Anthony D'Costa wrote:
>IP can raise the profit rate, complementing the weakness of labor. But
>what is IP? It is an institutional arrangement to appropriate
>"knowledge" for capitalists' gain. IP is directly related to
>technological change, a process which in cumulative fashion pushes for
>more IP. The reason is competition is built on technological strength and
>the ability to postpone the widespread diffusion of it (for the
>monopolist). However, knowledge does diffuse, so monopoly control is
>essentially temporary. Hence the greater stress on IP in the context of
>intense technogy-led competition. This is the supply side of the story
>only. I presume with relative price declines
>(technology-induced) realization is made less insecure. It is thus a
>dialectical process between competition and monopoly that is inherent in
>capitalist dynamics.
Technical progress, protected by IP restrictions, may boost the
profit rate, but at least in the U.S., recent profit rates, though
higher than the 1970s and early 1980s, are still below 1950s and
1960s levels, and probably don't hold a candle to 19th century levels.
Also, IP applies most strongly to goods, but U.S. personal
consumption expenditures are increasingly on services: 33% of PCE in
the 1940s, and 58% today.
Doug
