Information Extraction from the Chinese Text
The provided text is an excerpt from a Chinesearticle discussing the current economic system and whether it’s more accurately described as technological feudalism or still capitalism. The text is a conversation between Evgeny Morozov and Daniel Denvir, where Morozov argues that the current systemis still fundamentally capitalist, despite the rise of technological monopolies and rent-seeking behavior.
Here’s a breakdown of the key information you requested:
Main Argument:
- Morozov argues that the current economic system is still fundamentally capitalist, despite the rise of technological monopolies and rent-seeking behavior. He rejects the idea that we are entering a new era of technological feudalism.
- He emphasizes that the key difference between feudalism and capitalism lies in the mode of production. In feudalism, surplus value was extracted through direct political power and violence, while in capitalism, surplus value is extracted through the exploitation of laborpower in a seemingly clean and legal process.
Supporting Arguments:
- Morozov acknowledges that there is a growing trend of rent-seeking and reliance on political power in the current economic system. However, he argues that these are not new phenomena and are inherent to capitalism.
- Hepoints out that the traditional Marxist understanding of capitalism emphasizes innovation and competition as driving forces. He argues that the current system, despite its flaws, still exhibits these characteristics.
- He criticizes the technological feudalism argument for being overly simplistic and failing to adequately understand the complexities of capitalism.
KeyConcepts:
- Mode of Production: The way in which goods and services are produced and distributed in a society.
- Surplus Value: The difference between the value of a product and the cost of producing it, which is appropriated by the capitalist class.
- Rent-Seeking: The pursuit of economic gainthrough non-productive activities, such as lobbying for government favors or exploiting monopolies.
- Technological Feudalism: A term used to describe a hypothetical economic system where technology is used to create new forms of feudal power relations.
Quotes:
- If Marxists accept that these two forces play equally important roles inthe constitution of capitalism, rather than seeing possession as a secondary force in the exploitation of labor—they would consider it the primary force, what does that mean?
- The expansion of technological and financial power, coupled with the growing sense that the system is ruled more by brazen plunder than by old-fashioned labor exploitation,has convinced thinkers from the Marxist left to neoliberals and even the new reactionary right that we have completely broken with capitalism and entered a new era of feudalism.
- But Evgeny Morozov, in his New Left Review article, A Critique of Technological Feudal Reason, argues that this dark period we areexperiencing is actually still a thoroughly capitalist period.
- Some scholars argue that capitalism is no longer the force of competition and innovation that ensures surplus value through mystified forms of voluntary labor exploitation. Instead, they argue that capitalists are increasingly reliant on raw political power to extract capital by any means, from rents to government-provided cheap capital—a mode of surplus value extraction that looks more like feudalism.
- But Morozov argues that forms of political dispossession and expropriation, as well as coercive practices like rent terrorism, are core features of capitalism, not its deformities or deviations.
Author Information:
*Evgeny Morozov: A writer and scholar who has written extensively on the intersection of technology and politics. He is the founder of The Syllabus, a knowledge configuration service company.
* Daniel Denvir: The host of the the Dig podcast for Jacobin.
Translation:
- The text istranslated from Chinese into English. The translation is provided in the text itself.
Overall, the text provides a nuanced and insightful discussion of the current economic system, challenging simplistic interpretations and offering a more complex understanding of capitalism in the age of technology.
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