关键词： “牛马”, 数字经济时代, 网络话语隐喻, 劳动主体性, 异化劳动, 劳动价值

Abstract: The viral metaphor "beast of burden",as a quintessential internet meme in the digital economy era,profoundly reflects the predicament of labor subjectivity alienation within contemporary digital labor relations.The Marxist labor theory's dual"critique-construction" dimension provides a dialectical framework for decoding this discursive phenomenon and its underlying causes.Through the lens of Marxist labor theory,the manifestations of this online discourse can be categorized into four dimensions:the erosion of labor's meaning,the concealment of creative labor,the devaluation of labor status,and the fragmentation of labor communities.These phenomena essentially represent the concrete manifestation of Marx's fourfold characterization of alienated labor in digital economic relations—embodied through wage-data exploitation imbalance under algorithmic management,the practical distortion of mechanical digital toil,existential meaning rupture in "corporate livestock" survival modes,and social alienation through atomized competition.To reconstruct labor subjectivity,we propose a fourfold approach:advancing both subjective consciousness and labor competency through worker empowerment;establishing institutional safeguards with labor-capital equilibrium mechanisms;coupling theoretical guidance with spiritual cultivation to rebuild value systems;and fostering collaborative mechanisms with collective consciousness for community reintegration.This reconstruction transcends the "beast of burden" discourse while reclaiming the essence of labor in the digital age,carrying significant theoretical and practical implications for developing a socialist labor civilization within Chinese-style modernization and ensuring the healthy growth of the digital economy.

Key words: "beast of burden", digital economy era, online discourse metaphor, labor subjectivity, alienated labor, labor value