through other forms of international cooperation, following successful historical precedents such as the Universal Postal Union. In fact, apart from the United States (or perhaps China), no country in the world has a path to national digital sovereignty. Therefore, creating and supporting such a universal infrastructure is the only way to allow a diverse ecosystem of digital commons to flourish and develop in a direction conducive to social justice, democracy, and human creativity.

我并不同意进步力量应以恢复数字服务产业的完全竞争为目标。恰恰相反，我认为进步政治的目标应该是利用超大规模的数字力量所推动的快速社会化来促进协调合作。我尤其认为，数字公共事业这一古老的理念应该得到复兴。这应在联合国框架内或通过其他形式的国际合作来实现，并效仿万国邮政联盟等成功的历史先例。事实上，除了美国(或者可能是中国)之外，世界上任何国家都没有实现国家数字主权的途径。因此，创建和支持这样一种通用的基础设施，是让多样化的数字公域生态系统蓬勃发展并朝着有利于社会公正、民主和人类创造力的方向发展的唯一途径。

This proposal has two major caveats. First, the ecological footprint of digital activities, especially AI activities, is rapidly increasing, making the development trajectory of this industry incompatible with any serious ecological commitment. This means that the universal provision of digital resources must be accompanied by some form of distinction between their simple use and their important use, as well as between their alienated use and their emancipatory use. Second, we need to be aware that digital collaboration is not a panacea for emancipatory politics. Although digital commons supported by public utilities can become an extremely powerful lever for achieving this goal, human liberation also depends on our ability, as workers, consumers, and citizens, to maintain individual and collective agency. Étienne Balibar once envisioned a possibility of total failure, namely “complete subjugation,” which would lead to “the complete loss of individuality (in the sense of ‘individuation’), or the loss of personal identity and autonomy.” Driven by techno-feudalism, society is racing forward with a crushing logic; public control over digital strategic heights is insufficient to protect us from the alienating dynamics unleashed by digital power, whose social effects must be curbed by the voluntary association of people.

这项建议有两大注意事项。首先，数字活动，特别是人工智能活动的生态足迹正在迅速增加，使该行业的发展轨迹与任何严肃的生态承诺不相容。这就意味着，在普遍提供数字资源的同时，还必须在其简单使用和重要使用之间，以及在异化使用和解放使用之间进行某种形式的区分。其次，我们需要意识到，数字协作并不是解放政治的灵丹妙药。虽然由公共事业支持的数字公域可以成为实现这一目标的极为有力的杠杆，但人类的解放还取决于我们作为工人、消费者和公民维护个人和集体能动性的能力。埃蒂安·巴利巴尔(Étienne Balibar)曾设想过一种彻底失败的可能性，即“完全被征服”,这将导致“个性(即‘个性化’意义上的个性)的彻底丧失，或个人身份和自主性的丧失”。在技术封建主义的推动下，社会正在以碾压式的逻辑全速前进，对数字战略高地的公共控制不足以保护我们免受数字力量所释放出的异化动力的影响，其社会影响必须由人们自愿联合起来加以遏制。

(Author: Zhao Dingqi, Assistant Researcher, Institute of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

（作者：赵丁琪，中国社会科学院马克思主义研究院助理研究员）

Online Editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑