全视监控下网商价格竞争的形塑机制

The Shaping Mechanism of Online Business Price Competition under Omnipticon

在信息愈加丰富的情况下,电商市场仍充斥着网商的低价竞争,既有研究无法解释这一悖论。造成网商低价竞争的根源在于,集成数据和信息资源的电商平台塑造了一个消费者与网商、网商与同行间相互监视的场域。本研究引入并丰富了全视监控概念,借鉴马克思的权力理论和布尔迪厄的场域视角,分析电商平台如何在推动信息趋于对称、看似公平竞争的过程中加剧网商的价格竞争。居于寡占乃至垄断位置的电商平台通过激发价格关注度、调节商品可见度、增强同行透明度三种机制,让网商陷入价格竞争的泥沼,达成平台对网商的隐蔽控制。全视监控概念有助于理解网络和信息技术背景下市场竞争的结构、权力控制与资本积累的独特方式。

This paper seeks to answer a paradox that has not been well answered by previous research: Why is there low-price competition among e-businessmen despite the increasing abundance of information? The root cause of this low-price competition is that e-commerce platforms that integrate data and information resources shape a field of mutual surveillance between consumers and e-businessmen,and between e-businessmen and their peers. Drawing on Karl Marx’s theory of power and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “field”,the study introduces and enriches the concept of omnipticon,to analyze how e-commerce platforms intensify price competition among e-businessmen in the process of promoting symmetrical information and seemingly fair competition. E-commerce platforms in an oligopolistic or even monopolistic position reach the hidden control of the platform over e-businessmen through three mechanisms: stimulating price attention,regulating the visibility of goods,and enhancing the transparency of peers,which plunge e-businessmen into the quagmire of price competition. The concept of omnipticon helps to understand the structure of market competition,the unique ways of power control and capital accumulation in the context of network and information technology.