Value Production, Measurement, and Distribution under Digital Capitalism :  A Critique of the Theory That the Law of Value Has Failed

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World Review of Political Economy

Volume 12, Issue 4

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Value Production, Measurement, and Distribution under Digital Capitalism : A Critique of the Theory That the Law of Value Has Failed

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Author(s): Xu Wei ^* ^,

Publication date (Electronic preprint): 01 December 2021

Journal: World Review of Political Economy

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: digital capital, law of value, productive and non-productive labor, information rent, the measure of value

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Abstract

Western Marxist scholars take “immaterial labor,” “audience labor” and “prosumer labor” as the core categories to explain the problem of the value creation and profit sources of digital capital in online production and consumption activities in the Web 2.0 era. By analyzing the production process of digital capitalism, they have come to the conclusion that contemporary capitalist production has taken on an overall “novel” character. On the basis of the special cost structure of digital capitalist production, the increasing “fuzziness” of production time and living time, and the disappearance of the boundary between paid labor and unpaid labor under digital capitalism, they draw the conclusion that the law of value has become invalid in the era of “digital production and consumption.” However, once digital labor and its results are placed within Marx’s analytical framework, and are interpreted in terms of such categories as “direct production process of capitalism,” “fixed capital accumulation pattern” and “classification of productive labor and non-productive labor,” it becomes clear that the brilliant achievements of digital capital are best understood as the results of innovative modes of surplus-value possession or distribution, rather than of new methods of surplus-value creation, and that the conclusion that the law of value has failed represents a misreading or misinterpretation of Marx’s labor theory of value. Although the digital capitalist mode of production is serving partially to dissipate the role of the law of value, this law as the general principle regulating global capitalist production remains effective in the contemporary world.

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Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169/worlrevipoliecon

Title: World Review of Political Economy

Abbreviated Title: WRPE

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Electronic): 2042-8928

Publication date (Electronic preprint): 01 December 2021

Volume: 12

Issue: 4

Pages: 472-492

Author notes

[* ] Correspondence: Xu Wei ( weixujlcd@ 123456163.com )

Article

DOI: 10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.12.4.0472

SO-VID: bf244d32-2342-42f1-92a4-a1f209012c20

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Pages: 21

References

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] A. Arvidsson, and E. Colleoni. 2012. “Value in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet.” The Information Society 28 (3): 135–150.

[2] R. Boyer, and Y. Saillard. 2002. Regulation Theory: The State of the Art. London: Routledge.

[3] M. Castells 2010. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

[4] Facebook Inc. 2013. “Bloomberg Businessweek.” January 2, Form: 10-K.

[5] D. Foley 2013. “Rethinking Financial Capitalism and the ‘Information’ Economy.” Review of Radical Political Economics 45 (3): 257–268.

[6] C. Fuchs 2010. “Labor in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet.” The Information Society 26 (3): 179–196.

[7] C. Fuchs 2011. “A Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy of Google.” Fast Capitalism. Accessed April 25, 2019 . http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/8_1/fuchs8_1.

[8] C. Fuchs 2012. “With or without Marx? With or without Capitalism? A Rejoinder to Adam Arvidsson and Eleanor Colleoni.” Triple 10 (2): 633–645.

[9] M. Hardt, and A. Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

[10] M. Hardt, and A. Negri. 2004. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. London: Penguin Books.

[11] E. Mandel 1983. Late Capitalism. [In Chinese.] Harbin: Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House.

[12] K. Marx, and F. Engels. 2010a. Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 28. Digital edition. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[13] K. Marx, and F. Engels. 2010b. Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 29. Digital edition. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[14] K. Marx, and F. Engels. 2010c. Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 34. Digital edition. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[15] K. Marx, and F. Engels. 2010d. Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 35. Digital edition. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[16] K. Marx, and F. Engels. 2010e. Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 36. Digital edition. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

[17] A. Negri, and M. Hardt. 1999. “Value and Affect.” Boundary 2 26 (2): 77–88.

[18] S. Savran, and E. A. Tonak. 2020. “Productive and Unproductive Labour: An Attempt at Clarification and Classification.” [In Chinese.] Translated by X. Wei. Contemporary Economic Studies, no. 6: 39–53.

[19] D. Schiller 2000. Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

[20] D. W. Smythe 1977. “Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism.” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 1 (3): 1–27.

[21] T. Terranova 2000. “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy.” Social Text 18 (2): 33–58.

[22] A. Toffler 1980. The Third Wave. New York: William Morrow.

[23] C. Vercellone 1999. “Wages, Rent and Profit in Cognitive Capitalism.” Paper presented at the 16th Historical Materialism Conference, London, November 7–10.

[24] C. Vercellone 2004. “Las políticas de desarrollo en tiempos del capitalism cognitivo” [Cognitive Development Policy in the Capitalist Era]. In Capitalismo cognitivo, propiedad intelectual y creación colectiva [Cognitive Capitalism, Intellectual Property and Collective Creation], edited by E. Rodríguez and R. Sánchez, 63–74. Madrid: Traficantes de sueños.

[25] C. Vercellone 2007. “From Formal Subsumption to General Intellect: Elements for a Marxist Reading of the Thesis of Cognitive Capitalism.” Historical Materialism 15 (1): 13–36.

[26] C. Vercellone 2009. “Crisis de la ley del valor y devenir renta de la ganancia. Apuntes sobre la crisis sistémica del capitalismo cognitivo” [Crisis of the Law of Value, Income Which Becomes Profits: The Systematic Crisis of Cognitive Capitalism]. In En La Gran crisis de la economía global [The Great Crisis of Global Economy], edited by S. Mezzadra, 63–98. Madrid: Traficantes de sueños.

[27] I. Wallerstein 1979. The Capitalist World-Economy: Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.