ACADEMY OF MARXISM CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
ACADEMY OF MARXISM CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
Today’s capitalism has entered the digital stage, and the development of algorithm technology has digitally reconstructed the process of capital exploiting surplus value. With a significant increase in labor efficiency, labor time has increased instead of decreased, and capital has achieved a new form of exploitation of absolute surplus value and relative surplus value simultaneously. Capital has embedded algorithmic technology into all economic activities, including production, exchange, distribution, and consumption, causing infinite extension of labor time, arbitrary expansion of labor domains,and increasingly hidden and imperceptible forms of exploitation. From the industrial age to the digital age, the purpose of capital has never changed, which is to extract as much surplus value as possible to achieve value augmentation. It can be seen the Marxist theory of surplus value still has a high degree of adaptability to the logic of capitalist operation in the digital age. At present, the deep integration of algorithmic technology with human production and life has indeed enabled capital to obtain more surplus value. However, this process has also triggered critical reflections among workers, nurturing more possibilities for human liberation. The practice of individual resistance behavior by workers, the awakening of collective resistance consciousness, and the reflection on the humanization of data sharing and digital platforms all provide a breakthrough path for workers to resist capital exploitation, break digital monopolies,and reconstruct social systems.
Editor: Zhong Yao LiuTingting
From:Inner Mongolia Social Sciences.2025.No.5.