Digital Capitalism

DIGITAL CAPITALISM

MEDIA, COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY VOLUME THREE

CHRISTIAN FUCHS

Digital Capitalism

This third volume in Christian Fuchs’s Media, Communication and Society book series illuminates what it means to live in an age of digital capitalism, analysing its various aspects, and engaging with a variety of critical thinkers whose theories and approaches enable a critical understanding of digital capitalism for media and communication.

Each chapter focuses on a particular dimension of digital capitalism or a critical theorist whose work helps us to illuminate how digital capitalism works. Subjects covered include: digital positivism; administrative big data analytics; the role and relations of patriarchy, slavery, and racism in the context of digital labour; digital alienation; the role of social media in the capitalist crisis; the relationship between imperialism and digital labour; alternatives such as trade unions and class struggles in the digital age; platform co-operatives; digital commons; and public service Internet platforms. It also considers specific examples, including the digital labour of Foxconn and Pegatron workers, software engineers at Google, and online freelancers, as well as considering the political economy of targeted-advertising-based Internet platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Instagram.

Digital Capitalism illuminates how a digital capitalist society’s economy, politics, and culture work and interact, making it essential reading for both students and researchers in media, culture, and communication studies, as well as related disciplines.

Christian Fuchs is a critical theorist of communication and society. He is co-editor of the journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. He is author of many publications, including the books Foundations of Critical Theory (2022), Communicating COVID-19: Everyday Life, Digital Capitalism, and Conspiracy Theories in Pandemic Times (2021), Marxist Humanism and Communication Theory (2021), Social Media: A Critical Introduction (3rd edition 2021), Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory (2020), Marxism: Karl Marx’s Fifteen Key Concepts for Cultural & Communication Studies (2020), Nationalism on the Internet: Critical Theory and Ideology in the Age of Social Media and Fake News (2020), Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism (2019), Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter (2016), Digital Labour and Karl Marx (2014), and Internet and Society (2008).

Digital Capitalism Media, Communication and Society Volume Three

Christian Fuchs

ROUTLEDGE Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2022 Christian Fuchs

The right of Christian Fuchs to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fuchs, Christian, 1976- author.
Title: Digital capitalism / Christian Fuchs.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series: Media, communication and society ; volume 3 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021022153 (print) | LCCN 2021022154 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032119182 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032119205 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003222149 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Digital media--Economic aspects. | Digital media--Social aspects. | Capitalism. | Information technology--Economic aspects.
Classification: LCC HM851 .F829 2022 (print) | LCC HM851 (ebook) | DDC 302.23/ 1--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022153
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022154

ISBN: 978-1-032-11918-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-11920-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-22214-9 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003222149

Typeset in Univers by MPS Limited, Dehradun

Contents

List of Figures vii
List of Tables ix
Acknowledgements xiii
PART I
Introduction 1
1 Introduction: What is Digital Capitalism? 3
PART II
Theorists 39
2 Friedrich Engels in the Age of Digital Capitalism 41
3 History and Class Consciousness 2.0: Georg Lukács in the Age of Digital
Capitalism and Big Data 79
4 Adorno and the Media in Digital Capitalism 105
5 Communication in Everyday (Digital) Life. A Reading of Henri Lefebvre’s
Critique of Everyday Life in the Age of Digital Capitalism 127
6 Dallas Smythe and Digital Labour 157
PART III
Themes 175
7 From Digital Positivism and Administrative Big Data Analytics Towards
Critical Digital and Social Media Research 177
8 Social Media, Big Data, and Critical Marketing 193
9 Social Media and the Capitalist Crisis 213
10 Capitalism, Patriarchy, Slavery, and Racism in the Age of Digital
Capitalism and Digital Labour 231
11 Digital Labour and Imperialism 255
12 The Information Economy and the Labour Theory of Value 271
PART IV
Conclusion 309
13 Conclusion 311
Index 319

vi

Contents

Figures

2.1 A google ad for jobs at the Googleplex, source: https://careers.
google.com/locations/mountain-view/?hl=en, accessed on 11 July
2020 56
2.2 Deliveroo’s self-presentation as a platform that enables workers’
freedom, source: https://deliveroo.co.uk, accessed on 11 July 2020 57
2.3 Uber’s self-presentation as a platform that enables workers’
freedom, source: https://www.uber.com/at/en/drive/, accessed
on 11 July 2020 58
3.1 Donald Trump promotes a Breitbart-piece he wrote on Twitter 87
4.1 A model of right-wing authoritarianism 112
4.2 Nationalist tweet by Trump, source: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/
status/772798809508372480 115
4.3 Tweet by Boris Johnson about immigration, source: https://
twitter.com/borisjohnson/status/1198905666905100289, posted
on 25 November 2019 116
4.4 Tweet by Donald Trump, source: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/
status/832708293516632065, posted on 17 February 2017 117
4.5 Donald Trump on military affairs, sources: https://twitter.com/
realDonaldTrump/status/776842647294009344, https://twitter.com/
realdonaldtrump/status/811977223326625792?lang=en 118
5.1 Everyday life and communication 134
5.2 An Apple subvertisement, source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/5335
9511@N00/256232830, CC-BY licence, created by Brian Fitzgerald 151
6.1 The economic relationship of Facebook and its advertising clients 164
9.1 Economic development in the USA 215
9.2 Economic development in the EU15 countries 215
9.3 The wage share in the USA and the EU 216
9.4 The capital share in the USA and the EU 217
9.5 Share of the global gross market value of over-the-counter
derivatives in world GDP (in %) 218
9.6 The development of Google’s profits, in billion US\$. Data source:
SEC-Filings, From 10-K, various years 221

9.7 The development of Facebook’s profits, 2007–2014, in million US\$

9.8 A Twitter-critique of the BBC Panorama documentary on Corbyn that uses visual dialectical reversals by showing images of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair with Gaddafi, Blair with Assad, and Thatcher with Pinochet

11.1 The international division of digital labour (cp. Fuchs 2014, 2015) 263

221

viii Figures

Tables

1.1 Levels and structures of capitalist society 21
1.2 Accumulation as general process in capitalist society 22
1.3 The role of accumulation in digital capitalism 29
1.4 The antagonisms of digital capitalism 30
1.5 Share of specific industries in the profits, revenues, and assets of
the world’s largest 2,000 transnational corporations (data source:
Forbes 2000 List of the World’s Largest Public Companies,
year 2018) 30
2.1 Total annual labour productivity growth in manufacturing in
percentage, productivity is measured as labour productivity per
unit labour input (in most cases gross value added in constant
prices per hour worked), data source: OECD STAN 50
4.1 Commodities in the digital culture industry 109
4.2 Occurrences of pronouns in the Trump-Twitter-dataset, source:
Fuchs 2018, 210 113
4.3 Share of specific industries in the profits, revenues, and assets of
the world’s largest 2,000 transnational corporations (data source:
Forbes 2000 List of the World’s Largest Public Companies,
year 2018) 121
5.1 Levels of society 133
5.2 Lefebvre’s distinction between the lived and the living (sources:
CEL2, 166, 216-218) 133
5.3 Five types of the means of communication 136
5.4 The authoritarian and the humanistic character in the economy,
politics, and culture 138
5.5 Three types of alienation as antagonistic social relations 138
5.6 Alienation and disalienation in society 138
5.7 Structures in capitalist society 141
5.8 Accumulation as general process in capitalist society 141
5.9 Alienation and disalienation/humanism in the context of
knowledge and communication 142
5.10 The role of accumulation in communicative capitalism and digital
capitalism 142
5.11 The antagonisms of communicative capitalism and digital
capitalism
8.1 The matrix of digital alienation
9.1 The development of global advertising revenue, in £ billion and %
of total ad revenue
9.2 Frequency of usage per month of specific forms of communication
in the mobilisation of protest
10.1 Reproductive labour in the USA
10.2 Reproductive labour in the USA
10.3 Facebook’s suggested cost-per-click bid for users aged 18+ based
on location and gender (data source: Facebook adverts manager,
accessed 30 October 2016)
10.4 Characteristics of four types of labour
11.1 The main forms of ownership in various modes of production
11.2 Data on the world’s 2000 largest TNCs, own calculations based
on the following data sources: Forbes 2000 (2004 and 2014 lists),
in billion US\$, data refer to 2003 and 2013; data source for world
GDP: IMF World Economic Outlook Database (2003 and 2013,
world GDP in billion US\$)
12.1 The German economy’s monetary expression of labour-time,
2000–2011 (in € per hour)
12.2 Comparison of the value of output $\mathsf { w } _ { \mathsf { h } } ( \mathsf { t } )$ and prices $\mathsf { p } _ { \mathsf { h } } ( \mathsf { t } )$ in the
German information industries, in thousand years
12.3 Comparison of the value of output $\mathsf { W } _ { \mathsf { p } } ( \mathsf { t } )$ and prices $\mathsf { p } _ { \mathsf { p } } ( \mathsf { t } )$ in the
German information industries, in billion €
12.4 Differences between prices $\mathsf { p } _ { \mathsf { p } , \mathsf { h } } ( \mathsf { t } )$ and values of output $\mathsf { W } _ { \mathsf { p } , \mathsf { h } } ( \mathsf { t } )$ in
the German information industries, in %
12.5 Organic composition of capital $\tau / \nu$ in the German information
industries, 2001–2011, in %
12.6 The value rate of profit $\mathsf { r p } _ { \mathsf { v } }$ in the German information industries,
2001–2011, in %
12.7 The price rate of profit $\mathsf { { I p } _ { \mathsf { p } } }$ in the German information industries,
2001–2011, in %
12.8 Differences between prices $\mathsf { p } _ { \mathsf { p } , \mathsf { h } } ( \mathsf { t } )$ and values of output $\mathsf { W } _ { \mathsf { p } , \mathsf { h } } ( \mathsf { t } )$ in
the German manufacturing industry (= M) and the entire economy
$ \mathsf { I } = \mathsf { E } ;$ excluding finance and real estate), in %