SSRN-Culture War by Dan Hunter

SSRN-Culture War by Dan Hunter:

The changed production relationship of information / intellectual property does spin traditional economics around. Yet the currency of exchange is talent, ideas, and knowledge. These are used to control access to information / intellectual goods. That is certainly not Marxist, but the potential formation of a new power elite. Or not.

“Over the last ten years, much of copyright and patent has come under attack from those who suggest that capture by private interests has had a pernicious influence on public policy. In the related areas of telecommunication spectrum management and internet regulation there have emerged strong arguments for not allocating private property interests, and instead considering these domains as commons property. I suggest that, together, these developments form part of a culture war, a war over the means of production of creative content in our society. I argue that the best way to understand this war is to view it as a Marxist struggle. However, I suggest that copyright and patent reform – where commentators have actually been accused of Marxism – is not where the Marxist revolution is taking place. Instead I locate that revolution elsewhere, most notably in the rise of open source production and dissemination of cultural content”

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