Capitalism Kritik Supplement - GDI 2024

Cap K
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Link – Generic IP
Intellectual property is a Capitalist Machine that causes the proliferation of capitalist commodification’s reach to the intangible. It evolves the manipulative capabilities of the Bourgeoisie to more than just the control over physical labor.
Drahos 16 [Peter Drahos, Professor in the Regulatory Institutions Network at The Australian National University, member of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. From November 2011 to April 2012 he was a Senior Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence; “A Philosophy of Intellectual Property”; June 2016; http://doi.org/10.22459/PIP.06.2016]//england
Earlier, in Chapter 2 it was argued that intellectual property relates to abstract objects and that one view of abstract objects is that they are convenient mental fictions. To say that they are convenient is to understate their value to capitalist production. In fact abstract objects have the effect of qualitatively expanding the commodity production possibilities of capitalism. We can illustrate with the very example which Marx uses to show that services do not amount to productive labour.
Assume that the pianist is playing her own original composition. Generally speaking, copyright statutes create copyright in musical works. The definition of musical works is usually very open-ended or sometimes not defined at all.59 But once copyright in a musical work exists the pianist has something to own, something to sell or license. The convenient mental fiction (the abstract object) becomes through law a commodity. The pianist is now in the same position as the piano maker, contrary to Marx’s assertion. She steps over the economic border that separates the badlands of unproductive workers from the rolling green fields inhabited by productive workers and enters the productive life of capital.
Intellectual property law is critical to her successful passage. It would, however, be a mistake to think that intellectual property law simply creates private property rights in the abstract object and so is no different from property rights in material objects. When he comes to analyse the exchange of commodities, Marx makes it clear that property and contract are necessary juridical phenomena for the exchange of commodities, but these are only reflections of underlying economic relations in the process of exchange.60 In fact one might go further and observe that what matters for the exchange of commodities is the recognition of rights of control and that these do not necessarily entail the existence of property rights. Commodities can exist and be traded without the existence of formal property rights. Presumably trade can take place in a state of nature. All that is required is some physical control over the goods. For our purposes, the point to observe is that in the case of material commodities the existence of the commodity does not depend on the existence of property rights. But this is not the case for abstract objects. Once copyright in musical works becomes part of law both our pianist and our piano maker can be said to produce commodities. But it is only the pianist who depends on intellectual property for the creation of her commodity. In the absence of an intellectual property right she is left to sell her concert performances (an unproductive service, according to Marx’s theory). Without intellectual property there simply would be no abstract object which participants in the market could recognise and make the subject of trade.
The argument we have put can be stated in the following propositions. The existence of physical commodities does not depend on law. The existence of abstract objects does. Commerce in physical commodities and abstract objects depends on a scheme of property rights and contract. Marx’s contradiction is that he sees labour as a value-producing commodity and yet does not recognise it as such when it is provided as a service or when it takes the form of an abstract object (in our sense of the term).
Now we are in a better position to see how intellectual property accomplishes the task of integrating creative labour into the capitalist mode of production. Marx more clearly than anyone sees that capitalism is a mode of production in which commodities are amassed on a historically unprecedented scale. Capitalism is not, however, the only mode of production which produces commodities. This is true of earlier forms of production. Where capitalism is distinctive is that it is a system in which the labour power of one class has become a circulating commodity available for purchase by another class, the members of both classes being formally free to buy and sell commodities.61 It is the condition of being able to readily acquire labour power that gives capitalism its Midas touch in economic production. Our argument has been that capitalism increasingly comes to depend on creative labour. Individual, rational capitalists, subject to competitive pressures, begin to seek out creative labour, for it is creative labour that is the source of much-wanted innovation. We have deliberately steered away from trying to explain this search in terms of the theory of surplus value. Rather our position is this: the search by individual capitalists for creative labour is motivated by the desire for control and ownership of the abstract object so as to gain a competitive edge over a rival. In the next chapter we shall see that the ownership of abstract objects can function to relieve individuals from competitive pressures. This provides another incentive for individual capitalists to chase the ownership of abstract objects. Clearly, if abstract objects exist under conditions of positive inclusive community (that is, they belong to all) the incentives for individual capitalists to pursue them will be considerably reduced. So one task of intellectual property law, from the perspective of the industrialist, is to create conditions of negative community so that the ownership of abstract objects is possible.
Intellectual property, in commodifying universal mental constructs, dramatically increases the commodity horizons of capitalism. Intellectual property is perhaps a sign that the commodity nature of capitalism never stops evolving. Marx thought that the commodity of labour power was the form of commodity that was distinctive to capitalism. Our analysis suggests that understanding the productive powers of capitalism does not stop with the commodification of labour power. Through the creation of abstract objects, intellectual property law provides capitalism with another distinctive commodity form and, potentially at least, another means to its further expansion. By creating abstract objects intellectual property brings creative labour directly into the relations of production. Capitalism can continue its historically spectacular commodity production run because through intellectual property law it has re-engineered the possibilities of commodity production. Not only that, creative labour, through the creation of more efficient means of production, actually diminishes the role of physical labour. The aim of the industrialist is no longer to control physical labour through contract and industrial relations law but to control creative labour through intellectual property law.
One last remark before we close this section. Intellectual property, we have argued, is fundamental to the task of integrating creative labour and abstract objects into capitalism’s production processes. This argument does not mean that we abandon Marx’s view about the fundamental materiality of production. Much of the literature on post-industrial society or post-capitalist society tends to over-emphasise the role of knowledge in production in order to obtain a convenient and bright dividing line between capitalist and post-capitalist epochs.62 Drucker offers a typical characterisation of this: ‘The basic economic resource – “the means of production”, to use the economist’s term – is no longer capital, nor natural resources (the economist’s “land”), nor “labour”. It is and will be knowledge.’63 However, our analysis of the role of the abstract object in production, when placed in the context of Marx’s overall theory, suggests that perhaps good old-fashioned industrial capitalism has a way to run before it is given its last rites by scholars. Our reasons for thinking this are these. When he comes to discuss the role of physical forces (the laws of nature) Marx says that these cost the capitalist nothing once they are discovered.64 But in order for these laws to enter the productive life of capital they must be consumed productively and that, for Marx, requires that they be mediated by or be embodied in some item of hardware, some industrial article: ‘A water-wheel is necessary to exploit the force of water, and a steam-engine to exploit the elasticity of steam.’65 Abstract objects cannot just simply step into production.
We now have the makings of a paradox. The greater the role of abstract objects in capitalist production, the greater the production of the hardware of technology there needs to be. Abstract objects propel capitalism into ever-higher levels of industrial production of physical objects. Furthermore it is clear that for Marx each new generation of technologies carries with it greater and greater investment costs. Manual tools are cheap. Machine tools are not – and computer-controlled machine tools, even less so. The rough shape of our paradox is that abstract objects, which once in existence cost nothing or little, when absorbed into capitalist production cost capitalists a great deal in terms of investment. Intangible objects generate ever-higher levels of tangible commodities. It is industrial commodity production that abstract objects help stimulate, with the result that fewer workers are employed in that production directly (because of automation) and more services are required to match the higher levels of production. For the individual capitalist there is no choice about the levels of investment needed to stay in what has become a technological race. Investment is forced upon him by competition.66 In language not intended to comfort, Marx says, ‘one capitalist always kills many’.67
Cap K Impacts
Cap Impact — Inequality
Capitalism increases the gap between the rich and the poor, increasing inequality.
Lim 23 — Xin Ying Cheryl Lim, veterinarian in private practice, a community organiser with Tearfund Australia and a student of Transformational Development, 2023, (“Global Capitalism and the Global South: Hearing from the Old Testament prophets”, Source, July 7th, Available Online at http://www.ethos.org.au/online-resources/Engage-Mail/global-capitalism-and-the-global-south
, Accessed 7-20-24)
Modern global capitalism perpetuates inequality through an all-consuming and relentless preoccupation with economic growth. When the overarching priority is maximising private profits and GDP growth, other important considerations – social well-being, human rights, environmental sustainability – are inevitably compromised.
Inequality runs rife when the focus on profit-making results in the squeezing of wages of workers and producers while those at the top enjoy increasing returns and lucrative incomes. It is intensified when the focus on private profit results in crony capitalism. Tax-dodging causes developing countries to lose $100bn yearly[2] - money that would otherwise go to providing the public services that the poor need. When the super-rich use their political clout to advance personal agendas and sway political decisions, the already rich get richer, aggravating inequality.
Inequality is further entrenched when the myopic focus on economic growth results in a markedly misinformed notion of development. When development metrics are assessed in monetary terms alone (e.g., World Bank’s international poverty line), there is not only the tendency to form misguided policy conclusions,[3] but also a disregard for the multidimensionality of human well-being. While the Global North carry on in what they define in monetary terms as ‘development’, those in the Global South suffer from an inadequate undertaking of measures that would truly bolster development.
The widening chasm of inequality exacerbates poverty, violating human and environmental rights and harming the well-being of those who are left behind.
Cap Impact — Democracy
Capitalism crushes local democracy, undermining economy in multiple ways.
Kuttner 18 –– Robert Kuttner, cofounder and coeditor of The American Prospect magazine, the Meyer and Ida Kirstein chair at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, and a founder of the Economic Policy Institute, 2018 (“Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?,” National Geographic Books, April 10th, Available Online at https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tTQsDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&dq=capitalism+is+bad+for+democracy&ots=DYFi6wuXhO&sig=9QhqsPZnBHcBuEprv-JB6fWJigI#v=onepage&q=capitalism%20is%20bad%20for%20democracy&f=false, Accessed 07-19-2024)
Globalized capitalism, increasingly deregulated and unmoored from national restraints, undermines a balanced economy in multiple, complex, and cumulative ways. With global markets and no global standards, domestic workers are thrown into direct competition with more desperate overseas workers. A century's worth of democratic struggles to regulate labor standards are hosed away. At the other end of the wealth spectrum, the worldwide liberation of finance creates astronomical incomes for the elite. The developing world gains access to world markets but, for the most part, becomes an even more extreme case of wealth and poverty. Money becomes more powerful than citizenship, corrupting both the polity and the economy.
Globalization also accelerates cross-border movements of people. Corporate leaders and their political allies have promoted international flows of cheap labor. Remittances have become an important source of income for much of the third world. The European Union requires free cross-border movements of workers as a condition of membership. Immigrants are also refugees from wars or dictators. A few national leaders, from Sweden to Germany to Canada, have idealistically opened their doors to political and economic refugees. Migrants, often poor and often scorned, are outside national social contracts; they are nonparticipants in national democratic deliberation, and vulnerable to both exploitation and retribution. Even before recent terrorist attacks, their presence undermined settled social compromises.
In the democracies, government and politics are hobbled by a seemingly opposite but complementary problem—paralysis in the face of escalating problems. In the US, three decades of cynical Republican and corporate blockage of economic remedies discredited government and politics, and paved the way for Donald Trump. In the EU, neoliberal rules have constrained policy options for member governments. The rise of far-right antisystem parties has narrowed the parliamentary space of the mainstream, necessitating weak coalition governments of center-right and center-left parties, leading to feeble compromise policies at a time when economic stagnation requires stronger remedies. This blockage, also reminiscent of the 1920s, discredits government and invites Caesarism.
Some have argued that capitalism promotes democracy, because of common norms of transparency, rule of law, and free competition-for markets, for ideas, for votes. In some idealized world, capitalism may enhance democracy, but in the history of the West, democracy has expanded by limiting the power of capitalists. When that project fails, dark forces are often unleashed. In the twentieth century, capitalism coexisted nicely with dictatorships, which conveniently create friendly business climates and repress independent worker organizations. Western capitalists have enriched and propped up third-world despots who crush local democracy. Hitler had a nice understanding with German corporations and bankers, who thrived until the unfortunate miscalculation of World War II. Communist China works hand in glove with its capitalist business partners to destroy free trade unions and to preserve the political monopoly of the Party. Vladimir Putin presides over a rigged brand of capitalism and governs in harmony with kleptocrats.
Capitalism and democracy are not compatible; they are inversely correlated.
Blakeley 23 –– Grace Blakeley, an English economics and politics commentator, columnist, journalist, author, and staff writer for Tribune and panelist on TalkTV, 2023 (“No, Capitalism Isn’t Democratic,” Tribune, June 15th, Available Online at https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/06/no-capitalism-isnt-democratic, Accessed 07-19-2024)
Firstly, the combination of capitalism and democracy was supposed to bring prosperity and progress to all nations that adopted them. For a brief time after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when globalisation went into overdrive, this seemed a believable story.
The financial crisis brought this collective delusion to an end in the global North. The generation that came of age during the crisis of 2008 has had to adjust to the reality that they are unlikely to be better off than their parents.
But even before the financial crisis, the Asian crisis of the late 1990s showed many in the developing world that opening up one’s markets to international capital could be a recipe for disaster. Some combination of authoritarianism and market controls seemed like the natural response.
Secondly, the progress brought by democracy and capitalism was supposed to give rise to yet more democracy. Checks and balances would put an end to corruption. An educated population would choose the ‘right’ leaders. And rather than campaigning based on outdated ideologies, those leaders would compete for votes by appealing to the ‘median voter’, bringing moderation to previously divided societies.
Instead, corruption is on the rise, ideology is back, and people keep picking the ‘wrong’ leaders. Perhaps the creation of societies so stratified that the ruling class can barely comprehend the concerns of ordinary voters was not such a foolproof recipe for democracy after all.
Some slightly more thoughtful commentators accept that this astonishingly simplistic reading might not capture the whole story. In a new podcast series for the Financial Times, Martin Wolf seems genuinely concerned about the future of democracy—and accepts a small part of the blame for himself and his colleagues.
The problem, Wolf seems to believe, is that neoliberals, in all their zeal for the end of history, spread free markets too far and too fast. The shock therapy of the 1990s was not coupled with measures to alleviate the social and economic tensions that came with it.
The argument is reminiscent of that put forward by progressive political theorist Karl Polanyi, who believed that capitalist free markets spread too quickly for societies to adapt. Those whose lives and ideals were threatened by the emergence of this brave new world would push back against the encroachment of the ‘market society’—often supporting authoritarian strongmen to do so.
Progressive liberals like Wolf tend to believe that the solution to the problem will come in some form of regulated capitalism. Often, these commentators are Keynesians who advocate a return to the social democratic consensus of the post-war period.
But this kind of nostalgia is no healthier than that evinced by Trump fans longing for a return to a world before the spread of ‘gender ideology’. There is, after all, a reason why the Keynesian consensus broke down.
As soon as economic growth slowed, the latent battle between workers and bosses that had been bubbling away below the surface suddenly exploded into the political mainstream. Without excess profits extracted from the rest of the 

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