Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.12, 2019

A Political Economy Analysis of the Globalization of Platform Economics

(Abstract)

Xie Fusheng, Wu Yue and Wang Shengsheng

As a new organizational form suited to capital accumulation and social production and reproduction under digital technology, platform economics relies on digital platforms supported by efficient data collection and transmission, advanced computing power, and powerful data-processing algorithms. They integrate social production, distribution, exchange and consumption across temporal, spatial, national and sectoral boundaries in a way that gives a vigorous boost to the development of society’s productive forces. In the platform economy, the technical characteristics of digital platforms and capital’s monopoly of those platforms have shaped a structure of imperfect dynamic competition. The new form of labor organization on the basis of digital platforms leads to unstable employment and wages, allowing the logic of capital accumulation to seep into the process of labor reproduction. Under capitalist conditions, platform economies will remain unable to overcome the inherent contradictions seen in the law of capital accumulation.