A Critique Of Digital Capitalism In A Materialist Historical Perspective

With the increasingly widespread popularity of the Internet,big data,cloud computing,the Internet of Things,the "meta-universe" and so on,digitalization has become the main trend and development trend of the world today,"digital survival" is no longer a distant "myth",but a reality for contemporary people.In this context,global capitalism has developed into the socalled "digital capitalism stage".For the development of traditional capitalist society,Marx insisted on making a profound dialectical analysis from perspective of the materialisthistorical view and the critique of political economy.Today,when we are faced with the new changes,new problems and new forms of digital capitalism,we still need to reflect on it comprehensively and deeply from the standpoint of the materialist-historical view."Capital" is the core category in the study of capitalist society.Today,digital capital has become the latest form of capital after industrial capital and financial capital,and occupies a dominant position in capitalist society.As a historical category,"digital capital" constitutes a relationship between the individual and the general with"capital",inheriting the core connotation of the concept of "capital",but showing its own unique characteristics To a certain extent,it overcomes the blindness of commodity production and has a stronger ability to capture surplus value.Digital capitalism,led by digital capital,shows new qualitative characteristics that are different from traditional capitalism in terms of economic form,application of means of production,capitals enslavement and domination of wage labor,and capital’s capture of surplus value.Along with the deep development of digital technology and the establishment of the digital capitalist system,the way of human existence has also undergone profound changes,and the digitization of production,the production of life,and the irrationalization of thinking have gradually become the contemporary state of human existence.The new changes brought by digital capitalism are rooted in the change of production methods based on the new technological revolution.The reorganization of production factors based on digital technology,digital platform as the medium,and digital labor as the source of value has reconstructed the production logic of contemporary capitalism and derived’a new type of labor-management relationship.Western Marxism’s claim that Marx’s "labor theory of value"is obsolete on the grounds of the so-called "novelty of the whole"brought about by the transformation of the digital capitalist mode of production is a misunderstanding of Marx’s concept of political economy.In fact,Marx’s labor theory of value has not become obsolete with the emergence of digital capitalism;it is still the true science of our time.Digital capitalism,as a product of the combination of digital technology and capital,is essentially a new form of capitalism developed in the information age.What is "new" is the way of obtaining surplus value,i.e.the reconstruction of the factors of production of digital capitalism has revolutionized the specific way of functioning of capitalist production and innovated the way of obtaining surplus value.However,the capitalist kernel of capital’s own multiplication through the capture of surplus value has not changed.Therefore,the inherent contradictions of capitalist production are still unavoidable.Marx’s conclusion about the "two inevitabilities" of capitalist society still holds true.At the same time,it should be noted that digital capitalism,as a new thing,is still in the process of development,and has strong vitality and development potential in contemporary times.In critiquing digital capitalism from the perspective of the materialist-historical viewpoint,we should not only see its historical fate of inevitable extinction,but also see the objective development trend of digital capitalism under the guidance of Marx’s "two inevitabilities".More importantly,it is necessary to explore new future prospects for the progress of productive forces and the free and comprehensive development of human beings on the basis of critically absorbing the positive achievements of digital capitalism.