A Study of the Relationship between Digital Capital and Financial Capital in the Digital Economy

With the continuous development of digital information technology, major changes have taken place in social production methods, lifestyles, and so forth. The importance of big data in the process of commodity production and sales is increasingly prominent. Non-standard forms of employment such as gig work and labor crowdsourcing have become the main forms of employment under the digital economy, and consumers’ purchasing and consumption behaviors are also mastered by digital platforms and serve the purpose of maximizing their profits. The main manifestation of capital under the digital economy is called digital capital. So, is digital capital a higher form of capital than financial capital? What is the relationship between digital capital and financial capital? Just as in the stage of financial capitalism financial capital replaced industrial capital, does digital capital replace financial capital under the digital economy? What exactly is new about the means of profit extraction driven by digital capital? Answering the above questions requires establishing a correct understanding of the essence of capital and the driving forces behind the development of capitalist production.

随着数字信息技术的不断发展，社会生产方式、生活方式等均发生重大变化，商品生产和销售过程中大数据的重要性日益凸显，零工、劳务众包等非稳定就业成为数字经济下的主要就业形式，消费者的购买和消费行为也被数字平台所掌握，并且服务于其追求最大利润这一目的。数字经济下资本的主要表现形态被称为数字资本。那么，数字资本是比金融资本更高级的资本形态吗?数字资本与金融资本之间是何关系?是否如同金融资本主义阶段金融资本对工业资本的取代一样，数字经济下数字资本是对金融资本的取代吗?数字资本所驱动的利润获取手段究竟新在哪里?对上述问题的回答，需建立在对资本本质的认识，以及对资本主义生产发展动力正确认识的基础上。

I. Review and Analysis of Views on the Substitution and Integration of Digital Capital and Financial Capital

一、数字资本与金融资本替代融合的相关观点梳理与辨析

At present, “a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is reshaping the global innovation landscape and restructuring the global economic structure.” [1]1 Quotation from a speech by Xi Jinping. See Xi Jinping, “Speech at the 20th Academician Conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 15th Academician Conference of the Chinese Academy of Engineering” (28 May 2021). “Developing the digital economy is of great significance; it is a strategic choice for seizing the opportunities of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation.” [2]2 Quotation from a speech by Xi Jinping. See Xi Jinping, “Speech at the 34th Collective Study Session of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee” (18 October 2021). Digital technology and the digital economy are the vanguard of the world’s scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. The digital revolution, like the industrial revolution of its time, has opened up vast space and possibilities for the development of productive forces. The digital economy is a new type of economic form following the agricultural economy and the industrial economy. It is an economic form with a higher technological level and efficiency, representing the trend of economic development. Therefore, some scholars refer to the current stage of capitalist development as “digital capitalism” and consider it a replacement for the previous stage of capitalist development. Is this, like the replacement of industrial capital by financial capital in the stage of financial capitalism, a case of digital capital replacing financial capital? What is the relationship between digital capital and financial capital? Currently, the academic community has conducted in-depth research and discussion on the above issues.

当前，“新一轮科技革命和产业变革正在重构全球创新版图、重塑全球经济结构”。“发展数字经济意义重大，是把握新一轮科技革命和产业变革新机遇的战略选择。”数字技术、数字经济是世界科技革命和产业变革的先机，数字革命如同当年的工业革命一样，为生产力的发展开辟了广阔的空间和可能，数字经济是继农业经济、工业经济之后的新型经济形态，是技术水平和效率更高的经济形态，代表了经济发展的趋势。因此，有学者将当前资本主义发展阶段称为“数字资本主义”,并认为这是对之前资本主义发展阶段的取代。这是否如同金融资本主义阶段金融资本对工业资本的取代一样，数字资本取代了金融资本?数字资本与金融资本之间是何关系?当前学界围绕上述问题展开了深入研究和探讨。

Currently, there are two main views in the academic community on the relationship between digital capital and financial capital. One view holds that digital capital is a replacement for financial capital. Scholars holding this view argue that the logic of financialization is increasingly insufficient to understand the central role of digital technology in economic and social life. The rise in status of companies such as Apple and Microsoft means that a process similar to the earlier reversal of power relations between financial capital and industrial capital has occurred: digital capital has already come to dominate all industrial capital and financial capital, occupying the apex of the pyramid of capital structure and acquiring the most advantageous dominant power. Digital capital is a new form of capital existence based on industrial capital and financial capital. By virtue of digital power and relying on internet companies or data platforms, digital capital has achieved effective regulation of the operational processes of industrial capital and financial capital. Digital capital is guiding a transformation of industrial capital and financial capital, until the concept of financial capitalism gradually recedes. The role of financial capital depends on its information function in the economy; with the emergence of data markets, the role of money will be replaced by data, and the capitalist economy is about to shift from financial capitalism to data capitalism.

当前学界关于数字资本和金融资本的关系主要有两种观点。一种观点认为，数字资本是对金融资本的取代。持该观点的学者认为，金融化的逻辑已越来越不足以理解数字技术在经济和社会生活中的核心作用。苹果、微软等公司地位上升，意味着发生了与之前金融资本和产业资本的权力关系翻转一样的过程，数字资本已经凌驾于所有的产业资本和金融资本之上，占据着资本结构金字塔的塔尖，取得了最具优势的主导权力。数字资本是一种基于产业资本和金融资本的新型资本存在形态，数字资本凭借数字权力、依托互联网公司或数据平台，实现了对产业资本和金融资本运作过程的有效调控，数字资本正引导着一场产业资本与金融资本的变革，直至金融资本主义概念逐渐隐退。金融资本的作用取决于它在经济中的信息功能；随着数据市场的出现，货币作用将被数据取代，资本主义经济即将从金融资本主义转向数据资本主义。

Another view holds that financial capital and digital capital are not mutually separate but are deeply integrated and mutually渗透. [3]3 The Chinese term 渗透 (shèntòu) literally means “to permeate” or “to infiltrate.” In Marxist political economy, it is used to describe the mutual interpenetration and blending of different forms of capital. This depends on the characteristics of digital capital. Digital capital is a kind of intermediary capital; it transforms previous offline capital into digital activities, and then transforms these activities into constituent links of digital capital. Digital capital is not an entity independent of economic, cultural, and social capital. Due to its ubiquitous nature, it is intertwined with various types of capital. It has composite characteristics and can be interwoven and integrated with real-world industrial capital, financial capital, technological capital, monopoly capital, and so forth. Therefore, the integration of digital capital and financial capital has become the greatest change in the current form of capital. The composite of financial capital and digital capital can utilize both the exchange medium advantages of financial capital and the productivity advantages of digital capital, achieving comprehensive penetration into all circulation links of society. This integration is specifically manifested in digital finance. Digital finance is a combination of internet enterprises and traditional financial institutions, realizing new models of financial services such as loans, deposits, payments, investment, and insurance through digital technology. This indicates that digital capital and financial capital have achieved integration in business models and technological innovation. Regarding the form of capital after integration, scholars holding this view have given different definitions. First, financial monetary capital: the technical characteristics of digital platforms allow a few monopolistic platform organizations to occupy most digital infrastructure. The emergence of payment platforms poses a direct challenge to traditional financial capital centered on banks. Large platforms can control financial monetary capital that previous monopolistic industrial organizations found difficult to fully integrate. Second, digital financial capital: in the digitalization stage, massive amounts of data replace the information function of money. Financial capital is presented in the form of data finance and combined with digital capital to form digital financial capital. Third, financial-digital capital: financial capital realizes the self-valorization of capital, expanding the logic of capital from the perspective of G. Digital capital allows the process of capital’s absorption of labor to break free from external conditions and expand infinitely, thus expanding the logic of capital from the perspective of W. The need for capital to pursue infinite self-valorization will inevitably tend to combine financial capital and digital capital, forming a kind of “financial-digital capital” that expands the logic of capital from both the G and W perspectives, enabling it to completely break free from various external constraints and tend toward the infinite valorization of capital. Fourth, the “digital-financial” complex: digital capital and financial capital are deeply integrated, jointly constituting a “digital-financial” complex. The “digital-financial” complex refers to giant companies that provide digital products and digital services by relying on new technologies and, on this basis, conduct large-scale financial business. This complex uses digital technologies (such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain, artificial intelligence, etc.) to provide digital products and services, and on this basis conducts large-scale financial business. The development of digital technology has promoted the innovation and transformation of financial business, while the intervention of financial capital has provided financial support for the research, development, and application of digital technology.

另一种观点认为，金融资本与数字资本之间不是相互割裂的关系，而是深度融合和相互渗透的。这取决于数字资本的特性，数字资本是一种中介资本，它在将以前的线下资本转化为数字活动，进而将这些活动转化为数字资本中的组成环节。数字资本不是一个独立于经济、文化和社会资本的实体。由于其无处不在的性质，它与各种类型的资本交织在一起。它具有复合型特点，能与现实中的产业资本、金融资本、技术资本、垄断资本等交相融合。因此，数字资本与金融资本的融合，就成为当前资本形态发生的最大变化。金融资本与数字资本的复合体既能利用金融资本的交换媒介优势，又能利用数字资本的生产力优势，实现对社会各流通环节的全面渗透。这种融合具体表现在数字金融(Digital Finance)上。数字金融是互联网企业与传统金融机构的结合，通过数字技术实现贷款、存款、支付、投资、保险等金融业务的新模式。这表明数字资本和金融资本在业务模式和技术创新上实现了融合。对于融合后的资本形态，持该观点的学者给出了不同的定义。一是金融货币资本：数字平台的技术特性使得少数几家垄断性平台组织占据大多数数字基础设施，支付平台的出现对以银行为核心的传统金融资本提出了直接挑战，大型平台可以控制以往垄断性产业组织难以完全实现一体化的金融货币资本。二是数字金融资本：数字化阶段，海量的数据代替了货币所具有的信息职能，金融资本以数据金融的形式加以呈现并与数字资本相结合，形成数字金融资本。三是金融-数字资本：金融资本实现了资本的自我增殖，从G的角度对资本逻辑进行了扩展，数字资本使资本对劳动的吸纳过程得以摆脱外在条件的限制而无限扩展，从而从W的角度对资本逻辑进行了扩展。资本追求无限自我增殖的需要必然会趋向于将金融资本和数字资本结合在一起，形成一种“金融-数字资本”,从G、W两个角度共同对资本逻辑进行扩展，使之能够全面摆脱各种外在条件的限制，而趋向于资本的无限增殖。四是“数字-金融”复合体：数字资本和金融资本深度融合，共同构成了“数字-金融”复合体。“数字-金融”复合体是指凭借新技术提供数字产品和数字服务，在此基础上开展大规模金融业务的巨头公司。这种复合体利用数字技术(如大数据、云计算、区块链、人工智能等)提供数字产品和服务，并在此基础上开展大规模的金融业务。数字技术的发展推动了金融业务的创新和转型，而金融资本的介入又为数字技术的研发和应用提供了资金支持。

Current academic discussions on the relationship between digital capital and financial capital have yielded fruitful results and laid the foundation for our deeper reflection. Analyzing the relationship between the two is not only an important theoretical issue but also a major practical issue concerning economic development and the historical process of human society. First, according to prevailing academic views, digital capital either replaces financial capital or merges with it; will it then be replaced in the future by other forms of capital? Second, the evolution of capital forms is fundamentally determined by the level of development of the productive forces, with technological progress being the key factor driving this evolution. The emergence of digital technology provides the material basis for the digital transformation of capital forms, but is technological drive the sole determining factor? Will capital forms adjust with the development of social technology? Finally, if digital capital replaces financial capital, or merges with it and occupies a dominant position, does Lenin’s theory of financial capital and his theory of imperialism still hold? The emergence of digital capitalism marks a new stage in the evolution of capital forms. This process both continues the general law of capital accumulation and exhibits new characteristics of the times. Issues such as the relationship between digital capital and financial capital, the technological and social conditions for the evolution of capital forms, and the contemporary applicability of Lenin’s theory of financial capital all require in-depth research and innovative development within the theoretical framework of Marxist political economy. In reality, digital capital has not replaced financial capital nor merged with it; on the contrary, current digital capital is the dominant capital form under the control of financial capital, serving as a tool and means for financial capital to strengthen profit extraction under new technological conditions. Only by accurately grasping the historical logic and actual characteristics of the evolution of capital forms can we better understand the new changes in contemporary capitalism and provide theoretical guidance for guiding and regulating the healthy development of capital and promoting high-quality development of the digital economy under the conditions of the socialist market economy.

当前学界对于数字资本和金融资本之间关系的讨论，成果丰硕且为我们的深入思考奠定了基础。对二者关系的分析不仅是一个重要的理论问题，更是关系经济发展和人类社会历史进程的重大现实问题。首先，按照当前学界观点，数字资本或取代金融资本，或与金融资本融合，那么它未来会不会被其他形态的资本取代?其次，资本形态的演进从根本上说是由生产力发展水平决定的，技术进步则是推动这一演进的关键因素。数字技术的出现为资本形态的数字化转型提供了物质基础，但技术驱动是唯一决定因素吗?资本形态会随社会技术发展进行调整吗?最后，如果说数字资本取代了金融资本，或是与金融资本融合并且占据主导地位，那么列宁的金融资本理论、帝国主义理论是否还成立?数字资本主义的出现标志着资本形态演进进入新阶段，这一过程既延续了资本积累的一般规律，又呈现出新的时代特征。数字资本与金融资本的关系、资本形态演进的技术社会条件以及列宁金融资本理论的当代适用性等问题，都需要在马克思主义政治经济学的理论框架下进行深入研究和创新性发展。实际上，数字资本并未取代金融资本或与其融合，相反，当前数字资本是金融资本控制下的主导资本形态，是金融资本在新的技术条件下强化利润获取的工具和手段。只有准确把握资本形态演进的历史逻辑和现实特征，才能更好地理解当代资本主义的新变化，为在社会主义市场经济条件下引导和规范资本健康发展、推动数字经济高质量发展提供理论指导。

II. The Logic and Reasons for the Formation of Digital Capital and Its Intervention in the Production Process

二、数字资本形成与介入生产过程的逻辑及原因

Digital capital is the core category of the digital economy. Digital capital seems to have transcended traditional material capital forms, reconstructing the logic of capital valorization and the structure of distribution through the commodification of data elements, the centralization of algorithmic power, and the monopolization of platform economies. From the perspective of a rigorous theoretical system of political economy, as some scholars have pointed out, the use of the term “digital capital” does not conform to the norms of political economy and also involves misunderstandings regarding the nature of digital platforms and data, as well as the mode of digital capital accumulation. However, because this concept, in the form of “digital + capital,” relatively succinctly indicates many new changes in the digital economy—such as inequality in the possession of big data as a key factor of production; the continued existence of labor-capital relations with new changes under new technological conditions; the control and utilization of data resources by digital platforms to analyze and process massive amounts of data, which not only optimizes production processes but also greatly enhances production efficiency and product added value; and the use of algorithms and platforms by digital platforms to achieve precise market forecasting and rapid response to demand, thereby promoting the circulation and consumption of goods and services—this article temporarily uses this concept to analyze its impacts. Digital capital is a form of capital that, in the process of the digitalization of productive forces and relations of production, incorporates new factors of production centered on data and information into the original production and service processes, guiding production and services to better meet consumer market demand, i.e., a form of capital that achieves value valorization through the application of digital technology.

数字资本是数字经济的核心范畴。数字资本似乎已超越传统物质资本形态，通过数据要素的商品化、算法权力的集中化与平台经济的垄断化，重构了资本增殖逻辑与分配结构。从严谨的政治经济学理论体系来讲，正如有学者指出的，“数字资本”这一范畴术语使用不符合政治经济学规范，还存在对数字平台和数据性质的误读、数字资本积累方式的误读等问题。但由于该概念以“数字+资本”的形式，相对简洁地表明了数字经济下的诸多新变化，如大数据作为关键生产要素的占有的不平等，劳资关系仍然存在且在新的技术条件下出现的新变化；通过对数据资源的掌控与利用，数字平台对海量数据进行分析与处理，不仅优化了生产流程，还极大地提升了生产效率与产品附加值；数字平台通过算法和平台，实现了对市场的精准预测和需求的快速响应，从而推动了商品和服务的流通与消费；等等。因此，本文暂用这一概念对其带来的影响进行分析。数字资本是在生产力和生产关系的数字化进程中，以数据和信息为核心的新生产要素加入原有生产与服务过程，引导生产和服务更加符合消费市场需求，即通过数字技术的运用实现价值增殖的资本形式。

Digital capital is a form of capital under new technology. Capital, as the starting point and end point of the capitalist mode of production and economic operation, possesses a dominating power over social production and circulation. According to Marx’s exposition, capital includes the following three dimensions: First, capital is value that brings surplus value. Capital is most intuitively manifested as a sum of money or assets; engaging in investment activities can bring profits to its owner. Second, capital is a movement. To obtain profit, capital must go through the processes of production and circulation. For example, industrial capital must go through three stages—purchase, production, and sale—transforming into three forms: money capital, productive capital, and commodity capital. “Value here becomes the subject of a process in which, while constantly assuming the forms of money and commodities, it changes its own magnitude, throws off surplus value from itself considered as original value.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 4, Section 1: “The General Formula for Capital.” (Penguin Classics, 1990, p. 255) Why does capital, as a process of movement, manifest itself as the static object of money? This is because “value … requires an independent form by means of which its identity with itself may be asserted. This form it possesses only in the shape of money. Hence money forms the starting-point and the conclusion of every process of valorization.” [5]5 Ibid., p. 256. “Value therefore now becomes value in process, money in process, and, as such, capital.” [6]6 Ibid., p. 256. Finally, the essence of capital is the capitalist relations of production embodied in things. “Capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society, which is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specific social character.” [7]7 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume III, Chapter 48: “The Trinity Formula.” (Penguin Classics, 1991, p. 953) As a historical category, capital is the relations of production, concealed by things, in which the owners of the conditions of production exploit the surplus value created by wage workers under the cover of equal exchange relations. Capital is value that brings surplus value; more precisely, capital is value that increases itself by appropriating the unpaid labor of workers. Only after capital has appropriated elements such as labor power, land, technology, and data can it manifest society’s productive forces as capital’s own productive forces, thereby presenting itself as a factor of production. Based on Marx’s exposition of the essence of capital, we can summarize the essence of digital capital from three levels.

数字资本是资本在新技术下的资本形态。资本作为资本主义生产方式及经济运行的起点和终点，对社会生产和流通具有支配性的力量。根据马克思的论述，资本包含以下三个维度：首先，资本是能够带来剩余价值的价值。资本最直观地表现为一笔货币或资产，进行投资活动便可能为其所有者带来利润。其次，资本是一种运动。为获取利润，资本必须经历生产和流通过程，如产业资本要经历购买、生产、出售三个阶段，转变为货币资本、生产资本和商品资本三种形态，“价值在这里已经成为一个过程的主体，在这个过程中，它不断地变换货币形式和商品形式，改变着自己的量，作为剩余价值同作为原价值的自身分出来”。为什么作为运动过程的资本表现为货币这个静止物，那是因为“价值……需要一个独立的形式，把它自身的同一性确定下来。它只有在货币上才具有这种形式。因此，货币是每个价值增殖过程的起点和终点”,“价值成了处于过程中的价值，成了处于过程中的货币，从而也就成了资本”。最后，资本的本质是体现在物上的资本主义生产关系。“资本不是物，而是一定的、社会的、属于一定历史社会形态的生产关系，后者体现在一个物上，并赋予这个物以独特的社会性质。”作为历史范畴，资本是物掩盖下的、生产条件所有者在平等买卖关系遮盖下剥削雇佣工人创造的剩余价值的生产关系。资本是能够带来剩余价值的价值，确切地说，资本是靠占有劳动者的无酬劳动使自己增殖的价值。资本只有在占有了劳动力、土地、技术、数据等要素之后，才能把社会的生产力表现为资本的生产力，从而把自己表现为生产要素。根据马克思对资本本质的论述，我们可以从三个层面来总结数字资本的本质。

First, from the perspective of the form of existence as a thing, digital capital is value that can utilize digital technology to bring surplus value. In *Capital*, Marx profoundly revealed that the essence of capital is value that brings surplus value. This classic thesis provides a theoretical foundation for our understanding of digital capital. Digital capital, through its full-process capabilities of data collection, mining, processing, storage, transmission, and analysis, achieves efficient allocation of information elements and value transformation. This transformation process not only continues the logic of valorization of traditional capital but also, through the enabling role of digital technology, significantly enhances the operational efficiency and value creation intensity of the economic system. Specifically, the valorization mechanism of digital capital is mainly manifested in: first, expanding the source of value creation through the deep development of data elements; second, improving the efficiency of value creation through the innovative application of digital technology; third, expanding the space for value creation by relying on the network effects of digital platforms. This new model of valorization is both an inheritance of the traditional mode of capital valorization and an innovative development of capital forms in the era of the digital economy.

第一，从物的存在形式来讲，数字资本是能够利用数字技术带来剩余价值的价值。马克思在《资本论》中深刻揭示了资本的本质是能够带来剩余价值的价值。这一经典论断为我们理解数字资本提供了理论基础。数字资本通过数据采集、挖掘、处理、存储、传输、分析等全流程能力，实现了对信息要素的高效配置与价值转化。这种转化过程不仅延续了传统资本的价值增殖逻辑，更通过数字技术的赋能作用，显著提升了经济系统的运行效率和价值创造强度。具体而言，数字资本的价值增殖机制主要体现在：其一，通过数据要素的深度开发，拓展了价值创造的源泉；其二，借助数字技术的创新应用，提升了价值创造的效率；其三，依托数字平台的网络效应，扩大了价值创造的空间。这种新型价值增殖模式，既是对传统资本增殖方式的继承，也是数字经济时代资本形态的创新性发展。

In the digital economy, digital capital achieves efficient utilization of information through capabilities such as data collection, mining, processing, management, control, storage, transmission, and analysis, thereby creating and appropriating surplus value. The core source of valorization for digital capital lies in enhancing the efficiency and intensity of the economic system through digital technology.

在数字经济中，数字资本通过数据的采集、挖掘、处理、管理、控制、存储、传输、分析等能力，实现对信息的高效利用，从而创造和获取剩余价值。数字资本的核心增殖来源是通过数字技术提升经济系统的效率和强度。

Second, digital capital is value in constant motion; it must pass through the circulation cycle of the digital industry and be invested in the processes of production and circulation before it can achieve valorization. First, digital capital, based on its control of “general data,” achieves effective regulation of the operational processes of industrial capital and financial capital through the reconstruction of digital power. This regulatory mechanism not only reduces the traditional risk of overproduction but also significantly improves the capacity to control investment risk. Second, by constructing a digital market system with information processing and transmission at its core, digital capital promotes a marked increase in the efficiency of commodity and service transactions. This efficiency gain is reflected both in the reduction of transaction costs and in the expansion of market scale. Finally, by continuously spawning new production sectors, digital capital opens up new space for valorization. This spatial expansion is manifested both in the digital transformation of traditional industries and in the vigorous development of emerging digital industries, thereby effectively alleviating the tendency for the general rate of profit to fall and promoting the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure.

第二，数字资本是处于不断运动中的价值，需要通过数字产业的循环周转，投入生产和流通过程才能获得价值增殖。首先，数字资本以“一般数据”的掌控为基础，通过数字权力的重构，实现了对产业资本和金融资本运作过程的有效调控。这种调控机制不仅降低了传统生产过剩风险，也显著改善了投资风险控制能力。其次，数字资本通过构建数字化市场体系，以信息处理与传递为核心，促进了商品和服务交易效率的显著提升。这种效率提升既体现在交易成本的降低，也反映在市场规模的扩展上。最后，数字资本通过不断催生新兴生产部门，为价值增殖开辟了新的空间。这种空间拓展既体现在传统产业的数字化转型上，也表现在新兴数字产业的蓬勃发展上，从而有效缓解了一般利润率下降的趋势，推动了产业结构的优化升级。

Digital capitalism, based on capitalists’ control of “general data” and the rise of digital power, achieves effective regulation of the operational processes of industrial capital and financial capital, reducing the risk of relative overproduction and the rate of investment risk. Digital capital gradually takes shape through the digital market, with the main characteristic of facilitating the realization of commodity or service transactions through information processing and transmission, thereby achieving valorization. In the digital economy, digital capital expands the space for valorization by continuously creating new production sectors, alleviating the fall in the general rate of profit, while simultaneously improving financing efficiency and promoting industrial expansion and upgrading.

数字资本主义以资本家对“一般数据”的掌控以及数字权力的崛起为基础，实现了对产业资本和金融资本运作过程的有效调控，降低了相对生产过剩风险与投资风险率。数字资本通过数字化市场逐渐形成，以信息处理与传递促成商品或服务交易实现为主要特征，从而实现价值的增殖。数字资本在数字经济中通过不断创造新生产部门以扩大价值增殖的空间，缓解一般利润率下降，同时提升融资效率，促进产业扩大升级。

Third, digital capital is essentially a relation of production formed under digital conditions through the privatization of data as a means of production, algorithmic control of the labor process, and platform monopolization of market exchange. By virtue of their control over digital technology, digital capitalists establish a position of dominance over digital laborers and data providers (consumers) in the digital labor process. This dominance is further reinforced through the deep application of algorithms, which both increases the degree of exploitation and intensifies the squeezing of consumer surplus. This attribute of digital capital as a relation of production manifests in the sphere of circulation as the expansion of platform monopoly advantages, and in the sphere of production as the penetration and reconstruction of traditional forms of capital. Owners of digital capital, through the collection and appropriation of digital means of production and the production and circulation of digital commodities, integrate the chain of valorization of digital capital accumulation into the capitalist economic production system. Relying on digital platforms and monopolizing digital technology, digital capitalists gratuitously appropriate the surplus value created by digital laborers, carrying out the production and accumulation of digital capital. Compared with original forms of capital, the new changes in digital capital are also reflected in the extension of the scope of exploitation from the “paid labor” of wage labor to the “unpaid labor” of non-wage labor, including digital workers and platform users. Through cloud computing, algorithms, and other data technologies, user information and behavior are transformed into data flows and information networks, achieving exploitation on a broader scale. By virtue of their mastery of digital technology, digital capitalists hold a dominant position over digital laborers and data providers, i.e., consumers, using algorithms to increase the degree of exploitation and squeeze consumer surplus, while simultaneously extending their monopoly advantages in the sphere of circulation into vertical monopolies that in turn control capital in the sphere of production.

第三，数字资本本质上是通过数据生产资料私有化、算法控制劳动过程、平台垄断市场交换而形成的数字化条件下的生产关系。数字资本家凭借对数字技术的掌控，在数字劳动过程中确立了相对于数字劳动者和数据提供者(消费者)的支配地位。这种支配关系通过算法的深度应用得到进一步强化，既提高了剥削程度，也加剧了对消费者剩余的挤压。数字资本的这种生产关系属性，在流通领域表现为平台垄断优势的扩张，在生产领域则体现为对传统资本形态的渗透与重构。数字资本所有者通过数字生产资料的采集占有、数字商品的生产流通，将数字资本积累的增殖链条融入资本主义经济生产体系。数字资本家依托数字平台、垄断数字技术，无偿占有数字劳动者创造的剩余价值，进行数字资本的生产与积累。数字资本相比原有资本形态而言，其新变化还表现在剥削范围从雇佣劳动的“有酬劳动”延伸到非雇佣劳动的“无酬劳动”领域，包括数字劳工和平台用户，通过云计算、算法等数据技术将用户信息、行为转化为数据流和信息网，实现更大范围的剥削。数字资本家凭借对数字技术的掌握，拥有对数字劳动者和数据提供者即消费者的优势地位，利用算法提高剥削程度、挤压消费者剩余，同时将其在流通领域的垄断优势扩展为垂直垄断，反过来控制生产领域的资本。

In summary, digital capital can be understood from three levels: as value that can bring surplus value, as value in motion, and as a relation of production. Viewed from the theoretical perspective of Marxist political economy, digital capital is an important manifestation of the evolution of capital forms in the era of the digital economy. In the digitalization process of productive forces and relations of production, new factors of production centered on data and information are deeply integrated into traditional production and service processes, achieving valorization through the innovative application of digital technology, and promoting production and services to more precisely meet the demands of the consumer market. The emergence of this new form of capital both embodies the historical evolutionary logic of capital forms and highlights the profound transformation of the mode of production brought about by the digital technology revolution.

综上所述，数字资本可以从其作为能够带来剩余价值的价值、作为一种处于运动中的价值以及作为一种生产关系三个层面来理解。从马克思主义政治经济学的理论视角审视，数字资本是数字经济时代资本形态演进的重要表现形式。在生产力与生产关系的数字化进程中，以数据和信息为核心的新生产要素深度融入传统生产与服务过程，通过数字技术的创新性运用实现价值增殖，推动生产和服务更加精准地对接消费市场需求。这一新型资本形态的出现，既体现了资本形态的历史演进逻辑，也彰显了数字技术革命对生产方式的深刻变革。

III. The Process of Financialization of Digital Capital and Its Impact

三、数字资本的金融化过程及其影响

In the process of digital technology reshaping the global economic structure, the relationship between digital capital and financial capital exhibits a profound dialectic: digital capital is not a new thing independent of the logic of traditional capital, but rather an advanced manifestation of financial capital evolving under the conditions of digital technology. Capital always seeks to break through the constraints of time and space to maximize valorization, and the network effects, data monopolies, and platform characteristics of digital technology precisely provide financial capital with new tools of exploitation and paths of accumulation. The life cycle of the platform economy—from initial incubation and savage growth to monopolistic consolidation—essentially maps the intention of financial capital to reconstruct the paradigm of capital accumulation through a technological shell. The commercial utilization of data promotes the production and realization of surplus value by industrial capital and enhances the ability of financial capital to extract surplus value. Through means such as algorithmic pricing, data rent, and traffic control, financial capital comprehensively commodifies user behavior, social relations, and even public space. This shift from “productive investment” to “rent extraction” indicates that platforms have not only become sites for the production of surplus value but also, by constructing digital infrastructure, incorporate the entire process of social reproduction into their system of profit extraction. What is worthy of vigilance is that financial capital, using tools such as digital currencies and algorithmic financial derivatives, transforms the monopoly advantages of the platform economy into a valuation game in the global capital market, revealing the deep logic of financial capital behind digital capital: through technologically empowered capital concentration, social wealth is transferred to a small number of financial oligarchs in a more concealed and polarized manner. This evolution of capital form has not transcended Marx’s diagnosis of the inherent contradictions of capital; on the contrary, with the support of digital technology, it pushes the antagonism between labor and capital to new dimensions such as “prosumer exploitation” and the “data proletariat.”

在数字技术重塑全球经济结构的进程中，数字资本与金融资本的关系呈现出深刻的辩证性：数字资本并非独立于传统资本逻辑之外的新生事物，而是金融资本在数字技术条件下演化出的高级表现形态。资本始终寻求突破时空限制以实现增殖最大化，而数字技术的网络效应、数据垄断与平台化特征，恰恰为金融资本提供了新的剥削工具与积累路径。平台经济的生命周期——从初创孵化、野蛮生长到垄断固化——本质上映射着金融资本通过技术外壳重构资本积累范式的意图。数据的商业利用促进了产业资本剩余价值生产和实现，提升了金融资本攫取剩余价值的能力。金融资本通过算法定价、数据租金、流量控制等手段，将用户行为、社会关系乃至公共空间全面商品化。这种从“生产性投资”向“租金抽取”的转变，表明平台不仅成为剩余价值生产的场所，更通过建构数字基础设施将整个社会再生产过程纳入其利润攫取体系。值得警惕的是，金融资本借助数字货币、算法金融衍生品等工具，将平台经济的垄断优势转化为全球资本市场的估值游戏，揭示出数字资本背后金融资本的深层逻辑：通过技术赋能的资本集中，将社会财富以更隐蔽、更极化的方式向少数金融寡头转移。这种资本形态的进化并未超越马克思对资本内在矛盾的诊断，反而在数字技术加持下将劳资对立推向“产消者剥削”“数据无产阶级”等新维度。

1. The Initial Stage of Platform Organization: Continuous Financing by Financial Capital Represented by Venture Capital

1.平台组织初创阶段：以风险资本为代表的金融资本的不断融资

Digital platform enterprises are considered companies with a “new economy enterprise model.” When this type of enterprise is in the stage of developing and trialing innovative applications, it has no or very little sales revenue, and its activities are funded by venture capital, requiring huge upfront investment. Financial capital, primarily venture capital, invests in digital platform enterprises based on the expectation that they will first attract enough users to occupy a monopoly position and then financialize their business to generate profits. Venture capital funds seek so-called “unicorn” companies, and the extremely high capital gains obtained from these companies can compensate for all other venture capital investments, while most other investments are unprofitable. The development of the digital economy is still based on finance; it is financial capital that has driven the rise and prosperity of the digital economy.

数字平台企业被认为是拥有“新经济企业模式”的公司,当这种类型企业处于开发创新和试用应用程序阶段时，没有或几乎没有销售额，而他们的活动是由风险资本资助的，前期投入巨大。以风险资本为主的金融资本投资于数字平台企业，其预期是基于这样一个假设：先吸引足够多的用户以便占据垄断地位，然后将其业务金融化以获利。风险投资基金寻找所谓“独角兽”公司，在这些公司获得的极高的资本收益能够补偿所有其他风险投资，而其他大多数投资都是不盈利的。数字经济的发展仍以金融为基础，是金融资本推动了数字经济的兴起和繁荣。

The leveraging effect of finance facilitates the transfer and dispersal of risk. By using financial financing to operate a larger sum of money than one’s own funds, money lenders can take on greater risks; even if they fail, the losses are borne jointly by all the owners of the funds. As the dominant business model under the revolution in information and communication technology, the digital platform economy relies heavily on a financialized accumulation regime. Taking Europe and the United States as examples, after the 1970s there existed an institutional complementarity between the intellectual property regime in the software and biotechnology industries and the increasingly important financial market; direct monetary incentives through the financial market helped increase the number of patents applied for by software companies. Although digital platform enterprises incur losses in the short term during their start-up phase, due to the existence of the network economy, venture capital creates an expectation of future monopoly rents for the winner or first mover. In the start-up phase of platform enterprises, finance capital, through instruments such as venture capital and private equity, pushes digital platforms onto a track of hyper-speed expansion with a model of “burning cash for market share.” The goal of venture capital funds is not to create value and profit, but to pursue future profitability, adopting a “grow first, profit later” model, increasing the market value of enterprises through high stock valuations, and selling their shares to larger companies, which will then use the data and their networks to create value.

金融的杠杆作用有利于转移和分散风险。利用金融融资运作比自有资金更多的货币额，货币贷款者就可以冒更大的风险，即使失败，损失由各个资金的所有者共同承担。作为信息通信技术革命下的主导商业模式，数字平台经济在很大程度上依赖于金融化的积累体制。以欧美为例，20世纪70年代后，软件和生物技术行业的知识产权制度与日益重要的金融市场之间，存在着制度上的互补性，通过金融市场的直接货币激励有助于增加软件公司申请的专利数量。尽管数字平台企业在初创阶段短期内产生亏损，但由于网络经济的存在，风险投资为赢家或先行者创造了一种未来垄断租金的预期。在平台企业初创阶段，金融资本通过风险投资、私募股权等工具，以“烧钱换市场”的模式将数字平台推入超速扩张轨道。风险投资基金的目标不是创造价值和利润，而是追求未来盈利能力，采取“先增长后盈利”的模式,通过股票高估值提高企业的市值，把他们的股票卖给更大的公司，更大的公司将利用这些数据和他们的网络来创造价值。

At a time when the digital economy is profoundly reshaping the form of capital, venture capital, as a contemporary form of finance capital pursuing profit maximization, increasingly needs to rely on the manifestation form of digital capital. This transformation takes the platform economy as its strategic carrier and relies on digital technology to reconstruct the path of value augmentation; its essence remains the concrete extension of the logic of capital into digital space. Through new means such as controlling data elements, monopolizing traffic gateways, and constructing ecological closed loops, digital capital continuously strengthens its capacity to capture augmentation, exhibiting characteristics of profit extraction more efficient than those of traditional finance capital.

在数字经济深刻重塑资本形态的当下，风险资本作为金融资本追求利润最大化的当代形态，越来越需要借助数字资本这种表现形态。这种转变以平台经济为战略载体，依托数字技术重构价值增殖路径，其本质仍是资本逻辑在数字空间的具象化延伸。通过控制数据要素、垄断流量入口、构建生态闭环等新手段，数字资本持续强化其增殖捕获能力，展现出比传统金融资本更高效的利润攫取特征。

Finance capital leverages network effects to construct asymmetrical competitive advantages, forming a system for producing surplus value specific to the digital era. In this process, technological breakthroughs such as artificial intelligence and big data are systematically restructured into tools for value augmentation; patent barriers and algorithmic black boxes become the institutional guarantees for the transformation of technological dividends into capital gains. More critically, by securitizing the enterprise growth cycle, capital breaks through the constraints of physical time and space, using valuation models to discount future expected returns into immediate gains, thereby achieving a temporal reconstruction of the value creation process.

金融资本借助网络效应构建非对称竞争优势，形成数字时代特有的超额剩余价值生产体系。在此过程中，人工智能、大数据等技术突破被系统性地重构为价值增殖工具，专利壁垒与算法黑箱成为技术红利向资本收益转化的制度性保障。更为关键的是，资本通过将企业成长周期证券化，突破物理时空限制，借助估值模型将未来预期收益贴现为即时利得，实现了价值创造过程的时间维度重构。

2. The stage of platform organization competition and development: digital platforms expand into finance capital business

2.平台组织竞争和发展阶段：数字平台拓展金融资本业务

Throughout the competition and development process of the platform economy, finance capital has always dominated changes in the market landscape through different means. In the start-up phase of platforms, finance capital provides substantial financial support to platform enterprises through venture capital and other means. Even when platforms suffer long-term losses, financial institutions continue to inject capital; this “cash-burning” or “blood-transfusion” support not only helps platforms survive but also, by controlling valuations and the pace of financing, permeates the entire digital ecosystem with the profit logic of finance capital. This capital selection intensifies the “Matthew effect”: leading head platforms, relying on the capital advantage obtained early on, use means such as price cuts and subsidies to suppress competitors, ultimately forming a cycle of “financing advantage—market monopoly—excess profit.” For instance, Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were, in essence, a concentration of market dominance through the elimination of competitive barriers.

在平台经济的竞争与发展过程中，金融资本始终通过不同方式主导着市场格局的变化。在平台初创阶段，金融资本通过风险投资等方式向平台企业提供大量资金支持。即使平台长期亏损，金融机构仍持续注资，这种“烧钱”或“输血式”扶持不仅帮助平台生存，还通过控制估值和融资节奏，将金融资本的盈利逻辑渗透到整个数字生态中。这种资本选择加剧了“马太效应”:领先的头部平台凭借先期获得的资金优势，通过降价补贴等手段打压竞争对手，最终形成“融资优势—市场垄断—超额利润”的循环。如Meta收购Instagram与WhatsApp, 其本质是通过消除竞争壁垒实现市场支配权的集中。

When platforms grow and become stronger, the mode of participation of finance capital becomes more complex. Large platforms not only use their accumulated user funds and cash flow to establish their own financial systems but also transform traditional financial services by leveraging the new resource of user behavioral data. This “embedded finance” model allows platform enterprises to break through the service scope of traditional banks, converting users’ daily behaviors into a source of financial profit through a complete chain from data collection and credit assessment to risk transfer.

当平台发展壮大后，金融资本的参与方式变得更加复杂。大型平台不仅利用积累的用户资金和现金流建立自己的金融体系，还通过用户行为数据这一新资源，改造传统金融服务。这种“嵌入式金融”模式让平台企业突破了传统银行的服务范围，通过数据收集、信用评估到风险转移的完整链条，将用户日常行为转化为金融利润来源。

The competition and cooperation between digital finance and traditional finance reveal deeper changes in capital relations. On the surface, digital technology improves the efficiency of financial services, for example by using artificial intelligence to optimize risk assessment and blockchain to accelerate transfer speeds. But in reality, once platforms possess comprehensive user data, the credit assessment power of traditional banks is gradually weakened, forcing them to become auxiliary service providers for the platforms. More noteworthy is that the so-called “decentralized” financial networks established by platforms through cross-border payment systems and digital currencies have, in essence, formed new monopoly centers. For example, cross-border payment tools launched by certain tech giants, while ostensibly breaking down national borders, are in fact constructing their own systems of financial power.

数字金融与传统金融的竞争与合作暴露了更深层的资本关系变化。表面上，数字技术提高了金融服务效率，比如用人工智能优化风险评估、用区块链加快转账速度。但实际上，当平台掌握用户全方位数据后，传统银行的信用评估权逐渐被削弱，被迫沦为平台的辅助服务商。更值得关注的是，平台通过跨境支付系统和数字货币建立的所谓“去中心化”金融网络，实质上形成了新的垄断中心。例如，某些科技巨头推出的跨境支付工具，表面上打破国界限制，实则在构建自己的金融权力体系。

The evolution of this capital form is essentially a digital upgrade of the way capital obtains profit. Finance capital leverages the internet to break through geographical limitations, while digital platforms turn user data into profit through financial means. The combination of the two forms a dual profit model of “digital + finance.” When financial services are embedded into everyday scenarios such as online shopping and social interaction, the flow of capital shifts from visible monetary transactions to value transfers hidden within data. This not only accelerates the digital transformation of finance capital but also signifies that capitalism is entering a new stage of using “digital + finance” means for dual exploitation.

这种资本形态的演变本质上是资本获取利润方式的数字化升级。金融资本借助互联网突破地域限制，数字平台则通过金融手段将用户数据变成利润。两者的结合形成了“数字+金融”的双重盈利模式。当金融服务被嵌入网购、社交等日常场景时，资本的流动从看得见的货币交易变成了隐藏在数据中的价值转移。这不仅加速了金融资本的数字化转型，更意味着资本主义正在进入用“数字+金融”手段进行双重剥削的新阶段。

3. The stage of platform monopoly: financialization of the platform economy

3.平台垄断阶段：平台经济金融化

When the platform economy enters the monopoly stage, its development trajectory exhibits a pronounced financialization turn. The financialization of the platform economy, as an accumulation mechanism of financialization, is one of the new changes in contemporary capitalist economy. Finance capital utilizes platform enterprises to integrate into the capital circuit; the financialization of the platform economy turns the platform economy into a tool for the augmentation of finance capital. This process not only reflects the deep-seated transformation of capital forms but also reveals the dominant position of finance capital in the era of the digital economy. Platform enterprises that occupy a dominant market position have transformed from pioneers of technological innovation into vehicles for the augmentation of finance capital—through the ultimate realization of capital gains via equity exit mechanisms, platforms essentially become value conversion hubs within the circulation system of finance capital. In this process, although digital capital accelerates its expansion under the guise of technological empowerment, its essence remains a digital tool for finance capital to realize excess profits; the core power structure of the capitalist accumulation system has not undergone fundamental change.

当平台经济迈入垄断阶段，其发展轨迹呈现出显著的金融化转向。平台经济金融化作为金融化的积累机制是当代资本主义经济的新变化之一。金融资本利用平台企业融入资本循环，平台经济金融化使平台经济成为金融资本增殖的工具。这一过程不仅折射出资本形态的深层嬗变，更揭示了金融资本在数字经济时代的支配性地位。占据市场主导地位的平台企业，已从技术创新的开拓者异化为金融资本增殖的载体——通过股权退出机制实现资本利得的终极兑现，平台实质上成为金融资本循环体系中的价值转换枢纽。在此过程中，数字资本虽以技术赋能为表象加速扩张，但其本质仍是金融资本实现超额利润的数字化工具，资本主义积累体系的核心权力结构并未发生根本性改变。

The formation of platform monopoly positions provides a structural foundation for financialization. When head platforms establish market barriers through data monopoly, ecological closed loops, and network effects, their business logic gradually shifts from user value creation to capital value extraction. The core characteristic of this stage is: platform enterprises, through financialization operations such as initial public offerings and equity transfers, convert the user scale, data assets, and market share accumulated over many years into quantifiable financial assets. In this process, platforms appear to be the subjects of value creation, but in reality they become the intermediate medium for finance capital to realize the G—W—G′ circuit—the massive funds injected early by venture capital are ultimately transferred to public investors through the secondary market, completing an institutional arbitrage of risk socialization and profit privatization.

平台垄断地位的形成为金融化提供了结构性基础。当头部平台通过数据垄断、生态闭环和网络效应建立起市场壁垒后，其商业逻辑逐渐从用户价值创造转向资本价值攫取。这一阶段的核心特征在于：平台企业通过首次公开募股、股权转让等金融化操作，将多年积累的用户规模、数据资产及市场份额转化为可量化的金融资产。在此过程中，平台看似是价值创造的主体，实则沦为金融资本实现G—W—G′循环的中间介质——风险资本早期注入的巨额资金，最终通过二级市场转嫁给公众投资者，完成风险社会化与收益私有化的制度性套利。

The penetration of finance capital into the platform economy exhibits a dual dimension: it both reconstructs digital technology into a new tool of exploitation and expands the boundaries of accumulation through financial innovation. On the one hand, artificial intelligence and big data analysis are no longer confined to the realm of technological optimization but have evolved into algorithmic weapons for finance capital to precisely capture surplus value. For example, hedge funds use machine learning to predict market fluctuations, and investment banks use natural language processing to analyze the sentiment of financial reports; the essence of these technological applications is to convert behavioral data deposited on platforms into excess returns in the financial market. On the other hand, the rise of blockchain financial products such as cryptocurrencies marks the opening by digital capital of a channel for value extraction parallel to the traditional financial system. By creating new types of financial assets, platform enterprises both evade traditional regulatory frameworks and construct a cross-sovereign, cross-entity capital flow network. The formation of this “technology-finance” complex is, in essence, a strategic choice by finance capital to break through geographical boundaries and policy constraints by donning a digital shell.

金融资本对平台经济的渗透呈现双重维度，它既将数字技术重构为新的剥削工具，又通过金融创新拓展积累边界。一方面，人工智能与大数据分析不再局限于技术优化范畴，而是演变为金融资本精准捕获剩余价值的算法武器。例如，对冲基金利用机器学习预测市场波动，投行借助自然语言处理解析财报情感倾向，这些技术应用的本质是将平台沉淀的行为数据转化为金融市场的超额收益。另一方面，加密货币等区块链金融产品的兴起，标志着数字资本开辟出平行于传统金融体系的价值攫取通道。平台企业通过创造新型金融资产类别，既规避了传统监管框架，又构建起跨主权、跨实体的资本流动网络。这种“技术-金融”复合体的形成，实质是金融资本借助数字外壳突破地理疆界与政策约束的战略选择。

The financialization process of contemporary capitalism reveals a brutal reality: the so-called technological revolution of the platform economy is merely a manifestation of financial capital’s reconstruction of the accumulation regime in the digital age. What beats beneath the technological innovation of platform enterprises is still the profit-seeking heart of financial capital. What financial capital accomplishes through the platform economy is not only an upgrade of the mode of accumulation but also an evolution of the mechanism of exploitation—data replaces machinery as the core means of production, algorithms replace the assembly line as the means of control, and the violence of capital valorization penetrates every capillary of digital society in a more concealed manner. The wave of financialization in the stage of platform monopoly fully demonstrates that the capitalist mode of production is merely a historical form of the movement of capital; even if cloaked in a digital guise, its essence of maximizing surplus value remains utterly unchanged.

当代资本主义的金融化进程揭示出一个残酷现实：平台经济所谓的技术革命，不过是金融资本在数字时代重构积累体制的表征，在平台企业技术创新的外壳下跳动的仍是金融资本的逐利心脏。金融资本通过平台经济完成的，不仅是积累方式的升级，更是剥削机制的进化——数据代替机器成为核心生产资料，算法取代流水线成为控制手段，资本增殖的暴力以更隐蔽的方式渗透进数字社会的每个毛细血管。平台垄断阶段的金融化浪潮，充分说明资本主义生产方式不过是资本运动的历史性形式，即便披上数字外衣，其追求剩余价值最大化的本质也毫无变化。

IV. Promoting the Healthy Development of the Digital Economy on the Basis of Clarifying the Relationship between Digital Capital and Financial Capital

四、在厘清数字资本与金融资本关系基础上推动数字经济健康发展

The structural transformation of total social capital has always been in a dialectical unity with technological progress. Digital capital, as a new manifestation of financial capital under the conditions of digital technology, is in essence the continuation and intensification of the logic of capital on a new technological carrier—that is, by constantly breaking through the boundaries of productive forces and restructuring relations of production, it seizes the maximum surplus value. From the transition from industrial capital to financial capital, and then to the reorganization of financial capital by digital capital, technological revolution has always played the role of catalyst in the evolution of capital forms: the steam engine liberated the space of production, the computer restructured the speed of circulation, and big data and algorithms have directly enabled capital valorization to break free from the constraints of physical matter, shifting toward the abstract appropriation of data flows, attention, and even social relations. In this process, financial capital, due to its high liquidity and self-valorizing characteristics, epitomizes the essence of capital’s pursuit of maximum profit. Through digital technology, it upgrades the traditional capital circuit formula of “money—commodity—money” (M—C—M′) into a new paradigm of “data—credit—data valorization” (D—C—D′), using the network effects of the platform economy to incorporate global users into real-time data collection systems, extending labor exploitation from the factory floor to every interactive node of the digital ecosystem. This technologically empowered evolution of capital forms not only accelerates the concentration of total social capital in the hands of a few digital-financial oligarchs but also, through tools such as algorithmic pricing and cross-border payment networks, pushes the contradictions of the capitalist accumulation system into a new dimension of global synchronous resonance.

社会总资本的结构性变革始终与技术进步存在辩证统一关系。数字资本作为金融资本在数字技术条件下的新表现形式，其本质仍是资本逻辑在新技术载体上的延续与强化，即通过不断突破生产力边界和重构生产关系，攫取最大化的剩余价值。从工业资本向金融资本的过渡，再到数字资本对金融资本的重组，技术革命始终扮演着资本形态演进的催化剂：蒸汽机解放了生产空间，计算机重构了流通速度，而大数据和算法则直接使资本增殖突破实体物质束缚，转向对数据流、注意力乃至社会关系的抽象化占有。在这一进程中，金融资本因其高度流动性与自我增殖特性，集中体现了资本追求利润最大化的本质。它通过数字技术将传统资本循环中的“货币—商品—货币”(G—W—G′)公式升级为“数据—信用—数据增殖”(D—C—D′)的新范式，利用平台经济的网络效应将全球用户纳入实时数据采集系统，使劳动剥削从工厂车间延伸至数字生态的每个交互节点。这种技术赋能的资本形态进化，不仅加速了社会总资本向少数数字-金融寡头的集中，更通过算法定价、跨境支付网络等工具，将资本主义积累体系的矛盾推向全球同频共振的新维度。

1. Digital Capital Becomes a New Means for Financial Capital to Obtain Profit under New Technological Conditions

1.数字资本成为金融资本在新技术条件下获取利润的新手段

In the era of the digital economy, financial capital remains the dominant form of capital. This is because only in the form of financial capital does capital completely shed the constraints of material form, obtain the maximum degree of autonomy and flexibility, and most fully manifest its nature of pursuing value valorization to the utmost. As Marx pointed out, “Money is the power of all powers.” [9]9 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 31, Section 2. The full passage discusses the role of money as the universal equivalent and its power in the process of primitive accumulation. In a commodity society, money, as the universal equivalent, abstracts all concrete labor into commensurable quantities of value. This abstraction makes money the ultimate yardstick for measuring, possessing, and dominating social wealth. “Money is the god among commodities,” [10]10 This is a paraphrase of a well-known expression from Marx’s early writings, notably in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, where he discusses the power of money as a “god” that mediates social relations. by transforming difference (concrete labor) into identity (abstract value), it thereby establishes universal dominion over the fruits of labor and social resources.

数字经济时代，金融资本仍然是主导性的资本形态。因为只有在金融资本这一形态上，资本才完全摆脱了物质形态的束缚，获得了最大限度的自主权和灵活性，才能最充分地表现出其最大限度追求价值增殖的本性。如马克思指出的，“货币是一切权力的权力”,在商品社会中，货币作为一般等价物，将一切具体劳动抽象为可通约的价值量。这种抽象化使货币成为衡量、占有和支配社会财富的终极尺度。“货币是商品中的上帝”,通过将差异性(具体劳动)转化为同一性(抽象价值),从而建立起对劳动成果和社会资源的普遍支配权。

Marx’s conclusion that “money is the power of all powers” was directed at the mode of production of the period of primitive accumulation of capital, which took land as the main means of production, because the form of capital that sheds material constraints the most and thus possesses the greatest liquidity and flexibility always occupies the core position in the structure of social capital. In the capitalist production system, this thesis provides a key clue for understanding the laws of capital movement today. During the period of industrial capitalism, monetary power was mainly manifested in the capitalist’s control over the production and distribution of surplus value by holding money capital to purchase means of production and labor power. At that time, money, as the starting point and end point of capital movement, had its power directly embodied within the factory walls. But as capitalism entered the stage of financial capital, monetary power began to break free from the constraints of the specific production process, generating virtual forms of self-valorization through the credit system and securitization instruments. Financial products such as stocks, bonds, and derivatives constructed a vast symbolic economy system, enabling monetary power to achieve geometric expansion in the global capital market in the forms of interest, dividends, and capital gains. The 2008 international financial crisis clearly exposed how this monetary power, detached from the real economy, devours society back; Wall Street packaged residential mortgages into financial derivatives through debt securitization, and monetary power had been alienated into a meat grinder for a minority to plunder social wealth.

马克思关于“货币是一切权力的权力”的结论是针对资本原始积累时期，以土地为主要生产资料的生产方式而言的，因为越是摆脱物质形态束缚而越具有流动性和灵活性的资本形态始终占据着社会资本结构的核心位置。在资本主义生产体系中，这一论断为当前理解资本运动规律提供了核心线索。工业资本主义时期，货币权力主要表现为资本家通过持有货币资本购买生产资料与劳动力，进而控制剩余价值的生产与分配。此时货币作为资本运动的起点和终点，其权力直接体现在工厂围墙之内。但随着资本主义进入金融资本阶段，货币权力开始脱离具体生产过程的束缚，通过信用体系、证券化工具衍生出自我增殖的虚拟形态。股票、债券、衍生品等金融产品构建起庞大的符号经济体系，使货币权力能够以利息、股息、资本利得等形式，在全球资本市场中实现几何级数扩张。2008年国际金融危机清晰暴露出这种脱离实体经济的货币权力如何反噬社会，华尔街通过债务证券化将居民房贷打包成金融衍生品，货币权力已异化为少数人掠夺社会财富的绞肉机。

The emergence of digital technology has opened up a new domain for monetary power. On the surface, digital tools such as online payments seem to weaken the physical form of traditional money, but in reality, through the accumulation of payment data, they extend the tentacles of monetary power into the capillary-like realm of social life. When users complete transactions on e-commerce platforms, they not only realize commodity exchange but also unconsciously contribute data resources such as consumption preferences and credit trajectories. Platform enterprises transform this data into digital credit assets, and then develop consumer credit products similar to “buy now, pay later.” At this point, monetary power has broken through the physical limits of traditional financial intermediation, forming a closed-loop system of “data collection—credit assessment—capital valorization.”

数字技术的出现为货币权力开辟了新的作用域。从表面上看，网络支付等数字工具似乎弱化了传统货币的实体形态，实则通过支付数据的积累，将货币权力的触角延伸至毛细血管般的社会生活领域。当用户在电商平台完成交易时，不仅实现了商品交换，更在无形中贡献了消费偏好、信用轨迹等数据资源。平台企业将这些数据转化为数字信用资产，进而发展出类似“先买后付”的消费信贷产品。此时货币权力已突破传统金融中介的物理限制，形成“数据采集—信用评估—资本增殖”的闭环系统。

Observed from the essential level, digital capital becoming a new means for financial capital to obtain profit under new technological conditions marks the completion of the transformation of monetary power from physical domination to virtual control, from geographical limitation to global flow, and from overt appropriation to covert penetration. The remuneration workers receive from taking orders on platforms, and the interest consumers generate from using credit payments, are all packaged by digital technology, making the realization process of monetary power more concealed and coercive. In the digital platform economy, workers both contribute digital labor gratuitously as data producers and fall into the debt cycle of consumer credit as consumers; investors complete the global allocation of capital in an instant through algorithmic trading, yet exacerbate the systemic risks of financial markets. This dual exploitation mechanism is precisely the latest manifestation of monetary power in the digital age—it is no longer satisfied with appropriating the worker’s surplus labor time, but seeks to capture the user’s entire life-cycle value.

从本质层面观察，数字资本成为金融资本在新技术条件下获取利润的新手段，标志着货币权力完成了从实体支配到虚拟控制、从地域局限到全球流动、从显性占有到隐性渗透的转型。劳动者在平台接单获得的报酬，消费者使用信用支付产生的利息，都在数字技术的包装下，使货币权力的实现过程更具隐蔽性和强制性。在数字平台经济中，劳动者既作为数据生产者无偿贡献数字劳动，又作为消费者陷入消费信贷的债务循环；投资者通过算法交易在瞬间完成资本全球配置，却加剧了金融市场的系统性风险。这种双重剥削机制，正是货币权力在数字时代的最新表现——它不再满足于占有工人的剩余劳动时间，更要捕获用户的全生命周期价值。

2. Regulating the Operation of Digital Capital and Promoting the Development of the Digital Economy on the Basis of Public Digital Capital

2.在公有数字资本的基础上规范数字资本运营并促进数字经济发展

The leap in productive forces brought about by the development of the digital economy has created realistic conditions for shortening socially necessary labor time and increasing time for free development.

数字经济发展所带来的生产力跃升，为缩短社会必要劳动时间、增加自由发展时间创造了现实条件。

However, the digital economy, as a new economic form under the conditions of digital technology, has not escaped the dominant logic of financial capital. Yet, the dual nature of digital capital determines that it may break through the traditional operational paradigm of financial capital: on the one hand, data, as a new type of means of production, possesses non-rivalry and shareability, forming an essential difference from the scarcity of traditional capital; on the other hand, the synergistic effect of digital networks objectively requires the socialized use of the means of production, which is in inherent contradiction with private monopoly.

但数字经济作为数字技术条件下的经济新形态，并未脱离金融资本的支配性逻辑。然而，数字资本的双重属性决定了其可能突破金融资本的传统运行范式：一方面，数据作为新型生产资料具有非竞争性和可共享性，与传统资本的稀缺性形成本质差异；另一方面，数字网络的协同效应客观上要求生产资料的社会化使用，这与私有垄断存在内在矛盾。

Under the conditions of the socialist market economy, the diversity of capital forms requires a dialectical handling of the duality of digital capital. Marx foresaw: “Capital itself is the contradiction in process, because it strives to reduce labor time to a minimum, while on the other hand it posits labor time as the sole measure and source of wealth.” [11]11 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, Notebook VII, “The Fragment on Machines.” The passage discusses the contradiction between capital’s drive to reduce labor time and its dependence on labor time as the measure of wealth. Digital technology makes this contradiction more acute: algorithmic optimization may both liberate labor and intensify labor control. The fundamental path to resolving this contradiction lies in establishing the dominant position of public digital capital. Public digital capital is not a simple exclusion of private capital, but rather, through changes in the ownership of the means of production, it makes the synergistic effects of digital technology serve the overall interests of society. For example, the public data open platforms and computing infrastructure established by the state, through reforms in rights confirmation, registration, and income distribution, incorporate the data factor into the reproduction process of socialist relations of production.

在社会主义市场经济条件下，资本形态的多样性要求辩证处理数字资本的二重性。马克思曾预见：“资本本身是处于过程中的矛盾，因为它竭力把劳动时间缩减到最低限度，另一方面又使劳动时间成为财富的唯一尺度和源泉。”数字技术使这一矛盾更加尖锐：算法优化既可能解放劳动，也可能强化劳动控制。破解这一矛盾的根本路径在于建立公有数字资本的主导地位。公有数字资本不是对私人资本的简单排斥，而是通过生产资料所有制变革，使数字技术的协同效应服务于社会整体利益。例如，国家建立的公共数据开放平台与算力基础设施，通过确权登记与收益分配改革，将数据要素纳入社会主义生产关系再生产过程。

To construct new relations of production compatible with public digital capital, institutional innovation needs to be realized from four dimensions: First, at the level of ownership, implement a structural separation of data means of production, with public data adhering to ownership by the whole people, enterprise data sharing benefits among contributors, and personal data strengthening the right to portability. This puts into practice Marx’s dialectical thought of “reconstructing individual ownership.” Second, at the level of circulation, establish a unified national data factor market, realize the scientific pricing of data through a measurement model of socially necessary labor time, and break the price manipulation of platform capital. Third, under the socialist market economy, there exist capitals of different ownership forms. At present, China has both state-owned capital and collective capital, as well as a large amount of non-public capital including private capital and foreign capital. These need to be distinguished in nature and clarified in positioning, so as to regulate and guide the healthy development of all types of capital. For private digital capital, it is necessary to set up “traffic lights” for its development, prevent the rampant growth and disorderly expansion of capital, and comprehensively enhance the effectiveness of capital governance. Fourth, at the level of distribution, establish a fund for the universal sharing of data value by the whole people, transform monopoly rents into resources for social reproduction, and lay the material foundation for the free and comprehensive development of the individual. When digital capital submits to the social rationality of public ownership, algorithms are no longer tools for extracting surplus value but become technical carriers for optimizing the distribution of total social labor time; data monopoly is no longer a means of polarizing wealth but is transformed into material conditions for shortening necessary labor time and expanding the space for free development. For it is only on the basis of the social possession of the means of production that technological progress can truly become the lever of human liberation.

构建与公有数字资本相适应的新型生产关系，需要从四个维度实现制度创新：其一，在所有权层面实行数据生产资料的结构性分置，公共数据坚持全民所有，企业数据实行贡献者共享收益，个人数据强化可携带权，这实践了马克思“重建个人所有制”的辩证思想。其二，在流通层面建立全国统一数据要素市场，通过社会必要劳动时间计量模型实现数据定价的科学化，破除平台资本的价格操纵。其三，社会主义市场经济下存在不同所有制的资本，当前我国既存在国有资本、集体资本，同时还有大量包括私人资本、外国资本在内的非公有资本，在性质上要区分，在定位上要明确，规范和引导各类资本健康发展。对于私有数字资本，需要为其发展设置“红绿灯”,防范资本野蛮生长与无序扩张，全面提升资本治理效能。其四，在分配层面建立数据价值全民共享基金，将垄断租金转化为社会再生产资源，为人的自由全面发展奠定物质基础。当数字资本服从于公有制的社会理性，算法就不再是榨取剩余价值的工具，而成为优化社会总劳动时间分配的技术载体；数据垄断也不再是极化财富的手段，而转化为缩短必要劳动时间、扩大自由发展空间的物质条件。因为只有在生产资料社会占有的基础上，技术进步才能真正成为人类解放的杠杆。

Author affiliation: School of Marxism, Tsinghua University

作者单位：清华大学马克思主义学院