Challenging Digital Capitalism: SACOM’s Campaigns against Apple and Foxconn as Monopoly Capital

Abstract

“Utopia or dystopia—to where will the ‘digital revolution’ lead human society?” is a question that remains unanswered. Negotiating between two opposing standpoints, this article, looking at a form of trans-border activism originally driven by suicides and protests of Foxconn workers who produce iPhones, iPads and many other i-gadgets for the world’s consumers, is an attempt to explore a politics of online/offline resistance against anti-digital capitalism. Based in Hong Kong (HK), SACOM is a leftist student group which works to support Chinese workers in campaigning against corporate power and generating trans-border networks through media exposure, international activism, and localized organization. Combining online and offline activism, SACOM strives to extend the reach of their worker-consumer campaign to the worldwide audience by transgressing the Chinese state’s dominance of capital and political control. The most intriguing question to us is could this proactive activism be possible and, if so, how could it act at the grid of China’s transformation and incorporation into global capitalism?