Digital Labor or Digital Consumption:A Marxist Analysis of Digital Labor Theory
Western Marxist theory defines the activities of digital audience in the online space as digital labor,thereby es-tablishing theories that all online behaviors are labor and the commodification of digital users.However,based on the essential spirit of Marxist critique of political economy,the online activities of digital audience should be attributed to digital consumption rather than digital labor.These activities do not create surplus value but aim to realize it.Through Marx's principles of the totality of capital production and reproduction,as well as the logical relationship between sale and consumption and the dialectical movement of production and consumption within these principles,it can be revealed that digital consumption constitutes an important link in the totality of digital reproduction of capital;digital platforms are the upgraded digital media for sale and consumption;the term"prosumer"should not refer to a hybrid of productive laborers and consumers but should denote digital consumers.Thus,the boundary between digital labor and digital con-sumption becomes apparent.Differentiating digital consumption from digital labor is theoretically beneficial for the con-temporary development of Marxism and practically conducive to building a digital space community with a shared fu-ture and realizing the vision of a good digital life for the people.
Western Marxismdigital capitalismdigital labordigital consumptionMarxismsurplus valueplatform capitalism
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