Automating Morality Environmental Governance in the Digital Age in China

In response to a perceived 'moral crisis' amid global capitalism, China's communist party currently aims to instil morality, credibility and trust among citizens. This article examines an instance of technomoral governance that fosters citizen self-regulation in pursuit of the neosocialist agenda of green development: a digital platform called Ant Forest that steers consumers towards 'ecological consciousness'. The app mobilises techniques of quantification, especially through green credits and carbon metrics, to recalibrate accountability away from corporations and the state and towards individual behaviour. It also attempts to facilitate sustainable choices by offering a simple interface for monitoring green behaviour that reduces complexity, both for onscreen choices and offline activities. The app thereby paves the way to 'automating morality', in the sense of replacing the physical work and moral effort involved in attaining a desired 'green' subjectivity. Ethnographic insights, ranging from rural afforestation workers to urban app users seeking sustainable futures, underscore the tensions and contradictions between embracing digital tools for diverse moral ends. Exploring China's digital administration system, designed to be predictive and conflict-averse, sheds light on the technomoral dimensions underlying this approach to environmental restitution. Beyond neoliberalism, this convergence of governance, technology and society's self-regulation contributes to global discourse on environmental policy and digital social management, presenting a distinct neosocialist approach to technomoral governance.