云帝国:一个似“马”非“马”的理论命题——基于对库尔德里和梅西亚斯数据殖民主义理论的解读

Cloud Empire:A Theoretical Proposition Like“Marxism”But Not“Marxism”Based on the Interpretation of Couldry and Mejias'Data Colonialism Theory

面对着大数据技术下资本主义社会的新发展,左翼学者库尔德里和梅西亚斯提出了“云帝国”的概念,认为由各类大型数字公司构成的云帝国正在通过数据提取技术推行一种新的殖民方式,即数据殖民。云帝国的出现使得人们的日常生活开始资本化,成为可以被云帝国所殖民掠夺的原材料,同时也带来了更为严重的不平等问题和人们生命自主性的丧失。尽管库尔德里和梅西亚斯在形式上延续了马克思主义的经济分析传统,但二人对经典作家理论的应用存在着一些根本性的曲解和偏离,也由此出现了难以弥合的理论缺陷,因此“云帝国”概念从实质上而言只是一个打着马克思主义旗号的、似“马”非“马”的理论命题。

Facing the new development of capitalist society under big data technology,leftist scholars Couldry and Mejias proposed the concept of“cloud empire”,thinking that the cloud empire composed of various large digital companies is implementing a kind of new colonization method with data extraction technology,that is data colonization.The emergence of the cloud empire made people's daily life capitalized and become a raw material that could be plundered by the cloud empire.It also brought more serious inequality problems and the loss of people's life autonomy.Couldry and Mejias continued the Marxist tradition of economic analysis in form,but the two have some fundamental misunderstandings and deviations from the application of classic writer theory,thus leading to theoretical defects that are difficult to bridge.Therefore,the concept of“cloud empire”is essentially just a theoretical proposition like“Marxism”but not“Marxism”.