The TVA fails---even if they say that intellectual property rights are designed to benefit localized and indigenous communities it merely serves to expand colonial exploitation and imperial domination through concentrating power in the hands of western elites.

Third is what may be termed “neoliberal exports of education.” I reiterate ideas advanced in previous published works (Dei, 2008, 2014, 2017b). We cannot minimize the impact of neoliberal thinking that seeks to regulate and control knowledge systems through a culture of hierarchies. Commercialization and privatization of education in the Global South have created a hierarchy of academic subjects, whereby certain academic courses and subjects are seen as more economically valuable and suitable than others. These academic courses and subjects are privileged because they bring high returns to learners who take them at school. Consequently, learners place high premiums on these courses and by so doing devalue other courses of study. Perhaps more disturbingly, this thinking has led to funding being allocated to certain fields, including hard sciences, technology, engineering and management, at the expense of the liberal arts and humanities. The value and relevance of some courses in liberal arts and humanities (e.g., classics, history and anthropology) are always questioned, even though such courses foster critical thought and contribute to ways of addressing social poverty through the pursuit of education for a “common good.” High-prestige academic courses do not always cultivate the notion of multi-centric knowing and can be informed more by the coloniality of Western science. This form of science has been a tool of colonization. Clearly, we could have educators in these subject fields critically teach the colonial underpinnings of all courses, whether in the liberal arts, humanities and social and “hard” sciences. The fact of the matter, however, is that certain subjects in a neoliberal context of productivity, consumerism, private investment for high returns and so forth are unfortunately seen as more relevant and are connected to the requirements of global capital and markets (see Dei, 2008). The commercialization of ideas within neoliberalism has consequences when these ideas are imposed on broad communities as part of a dominant discourse on the future of global knowledge economies. While innovations in the knowledge economy may be welcome, we must be critical of the emerging market place of ideas, where knowledge is commodified and sold to the detriment of social and communal values, privileging simply the sharing of ideas. Emerging tensions around intellectual and cultural property rights are a case in point. Within the new knowledge economy, there is also presumed sharing of knowledge; however, certain requirements inhibit free exchange of ideas. Understandably, these restrictions were imposed for abuses determined by the encroachment of global capital in the political economy of knowledge production. Paradoxically, while these restrictions are ostensibly for the protection of Indigenous communities and their knowledges, they serve private and corporate capital—the mechanisms and processes that appropriate, commodify and sell local cultural knowledges for profit. Take, for example, the question of control of knowledge. What are the political aims of copyright legislation? The control of intellectual property through restrictive copyright legislation reduces knowledge sharing globally. While safeguards are intended to benefit local communities and their knowledges, they actually serve corporate capital interests because it is the same corporations and colonial states that infringe upon these Indigenous and cultural protections. In a neoliberal context, those who have power and economic means dictate what is knowledge, how such knowledge should be produced and disseminated, and who should benefit from the supposed sharing of global knowledge. Certain knowledges may be outside boundaries for some (e.g., technologies of Western industrial powers that are concealed from Indigenous, African and other communities of the Global South). These knowledges are “out of bounds” because their costs are prohibitive and end with excluding others for easy access. Within neoliberalism, there is a form of marketization of knowledge that simply creates colonial exploitation and imperial domination of less powerful nations and communities. This control is aptly highlighted by restrictions on sharing generic drugs and patents between the Global North and South. In the production, interrogation and dissemination of knowledge, internally and externally, class plays out in the neoliberal arena to benefit groups differentially. Classism is perpetuated through lack of recognition, credentials or education obtained in the Global South, such that a blue-collar workforce and lower class are maintained in the Global North. Violent practices associated with child labour, forced labour, debt bondage and indentured servitude have been in the service of empire (De Genova, 2005; Sharma, 2005; Walia, 2013). Transnational corporations, with the blessing of nation-state political elites, reap huge profits by reducing costs through uncompensated labour, low wages and so forth. The interconnectedness of global capital and exploitation of gendered and racialized labour has always been a colonial practice of state and empire building. It is happening simultaneously in the Global South and North (Dei, 2016).