An Analysis On The Essence Of Digital Labor In The Context Of Critique Of Marx’s Political Economy

Today’s traditional industrial labor is gradually transforming into emerging digital labor based on capital proliferation,which is supported by the Internet and digital technology and characterized by "immaterial" labor and data information production.At present,the concept of digital labor has not yet formed a unified definition.Based on the new characteristics of digital labor,academic circles have formed different interpretations of the concept of digital labor,and produced different interpretations of the changes in the relationship between capital and labor in the context of digital labor.Among them,there are mainly two completely different views.One is the viewpoint of a scholar represented by Christian Fox,who believes that digital labor is involved in the logic of capital self-proliferation in a more invisible way.The other is the viewpoint of scholars represented by Michael Hart and Antonio Negri.They believe that labor is increasingly external to capital,and that digital laborers produce goods in self-constructed cooperative relationships.The relationship between capital and labor is the historical premise for understanding the nature of digital labor.However,under the conditions of digital labor,the relationship between capital and labor has undergone complex changes.The means of production that digital labor relies on not only include material production materials,but also include knowledge,experience,and emotion and other non-material means of production of the worker inherent in the beginning.As digital workers mainly target "non-material " means of production,the form of labor organization has also changed.Laborers are no longer dependent on capitalists,and combined with the means of production owned by capitalists,they can use their own intellectual,emotional and other non-material means of production to directly produce data and information products.Although the new characteristics of labor-management relations have changed the manifestation of the antagonistic relationship between capital and labor,the essential relationship between capital and labor in the context of digital labor has not changed.Digital labor is still actually subordinate to capital.Digital labor has become a by-product of the mutual construction of capital and labor,and has been continuously commoditized by capital,creating surplus value for capital.Digital labor has not only become a new way of capital self-proliferation,but also accelerates the speed of capital multiplication and expands the scope of capital multiplication.While capital continues to expand,it makes the exploitation and alienation of labor more comprehensive and thorough,and also further intensifies the contradictory relationship between capital and labor.This paper probes into the production nature of surplus value of digital labor,which is helpful to grasp the new changes of contemporary labor-capital relations and provide theoretical guidance for solving the contradiction between labor and capital in reality.