Western scholars put forward the concept of “technological feudalism” or “neo-feudalism”, interpreted digital capitalism with the narrative of feudalism, and pointed out that the owners of digital platforms are “cloud aristocrats”, and the way of monopolizing digital technology and digital platforms to collect rent and profit is very similar to feudalism, and the “cloud aristocracy” has become parasites in digital capitalism, and digital capitalism has more and more feudal logic. However, from the point of view of the reproduction process of capitalism, digital capitalism neither follows the reproduction logic of feudalism, nor is it a simple reproduction and repetition of traditional capitalism. “Technological feudalism” is the result of the differential reproduction of digital capitalism, an advance of digital capitalism, not a re-emergence of feudalism. From the perspective of transcendence path, techno-feudalism is confined to the “structural closed reproduction paradigm” and cannot fundamentally transcend the domination of digital capitalism, and only by transforming into a “contradictory open reproduction paradigm” can they go deep into the fundamental contradictions of capitalism and seek the possibility of liberation in the differential changes of digital capitalism.
Editor: Zhong Yao Wei Xiaoxue
From:Studies on Marxism.2025.No.3.
ACADEMY OF MARXISM CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES