Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

Marx & Proudhon in the Digital Age

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heavily controlled digital tools have a broadness of impact on society. These tools have included Weibo’s integration of the entirety of an individual’s economic interactions, 21 and Sesame Credit, which is a type of totalitarianmetric of ‘social suitability’ as attempts to homogenise individuals. 22

These are both effective examples of initiatives which can serve to alleviate several of Marx’s

social concerns within a capitalist society, which would have been impractical in a remotely free

market pre-digital.

Another important metric which can be observed in China is the lack of employment for

occupations typically associated with the bourgeoisie. China’s economy features both a high participation (70%) rate and extremely low unemployment (4%). 23 Despite these statistics, China

is having enormous issues with properly employing its university educated population. 8% of

students are unemployed six months after graduating, twice the national average. This has improved from 2013, where as many as 30% of graduates were unemployed after six months. 24

Of the 50 most common graduate occupations, 30% don’t require a degree.

Japan is another example of a country suffering from the negative impacts of digitisation. One

major post-digital change which has occurred within Japanese society has been the emergence of

‘Hikkomori’, a class of social recluses which fails entirely to interact with the outside world. Many

21 “How China Is Changing Your Internet,” The New York Times , accessed June 15, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/video/ technology/100000004574648/china-internet-wechat.html. 22 Celia Hatton, “China ’social credit’: Beijing sets up huge system,” BBC News, October 26,

2015, accessed June 15, 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/worldasiachina-34592186. 23 “Topic: Employment in China,” www.statista.com, accessed June 15, 2017, https://www. statista.com/topics/1317/employment-in-china/. 24 Yojana Sharma, “What do you do with millions of extra graduates?” BBC News, July 1, 2014, accessed June 15, 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28062071.

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