Wang Fengming：Labor, Commodity, and Capital under the Condition of Digital Economy - An Analysis Based on Marx’s Capital and the Manuscripts
Release time: 2024-06-20
Abstract: The book Digital Capitalism presents a panoramic view of various practical problems and theoretical challenges of digital capitalism. Because it views data or information itself as a commodity, and regards price differences generated through information as the value of digital commodities, it not only confuses commodities and products, but also confuses value and price of commodity. It believes that as long as there are scarcity and differences, there will be commodity production and exchange, which is a misunderstanding of the historical conditions of commodity production. Since it views digital platform users’ shopping and even gaming and entertainment activities, and the digital services provided by the platform to the platform’s customers as digital labor that produces goods and creates value, it not only confuses labor that creates value and labor that does not, but also confuses labor and non-labor. It believes that whether digital technology will replace or expand human labor depends on the guidance of technological culture and values, which is a reversal of the relationship between social existence and social consciousness. It equates capital with money, and believes that through large-scale private customization of services, improving consumers’ willingness to pay can not only create producer surplus or profits for platform capital or digital capital, but also enable digital capitalism to survive. This is not only a misunderstanding of the nature of capital, but also a misunderstanding of the source of capital profits, and more importantly, an ignorance of the historicity and temporality of capitalism.
From：STUDIES ON MARXISM， No. 12， December 2023
Editor：Jian
ACADEMY OF MARXISM CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES