Hao Ruilin and Han Wenlong: The Triple Manifestations, Formation Mechanism, and Internal Contradictions of Digital Rentier Capitalism
Along with the development of digital technology, digital labor, data elements, and platform organizations have extensively permeated every link of social reproduction. This has brought about profound changes in the capitalist mode of production and a deep transformation in the relations between capital, labor, and the state, while intensifying the trends of inequality and instability within capitalism. Many scholars have characterized the new features of contemporary capitalism from perspectives such as platform capitalism, AI capitalism, algorithmic capitalism, surveillance capitalism, and techno-feudalism. From the perspective of the appropriation and distribution of surplus value, these new features indicate the emergence of a "new rentier economy" in contemporary capitalism, distinct from the eras of industrial and financial capitalism.
In the early stages of capitalism, those financial capitalists and landowners who earned interest, gains from financial speculation, and ground rent were called "rentiers." They did not engage in production but rather made deductions from surplus value or profit. Rentiers were subordinate to industrial capitalists for a long time until after the Second Industrial Revolution, when a rentier class relying on monopolies to seize financial profits grew rapidly and occupied a dominant position. They "commanded almost all the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen, and also... the greater part of the means of production and sources of raw materials in their own country and in many other countries." They earned financial profits by intervening in the operations of industrial enterprises while using "bureaucratic methods" to influence politics, "earning billions in 'excess profits' from the state." Starting from the 1970s, the outline of a capitalism detached from industrial production and reliant on the operation of financial markets to extract rent gradually took shape—what Guy Standing calls "rentier capitalism." Michael Hudson argues that the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sectors have held governments hostage, creating a rentier economy distinct from industrial capitalism. Since around 2010, the explosive development of digital technology, digital platforms, and big data has given rise to a new rentier model based on the digital economy. Three dominant forces—tech giants, financial oligarchs, and politicians—are uniting to form a massive global rentier network. So, what specific changes have occurred in digital rentier capitalism? How were these new changes formed? What impact have they had on capitalist countries? How should China respond? These questions require in-depth investigation from the standpoint of Marxist political economy.
I. The Threefold Manifestations of Digital Rentier Capitalism
Compared to the eras of industrial and financial capitalism, the rentier economy of capitalism in the digital era has undergone significant changes in three aspects: the methods of rent-seeking, the sources of profit, and the composition of the rentier class.
(1) Digital rent-seeking has become a new mode of rentierism
During the nearly 40 years preceding the outbreak of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, financialization was the main theme of the capitalist economy, and relying on financial speculation to extract rent was the primary way to accumulate wealth. This rentier mode sought to detach itself from industrial production—for instance, institutional investors pooled social funds for speculation in financial derivatives, banks relied on interest income from household debt, and non-financial enterprises participated extensively in financial activities. After the subprime crisis, financial wealth shrunk significantly, and the rentier mode that focused on financial profit while detached from the real economy became unsustainable.
Since around 2010, the rapid development of the digital economy has catalyzed new rentier modes. Compared to the traditional economy, the core productive forces of the digital economy—such as digital technology, platform infrastructure, and data—possess characteristics like low marginal costs and non-exclusivity. Enterprises can cast market barriers through intellectual property rights or form natural monopolies under network effects, thereby demanding monopoly high prices and obtaining rentier income. Changes in the conditions of production have attracted tech companies to participate in a digital "enclosure movement" [1]. Specifically, in the field of technology, patent fees are compensation for R&D investment; however, tech giants often leverage their dominant market positions in related technological fields to implement monopolistic practices and earn exorbitant patent fees. For example, the current development of large AI models relies on massive data and computing power (calculating capacity) resources. Currently, computing resources, represented by high-performance GPUs, are held by a few technical giants like Nvidia or cloud service providers. By controlling computing resources and hardware facilities, they form a "calculating power monopoly," creating effects that exclude or restrict competition in the AI market. In the platform sector, digital platform enterprises use the internet to aggregate large numbers of users or suppliers and demanders of goods and services, digitize commercial activities and individual behaviors, and use digital technologies such as calculating power, algorithms, and data storage to provide services to users accessing the platform. In platform operations, behaviors such as signing monopoly agreements, abusing dominant market positions, and improper concentration of undertakings are common. In the data sector, the collection and control of data help platform enterprises earn more income. For instance, Amazon coordinates transactions by collecting user data, earning advertising fees and commissions; Google builds a data ecosystem through search engines, the Android system, browsers, maps, and email to precisely deliver advertisements to users, earning massive advertising fees. By virtue of these huge rentier incomes, tech giants can further consolidate their market power and obtain sustained rentier returns.
(2) Digital gig workers have become a primary subject providing sources of profit
In the eras of industrial and financial capitalism, rentiers extracted profits from functional capitalists, individuals, and financial markets through various means. These profits were, in the final analysis, surplus value created by wage laborers. In the digital era, digital gig workers have emerged, gradually becoming a primary subject providing profit sources for rentiers.
The large-scale development of gig work can be traced back to the post-Fordist flexible production methods and outsourcing that appeared in the 1970s. Since around 2010, the development of digital technology further extended outsourcing into crowdsourcing—that is, outsourcing firms use the internet to release tasks to the public. Various platform enterprises, such as e-commerce platforms, social platforms, ride-hailing platforms, and food delivery platforms, emerged and developed rapidly during this stage. Digital platforms gather a large number of consumers and micro, small, and medium enterprises into an ecosystem, giving rise to a series of new forms of employment and entrepreneurship, such as short-video bloggers, ride-hailing drivers, couriers, and delivery riders. These laborers, who rely on digital platforms for job opportunities but do not establish formal employment relationships with the platforms, are generally called "digital gig workers." The number of digital gig workers is vast and grew rapidly, especially after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a report by the American freelance platform Upwork, 38% of the U.S. workforce engaged in gig work in 2023, primarily providing knowledge-based or unskilled services, sales, and social media content creation. Furthermore, there is an even larger group of transnational digital gig workers engaged in online work. World Bank reports estimate the global online gig workforce to be approximately 154 to 435 million, mainly concentrated in low- and middle-income countries.
The massive group of digital gig workers has become a primary subject providing profit sources for rentiers. Digital gig workers rely on platforms for work opportunities; platforms extract high commissions based on their labor, while digital gig workers face a low-income dilemma. Survey data shows that the hourly earnings of one-seventh of gig workers in the U.S. are below the federal minimum wage, and more than one-fourth earn less than the state minimum wage applicable to employees in equivalent positions. Compared to the legal protections that traditional wage laborers have regarding income, working hours, and social security, the non-employment labor relationship between digital gig workers and platform enterprises exempts the platforms from the responsibilities and obligations they should bear toward employees. Moreover, task-based employment and flexible labor bring about open competition, leaving laborers increasingly trapped in overwork and anxiety over unstable income.
(3) The rentier class has shifted from a "finance-politics" complex to a "tech-finance-politics" complex
Before the end of the 19th century, political and financial interests were linked primarily through state credit. From the end of the 19th century to the 1990s, financial oligarchs united with bureaucrats to earn excess profits; they tied their interests to those of politicians through lobbying and political participation. As some scholars have noted, American finance has long been embedded in national interests and a complex political ecosystem, constituting a "natural political finance." With the development of digital technology, technological interests are increasingly embedded in the complex ecosystem of finance and politics. The rentier class, which previously centered on the "finance-politics" complex, has shifted to a "tech-finance-politics" complex.
First, technological interests are closely linked with financial interests. Tech startups relying on the internet and electronic information technology grew up alongside private equity and venture capital. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, private equity investment increased sharply due to the emergence of high-tech companies. Although private equity capital shifted to real estate and various financial products after the dot-com bubble burst, it flooded back into the tech sector after the U.S. subprime crisis, participating heavily in the layout of emerging fields such as big data, cloud computing, and AI. During this stage, the tech industry rose at an accelerated pace and integrated deeply with production and services to become the leading industry; tech giants gradually replaced traditional industrial oligarchs as the most profitable companies. The 2024 Fortune 500 list shows that among the top ten most profitable companies, six are tech companies. Because institutional investors are heavily involved in the cultivation and development of the tech industry, the two have formed a bond of interest under the form of equity. The massive investment required for technological and industrial development will further leverage the two into a larger-scale alliance in the future.
Second, technological interests are tied to political interests. Tech giants have now become one of the most powerful political lobbying forces, and various political groups are actively catering to their needs. In the U.S., although the Tillman Act of 1907 and the Hatch Act of 1939 both attempted to weaken the influence of special interest groups and the wealthy on elections, the power of Political Action Committees (PACs), which serve as "white gloves" [2], has expanded dramatically. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, tech giants like Facebook and Google joined the Obama campaign team. After Obama won, he not only responded to the policy demands of these tech sectors but also appointed many tech company executives to key government positions, forming a relatively stable alliance. The 2010 U.S. Federal Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC further turned elections into an expensive "money game." In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the Trump team, in order to win the support of the tech industry, changed its past negative attitude and chose to embrace cryptocurrency. On March 6, 2025, the victorious Trump signed an executive order announcing the establishment of a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" and a "Digital Asset Repository."
II. The Formation Mechanism of Digital Rentier Capitalism
The new changes in the capitalist rentier economy in the digital era are driven by the movement of capital: the formation of digital capital has driven the transformation of rentier methods toward digital rent-seeking; the accumulation of digital capital through platform organizational forms has not only restructured the labor process—making digital gig workers new objects of exploitation—but has also reinforced digital rent-seeking methods; and the alliance of digital capital with financial capital, along with the marriage of capital power and political power, has updated the rentier class.
(1) The formation of digital capital: Digitalization of labor, commodification of data, and capitalization of data-commodities
The development of digital technology has promoted the digitalization of labor, the commodification of data, and the capitalization of data-commodities. Capital invested in digital fields such as information and communication, semiconductors, software, and e-commerce has gradually become independent of industrial and commercial capital, becoming a new form of capital: digital capital.
First, the main feature of the digital economy is the transformation of circulation and production connections. This digitalization of labor triggered by technological change has not only altered the form of labor but also innovated the ways of uncompensated appropriation of others' labor. The digitalization of labor is mainly manifested in two aspects: First, the data-creating activities of internet users have become free labor. Data that accurately reflects user behavior and preferences is collected, cleaned, and organized by internet platforms and used for customized production, advertising, credit assessment, and other activities. This provides favorable conditions for the circuit and turnover of capital, thereby increasing the excess profits of industrial, commercial, and financial capitalists. Second, a large amount of labor involved in the production of digital products has emerged, including labor directly involved in the production of digital means of consumption; labor engaged in digital services such as software development, system maintenance, information filtering, and data processing; and labor involved in operating and maintaining electronic equipment and systems in industrial production. Among these, the digital products produced by the first two types of labor are generally reproducible.
Second, the most prominent characteristic of the digital transformation of labor lies in the free labor of users and labor that produces infinitely reproducible digital products; together, these two open up a channel for rent-seeking through data commodities. First, the free labor of users creates a vast pool of raw data, but under the capitalist mode of production, this raw data is appropriated by a minority to generate income. Although raw data can be intercepted from public channels or generated from a firm’s own operations, regardless of the channel, it is collected by a minority by virtue of their ownership of key productive forces such as digital technology and platforms. After cleaning and processing, this data is transformed into data commodities produced by platform firms and data companies. Once data becomes a commodity, it can not only be exchanged for money but also acquires the capacity to participate in the distribution of income, yet the free labor of users typically remains uncompensated. Second, reusable digital products, such as digital means of consumption and digital services, likewise become sources of income for platforms. Although workers receive a degree of compensation for their production, the reproducibility of the products allows the platform to capture a greater share of value.
Third, companies that have mastered data commodities do not limit themselves to profiting from the buying and selling of those commodities. More importantly, they provide advertising and consulting services to other functional capitalists and financial capitalists, thereby carving out a share of surplus value from them. Alternatively, they organize individual laborers in the form of platforms, using the information provided by data to appropriate the surplus value created by those workers. Consequently, data commodities are transformed into data capital. Industrial capital’s decisions on what to produce for maximum profit, financial capital’s choices on the most lucrative sectors for investment, and gig workers’ determinations of whom to provide services for—all rely on acquiring information from the capitalists who control data. What digital capitalists must do is expand data sources, enhance computing power, optimize algorithms, and improve data storage to expand data capital.
Finally, for capitalists to use data to make money, they must maintain their superiority in data collection and data commodity production. This necessitates the construction of market barriers around relevant technologies and platforms to obstruct the entry of competitors. This further drives the intensification of technological and platform monopolies and the increase of monopoly rents. The productive forces invested by data-controlling capitalists to expand data capital—such as technology and platform infrastructure—combine with data to form digital capital, and these owners become digital capitalists. The formation of digital capital means that the channels for capital valorization have begun to systematically shift toward digital rent.
(2) The Accumulation of Digital Capital: Leveraging the Platform Organizational Form
Building digital platforms is a crucial avenue for the accumulation of digital capital. The rise and expansion of digital gig work is precisely a product of the development of platform organizational forms, and digital capitalists achieve capital accumulation through the exploitation of digital gig workers. Simultaneously, digital platforms serve as a vital means for digital capitalists to strengthen their rent-seeking capabilities. They achieve faster capital accumulation by appropriating the surplus value yielded by suppliers, the personal income of consumers, and financial returns.
First, digital capitalists leverage digital platforms to appropriate the surplus value created by digital gig workers, thereby achieving capital accumulation. The development of platform organizations has reorganized the labor process and restructured the labor market, forming the "gig economy"—a new form of labor organization based on digital platforms. Unlike traditional firms, digital platforms do not play the role of production organizers; instead, they pursue a "lightweight" model of physical assets and personnel. They organize laborers under the guise of "cooperation" and drive them to work incessantly through algorithmic control. This so-called algorithmic control refers to using data-driven automated decision systems to implement labor direction, performance evaluation, and behavioral discipline over the labor process. Algorithms can record every aspect of the labor process via terminal devices to form massive datasets. On this basis, artificial intelligence performs real-time calculations to ensure workers' behaviors align with organizational interests through task assignment and reward-and-punishment mechanisms, thereby replacing traditional labor contracts. Laborers working for platforms appear to work autonomously, but in reality, they form an "on-call" labor force. In occupations such as ride-hailing and food delivery, digital platforms use income incentives and "peak-hour" surges to make workers exceed their own "income targets" and voluntarily extend their working hours. Of course, refusing platform demands—such as failing to meet minimum order volumes, exceeding maximum cancellation rates, or ranking at the bottom of performance evaluations—results in corresponding penalties. Therefore, although digital gig workers often own their own means of production [3], digital platforms can still appropriate the surplus value created by these workers through their control of data and algorithms, further capturing absolute surplus value [4] by driving them to overwork.
Second, digital capitalists leverage digital platforms to extract surplus value from suppliers, consumers, and financial markets, achieving rapid accumulation. (i) The data held by platforms provides firms connected to the platform with superior production conditions compared to other firms, creating significant space for superprofits. By virtue of their monopoly over data ownership, digital platforms can claim these superprofits as rent for platform access. The larger the platform scale and the more users it attracts, the more data the platform controls, making it easier to increase merchants' superprofits. Consequently, the platform earns more rent and gains greater discourse power [5], making it increasingly difficult for competitors to break the market monopoly. Some platform firms construct "platform ecosystems" by aggregating multi-layered data from suppliers, application platforms, and users, appropriating information and intellectual achievements that were originally created collectively by society. Suppliers entering the platform’s value chain and consumers using its services must pay various fees to the platform’s core firm. (ii) Valuation is the estimation of an asset's price in financial investment; investors aim to screen for high-growth assets to obtain the largest possible profit margin. In the financing process of digital platforms, the phenomenon of "negative profit but high valuation" is common, because the users and traffic controlled by the platform are highly likely to bring massive data advantages and huge revenues in the future. To secure financing, digital platforms also adopt the practice of "burning money" to buy traffic, inflating their potential to repel potential competitors. This practice drives platform firms to rush to expand market share in short periods, seizing new territories in an "enclosure" [6] fashion and engaging in predatory data production, forming a valuation-driven accumulation model. However, digital capital accumulated through valuation is fictitious; in essence, it misappropriates future surplus value and investment space.
(3) The Alliance and Monopoly of Digital Capital and Financial Capital
After the Second Industrial Revolution, industrial production became concentrated and monopolized. Simultaneously, banks evolved from intermediaries into extremely powerful monopolists. Furthermore, "the so-called personal union between the banks and the largest industrial and commercial enterprises developed through the acquisition of shares, through the appointment of bank directors to the Supervisory Boards (or Boards of Directors) of industrial and commercial enterprises, and vice versa," forming financial capital with an overwhelming advantage over all other forms of capital. After the Third Industrial Revolution, the development of information and communication technology provided the technical basis and material conditions for the globalization and financialization of capital, and financial capital evolved into international financial monopoly capital. With the development of digital technology, financial capital tends toward digitization while digital capital tends toward financialization; the two have allied to form a new type of monopoly capital.
First, financial capital tends toward digitization. On one hand, by leveraging digital networks, financial capital not only greatly enhances the efficiency and precision of financial services but also breaks the geographical limitations of traditional finance, bringing areas previously unreachable into its scope of accumulation. On the other hand, large financial groups use digital technology to occupy market share and implement monopolistic behavior. They use technological means to raise market entry barriers—for instance, using complex algorithms and models for risk assessment and pricing that make it difficult for small financial institutions to bear high operating costs—and they utilize data and information advantages to engage in unfair competition, achieving expansion by harming the interests of consumers and other market participants.
Second, digital capital tends toward financialization. On one hand, tech companies possess massive amounts of data regarding users' daily lives; by using algorithms and machine learning to score users, they can precisely predict customers' creditworthiness and repayment prospects. On the other hand, large tech companies securitize intellectual property (IP) and virtual objects. IP pledge financing is a method where the holder uses the property rights within the IP as collateral to obtain financing from financial institutions. Firms gain capital support this way, while financial institutions transform IP into tradable securities to raise funds on the securities market. This method both expands financing channels for IP and improves financing efficiency for tech firms, while creating new channels for financial capital generation. Virtual objects in the digital realm and corporate stocks based on digital concepts can also become targets of speculative hype.
Finally, financial capital and digital capital engage in alliance and monopoly. One method is through equity investment. The neoliberal reforms beginning around the 1980s concentrated economic control in the hands of financial capitalists. In the process of technological development, financial capital has linked independently operated tech firms together, forming a "bow-tie" equity network structure with giant financial groups at the core. These giant financial groups hold shares in one another with intertwined interests; the downstream of this equity can reach almost all multinational corporations. Financial groups "cluster" to invest in leading or high-potential tech firms, rapidly nurturing companies capable of occupying market advantages. Tech firms earn rent through "enclosure" movements, while financial groups carve out interest, dividends, and bonuses from them, or earn equity premiums. Established tech firms also penetrate financial groups, tightly binding the interests of both. A second method is operating through financial markets to realize common interests. Financial groups are extensively involved in the processes of tech firm IPOs, mergers, and restructurings. Taking IPOs as an example, securities underwriters both earn relatively stable commissions and obtain stock options; when the company's stock price rises in the future, the underwriters will profit, thus binding their interests together. Furthermore, financial groups are not satisfied with just the returns from corporate growth; they increase the efficiency of tech startups becoming tech giants through mergers and acquisitions. Large tech companies also hope to strengthen their power and eliminate potential competitors by acquiring small companies. The interests and actions of both parties are consistent.
(4) The Marriage of Capital Power and Political Power
"Capital is the all-dominating economic power of bourgeois society" [7], and "political power is merely a means to achieve economic interests," but in capitalist states, "state power is not concentrated in the hands of the entire bourgeoisie, but only in the hands of a small part of this class—the part called the financial aristocracy in France, and in England called the bank giants, exchange giants, railway giants, and so on, or financial magnates, to distinguish them from industrial magnates." Entering the digital economy era, tech giants have risen rapidly. The interest groups formed by their alliance with financial oligarchs penetrate the political sphere to use political power to maintain rent-seeking mechanisms, while capitalist political groups use the power of capital to maintain their rule. Together, they hijack the national interest.
There are multiple paths for the combination of capital power and political power in the digital era. One is the AI-military-industrial complex. Taking the United States as an example, most of its tech industries, such as information communications and aerospace, have close ties to the military. With the rapid development of AI, the cooperation between the US Department of Defense and Silicon Valley tech firms in fields like drones, satellites, and AI has continuously strengthened. A chain has now formed where venture capital injects funds into Silicon Valley startups, and Silicon Valley firms sell advanced technology and products to the Department of Defense. The US government also directly hires tech talent for important positions. The second path is the money-media complex. Although developed capitalist countries, represented by the US, claim...
"Freedom of speech" is touted, but its media has long been controlled by a small number of interest groups. These groups use capital to control the media, influencing public opinion and popular behavior, which in turn affects elections. Politicians use political power to formulate policies biased toward specific interest groups, while the media profits from political advertising fees. Although the emergence of the mobile internet and social media platforms has changed past methods of information transmission, digital media platforms can use big data and algorithms to push or delete certain information to achieve the goal of manipulating public opinion. Third is the surveillance-industrial complex. Tech giants use network effects, technical standards, patent laws, and outdated entry barriers to establish monopolistic digital kingdoms, achieving ubiquitous surveillance. They actively cooperate with government agencies in military and intelligence matters, while the relationship between intelligence departments and private contractors is a "revolving door." Today, capitalist countries led by the United States use digital surveillance networks to achieve collusion between capital power and political power, and extend the tentacles of surveillance to the world in the name of security, thereby controlling the global economic lifeline, disciplining popular behavior, and consolidating military hegemony.
"The state is a product of irreconcilable class contradictions." "The state is an admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble self-contradiction, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order'." [8] However, the marriage of capital power and political power in the digital era has caused the state’s control over supervision, ideological guidance, and even armed force to shift from alleviating conflict to serving the interests of a few, manifesting as "the transfer and diffusion of power from the state to non-state actors."
III. The Internal Contradictions of Digital Rentier Capitalism
The development of digital rentier capitalism has intensified the deep-seated contradictions of capitalism hidden beneath prosperity, leading developed capitalist countries into crises such as social stratification, restricted innovation, and social fragmentation. To escape these crises and maintain long-term rent-seeking mechanisms, they wield political, economic, and military weapons to exert outward pressure, attempting to shift these contradictions onto the global stage.
(1) The contradiction between the socialization of production and the capitalist private ownership of means of production such as technology, platforms, and data in the digital era.
In the digital era, the degree of socialization of production is increasingly high. For example, the application of blockchain technology in manufacturing has improved transparency and efficiency across all links, strengthening the distributed coordination of the entire manufacturing system; open-source software promotes cooperation in the field of innovation; platform organizational forms establish connections for numerous producers and consumers; big data is taken from the people and used by society; and the dependence of the four social reproduction links—production, exchange, distribution, and consumption—on these factors of production is continuously increasing. However, under capitalist private ownership, the key means of production required for socialized production, such as platforms, technology, and data, are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. The use of these means of production is subject to the private interests of a rentier class composed of the "tech-finance-politics" complex. The contradiction between the two limits the innovative development of capitalism. On one hand, although digital rents are conducive to incentivizing innovation and providing R&D funds for further innovation, for the few who control the key means of production of the digital era, it is better to build "small yards and high fences" [9] around existing innovations while stifling the technological innovation of other enterprises (especially foreign ones) rather than relying on continuous investment for profit. At the same time, policymakers who rely on political donations from tech giants turn a blind eye to these behaviors. On the other hand, sustained innovation depends on the production process, but capital is not satisfied with relying on product realization; rather, it obtains financial profits through financial market operations, leading technological innovation further down the path of financialization. As early as the 1990s, the explosion of information technology triggered a frenzy in the venture capital market. This irrational exuberance brought by technological innovation ended with the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001. Currently, Silicon Valley and Wall Street are joining hands to tell a story of technological breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence and capital leverage amplifying expected returns, deviating from the goals of innovative development.
Restricted innovation will threaten the monopoly of tech giants in the digital field, thereby threatening the interests of the entire rentier group. In response, developed capitalist countries implement anti-globalization behaviors, attracting the return of manufacturing and suppressing the technological innovation of other countries. From the 1970s until around 2016, developed capitalist countries promoted globalization strategies to outsource low-end manufacturing while focusing on high-income activities such as financial investment, R&D, and marketing. This globalization coincided with the rentier model centered on financial speculation at the time. However, starting with the 2016 UK "Brexit" referendum and the US advocacy for the return of manufacturing, capitalist globalization strategies shifted toward anti-globalization. This shift was triggered by the resistance of ordinary people to unemployment and the wealth gap caused by the outflow of manufacturing and the massive rentier system, and because the rapid rise of latecomer countries in technological innovation threatened the monopoly profits of transnational capital. To regain economic initiative, developed capitalist countries obstruct free trade by increasing tariffs, imposing export restrictions, and withdrawing from international organizations and multilateral international agreements.
(2) The contradiction between the expansion of production driven by digital technology and the decrease in laboring people’s consumption capacity and the relative shrinkage of consumption time.
The rise of digital productive forces not only promotes the intelligent coordination of the social division of labor—conducive to reducing transaction costs, saving circulation expenses, and shrinking spatial and temporal boundaries—but also drives profound changes in the various elements of productive forces, their combination methods, and historical forms, expanding new applications of natural forces and improving total factor productivity. However, alongside the expansion of production, the consumption capacity of the laboring people decreases and consumption time relatively shrinks. On the one hand, workers must adapt to unstable and fragmented employment under the gig economy. In the past, one job could support a life; today, one must hold multiple jobs to survive, leading to longer working hours and shorter leisure time. As more workers enter the gig market, both hourly and piece-rate wages decline, and workers' relative income decreases. On the other hand, the social classes of the laboring people are increasingly solidified, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and it is difficult to increase consumption. Although the development of the digital economy may increase opportunities for upward social mobility by providing online employment, online education, and financial investment services, rentier capitalism restricts class mobility through various channels. For example, the gig economy weakens workers' bargaining power, political power becomes dynastic, educational resources are increasingly unbalanced, and the reshaping of ideology dissolves the public's consciousness of class advancement. As Jodi Dean said, the majority constitutes a propertyless underclass that can only survive by serving the needs of high-income earners.
Facing the sharp contradiction between production and consumption, developed capitalist countries represented by the United States provide massive subsidies and tax breaks for the tech industry while spending more energy monitoring and controlling marginalized people at the bottom in an attempt to avoid a crisis of relative overproduction. On the other hand, they extend the scope of rent-seeking to the global level through digital colonialism. The new colonial system currently built by developed capitalist countries with digital technology and digital platforms at its core is different from the territorial colonization and capital export of the past. New colonizers usually mask the essence of plundering and controlling other countries' digital resources under the guise of providing digital products and services. As digital aid from developed capitalist countries to under-developed countries enters the "harvesting" stage, these under-developed countries will face high commissions and patent fees, as well as vanishing markets for their own digital products. Furthermore, digital colonizers use big data surveillance and algorithmic control to precisely export their values and culture, clearing ideological obstacles for the global expansion of monopoly capital.
(3) The contradiction between the organized operation of rentier groups and the anarchic state of society as a whole.
In capitalist society, interest groups composed of tech giants, financial monopolies, and politicians operate in an organized manner regarding technical research, supply chain management, brand marketing, capital operations, and policy support, but the anarchy of society as a whole is becoming increasingly prominent. First is the anarchy of social production. The huge rentier space in the digital field attracts a massive influx of capital, while traditional industries accelerate their decline, leading to large-scale unemployment. Second is the chaos of the superstructure. The movement of monopoly capital is not restricted to digital technology, platforms, and finance, but extends to all aspects such as medicine, the military, and ideology, making people’s dietary health, international relations, and ethics subordinate to the goal of capital valorization. The symbiotic relationship between capital and politics allows interest groups to easily capture the state apparatus, forming systemic corruption. The general anarchy of society leads to increasingly serious social fragmentation, with frequent social confrontations such as labor-capital conflicts, ethnic conflicts, and political conflicts. Past deindustrialization, the reduction of social welfare, and current digital technological changes have made the Western working class an increasingly abandoned group. They unite in spontaneous, unorganized ways to protest and challenge the existing social order. However, this social resistance has not yet formed a revolutionary force; instead, labor-capital conflicts are diverted into ethnic issues and gender problems. Public discontent and interest differences between parties further evolve into political conflict, leading to frequent government changes and vacillating policies.
To divert public attention from domestic social conflicts, developed capitalist countries influence public sentiment internally through media guidance and the shaping of external threats, or avoid direct protests against the government by directing social contradictions toward partisan struggles. Externally, they intervene in other countries' politics, or even launch military actions, blaming their domestic problems on other countries. Political intervention is sometimes carried out by exerting diplomatic pressure on target countries through international organizations, sometimes by supporting opposition parties or influencing elections to control the target country's political situation, and sometimes through intelligence activities. Additionally, for "disobedient" countries, they create regional tensions, incite military confrontations, provide weapon aid, and exert military threats globally.
The internal contradictions of digital rentier capitalism and their external transfer have both torn apart imperialist alliances and aroused resistance from developing countries, impacting the world order formed after World War II. While the United States regards the EU and Japan as allies, it also views them as competitors, maintaining its absolute dominance by restricting their development in certain fields. For example, in the field of chips, to fully suppress China's semiconductors, the US restricted the export of European key technical equipment, causing heavy losses for European companies. In the past, European tech companies were closely tied to the US, but faced with US political pressure, Europe has begun to explore a path of autonomy within the US-Europe rift. In developing countries, India, Indonesia, and other nations have formulated laws to restrict cross-border data flows, requiring multinational tech companies to store data domestically to prevent the core resources of the digital economy from being occupied by other countries. Brazil, South Africa, and other countries are promoting the localization of digital technology, attempting to reduce technological dependence on developed countries. Many countries have also launched anti-monopoly investigations into multinational tech giants.
IV. Response to and Transcendence of Digital Rentier Capitalism
China possesses special advantages in responding to the displacement of contradictions by digital rentier capitalism and promoting the healthy development of the digital economy. First, at the institutional level, the basic socialist economic system determines that China’s development of the digital economy is not for the private gain of a few as in capitalist countries, but must "persist in being people-centered, taking the promotion of people’s well-being and the well-rounded development of the individual as the starting point and end point of all work," fundamentally overcoming the drawback of creating and feeding a massive rentier class under the logic of capital. Second, at the technical level, China is already in a global leading position in 5G R&D and commercial applications, has made key breakthroughs in AI and chips, and has made significant progress in big data storage, processing, and analysis, cloud infrastructure construction, and platform services. At the same time, China has the world's largest number of internet users and a complete digital industrial chain, cultivating a large number of digital technology talents. These technological advantages enable China to unite underdeveloped countries to jointly combat digital colonialism and resist digital hegemony. Therefore, China should give full play to the advantages of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and its status as a major digital economy power, actively promote the joint building of a digital community with a shared future [10], regulate and guide the healthy development of capital, and construct new relations of production that adapt to new modes of production.
First, strengthen international technical cooperation and governance synergy to promote the joint construction of a community with a shared future for humanity in the digital sphere. Digital technology, data, and platforms are the foundation upon which rentiers accumulate wealth in the digital economy era; to counter the hegemonism and power politics [11] of interest groups, the key lies in breaking technological monopolies. Firstly, international cooperation in the construction of digital infrastructure—such as 5G base stations, data centers, cloud computing centers, and smart cities—should be strengthened to ensure global digital connectivity and resource sharing. Digital infrastructure construction not only provides the foundation for the research, development, and application of digital technology, but also offers tools for cross-border trade and cooperation among participating countries. Secondly, multinational enterprises and scientific research institutions should be encouraged to engage in joint R&D in frontier technological fields such as internet communication technology, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, big data, and blockchain, thereby breaking the monopoly pricing of current digital technology alliances. Thirdly, the formulation of international rules for the digital economy must be promoted. Participating in the formulation of international rules is an important means of maintaining the right to speak [12], safeguarding external interests, and upholding international fairness and justice. The current rules of internet governance are dominated by a small number of countries and have been questioned by many nations during their implementation. In the emerging field of the digital economy, the vast number of developing countries should proactively participate in the formulation of international rules to promote the establishment of a more equitable and reasonable new order for the digital economy.
Secondly, regulate and guide the healthy development of capital to promote a virtuous cycle of "science and technology—industry—finance." In the development of China's digital economy, the disorderly expansion of capital [13] must be prevented to avoid the formation of a rentier economy. First, supervision and governance in the platform and data sectors should be strengthened; this includes optimizing anti-monopoly legislation, supervision, and enforcement in related fields, and accelerating the processes of data rights confirmation, pricing, and transactions. Second, the advantages of a financial system in which state-owned financial institutions are the mainstay should be leveraged to mobilize idle social funds toward the fields of scientific, technological, and industrial innovation. At the same time, the social sharing of financial returns should be realized to improve income distribution and further stimulate innovative vitality. Third, "red lights" must be set for power and capital [14], focusing on investigating and punishing corrupt behavior behind the disorderly expansion of capital and platform monopolies, thereby severing the "linkage ties" [15] between power and capital.
Finally, construct new relations of production under the digital mode of production. First, improve the mechanism for protecting the rights of laborers in the digital economy and construct new types of labor-capital relations. As the ranks of laborers in new forms of employment—such as food delivery workers, couriers, ride-hailing drivers, and internet streamers—continue to grow, the reconstruction of standards for identifying labor relations should be promoted. This includes exploring the sharing of responsibilities for endowment insurance, medical insurance, and occupational safety protections under these new types of labor relations. Second, the issue of ownership regarding new productive forces must be clarified. The ownership of the means of production is the core of the relations of production. To construct new relations of production, on the one hand, the attribution of data ownership, usage rights, and收益权 (shōuyìquán, "rights to earnings") must be clarified; this satisfies the digital economy's need to utilize data while reasonably distributing the returns from that data. On the other hand, the division of responsibilities and obligations between platforms and product/service providers should be clearly defined, optimizing the platform's revenue distribution mechanism and guiding platforms and product/service operators toward regulated and healthy development.
(Author affiliation: School of Economics, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics) Source: Contemporary World and Socialism, Issue 5, 2025 Editor: Huihui