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This digital document is an article from Capital & Class, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2006. The length of the article is 8598 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the author: In this article, I examine the impact of the reification of intellectual property rights (IPRS) on the global political economy of information and knowledge. I begin by establishing the central functions that IPRS perform in the global political economy, and then review reification as an analytical tool for the examination of social phenomena. The interrogation of IPRS using the concept of reification raises the issue of the role of anxiety in the politics of knowledge. There are two dimensions of anxiety that need to be accorded some analytical weight in any general discussion of the political problem of IPRS: anxiety about personal welfare, and anxiety about control. Both of these can be readily identified in discussions and disputes about the scope, applicability and costs of IPRS in the global system. This is to say that the reification of intellectual property contributes to the continuing discourse of depoliticisation and technocratic policy-making in this area. Thus, I argue that the reification of intellectual property must be resisted if we are to establish a meaningful global politics of information and knowledge.
Citation Details
Title: The denial of history: reification, intellectual property rights and the lessons of the past.
Author: Christopher May
Publication: Capital & Class (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Issue: 88 Page: 33(24)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
