Recently,we were taught knowledge about social stratification in the digital age.We can know that there are bound to be inequality and.exploitation in stratification.And there must be different in different age.So I’d like to explore the difference between in stratification and exploitation in virtual society.

What is exploitation?Let me give a few examples.In the modern history of China,peasants were oppressed by landlords and seized their land and labor.China was invaded by western imperialism and forced to cut land and right.These are most common exploitation in traditional society.Nowadays,most of us use Apps like ZhiHu and BiBiLi and so on,during the process we have already experience exploitation.For example,we read a news and got a point of view from ZhiHu,but actually what we saw had been processed so that our thinking on thinking was limited and the right to got the whole truth had been exploited.

According to the analysis of capitalist exploitation by Marx and Engels, we know that exploitation means free occupation of the laborer's labor by the capitalist in the economic category, and it is a social phenomenon that accompanies the emergence of the private ownership in the historical category. In the virtual society of the digital age, exploitation is the person who controls the first-hand information and discourse power and becomes the agenda setter to realize the guidance and control of those who have weak information and discourse power. Finally, this benefit is realized to achieve exploitation. We can see that exploitation only occurs between the top of the society and the bottom, just as the capitalists have strong powers toward workers, information, and discourse to the weak. Then we can explore the rules of social stratification to understand the difference between the two kinds of social exploitation.

First of all,we must clarify that the essence of social stratification is due to the fact that people occupy different resources. In all human societies, the existence of hierarchical differences between individuals and groups constitutes a fundamental feature of the nature of human society, that is, social stratification.In the traditional social stratification, it is a hierarchical existence of a systematic social position. The most fundamental meaning of social stratification is the process of how resources and interests are allocated among people, people, groups, and groups. The focus of attention are on social resources and their distribution rules.

Among traditional social stratification rules, Professor Li Qiang’s “On Ten Standards of Social Stratification” can be drawn: Based on the special circumstances of Chinese society. There are ten types of resources: production data resources, property or income resources, relationship resources, subjective prestige resources, civil rights resources, market resources, cultural resources, occupation or employment resources, political power resources, and cultural resources. According to the proportion of these resources to decide how to divide the social hierarchy.

In the virtual society of the digital age, the appearance of emerging technologies has led to changes in the rules of social stratification, new levels of division of social structure as a result of this change, major changes in social power structures, and social stratification and power structure systems with knowledge The distribution of resources serves as a basis for changing the traditional social stratification system and social order that were originally constructed by traditional society based on the ownership of production materials, occupations, wealth, rights, and culture. The controllers of first-hand information and discourse rights will have more rights in the upper layers of the virtual society, and the bottom of the virtual society often does not grasp the source of information, and will often be influenced by the upper agenda and the public opinion of the virtual society. Exploitation occurs when such information resources are not equal.

In comparing the virtual society with the actual social stratification, some researchers found that the social status of virtual social strata and their virtual social status are negatively related to each other - the higher the virtual society status, the lower the social status of the virtual society.The lower the status of the virtual society, the higher its actual social status. This is because compared with the high level of the virtual society, the bottom layer of the virtual society is more concerned with the basic services in the online life, and most of them admit that they belong to the upper social level in the real society. The upper class (administrators) of the virtual society is more willing to participate in virtual social activities, and the depth and breadth of participation are greater, so as to grasp more primary resources and gain more powerful right to speak.

In general, the biggest difference between the exploitation of the traditional society and the exploitation of the virtual society is that the way to achieve the purpose of exploitation is not the same, but the end result is that the group in the lower strata in the social stratum suffers loss t. However, we cannot eliminate inequality, stratification and exploitation through absolute averages. Otherwise, it will impede production enthusiasm and not promote social progress.In the traditional society or the virtual society ,for those who have been suffered loss, measures can only be taken to compensate them in other aspects.

Reference materials：

《经典三大传统社会分层比较--以“谁的到了什么”和“为什么得到”为分析视角》陈鹏

《虚拟社会分层--兼与现实社会分层比较》胡建国、博昊渊