The Triple Manifestations, Formation Mechanism, and Internal Contradictions of Digital Rentier Capitalism

With the development of digital technology, digital labor, data elements, and platform organizations have extensively penetrated all links of social reproduction, causing profound changes in the capitalist mode of production and a deep transformation in the relationship among capital, labor, and the state, while the tendencies toward inequality and instability within capitalism have intensified. Many scholars have characterized the new features of contemporary capitalism from perspectives such as platform capitalism, artificial-intelligence capitalism, algorithmic capitalism, surveillance capitalism, and techno-feudalism. From the angle of the appropriation and division of surplus value, these new features indicate that contemporary capitalism has given rise to a “new rentier economy” distinct from the eras of industrial capitalism and financial capitalism.

伴随数字技术的发展，数字劳动、数据要素、平台组织等广泛渗透到社会再生产的各个环节，使得资本主义生产方式发生深刻变革，资本、劳动、国家之间的关系发生深刻转型，资本主义内部不平等、不稳定趋势不断加剧。许多学者从平台资本主义、人工智能资本主义、算法资本主义、监控资本主义、技术封建主义等角度刻画了当代资本主义的新特征。从剩余价值占有和分割的角度来看，这些新特征预示着当代资本主义出现了不同于工业资本主义和金融资本主义时代的“新食利性经济”。

In early capitalism, those who earned interest, financial speculative income, and land rent—financial capitalists and landowners—were called “rentiers.” They did not engage in production but deducted from surplus value or profit. Rentiers were long subordinate to industrial capitalists until, after the Second Industrial Revolution, the rentier stratum that relied on monopoly to extract financial profits grew rapidly and assumed a dominant position. “They control almost all the monetary capital of all capitalists and small proprietors, as well as most of the means of production and sources of raw materials in their own country and many other countries,” extracting financial profits by intervening in the operations of industrial enterprises while simultaneously using “bureaucratic means” to influence politics, “earning billions in ‘excess profits’ from the state.” Starting in the 1970s, the outline of capitalism detaching from industrial production and relying on financial market operations to extract rent gradually took shape; Guy Standing called this “rentier capitalism.” Michael Hudson argued that the finance, insurance, and real estate sectors had hijacked the state, creating a rentier economy different from industrial capitalism. From around 2010 onward, the explosive development of digital technology, digital platforms, and big data gave rise to a new rentier model based on the digital economy. The three most dominant forces—tech giants, financial oligarchs, and politicians—are uniting to form a vast global rentier network. So, what specific changes has digital rentier capitalism undergone? How have these new changes been formed? What impact have they had on capitalist countries? How should China respond? These questions require in-depth investigation from the standpoint of Marxist political economy.

在资本主义早期，那些赚取利息、金融投机收益和地租的金融资本家和土地所有者被称为“食利者”,他们不从事生产，而是从剩余价值或利润中进行扣除。食利者曾长期从属于产业资本家，直到第二次工业革命后，依靠垄断攫取金融利润的食利者阶层迅速增长并占据统治地位，“它们支配着所有资本家和小业主的几乎全部的货币资本，以及本国和许多国家的大部分生产资料和原料产地”,通过干预工业企业运营赚取金融利润，同时借助“官僚手段”影响政治，“从国家那里赚取亿万‘超额利润’”。从20世纪70年代开始，资本主义脱离工业生产、依靠金融市场运作来食利的轮廓逐渐形成，盖伊·斯坦丁称之为“食利资本主义”。迈克尔·赫德森认为，金融、保险和房地产行业挟持政府，创造了不同于工业资本主义的食利性经济。从2010年前后开始，数字技术、数字平台、大数据等的爆发式发展催生了一种依托数字经济的新食利模式，科技巨头、金融寡头和政客三支最具支配性的力量正在联合形成遍及全球的庞大食利网络。那么，数字食利资本主义具体发生了哪些变化?这些新变化是如何形成的?它们给资本主义国家造成了怎样的影响?中国应如何应对?这些问题需要站在马克思主义政治经济学的立场上进行深入探究。

I. The Triple Manifestations of Digital Rentier Capitalism

一、数字食利资本主义的三重表现

Compared with the eras of industrial capitalism and financial capitalism, the rentier economy of the digital age has undergone significant changes in three aspects: the mode of rent extraction, the source of profit, and the rentiers themselves.

同工业资本主义和金融资本主义时代相比，数字时代资本主义食利性经济在食利方式、利润源泉、食利者三个方面发生了显著变化。

(A) Digital Rent-Seeking as a New Mode of Rent Extraction

(一)数字寻租成为一种新的食利方式

In the nearly 40 years before the outbreak of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, financialization was the main theme of capitalist economies, and relying on financial speculation to extract rent was the primary way of accumulating wealth. This mode of rent extraction sought to break away from industrial production: institutional investors pooled social capital to speculate in financial derivatives, banks relied on interest income from household debt, and non-financial enterprises extensively participated in financial activities. After the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, financial wealth shrank sharply, and the rent-extraction mode that detached from the real economy and focused on financial profits became unsustainable.

在美国次贷危机爆发前的近40年中，金融化一直是资本主义经济的主旋律，依靠金融投机食利是积累财富的主要方式。这种食利方式试图摆脱工业生产，如机构投资者集中社会资金进行金融衍生品投机，银行依赖来自家庭债务的利息收入，非金融企业大量参与金融活动，等等。美国次贷危机爆发后，金融财富大幅缩水，脱离实体经济、专注金融利润的食利方式也无法持续。

From around 2010 onward, the rapid development of the digital economy gave rise to a new mode of rent extraction. Compared with the traditional economy, the core means of production in the digital economy—such as digital technology, platform infrastructure, and data—have characteristics like low marginal cost and non-excludability. Enterprises can use intellectual property to build market barriers or form natural monopolies under network effects, thereby charging monopoly prices and obtaining rentier income. Changes in production conditions attracted tech enterprises to participate in a “enclosure movement” in the digital sphere. Specifically, in the technology field, patent fees are compensation for R&D investment, but tech giants often exploit their dominant market position in relevant technology fields to engage in monopolistic behavior and earn exorbitant patent fees. For example, at the current stage, the development of large-scale AI models relies on massive data and computing resources. Computing resources represented by high-performance GPUs are currently controlled by a few tech giants or cloud service providers like Nvidia, which form a “computing power monopoly” by controlling computing resources and hardware facilities, thereby producing exclusionary and competition-restricting effects in the AI market. In the platform field, digital platform enterprises use the internet to aggregate large numbers of users or both sides of supply and demand for goods and services, then datafy commercial activities and individual behavior, and use digital technologies such as computing power, algorithms, and data storage to provide services to users accessing the platform. In platform operations, practices such as signing monopoly agreements, abusing dominant market positions, and improper concentration of undertakings are common. In the data field, platform enterprises’ collection and control of data help them earn more revenue. For instance, Amazon collects user data to coordinate transactions, earning advertising fees and commissions; Google builds a data ecosystem through its search engine, Android system, browser, maps, and email, thereby precisely targeting advertisements to users and earning huge advertising fees. With massive rentier income, tech giants can further consolidate their market power and obtain sustained rentier income.

从2010年前后开始，数字经济的迅猛发展催生了新的食利方式。相较于传统经济，数字经济的核心生产资料，如数字技术、平台基础设施、数据等，具有低边际成本、非排他性等特征，企业可以通过知识产权来铸造市场壁垒，或者在网络效应下形成自然垄断，从而索取垄断高价并获得食利性收入。生产条件的变革，吸引科技企业纷纷参与到数字领域的“圈地运动”中。具体而言，在技术领域，专利费是对研发投入的补偿，但科技巨头经常凭借其在相关技术领域的市场支配地位实施垄断行为，以赚取高额专利费。例如，现阶段人工智能大模型的开发依赖海量数据和算力资源支撑，而当前以高性能GPU为代表的算力资源掌握在英伟达等少数技术巨头或云计算服务商手中，它们通过控制计算资源和硬件设施形成“算力垄断”,从而在人工智能市场产生排除、限制竞争效果。在平台领域，数字平台企业利用互联网将大量用户或者商品服务的供需双方汇集起来，然后将商业活动和个体行为数据化，并借助算力、算法、数据存储等数字技术，为接入平台的用户提供服务。在平台经营中，签订垄断协议、滥用市场支配地位、不当经营者集中等行为屡见不鲜。在数据领域，平台企业对数据的收集和掌控能够帮助它们赚取更多收入。例如，亚马逊通过收集用户数据来协调交易，从中赚取广告费和佣金；谷歌通过搜索引擎、安卓系统、浏览器、地图、邮件等构建数据生态，从而向用户精准投放广告，赚取巨额广告费。借助巨额食利性收入，科技巨头又能进一步巩固自己的市场势力，获得持续的食利性收入。

(B) Digital Gig Workers as an Important Source of Profit

(二)数字零工成为提供利润来源的重要主体

In the eras of industrial capitalism and financial capitalism, rentiers extracted profits from functioning capitalists, individuals, and financial markets through various means; these profits were ultimately surplus value created by wage laborers. In the digital age, digital gig workers have emerged and gradually become an important source of profit for rentiers.

在工业资本主义和金融资本主义时代，食利者通过各种方式从职能资本家、个人和金融市场抽取利润，这些利润归根结底是雇佣劳动者创造的剩余价值。到了数字时代，数字零工涌现，他们逐渐成为为食利者提供利润来源的重要主体。

The large-scale development of gig work can be traced back to the post-Fordist flexible production methods and outsourcing that emerged in the 1970s. From around 2010 onward, the development of digital technology further extended outsourcing to crowdsourcing, where the contracting enterprise uses the internet to release tasks to the public. Various platform enterprises—e-commerce platforms, social media platforms, ride-hailing platforms, food-delivery platforms—emerged and developed rapidly during this period. Digital platforms aggregate large numbers of consumers and small and micro enterprises into an ecosystem, giving rise to a series of new forms of employment and entrepreneurship, such as short-video bloggers, ride-hailing drivers, couriers, and food-delivery riders. These workers, who rely on digital platforms for work opportunities but do not establish formal employment relationships with the platforms, are commonly called “digital gig workers.” The number of digital gig workers is enormous, especially growing rapidly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a report by the U.S. freelancing platform Upwork, 38% of U.S. workers engaged in gig work in 2023, mainly providing knowledge or non-skilled services, sales, and social media content creation. In addition, there is an even larger transnational digital gig workforce engaged in online work. According to World Bank estimates, the global online gig workforce is approximately 154 million to 435 million, concentrated mainly in low- and middle-income countries.

零工的大规模发展可以追溯到20世纪70年代出现的后福特主义弹性生产方式和外包。从2010年前后开始，数字技术的发展又进一步使外包延伸至众包，即发包企业借助互联网向大众发布任务。电子商务平台、社交平台、网约车平台、外卖平台等各种平台企业在这一阶段涌现并快速发展起来。数字平台将大量消费者和小微企业聚集在一个生态圈，催生了一系列就业创业新形态，如短视频博主、网约车司机、快递员、外卖配送员等。这种依赖数字平台提供工作机会但不与平台建立正式雇佣劳动关系的劳动者，通常被称为“数字零工”。数字零工数量庞大，尤其在新冠疫情暴发后急速增长。根据美国自由职业平台Upwork发布的报告，2023年38%的美国劳动者从事零工工作，工作内容主要是提供知识或非技能服务、销售、社交媒体内容创作等。此外，还存在更为庞大的跨国数字零工群体从事在线工作。据世界银行报告估计，全球线上零工规模约为1.54亿—4.35亿，主要集中于低收入和中等收入国家。

The vast digital gig workforce has become an important source of profit for rentiers. Digital gig workers depend on platforms for work opportunities; platforms extract high commissions based on their labor, while digital gig workers face low-income difficulties. Survey data show that one-seventh of U.S. gig workers earn an hourly wage below the federal minimum wage, and more than one-quarter earn an hourly wage below the state minimum wage applicable to employees in comparable circumstances. Compared with traditional wage laborers, who have legal protections regarding income, working hours, and social security, the non-employment labor relationship between digital gig workers and platform enterprises exempts the platform enterprises from the responsibilities and obligations they owe to employees. Furthermore, task-based employment and flexible labor also bring open competition, and workers increasingly fall into overwork and anxiety over unstable income.

庞大的数字零工群体已经成为为食利者提供利润来源的重要主体。数字零工依赖平台获得工作机会，平台基于他们的劳动抽取高额佣金，而数字零工则面临低收入困境。有调查数据表明，美国1/7零工的小时收入低于联邦最低工资水平，超过1/4零工的小时收入低于同等情况下雇员适用的州最低工资标准。相比于传统雇佣劳动者在收入、工作时间、社会保障等方面拥有的法律保障，数字零工与平台企业之间的非雇佣劳动关系免除了平台企业对雇员应承担的责任和义务。此外，任务化用工和弹性化劳动也带来开放性竞争，劳动者日益陷入过度劳动和对不稳定收入的焦虑之中。

(C) The Rentier Stratum Shifts from a “Finance-Politics” Alliance to a “Technology-Finance-Politics” Alliance

(三)食利者阶层从“金融—政治”联合体转向“科技—金融—政治”联合体

Before the end of the 19th century, political interests and financial interests were mainly linked through state credit. From the end of the 19th century to the 1990s, financial oligarchs allied with bureaucrats to extract excess profits, binding their own interests to those of politicians through lobbying, participation in politics, and other means. As some scholars have noted, American finance has long been embedded in national interests and a complex political ecology, constituting an "inherently political finance." With the development of digital technology, technological interests are increasingly embedded in the complex ecology composed of finance and politics. The rentier class, which was formerly centered on the "finance-politics" complex, has shifted toward a "technology-finance-politics" complex.

在19世纪末之前，政治利益和金融利益主要通过国家信贷联系在一起。从19世纪末到20世纪90年代，金融寡头联合官僚赚取超额利润，他们通过游说、参政等方式，将自身利益与政治家利益绑定。正如有学者说的，美国金融早已嵌入国家利益和复杂的政治生态之中，是“天生的政治金融”。随着数字技术的发展，科技利益日益嵌入由金融和政治构成的复杂生态，过去以“金融—政治”联合体为核心的食利者阶层转向“科技—金融—政治”联合体。

First, technological interests are closely linked with financial interests. Technology start-ups relying on the internet, electronic information, and other technologies grew up together with private equity funds and venture capital. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, investment in the private equity industry surged due to the emergence of high-tech companies. Although private capital shifted toward real estate and various financial products after the bursting of the internet bubble, it once again flooded into the technology sector after the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, heavily participating in the layout of emerging fields such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. During this phase, the technology industry accelerated its rise, deeply integrated with production and services, and became the dominant industry. Technology giants gradually replaced traditional industrial oligarchs as the most profitable companies. The 2024 Fortune 500 list for the United States shows that among the top ten most profitable companies, six are technology companies. Because institutional investors have heavily participated in the cultivation and development of the technology industry, the two have formed a binding of interests through equity forms, and the huge investments required for technological and industrial development will in the future leverage the formation of an even larger-scale alliance between them.

首先，科技利益与金融利益紧密联系。依托互联网、电子信息等技术的科技初创企业是同私募基金和风险投资一起成长起来的。在20世纪70年代末80年代初，私募行业投资因高科技公司的出现而急剧增加。尽管私募资本在互联网泡沫破裂后转向房地产和各种金融产品，但在美国次贷危机后再次涌入科技领域，大量参与到大数据、云计算、人工智能等新兴领域的布局中。在这一阶段，科技产业加速崛起，并且同生产和服务深度融合，成为主导产业，科技巨头也逐渐取代传统工业寡头，成为最赚钱的公司。2024年《财富》美国500强排行榜显示，在最赚钱的前十家公司中，有六家为科技公司。由于机构投资者大量参与到科技产业培育和发展过程中，两者在股权形式下形成了利益绑定，而技术和产业发展所需的巨额投入，又将在未来撬动两者形成更大规模的联合。

Second, technological interests are bound up with political interests. Currently, technology giants have become one of the most powerful political lobbying forces, and different political groups are actively catering to their demands. In the United States, although the Tillman Act of 1907 and the Hatch Act of 1939 both attempted to weaken the influence of special interest groups and the wealthy on elections, the power of "political action committees," which serve as "front organizations," has expanded dramatically. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, technology giants such as Facebook and Google joined the Obama campaign team. After winning, Obama not only responded to the policy demands of these technology industries but also appointed many managers from technology companies to key government positions, forming a relatively stable alliance between the two. The 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in *Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission* further turned elections into an expensive money game. In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the Trump team, in order to win support from the technology industry, changed its previous negative attitude and chose to embrace cryptocurrency. On March 6, 2025, the victorious Trump signed an executive order announcing the establishment of a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" and a "Digital Asset Stockpile."

其次，科技利益与政治利益绑定。当前科技巨头已经成为最强大的政治游说力量之一，不同政治团体也在主动迎合其需求。在美国，尽管1907年的《蒂尔曼法案》和1939年的《哈奇法案》都试图弱化特殊利益集团和富人对选举的影响，但起“白手套”作用的“政治行动委员会”的势力急剧扩张。在2008年美国总统大选中，脸书、谷歌等科技巨头加入奥巴马竞选团队，奥巴马胜选后不仅回应了这些科技行业的政策诉求，而且任命了许多科技公司的管理者担任政府要职，两者形成较为稳定的同盟关系。2010年美国联邦法院对“公民联盟诉联盟选举委员会”的裁决进一步将选举变成一种昂贵的金钱游戏。在2024年美国总统大选中，特朗普团队为赢得科技行业支持，一改过去的消极态度，选择拥抱加密货币。2025年3月6日，胜选的特朗普签署行政命令，宣布建立“战略比特币储备”和“数字资产储备库”。

II. The Formation Mechanism of Digital Rentier Capitalism

二、数字食利资本主义的形成机理

The new changes in the rentier nature of the capitalist economy in the digital age are driven by the movement of capital: the formation of digital capital has promoted the transformation of rent-seeking methods toward digital rent-seeking; the accumulation of digital capital through the organizational form of the platform not only reorganizes the labor process, making digital gig workers a new object of exploitation, but also strengthens digital rent-seeking methods; the alliance of digital capital with financial capital and the marriage of capital power with political power have renewed the rentier class.

数字时代资本主义食利性经济的新变化，是由资本运动推动的：数字资本的形成推动了食利方式向数字寻租的转型；数字资本借助平台组织形式的积累，不仅重组了劳动过程，使数字零工成为新的盘剥对象，而且强化了数字寻租方式；数字资本同金融资本的联合和资本权力同政治权力的联姻，更新了食利者阶层。

(A) The Formation of Digital Capital: Digitalization of Labor, Commodification of Data, and Capitalization of Data Commodities

(一)数字资本的形成：劳动数字化、数据商品化和数据商品资本化

The development of digital technology has promoted the digitalization of labor, the commodification of data, and the capitalization of data commodities. Capital invested in digital fields such as information and communication, semiconductors, software, and e-commerce has gradually become independent from industrial capital and commercial capital, becoming a new form of capital, namely digital capital.

数字技术的发展推动了劳动数字化、数据商品化和数据商品资本化发展，投资于信息通信、半导体、软件、电子商务等数字领域的资本，逐渐从产业资本和商业资本中独立出来，成为一种新的资本形式，即数字资本。

First, the main characteristic of the digital economy is the transformation of circulation connections and production connections. The digitalization of labor triggered by this technological transformation not only changes the form of labor but also innovates the means of appropriating the labor of others without compensation. The digitalization of labor is mainly manifested in two aspects: First, the data creation activities of internet users become free labor. Data that accurately reflects user behavior preferences, after being collected, cleaned, and organized by internet platforms, is used for customized production, advertising, credit evaluation, and other activities, providing favorable conditions for the circulation and turnover of capital, thereby increasing the excess profits of industrial capitalists, commercial capitalists, and financial capitalists. Second, a large amount of labor involved in the production of digital products has emerged, including labor directly involved in the production of digital consumer goods, labor engaged in digital services such as software development, system maintenance, information filtering, and data processing, as well as labor operating and maintaining electronic equipment and systems in industrial production. Among these, the digital products produced by the first two types of labor are usually replicable.

首先，数字经济的主要特征是流通连接和生产连接的变革，这种技术变革引发的劳动数字化变革不仅改变了劳动形态，也创新了无偿占有他人劳动的方式。劳动数字化主要表现在两个方面：一是互联网用户的数据创造活动变成免费劳动。精准反映用户行为偏好的数据经过互联网平台的收集、清洗和整理，被用于定制化生产、广告投放、信用评估等活动，为资本循环和周转提供了有利条件，从而增加了产业资本家、商业资本家和金融资本家的超额利润。二是参与数字产品生产的劳动大量出现，包括直接参与数字消费资料生产的劳动，从事软件开发、系统维护、信息筛选、数据处理等数字化服务的劳动，以及工业生产中操作、维护电子化设备和系统的劳动。其中，前两类劳动所生产的数字产品通常具有可复制性。

Second, the most prominent feature of the digitalization of labor lies in the combination of users' free labor and labor that produces infinitely replicable digital products. Together, they open up a channel for realizing rentier income through data commodities. First, users' free labor creates a vast amount of raw data. However, under the capitalist mode of production, raw data is appropriated by a few people who use it to earn income. Although raw data can be captured from public channels or generated from a company's own operations, regardless of the channel, it is collected by a few people by virtue of their possession of key means of production such as digital technology and platforms. After cleaning and organizing, it is turned into data commodities produced by platform enterprises, data companies, and others. Data becomes a commodity, not only exchangeable for money but also capable of participating in income distribution, yet users' free labor is usually not compensated. Second, reusable digital products such as digital consumer goods and digital services also become a source of revenue for platforms. Although workers can receive some compensation from them, the replicability of the products allows platforms to obtain more.

其次，劳动数字化变革最突出的特征就在于用户的免费劳动和生产可无限复制数字产品的劳动，两者共同打通了通过数据商品实现食利的通道。一是用户的免费劳动创造了庞大的原始数据，但是在资本主义生产方式下，原始数据被少数人占有并借此赚取收入。尽管原始数据可以从公开渠道截取或者从企业自身运营中产生，但无论通过哪个渠道，都是少数人凭借对数字技术、平台等关键生产资料的占有来采集，经过清洗和整理后将它们变成由平台企业、数据公司等生产出来的数据商品。数据成为商品，不仅能够换取货币，还有了参与收入分配的能力，但用户的免费劳动通常得不到补偿。二是数字消费资料、数字服务等可重复使用的数字产品，同样会变成平台的收入来源，尽管劳动者能从中得到一部分补偿，但产品的可复制性使平台获取更多。

Third, companies that have mastered data commodities are not limited to making money from buying and selling data commodities. More importantly, they provide advertising and consulting services to other functional capitalists and financial capitalists, thereby appropriating surplus value from other capitalists, or they organize individual workers in the form of platforms, appropriating the surplus value created by workers based on the information provided by the data. Thus, data commodities become data capital. What industrial capital should produce to maximize profits, which industries financial capital should invest in to be most profitable, and for whom gig workers should provide services all depend on obtaining information from capitalists who control data. What digital capitalists need to do is expand data sources, enhance computing power, optimize algorithms, and improve data storage, thereby expanding data capital.

再次，掌握了数据商品的公司，不仅限于从数据商品买卖中赚钱，更重要的是为其他职能资本家和金融资本家提供广告和咨询服务，进而从其他资本家那里分割剩余价值，或者以平台形式将个体劳动者组织起来，凭借数据提供的信息占有劳动者创造的剩余价值。由此，数据商品变成了数据资本，产业资本生产什么可以最大程度获利、金融资本投资什么行业最赚钱、零工劳动者为谁提供劳务，都要依靠从掌握数据的资本家那里获取信息。而数字资本家所要做的，是拓展数据来源、提升算力、优化算法、完善数据存储，从而扩张数据资本。

Finally, for capitalists to make money using data, they need to maintain their advantages in collecting data and producing data commodities, which requires building market barriers around related technologies and platforms to hinder the entry of other competitors. This further promotes the intensification of technological monopoly and platform monopoly, as well as an increase in monopoly rents. The means of production, such as technology and platform infrastructure, that capitalists who control data invest in to expand data capital, together with the data, form digital capital, and they become digital capitalists. The formation of digital capital means that the channels for capital valorization begin to systematically shift toward digital rents.

最后，资本家利用数据赚钱，需要维护自身在采集数据和生产数据商品上的优势，从而需要为相关技术和平台筑起市场壁垒，阻碍其他竞争者进入。这进一步推动了技术垄断和平台垄断的加剧以及垄断租金的增加。掌握数据的资本家为扩张数据资本而投入的技术、平台基础设施等生产资料，同数据一起，形成数字资本，他们也成为数字资本家。数字资本的形成意味着，资本增殖渠道开始系统地向数字租金转变。

(B) The Accumulation of Digital Capital: Through the Organizational Form of the Platform

(二)数字资本的积累：借助平台组织形式

Building digital platforms is an important pathway for the accumulation of digital capital. The rise and growth of digital gig work are precisely products of the development of the platform organizational form. Digital capitalists achieve capital accumulation through the exploitation of digital gig workers. At the same time, digital platforms are also an important means for digital capitalists to strengthen their own rent-seeking capabilities. They achieve faster capital accumulation by appropriating the surplus value ceded by suppliers, the personal income of consumers, and financial returns.

搭建数字平台是数字资本积累的一个重要途径。数字零工的兴起和壮大正是平台组织形式发展的产物，数字资本家通过对数字零工的盘剥实现资本积累。同时，数字平台也是数字资本家强化自身寻租能力的重要手段，他们通过占有供应商让渡的剩余价值、消费者的个人收入以及金融收益来实现更快的资本积累。

First, digital capitalists use digital platforms to appropriate the surplus value created by digital gig workers, thereby achieving capital accumulation. The development of platform organizations has restructured the labor process, reconfigured the labor market, and given rise to the gig economy as a new form of labor organization based on digital platforms. Digital platforms do not play the role of production organizers like traditional enterprises; instead, they pursue the lightweighting of tangible assets and employees. They organize workers in the form of cooperation, using algorithmic control to drive workers to labor incessantly. So-called algorithmic control refers to the use of data-driven automated decision-making systems to direct work, evaluate performance, and discipline behavior within the labor process. Algorithms can comprehensively record the labor process through terminal devices and generate massive amounts of data. On this basis, they use artificial intelligence for real-time calculations, employing task allocation, reward and punishment mechanisms, and the like to align workers’ behavior with organizational interests, thereby replacing traditional labor contracts. Workers for the platform appear to be able to work autonomously, but in reality, they form a labor force that is “on call.” In occupations such as ride-hailing and food delivery, digital platforms use income incentives, “peak-hour” premiums, and other methods to push workers beyond their “income targets,” actively extending their working hours. Of course, refusing the platform’s demands—such as failing to meet the minimum number of accepted orders, exceeding the maximum number of rejected orders, or ranking at the bottom in performance standings—also results in corresponding penalties. Therefore, although digital gig workers typically own their own means of production, digital platforms can still appropriate the surplus value created by gig workers by virtue of the data and algorithms they control, and they extract extra surplus value by driving workers to overwork.

首先，数字资本家借助数字平台占有数字零工创造的剩余价值，实现资本积累。平台组织的发展重组了劳动过程，重构了劳动力市场，形成零工经济这种基于数字平台的劳动组织新形式。数字平台不像传统企业那样扮演生产组织者的角色，而是追求有形资产和员工的轻量化。它们以合作的形式将劳动者组织起来，通过算法控制驱使劳动者不停地劳动。所谓算法控制，就是通过数据驱动的自动决策系统来实现对劳动过程的工作指挥、绩效评价和行为规训。算法能够通过终端设备全方位记录劳动过程并形成海量数据，在此基础上利用人工智能实时计算，通过任务分派、奖惩机制等使劳动者的行为符合组织利益，从而取代传统的劳动契约。为平台工作的劳动者看似可以自主工作，实则形成了一支“随叫随到”的劳动力队伍。在网约车、外卖配送等职业中，数字平台通过收入激励、“峰时”溢价等方式使其突破自己的“收入目标”,主动延长工作时间。当然，如果拒绝平台的要求，如达不到最低接单量、超过最高拒单量、在业绩排名中处于末位等，也会受到相应的惩罚。因此，尽管数字零工通常自己占有生产资料，但数字平台仍能凭借掌握的数据和算法占有零工劳动者创造的剩余价值，并通过驱使他们过度劳动来占有超额剩余价值。

Second, digital capitalists use digital platforms to extract surplus value from suppliers, consumers, and financial markets, achieving rapid accumulation. First, the data held by platforms provides enterprises that access the platform with superior production conditions compared to other enterprises, creating enormous room for excess profit. Digital platforms can leverage their monopoly over data ownership to turn this excess surplus value into rent for platform access. The larger the platform, the more users it attracts, the more data it controls, and the easier it is to increase merchants’ excess profits; the more rent the platform earns, the greater its bargaining power, and the more difficult it becomes for competitors to break the market monopoly. Some platform enterprises build platform ecosystems, aggregating multi-layered data from suppliers, application platforms, and users, appropriating information and intellectual achievements originally created collectively by society. Suppliers entering the platform’s industrial chain and consumers using its services must pay various fees to the platform’s core enterprise. Second, valuation is an estimate of an asset’s price in financial investment; investors aim to screen for high-growth assets to maximize profit margins. In the financing process of digital platforms, the phenomenon of negative profits with high valuations is common, because the users and traffic controlled by the platform are likely to bring significant data advantages and substantial revenue in the future. To secure financing, digital platforms also adopt the practice of “burning money” to buy traffic, exaggerating their own potential to fend off potential competitors. This approach drives platform enterprises to rush to expand market share in a short time, “enclosing land” to seize new fields, and plundering data production, forming a valuation-driven accumulation model. However, the digital capital accumulated through valuation is fictitious, essentially appropriating future surplus value and investment space.

其次，数字资本家借助数字平台，从供应商、消费者和金融市场抽取剩余价值，实现快速积累。其一，平台掌握的数据为接入平台的企业提供了比其他企业更加优质的生产条件，存在着巨大的超额利润空间。数字平台可以凭借对数据所有权的垄断，将这些超额剩余价值作为接入平台的租金。平台规模越大，吸引的用户越多，平台掌握的数据也就越多，越容易增加商户超额利润，平台赚取的租金越多话语权也就越大，竞争对手要打破市场垄断格局就愈加困难。一些平台企业构建起平台生态，通过聚合来自供应商、应用平台、用户的多层次数据，将原本由社会共同创造的信息和智力成果据为己有，而供应商进入平台产业链、消费者使用服务等，都需要向平台的核心企业缴纳各种各样的费用。其二，估值是金融投资中对某项资产价格的预估，投资者的目标是筛选出那些高成长性的资产，以获得尽可能大的盈利空间。在数字平台融资过程中，负利润而高估值的现象屡见不鲜，因为数字平台掌握的用户和流量在未来很可能带来巨大的数据优势和巨额收入。数字平台为了获得融资，也会采取“烧钱”买流量的做法来夸大自身潜力以击退潜在竞争者。这种做法驱使各平台企业急于在短时间内扩大市场份额、“圈地”式抢占新领域、掠夺式生产数据，形成估值驱动型积累模式。然而，依靠估值积累起来的数字资本是虚拟的，本质上是挪用了未来的剩余价值和投资空间。

(3) The Union and Monopoly of Digital Capital and Financial Capital

(三)数字资本与金融资本的联合和垄断

After the Second Industrial Revolution, industrial production became concentrated and monopolized. At the same time, banks evolved from intermediaries into powerful monopolists, and “the so-called personal union of banks with the largest industrial and commercial enterprises also developed, with both sides merging increasingly through the acquisition of shares and through the mutual appointment of bank and industrial-commercial enterprise managers as supervisors (or directors) of the other,” forming financial capital with an overwhelming advantage over all other forms of capital. After the Third Industrial Revolution, the development of information and communication technologies provided the technical foundation and material conditions for the globalization and financialization of capital, and financial capital evolved into international financial monopoly capital. With the development of digital technology, financial capital has tended toward digitalization, and digital capital has tended toward financialization; the two have united to form a new monopoly capital.

在第二次工业革命后，工业生产形成集中和垄断，同时，银行也由中介发展成为势力极大的垄断者，并且“银行同最大的工商业企业之间的所谓人事结合也发展起来，双方通过占有股票，通过银行和工商业企业的经理互任对方的监事(或董事),而日益融合起来”,形成了对其他一切资本形式具有压倒性优势的金融资本。第三次工业革命后，信息通信技术的发展为资本的全球化和金融化提供了技术基础和物质条件，金融资本发展演变为国际金融垄断资本。随着数字技术的发展，金融资本趋于数字化，数字资本趋于金融化，两者联合形成了新的垄断资本。

First, financial capital tends toward digitalization. On the one hand, financial capital, by leveraging digital networks, has not only greatly improved the efficiency and precision of financial services but also broken the geographical limitations of traditional financial services, incorporating previously unreachable areas into its accumulation scope. On the other hand, large financial groups use digital technology to capture market share and engage in monopolistic behavior. They not only use technological means to raise market entry barriers—such as conducting risk assessment and pricing through complex algorithms and models, making it difficult for small financial institutions to bear high operating costs—but also exploit data and information advantages for unfair competition, expanding at the expense of consumers and other market participants.

首先，金融资本趋于数字化。一方面，金融资本借助数字网络，不仅极大地提升了金融服务的效率与精准度，还打破了传统金融服务的地域限制，将过去无法抵达的领域纳入其积累范围；另一方面，大型金融集团借助数字技术占据市场份额并实施垄断行为，它们不仅利用科技手段提高市场准入门槛，如通过复杂的算法和模型进行风险评估和定价，使得小型金融机构难以承担高昂的运营成本，而且利用数据和信息优势进行不公平竞争，通过损害消费者和其他市场参与者利益的方式实现扩张。

Second, digital capital tends toward financialization. On the one hand, technology companies possess large-scale data concerning users’ daily lives; they use algorithms and machine learning to score users, enabling precise prediction of customer creditworthiness and repayment prospects. On the other hand, large technology companies securitize intellectual property, virtual underlying assets, and the like. Intellectual property pledge financing is a method whereby holders use the property rights in intellectual property as collateral to obtain financing from financial institutions. Through this method, enterprises receive financial support from institutions, while institutions convert intellectual property into tradable securities products, which are then financed on the securities market. This approach not only expands the financing channels for intellectual property and improves the financing efficiency of technology enterprises but also creates new channels for financial capital. Virtual underlying assets in the digital domain, corporate stocks based on digital concepts, and the like can also become targets for speculative trading.

其次，数字资本趋于金融化。一方面，科技公司拥有大规模涉及用户日常生活的数据，它们通过算法和机器学习为用户评分，能够精准预测客户征信和还款前景；另一方面，大型科技公司将知识产权、虚拟标的物等证券化。知识产权质押融资是持有者将知识产权中的财产权作为质押标的物从金融机构处获得融资的方式，企业通过这种方式得到金融机构的资金支持，金融机构则将知识产权转化为可交易的证券产品，再在证券市场上融资。这种方式既扩大了知识产权的融资渠道、提高了科技企业的融资效率，又为金融资本创造提供了新渠道。数字领域中的虚拟标的物、基于数字概念的企业股票等，也可以成为投机炒作的对象。

Finally, financial capital and digital capital unite and monopolize. First, they unite and monopolize through equity investment. The neoliberal reforms that began around the 1980s concentrated economic control in the hands of financial capitalists. In the process of technological development, financial capital has connected independently operated technology enterprises, forming a “bow-tie”-shaped equity network structure centered on giant financial groups. These giant financial groups hold shares in each other, have interconnected interests, and their equity downstream can reach almost all multinational enterprises. Financial groups “cluster” to invest in leading or promising technology enterprises, rapidly cultivating enterprises capable of dominating the market. Technology enterprises use “enclosure” movements to earn rent, while financial groups extract interest, dividends, and bonuses from them, or earn equity premiums. Grown technology enterprises also penetrate financial groups, binding their interests closely together. Second, they achieve common interests through financial market operations. Financial groups extensively participate in technology enterprise IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, and restructuring. Taking IPOs as an example, securities underwriters earn relatively stable commissions and also obtain stock options; when the company’s future stock price rises, the underwriters profit, thus forming a binding of interests between the two. Furthermore, financial groups are not satisfied with merely participating in the gains from enterprise growth; they promote mergers and acquisitions to increase the efficiency with which tech startups become tech giants, while large technology companies also hope to strengthen their own power and eliminate potential competitors by acquiring small companies. The interests and actions of both are aligned.

最后，金融资本与数字资本进行联合和垄断。一是通过股权投资进行联合和垄断。从20世纪80年代前后开始的新自由主义改革将经济的控制权集中到金融资本家手中，在科技发展过程中，金融资本又将独立经营的科技企业连接在一起，形成以巨型金融集团为核心的“领结”型股权网络结构，这些巨型金融集团相互持股、利益关联，股权下游几乎可以通往所有跨国企业。金融集团“扎堆”选择领先的或有潜力的科技企业进行投资，迅速培育能够占据市场优势的企业。科技企业借助“圈地”运动赚取租金，金融集团则从中分割利息、股息和红利，或者赚取股权溢价。成长起来的科技企业也会向金融集团渗透，使二者利益紧密结合在一起。二是通过金融市场运作实现共同利益。金融集团广泛参与到科技企业上市、并购重组等过程中。以上市为例，证券承销商既赚取金额较为稳定的佣金，又取得股票期权，当公司未来股价上涨时，承销商将从中获利，从而两者在利益上形成绑定。此外，金融集团并不满足于参与企业成长带来的收益，而是通过推动并购重组提高科技初创企业成为科技巨头的效率，而大型科技公司也希望通过收购小公司壮大自身势力、消灭潜在竞争者，两者的利益和行动具有一致性。

(4) The Marriage of Capital Power and Political Power

(四)资本权力同政治权力的联姻

“Capital is the all-dominating economic power of bourgeois society,” and “political power is merely the means for realizing economic interests,” but the “state power of capitalist countries is not concentrated in the hands of the entire bourgeoisie, but only in the hands of a small fraction of this class; this fraction is called the financial aristocracy in France, and in England it is called the bank magnates, the exchange magnates, the railway magnates, and so forth, or the financial magnates, as distinct from the industrial magnates.” [1]1 The first quotation is from Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*; the second is from Friedrich Engels, “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy”; the third is from Engels, “The Condition of the Working Class in England” (the specific phrasing is adapted from Marx’s *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*). Entering the era of the digital economy, technology giants have accelerated their rise; the interest groups formed by their alliance with financial oligarchs penetrate the political sphere to use political power to maintain the rentier mechanism, while capitalist political groups use the power of capital to maintain their own rule; together, they hijack the national interest.

“资本是资产阶级社会的支配一切的经济权力”,“政治权力不过是用来实现经济利益的手段”,但资本主义国家的“政权并不是集中在整个资产阶级手里，而只是集中在这一阶级的一小部分人手里，这部分人在法国称为金融贵族，在英国则叫作银行巨头、交易所巨头、铁路巨头如此等等或者叫作金融巨头，以区别于工业巨头”。进入数字经济时代，科技巨头加速崛起，它们与金融寡头联合形成的利益集团向政治领域渗透以借助政治权力维护食利机制，资本主义政治团体则借助资本力量维护自己的统治，两者共同绑架国家利益。

In the digital age, the combination of capital power and political power follows multiple paths. First, the artificial intelligence military-industrial complex. Taking the United States as an example, most of its information and communications, aerospace, and other technology industries are closely related to the military. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, cooperation between the U.S. Department of Defense and Silicon Valley technology companies in areas such as drones, satellites, and AI has continuously strengthened. A chain has now formed in which venture capital funds Silicon Valley startups, and Silicon Valley companies sell advanced technologies and products to the Department of Defense; the U.S. government also directly hires technology talent for important positions. Second, the money-media complex. Although developed capitalist countries represented by the United States proclaim “freedom of speech,” their media have long been controlled by a few interest groups. Interest groups control the media through capital, influence public opinion and popular behavior, and thereby affect elections; politicians use political power to formulate policies favoring specific interest groups, while the media earn political advertising fees. Although the emergence of mobile internet and social media platforms has changed the way information was transmitted in the past, digital media platforms can use big data and algorithms to push or delete certain information to manipulate public opinion. Third, the surveillance-industrial complex. Technology giants use network effects, technical standards, patent laws, and outdated barriers to entry to establish monopolistic digital kingdoms, achieving ubiquitous surveillance. They actively cooperate with government agencies in military, intelligence, and other fields, while intelligence departments and private contracting firms maintain a “revolving door” relationship. [2]2 “Revolving door” refers to the movement of personnel between roles as legislators, regulators, and the private sector, common in U.S. politics. Today, capitalist countries led by the United States use digital surveillance networks to collude capital power with political power, and under the banner of security, extend their surveillance tentacles worldwide, thereby controlling the global economic lifeline, disciplining popular behavior, and consolidating military hegemony.

数字时代资本权力同政治权力结合，存在多条路径：一是人工智能军工复合体。以美国为例，其信息通信、航空航天等科技产业大多数与军工有密切关系，随着人工智能的快速发展，美国国防部与硅谷科技企业在无人机、卫星、人工智能等领域的合作不断加强，目前已经形成风险投资注资硅谷初创企业、硅谷企业向国防部出售先进技术和产品的链条，美国政府也直接聘请科技人才担任重要职务。二是金钱媒体复合体。尽管以美国为代表的发达资本主义国家宣称“言论自由”,但其媒体早已被少数利益集团掌控。利益集团通过资本控制媒体，影响舆论走向和民众行为，进而影响选举，政客借助政治权力制定偏向于特定利益集团的政策，媒体则赚取政治广告费。虽然移动互联网和社交媒体平台的出现改变了过去的信息传递方式，但数字媒体平台可以利用大数据和算法来推送或删除某些信息，以达到操纵舆论的目的。三是监控工业复合体。科技巨头利用网络效应、技术标准、专利法律、过时的准入壁垒等建立起具有垄断性的数字王国，实现了无处不在的监控，它们同政府机构在军事、情报等方面积极展开合作，而情报部门和私人承包企业则是“旋转门”关系。当今以美国为首的资本主义国家，通过数字监控网络实现资本权力与政治权力的勾结，并且以安全为名将监控触手延伸至世界，从而掌控全球经济命脉、规训民众行为、巩固军事霸权。

“The state is the product of the irreconcilability of class contradictions.” “The state is an acknowledgment that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it is split into irreconcilable opposites which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these opposites, classes with conflicting economic interests, might not devour themselves and society in a futile struggle, a power seemingly standing above society became necessary, a power that would moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ‘order.’” [3]3 Quotation from V.I. Lenin, *The State and Revolution*, citing Friedrich Engels, *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State*. However, the marriage of capital power and political power in the digital age transforms the supervision, ideological orientation, and even military force controlled by the state from moderating conflicts into serving the interests of a few, manifesting as “the transfer and diffusion of power from the state to non-state actors.”

“国家是阶级矛盾不可调和的产物。”“国家是承认：这个社会陷入了不可解决的自我矛盾，分裂为不可调和的对立面而又无力摆脱这些对立面。而为了使这些对立面，这些经济利益互相冲突的阶级，不致在无谓的斗争中把自己和社会消灭，就需要有一种表面上凌驾于社会之上的力量，这种力量应当缓和冲突，把冲突保持在‘秩序’的范围以内。”然而，数字时代资本权力同政治权力的联姻，使国家所掌控的监督、意识形态导向，甚至武力，从缓和冲突转变为服务少数人的利益，表现为“权力从国家向非国家行为体的转移和扩散”。

III. The Internal Contradictions of Digital Rentier Capitalism

三、数字食利资本主义的内在矛盾

The development of digital rentier capitalism intensifies the deep-seated contradictions of capitalism that were concealed by prosperity, plunging developed capitalist countries into predicaments such as the solidification of social strata, restricted innovation, and social fragmentation. To escape these predicaments and maintain the long-term rentier mechanism, they wield political, economic, and military weapons to exert external pressure, attempting to shift contradictions globally.

数字食利资本主义的发展，激化了被繁荣掩盖的资本主义深层次矛盾，导致发达资本主义国家陷入社会阶层固化、创新受限、社会撕裂等困境，为摆脱困境、维护长期食利机制，它们手握政治、经济、军事武器向外部施压，试图将矛盾转嫁至全球。

(A) The contradiction between the socialization of production in the digital age and the capitalist private ownership of the means of production such as technology, platforms, and data

(一)数字时代生产的社会化与技术、平台、数据等生产资料资本主义私人占有之间的矛盾

In the digital age, the socialization of production is increasingly high. For example, the application of blockchain technology in manufacturing improves transparency and efficiency among various links, strengthening the distributed coordination of the entire production system; open-source software promotes cooperation in the field of innovation; the platform form of organization connects numerous producers and consumers; big data is taken from the people and used by society; the four links of social reproduction—production, exchange, distribution, and consumption—become increasingly dependent on these factors of production. However, under capitalist private ownership, the key means of production required for socialized production—platforms, technology, data, and so forth—are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. The use of these means of production is subordinated to the private interests of the rentier class, which is composed of a “technology-finance-politics” combine. The contradiction between these two aspects limits the innovative development of capitalism. On the one hand, although digital rents are conducive to incentivizing innovation and providing R&D funds for further innovation, for the few who control the key means of production in the digital age, it is better to build “small yards, high fences” [4]4 “Small yards, high fences” (小院高墙) is a term used in U.S. policy discourse to describe a strategy of restricting the flow of critical technologies to certain countries, particularly China, while maintaining broader scientific exchange. around existing innovations while curbing the technological innovation of other enterprises (especially those of other countries) than to rely on sustained investment for profit. At the same time, policymakers who depend on political donations from technology giants turn a blind eye to these behaviors. On the other hand, sustained innovation depends on the production process, but capital is not satisfied with realizing value through products; instead, it obtains financial profits through financial market operations, causing technological innovation to increasingly take a financialized path. As early as the 1990s, the explosion of information technology triggered a frenzy in the venture capital market. This irrational exuberance brought about by technological innovation ultimately ended with the bursting of the internet bubble in 2001. Currently, Silicon Valley and Wall Street are jointly telling a story of breakthroughs in artificial intelligence technology and capital leverage amplifying expected returns, deviating from the goal of innovative development.

在数字时代，生产的社会化程度越来越高。例如，区块链技术在制造业中的应用提高了各环节之间的透明度和效率，强化了整个生产制造系统的分布式协同；开源软件促进了创新领域的合作；平台组织形式为众多生产者、消费者建立连接；大数据取之于民，又由社会使用；生产、交换、分配和消费四个社会再生产环节对这些生产要素的依赖性不断增强。然而，在资本主义私有制下，社会化生产所需要的平台、技术、数据等关键生产资料，却日益集中在少数人手中，生产资料的运用服从由“科技—金融—政治”联合体构成的食利者阶层的私人利益。两者之间的矛盾限制了资本主义的创新发展。一方面，尽管数字租金有利于激励创新并为进一步创新提供研发资金，但对于掌握数字时代关键生产资料的少数人来说，与其依靠持续投入盈利，不如为已有的创新成果筑起“小院高墙”,同时遏制其他企业(特别是他国企业)科技创新。同时，依赖科技巨头政治捐款的政策制定者，又对这些行为放任不管。另一方面，持续创新依赖生产过程，但资本并不满足于依靠产品变现，而是通过金融市场运作获取金融利润，导致科技创新越来越走向金融化道路。早在20世纪90年代，信息技术的爆发就引发了风险投资市场的狂热，这场由科技创新带来的非理性繁荣最终以2001年互联网泡沫破裂的形式结束。当前硅谷和华尔街正在联手讲述一个人工智能技术突破和资本杠杆放大预期收益的故事，偏离了创新发展的目标。

Restricted innovation will threaten the monopoly position of technology giants in the digital sphere, and thereby threaten the interests of the entire rentier group. In response, developed capitalist countries implement de-globalization measures, attracting the return of manufacturing and curbing technological innovation in other countries. From the 1970s to around 2016, developed capitalist countries consistently promoted globalization strategies to transfer low-end manufacturing abroad, while focusing on high-income activities such as financial investment, technology R&D, and marketing. This globalization behavior was consistent with the rentier approach centered on financial speculation at the time. However, starting with the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016 and the U.S. advocacy for the return of manufacturing, the capitalist globalization strategy turned toward de-globalization. This shift is due both to the unemployment and wealth disparity caused by manufacturing outflow and the huge rentier system, which triggered resistance from ordinary people, and to the rapid rise of late-developing countries in technological innovation, which threatened the monopoly profits of transnational capital. To regain economic initiative, developed capitalist countries obstruct free trade through means such as raising tariffs, export restrictions, and withdrawing from international organizations and multilateral international agreements.

创新受限将威胁科技巨头在数字领域的垄断地位，进而威胁整个食利者集团的利益，对此，发达资本主义国家实施逆全球化行为，吸引制造业回流并遏制其他国家科技创新。从20世纪70年代到2016年左右，发达资本主义国家一直通过推行全球化战略来转移低端制造业，自己则专注于金融投资、技术研发、市场营销等高收入活动，这种全球化行为与当时以金融投机为核心的食利方式相契合。然而，从2016年英国“脱欧”公投、美国鼓吹制造业回流开始，资本主义全球化战略掉头向逆全球化转变。这种转变既是因为制造业外流和庞大食利体系造成的失业和贫富差距引发了普通民众的反抗，也是因为后发国家在科技创新上的迅速崛起威胁到了跨国资本的垄断利润。为重新掌控经济主动权，发达资本主义国家通过加增关税、出口限制、退出国际组织和多边国际协议等手段阻碍自由贸易。

(B) The contradiction between the expansion of production driven by digital technology and the reduction of the working people’s consumption capacity and the relative shrinkage of consumption time

(二)数字技术推动的生产扩张与劳动人民消费能力降低、消费时间相对缩小之间的矛盾

The rise of digital productive forces has not only promoted the intelligent coordination of the social division of labor, helping to reduce transaction costs, save circulation expenses, and shrink the scope of time and space, but has also driven profound changes in the various elements of the productive forces and their modes of combination and historical forms, expanded new applications of natural forces, and raised total factor productivity. However, alongside the expansion of production, the consumption capacity of the working people has declined, and the time available for consumption has relatively shrunk. On the one hand, workers are forced to adapt to the unstable, fragmented employment situation under the gig economy. In the past, having one job could support a livelihood; now, people need to take on multiple jobs just to make ends meet, leading to longer working hours and shorter leisure time. As the number of workers entering the gig market continues to increase, both time wages and piece wages decline correspondingly, and workers' incomes relatively decrease. On the other hand, the social stratum to which the working people belong is increasingly solidified, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and raising consumption levels has become more difficult. Although the development of the digital economy may increase opportunities for upward social mobility through channels such as online employment, online education, and financial investment services, rentier capitalism restricts class mobility through various means. For example, the gig economy weakens workers' bargaining power; the familialization of politics and growing inequality in educational resources, along with ideological reshaping, erode the public's awareness of class advancement. As Jodi Dean puts it, the majority constitute a lower class without property, surviving only by serving the needs of high-income earners.

数字生产力的崛起不仅推动了社会分工的智能化协调，有利于降低交易成本、节约流通费用、缩减时空范围，而且推动了生产力各要素及其组合方式和历史形态的深刻变化，拓展了自然力的新应用，提高了全要素生产率。但是，在生产扩张的同时，劳动人民消费能力降低、消费时间相对缩小。一方面，劳动者不得不适应零工经济下不稳定的、碎片化的就业形势。过去拥有一份工作就能支撑生活，如今需要从事多份工作才能糊口，导致工作时间延长、闲暇时间缩短。随着进入零工市场的劳动者不断增加，无论计时工资还是计件工资都随之下降，劳动者的收入相对减少。另一方面，劳动人民所处的社会阶层日益固化，贫富分化不断扩大，消费提升难度较大。尽管数字经济发展可能通过提供线上就业、在线教育、金融投资服务等途径增加阶层向上流动的机会，但食利性资本主义却通过各种途径制约了阶层跨越。例如，零工经济削弱了劳动者的议价能力，政治家族化发展、教育资源日益不平衡，意识形态重塑消解了民众的阶层跃升意识。正如约迪·迪安说的那样，多数人构成了一个没有财产的下层阶级，只有通过为高收入者的需求服务才能生存。

Faced with the sharp contradiction between production and consumption, the developed capitalist countries, represented by the United States, on the one hand provide massive subsidies and tax breaks to the technology industry while spending more effort on monitoring and controlling the marginalized底层 people, attempting to avoid a crisis of relative overproduction; on the other hand, they extend the scope of rent-seeking globally through digital colonization. The new colonial system now constructed by developed capitalist countries, centered on digital technology and digital platforms, differs from past territorial colonization and capital export. The new colonizers typically conceal the essence of plundering and controlling other countries' digital resources under the guise of providing digital products and services. As the developed capitalist countries' digital aid to underdeveloped countries enters the "harvesting" stage, these underdeveloped countries face high commissions and patent fees, as well as a nearly exhausted market for digital products. Furthermore, digital colonizers use big data surveillance and algorithmic control to precisely export their values and culture, clearing ideological obstacles for the global expansion of monopoly capital.

面对生产和消费之间的尖锐矛盾，以美国为代表的发达资本主义国家一方面为科技产业提供巨额补贴和税收优惠，同时花费更多精力来监视和控制被边缘化的底层人民，试图避免生产相对过剩危机；另一方面以数字殖民的方式将食利范围扩展至全球。当前发达资本主义国家以数字技术和数字平台为核心构建起的新殖民体系，不同于过去的领土殖民和资本输出。新殖民者通常以提供数字产品和服务的形式来掩盖掠夺和控制他国数字资源的实质。随着发达资本主义国家对欠发达国家的数字援助进入“收割”阶段，这些欠发达国家将面临高昂的佣金和专利费以及所剩无几的数字产品市场。此外，数字殖民者还通过大数据监视和算法控制，精准地输出其价值观和文化，为垄断资本在全球扩张扫清意识形态上的障碍。

(3) The contradiction between the organized operation of the rentier group and the anarchy of society as a whole

(三)食利者集团的有组织运营与整个社会无政府状态之间的矛盾

In capitalist society, the interest group composed of tech giants, financial monopolies, and politicians operates in an organized manner in areas such as technological R&D, industrial chain management, brand marketing, capital operations, and policy support, yet the anarchy of society as a whole is increasingly prominent. First, there is the anarchy of social production as a whole. The huge rent-seeking space in the digital field attracts a massive influx of capital, while traditional industries accelerate their decline, leading to large-scale unemployment. Second, there is the chaos of the superstructure. The movement of monopoly capital is not confined to digital technology, platforms, and finance but extends to medicine, the military, ideology, and other fields, subordinating people's dietary health, international relations, ethics and morality, and so forth, to the goal of capital accumulation. The symbiotic relationship between capital and politics allows interest groups to easily capture the state apparatus, forming systemic corruption. The anarchy of society as a whole leads to increasingly severe social fragmentation, with frequent social confrontations such as labor-capital conflicts, ethnic conflicts, and political conflicts. Past deindustrialization movements, cuts to social welfare, and today's digital technological changes have increasingly turned the Western working class into an abandoned group. They unite in spontaneous, non-organized ways to protest and challenge the existing social order. However, this social resistance has not yet formed a revolutionary counterforce; instead, labor-capital conflicts have been diverted into ethnic contradictions and gender issues. The public's discontent and the divergence of interests among political parties further evolve into political conflicts, leading to frequent government turnovers and policy swings.

在资本主义社会，由科技巨头、金融垄断、政客组成的利益集团，在技术研发、产业链管理、品牌营销、资本运作、政策支持等方面有组织地运营，但整个社会的无政府状态日益凸显。一是整个社会生产的无政府状态。数字领域的巨大食利空间吸引大量资本涌入，传统产业则加速衰退，导致大量工人失业。二是上层建筑的混乱。垄断资本的运动不是局限在数字技术、平台和金融领域，而是向医药、军事、意识形态等各个方面扩展，使人们的饮食健康、国际关系、伦理道德等从属于资本增殖目标。而资本和政治的共生关系，使利益集团轻松俘获国家机器，形成系统性腐败。整个社会的无政府状态导致社会撕裂日益严重，劳资冲突、族群冲突、政治冲突等社会对抗频发。过去的去工业化运动、削减社会福利和当今的数字技术变革，使西方工人阶级日益成为被抛弃的群体，他们以自发的、非组织化的方式联合起来抗议，挑战既有的社会秩序。然而，这种社会抗争尚未形成革命性的对抗力量，劳资冲突反而被转移到族群矛盾、性别问题上去，民众的不满情绪和党派之间的利益分歧又进一步演化为政治冲突，导致政府频繁换届、政策摇摆不定。

To divert public attention from their domestic social conflicts, developed capitalist countries internally influence public sentiment through media guidance, fabricating external threats, and so on, or channel social contradictions into partisan struggles to avoid direct protests against the government; externally, they intervene in other countries' politics, even launching military operations, blaming their domestic problems on other nations. Political intervention sometimes uses international organizations to exert diplomatic pressure on target countries, sometimes supports opposition factions or influences elections to control target countries' political situations, and sometimes operates through intelligence activities. Moreover, for countries that are "disobedient," they create regional tensions, incite military confrontations, provide weapons assistance, and impose military threats globally.

发达资本主义国家为转移公众对其国内社会冲突的关注，对内通过舆论引导、塑造外部威胁等方式影响公众情绪，或者通过将社会矛盾引向党派之争来避免直接针对政府的抗议；对外则干预他国政治，甚至发动军事行动，将其国内问题归咎于其他国家。政治干预有时借助国际组织对目标国施加外交压力，有时通过支持目标国反对派或影响选举来控制目标国政局，有时通过情报活动进行。此外，对于“不听话”的国家，它们还会制造地区紧张局势、煽动军事对抗、进行武器援助，对全球施加军事威胁。

The inherent contradictions of digital rentier capitalism and their external shifting have both torn apart the imperialist alliance and provoked resistance from a broad range of developing countries, shaking the world order formed after World War II. While the United States regards the European Union and Japan as allies, it also treats them as competitors, restricting their development in certain areas to maintain its absolute dominant position. For example, in the semiconductor field, the United States, in its full effort to suppress China's semiconductor industry, has restricted the export of key European technology and equipment, causing heavy losses to European enterprises. In the past, European tech companies were closely tied to the United States, but now, facing U.S. political pressure, Europe is beginning to explore an autonomous path amid the U.S.-Europe rift. Among developing countries, India, Indonesia, and others have enacted laws restricting cross-border data flows, requiring multinational tech companies to store data within their borders to prevent core resources of the digital economy from being possessed by other countries; Brazil, South Africa, and others are promoting the localization of digital technology, trying to reduce technological dependence on developed countries; many countries have also launched antitrust investigations into multinational tech giants.

数字食利资本主义内在矛盾及其外部转嫁，既撕裂了帝国主义联盟，又引起了广大发展中国家的反抗，冲击了第二次世界大战后形成的世界秩序。美国在将欧盟和日本视为盟友的同时，也将其视为竞争对手，通过限制它们在某些领域的发展来保持美国的绝对优势地位。例如，在芯片领域，美国为全力打压中国半导体，限制欧洲关键技术设备出口，导致欧洲企业损失惨重。过去，欧洲科技企业发展一直同美国紧密绑定，而当前面对美国的政治施压，欧洲开始在美欧裂痕中探寻自主之路。在发展中国家，印度、印度尼西亚等国已经制定相关法律限制数据跨境流动，要求跨国科技公司将数据存储在本国境内，防止数字经济的核心资源被他国占有；巴西、南非等国正在推动数字技术本地化，试图减少对发达国家的技术依赖；也有许多国家开始对跨国科技巨头展开反垄断调查。

4. Responses to and Transcendence of Digital Rentier Capitalism

四、数字食利资本主义的应对与超越

China has special advantages in responding to the shifting of contradictions by digital rentier capitalism and promoting the healthy development of the digital economy. First, at the institutional level, the basic socialist economic system determines that China's development of the digital economy is not, as in capitalist countries, for the private gain of a few, but rather "adheres to a people-centered approach, taking the enhancement of people's well-being and the promotion of people's comprehensive development as the starting point and ultimate goal of all work," fundamentally overcoming the drawbacks of creating and sustaining a huge rentier class under the logic of capital. Second, at the technological level, China is already globally leading in the R&D and commercial application of 5G technology, has achieved key breakthroughs in areas such as artificial intelligence and chips, and has made significant progress in big data storage, processing, and analysis, cloud infrastructure construction, and platform services. At the same time, China has the world's largest number of internet users and a complete digital industrial chain, having cultivated a large number of digital technology talents. These technological advantages enable China to unite with less developed countries to jointly combat digital colonization and resist digital hegemony. Therefore, China should fully leverage the advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and its status as a major digital economy, actively promote the joint construction of a digital community with a shared future, regulate and guide the healthy development of capital, and build new relations of production suited to the new mode of production.

中国在应对数字食利资本主义转嫁矛盾、推动数字经济健康发展方面具有特殊优势。一是在制度层面，社会主义基本经济制度决定了中国发展数字经济不是像资本主义国家那样为少数人谋取私利，而是“坚持以人民为中心，必须把增进人民福祉、促进人的全面发展作为一切工作的出发点和落脚点”,从根本上克服资本逻辑下制造和供养庞大食利者阶层的弊端。二是在技术层面，中国在5G技术研发和商用领域已经处于全球领先地位，在人工智能、芯片等领域取得关键突破，在大数据存储、处理和分析，云基础设施建设，平台服务等方面取得显著进展。同时，中国拥有全球最多的互联网用户和完整的数字产业链，培养了大量数字技术人才。这些技术优势使中国具备团结落后国家，共同对抗数字殖民、反抗数字霸权的能力。因此，中国应充分发挥中国特色社会主义制度和数字经济大国的优势，积极推动共建数字命运共同体，规范和引导资本健康发展，构建适应新型生产方式的新型生产关系。

First, strengthen international technical cooperation and governance coordination, and promote the joint construction of a digital community with a shared future. Digital technology, data, and platforms are the foundation for rentiers to accumulate wealth in the era of the digital economy. To counter the hegemonism and power politics of interest groups, the key is to break through technological monopolies. First, strengthen international cooperation in the construction of digital infrastructure such as 5G base stations, data centers, cloud computing centers, and smart cities, ensuring digital connectivity and resource sharing on a global scale. Digital infrastructure construction can not only provide a foundation for the research, development, and application of digital technology but also provide tools for cross-border trade and cooperation among co-building countries. Second, encourage joint research and development by multinational enterprises and scientific research institutions in cutting-edge technological fields such as internet communication technology, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, big data, and blockchain, breaking the monopolistic pricing of current digital technology alliances. Third, promote the formulation of international rules for the digital economy. Participating in the formulation of international rules is an important means of gaining discursive power, safeguarding external interests, and maintaining international fairness and justice. The current internet governance rules are dominated by a few countries and have been questioned by many countries in the process of implementation. In the emerging field of the digital economy, developing countries should actively and proactively participate in the formulation of international rules, promoting the establishment of a new, fairer, and more reasonable order for the digital economy.

首先，加强国际技术合作和治理协同，推动共建数字命运共同体。数字技术、数据和平台是数字经济时代食利者积累财富的基础，应对利益集团的霸权主义和强权政治，关键是要突破技术垄断。一是加强5G基站、数据中心、云计算中心、智慧城市等数字基础设施建设的国际合作，确保全球范围内的数字连接和资源共享。数字基础设施建设既能为数字技术研发和应用落地提供基础，也能为共建国家的跨境贸易和合作提供工具。二是鼓励跨国企业、科研机构在互联网通信技术、人工智能、半导体、大数据、区块链等前沿科技领域的联合研发，打破当前数字技术联盟的垄断性定价。三是推动数字经济国际规则制定。参与国际规则制定是掌握话语权、保障对外利益和维护国际公平正义的重要手段。现行的互联网治理规则由少数国家主导，在实施过程中已经受到了许多国家的质疑。在新兴的数字经济领域，广大发展中国家应积极主动地参与到国际规则的制定中来，推动建立更加公平合理的数字经济新秩序。

Second, regulate and guide the healthy development of capital, promoting a virtuous cycle of "technology-industry-finance." In the development of China's digital economy, the disorderly expansion of capital should be prevented, and the formation of a rentier economy should be avoided. First, strengthen supervision and governance in the fields of platforms and data, including optimizing anti-monopoly legislation, regulation, and law enforcement in related fields, and accelerating the confirmation of data rights, pricing, and trading. Second, leverage the advantages of a financial system dominated by state-owned financial institutions to mobilize idle social funds into the fields of technological innovation and industrial innovation, while achieving social sharing of financial returns, thereby improving income distribution and further stimulating innovation vitality. Third, set "red lights" for power and capital, focusing on investigating and punishing corrupt practices behind the disorderly expansion of capital and platform monopolies, and severing the ties between power and capital.

其次，规范和引导资本健康发展，推动“科技—产业—金融”良性循环。在中国数字经济发展中，应防止资本无序扩张，避免食利性经济的形成。一是加强平台和数据领域的监管和治理，包括优化相关领域反垄断立法、监管和执法，加快推进数据确权、定价和交易等。二是发挥以国有金融机构为主体的金融体系的优势，将社会闲散资金动员到科技创新、产业创新领域，同时实现金融收益的社会共享，从而改善收入分配，进一步激发创新活力。三是给权力和资本设“红灯”,着力查处资本无序扩张、平台垄断等背后的腐败行为，斩断权力与资本的勾连纽带。

Finally, construct new relations of production under the digital mode of production. First, improve the mechanism for protecting the rights of workers in the digital economy field, and construct new labor-capital relations. As the workforce in new forms of employment, such as food delivery workers, couriers, ride-hailing drivers, and online streamers, grows increasingly large, the reconstruction of labor relationship recognition standards should be promoted, and the sharing of responsibilities for old-age insurance, medical insurance, and occupational safety protection under new forms of labor relations should be explored. Second, clarify the ownership of new means of production. The system of ownership of the means of production is the core of the relations of production. To construct new relations of production, on the one hand, the ownership of data ownership, usage rights, and revenue rights should be clarified, both to meet the needs of the digital economy for utilizing data and to reasonably distribute data revenue; on the other hand, the division of responsibilities and obligations between platforms and product/service providers should be clarified, the platform revenue distribution mechanism should be optimized, and the standardized and healthy development of platforms and product/service business entities should be guided.

最后，构建数字生产方式下的新型生产关系。一是完善数字经济领域劳动者的权利保障机制，构建新型劳资关系。随着外卖员、快递员、网约车司机、网络主播等新就业形态劳动者队伍日益庞大，应推动劳动关系认定标准的重构，探索新型劳动关系下养老保险、医疗保险和职业安全保障的责任分担。二是明确新型生产资料的归属问题。生产资料的所有制问题是生产关系的核心。构建新型生产关系，一方面应明晰数据所有权、使用权和收益权的归属，既满足数字经济利用数据的需求，又合理分配数据收益；另一方面应明确平台和产品服务提供者的责任义务划分，优化平台收益分配机制，引导平台和产品服务经营主体规范健康发展。