G'day all,
Sed Doug:
>> Technical progress, protected by IP restrictions, may boost the
>> profit rate,
To which Carrol responded:
>>I'm not sure I follow this. IP restrictions protect Capitalist A from
>>having his/her product ripped off by Capitalist B. How does it
>>increase the whole profit of Capitalist A + Capitalist B?
To which Doug responded;
>Emphasis on technical progress here. I'm conceding the point for
>argument, but my skepticism is visible in the use of the subjunctive
>mood.
Now THERE'S one lit man talking to another! Goes to prove Jim Devine's
earlier insistence on the importance of context in interpreting texts, too.
Doug's subjunctive clause would be the very apodosis if spewed from the
mouth of a Venter (who's nicking my genes in the name of technical
progress) of a Murdoch (who's just nicked my Euro2000 football in that
cause).
And anyway, it wouldn't just be other capitalists who benefit from IP,
would it, Carrol? They're commodifying loads of communication that used
not to offer surplus value at all (like when I got my soccer on public
service stations, or when a citizen used to be able to nip into any court
building to check out a judgement for nix, or the public library had actual
journals on its shelves, or when our university handbook used to be
available to students simply because they were our students etc). That's
just a new round of enclosures ain't it? Without IP, in such cases at
least, NO capitalist gets the benefits befitting his station - with it, the
rest of us just lose so much more of what we were.
Profit rates boosted simply by alienating us from lumps of our cultural and
democratic being.
Or not?
Cheers,
Rob.
