Li Quan and Du Min: Debates Among Foreign Left-wing Scholars on the Theory of Digital Socialism
In 2009, Kevin Kelly introduced the concept of "Digital Socialism," which garnered extensive academic attention. By critiquing the systemic crisis of contemporary capitalism, the theory of digital socialism aims to contemplate alternatives to capitalism and future developmental trends in the era of big data and the Internet. Generally speaking, scholars' classifications of digital socialism theory are diverse, and their divergences are significant. Some scholars, from the perspective of communication studies, point out that public communication based on sharing has become an alternative to the communicative modes of capitalist society; the resulting "communicative socialism" thus constitutes an important dimension of socialism [1]. Other scholars have proposed the concept of "platform socialism," advocating for the establishment of social ownership that grants workers and users the right to participate in the governance of digital platforms [2]. Furthermore, foreign left-wing scholars have engaged in heated discussions regarding the attributes and practical characteristics of digital socialism. The focus of these debates mainly centers on the following aspects: Does digital socialism possess a socialist character? Can digital socialism drive social transformation? Can digital socialism move toward practice? Can digital socialism promote the free and comprehensive development of human beings?
I. Does Digital Socialism Possess a Socialist Character?
Does digital socialism belong to scientific socialism, or does its essential attribute point elsewhere? Foreign left-wing scholars hold widely divergent views on this. The debate among foreign left-wing scholars regarding the characteristics of digital socialism primarily focuses on whether the theory itself possesses a communist nature.
(1) Does the sharing attribute of digital socialism belong to the theoretical category of communism?
Network data, collective labor, and sharing are the primary characteristics of the era of digital capitalism, and sharing also constitutes the logical premise of digital socialism. Regarding whether sharing belongs to the theoretical category of communism, the insights of foreign left-wing scholars differ greatly.
Kelly regards sharing as a vital attribute and theoretical foundation of digital socialism. In his 2016 book The Inevitable, he profoundly expounded on the impact of digital socialism on human society starting from twelve themes, including becoming, cognifying, flowing, screening, and sharing. Kelly proposed that the broad masses, who own a portion of the digital productive forces, work toward common goals, contribute their labor without compensation, and share their products together. These constitute the sharing characteristics of digital socialism. On the one hand, network users can edit, revise, and upload information themselves on user platforms like Wikipedia, embodying collectivism; on the other hand, websites such as Tor and Digg provide users with articles, photos, and even creative ideas free of charge, providing ordinary people with opportunities for shared learning. Kelly further pointed out that although not everyone agrees—and some even oppose it—the approaching sharing society belongs to a "New Socialism" [3]. The New Socialism Kelly refers to is digital socialism, and sharing is its most important attribute; the two can even be equated. Kelly believes that in the networked world, the masses have an unimaginable willingness to share. Sharing is a relatively mild expression of digital socialism and the foundation for all higher levels of public participation [4], serving as a fundamental component of the entire networked world of digital socialism. Therefore, according to Kelly's view, digital socialism is a digitized socialism unique to the networked world, built on collective network spaces, embodying the spirit of collectivism, and being decentralized [5].
Christian Fuchs, based on the Marxist theory of communism, questioned Kelly's aforementioned views on digital socialism. He argued that as a type of consumption, the ownership basis of sharing is "the Commons." In fact, in Principles of Communism, Engels set the prerequisite of practicing public ownership for the new social system to "use all instruments of production in common and distribute all products according to common agreement" [6]. Accordingly, Fuchs denies that sharing possesses a socialist nature from its theoretical source, thereby questioning the truth-value of digital socialism from the perspective of scientific socialism. Fuchs believes the "commons" proposed by digital socialism does not refer to the common property spoken of by Marx and Engels. The forms of cooperation, potential for collective ownership, and common goods within the category of digital socialism as understood by Fuchs are all new phenomena created under the conditions of capitalist material life. As he stated, "common goods are often subsumed under the commodity form, class relations, and capital" [7], restricted by capitalist class relations and means of exploitation and domination.
Donatella Della Ratta questions the "network commons" of digital socialism from the perspective of knowledge sharing. The network commons is the field of existence for the sharing value attribute of digital socialism and the logical premise for the realization of sharing value. Ratta argues that under the conditions of capitalist private ownership, although the digital revolution has brought about the socialization of knowledge and the network commons, we cannot equate this with socialism; open access to knowledge on network platforms and "Wikinomics" will not lead to digital socialism. The reason Ratta holds a pessimistic attitude toward the network commons stems from her reflection on the colonization of the networked world by capitalist private ownership. Ratta realizes that emerging social media like Instagram and TikTok, alongside emerging network encyclopedias like Infogalactic, provide space for "sharing and caring"; meanwhile, the platform capitalism of Silicon Valley is eroding the legitimacy of the digital socialism network commons theory. Therefore, Ratta concludes: in a context that has "turned once-happy groups of volunteer cooperative peers into a frustrated army of unpaid or low-paid labor" [8], the network commons has evolved into the disastrous consequence of commodified and digitally exploited spaces, and the socialist attributes and significance of the "sharing economy" no longer exist.
(2) Does the theory of digital socialism itself possess a communist nature?
Kelly’s concept of digital socialism clearly expresses a connotation distinct from state socialism, which is centered on a socialist institutional system and built on the theoretical foundation of scientific socialism. In May 2009, Kelly published the article "The New Socialism: Global Collectivism Anticipated" in Wired magazine, pointing out that digital socialism is a de-statized socialism operating in the cultural and economic spheres. He believes that digital socialism operates through a borderless Internet and a tightly integrated global economic network, with the goal of enhancing individual autonomy. By introducing the concept of digital socialism, Kelly listed features of the relations of production emerging in the virtual world of the big data era, such as "common labor," "sharing," and "collectivism." He believes these features indicate that in the era of the digital revolution, new "seeds" of socialism have appeared in the networked world.
Since the advent of digital socialism theory, there has been no shortage of scholars in foreign academic circles questioning its connotation and historical positioning. In addition to denying that digital socialism possesses a socialist nature, other foreign scholars have attempted to correct the discursive domain to which digital socialism belongs.
Regarding the former, scholars opposing Kelly's view believe his reflections on social relations and modes of production in the era of digital capitalism are overly optimistic; thus, digital socialism still possesses a capitalist nature. Richard Sprague, based on the understanding of "Free" within the two meanings of the public principle of classical socialism and the "free choice" of capitalism, denied Kelly's view that digital socialism is a third social form possessing the advantages of both socialism and capitalism [9]. Sprague believes that the digital socialism proposed by Kelly is nothing more than simple, old-fashioned, decentralized, Hayekian capitalism, and therefore lacks a socialist nature.
Furthermore, advocates of "knowledge socialism" theory have attempted to use the concept of knowledge socialism to correct the misused concept of digital socialism. According to their view, the digital socialism proposed by Kelly merely inherits the concept of socialism semantically; in reality, it should belong to the category of knowledge socialism. Although digital socialism possesses attributes consistent with socialism, such as free sharing, free use, and free production, these are all based on the private ownership of digital platform capitalism—that is, the foundation where platform capitalists own the network infrastructure and network data. In Ratta’s view, the network has promoted the socialization of knowledge and the development of knowledge socialism, but these are not equivalent to socialism [10].
Compared with scholars like Sprague, Michael A. Peters’ critique of Kelly’s digital socialism concept is relatively mild. Peters believes it remains debatable whether knowledge socialism promotes the public nature of knowledge through a mechanism of free ideological exchange [11], and whether digital socialism expresses the public nature of knowledge by means of a "knowledge commons." Regarding the realization of digital socialism, Peters also maintains a skeptical attitude, believing that one can discover from the arduous process of promoting open knowledge and science alone that the "digital socialism revolution" will still take time [12]. Therefore, Peters advocates for replacing the concept of "digital socialism" with "knowledge socialism" to more accurately describe the socialist values manifested in the networked dissemination of knowledge.
II. Can Digital Socialism Drive Social Transformation?
The Internet, big data, and burgeoning Artificial Intelligence technologies have pushed human social production into a new industrial era. The rise in the level of new productive forces, the formation of network social relations, and the expansion of communicative modes between individuals have quietly changed the ways people connect. Data production and network linking contain both the dominance of the network by the capitalist logic of capital and the appropriation of digital products, as well as a new, potential breakthrough against the capitalist mode of commodity production. Information sharing, the facilitation of public resource replication, and the non-profit public spaces formed by digital labor have brought digital socialism theorists a wealth of information and hope for transforming current society. Marxist theory holds that the communist movement, for the first time, consciously treats all "premises" created by predecessors as the property of united individuals, "stripping them of their natural character and subjugating them to the power of the united individuals" [13]. At present, can the local fields of digital socialism develop into an effective alternative to the capitalist system? Can the beautiful vision of digital socialism become a reality? Foreign academic circles primarily focus their debate on the "inorganic conditions" [14] produced by production and social intercourse, manifesting in two opposite tendencies: first, that the positive factors of digital socialism are continuously increasing; and second, that the realization of digital socialism faces numerous difficulties.
(1) The positive factors of digital socialism are continuously increasing
Scholars full of confidence in digital socialism are hopeful about the socialist factors within capitalist reality, believing that even within the capitalist system, factors of digital socialism are constantly increasing. Digital socialism emerges from Internet organizational structures dependent on digital labor; it is a "pioneer" condition of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and its volume is becoming increasingly massive. It is predicted that globally, by 2025, professional white-collar information services provided by on-demand work platforms alone are expected to increase by $2.7 trillion, accounting for approximately 2% of global GDP [15]. Furthermore, the easy replicability, low cost, and even zero cost of network products have facilitated the development of a "gift-giving" model, opening a new, shared public space in the era of commodities, which prepares the material conditions for the emergence of digital socialism. Kelly used digital socialism to replace the "Cyber-communism" proposed by Richard Barbrook, pointing out that the "sharing model" is a viable alternative for capitalist for-profit companies and civic institutions. Kelly emphasized that the forces of "sharing, cooperation, collaboration, openness, free pricing, and transparency" permeating "every corner" of the Internet are constantly driving the growth of "socialist forces" [16]. Clearly, Kelly holds a firm belief in the ideal of digital socialism.
Compared to Kelly, other foreign Left scholars seem more subtle in their support for digital socialism. They celebrate the convenience created by the digital age for people’s democracy, arguing that the era of the Internet has weakened "authority" within the vertical chains of power systems. Vincent Mosco, basing his argument on the spatial characteristics of power provided by Internet-constructed systems, points out that rich and extensive horizontal online connections have impacted the "authority" in vertical power chain systems. [17] Taking the "Strategic Defense Initiative" (Star Wars) and the "Progress and Freedom Foundation" as examples, Mosco analyzes the role of modern network technology in mobilizing the masses and its importance in breaking through existing human order frameworks; he suggests that network technology has the potential to "create a world where everyone can freely realize their life value like an entrepreneur." [18]
Since the concept of digital socialism was proposed, the functions of network connectivity, algorithms, and mobilization upon which digital socialism relies have played an important role in new social movements. For example, during the "Arab Spring" movements from 2010 to 2012, the number of self-media users exploded by nearly ten million, creating a powerful "network empowerment" effect that impacted political landscapes; [19] in 2018, the filtering functions of Internet algorithms accelerated the aggregation effect of the "Yellow Vests" movement in France; the "15M" movement in Spain in May 2021 proceeded simultaneously in a parallel mode combining online propaganda and agitation with offline practice; in the 2011 "Occupy Wall Street" movement, already-populist network forces rushed directly toward bourgeois state power within the network public spaces created by social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Due to its potential for powerful impact, digital social movements are regarded by bourgeois governments as serious social threats.
Although digital mobilization in the network era has shown great impetus in social movements, digital socialism—unlike other social movements—possesses strong ideological differences. Its substitution for the capitalist system still requires a return from "cyberspace" to reality and a breakthrough of the constraints of the capitalist systemic structure. Fuchs and Sebastian Sevignani affirm the capacity of digital technology to drive social change in areas such as labor methods and platform infrastructure construction, as well as the possibility of giving rise to the "sprouts" of communism and facilitating a transition to socialism.
(II) Great Difficulties in Realizing Digital Socialism
Unlike the optimists, realists do not approve of idealized descriptions of digital socialism, believing that blind optimism regarding digital socialism is merely a constructivist illusion. To turn illusion into reality, the material conditions of capitalist life must be transformed, because "material force must be overthrown by material force." [20] Therefore, if digital socialism is to replace the capitalist social formation, it must possess a realist spirit for conducting social transformation within the capitalist institutional system. The cautious attitude of realists stems from their recognition of the realities of information technology, big data capitalism, and liberal values since the beginning of the 21st century; they realize that digital socialism can only be realized when it becomes a revolutionary practical action to transform capitalist ownership. The Belarusian scholar Evgeny Morozov attempts to explore digital feedback systems beyond capitalist "price" indicators within a digital technical context. He seeks to establish a socialist "feedback infrastructure" based on digital technology that can facilitate more effective and feasible market mechanisms—that is, market information collection channels based on public ownership, controlled by a socialist state rather than capitalists, and supported by modern digital terminals, the Internet, and big data—to replace the value feedback mechanism of the liberal market economy in making market decisions. Morozov’s reflection is of great theoretical significance. Nonetheless, he also realizes that digital socialism is limited by "Silicon Valley private ownership," and the prerequisite for systemic transformation is breaking through the obstacles of private property.
Scholars who support Morozov’s "feedback infrastructure" theory agree that it has potential value for transforming the market system. For instance, digital socialist scholars represented by Dimitris Boucas state very clearly that the promise of digital socialist liberation through technical development has not been realized. He attempts to draw theoretical resources from the philosophy of technology of Radovan Richta and Andre Gorz, situating the material conditions of digital socialism in the "radical transformation of the existing infrastructure of digital capitalism and user participation in digital technological change." [21] Boucas’s advocacy for change points to multiple levels—social structure, material resources, and social organization—and examines the possibility of replacing capitalist Internet organizational structures with digital socialism. He believes that the architecture of Internet organizations based on capitalist private ownership and its liberal economic foundation inevitably forms an asymmetric, one-dimensional power model between infrastructure owners and users. This leads to control, surveillance, and monopolistic commercial operations by Internet capitalists. These network effects constitute a major obstacle on the path to realizing digital socialist transformation. However, Boucas does not completely deny the possibility of achieving digital socialism. In his view, every contact between users and Internet platforms, search engines, social networks, and software code presents a possibility for negotiation, thereby making it possible to break the unequal power patterns between users and Internet capitalists and subsequently subvert digital capitalism. Overall, Boucas’s theory of digital socialism does not go much further than Morozov’s; its theoretical significance centrally lies in reaffirming the possibility and direction of efforts for digital socialism to drive social change.
Of course, some scholars have raised sharp criticisms regarding the practicality of the "feedback infrastructure" proposal, arguing that even if Morozov provides highly realistic theoretical ideas in his design for digital socialism, he still hasn't escaped the fantasy of capitalist private ownership. Among them, Latta's criticism is the most piercing; he charges that Morozov’s claim to strive for ownership within "feedback infrastructure" remains biased, ignoring the fact that "feedback infrastructure" is controlled by a few tech giants. Unlike Morozov’s digital socialism theory—which emphasizes ideological discourses such as non-competitiveness, dispersion, and infinite expansion, and remains confined within the symbolic and immaterial nature of commodities in capitalist language and imagination—Latta argues that digital socialism must transcend immateriality and abstraction. It must engage in physical contact with current capitalism, return to the main battlefield of the "body," "subject," and "subjectivity," and shape an ethics of care focused on subjective material production and its way of being in the world. [22]
III. How Digital Technology Advances Digital Socialism
Digital socialism reflects the "sprouts" of new relations of production within the capitalist systemic structure. Contentions regarding the revolutionary nature of digital socialism have driven reflections on the transformation of theory into reality. Although foreign Left scholars realize there is a certain distance between the theoretical development of digital socialism and political change, they have never stopped unearthing its potential to drive social transformation and replace capitalism. Their debates on moving from theory to practice have evolved from "whether it can" to "how to"—that is, how to advance the transition of digital socialism from theory to reality. In summary, these debates manifest primarily in the following three aspects.
First, information technology will promote the increase of social wealth and spontaneously realize communism. In 2019, Aaron Bastani depicted the enormous social changes brought about by the high-speed development of productive forces in the information age. Bastani pointed out the intergenerational changes and trends in industrial development and, based on the fundamental conditions of productive forces driven by information technology, proposed the concept of a "Fully Automated Luxury Communism" society. Bastani noted that technological development provides us with the possibility of realizing communism. Although we are in a century of overlapping crises such as "climate change, resource scarcity, an increasing surplus population, aging, and technological unemployment caused by automation," [23] the developmental trend of digital technology according to Moore’s Law will inevitably break the resource scarcity of a limited world, including information. Both the value and cost of information show a downward trend, eventually leading to the free use of information; this law will also operate in fields such as labor, energy, and resources. [24] Based on this, Bastani confidently believes that, driven by technological change, communist relations of production will inevitably form. Bastani focuses on the huge practical role that technical factors within the productive forces might play, but he fails to mention how relations of production are broken through during the development of productive forces, nor does he realize that "to make the new-born social forces work well, they only need to be taken off by new-born men." [25] Bastani's blindly optimistic view suffers from the significant flaw of "lacking a theory of power, class struggle, and revolution to explain the sociological transition from capitalism to communism," [26] and thus is not widely accepted by the academic community.
Second, the huge advantages of digital technology systems in promoting market economic transformation provide the technical foundation for production in a communist society. Informationized and digitalized technology systems can play a role in information supply and decision support during the market allocation of resources. In conceiving how information technology and digital feedback systems serve economic operations, foreign Left scholars have proposed two views: first, that within the capitalist system, information transmission systems can prevent capitalist crises, thereby serving to reshape capitalist society. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Thomas Ramge expounded this view in their book Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data. Second, that data collection and feedback systems formed through big data and network technology can remedy defects such as those in the Soviet planned economy, demonstrating the feasibility of applying new technologies to future communist economic production. This theoretical approach continues the discussion from the early 1930s regarding the quantitative calculation of the socialist price system in the Soviet Union. Regarding the issue of a socialist planned economy, foreign Right scholars argued that the large amount of "unspecified" resources and the subjectivity of human activity in real economic life increased the complexity of decision-making during extensive production. Paul Cockshott responded to the Right’s denial of the rationality of the planned economy within a digital context. He argued that while computational resources were too scarce in the early 1930s, by the 1990s, computers had become capable of the relevant work, solving the problem of insufficient computing power. [27]
Third, leveraging the autonomy of digital communication platforms to promote digital socialism. The optimism and confidence of foreign Left scholars regarding digital socialism come from the "de-capitalized logic" of product sharing among workers in the digital network world. For real-world socialist movements, digital socialism is not only symbolic but represents a mobilization path for the movement. However, the contradiction between capitalist private ownership and the socialist elements in the digital network world squeezes the living space of digital socialism. To realize the substitution of digital socialism for capitalism, foreign Left scholars advocate for the establishment of autonomous, non-bourgeois digital platforms to serve socialist revolutionary movements. For example, Fuchs and other scholars suggest that the potential for achieving socialism can be unearthed through network communication, expanding the role of digital media in social revolutionary movements, conducting the class struggle of the digital working class, and forming a comprehensive political strategy with both breadth and depth. James Muldoon's proposal is even more radical; in his 2022 book Platform Socialism, he directly suggests achieving socialism by transforming digital platforms into public utility companies through public ownership reform.
IV. Can Digital Socialism Promote the Free and Comprehensive Development of Human Beings?
Human development is a primary indicator of social progress. Marxist theory critiques the alienation of labor within the sphere of production under capitalist conditions, asserting that communism is the historical stage that sublate [28] human alienation and realizes the free and well-rounded development of the individual. However, the Marxist vision of the free and well-rounded development of individuals is predicated upon the premise of a "true community," namely that "only within the community does each individual have the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions." [29] Nevertheless, digital socialism is not an already-realized true community; rather, it is a theoretical trend that, based on the theoretical paradigm of communism, explores the free and conscious characteristics of production and life in the era of networked information. The debates among foreign Left scholars regarding whether digital socialism can promote the free and well-rounded development of individuals focus primarily on the following three aspects:
First, digital socialism enhances human subjectivity and promotes human autonomy. In the digital age, people's modes of labor and communication have undergone changes. Scholars who maintain that digital socialism possesses communist theoretical attributes take the digital mode of labor and the characteristics of subjective attributes as manifestations of its progressive significance and as criteria for judging the transcendence of capitalism. This view holds that digital socialism achieves freedom in terms of labor and social interaction; digital labor in the digital era and the networked world differs from forms of labor in the sphere of industrial production. This form of labor breaks through the constraints of time and space and possesses more free and conscious characteristics. On this point, Kevin Kelly is a typical optimist. He believes that digital labor in the internet era, and the non-digital labor that relies on the internet, bring convenience in time and space as well as autonomy of participation to the workers engaged in such activities. Furthermore, the labor output in the era of digital commodities has the potential to escape the control of the commodity logic under the capitalist system. For example, users of Wikipedia can edit autonomously and open the resulting products to society as networked resources, thereby sharing the products of labor. Richard Barbrook refers to these products of labor as "free gifts." The labor that produces "free gifts" is not for profit but is based on interest and mutual support, which can promote the labor autonomy of workers.
Second, digital labor conceals alienated labor. Digital labor is the theoretical cornerstone of digital socialism. The judgment passed on digital labor determines the cognitive understanding of the attributes of digital socialism. Foreign Left scholars analyze digital labor from two levels. The first is a holistic judgment of digital labor. This perspective manifests as a negative evaluation of digital labor, arguing that digital socialism cannot promote the free and well-rounded development of individuals, and linking digital labor with the bourgeoisie’s control over digital network infrastructure. Christian Fuchs and Sebastian Sevignani argue, from the perspectives of the products, objects, and instruments of labor, that digital labor remains alienated labor—and is moreover more clandestine and difficult to detect. Regarding the lack of subjectivity in digital alienated labor, Steffen Krüger and Jacob Johanssen have proposed the phenomenon of the "instrumentalization" of the digital laborer, exposing the fact that the digital labor of workers creates surplus value for capitalists. Hristo Prodanov examines the efficient production and convenient communication of the digital age in conjunction with the subjective care of laborers, arguing that the digital age has not promoted the free and well-rounded development of individuals but has instead produced new anxieties, manifested as "busyness" and "impatience" in production and life. The second level involves the construction of the connotation of digital labor. Fuchs and Sevignani attempt to use the term "playbor" to demonstrate its difference from digital labor, thereby arguing that digital labor possesses the illusion of being free and autonomous. In his work Digital Labor and Karl Marx, Fuchs, proceeding from a Marxist standpoint, proposes that "play" and "labor" are two different spheres of activity: "play" exists in private and public places but often occurs during non-working time; "labor" is associated with productive activity and thus occurs during working time. Fuchs further defines the essence of "playbor," arguing that it is more suitable for describing digital labor because it creates a blurred paradigm between "play" and "labor": labor manifests as play, while play becomes a form of value creation. In Fuchs's view, "playbor" does not promote the free development of individuals; it still contains the implication of class exploitation. Fuchs uses the work of Google employees to illustrate the essence of "playbor," noting that while Google offices look like playgrounds, they are actually factories of high-pressure work with long hours of overtime. The use of social media such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter increases the "fun" of labor, but behind the "fun use" of these platforms lies the fact that these platforms are operated by corporations which earn massive profits and exploit the labor of their users.
Third, digital socialism can promote human development through specific means. Despite differences on the issue of digital labor, foreign Left scholars actively explore paths to sublate alienation in the digital age. Don Tapscott systematically discussed the epochal characteristics of the digital economy in The Digital Economy. He borrows the "entertainment" activities of the industrial economic era to "repair" the "damage" to subjectivity, extending the powerful historical inertia of "entertainment" into the digital age. Tapscott argues that the dilemma of human development caused by the ownership and control of the means of production by others in the industrial economy is "compensated" for in the digital economy by enhancing the working class's sense of achievement. Later, in The Digital Economy: Rethinking Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence, Tapscott reaffirmed: "In the old economy, workers tried to achieve fulfillment through leisure. Alienation resulted because the means of production were owned and controlled by someone else. In the new economy, fulfillment can be achieved through work and the means of production are moving to the producer's brain."
In contrast to Tapscott’s self-intoxication, Aaron Bastani’s optimism regarding digital socialism focuses on the possibility that digital technology creates abundant material wealth, shortens labor time, and raises the level of productive forces. However, Bastani’s confidence in the development of productive forces via the digital revolution does not resolve the problem of alienation in digital socialist theory. Fuchs and Sevignani, digging deep into the Marxist concept of labor, argue that it is inaccurate to sublate alienated labor in the Marxist paradigm using the instances of free human labor or the "entertainment" attributes of digital labor that appear in the digital revolution. Some scholars also contend that although digital socialism has not fully formed the institutional conditions to sublate alienation, the application of digital technology, the development of industrial structures, and changes in people's modes of labor are accumulating the material conditions and potential momentum for achieving human liberation. Digital socialism indicates that human society is in a transition from the stage of labor alienation within the capitalist system toward the historical stage of the communist sublation of alienated labor, promoting social liberation through the progressive realization of human liberation. The early Czech Marxist theorist Radovan Richta particularly emphasized that human development, especially the growth of laborer creativity, is the most effective means of increasing social productive forces. Fuchs once expressed a similar view, arguing that in the capitalist digital age, technology can make labor more socialized, bring new forms of cooperation, enhance the potential for collective ownership, and create new commons (such as the digital commons) and reduce necessary labor time—all of which are the foundational possibilities for achieving communism, or what some call capitalized "communism."
V. Conclusion Concurrent with the development of the 21st-century technological revolution, the theory of digital socialism emerged quietly following the outbreak of the 2008 global financial crisis. At the same time, broad concepts of digital socialism such as cyber-communism and communicative socialism were proposed. These theories of digital socialism share commonalities but also possess significant differences, and these similarities and differences have sparked extensive debate among foreign Left scholars. Furthermore, various types of new socialist forms maintain a connection with Left politics under shared revolutionary demands. Theoretical forms such as cyber-communism, platform socialism, and communicative socialism are contributing wisdom and strength to the socialist movement of the 21st century. New types of socialist theory not only exist as symbolic images in cyberspace, but their demand to replace the capitalist system also drives them to exert greater kinetic energy in practice.