Social theory at the crossroads: Marxist methodology and digital realities
The multi - paradigm nature of social theory and the immanent problems of the ideologically engaged theories of the mainstream in the epoch of global monopoly capitalism create an urgent need for a revision of methodological approaches to interpreting the phenomena of the modern age. This article notes the problematic situation in Russian sociology, with the idiographic slant of the research that is being conducted and with the rejection of a nomothetic trend in scholarly investigations. The methodological potential of Marxist theory meets with approval in the description of digital transformations of production and communication. The interest of the researcher is focused on the categories of capital and alienation in the digital economy. It is shown that the digital deformation of the social space - time continuum leads to an increase in the rate of exploitation. The article establishes that intensification of communicative processes and remote management on the basis of digital technologies do not lead to a change in the mode of production; meanwhile, changes to the priorities where the type of capital is concerned do not lead either to cardinal changes in the hierarchy of the social structure, nor to a change in those who benefit. The adequacy of the discourse of the dialectical - materialist approach is confirmed, as are the universality of the heuristic algorithm of Marxist theory, and the validity of this theory as a set of methodological instruments for analysing modern digital reality.