Journal of Guangxi Teachers Education University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition) ›› 2026, Vol. 62 ›› Issue (4): 19-27.doi: 10.16088/j.issn.1001-6597.2026.04.003

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The New Alienation in the Era of Digital Capitalism and Its Essence—A Review of Fuchs’ Critical Theory of Technological Alienation

YAN Yan, ZHENG Ya-lan   

  1. School of Philosophy, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China
  • Received:2025-11-11 Online:2026-07-05 Published:2026-07-01

Abstract: In the era of digital capitalism, the comprehensive domination of digital technology by the capital accumulation logic has rendered the phenomenon of technological alienation increasingly prominent. Alienation has not only permeated the realm of daily human life but also given rise to new types of labor alienation, rendering technology itself to degenerate into an ideological tool serving the legitimacy of capital. Addressing the erosion of human value rationality by digital technological alienation, British scholar Christian Fuchs, adopting a Marxist stance, has constructed a theoretical framework encompassing three critiques: political economy, technological rationality, and culture. The critique of political economy reveals how digital labor is appropriated by capital and transformed into surplus value; the critique of technological rationality exposes how science and technology become tools for capital to discipline labor and increase the rate of exploitation; the critique of culture illustrates how the digital cultural industry manufactures consumerist illusions and dissolves the value of human subjectivity. Accordingly, Fuchs proposes three paths to digital liberation: “digital commons”, the “occupy movement”, and the “building alternative internet platforms” with an attempt to deconstruct technological alienation and transcend the logic of capital through new working-class movements and alternative practical schemes. However, his critique of digital labor and technological alienation, proceeding from the binary opposition between capital and labor, lacks attention to the dimension of real production and remains merely at the level of ethical critique of capital’s injustice. Moreover, the “Occupy movement” has not evolved into a real social movement resisting capitalist rule, making it difficult to achieve the practical goals of technological liberation and human emancipation.

Key words: Christian Fuchs, digital capitalism, digital labor, technological alienation, capital logic, digital sharing

CLC Number:  B561.6
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