From Accumulation to Alienation: Marx and Veblen

Abstract

The previous chapter discussed some of the features of social capitalism and the nature of these flexible and mobile regimes to gain insight into the phenomenon of accumulation that occurs on social media, particularly with a view to online social capital’s most readily apparent symbol: numeric counters that validate, valorise, and give some semblance of value to user production on social media. This is paired with the way social media sites accumulate and aggregate user data for its own purposes, not for the benefit of the user. Both of these forms of accumulation are not only circuits unto themselves, but are linked. To what degree users on social media are alienated and exploited through their acts of online social capital accumulation must be answered in light of the specific affordances of social media, while also drawing from the works of Marx and Veblen. Given this chapter’s focus on alienation and exploitation, appealing to the works of Marx would be an obvious choice; however, this will only represent part of the story, for there is also the institutional economic approach developed by Thorstein Veblen that may speak to social media users’ conspicuous acts online. Combined, this will tell a more dynamic story about how alienation and exploitation manifest in the pursuit of online social capital. Both Marx and Veblen will agree that alienation is a major issue to be addressed and ameliorated, despite being in disagreement about its origins. For Marx, a raising of class consciousness is key to superseding alienation and exploitation, whereas for Veblen it is to wrest the power of invention and creation away from purely pecuniary interests, but also to raise consciousness in a different way: to get people to question their own conspicuous consumption and ritualistic behaviour. In the simplest of terms, the way out of alienation and exploitation leads, for Marx, to the classless society where workers own the means of production; for Veblen, to a society where education and technology will not be