PKT
mailing list archive
[ Other Periods  | Other mailing lists  | Search  ]
Date:  [ Previous  | Next  ]      Thread:  [ Previous  | Next  ]      Index:  [ Author  | Date  | Thread  ]

Re: Participatory Planning and Inventions <01H9P39ICHW28XEDFZ@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU>

Under British employment law anything that an employee invents
is the property of the employer. I would expect that this is
the norm in the Capitalist world.

How does this differ from the situation of an inventor in the USSR,
whose inventions also belonged to her employer?

Innovation in the modern world is mainly a collective process and
the idea that private inventors can either contribute significantly or
get a major share of the profits that ensue seems unlikely. An engineer
is paid to develop new products, that is her job, why should she
be paid twice over?

If I was a building worker I would not be paid twice, once for my labour
and once for the building. Why are the technical intelligentsia different?

Paul Cockshott
[ Other Periods  | Other mailing lists  | Search  ]