Abstract

In recent years, scholars working across a range of disciplines have become increasingly interested in exploring the contours and machinations of digital capitalism. Celebrants extoll the way digital technologies are enhancing processes of capital accumulation, rendering employment more flexible, democractizing innovation, and making new forms of economic co-operation possible. By contrast, skeptics warn that digital technologies are being used to exacerbate inequality, further capitalist domination and extraction, and automate human beings into a future where there is no escape from the ubiquitous surveillance technologies that are used to forward the interests of a powerful techno-elite. The four books I review in this essay all offer critical perspectives on capitalism in the digital age. However, when read collectively, these books also demonstrate that if we are going to enhance our understanding of digital capitalism, then a single narrative will not do. By exploring the different ways digital capitalism is produced, lived, and even resisted by those who are differentially positioned within its ambit, these books make a powerful case for the role anthropology can play in illuminating the complexities, and the transformative possibilities, of our current economic moment.

摘要

近年来，跨学科工作的学者对探索数字资本主义的轮廓和阴谋越来越感兴趣。庆祝者赞扬数字技术正在增强资本积累过程、使就业更加灵活、使创新民主化以及使新形式的经济合作成为可能的方式。相比之下，怀疑论者警告说，数字技术正被用来加剧不平等，进一步资本主义统治和榨取，并使人类自动化进入一个无法逃避无处不在的监视技术的未来，这些技术被用来促进强大技术的利益。精英。我在这篇文章中回顾的四本书都提供了关于数字时代资本主义的批判性观点。然而，当集体阅读时，这些书还表明，如果我们要加深对数字资本主义的理解，那么单一的叙述是行不通的。通过探索数字资本主义生产、生活甚至被处于不同位置的人抵制的不同方式，这些书有力地证明了人类学在阐明我们当前的复杂性和变革的可能性方面可以发挥的作用。经济时刻。