The Spatial Production of Platform Capital and Its Limits

Since the economic crisis of 2008, economic models such as the “gig economy,” “sharing economy,” and “digital economy” have emerged. With the maturation and application of digital information technology, an economic model has arisen that constructs platform spaces based on digital infrastructure and applies them to economic activities. “By providing digital spaces for others to interact, platforms gain their own positioning.” Today, enterprises such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon have become core platforms dominating the online world. In fact, platform companies merely continue the tradition of capitalist spatial restructuring, attempting to construct a paradigm of virtual spatial production for capital. The spatial production of capital contains the dual implications of the production of space itself and the production of capital in space. Entering the digital age, the form of capital and its paradigm of spatial production have undergone tremendous transformation. Academia holds that platforms, which use digital hardware as infrastructure and employ data and algorithms to control markets and production labor, have established an operational mechanism for extracting surplus value. As a digitalized locus, the platform, by virtue of its hyper-spatial attributes, becomes a new type of field for economic activity, causing the digital labor process to assume an atomized state. However, as the field for the valorization of platform capital, the production process of platform space is concealed within a technological black box; the logical course of value production and circulation in the digital platform is hidden in the virtual world, and platform capital exhibits a developmental trend that transcends time and space. Platform capital intensifies the spatial strategy of digital exploitation, giving rise to social contradictions such as spatial imbalance and class polarization. To clarify the spatial accumulation mechanism of platform capital, it is necessary to further analyze why and how digital platform space is produced; what roles digital platform space plays in the valorization of capital; and whether the spatial production model of platform capital means that capital has permanently broken through spatial limits. Answering these questions requires dispelling the stereotypical view of space as merely a background for practical activities, and mapping the movement process of platform capital from the perspective of digital space.

2008年经济危机以来，诸如“零工经济”、“共享经济”、“数字经济”等经济模式兴起。伴随数字信息技术的成熟与应用，基于数字基础设施建构平台空间并将其应用于经济活动的经济模式出现。“通过为其他人提供数字空间进行交互，平台获得自己的定位。”如今，谷歌、脸书、亚马逊等企业已经变成主导网络世界的核心平台。事实上，平台公司只是延续了资本主义空间重组的传统，试图构建资本的虚拟空间生产范式。资本的空间生产蕴含空间本身的生产以及资本在空间中生产的双重意涵。进入数字时代，资本形态及其空间生产范式发生巨大变革。学界认为，以数字硬件为基础设施，利用数据和算法控制市场和生产劳动的平台，建立了攫取剩余价值的运行机制。平台作为一种数字化的场所，凭借超空间属性成为新型经济活动场域，致使数字劳动过程呈原子化状态。然而，作为平台资本增殖场域，平台空间的生产过程隐匿于技术黑箱，数字平台价值生产、流通的逻辑历程隐藏在虚拟世界，平台资本展现出超时空的发展态势。平台资本强化数字剥削的空间策略，催生出空间失衡、阶级分化的社会矛盾。明确平台资本的空间积累机制，需要进一步解析数字平台空间缘何以及如何被生产？数字平台空间在资本增殖中存在哪些作用？平台资本的空间生产模式是否意味着资本永久突破了空间限制？回答这些问题，需要祛除空间仅作为实践活动背景的刻板印象，从数字空间视角测绘平台资本的运动过程。

I. The Production of Platform Space: Capital’s Spatialization

一、平台空间的生产：资本空间化

Platform capital is a product of the historical evolution of the capitalist mode of production. In the post-industrial era, digital platforms rooted in the space of flows have undergone a capitalization transformation. Facing crises of capital accumulation, platform capital, endowed with spatial attributes, infinitely expands the space for value production and value circulation. Through the construction of virtual physical space and virtual social space, as well as their fusion with people’s psychological space, platform capital completes its spatial deployment.

平台资本是资本主义生产方式历史演变的产物。后工业时代，植根于流动空间的数字平台实现资本化转变。面对资本积累危机，具备空间属性的平台资本无限拓展价值生产与价值流通的空间。通过虚拟物理空间、虚拟社会空间的建构以及与人们心理空间的熔接，平台资本完成空间布展。

(1) The Historical Genesis of Platform Capital

（一）平台资本的历史生成

Changes in the social mode of production determine the form of capital and its paradigm of valorization. In Marx’s view, “Large-scale industry created the means of communication and the modern world market, controlled commerce, and turned all capital into industrial capital.” The surplus capital brought about by highly centralized industrial production provided an opportunity for the development of bank monopoly capital. In Lenin’s era, industrial capital transformed into bank capital and gradually came under its domination; financial capital, which could directly profit without participating in the production process, grew strong, and society witnessed “the turning point from the rule of general capital to the rule of financial capital.”

社会生产方式的变革决定着资本形态及其增殖范式。在马克思看来，“大工业创造了交通工具和现代的世界市场，控制了商业，把所有的资本都变为工业资本”。高度集中化的工业生产所带来的过剩资本，则为银行垄断资本的发展提供了契机。在列宁所处时代，产业资本向银行资本转化并逐渐受其支配，无需参与生产过程便可直接获利的金融资本壮大，社会迎来“从一般资本统治到金融资本统治的转折点”。

With the maturation and application of information technology, the capitalist mode of programmed production has been replaced by the “flexible production” model. “Production and consumption centers, along with their auxiliary local societies, are connected in a global network based on information flows.” The material organization that operates through flows—that is, the space of flows—supports the exchange and interaction of social actors within the economic, political, and symbolic structures of society, endowing social practices with a shared temporal character. This form of organization meets capital’s expectation of accelerating the velocity of circulation and shortening turnover time. Compared with financial capital, virtual capital detached from the gold standard quickly shed the constraints of geographical space and rapidly became the dominant form of capital. The elements of production and life circulated through virtual capital also moved toward digitalization, integrating into the space of flows in the form of codes. Castells argues that the material support of the space of flows includes electronic exchange circuits, network hub nodes, and spatial management organizations. The network interfaces, basic architecture, and foundational elements that constitute digital platforms are microcosms of these three types of elements. In other words, digital platforms are interactive nodes constituting the space of flows and are the hubs of the networked social structure. In essence, “platforms are digital infrastructures that enable two or more groups to interact,” and are ubiquitous intermediaries in society. Due to differences in elements and their modes of combination, platforms assume various forms. According to Srnicek’s classification, platforms include advertising platforms, cloud platforms, industrial platforms, product platforms, and lean platforms; together, these various platforms constitute the operational mechanism of the society of flows.

随着信息化技术的成熟与应用，资本主义程式化生产方式被“弹性生产”模式替代。“生产与消费中心及其辅助性的地方社会，被连接在一个以信息流动为基础的全球网络里。”通过流动而运作起来的物质组织即流动空间，支撑着社会经济、政治与象征结构中社会行动者的交换与互动，使社会实践在时间层面显现出共享性特征。这种组织形式符合资本加快流转速度、缩减周转时间的期望。相较于金融资本，脱离金本位的虚拟资本摆脱地理空间的限制，迅速成为主导资本。通过虚拟资本流通的生产生活要素也走向数字化，以符码的形态融入流动空间。卡斯特认为，流动空间的物质支持包括电子交换回路、网络中心节点、空间管理组织。构成数字平台的网络接口、基本架构、基石等核心要素也即以上三类要素的缩影。换言之，数字平台是构成流动空间的交互节点，是网络化社会结构的中枢。就其本质而言，“平台是数字化的基础设施，使两个或两个以上的群体能够进行互动”，是社会中无处不在的中介。因要素及结合方式的差异性，平台呈现出不同形态。根据斯尔尼塞克的划分，平台包括广告平台、云平台、工业平台、产品平台以及精益平台，各类平台共同构成流动社会的运作机制。

As bridges connecting social relations and social resources, digital platforms sustain the operation of the space of flows. Elements such as capital, information, technology, and commodities, mediated by the platform, circulate to producers, suppliers, consumers, service providers, and others. At the same time, these flowing elements become the source of profit for digital platforms. By providing content such as user information, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and transaction services, platforms gradually explore stable profit models. By combining with capital, digital platforms function as factors of production, exerting the valorization effect of platform capital and achieving capitalization. The platform economy has become an emerging mode of capital production, and digital platforms have become an important form of capital.

作为连接社会关系和社会资源的桥梁，数字平台维持着流动空间的运转。资本、信息、技术、商品等要素经过平台的中介，流转至生产者、供销商、消费者、服务提供者等处。与此同时，流动的要素成为数字平台的利润来源。平台通过提供用户信息、云计算、物联网、交易服务等内容，逐步探索出稳定的盈利模式。数字平台通过与资本结合，作为生产要素发挥平台的资本增殖效应，实现资本化的转变。平台经济成为新兴的资本生产方式，数字平台成为重要的资本构成。

(2) The Internal Logic of Platform Capital’s Spatial Expansion

（二）平台资本空间扩张的内在逻辑

In Harvey’s view, capitalism survives by appropriating space and integrating space into the logic of capital; the destruction and reconstruction of space can effectively solve the problem of absorbing surplus capital. However, the spatial implosion brought about by spatial production and the economic crises triggered by spatial fixes indicate that the mode of capital accumulation in industrial society has encountered spatial limits. Therefore, entering the post-industrial era, capitalism has turned its gaze toward digital space in order to once again continue the tradition of spatial restructuring.

在哈维看来，资本主义通过占有空间并将空间整合到资本的逻辑中得以存续，空间的毁灭与重造能够有效解决剩余资本吸收问题。但空间生产带来的空间内爆以及空间修复引发的经济危机，表明工业社会的资本积累方式遭遇了空间限制。因而，进入后工业时代，资本主义将视野转向数字空间，以再次延续空间重组传统。

Marx held that “capital is not a thing, but rather a definite, social, belonging to a definite historical social formation, relation of production, which is embodied in a thing and gives this thing a specific social character.” Platform capital, as a form of capital in the information society, is a unity of the means of production and social relations. In the sense of the means of production, the digital infrastructure constituting platform capital is an activity space that accommodates users in value production, commodity circulation, consumption, and entertainment; at the level of social relations, platform capital leverages the advantages of digital platforms’ connectivity and openness to construct an interactive ecosystem composed of multilateral users. Platform capital, as the builder of digital platforms, the provider of platform services, and the maker of operational rules, becomes the implementing subject of spatial restructuring in the post-industrial society.

马克思认为：“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。”平台资本作为信息化社会的资本形式，是生产资料与社会关系的统一。在生产资料意义上，构成平台资本的数字基础设施是容纳用户进行价值生产、商品流通、消费娱乐的活动空间；在社会关系层面，平台资本发挥数字平台连接性、开放性的优势，建构出由多边用户组成的交互生态系统。平台资本作为数字平台的搭建者、平台服务的提供者、运行规则的制定者，成为后工业社会空间重组的实施主体。

When, in the process of capital reproduction, the increment of living labor is lower than that of objectified labor, the ratio of surplus value to total capital decreases, i.e., the average rate of profit declines. The profit-driven nature of capital impels it to shift toward production sectors with higher profit rates, causing an imbalance in the proportions of production. Under conditions of a relative reduction in necessary labor and overproduction, insufficient consumption is difficult to avoid. Faced with crisis, platform capital gives rise to production-type and circulation-type economic models, achieving the continuation of capital accumulation through the reorganization of platform space. The spatial reorganization of platform capital is the process by which capital reconstructs spatial structures based on the need for valorization. For production-type platform companies, digital platforms (cloud platforms, industrial platforms) are the field of value production; the sources of platform profit include data with use value created by digital labor (advertising platforms) and rent paid by users who lease the platform for production. When the organic composition of the platform company remains stable, the total amount of digital labor and platform leasing is directly proportional to the profitability of capital. Hence, platform capital strives to expand the communicative space for collecting digital information and the production space for extracting the fruits of user labor. For circulation-type platforms, platform space is the virtual field for commodity circulation; the platform’s mode of profit is aggregated transactions (product platforms, lean platforms). By virtue of its ability to aggregate demand and restructure the market, the platform attempts to create an economy of scale in demand that surpasses that of the industrial era. To eliminate surplus commodities and fully allocate social resources, the platform needs to establish an exchange space and a service space covering target customers to facilitate transactions and collect intermediary fees. Thus, driven by the inherent logic of capital valorization, platform capital inevitably demands the construction of a digital space covering all residents, promoting the spatial accumulation of capital.

当资本再生产过程中，活劳动的增量低于物化劳动的增量时，剩余价值量与总资本的比值会降低，即平均利润率降低。资本逐利本质驱使其转向利润率较高的生产部门，造成生产比例失衡。在必要劳动相对减少与生产过剩的形势下，消费不足难以避免。面对危机，平台资本衍生出生产型与流通型的经济模式，通过平台空间的重组实现资本积累的延续。平台资本的空间重组是资本基于增殖需要再造空间结构的过程。对于生产型平台公司而言，数字平台（云平台、工业平台）是价值生产的场域，平台利润的来源包括数字劳动创造的具有使用价值的数据（广告平台）、用户租借平台进行生产所缴纳的租金。在平台公司有机构成保持稳定的情况下，数字劳动、租借平台的总量与资本盈利状况呈正比。因而平台资本竭力拓展收集数字信息的交往空间、抽取用户劳动成果的生产空间。对于流通型平台来说，平台空间是商品流通的虚拟场域，平台盈利的方式是聚合交易（产品平台、精益平台）。凭借聚合需求、重构交易市场的能力，平台试图创造出超越工业时代的需求规模经济。为了消灭过剩商品与充分配置社会资源，平台需要建立覆盖目标客户的交换空间、服务空间以促成交易，收取中介费用。可见，在资本增殖的内在驱动下，平台资本势必要求建构覆盖全体居民的数字空间，推动资本的空间积累。

(III) The Implementation Path of Platform Capital’s Spatialization

（三）平台资本空间化的实施路径

The production of space is a process of linking spatial structures and shaping spatial forms under the domination of capital; each historical stage of the mode of production corresponds to a different spatial configuration. “Each society…produces a space, its own space.” [1]1 Henri Lefebvre, *The Production of Space*, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 31. In the post-industrial era, capitalism, through post-Fordism, constructs a spatial structure separated from concrete space, enabling capital to accumulate flexibly within fluid space. After capital detaches from the fixed sites of production, digital platforms gradually become nodes of spatial growth.

空间的生产是资本支配下空间结构联结与空间形态塑造的过程，各个历史阶段的生产方式对应着不同的空间构型。“每一个社会……都生产出一个空间，它自身的空间。”后工业时代，资本主义通过后福特制构造出与具体空间分离的空间结构，使资本在流动的空间内弹性积累。数字平台在资本脱离生产的固定场所后，逐渐成为空间生长的节点。

Giddens argues that in pre-modern society, the spatial dimension was dominated by “presence,” while modern society “separates space from place.” [2]2 Anthony Giddens, *The Consequences of Modernity* (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 18. The primary precondition for this “absence”-based practical activity to occur is the construction of a virtual physical space based on network information technology. Harvey points out that the spatial facilities capital uses to overcome spatial barriers “sooner or later become barriers to be overcome” in new spatial integrations. [3]3 David Harvey, *The Condition of Postmodernity* (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 232. The contradiction in the identity shift of spatial facilities is mitigated in the information age. The virtual physical space generated by digital platforms becomes capitalism’s primary alternative to fixed space. Within the platform ecosystem, the electronic communication infrastructure that maintains high-speed information transmission shapes the pattern of virtual physical space; the orientations of real space are virtualized and redefined by the network. The buildings, currency, commodities, and even populations of geographic space are projected into virtual physical space in the form of symbols. The instantaneousness and convenience of data encoding and decoding blur the boundary between real space and virtual physical space.

吉登斯认为，前现代社会空间维度受到“在场”的支配，现代社会“把空间从地点分离了出来”。这种“缺场”的实践活动之所以能够发生，首要前提是基于网络信息技术构建虚拟物理空间。哈维指出，资本克服空间障碍的空间设施在新的空间整合中“迟早也会变成有待克服的壁垒”。空间设施身份转换矛盾在信息化时代得以缓和。数字平台生成的虚拟物理空间，成为资本主义替代固定空间的首要选择。在平台生态系统中，维持信息高速传输的电子通信设施构造了虚拟物理空间的格局，现实空间的方位被网络虚拟化、再定义。地理空间的建筑、货币、商品乃至人口以符号的形式被投射到虚拟物理空间中，数据编码、转码的瞬时性与便捷性模糊了现实空间与虚拟物理空间的界限。

Just as the city served as the core hub of social interaction in industrial society, the virtual physical space in which digital platforms operate is also the field where people establish relations of interaction in the information age. When users engage in social interaction through platforms, “social relations are ‘lifted out’ from the local contexts of interaction, and restructured across indefinite spans of time-space,” [4]4 Giddens, *The Consequences of Modernity*, 21. merging into virtual physical space. Space produces social relations, and social relations also produce space. As Lefebvre states, “social space, in itself, is both work and product—the materialization of ‘social being.’” [5]5 Lefebvre, *The Production of Space*, 101–102. Because the smart terminals connecting to the platform are controlled by users, this disembedded virtual social space exhibits significant self-organizing properties. In the unpredictable interactions of users detached from locality, virtual social space becomes abstract, universal, and unfamiliar, drawing those it touches into the platform’s institutional rules and operational systems.

如同工业社会中城市作为社会交往的核心枢纽，数字平台运作的虚拟物理空间也是信息时代人们建立交往关系的场域，数字居民的虚拟交互也拓展了平台的空间领地。用户通过平台进行社会交往时，“社会关系从彼此互动的地域性关联中，从通过对不确定的时间的无限穿越而被重构的关联中‘脱离出来’”，融合在虚拟物理空间之中。空间生产社会关系也被社会关系生产。正如列斐伏尔所言，“社会空间就其本身而言，既是作品又是产品——是‘社会存在’的物质化”。由于连结平台的智能终端由用户掌握，这种脱域的虚拟社会空间才具有显著的自组织性。在用户脱离地域、不可预测的交往中，虚拟社会空间走向抽象、普遍、陌生，将所触及的人卷入平台的制度规则与运转体系中。

When space becomes an abstract, supra-local, and universally meaningful concept, digital platforms participate in the reconstruction of social members’ psychological identification mechanisms, becoming a concomitant space for the production and life of digital residents. Giddens argues that most people’s “confidence in the constancy of the social and material environment of action…constitutes the basis of ontological security”; [6]6 Giddens, *The Consequences of Modernity*, 92. once entering the disembedding mechanism, this sense of security is lost. Faced with psychological threats, members of modern society develop psychological identification with institutional systems. Within the digitalized social space, the channel for obtaining institutional trust is gradually restricted to the platform. When information incorporating the platform’s operational rules is transmitted to social members, a modern psychological identification mechanism dependent on the platform is generated, and the platform accordingly becomes a trusted intermediary connecting virtual social space with the psychological space of social members. “Trust eliminates the sense of distance in time and space, and thus blocks various existential anxieties.” [7]7 Giddens, *The Consequences of Modernity*, 100. In fact, with the expansion of platform capital into virtual physical space, virtual social space, and psychological space, the virtual spatial paradigm of capital production is generated and diffused.

在空间成为抽象、超地域且具有普遍意义的概念时，数字平台参与了社会成员心理认同机制的重构，成为数字居民生产生活的伴生空间。吉登斯认为，大多数人对其“行动的社会与物质环境之恒常性所具有的信心……构成了本体性安全感的基础”，进入脱域机制这种安全感便会缺失。面对心理威胁时，现代社会成员建立起对制度体系的心理认同。在数字化的社会空间内，获得制度性信任的通道逐渐被限定为平台。融合平台运行规则的讯息传递至社会成员时，依赖平台的现代心理认同机制生成，平台随之成为连接虚拟社会空间与社会成员心理空间的可信中介。“信任消除了在时间和空间上的距离感，因此也阻断了种种存在性焦虑。”事实上，伴随平台资本在虚拟物理空间、虚拟社会空间以及心理空间的扩张，资本生产的虚拟空间范式生成、扩散。

II. The Production of Platform Capital: Spatial Capitalization

二、平台资本的生产：空间资本化

The result of platform capital’s spatialization is the capitalization of platform space, i.e., platform space becomes the space of capital production. This manifests as platform space as a means of production performing the functions of organizing labor and extracting ownership tribute, and maintaining the virtual spatial order in the form of spatial codes. The production process of platform capital is the unity of the spatial agglomeration of use value and the spatial condensation of value; at the same time, the standardized value commensuration of platform space ensures the global realization of platform capital. As the embodiment of platform capital, platform space, by virtue of its control over social relations of interaction, not only achieves formal subsumption of laborers and the fields they touch, but also, through socialized cooperation, attains real subsumption that appropriates the social collective force.

平台资本空间化的结果是平台空间资本化，即平台空间成为资本生产的空间。表现为生产资料的平台空间履行组织劳动与索取所有权贡赋的职责，并以空间符码的形态维持虚拟空间秩序。平台资本的生产过程是使用价值空间集聚与价值空间凝结的统一，同时平台空间标准化的价值通约也确保了平台资本的全球实现。作为平台资本的化身，平台空间凭借对社会交往关系的掌控，不仅形成针对劳动者及其触及场域的形式吸纳，而且借助社会化协作达到侵占社会集体力的实质吸纳。

(I) The Capital Attribute of Platform Space

（一）平台空间的资本属性

As the processual mechanism of platform capital’s spatialization, the production of platform space provides a pluralistic spatial system for the reproduction of platform capital. Platform space is the field where platform users engage in practical activities, including virtual physical space and virtual social space. Virtual physical space is composed of data, symbols, programs, algorithms, etc.; virtual social space is composed of digital relations of interaction; platform space is the virtual mapping of the real physical space and social interaction space touched by the digital platform. As the subject of capital’s spatial reorganization in the digital age, the digital platform, by formulating rules, issuing standards, and constructing technological barriers, disciplines platform space into a territory conforming to the logic of capital.

作为平台资本空间化的过程机制，平台空间的生产为平台资本再生产提供了多元的空间体系。平台空间是平台用户进行实践活动的场域，包括虚拟物理空间与虚拟社会空间。虚拟物理空间由数据、符号、程序、算法等构成，虚拟社会空间由数字交往关系构成，平台空间则是数字平台所触及的现实物理空间及社会交往空间的虚拟映射。作为数字时代资本空间重组的主体，数字平台通过制定规则、发行标准、构筑技术壁垒等方式，将平台空间规制成符合资本逻辑的领地。

Like spatial commodities such as land, factories, and offices, the platform’s virtual physical space is a site for storing, processing, and transporting data. “Although as a product that is used and consumed, it is also a means of production: the networks of exchange and circulation of raw materials and energy shape space and are shaped by space.” [8]8 Lefebvre, *The Production of Space*, 85. In the digital age, virtual physical space, in the form of a commodity, integrates into the digital production system, becoming a “digital factory” for processing commodities. Laborers, means of production, and objects of labor need not be concentrated in the same real space to process the objects of labor, realizing the virtualization of production organization relations. After digital commodities enter the circulation sphere and are sold, platform space becomes a space that yields money. Through the production and circulation of digital commodities, platform space manifests its material attributes and functional utility, and completes its mission as a spatial commodity of value valorization.

如同土地、厂房、办公室等形式的空间商品，平台的虚拟物理空间是存储、加工、运输数据的场所。“尽管作为一种被使用、被消费的产品，但它也是一种生产资料：原料、能源交换与流通的网络塑造了空间并被空间所决定。”在数字时代，虚拟物理空间以商品形态融入数字化生产体系，成为加工商品的“数字厂房”。劳动者、生产资料、劳动对象等无需集中在同一现实空间，便可对劳动对象进行加工，实现生产组织关系的虚拟场景化。在数字商品进入流通领域出售后，平台空间变成产出货币的空间。经历数字商品生产、流通，平台空间会显现其物质属性与功能效用，并完成其作为空间商品价值增殖的使命。

In the business model of platform companies, besides direct sales, a more widespread form is the leasing of virtual physical space to obtain spatial ground rent. Compared with physical space, virtual physical space exhibits characteristics of limitlessness and replicability, effectively reducing geographical spatial costs. Platform owners lease virtual physical space, and platform users pay rent. In this model, virtual physical space participates in production as a resource factor. Analyzed according to Marx’s theory of ground rent, the root of virtual spatial ground rent is capital’s employment of labor; in essence, it is a product of the redistribution of surplus profit and a form of existence of surplus value. In the activity where virtual physical space participates in material production as a factor of production, there is an implicit ownership relationship of the platform company over virtual physical space. The relations of production prescribed by platform capital dominate virtual physical space; platform space is a special form of platform capital.

在平台公司的业务模式中，除了直接出售，更为广泛的形式是出租虚拟物理空间以获取空间地租。相较于实体空间，虚拟物理空间表现出无限性与可复制性的特点，能够有效降低地理空间成本。平台所有者出租虚拟物理空间，平台用户缴纳租金。在这种模式中，虚拟物理空间作为资源要素参与生产。按照马克思地租理论分析，虚拟空间地租的根源是资本雇佣劳动，本质上是超额利润再分配的产物，是剩余价值的存在形式。在虚拟物理空间作为生产要素参与物质生产的活动中，隐含着平台公司对虚拟物理空间的所有权关系。平台资本所规定的生产关系主导虚拟物理空间，平台空间是平台资本的特殊形态。

The orderly operation of platform space is inseparable from the spatial codes conceived by capital. As Lefebvre said, representations of space are “tied to the relations of production and to the ‘order’ that those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to ‘frontal’ relations.” [9]9 Henri Lefebvre, *The Production of Space*, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 33. The technical discourse, complex rules, and exclusive standards that pervade virtual physical space constitute “a system of linguistic signs.” On this basis, space conveys “the norms and values of capitalist society, and above all the values of exchange and commodities, that is, fetishism.” [10]10 Ibid., 44. Under the guise of technical logic, platforms employ these rule systems as a form of knowledge-based power, producing and issuing discourse that commands platform users, thereby controlling the operation and maintenance of virtual space. Platform space, as a curtain transmitting capital’s intentions, conceals the logic of capital within the transcendence of space, striving to obscure the virtual spatial paradigm produced by capital.

平台空间的有序运行，离不开资本构思的空间符码。如列斐伏尔所说，空间的表象“与生产关系以及这些关系所强加的‘秩序’捆绑在一起，从而也与知识，与符号、代码，以及种种‘台前的’关系捆绑在一起”。虚拟物理空间充斥的技术话语、复杂规则、独家标准，是“一种语言符号的体系”。在此基础上，空间传达“资本主义社会的准则和价值观，而且首先是交换和商品的价值观，也就是拜物教”。平台在技术逻辑的掩盖下将这些规则体系作为一种知识性的权力，生产、发布指挥平台用户的话语，控制着虚拟空间的运维。平台空间作为传递资本意图的幕布，将资本逻辑隐藏在空间超越性之中，力图掩盖资本生产的虚拟空间范式。

(2) The Spatial Schema of the Platform Capital Production Process

（二）平台资本生产过程的空间图示

“Space is a fundamental element in all production and all human activity.” [11]11 Marx, *Capital*, vol. 2, in *Marx/Engels Collected Works*, vol. 36 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1997), 207. Entering the digital age, digital platforms use digital technology to encode and translate factors of production, constructing a mechanism for the aggregation and dispersal of elements centered on virtual space. They utilize algorithms to efficiently allocate and transmit means of production, forming a model of collaborative production and instantaneous transformation in virtual space. Digital commodities complete the commensuration of value within a virtual space that covers the globe, while platform space is the configuration for the production and circulation of digital commodities.

“空间是一切生产和一切人类活动的要素。”进入数字时代，数字平台通过数字技术编码转译生产要素，构建以虚拟空间为核心的要素聚合、离散机制，利用算法高效配置、传输生产资料，形成协同生产、瞬时转换的虚拟空间生产模式。数字商品在覆盖全球的虚拟空间中完成价值通约，而平台空间则是数字商品生产、流通的构型。

The general production process of digital commodities is the unity of the spatial agglomeration of use-value and the spatial condensation of value. Compared with the traditional “centralized” production model, platforms operate a “distributed” production model centered on virtual physical space. In the process of agglomerating the use-value of digital products, platform space interacts with laborers through smart terminals. Laborers take data as their object of labor, treat programs as machines, and process digital materials within virtual physical space. Benefiting from the information sharing and instantaneous transmission of virtual physical space, laborers dispersed across various geographical spaces can collaborate in labor, completing the synchronous transformation of the production process through the real-time transfer of digital semi-finished products. In the concrete labor process, the use-values of elements such as smart terminals, programs, networks, data, and workspace are concentrated in digital semi-finished products. The digital output of individual laborers is transmitted via smart terminals to virtual physical space, where it is integrated by algorithms to form digital products, generating use-values that meet the needs of digital practice.

数字商品的一般生产过程是使用价值空间集聚与价值空间凝结的统一。相较于传统“集中式”生产模式，平台运行的是以虚拟物理空间为核心的“分布式”生产方式。在数字产品使用价值集聚的流程中，平台空间通过智能终端与劳动者交互，劳动者以数据为劳动对象，将程序当作机器，加工虚拟物理空间中的数字材料。得益于虚拟物理空间的信息共享与瞬时传输，分散于各个地理空间的劳动者能够协同劳动，在数字半成品的即时传递中完成生产流程的同步转换。具体劳动过程中，智能终端、程序、网络、数据、工作空间等要素的使用价值集中于数字半成品中。单位劳动者的数字化产出通过智能终端传输至虚拟物理空间，经过算法整合形成数字产品，生成符合数字实践需要的使用价值。

In the process of creating and transferring the value of digital commodities, virtual social space is a prerequisite for stripping away the qualitative characteristics of digital labor. Based on the hyper-spatiality and shareability of virtual physical space, when the production process of a unit digital commodity is decomposed and distributed to different laborers, an abstract, homogeneous social production space is simultaneously generated. Unlike the differentiated spaces of concrete labor, abstract labor and the value it creates exist within virtual social space. In virtual social space, laborers from various regions lose the individual characteristics of their concrete spaces and are abstracted into homogeneous subjects of digital labor. “Many workers cooperate in the same production process, or in different but interconnected production processes,” [12]12 Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, in *Marx/Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1996), 329. transferring the value of means of production and endowing digital semi-finished products with new value. The value output of individual laborers is attached to digital semi-finished products; after transmission through virtual space and value synthesis, digital commodities possessing both use-value and value are born.

在数字产品价值创造、转移过程中，虚拟社会空间是数字劳动剥离质性特征的前提条件。基于虚拟物理空间的超空间性与共享性，单位数字产品的生产流程被分解、分发给不同劳动者时，抽象、同质的社会生产空间同步生成。不同于具体劳动的差异性空间，抽象劳动及其创造的价值存在于虚拟社会空间之中。在虚拟社会空间中，各个地域的劳动者失去具体空间的个性特征，被抽象成同质的数字劳动主体。“许多人在同一生产过程中，或在不同的但互相联系的生产过程中”，转移生产资料价值，赋予数字半成品新的价值。单位劳动者的价值产出附着于数字半成品，经过虚拟空间传输与价值合成，兼具使用价值与价值的数字商品诞生。

As Marx emphasized in *Capital*, the products of concrete labor are incommensurable due to differences in their use-values, but after being converted into a uniform unit, they become commensurable. The coverage scope and standardized transaction model of platform space provide favorable conditions for the realization of exchange-value. Generally, exchange-value varies due to factors such as the geographical location, social structure, and technological culture of the exchange space, thereby affecting the proportion, scale, and efficiency of exchange. Compared with physical space, virtual social space, by eliminating differences in exchange spaces, greatly enhances the efficiency of commodity exchange. The virtual social space constructed by platforms breaks the temporal and spatial constraints of exchange, uses unified standards to eliminate differences between different transaction spaces, and ensures that the commensuration of digital commodity value proceeds on a global scale. Through the spatial production and circulation of digital commodities, platform capital completes its valorization within virtual space.

如同马克思在《资本论》中所强调的，具体劳动产物因其使用价值差异具有不可通约性，在转化为同一单位后又具有通约性。平台空间的覆盖范围与标准化交易模式为交换价值实现提供了良好条件。一般而言，交换价值因交换空间地理位置、社会结构、科技文化等因素产生差异，进而影响交换比例、规模、效率。相较于现实空间，虚拟社会空间因消除了交换空间的差异性，商品交换效率极大提升。平台所构建的虚拟社会空间打破了交换的时空限制，利用统一标准消除了不同交易空间的差别，确保数字商品的价值通约在全球范围内进行。历经数字商品的空间生产、流通，平台资本在虚拟空间内完成增殖。

(3) The Spatial Subsumption of Platform Capital

（三）平台资本的空间吸纳

The spatial production model constructed by platform capital not only formally subsumes the labor process under platform capital but also transforms this process, endowing the mode of production itself with a new form. In this model, the virtual space brought by digital platforms and its embedding in real social space cause the relational structure of labor production to expand from the partial to the social whole, and the formal subsumption of labor under capital’s domination extends to the real subsumption of society.

平台资本所构建的空间生产方式，不仅在形式上使劳动过程从属于平台资本，而且改变了这个过程，赋予生产方式本身以新的形式。在此模式中，数字平台带来的虚拟空间及其在现实社会空间中的嵌入，导致劳动生产的关系结构由局部拓展至社会整体，资本统治下对劳动的形式吸纳扩展到对社会的实质吸纳。

Benefiting from the spatial deployment of information networks, digital laborers can project their workspace into any physical space through smart terminals—that is, platform capital achieves the infinite extension of accumulation space. The penetration of platform space into living space and public space alters the mode of laborers’ presence and the way labor surveillance is conducted, establishing a form of formal subsumption oriented toward daily life. Compared with traditional production sites, the virtual space of platforms can overcome the fragmentation of labor organization caused by geographical distance. However, when laborers connect their workspace to living space, the boundary between labor time and leisure time is actually blurred, and labor time is extended due to the expansion of the workspace. The virtual space embedded with algorithmic surveillance enforces platform capital’s coercive relationship over digital labor, monitoring laborers through elements such as labor operations, trajectories, and time, enticing them to engage in labor at an intensity that exceeds the limits of the body. “Capital’s energy, greed, and efficiency far surpass all previous production systems based on direct forced labor.” [13]13 Ibid., 325. More importantly, the phenomenon of capitalists occupying the means of production and dominating laborers is transforming into laborers bringing their own means of production to cooperate with capital’s valorization. In the process where the capital production model shifts from the physical to the virtual, family space or public space is incorporated into the production process of platform capital, transformed into the capitalist’s means of production, and its value is transferred without compensation into digital commodities. Platform space becomes a subsumptive space that exploits laborers and the fields they touch.

受益于信息网络的空间布展，数字劳动者通过智能终端即可将工作空间投射到任意现实空间，即平台资本实现了积累空间的无限延伸。平台空间对生活空间、公共空间的渗透，改变了劳动者的在场模式与劳动监视的开展方式，建立了一种面向日常生活的形式吸纳。相较于传统的生产场所，平台的虚拟空间能够克服因地理空间距离造成的劳动组织断裂。但劳动者将工作空间接入生活空间，实际模糊了劳动时间与休闲时间的界限，劳动时间因工作空间的延展而延长。嵌入算法监控的虚拟空间执行着平台资本对数字劳动的强制关系，通过劳动操作、轨迹、时间等要素监测劳动者，引诱其以超出身体限制的强度从事劳动。“资本在精力、贪婪和效率方面，远远超过了以往一切以直接强制劳动为基础的生产制度”。更为重要的是，资本家占据生产资料支配劳动者的现象，正转变成劳动者自带生产资料配合资本的增殖。资本生产模式从现实转向虚拟的过程中，家庭空间抑或公共空间被纳入平台资本的生产过程，转变为资本家的生产资料，其价值被无偿转移至数字商品中。平台空间变成剥削劳动者及其触及场域的吸纳空间。

The socialized collaborative model of platform space endows digital labor and the means of production with a socialized character, forming a real subsumption that appropriates the social collective force. The platformization of production and daily life manifests, in the form of social production, as a mode of virtual collaborative labor established by laborers on the basis of digital platforms. Platforms decompose complex labor into simple labor and allocate it within platform space, eliminating individual differences in labor to a certain extent and causing it to exhibit the character of socially average labor. Virtual spatial collaboration “creates a productive force that is itself a collective force” [14]14 Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 13, on cooperation., and the value it generates is locked within the platform company. In the use of the means of production, the virtual projection and algorithmic allocation of platforms have unprecedentedly increased the scale of production factors integrated into the labor process and the number of people who jointly use them. “This saving in the use of the means of production arises only from their being consumed in common in the labor process of many persons” [15]15 Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 13, on the collective consumption of means of production.. The virtual collaborative form endows digital labor factors with a socialized character, driving savings in the means of production and thereby reducing the total labor expenditure in the production process of digital commodities. In summary, all social relations—not only labor—tend to be subsumed by capital. Platforms grasp the mechanism for generating social relations and integrate modes of social connection into the production process of platform capital, forming a paradigm of capital subsumption that utilizes social interaction.

平台空间的社会化协作模式，赋予数字劳动及生产资料社会化属性，形成侵占社会集体力的实质吸纳。生产生活的平台空间化，在社会生产形式上表现为劳动者基于数字平台建立虚拟协作劳动模式。平台将复杂劳动拆分成简单劳动并分配到平台空间，在一定程度上消除了劳动的个人差别，使之呈现出社会平均劳动的性质。虚拟空间协作“创造了一种生产力，这种生产力本身必然是集体力”，它所生成的价值被封锁在平台公司。在生产资料的使用上，平台的虚拟投射与算法配置使得融入劳动过程的生产要素规模与共同使用人数空前提升。“生产资料使用方面的这种节约，只是由于许多人在劳动过程中共同消费它们。”虚拟协作形式赋予数字劳动要素社会化属性，带动生产资料的节约，因而降低了数字商品生产过程中总劳动的耗费。概言之，所有社会关系，不仅仅是劳动，都存在被资本吸纳的趋势。平台掌握了社会关系生成机理，并将社会连接的方式融入平台资本的生产过程，形成了利用社会交往的资本吸纳范式。

III. The Production of Contradictions: The Spatial Limits of Platform Capital

三、矛盾的生产：平台资本的空间限度

The process by which platform capital breaks through spatial restrictions is also the process of spreading capitalist contradictions. Although digital platforms use virtual space to dissolve the spatial factors of capital’s inherent limits, the gap between real space and virtual space also constitutes a new spatial limit for platform capital. In fact, with the universalization of platform space, the space of capital accumulation faces isomorphic contradictions, triggering a stagnation of capital’s spatial displacement and a differentiation of digital space. At the same time, the mechanism of value-production subjugation constructed by platform capital on the basis of virtual spatial discipline continuously intensifies its overall plunder of society, approaching the boundary of virtual space’s implosion.

平台资本破除空间限制的过程，也即扩散资本主义矛盾的历程。尽管数字平台利用虚拟空间化解了资本自在限制的空间因素，但现实空间与虚拟空间的落差也构成了平台资本新的空间限制。事实上，随着平台空间的普遍化，资本积累空间面临着同构矛盾，引发了资本空间置换停滞以及数字空间分异等问题。与此同时，平台资本基于虚拟空间规训构建的价值生产役使机制，不断加重着对社会的总体性掠夺，逼近着虚拟空间内爆的边界。

(1) From the Virtual to the Real: Spatial Factors in the Endogenous Limits of Platform Capital

（一）虚拟到现实：平台资本内生界限的空间因素

The historical evolution of capital manifests as a dialectical unity of self-determination and self-negation. “For each such limit contradicts the character of capital’s mission, so that capital’s production moves in contradictions which are constantly overcome but just as constantly posited” [16]16 Marx, *Grundrisse*, Notebook V, on the contradictions of capital’s mission.. As a form of capital that preserves the nature of capital while transcending its traditional form, the digital platform cannot escape the fate of capital.

资本的历史演变表现为自我规定与自我否定的辩证统一。“因为每一个这样的限制都是同资本的使命相矛盾的，所以资本的生产是在矛盾中运动的，这些矛盾不断地被克服，但又不断地产生出来。”数字平台作为保持资本性质、超脱传统形式的资本形态，无法摆脱资本的宿命。

Marx points out that the inherent limits of capital include the following levels: first, necessary labor is the limit of the exchange value of living labor capacity; second, surplus value is the limit of surplus labor time; third, exchange value is the limit of production; fourth, exchange value is the limit of the production of use value. This indicates that capital faces contradictions between guaranteeing necessary labor time and shortening it, between increasing surplus labor and the finitude of surplus labor, between overproduction and underconsumption, and between strong demand and inefficient supply. The contradictions of capital accumulation contain spatial elements. At the level of value production, there are limits to the quantity of natural space and to the improvement of efficiency in the use of labor space; at the level of value circulation, there are limits to the territorial space of capital flow and to the technological reduction of circulation time. As a form of capital in the digital age, platform capital not only establishes a virtual production field, optimizing production processes based on algorithms, but also expands the virtual site of commodity circulation, reducing commodity circulation time to a minimum.

马克思指出，资本内在的限制包括以下层面：其一，必要劳动是活劳动能力的交换价值的界限；其二，剩余价值是剩余劳动时间的界限；其三，交换价值是生产的界限；其四，交换价值是使用价值生产的界限。这即说明资本面临保障必要劳动时间与缩短必要劳动时间、增加剩余劳动与剩余劳动有限、生产过量与消费不足、需求旺盛与供给低效的矛盾。资本积累矛盾蕴含着空间要素。在价值生产层面，自然空间数量与劳动空间使用效率提升存在限制；在价值流通层面，资本流动的领土空间与流动时间的技术缩减存在限度。作为数字时代的资本形态，平台资本不但建立虚拟生产场域，基于算法优化生产流程，而且扩张商品流通的虚拟场所，把商品流动时间缩减至最低限度。

Although digital platforms construct a paradigm of capital accumulation that transcends time and space, virtual space, which is grounded in real space, cannot break through capital’s endogenous limits. First, the contradiction between the infinity of virtual space and the finitude of real space restricts the expansion of the scale of labor. Platform capital’s production takes place in the virtual field, but the means of labor, objects of labor, and the subsistence elements of laborers all come from real space. The finitude of resources in real space implies that production in virtual space has a maximum value. Second, the disparity between the instantaneity of virtual space and the sluggishness of real space constrains improvements in the efficiency of digital spatial production and circulation. Digital platforms can immediately establish a socialized collaborative model through algorithms, but due to differences in labor force, technology, and organizational levels, the synergistic optimization of real production efficiency requires a longer time. Similarly, commodities circulated in platform space are virtual projections of real commodities, and the time lag between digital transactions and the delivery of real commodities creates a gap in capital flow. Third, the conflict between the comprehensiveness of virtual space and the limitations of real space constitutes a dilemma for value realization. Platform space encompasses almost all factors, and the transaction space covers the globe, but the groups with effective consumption capacity and their purchasing power in reality are fixed. Due to the discrepancy between supplied commodities and consumers’ real needs, the predicament of commodity circulation is instead amplified. Thus, the virtual space of platform capital reshapes the mode of value production and circulation, but it cannot completely escape the constraints of real space; the endogenous limits of capital accumulation remain embedded in digital platforms. In fact, with the spatial expansion of platform capital and the accumulation of capital in platform space, the spatial contradictions of digital society instead become more extreme.

数字平台虽建构出超时空的资本积累范式，但立足于现实空间的虚拟空间并不能突破资本内生限制。首先，虚拟空间无限性与现实空间有限性的矛盾，限制劳动规模扩张。平台资本的生产在虚拟场域进行，但劳动资料、劳动对象以及劳动者生存要素等则来自现实空间。现实空间资源的有限性意味着虚拟空间生产存在极值。其次，虚拟空间即时性与现实空间迟缓性的差异，制约数字空间生产、流通效率的提升。数字平台通过算法能够立刻建立社会化协作模式，但因劳动力、科技、组织水平的差异，现实生产效率的协同优化需要较久时间。同样，平台空间中流通的商品是现实商品的虚拟映射，数字交易与现实商品交付之间存在的时间差，造成了资本流动的空档期。再者，虚拟空间全面性与现实空间局限性的冲突，构成价值实现的困境。平台空间几乎囊括各种要素，交易空间覆盖全球，但现实中具备有效消费能力的群体及其购买力是额定的。由于供给商品与消费者真实需求的差异，商品流通的困局反而扩大。可见，平台资本的虚拟空间重塑了价值生产与流通的模式，但无法完全摆脱现实空间的制约，资本积累的内生限制依旧留存在数字平台。事实上，伴随平台资本的空间扩张与平台空间的资本积累，数字社会的空间矛盾反而走向极端。

(2) From Heteromorphy to Isomorphism: The Crisis of Differentiation in the Universalization of Platform Space

（二）异形到同构：平台空间普遍化的分异危机

As a means of overcoming spatial barriers, platform capital constructs differentiated spaces for valorization. But the spatial expansion of platform capital weakens the very differentiation of platform space itself. When the universality of platform space is fully unfolded, capitalism will once again face isomorphic contradictions, spatial fixes will become unsustainable, and a non-equilibrium spatial structure will bring about a spatial crisis on a larger scale.

作为克服空间障碍的手段，平台资本构建出差异性的增殖空间。但平台资本的空间扩展，弱化着平台空间本身的差异性。当平台空间的普遍性完全展开时，资本主义将再次面临同构矛盾，空间修复难以为继，非均衡的空间结构带来更大范围的空间危机。

From the perspective of the development of capitalism, there is a contradiction between the universalizing character of capital and its nature of valorization. The global expansion of capital turns non-capital regions into “its market for surplus value, its source of supply for the means of production, and its reservoir of labor power for the wage system” [17]17 Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 3, Chapter 14, on the counteracting factors to the falling rate of profit.. But when the heterogeneous spaces differentiated from capitalism become insufficient, capital encounters homogeneous competition, and problems such as overaccumulation and the destruction of spatial landscapes repeatedly test the limits of capital. The digital space constructed by platform capital is an existence embedded with the logic of capital and heteromorphic relative to real space. The production of platform space itself—that is, the construction of digital infrastructure and related equipment—becomes a process of absorbing surplus capital. Compared with the demolition and reconstruction of fixed space, platform space has the characteristics of reusability and overlapping construction, avoiding the reproduction of the “throwaway society” criticized by Harvey [18]18 David Harvey, *The Condition of Postmodernity*, on the “throwaway society” as a feature of flexible accumulation..

从资本主义的发展历程来看，资本普遍化的特性与其增殖本质之间存在矛盾。资本的全球扩张，导致非资本区域变成“它的剩余价值的市场、它的生产资源的供给源泉和工资制度的劳动力蓄水池”。但区隔于资本主义的异质性空间不足时，资本迎来同质性竞争，过度积累、空间景观破坏等问题反复拷问资本的限度。平台资本所建构的数字空间是内嵌资本逻辑且异形于现实空间的存在。平台空间本身的生产即数字基础设施及其相关设备的建造，成为吸收剩余资本的过程。相较于固定空间的摧毁重建，平台空间具有重复利用、重叠建造的特点，避免重现哈维批判的“抛弃型社会”景象。

Although platform space escapes the spatial constraints of the industrial age, the process of universalizing platform space inevitably leads to a shift of digital space from heteromorphy to isomorphism, triggering a crisis of capital accumulation. The practical process of universalizing platform space includes two levels: first, the comprehensive coverage of real space. Platform capital develops the production factors of real space by constructing virtual production and circulation spaces, achieving a “spatial fix” for capital. But when real space is fully platformized, the space for capital displacement independent of platforms will also be exhausted. Second, the full-scale transformation of practical activities. The fragmented space of platform capital’s production carries production and daily life across all time periods, including activities such as work, consumption, and travel, which gradually become platformized. But the content of social subjects’ activities within a unit of time is limited; when platform space achieves full control over the unit time of subjects, the platform also immediately faces the pole of spatial production.

平台空间虽然摆脱工业时代的空间限制，但平台空间普遍化的进程必然导致数字空间由异形转向同构，引发资本积累危机。平台空间普遍化的实践历程包括两个层面：其一，对现实空间的全面覆盖。平台资本通过建构虚拟生产、流通空间等方法开发现实空间生产要素，实现资本的“空间修复”。但现实空间全面实现平台化之时，独立于平台的资本置换空间也会殆尽。其二，对实践活动的全程转化。平台资本生产的碎片化空间承载着全部时段的生产生活，包括工作、消费、出行等活动逐渐走向平台化。但单位时间内社会主体活动的内容有限，在平台空间实现对主体单位时间的全程支配时，平台也随即面临空间生产的极点。

The comprehensive fusion of real space and virtual space, and the full integration of practical activities with platforms, signify the universalization of platform space and foreshadow a new spatial crisis for platform capital. On the one hand, the production of digital space shifts from homogeneous heterogeneity to homogeneous isomorphism, and platforms face the risk of declining profits. The already generated platform space becomes an obstacle to the spatial expansion of platform capital; the “value of platform capital is fixed in a certain use value,” and it falls into difficulty due to the lack of labor to realize its value. On the other hand, the universalization of platform space reduces the order of social space to capital profit. Platform users are positioned in the hierarchical circles of the digital platform according to their “value contribution,” forming a center-periphery structure with the platform at its core. Driven by algorithms, the platform divides groups based on users’ digital tags; users who bring elements of valorization to the platform are placed at its center, while digital residents lacking “value contribution” are confined to resource-poor peripheral spaces. This demonstrates that the spatial differentiation created by digital platforms turns inequality into a universal fact of the virtual world.

现实空间与虚拟空间的全面交融、实践活动与平台的全程融合意味着平台空间走向普遍化，也预示着平台资本面临新的空间危机。一方面，数字空间的生产由同质异形走向同质同构，平台迎来利润下降的风险。已生成的平台空间成为平台资本空间拓展的障碍，平台资本的“价值被固定在一定的使用价值上”，并且因缺乏实现其价值的劳动陷入困境。另一方面，平台空间普遍化导致社会空间的秩序简化为资本利润，平台用户按照其“价值贡献”列位于数字平台的阶梯状圈层之中，形成以平台为核心的中心边缘结构。算法驱动下平台依据用户的数字标签划分群体，为平台带来增殖要素的用户被置于平台中央，缺乏“价值贡献”的数字居民被封锁在资源匮乏的边缘空间。这就表明数字平台制造的空间分异将不平等现象变为了虚拟世界的普遍事实。

(3) From Discipline to Servitude: The Implosive Crisis of Platform Capital’s Dispersion

（三）规训到役使：平台资本弥散化的内爆危境

In the process of the universalization of platform space, platform capital produces virtual labor relations and relations of power domination. The machine control of the industrial era is replaced by discipline in virtual space; the labor process shifts toward self-organization, and the scope of value absorption expands rapidly. But when value production becomes a mechanism of servitude in human-machine interaction, and platform capital forms a total plunder of laborers and even the entire society, the legitimacy foundation of the digital platform immediately dissipates.

在平台空间普遍化的进程中，平台资本生产出虚拟劳动关系与权力支配关系。工业时代的机器操控被虚拟空间规训取代，劳动过程转向自组织，价值吸纳范围迅速扩张。但当价值生产变成人机交互的役使机制，平台资本形成对劳动者乃至整个社会的总体性掠夺时，数字平台的合法性根基也随即消散。

Marx’s general law of capitalist accumulation reveals the antagonistic nature of capital accumulation between labor and capital. However, platform capital, having undergone digital deformation, not only abandons fixed production spaces and labor supervision but also discards the wage-labor model, seeking to establish equal cooperative relations. Platforms provide laborers with virtual, closed, and unitized labor spaces, allocating spatial elements according to the labor process; laborers complete specific tasks following spatial prompts. For laborers, platform space becomes a specific site for earning labor remuneration; the coercive supervision under wage labor is transformed into the laborers’ self-motivation. Through the allocation and functional endowment of virtual space, platform capital converts production supervision into technical regulation, translates value exploitation into the laborers’ realization of value, and completes spatial discipline targeting laborers.

马克思关于资本主义积累的一般规律揭示出资本积累的劳资对抗性质。但经历数字形变的平台资本，不但放弃固定生产空间及劳动监督，而且抛弃雇佣劳动模式，寻求建立平等的合作关系。平台为劳动者提供虚拟、封闭、单元化的劳动空间，按照劳动过程分别配给空间要素，劳动者按照空间提示完成具体劳动。对于劳动者来说，平台空间成为其赚取劳动报酬的特定场所，雇佣劳动下的强制监督转变成劳动者的自我驱动。通过虚拟空间的分配与功能赋予，平台资本把生产监管转化为技术规制、价值剥削转译为劳动者的价值实现，并完成针对劳动者的空间规训。

In the accumulation of platform capital, “when the proportion of constant capital continuously increases with the process of automation… the labor system also changes; surplus value becomes machinic, and its scope expands to the entire society.” The labor mechanism of automatic control and information processing promoted by platforms is precisely the mechanism of servitude referred to by Deleuze and Guattari. In the servitude mechanism, laborers engage in reversible, cyclical interactions with platform machines; within the platform, interconnection is achieved through networks. Based on the servitude mechanism, capital can not only determine the structure of the field but also dominate “the routines and rules of the field’s daily operation, and the power over the profits arising from them.” [19]19 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, *A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia*, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 457–458. The reference is to the concept of “machinic enslavement” (asservissement machinique) as distinct from social subjection (assujettissement social).

在平台资本积累中，“当不变资本的比例随着自动化的过程而不断增长之时……劳动制度也发生了变化，剩余价值变为机器性的，而范围则扩张到整个社会”。平台所推行的自动控制与信息处理的劳动机制，也即德勒兹与加塔利所指的役使机制。在役使机制中，劳动者与平台机器进行可逆、循环的交互，平台内部通过网络实现互联互通。基于役使机制，资本不但能够决定场域结构，而且支配着“场域日常运作的常规和规则，以及从中产生的利润的权力”。

Although the spatial reorganization of labor organization models and value distribution relations by platform capital formally obscures the truth of exploitation, it cannot conceal the consequences of the absorption of the exploited and even the entire society. The deeper the total plunder by platform capital, the weaker the foundation of platform space. First, spatial elements have natural limits. Laborers, as the source of value, have their labor time and labor intensity constrained by the physical body; the total value produced per unit of time is limited. Private and public spaces, as sources of value transfer, have their value flow speed limited due to the nature of fixed capital. Second, the growth of spatial structures has limits. The value production of platform capital is based on virtual interaction, but within a given period, the construction of social cooperative relations faces qualitative and quantitative limits; therefore, the collective productive forces that can be absorbed by platform capital are finite. Third, the threshold of spatial contradictions has a limit. The plunder of spatial elements and spatial structures by platform capital leads to growing contradictions between real space and virtual space, production space and living space, and private and public spaces versus capital space. The process by which platform capital breaks through valorization limits is also the process of consuming spaces for contradiction transfer. When the accumulation and diffusion of spatial contradictions reach a certain threshold, it inevitably leads to a new round of “spatial implosion,” and people will also usher in the reshaping of digital space. As Luxemburg stated, capitalism “is itself a contradiction; its accumulation movement, while providing solutions to contradictions, simultaneously intensifies them.” [20]20 Rosa Luxemburg, *The Accumulation of Capital*, trans. Agnes Schwarzschild (London: Routledge, 2003), 416.

平台资本对劳动组织模式与价值分配关系的空间重组，虽在形式上遮蔽了剥削真相，但其无法掩饰被剥削者乃至整个社会被吸纳的后果。平台资本的总体性掠夺越深入，平台空间的存在基础越薄弱。首先，空间要素存在天然限制。作为价值来源的劳动者，劳动时间与劳动强度受身体空间制约，单位时间内价值生产总量受限。作为价值转移来源的私人与公共空间，因固定资本性质而导致其价值流动速度受到限制。其次，空间结构生长存在限度。平台资本的价值生产建立在虚拟交往的基础上，但在一定的时间段，社会协作关系建构面临质与量的限制，因此能够被平台资本吸纳的集体生产力有限。再者，空间矛盾阈值存在极限。平台资本对空间要素与空间结构的掠夺，导致现实空间与虚拟空间、生产空间与生活空间、私人和公共空间与资本空间的矛盾不断增长。平台资本突破增殖限制的过程，也即消耗矛盾转移空间的历程。空间矛盾集聚与扩散达到一定的阈值，必然导致新一轮“空间内爆”，人们也将迎来数字空间的重塑。如卢森堡所言，资本主义“它本身就是一个矛盾，它的积累运动在提供矛盾解决方案的同时又加剧了矛盾”。

4. Conclusion

四、结语

The production of platform space not only alleviates the crisis of capital’s survival but also introduces human society into the virtual world. The digitalized form of people’s production and life extends the connotation of modern civilization. However, the capitalist operation of platform space profoundly reveals capital’s exploitation of laborers and even the entire society. The spatial production paradigm of platform capital strives to achieve the total absorption of virtual space and real space. As the core of capitalist spatial reorganization, platform capital, in the process of breaking through existing spatial boundaries, approaches new spatial constraints. This spatial limit is inherent in the essence of capital and becomes concrete as its forms evolve. To break through the spatial limits of capitalism, only the socialist spatial configuration can suffice.

平台空间的生产不仅缓解了资本存续危机，而且将人类社会引入了虚拟世界。人们生产生活的数字化形态延伸了现代文明内涵，但是平台空间的资本主义运行，却深刻展现了资本对劳动者乃至整个社会的剥削。平台资本的空间生产范式力图实现对虚拟空间与现实空间的总体吸纳。作为资本主义空间重组的核心，平台资本在突破既有空间界限的过程中，接近着新的空间制约。这种空间限制蕴含在资本本质之中，伴随其形式演变走向具体化。破除资本主义的空间限度，唯有社会主义空间构型。

(Author bios: Wang Huan, doctoral candidate, School of Marxism, Soochow University; Yang Yuling, Distinguished Professor and doctoral supervisor, School of Marxism, Soochow University)

（作者简介：王欢，苏州大学马克思主义学院博士研究生；杨渝玲，苏州大学马克思主义学院特聘教授，博士生导师）

Online editor: Tongxin

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