详情
Beyond the Techno-Feudalism Narrative of the Digital Economy: Clarification Based on Marx's Theory of Surplus Value
With the digital transformation of the capitalist economy, some contemporary scholars have put forward the Techno-Feudalism narrative of the digital economy. This narrative emphasizes that digital platform enterprises, as emerging market entities in the digital economy, have many practices that are highly similar to those of feudal lords. For example, digital platform enterprises plundering user data is similar to
feudal lords plundering land; digital platform enterprises collecting digital rent is similar to feudal lords collecting land rent; digital platform
enterprises controlling users and workers is similar to feudal lords controlling slaves. However, this narrative has many theoretical fallacies.
Marx's theory of surplus value shows that the above phenomena are essentially still the contemporary form of capital seizing surplus value
through technological innovation. The techno-feudalism narrative ignores the internal logic of capital using technological iteration to reconstruct the exploitation mechanism and falls into a superficial misjudgment. In contrast, the Chinese governance practice of digital economy breaks the monopoly of platforms on data elements through the innovation of the separation of three rights of data property rights; promotes fair competition and optimal allocation of resources in the digital economy by strengthening anti-monopoly supervision and promoting the construction of digital infrastructure; proves that the socialist system can break the capital proliferation cycle and achieve "people-centered" development by building a labor rights protection system to promote the creation and sharing of value and transcending the techno-feudalism phenomenon of the digital economy.