Speaking of digital capitalism is not a Marxist theory equivalent to analyses of the post-industrial society (Daniel Bell) or the network society (Manuel Castells). The way I conceptualise digital capitalism does not imply that digitalisation is the main feature of contemporary societies. The core characteristic of contemporary societies is that they are capitalist societies. Capitalist society is based on dialectics of many capitalisms, that is of many dimensions of capitalism that develop over time and through restructurations that are implemented as specific responses to crises of capitalist society. Digital capitalism has been a particular dimension of capitalist society in the 20th and 21st centuries.
In the mid-1970s, capitalism experienced a profound multidimensional crisis that resulted in the rise of neoliberal capitalism, a new round of political-economic globalisation, and the advancement of new digital technologies as means of production and communication (Fuchs 2008). The rise of capitalism’s digital technological paradigm was a response to the crisis of capitalist society.
Digital capitalism is the dimension of capitalist society where processes of the accumulation of capital, decision-power and reputation are mediated by and organised with the help of digital technologies and where economic, political and cultural processes result in digital goods and digital structures. Digital labour, digital capital, political online communication, digital aspects of protests and social struggles, ideology online, and influencer-dominated digital culture are some of the features of digital capitalism. In digital capitalism, digital technologies mediate the accumulation of capital and power.
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Introduction
2 Data source: Forbes 2000 List of the World’s Largest Public Companies, year 2020, https://www.forbes.com/ global2000/#1439081f335d, accessed on 2 May 2021.