In classical political economy, class was defined by ownership.

For Karl Marx, the central division of industrial capitalism lay between those who owned the means of production and those who sold their labor power. The capitalist appropriated surplus value generated by the worker. Exploitation was embedded in the wage relation itself.

This binary model possessed enormous explanatory power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Industrial production was concentrated. Ownership was visible. The wage contract was the primary channel through which value extraction occurred.

But the architecture of extraction has changed.

The wage relation is no longer the sole—or even the dominant—mechanism through which value flows upward.

Marx’s model assumed:

1. Production is centralized in factories.

2. Labor and capital confront each other within the workplace.

3. Surplus value is extracted at the point of production.

4. Class position is determined primarily by ownership of productive assets.

These assumptions fit industrial capitalism remarkably well.

However, contemporary economies have dispersed production, digitized coordination, and layered multiple extraction mechanisms beyond the factory floor.

Today, exploitation does not disappear—it multiplies.

Consider three structural shifts.

Digital platforms do not always employ workers directly. Instead, they mediate transactions between users, contractors, advertisers, and service providers.

Value is extracted through commissions, data capture, algorithmic ranking, and access control.

The platform may not “own” the worker in the traditional sense. It owns the infrastructure of visibility and coordination. That control alone enables rent extraction.

Ownership shifts from factories to networks.

Tax systems increasingly rely on indirect taxation—consumption taxes, fees, regulatory compliance costs—rather than purely progressive income taxes.

These mechanisms redistribute value across society in complex ways. Individuals may experience significant net outflows even if their formal employment contract appears fair.

Extraction becomes systemic rather than contractual.

One can be fully compliant within the wage system and still participate in a broader structure that channels surplus upward through fiscal design.

In many economies, wealth accumulation has shifted from production to asset appreciation.

Real estate, equities, and financial instruments generate returns disconnected from productive contribution. Asset holders benefit from structural appreciation, while non-holders face rising entry costs.

Here, value transfer occurs through price dynamics rather than wage suppression.

The key division may no longer lie between employer and employee, but between asset insiders and asset outsiders.

Under industrial capitalism, surplus value was primarily captured in production.

Under contemporary capitalism, surplus circulates through:

• Platform commissions

• Data monetization

• Intellectual property regimes

• Financial instruments

• Asset price inflation

• Regulatory asymmetries

• Indirect taxation

The employment contract remains relevant—but it is no longer sufficient to map class structure.

Extraction has become infrastructural.

Another complication emerges: many individuals occupy hybrid positions.

A software engineer may earn a high salary yet hold no meaningful equity or decision-making power. A small business owner may possess nominal ownership yet depend entirely on platform algorithms for customer access. A public-sector professional may receive stable wages while contributing to a fiscal system that redistributes value unevenly.

The binary division between “owner” and “worker” blurs.

What matters increasingly is not simply ownership of productive machinery, but structural position within networks of value flow.

Traditional class analysis treats ownership as decisive. But contemporary systems often separate legal ownership from effective control.

A shareholder may own equity without influencing corporate strategy. A worker may hold stock options without altering governance. A homeowner may possess property while remaining heavily indebted and structurally immobile.

Formal ownership does not guarantee structural power.

Control over infrastructure—platforms, financial systems, regulatory frameworks—may matter more than nominal asset possession.

In the archipelago age described in Part I, individuals are structurally isolated yet economically interconnected.

Extraction operates through diffuse mechanisms embedded in everyday transactions.

When value is siphoned through networks rather than factories, class cannot be identified solely by examining who signs the paycheck.

The map has changed.

If exploitation no longer resides exclusively in the wage relation, then class cannot be defined solely by ownership of the means of production.

We require a different analytical lens—one that examines:

• Net value flows

• Structural dependency

• Control over coordination infrastructure

The decisive question becomes:

Who is structurally positioned as a net contributor within the system, and who is positioned to capture those contributions?

Ownership remains relevant. But it is no longer exhaustive.

Class analysis must expand from property relations to value-flow architecture.

This is not a rejection of Marxian insight. It is an extension under altered conditions.

The industrial binary illuminated a world where extraction was concentrated and visible. Today’s extraction is distributed and infrastructural.

If we continue to classify class solely by ownership of production, we risk overlooking how value is redirected through platforms, fiscal design, and asset regimes.

In the archipelago economy, the problem is not only who owns—but how value flows.

The next step is to formalize this shift by defining class in terms of net structural position rather than formal property.

In classical political economy, class was defined by ownership.

For Karl Marx, the central division of industrial capitalism lay between those who owned the means of production and those who sold their labor power. The capitalist appropriated surplus value generated by the worker. Exploitation was embedded in the wage relation itself.

This binary model possessed enormous explanatory power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Industrial production was concentrated. Ownership was visible. The wage contract was the primary channel through which value extraction occurred.

But the architecture of extraction has changed.

The wage relation is no longer the sole—or even the dominant—mechanism through which value flows upward.

Marx’s model assumed:

1. Production is centralized in factories.

2. Labor and capital confront each other within the workplace.

3. Surplus value is extracted at the point of production.

4. Class position is determined primarily by ownership of productive assets.

These assumptions fit industrial capitalism remarkably well.

However, contemporary economies have dispersed production, digitized coordination, and layered multiple extraction mechanisms beyond the factory floor.

Today, exploitation does not disappear—it multiplies.

Consider three structural shifts.

Digital platforms do not always employ workers directly. Instead, they mediate transactions between users, contractors, advertisers, and service providers.

Value is extracted through commissions, data capture, algorithmic ranking, and access control.

The platform may not “own” the worker in the traditional sense. It owns the infrastructure of visibility and coordination. That control alone enables rent extraction.

Ownership shifts from factories to networks.

Tax systems increasingly rely on indirect taxation—consumption taxes, fees, regulatory compliance costs—rather than purely progressive income taxes.

These mechanisms redistribute value across society in complex ways. Individuals may experience significant net outflows even if their formal employment contract appears fair.

Extraction becomes systemic rather than contractual.

One can be fully compliant within the wage system and still participate in a broader structure that channels surplus upward through fiscal design.

In many economies, wealth accumulation has shifted from production to asset appreciation.

Real estate, equities, and financial instruments generate returns disconnected from productive contribution. Asset holders benefit from structural appreciation, while non-holders face rising entry costs.

Here, value transfer occurs through price dynamics rather than wage suppression.

The key division may no longer lie between employer and employee, but between asset insiders and asset outsiders.

Under industrial capitalism, surplus value was primarily captured in production.

Under contemporary capitalism, surplus circulates through:

• Platform commissions

• Data monetization

• Intellectual property regimes

• Financial instruments

• Asset price inflation

• Regulatory asymmetries

• Indirect taxation

The employment contract remains relevant—but it is no longer sufficient to map class structure.

Extraction has become infrastructural.

Another complication emerges: many individuals occupy hybrid positions.

A software engineer may earn a high salary yet hold no meaningful equity or decision-making power. A small business owner may possess nominal ownership yet depend entirely on platform algorithms for customer access. A public-sector professional may receive stable wages while contributing to a fiscal system that redistributes value unevenly.

The binary division between “owner” and “worker” blurs.

What matters increasingly is not simply ownership of productive machinery, but structural position within networks of value flow.

Traditional class analysis treats ownership as decisive. But contemporary systems often separate legal ownership from effective control.

A shareholder may own equity without influencing corporate strategy. A worker may hold stock options without altering governance. A homeowner may possess property while remaining heavily indebted and structurally immobile.

Formal ownership does not guarantee structural power.

Control over infrastructure—platforms, financial systems, regulatory frameworks—may matter more than nominal asset possession.

In the archipelago age described in Part I, individuals are structurally isolated yet economically interconnected.

Extraction operates through diffuse mechanisms embedded in everyday transactions.

When value is siphoned through networks rather than factories, class cannot be identified solely by examining who signs the paycheck.

The map has changed.

If exploitation no longer resides exclusively in the wage relation, then class cannot be defined solely by ownership of the means of production.

We require a different analytical lens—one that examines:

• Net value flows

• Structural dependency

• Control over coordination infrastructure

The decisive question becomes:

Who is structurally positioned as a net contributor within the system, and who is positioned to capture those contributions?

Ownership remains relevant. But it is no longer exhaustive.

Class analysis must expand from property relations to value-flow architecture.

This is not a rejection of Marxian insight. It is an extension under altered conditions.

The industrial binary illuminated a world where extraction was concentrated and visible. Today’s extraction is distributed and infrastructural.

If we continue to classify class solely by ownership of production, we risk overlooking how value is redirected through platforms, fiscal design, and asset regimes.

In the archipelago economy, the problem is not only who owns—but how value flows.

The next step is to formalize this shift by defining class in terms of net structural position rather than formal property.