International Socialists

A recurring theme in the media coverage of the Internet and related technologies is the control of information, in terms of both policing the content of the Internet, and the complexities of protecting intellectual property rights in such a vast and intangible environment. One particular point that has been raised time and time again is the practical application of intellectual property law to material on the Internet, as it brings up the contentious issue of what constitutes "publication."

 

As we have seen in the legal battles so far, intellectual property has been defended by big business for obvious reasons: the protection of intellectual property rights means protection of profits, which would otherwise be undermined in the process of unlimited duplication and distribution of material that has some worth to the capitalist in terms of exchange value in the market  the most recent example being the case of Napster and the free downloading of MP3 music files off the Internet, fought against by representatives of the recording industry.

 

It is clear that intellectual property is a topical issue at the moment, partly attributable to the complexities it faces in the light of the "information economy." More to the point though, innovation, invention and intellectual property are directly linked to the development of capitalism, the productive forces governing it, and the resulting class structure. The purpose of this article is to briefly examine some of the key points about intellectual property as a feature of capitalist society, the ideology surrounding it, and the impact on class consciousness.

 

 

Intellectual property and capitalism

One of the most celebrated characteristics of capitalism by its proponents is its overwhelming and unprecedented capacity to make technological advancements and to constantly reinvent itself, which, they claim, leads to an increased material standard of living over time. Innovation is the key to winning the profit-making game: the goal for a capitalist is to seek competitive advantage, or monopolistic conditions over other competitors in the industry. In production, this results in the constant battle against workers to increase productivity without increasing wages.

 

Technological improvements play an important role in this process, as the mechanisation of production meets this end, hence, research into improved production methods is an important step in the process of wrestling for profits, and high on the list of investment priorities of firms. Innovation in product design has a similar role in securing a monopolistic position in the market.

 

Mainstream economists explain this as the first stage in the "product lifecycle." In the early stages of a product's life as a commodity, it will command "premium earning capacity," ie, market conditions are experienced which are highly favourable to the seller, including a high degree of price setting ability, therefore profitability is enhanced. For both innovation in production methods and product innovation, the early stages of an innovation's commercial application are its most profitable, but they are also the stages at which costs are highest. This is where intellectual property works to protect the efforts of the creator. Intellectual property (patents, trademark and design registration, and copyright) provide a period of guaranteed monopoly to the innovator, ensuring that the early stages of an innovation's commercial application are made a little less risky. In this sense, intellectual property has a crucial function in stimulating inventive activity by ensuring its profitability.

 

 

Intellectual property and ideology

In a capitalist society, property rights play a central role in legitimising the outcome that a minority group of capitalists gain a profit, while the direct producers (workers) receive just a subsistence wage. The argument is that capitalists "deserve" the profits they receive because of the risk and cost involved in establishing production. This is a pretty easy argument to knock down from a socialist perspective, because profit-making is based on the exploitation of the working class, central to which are these production relations based on property rights. In the same way, the extension of property rights to cover "intellectual" property is constructed as an attempt to protect the owners of an "idea" from the ill-effects of their idea being copied, as this would result in copiers unfairly gaining from the idea's application, and the owner missing out on profitable opportunity.

 

A fundamental characteristic of socialism is the communal possession and control of the  means of production (or the inputs in the productive process). Compared to our creative and intellectual energies as inputs in the productive process, we can have a relatively unemotional attachment to the physical (tangible) inputs like raw materials, and can more easily envisage the communal possession and control of these means of production. Intellectual property on the other hand presents the more difficult problem of collectively sharing the benefits of intellectual and creative effort. There is no objective difference between sharing an idea and sharing a piece of machinery, but subjectively it is very different, as creativity is constructed as highly individual and personal. Or, like in the recent Napster case, artistic integrity is at stake. Rap artist Eminem summed it up: "If I'm putting my heart and all my time into my music, I expect to get rewarded for that. And if you can afford to have a computer, you can afford to pay $16 for my CD."

 

What makes this framework harder to argue is the seemingly natural link between individualised intellectual property rights and the appearance of creativity as attributable to an individual or group of individuals. Intellectual property, it is argued, identifies the creator of an idea: it grants the status of author or inventor on the owner. If there was no copyright law, for example, there would be nothing to stop anyone from publishing another author's work as their own. This response confuses the two potential functions of intellectual property law.

 

Firstly, it can be the basis for identification of authorship or creatorship, but acknowledging the source of a work does not alter the ability to use or commercially apply it. Secondly, it allocates ownership of intellectual or creative effort, protecting the owner from the detrimental effects to profitability caused by duplication and distribution. This second function is what profitability depends upon, and is the primary function of intellectual property for capitalists. The protection of the reputation of artists, inventors and researchers as "creative geniuses" is not at risk by abolishing intellectual property  it is merely one of its side effects. There are other ways of ensuring the acknowledgment of sources, for example, the conventional courtesy of citation of references in the writing process.

 

 

Intellectual property and the class struggle

Intellectual property presents a difficult problem for traditional class relations, in that it represents a potential "blurring" of the distinction between capital and labour  a concept adopted to reflect this is "intellectual capital." There are ways in which intellectual property is said to protect the interests of the creator against the economies of scale that give big business an advantage over the individual.

 

For example, it provides the lone inventor with some protection against the competitiveness of industry. If the inventor isn't in a position to produce a new product on a mass scale, they can sell the patent rights to a company who can. Alternatively it can provide market protection for a set term to aid in the setting up of production. Along a similar line is the argument that an individual's ownership of intellectual property rights can work to their advantage in negotiating their employment contracts.

 

The reality is though, that intellectual property provides far more protection to firms than to individuals, and this is increasingly the case as corporations surpass individuals as the owners of intellectual property. In Great Britain, for example, 15 percent of all patent applications were from corporations in 1913, but by 1955 this percentage was 68 percent. The pattern was similar in the USA, and these tendencies have continued since then. The "lone inventor" is becoming increasingly obscure in the statistical data, but this doesn't mean that corporations themselves are making important breakthroughs.

 

Rather, it reflects the dependency of researcher/scientists/artists on companies to bring their work to the marketplace, as they don't have the means required to do so on their own, even with intellectual property protection. Instead, they are forced to seek employment in large companies who are willing to fund the research and development of an idea. Secondly, it reflects usual practice regarding the ownership of an employee's discovery or idea. It is quite standard for an employer to claim at least part, if not full, ownership to all intellectual property generated by the work of one of their employees during the time of employment. A serious consequence of this is that not only do companies end up getting most of the profits of innovation, they also control what research and development is carried out, based entirely on an industry's capacity to generate further profits. This means that important yet less profitable areas of research are abandoned in favour of profitable areas: for example, designing the next Pokemon toy, or finding a cure for HIV.

 

Another point made by both proponents and critics of intellectual property is that it stimulates inventive activity by making it more profitable to invest in, which results in an improved standard of living over time. This is highly misleading. Although there have been absolute advances in material conditions, the reality is that the capitalist class gets far richer far more quickly than any incremental increases in the wages of workers. The increased material standard of living supports the ideology that we are all working for a shared objective.

 

This pacifies the working class, despite the growing gap between rich and poor, and obscures the more fundamental aspect of the class struggle. More importantly than any relatively minor increase in the ability to consume that innovation has provided the working class with is the fact that it has also allowed for increasing levels of profit to be appropriated from the working class. Intellectual property exists as an institution that serves capital rather than labour, as well as providing the technical means to drastically improve productivity without a corresponding increase in the productive real wage.

 

Sources: The patent application data comes from Parker, J.E.S. The Economics of Innovation: the National and Multinational Enterprise in Technological Change. London: Longman, 1974. P. 27.