Gong Yongdan: Who Are the Proletariat in the Information Age?
In Marx’s writings, the concept of the "proletariat" is neither the "rabble" [1]—those disenfranchised persons birthed by civil society in the Hegelian context—nor the feeble subject that Lukács sought to mend, which was supposedly languishing and in need of being "endowed with class consciousness." Rather, it is the "class with radical chains" [2] surging toward the front of the historical stage; the "grave-diggers" of the bourgeoisie forged by the operation of the internal contradictions between capital and labor. By the logic of historical necessity, it becomes a revolutionary force and political subject in the truest sense. However, in the post-industrial age—and particularly in the present era where information technology sweeps the globe—due to the implementation of Post-Fordism and the gradual "hegemony" of information capital and immaterial labor, the chasm between the propertied and the propertyless seems to be closing day by day. The proletariat has even receded into an ordinary group that "does not look like a proletariat," leading some Western scholars to assert a "farewell to the working class" and a "crisis of the proletariat" [3]. Some have even claimed, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the proletariat as "grave-digger" was the first to enter the grave, while those proletarians who "remain" are being gradually "assimilated" by the capitalist system. In this context, to rediscover a political subject, compensate for the "subjective absence" of the information age, and resuscitate the specter of communism once more, radical Western Leftist thinkers—represented by Negri, Žižek, and Rancière—advocate for a return to the communist position to conduct radical critique of and resistance to the global capitalist order. A core issue they propose is: Who can become the new political subject to transform the existing order? Revolving around this question of the political subject, radical Leftist thinkers have launched subjective concepts such as the "multitude," the "excluded," the "part-taking partless," and "homo sacer," which have become the "new proletariat" following the traditional proletariat.
I. The Rise and Appearance of the "New Proletariat"
The "appearance" of the "new proletariat" in the writings of contemporary Western radical Leftist thinkers is due, on one hand, to the fact that the post-structuralist approach of "decentering the subject" caused their political programs to lose all appeal; their abandonment of social transformation goals led the ideal of liberation into a dead end. On the other hand, the rise of informational capitalism has accelerated social antagonism, creating an urgent need for the agents of modern social change to "open the door to communism" [4]. It is worth noting that a common tendency among these radical thinkers is the negation of socialism; they prefer to redefine the concept of communism against the backdrop where information network technology and immaterial labor hold a dominant position, and take the new proletariat—which information network technology is accelerating into being—as the political subject to resist capitalism, aiming to reconstruct a communist model that accords with the present era.
(1) The "Multitude" in the Name of the Poor
As globalization carries the borderless flow of capital and the global surge of information capital, what changes have actually occurred in the control mechanisms, modes of exploitation, and class relations of capitalism? Is the proletariat, as a political subject, still "present"? Represented by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Leftist scholars—based on the factual judgment that "capitalism is transforming into Empire"—first launched a critique of contemporary capitalism and reshaped the concept of the proletariat. In Empire, Hardt and Negri point out that with the advancement of globalization and the decline of sovereign states, a boundless new form of sovereignty is taking shape; this "new global form of sovereignty is what we call Empire" [5]. This borderless new global machine of rule is the new biopolitical form constructed by Hardt and Negri—a power structure full of contradictions, conflicts, and divisions that "holds enormous powers of oppression and destruction" [6]. Faced with such overwhelming "New Empire" rule, where is humanity headed? Where is the "ferry" to the ideal far shore of humanity? Who is the best "helmsman"? In their view, the best subject for resisting and subverting Empire is the "multitude," which will lead humanity beyond Empire to establish a new Great Harmony (da tong).
As the subject resisting Empire, the "multitude" is already vastly different from Marx’s concept of the proletariat. It consists of "all the singular individuals" [7] subjected to the New Empire under the drive of the logic of capital. In the view of Hardt and Negri, the "multitude" is a living alternative force internal to Empire; it is the exploited, homeless, and mobile populace, entirely different from social subjects such as "the people" or "the masses." If "the people" is seen as "the One," then the multitude manifests as "the many." If "the masses" are a dull, blurred hybrid, then the multitude is a colorful collection that preserves social differences—a community irrespective of property. Hardt and Negri distinguish the difference between the multitude and the proletariat: the proletariat includes both industrial workers in the narrow sense and wage laborers in the broad sense, but this has already excluded groups such as the poor, unpaid domestic workers, and agricultural laborers. Conversely, the multitude is a more open and inclusive concept that "is composed of all the diverse figures of social production" [8]. it involves both material forms of production and forms of "biopolitical production" that produce immaterial products (information, images, affects, etc.). It is no longer an identity marker similar to "the people," nor does it possess the internal consistency of "the masses." Rather, it is a new force—a new global class—that is based on "difference" and finds "the common" therein to communicate and act in unity. The purpose of this new class is to "create an alternative global society from within Empire" [9]. But this process is a long campaign; only "the multitude is the only figure capable today of carrying out a revolution," and thus it must be "ensured that the multitude becomes a revolutionary figure" [10], taking the multitude as the revolutionary subject.
Similar to Hardt and Negri, Paolo Virno combines Marx’s concept of "general intellect" with the Post-Fordist mode of production to reconstruct "the multitude as subjectivity." Virno believes that the primary productive resources of contemporary capitalism are contained within human linguistic-communicative and cognitive capacities. This means that the totality of today’s labor power has been transformed into intellectual labor power, i.e., "mass intellectuality" (another name for the multitude), which sits at the core of the Post-Fordist economy. Since Post-Fordist labor is intellectual labor conducted by means of human linguistic-cognitive capacities, it is necessary to excise those "concepts of the proletariat" that are no longer suited to intellectual labor. Thus, Virno concludes: "A lack of proletarianization means that the Post-Fordist workers are the multitude, not the people" [11]. Virno’s "multitude" is a revolutionary "fighter" internal to Post-Fordism, but he does not design a ready-made combat plan for it; instead, he believes the "capitalist communism" birthed by Post-Fordism will gather the power of the "multitude" to form a new system of communist subjects.
(2) The Non-Substantial "Excluded"
Slavoj Žižek belongs to the same camp as Hardt and Negri regarding the philosophical stance and theoretical construction of the political subject—namely, seeking a new revolutionary subject starting from the reality of capitalism. In Žižek’s view, the enclosure of "common resources" or "the commons" by capitalism has brought disastrous consequences for humanity, manifesting in four forms of antagonism: the ecological crisis, the privatization of intellectual property, the ethical shocks triggered by new technologies driven by capital, and the chasm between "the included" and "the excluded." The universal consequence of this endless enclosure movement driven by the logic of capital is the alienation of the human subject itself—that is, the stripping away of the rich social relations that constitute the essence of being human, reducing humans to naked abstract subjects unable to participate in or share social relations. This causes a universal "proletarianization" of human existence, subsequently downgrading humans as subjects to a "substanceless subjectivity" [12]. Žižek believes that the rule of contemporary capitalism is realized through the exclusion of underdeveloped countries, vulnerable groups, immigrants, and the poor. These "excluded" ones, sequestered outside the current system, are a special class—the subject of resistance against capitalism and a potential revolutionary force of liberation. Based on this, Žižek vividly points out: "We are all excluded, excluded from nature, and excluded from our symbolic substance... Today, we are all potentially homo sacer, and the only way to prevent this from becoming a reality is to act in advance" [13]. It must be noted that the "excluded" shaped by Žižek is no longer the proletariat in the traditional sense; he once strictly distinguished Marx’s concepts of the proletariat and the working class, arguing that the proletariat is the "engaged actor of revolutionary struggle," while the working class is a "descriptive term in the field of knowledge" [14]. In reality, both the proletariat and the working class in Marx’s discourse are products of large-scale industry; they are both the dispossessed and, more importantly, the revolutionary subjects who overthrow the existing system. The "excluded," as the new proletariat in Žižek’s eyes, are victims marginalized by "the included"—a "nihilating void" [15]; they have devolved into "the liberated" rather than the true subjects leading liberation.
(3) The "Partless" Without a Share of Participation
Jacques Rancière’s shaping of the revolutionary subject of liberation politics is extremely similar to Žižek’s; in a sense, Žižek’s "excluded" is an absorption and modification of Rancière’s concept of the political subject. The difference is that Rancière does not derive the new political subject directly from capitalism; instead, he derives the new subjective concept of the "partless" as a marginalized group through a strict distinction between the terms "politics" and "the police." Rancière believes that the opposition between politics and the police is directly manifested as different methods of counting the various parts in a community: "The first counts only real parts and actual groups... the second counts the part of those who have no part 'extra.' We shall call the first 'the police' and the second 'politics'" [16]. Here, the "part of those who have no part" refers to those components excluded by the mainstream classes—the "people who possess no share" outside the community, i.e., the "partless" (wu fen zhe). Rancière points out that the poor of antiquity, the Third Estate, and the modern proletarians all belong to the "partless." "It is because of the existence of the partless... that the community exists as a political community" [17]. The greatest characteristic of the "partless" is that they have "no share of participation"; they are "components" not counted within the community. Political activity is using the "part of the partless" to break the perceptual configuration that defines components and their shares, giving the "part of those who have no part" a place, giving a share to the "shareless," making the invisible visible, and finally realizing and returning to what Rancière calls the "part of the partless." In fact, Rancière equates modern proletarians with the partless and takes the "part of the partless" as the value for constructing the political subject. This approach ignores the historical field and economic scenario in which the class itself exists; he seems to have entirely forgotten that "this part of the partless is both everything and nothing at all" [18]. In other words, the "part of the partless" cannot appear, be seen, confirmed, or understood. Precisely because of this, we can view the "part of the partless" as an "disordered politics generated within the rupture of the police-ordering logic," which also precisely indicates the "heterogeneous direction of Rancière’s post-Marxist biopolitical philosophy" [19].
(4) "Homo Sacer" as the Nakedness of Life
Giorgio Agamben pushed the study of biopolitics to new heights and also brought the idea of communism to the forefront of the current era, reconstructing a new form of community based on the critique of biopolitics. Different from other radical Leftist thinkers, Agamben’s construction of the political subject is presented in an obscure manner. Using the figure of "Homo sacer"—an individual in ancient Roman law—he shapes the "naked life" residing in the contemporary capitalist world, opening a biopolitical path for the critique of capitalism. In Agamben’s view, people in the modern capitalist world have become akin to the "living dead," whose "life is excluded from the space where it should be protected. Life has been abandoned and reduced to naked life (sacred life)" [20].
Furthermore, in a society controlled by modern capital, everyone is at risk of becoming a "homo sacer" with bare life at any moment. The current "state of exception" [9] (characterized by the suspension of law, political disorder, and phenomena such as refugees and detention camps) has become the norm—even a permanent state. This condition directly threatens the existence of the "homo sacer" and has become a latent state of "lawless" totalitarianism. Agamben argues that these abandoned bare lives are like "lives hollowed of value," to the extent that in various modern European languages, the word "people" (le peuple) has become a synonym for the poor, the disenfranchised, and the excluded. Therefore, the word "people" "names at the same time the constitutive political subject and the class that is, de facto... excluded from politics." [10] Commenting on this in The Communist Horizon, Jodi Dean suggests that Agamben’s understanding of the "people" can be divided into the "privileged stratum" and "the rest of us." The so-called "rest of us" refers to those left over after the mainstream classes have been excluded and filtered out; as a force that both divides and is produced by division, it serves as a substitute for other concepts of the communist subject—the "proletariat," the "multitude," and the "part-less." [11] In other words, the concept of the proletariat is once again reconstructed by Dean as "the rest of us," gaining a meaning equivalent to the subject-concepts of Negri, Rancière, and Agamben. Dean believes that the class struggle of contemporary capitalism is already self-evident, manifesting as a struggle between the ruling class and "the rest of us," and it is precisely this struggle that will once again raise communism above the horizon.
II. Is the "New Proletariat" Still the Proletariat?
Western radical leftist thinkers, focusing on the reality of contemporary capitalist development, have attempted to reactivate Marx's concept of the proletariat. Their theoretical courage and the resulting significant political implications—aimed at providing a subjective momentum for the revival of communist ideas in both theory and practice—cannot be ignored. However, from the perspective of Marx’s discourse on the historical origins and theoretical construction of the proletariat, the "new proletariat" described by Western radical leftist thinkers has deviated from the revolutionary subject that raised the banner of resistance in the Marxian vision. Although the proletariat in Marx’s view is an "unstable" class [12] that fluctuates along with the repulsion of labor by capital and the rising organic composition of capital, the historical origin, identity markings, and mission of this class possess a fundamental stability. This class can only exit the stage of history by "abolishing the opposite which determines its own existence—that which makes it the proletariat." [13] Consequently, as "stand-ins" for the traditional proletariat, these "new proletariats" have abandoned the Marxian context in the era of globalization, sliding into a theoretical abstraction of a passive subject, thereby undergoing a "de-revolutionized" metamorphosis.
(1) The Origins and Essential Determinacy of the Proletariat
The emergence and evolution of any class are inseparable from specific historical scenes and the context of the times. The proletariat did not originally exist in human history; rather, changes in the mode of production provided the objective soil to nurture this "special estate" tasked with the great mission of human liberation. In the context of Marx and Engels, the proletariat is not the "rabble" stigmatized and negatively labeled by ruling classes in Western history, nor is it an "alternative" group such as the "poor," "paupers," or "pariahs" at the bottom of the pyramid of class society. Still less is it the "multitude," the "excluded," the "part-less," the "homo sacer," or "the rest of us" as seen by modern Western radical leftist thinkers. Instead, it refers specifically to "the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live." [14] That is to say, the fundamental marker of why the proletariat is called the proletariat is "propertylessness" (wuchan), meaning they lack the means of production and must therefore rely on selling their labor power to maintain their livelihood. How, then, did the proletariat lose its means of production in the great tide of history? Why were they bound by "radical chains"? And how will they smash these shackles in the revolutionary torrent to "win the whole world"? These are precisely the questions Marx and Engels answered through their lifelong struggles. In the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Marx first proposed: "When the proletariat announces the dissolution of the existing world order, it merely declares the secret of its own existence." [15] This "secret" is the key to understanding the origin, essence, and mission of the proletariat. Only by uncovering the secret of why the proletariat exists can one truly understand the limitations and "metamorphosis" of the "new proletariat."
From a historical field of vision, the proletariat is the product of the separation of the subject of labor from the objective conditions of labor; they are "free workers" who have lost their objective conditions. The historical field in which the proletariat emerged is inseparable from the primitive formation of capitalist relations. The process of the primitive formation of capitalist relations is the process of the separation and dissolution of the laborer from their objective conditions. This process catalyses capital and, more importantly, nurtures "destitute living labor" in opposition to capital. In the Grundrisse (Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858), Marx examined pre-capitalist forms of community and their property relations. He found that in property relations based on the commune, the laborer is integrated with the objective conditions of labor (land, tools, means of subsistence). "The individual relates to the objective conditions of labor simply as his own property, as the inorganic nature of his subjectivity, in which he realizes himself." [16] Thus, the laborer is both the subject of their own existence and views the objective conditions of production as the conditions of their own survival, "as his individual mode of existence." [17] In this situation, the laborer appropriates their property through the mediation of the community. However, with the increase in population, the expansion of communal lands, the improvement of tools, and the higher modes of production brought by frequent intercourse, the property relations based on the community underwent fission and dissolution. Individual laborers gradually became separated from their objective conditions: "property no longer consists in the relation of the laboring individual to the objective conditions of labor." [18] This triggered the dissolution of the laborer's relationship with the land, the tools of production, and the means of subsistence. This process of dissolution is the process of the laborer's separation from their objective conditions, causing them to drift away from their previous natural ties, "detaching a mass of individuals from their previous (in one form or another) affirmative relation to the objective conditions of labor, negating these relations, and thereby transforming these individuals into free workers." [19] This results in one pole of laborers becoming free workers who have lost their objective conditions, while the other pole—the objective conditions of labor such as land, raw materials, and tools—is gradually transformed into money and capital, which "stand in opposition to those individuals who have been separated from these conditions and have lost their property, in the form of independent values." [20] Thus, the proletariat is essentially composed of free workers who have lost their objective conditions and are "free of everything; their only way out is either to sell their labor power or to beg, wander, or rob." [21]
From a practical perspective, the proletariat is the product of capitalist large-scale industry—the class that stands in opposition to the bourgeoisie and engages in "wage labor." The actual field of the proletariat's existence is directly related to the relations of production dominated by the logic of capital; it is a product of the transformation of capitalist relations of production. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels analyzed the revolutionary impact of the Industrial Revolution and large-scale machinery on humanity: it caused society to split increasingly into two great hostile camps—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—simplifying class antagonisms. Under the impact of large-scale industry, the bourgeoisie gained economic and political dominance, while "the lower strata of the middle class—the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants—all these sink gradually into the proletariat." [22] The proletariat consists of the wage laborers who are exploited and displaced within large-scale industry; they are "produced by the industrial revolution." [23] As the "product of large-scale industry itself," the proletariat sits at the opposite pole of a unity of opposites with the bourgeoisie; the two sides are mutually dependent and in constant struggle. This means the proletariat is not a static group, but changes alongside transformations in the capitalist mode of production and the bourgeoisie itself. A typical manifestation of the transformation of the capitalist mode of production is the adoption of machinery—using machines to produce machines—that is, the capitalist application of machinery. To achieve capital accumulation and obtain more surplus value, capitalists replace human power with means of labor in the form of machines, making machinery a new means for producing surplus value. The greatest ill brought by the capitalist application of machinery is the displacement of more workers, "producing a surplus laboring population, who are compelled to submit to the laws dictated to them by capital... machinery sweeps away every moral and natural bound of the working day." [24] The capitalized application of machinery demonstrates that the more capitalists use machines, the more workers are displaced, the more severe the exploitation and poverty suffered by the proletariat becomes, and the longer and heavier the chains bound to the proletarian become. Thus, Marx pointed out: "the accumulation of capital is at the same time an increase of the proletariat." [25] The more capital accumulates, "the larger the Lazarus-layer of the working class and the industrial reserve army, the greater is official pauperism. This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation." [26] Therefore, as long as capitalism exists, the proletariat must necessarily exist; as long as machines are driven by capital, the proletariat cannot escape the fate of being displaced; as long as capital accumulation expands infinitely, the displaced proletarians will inevitably suffer the fate of relative poverty.
From the perspective of its mission and tasks, the proletariat is the truly revolutionary class. Only by abolishing the existing mode of appropriation and exploding the various shackles that bind them can they liberate themselves, thereby realizing a "new heaven and new earth" in which exploitation and alienation are sublated. The essential determinacy of the proletariat lies in the fact that they are a group at the lower depths of society, possessing no means of production and engaged in wage labor. The exploitation, oppression, and poverty they face are the most grievous; consequently, they are the most revolutionary class and the subject representing the future of humanity. In Marx’s view, the proletariat is not an illusory or abstract subject, but a collective composed of actual wage laborers parasitic within capital relations. They are, in essence, real individuals—living laborers ruled by the logic of capital and displaced by machinery. "The historical mission of this class is to overthrow the capitalist mode of production and finally abolish classes." [27] That is to say, the proletariat is the truly real revolutionary subject and the existing revolutionary force. They are by no means the "chosen people" [28] claimed by eschatologists to save the world, nor are they "those destined by world-history" [29] caught in the tide of history. Rather, they are the guides, the drivers, and the revolutionaries leading humanity toward something better. The position and status of the proletariat dictate that they must shoulder the great responsibility of liberation; they must achieve great things in history and must struggle for the realization of the ideal of human liberation. As Marx said, the proletariat "cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air." [30] Only by liberating themselves can they win the whole world.
(2) The "De-revolutionized" Metamorphosis of the "New Proletariat"
From the context and image of the proletariat in Marx’s work, we can see that although human modes of production have undergone earth-shaking changes, as long as the contradiction between capital and labor exists, the proletariat will persist and remain the political subject for transforming society. Although the methods by which capital exploits labor have changed in the information age, the logic of capital remains the dominant logic of existing society. The global bourgeoisie still exists, which dictates that the proletariat cannot retreat behind the scenes of history, nor can it be submerged in the torrent of capital relations. On the contrary, the proletariat still exists within the relations of exploitation dominated by the logic of capital; it remains that group in the Marxian context which possesses no means of production and subsists by selling its labor power. Compared to the wage laborers of the era of large-scale machine industry, although today's proletariat has acquired property to a certain extent, this does not mean they own the means of production, nor does it mean they have escaped the wage relation. Conversely, far from breaking the shackles of capital, they are marginalized by artificial intelligence (AI) machines driven by capital, and thus still face the fate of unemployment and poverty. Therefore, the various "new proletariats" shaped by radical Left thinkers have not only failed to transcend Marx's revolutionary proletariat but have instead dissolved its revolutionary and radical nature as a political subject, causing it to undergo a "de-revolutionized" metamorphosis.
The new proletariat is no longer that group lacking the means of production situated in opposition to the bourgeoisie, and therefore cannot shoulder the heavy responsibility of resistance. Surveying the concepts of the revolutionary subject shaped by radical Left thinkers, none are any longer a true representation of the classical proletariat, nor do they take the "lack of means of production" as their fundamental identifier. Instead, they are new social strata and marginalized groups shaped from the perspective of informational and communicative capitalism. In fact, when Hardt and Negri shaped the "multitude" as the force resisting "Empire," this multitude was an existing revolutionary subject that, to some extent, maintained consistency with the classical proletariat. However, when Hardt and Negri defined the "multitude" as an inclusive concept and a synonym for "the poor," they departed from the essential definition of the proletariat. In their view, the "multitude" is closely linked to the organizational forms of production and possesses two characteristics: "one is poverty, and the other is freedom." [73]
One can well imagine: how could such a "multitude" be the "proletarian" masses? Is everyone who is poor and free a member of the proletariat? Obviously, the inclusivity of the "multitude" and the generalization of its conceptual reference have dissolved the revolutionary nature of the proletariat; this determines that such a "universalist" subject can hardly shoulder the great task of social transformation. Similarly, Žižek’s "excluded" encompasses the vulnerable, immigrants, and the poor; Rancière’s "part-of-no-part" includes both the ancient poor and the Third Estate, as well as the modern proletarian; Agamben’s homo sacer refers specifically to those "living dead" whose lives have been abandoned and reduced to "bare life"; Dean takes the "remnants"—those left over after being excluded and filtered out by the mainstream classes—as the concept of the communist subject; Žižek even incorporates "slums" into the category of the proletariat, arguing that many characteristics of slums "coincide" [74] with Marx’s description of the proletariat. The political subjects they shape refer either to the "entirety" left over after being filtered by the mainstream classes, the "outside" rejected by the social whole, or the "anonymous bodies" [75] and "bare lives" whose lives have been abandoned. Consequently, these subjects are no longer rebels under the rule of the logic of capital, nor are they proletarians in opposition to the bourgeoisie. One might ask: are such subjects still the "grave-diggers" of the bourgeoisie? Can they still undertake the heavy responsibility of overthrowing private property?
The new proletariat is no longer a group of actual wage laborers under the rule of the logic of capital, and therefore cannot "expropriate the expropriators." In Marx, the proletariat is "present" both as a group composed of real individuals and as the laborers of capitalist large-scale machine industry. They depend on capital and make a living within the community of capital; thus, they possess a distinct identity and are a tangibly existing class. In contrast, the new proletariat of radical Left thinkers does not specifically refer to "wage laborers," nor specifically to the "opposite" of the bourgeoisie, nor even to a real revolutionary subject. Instead, it serves as a general term for an abstract "mass" outside the mainstream classes, or even as "marginalized people" drifting outside the capitalist system. Such "masses" and "marginalized people" cannot be understood or substantiated through the actual relations of the capitalist world, nor can they acquire subjective or class consciousness. Thus, they cannot yet be considered a true class, for "it is only when it attains consciousness that it becomes a class." [76] Moreover, these marginalized groups have departed from the site where capital exploitation occurs and left the actual scene of informational capital. This causes the subject concepts of radical Left thinkers to fall once again into that abstract subjective interface criticized by Marx, becoming invisible, illusory subjects. For example, Žižek’s concept of the subject is no longer a true subject, "but a 'void' constituted by pure 'negativity'"; [77] although Badiou’s event-based subject differs from Derrida’s spectral subject, it is likewise a "subject-that-is-not-yet-a-subject" detached from the present; the subject Rancière focuses on is "a mute subject"; [78] and Hardt and Negri, by placing their hopes in a heterogeneous and pluralistic "multitude," ultimately fall into an optimistic revolutionary utopia. Therefore, since these political subjects cannot form revolutionary goals or a program for unified action, how can they "expropriate the expropriators" to realize a world of Great Harmony [N1]?
Similarly, the new proletariat is no longer the "relative surplus population" pushed out by machines, and thus cannot be the true bearer of human liberation. Marx believed that as long as capitalists use technology and machines to extract surplus value, more laborers will be pushed out, becoming new proletarians. Based on this, Marx argued: "This source of relative surplus population is inexhaustible," [79] which is an inherent paradox that capitalism cannot bypass. In fact, in the information age, the replacement of human labor by machines is even more evident. The use of intelligent machines pushes the majority of people out of the market, turning them into the unemployed. Although Hardt and Negri emphasize the exclusion and impact of immaterial labor on people in the information age, they, like other radical Left thinkers, have failed to reconstruct the concept of the proletariat from the perspective of Marx’s critique of political economy. Instead, they place their hopes in an abstract subject of the post-industrial era, and are thus destined to fail in reaching the path to human liberation. It must be said that the subject of true human liberation remains, and can only be, the revolutionary proletariat. Marx’s laws of historical necessity—the "Two Inevitabilities" [N2] and the "Two Nevers" [N3]—remain valid, and the curtain on the future ideal society will still be raised by the proletariat.
III. Reshaping the Proletariat of the Information Age
Is there a proletariat in the information age? Who is the true proletariat of the information age? What fate exactly does the proletariat face in the information age? These questions remain core issues in Marxist theory and are theoretical difficulties that today's academia must face head-on. If we avoid talking about the proletariat, or even dissolve its subjective role, then Marx's class theory will slide into the trap of historical nihilism. Although the era in which Marx lived is vastly different from today, his revelation of the site of emergence, essential definitions, and missions of the proletariat remains the key to understanding the proletariat of the information age. Today, with the massive changes in the mode of production spurred by information technology and AI, capitalism has transcended traditional modes of production and entered the era of "digital capitalism" dominated by networks, information, and data. [80] Digital capitalism does not represent a subversion or transcendence of political economy, nor has it invalidated the opposition between capital and labor or the true source of surplus value; it remains a new form of capitalism within the context of Marx’s critique of political economy. However, digital capitalism further conceals exploitation, alienation, and the poverty of the proletariat through the hegemonic forms of digital capital and digital labor. This precisely provides a "breakthrough point" for us to reshape the proletariat of the information age.
(1) The Contradiction Between Digital Capital and Digital Labor: The Site of the Proletariat's Emergence
The exclusion of labor by capital and the depreciation of the logic of the human by the logic of capital constitute the historical site of proletarian production. It is precisely the separation of capital and labor, along with the struggle and contention between the two, that gave birth to the proletariat. In fact, in the era of digital capitalism, the opposition between capital and labor still exists, except that this opposition has gradually transformed into the opposition between digital capital and digital labor. In truth, this change has not departed from the context and discourse of the critique of political economy. In Capital and its manuscripts, Marx recognized the ontological significance of labor, to the extent that he repeatedly emphasized labor is "the fundamental condition of all history" [81] and argued that the dual character of labor is "the pivot on which a clear comprehension of political economy turns." [82] Engels even highly praised Marx for having "found the key to the understanding of the whole history of society in the history of the development of labor." [83] However, by dissecting the original seeds of capital relations and their mode of production, Marx discovered that in the course of historical change, laborers gradually became separated from their own objective conditions, finally leading to the opposition between capital and labor. This opposition intensified in capitalist society, manifesting as the command and rule of capital over humans, causing human alienation; this process is the process of the proletariat differentiating itself from labor relations. More importantly, Marx also saw the impact on humans caused by changes in labor forms brought about by the transformation of the machine system. In the "Fragment on Machines," Marx observed the significant impact of the combination of science, technology, and knowledge with capital on human labor. He predicted that with the development of the machine system and science, "the accumulation of knowledge and of skill... is absorbed into capital, as opposed to labor," [84] meaning the machine system and scientific knowledge would merge into capital in the form of immaterial elements and manifest as attributes of capital. In this way, "to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it." [85] That is to say, the "general intellect," taking the machine system and scientific knowledge as elements, would serve as a means for the valorization of capital, thus controlling and pushing out labor power to a certain extent, thereby spawning a new impoverished population. So, "in the machine system, knowledge appears to the worker as something external and alien... As soon as the living labor of the worker is no longer required by the needs [of capital], the worker becomes redundant." [86] In fact, Marx already perceived here the comprehensive control of "general intellect" over human life. In today's digital age, the "general intellect" created by information, knowledge, and skills has achieved complete hegemony, to the extent that "digital fetishism" has appeared in today's society—"it worships neither God nor man, but data." [87] Correspondingly, general data is spawning new interfaces and platforms, allowing digital capital to achieve a dominant position, and human labor has shifted accordingly, becoming "digital labor" characterized by the production and processing of data. Digital capital is possessed by capitalists as a means of production, while the laborers engaged in digital labor not only receive no remuneration but instead suffer exploitation by digital capitalists, becoming wage laborers without means of production. That is to say, in the digital age, the proletariat has not disappeared; rather, it is the manifestation of the opposition between digital capital and digital labor. It is the digital proletarian—bred by the capitalist logical system in the digital age—who possesses no digital means of production and is employed by digital capitalists. Therefore, the proletariat of the information age has at least two sources: on the one hand, the wage laborers lacking means of production who still reside in modern large-scale industry; on the other hand, the modern wage workers who are dependent on digital capitalists and engaged in digital labor.
(2) Artificial Intelligence, the Hegemony of Digital Labor, and the Contemporary Fate of the Proletariat
What is the status and destiny of the proletariat in the age of artificial intelligence and the hegemony of digital labor? We contend that the proletariat in the information age still faces a fate of exploitation and alienation, and may even fall into a state of unemployment and poverty due to the capitalist application of AI. On one hand, the data produced and information created by digital laborers through network platforms and digital media are ultimately monopolized by digital capitalists. Even consumers' online shopping data and consumption information are appropriated by digital capitalists as their own. This causes these massive data chains to become "general data" in the hands of the capitalists, attaining the status of a digital capital monopoly, and "today's digital capitalism is precisely a system constructed upon the foundation of this general data" [34]. Those who occupy the digital realm sit precisely at the top of this system; they sell off monopolized data in the form of advertisements and commodities, eventually reaping exorbitant profits. On the surface, the digital labor inherent in this process appears voluntary, yet little do people know that the laborers are engaged in unpaid labor, and "their labor likewise becomes an object of exploitation" [35]. The more data digital laborers and consumers create, the more general data digital capitalists possess, and the more this general data can be transformed into digital capital. Consequently, the digital proletariat is exploited all the more by digital capital, thereby falling further into a state of relative poverty. On the other hand, as technology sweeps across the globe, "AI is already ubiquitous, like the very air we breathe" [36]. When AI operates under the drive of capital, human labor will be replaced by intelligent machines, to the point that more laborers will become unemployed, potentially even inducing a new "proletarianization." Therefore, as long as humanity remains under the rule of the logic of capital and private ownership, the proletariat will never disappear, nor can they thoroughly escape the fate of alienation and poverty; they will merely manifest in different ways, some hidden and some overt.
(3) The "Two Inevitabilities": The Struggle and Outcome of the Proletariat in the Information Age
Consequently, the various concepts of the "new proletarian subject" fashioned by Western radical Left thinkers are, to a large extent, illusory concepts detached from the contemporary forms of capitalism. To seek the proletariat of the information age, one can only "repeat once again Marx's critique of political economy" [37], rather than placing hope in the seductions of abstract subjects such as the post-industrial "multitude," "the excluded," "the part-of-no-part," or "the remainder." If we return to the horizon of Marx’s critique of political economy, we will realize that the "Two Inevitabilities" [38] proclaimed by Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party remain the beacon guiding the struggle and emancipation of the proletariat in the information age; they remain the decoder for human liberation. Although in the era of AI, those fantastical ideas concerning the "approach of the Singularity" [39] can always provoke trepidation, and those categorical assertions regarding a "useless class" [40] may win constant praise from supporters, such assertions are all detached from the theoretical horizon of historical materialism and have thus fallen into the quagmire of nihilism. We believe that the proletariat of the information age cannot be reduced to the "marginal groups" or the all-encompassing "fluid masses" in the eyes of radical Left thinkers, nor will they become the "useless class" in Harari’s view, let alone the "cognitariat" within the horizon of "cognitive capitalism." Rather, they remain the initiators of the future ideal society of communism. In the information age, regardless of how capitalists utilize digital capital and AI to win profits and fortify the foundations of their rule, and regardless of how they treat laborers well under "Post-Fordism" to mask the exploitative relationship between capital and labor, none of this can fundamentally resolve the contradiction between capital and labor, nor can it eradicate the basic contradictions of capitalism. Therefore, in the information age, Marx's proletariat remains the political subject for social transformation, and "the downfall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable" [41].
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(Author: Doctoral Student, School of Marxism, Beijing Normal University) Web Editor: Zhang Jian Source: Fujian Tribune (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), No. 2, 2020.