A value form analysis of artificial intelligence driven synthetic automation and its impact on the middle class

Karl Marx’s primary focus was on the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but his theoretical framework offers useful insights into the role of the middle class in a capitalist society. The methodology of this paper is qualitative and based on the textual exegesis of Marx to identify the core macroeconomic laws of the value-form and trace their contemporary structural parallels. The aim of this research is to explore the way synthetic automation essentially alters the transformation of social labour to economic value under present capitalism, focusing on the vulnerability of the professional-managerial class ( PMC ). The findings show that the incorporation of specialized mental labour into the constant capital ( C ) of AI systems leads to a virtual devaluation of the human variable capital ( V ) on which middle-class strata rely, thus producing a terminal phase of cognitive proletarianization. In conclusion, the paper suggests that while social-democratic policy measures are crucial, meaningfully resolving AI-generated inequality will likely require extending democracy to the collective ownership and governance of cognitive infrastructure.