Value, Price, and Profit in the 21st Century

• In Event: Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 4: Marxist Sociology and Critical Political Economy

Abstract

Updating Marx’s Value, Price, and Profit for the 21st century, this article investigates the structural puzzle of profit realization within the digital economy that largely provides "free" digital services. Employing Emigh, Riley, and Ahmed’s dialectical comparative methodology, I utilize negative process tracing to critique the dominant frameworks of Cybernetic Capitalism, Digital Capitalism, and Technofeudalism. Through an empirical analysis of Google and Amazon, I demonstrate that neither cybernetic abstraction, traditional wage-labor, nor technofeudal rentierism precisely explains how profits are produced in the digital economy. I argue instead that we have transitioned to a "digital society" characterized by a new social relation: digital exploitation through the mass socialization of "in-kind labor." In a digital society, users engage in cashless exchanges with companies by exchanging their data and providing self-services for access to digital or physical commodities. These in-kind labor exchanges are consented to through the Terms of Service or implicitly as de facto labor contracts. This synthesis demystifies how profits are produced in the 21st century, exposing a precarious ruling class whose reliance on this hidden digital exploitation increasingly drives them toward authoritarianism.

Author

• Genie Sullivan