A seminar on critical social theory in the digital era in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in late August Photo: Wang Guanglu/CSST

---

NANJING—With the advent of the digital age, human existence has undergone significant changes, necessitating a reflection from humanistic perspectives. In late August, the First International Conference on Critical Social Theory in the Digital Age was held both online and offline in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. 

Profound changes in digital era

In the digital era, labor forms and labor relations have undergone profound transformations. Some scholars describe gig labor, facilitated by on-demand labor platforms, as a “reverse labor process.” To some, this shift signifies that capital has transitioned from the previous purchase of labor force to the purchase of labor. To others, this perspective represents a regression to the classical political economy proposition. Wu Jing, director of the Center for Digital and Humanities Research at Nanjing Normal University, suggested that this “reverse labor process” profoundly reveals the political phenomenon of user proletarians and the risks they face, which emerges due to data rights and power asymmetry within on-demand labor platforms. This novel connectivity creates new networks of economic and social behavior, disrupting the incremental growth model in the linear value chain of social production and reproduction. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of on-demand labor platforms requires a multidimensional analysis, specifically examining the fundamental differences in labor and wages between the eras of classical political economy and digital platforms. 

Capitalism has undergone a series of profound changes in the digital age, with platform capitalism and the attention economy emerging as frontier topics in the development of the digital economy. Peter Zhang, a professor from the School of Communications at Grand Valley State University in the US, argued that platforms, acting a “capture devices,” intensify psychological control of people by capturing their attention, resulting in the acceleration of wealth concentration. As consumers consume various digital information, they inadvertently consume their own attention. 

Matt Stahl, an associate professor from the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University in Canada, suggested that research on creative labor, “platform” labor, and other new exploitative frameworks based on social sciences, communication, and humanities, tends to center on the economic relationships involved, but ignores the role of law in the formation of these relationships and the process of reproduction. A critical theory of sociological jurisprudence should be established to examine capitalist cultural production.

New ways of existence

In the digital age, human existence has taken on increasingly significant digital characteristics. “Being digital” has become the “new routine” of people’s life. As the forms of survival and existence evolve, understanding the relationship between humans and technology in the digital age has become a critical topic.

Speedy mobile networks and portable digital devices have facilitated the global boom of “digital nomads.” With the aid of technology, these workers are able to transcend the shackles of geographical locations and blur the boundaries between work and life, online and offline space. Yao Jianhua, a professor from the School of Journalism at Fudan University, pointed out that the development of digital technology and the spread of neoliberal ideology make the life of digital nomads seem “colorful.” However, behind this facade lurks the non-negligible control and exploitation of the labor force by internet platforms and enterprises, as well as the restriction of individual independent choice.

Digital technology has revolutionized human writing systems, knowledge accumulation, and economic production processes. However, it cannot replace the essence of human existence with an “information ontology,” that claims humans are composed solely of information and the world is an information process. Roberto Finelli, a professor of philosophy at the Roma Tre University in Italy, argued that from a historical materialism standpoint, digital information merely consists of strings of alphanumeric symbols arranged in a single dimension, lacking substantiality and three-dimensional space. The essence of being human lies in the “sum of social relations” within Marxist contexts. Whether examining society and human beings from a biological perspective or social history, it is crucial to consider the presentation of an organism’s life interests in three-dimensional space and specific cultural backgrounds.  This understanding should encompass both human sociality and biology.

Eberhard Illner, former curator of the Engels-Haus Museum in Germany, also believes that Marx and Engels do not simply view technology as a pure scientific means. Instead, they contextualized technology within specific social history and reality, regarding it as a category of social relations, thereby investigating a series of social effects caused by its application.

Edited by YANG LANLAN