Patent Trolling: Just Another Form of Capitalism

The dawn of the information age has ushered in a new form of value in intellectual property. Patents are based upon the innovative character of new kinds of tools, business models and processes with economic value. And like all economic functions, the patent occurs in, and helps to propagate, a specific social relationship of value.

Enter the "patent troll:" an irreverent term referring to those who deal in the purchase and defense of patent rights. Patent trolls purchase troves of patents, then litigate to turn a profit on their purchase. Sometimes, the patent merchants get a cut of the proceeds from litigation executed by their customers. All this is justified as defense of intellectual property and encouragement of innovation. But this is actually a simple form of capitalism.

Profit or Society?

I want to talk about the profit motive, because despite being the cornerstone of capitalism it is highly misunderstood. All sorts of proclamations about the profit motive's success as a social and economic model are published in the media daily. Other causes for social and economic conditions are often avoided, and where profit has a clear negative bias, it is generally de-emphasized.

The profit motive is a simple form of the incentive model. Incentives are conditions in a system which reward or punish different kinds of behavior. Profits refer to one subset of incentives: those which resolve in positive or negative changes to net worth. Needless to say, human incentives are more complicated than this, and strictly for-profit business models still need to account for more different changes which may not be clearly linked to positive or negative account balances. But the capitalist system tends toward this model of profit, and incentives processes are typically explained in this way as well.

Individualism: The Basis of Socialism

This is part 3 of a 3-post series dealing with the Marxist concept of Socialism and Individualism.

Part 3: The Basis of Socialism


Socialism is on the one hand the transfer of the control over the means of production to the working class, in order to relieve this oppression. It is to overthrow the irrational, free-market state of political economy. But it serves a far more fundamental purpose for human society. As we have seen, socialism seeks to abolish the state of things wherein human labor is objectified. Human labor should, given the conditions of emancipation, serve the essential interests of the human being in the context of satisfied human needs. Erich Fromm:

"For Marx, socialism (or communism) is not flight or abstraction from, or loss of the objective world which men have created by the objectification of their faculties. It is not an impoverished return to unnatural, primitive simplicity. It is rather the first real emergence, the genuine actualization of man's nature as something real. Socialism, for Marx, is a society which permits the actualization of man's essence, bu overcoming his alienation. It is nothing less than creating the conditions for the truly free, rational, active and independent man; it is the fulfillment of the prophetic aim: the destruction of the idols."⁷

The socialization of the political economy is in keeping with the rejection of values, processes and constructs which do not meet the essential interests of a society of human beings. It is the judgement of capitalism, and all forms of organization, for the specific value in terms of rights and privileges it bestows on its members.

Individualism: The Freedom of Independence

This is part 2 of a 3-post series dealing with the Marxist concept of Socialism and Individualism.
 
Part 2: The Freedom of Independence


Human existence is a social phenomenon. The "individualist" ideal of capitalism seeks to privatize the sum of human relations in order to free the human being. Indeed, the many libertarian ideals seek to arrange society in such a way that "nobody steps on anybody else's toes." Property should exist as an extension of the individual. And the individuals, in turn, voluntarily exchange property.³

“The rate of privation between members of society is precisely the antithesis to the rate of independence or individualism.”

The facts, however, paint a different picture. The calculus of human "utility" posits that the disutility of uncomfortable jobs should incur greater pay - the opposite is true. Jobs with less autonomy, greater physical requirement, greater tolls on health and dirtier conditions tend to pay less. The social supply of labor, rather than the individual valuation of labor is the chief determinant of the value paid to workers. It is precisely this irrational construct which determines that an increase in the available productive forces of society, that is an increase in supply of labor, should instead decrease the value and incentive of a worker. What appears as an obvious supply-demand function is in the aggregate an irrational transfer of value to a minority - the capitalist who can pay his or her workers less, and yet has more supply (labor) available, and a larger potential market (laborers as consumers).^{3, 4}

Individualism: The Myth of Utopian Socialism

This is part 1 of a 3-post series dealing with the Marxist concept of Socialism and Individualism.

Part 1: The Myth of Utopian Socialism

Socialism: the penultimate state of equality. Everything shared, the power and interests of each individual so intertwined that the most minor discomfort will be done away with: Utopia. But Utopia is, by definition, an unattainable state of things: it means "no place." Nature itself precludes perfection.

But socialism isn't a utopia, either. The closest proximity it ever gets to Utopia is that socialism defines the conditions which allow for humans to strive for utopia. The daily struggle to subsist, wherein basic human need resolves itself into conflicts between individuals, stands in the the way of Utopia more than nature. But the triumph over the conditions which create these conflicts could allow humans to redirect their efforts.

If the problem of hunger is restricted to our history, we can then seek to resolve the intricate issues of human inter-personal relations. The state of the individual in need is a state of oppression, for the simple reason that it disallows the free actualization of the human being: in such a state, one is tied above all to the very struggle to exist before one can exist as a free person:

Capital Volume 1 Chapter 1 Notes

This is part 1 of a series in which I'll be summarizing the framework of Marx's Capital, Volume 1. For this series I am using the translation by Ben Fowkes, © 1990 & published by Penguin Classics.

All numbered and lettered lists are as they appear in the literature; further organization is my own doing. Occasionally, notes appear outside of the section they are sourced from in the book. This was done to improve the organization and flow of the notes.

I. The Two Factors of the Commodity: Use Value and Value (Substance of value; Magnitude of Value)

-There are two kinds of value applicable to commodities:

Use-value (substance: subjectively represents usability to consumer, represents wealth)

Depository for exchange value

Exchange Value (magnitude: realized by way of market exchange)

Since magnitude of value is our subject, ‘value’ and ‘magnitude of value’ are often used interchangeably.

-…and two creative factors for value:

Labor Value (prerequisite, subsumed into commodity, creates commodity value)
A value or quantity of labor is the common denominator among commodities
Resources (See Section II)

Economic Liberals Admit it: Capitalists Own Us

"Don't tax the rich, as they create jobs," so the mantra goes. However, this line of thinking betrays the underlying structure of production: namely, that the capitalist class has executive control over the means of production - control which is a concern of public policy, as Cato and the Heritage Foundation admit by requesting policy that regards its standing. Despite that fact, policy proposals argue for diminished public input. Indeed, history shows us that such control has always underlined this graft:^1,2,3,4

• Today, the Capitalist creates jobs by allowing the working class to use the means of production and sell their labor to him.
• Before that, the Lord created jobs by allowing the working class to use the means of production and give part of their labor to him.
• Before that, the Slaver created jobs by having the working class use the means of production and he (and it was always a man - patriarchy and all that) provided basic subsistence to them.

It has always been the narrow control over the means of production that allowed the interests of a group of oligarchs to consistently stand as a barrier to the production process. Interestingly, when these power structures shifted, it was always by diminishing the returns that older systems could replicate. The oft-revered Mises agrees: it is by diminishing the surplus value on capital investment that the same is disincentivized.² Is calling for safer structures for capitalism simply another incarnation of the tactical perpetuation of power? And does this activity fit the theoretical model of consumer-driven capitalism?

Authority is Only Acceptable When it is Turned Against Oppression Itself

The best approach to the application of authority to situations of oppression is a materialist one. Exercises in avoidance and punishment rarely do much to solve the issues of oppression and exploitation. The underlying social relations have to be confronted to resolve oppression, and this can only occur by an open, systematic inquiry into the relations of oppression. Furthermore, the rate at which oppressive authority figures are able to freely express their own bigotry is directly proportional to the depth and accuracy of investigations into the same oppression.

Authority does, in fact, develop legitimacy when turned against oppression (and by extension oppressors). For that reason, leftists frequently correlate bigotry in language with oppression that follows a bigoted division. Leftists internalize a phobia (embodied in a self-restriction) of (from) the language of the oppressor, and this is not to be ashamed of. As the oppression diminishes, so, too, will the sting of the language and the internalization of authority against that language. This is all in keeping with a revolutionary overthrow of the structure of oppression, and fine at that.

What needs to be questioned, however, is the pedantic nature of this phobia when you apply it socially. The fact is that it does nothing to reveal and excise the oppression it seeks to confront. To ban the language of the oppressor is to conceal the identity of the oppressor. It internalizes the sense of oppression on all sides. It fights against the recognition of oppression and in fact insulates oppression.