数字平台“产消合一”现象的政治经济学辨析

The Political Economic Analysis of Prosumption on Digital Platforms

数字平台用户的“产消合一”现象备受学界关注,但福克斯等人的“产消合一”界定过于笼统。从马克思主义政治经济学角度,可以将“产消合一”分成平台用户纯粹的使用行为、创造性的内容发布行为、通过发布内容获取收益的行为,以及受雇于平台或第三方而进行内容创作的行为。其中,前两种类型不是政治经济学意义上的生产行为,后两种属于生产行为,也是创造价值的行为。前两类用户创造的数据实际上来自平台公司雇佣者的劳动,用户并未在平台使用过程中创造价值。平台与用户之间如果不存在资本主义雇佣关系,那么用户就没有直接受到平台剥削。但用户行为数据确实为平台带来了大量收益,这是由于平台既通过垄断数据获得了生产要素价值分配的租金,又凭借金融资本的投入获得了更多的剩余价值。只有透过“产消合一”现象探查其背后的机制,才能解决当前用户和平台的矛盾,助力数字经济健康发展。

Although the prosumption among users of digital platforms has garnered significant academic interest,the definition of prosumption given by Fox et al,is overly broad.From the perspective of Marxist political economy,prosumption can be divided into four types:pure usage behavior by platform users,creative content posting behavior,behavior of obtaining profits through content posting,and behavior of being employed by a platform or a third party to create content.The former two types are not production behaviors in the sense of political economy,while the latter two types are both production behaviors and value-creating behaviors.The data created by the former two types of users actually come from the labor of employers of a platform company,and users do not create value during the platform usage process.If there is no relationship of capitalist employment between the platform and the user,the user is not directly exploited by the platform.However,digital platforms do benefit a lot from the data created by user behaviors,because these platforms not only obtain the rent of the value distribution of production factors through monopolizing data,but also obtain more surplus value through the investment of financial capital.Only by exploring the mechanism behind such prosumption can we resolve the current contradiction between users and platforms and thus contribute to the healthy development of the digital economy.