From Organic to Antagonistic: The Two Sides of Control Under Digital Capitalism

This article analyzes the diversity of ways in which digital capital accumulates. To do so, it traces back the literature on digital capitalism to three different conceptions of control, developed by Marx, Veblen, and Deleuze. Each author emphasized a dominant mechanism through which capital is accumulated, namely, exploitation, capture, and circulation. We show that digital capital activates these three mechanisms of accumulation at the same time, which explains its attraction for investors over the last decades. Although each type of control allows accumulation in the short run, we also show that it is prone to engender contradictions and resistance from controlled entities from which value is drawn. In this sense, capitalism under the digital age is both unprecedentedly powerful and fragile.