[PEN-L:33594] Re: a Perelman rant ref # 33593

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
Rant or not Michael's statement is important.  For example where Michael
writes,

Michael Perelman,
For example, virtually no new technology is the product of a single person
or even a single corporation. Ideas and discoveries, what Marx called
³universal labor,² draw upon a multitude of sources. Sorting out who
deserves legitimate credit for any technology is impossible. Just consider
the complexity of a large software system with 100,000 components. It can
use hundreds of previously patented techniques. Because each patent search
costs about a thousand dollars, searching for all the possible patent
potholes in the program could easily run well over $1 million, and that far
exceeds the cost of writing the program.18

Doyle
I've been writing recently about the principle of sharing communication
through principles of passionate social connection.  This drive in U.S.
capitalism to Intellectual Property Rights (driven by the barbaric Movie
Industry) fundamentally attacks the basis for speech itself and social
connection.  We share words themselves to the beginning of human society.
It is my view we are being given new grounds to fight upon.  We are to soon
see that we must everywhere carry with us our connection to the
communication system.  The connection we have with others is going to be
dominated by these portable devices.  And in that need will be the hand of
the capitalist upon every shoulder demanding their payment for all
Intellectual Property whereever and whenever.

I'm going to quote once more from Michael's essay because I think it
important to further explore here and throughout the left,

Michael,
While energy sources are the central to maintaining life itself, let alone
the capitalist mode of production, intellectual property rights are now
every bit as important in maintaining the international financial balances
of the U.S. economy. Domestic access to oil will remain important, of
course, so long as the comfortable classes continue to ride in their SUVs
and heat and cool their mega-mansions, but the energy requirements for the
domestic production of material goods becomes increasingly less important as
production moves to low-wage peripheral areas of the world. Intellectual
property rights have become the financial counterweight to
deindustrialization, because the revenues that they generate help to balance
the massive imports of material goods. Unfortunately, this means of payment
still remains woefully insufficient to reimburse the rest of the world for
the imports to United States.
The strengthening of intellectual property rights is perhaps the most
pressing U.S. foreign policy objective today, possibly even more so than
oil. The government¹s efforts go well beyond shoring up the legal rights of
holders of this kind of intellectual property. The full weight of its power
is brought to bear against all evildoers who would dare to create knock offs
of a Disney cartoon or a Nike ³swoosh.² In the words of Thomas Friedman,
perhaps the most enthusiastic proponent of globalization at the New York
Times:

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden
fist?McDonald¹s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of
the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley¹s
technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine
Corps....Without America on duty, there will be no America Online.19
Lest the skeptical reader dismiss Friedman¹s clever phrasing as nothing more
than a rhetorical flourish, consider the words of William Cohen, the
secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. In February 1999, upon
his arrival in Seattle?a city that a few months later became a symbol of
resistance to the policies that he was sent to advocate?to speak to the
employees of Microsoft, the secretary told reporters, ³I will point out that
the prosperity that companies like Microsoft now enjoy could not occur
without having the strong military that we have.²20 Friedman and Cohen have
expressed what is probably the central thrust of the foreign policy of the
government of the United States.

Doyle,
This is where much of the fight for socialism will be centered from now on.
Work is being drastically reshaped in most U.S. corporations.  The
Intellectual Property rights issue is central to 'sharing' that workers need
to do to UNDERSTAND work.  It is where we can make our most important
fights.  Michael emphasizes that IPR requires intrusive control of people to
protect the IPR.  How do we effectively fight this?  Thank you Michael!
thanks,
Doyle Saylor