Imperialism, Property, and the Privatisation of Knowledge

Abstract

Two Marxist streams of critique have been claiming priority in an attempt to elucidate capitalist imperialism. One insists that national states are vital to capital and emphasises the concrete physical boundaries upon which capital must rely. The other asserts the notion of a transnational capitalist class (and institutions), underscoring the non-committed dimension of capital vis-à-vis national borders, as it flows unrestrained, indiscriminately, and transnationally, moving large masses of capital. This paper claims the answer lies in a synthesis of both positions. The concrete example used here is situated within the most crucial category of human production and reproduction, namely property, for property reveals the most essential practical character of any social arrangement based on appropriation. In this sense, I propose an understanding of both the peculiarity of property under capitalist relations and its recently ongoing transformation with the ubiquitous rise and proliferation of intellectual property_(private). Historically, property totality underwent a significant cleavage. As imperialism’s mass of capital increased and the social gains diminished the capacity to sustain the rate of exploitation, a tendency towards lower profit rates pushed capitalist centres to export capital to the peripheries, ending the everlasting process of pure extraction of raw materials. A robust mechanism was required to control this process; property totality was divided into private property and intellectual property_(private) of the means of production. However, this process, by enabling further extraction of surplus-value, created two additional problems. The very capitalist core became dependent on the peripheries, and the capacity to innovate and increase productivity was jeopardised by the paradoxical privatisation of knowledge. In this sense, each step that capitalist imperialism has taken to prolong its existence has also promoted fundamental transformations that are accelerating its decay.

Imperialism; Capitalism; Private Property; Knowledge; Intellectual Private Property.