Analysis of the Logic of Time Exploitation in Digital Capitalism: a Study Based on Marx’s Free Time Thought

Starting from the basic standpoint of workers, Marx launched a critique of the inequality of free time under the capitalist mode of production, which still has practical significance today. Digital capitalism, as a new form of deep integration between capitalism and digital technology, provides a dual dimension of technological possibilities and structural contradictions for free time. Its positive significance lies in releasing time resources through technological innovation, but the infiltration of capital logic has led to the alienation of free time into a tool for capital proliferation. Its core logic still revolves around capital logic, and “time” is the core object of its exploitation. When capital converts “time” into quantifiable factors of production, free time becomes an accessory to capital growth. Digital capitalism has achieved new changes in the form, scope, and means of free time exploitation by promoting digital capitalization, integration of production and consumption, and digitization, forming a more covert and extensive mechanism of time exploitation. Based on the new changes of free time under digital capitalism, restoring the original context of Marx’s free time thought can help reveal the deep roots of the alienation of free time in the digital age and provide theoretical reference for seeking the true liberation of free time.