Writing in 1845, Engels says that a “mass of Acts for enclosing and cultivating commons is passed at every session of Parliament” (CWCE, 287). Communism “does away with all class antagonisms” (CWCE, 301). In the early phase of capitalism, common land was enclosed and peasants were forced into wage labour. Marx (1867) terms this phase of primitive accumulation. But primitive accumulation never ended. It continues in the form of imperialism, attempts of capital to make use of violence and other means for turning non-commodified spheres of society and nature into realms of capital accumulation. That is why digital capital seeks to colonise non-capitalist spaces such as the digital commons and turn them into spheres of digital capital accumulation. Engels pointed out that non-capitalist alternatives are possible and needed. For example, in the realm of media and education, he argues that radical media and education are important intellectual means of struggle. He saw the Chartist newspaper Northern Star as “The only sheet which reports all the movements of the proletariat” (CWCE, 232). He stressed the importance of educational institutions such as the Chartist institutions where “the children receive a purely proletarian education, free from all the influences of the bourgeoisie” and one finds “reading-rooms” with “proletarian journals and books” (CWCE, 245).
We need concrete utopias of digital socialism. I see two potentials: On the one hand, the renewal of the movement of co-operatives and self-managed companies in the form of platform co-operatives, that is, Internet platforms that are self-managed by users and digital workers. On the other hand, the creation of public Internet platforms through a network of public service media.
Chapter Two | Friedrich Engels in Digital Capitalism
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Working-Class Struggles in Digital Capitalism