Kory G

How can the government create legislation to prevent monopolies from suppressing innovation via patents and litigation?

QUOTE:

“We must try to understand Theodore Vail, for his basic character reoccurs in other ‘Defining Moguls,’ the men who drive the cycle and populate this book. Schumpeter theorized that men like Vail were rare, a special breed, with unusual talents and ambitions. Their motivation was not money, but rather ‘the dream and the will to found a private kingdom;’ ‘the will to conquer: the impulse to fight, to prove oneself superior to others’; and finally the ‘joy of creating.’ Vail was that type. As his biographer put it, ‘he always had a taste for conquest here was a new world to subjugate.’" (Tim Wu, The Master Switch, 30)

Notes Document

Bibliographic Information:

Author: David Harvey

Title of article or book: THE ART OF RENT: GLOBALIZATION, MONOPOLY AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF CULTURE

Title of publication (if article in magazine, newspaper, or journal): Socialist Register 2002: A World of Contradictions

Page numbers (if article in magazine, newspaper, or journal): Vol 38:

Publisher:

Date published: Mar 19, 2009

URL (if applicable): https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5778

Paraphrased Notes: Include Page #s

We give so much cultural value to things that we believe to be non traditional commodities
1. This includes: art, music, film and experiences.
Different things have different values. The value of those things are considered rent
1. Rent is the value of a person building or experience
  1. There are twp forms of rent
    1. How much does it cost to own?
    2. How much is it worth to experience? (94)
2. When things are viewed as “special” or different they do end up having more value (95)
The more similar a product is to other products the less value it has
1. Consumers pay for specialness, wether for better or worse
2. Example: Europe is boring, old, and gross. It tries to be more like Disneyland; constantly having a show going on, demonstrating the best version of it self, interesting (95)
3. However, in order to have any value a product must be appealing enough to consumers that they would consider purchasing it. (96)
  1. If something is too unique it will unapeal to consumers. I.e Disneyland to American tourists (95)
4. Companies will often market their product to make it seem like it is the most unique
  1. If everybody does this (which they do) then in the eyes of the consumer, it takes away from the uniqueness of the product (96)
There is a contradiction in the way we think about capitalism
1. How is it that there can exist a monopoly when a free market is supposed to give us diverse and numerous products? Even with a “survival of the fittest’ mentality, there should be room for more than one company
  1. This is because companies are constantly trying to become monopolies
2. For an efficient and organized market, there often requires a monopoly’s level of organization (97)
Historically monopolies have not been a problem.
1. Transportation used to cost a lot more, so getting a product over the nearby town used to cost a lot more
2. When globalization happened things from overseas became cheaper and suddenly small businesses were forced to stay as regional products
3. This is why regional beers tend to cost more and be craft beers (98)
There is a clear problem with the way monopolies tend to dominate an entire market. The solution to this is through the regulation and companies through international law
1. International agreements are where the solution stands
2. This includes their ability to control things such as patents, which create monopolies into resource-hogging companies (98)
Monopolies want to minimize and ultimately get rid of terms used for wines outside if the term’s physical place of origin.
1. Europe’s wine industry wants to get rid of terms such as ‘Chateau’ and ‘Domaine’ as well as generic terms like ‘champagne’, ‘burgundy’, ‘chablis’ or ‘sauterne’. (100)
Some people think globalization is affecting the local market in a negative way
1. On some level this is true, it allows for smaller more regional companies to be stuck in their respective locations
2. However, at the same time, it allows access to the global market from a local market
3. If the two are separated then there is neither access to it and ultimately nowhere to grow (101)
By having access to the global market there is also the ability to outsource the cost of necessary products from other companies
1. Materials are labor is outsourced to other countries (102)
  1. The argument that cheaper labor produces a cheaper producrt is somewhat BS beca

Direct quotes: Include Page #s

“The more Europe becomes Disneyfied, the less unique and special it becomes. The

bland homogeneity that goes with pure commodification erases monopoly

advantages. Cultural products become no different from commodities in general.

‘The advanced transformation of consumer goods into corporate products or

“trade mark articles” that hold a monopoly on aesthetic value’, writes Wolfgang

Haug, ‘has by and large replaced the elementary or “generic” products’, so that

‘commodity aesthetics’ extends its border ‘further and further into the realm of

cultural industries’.5” (96)

Summary of Source (2-4 sentences)

Intangible things are super important to make a monopoly and there super important because they are what define one product from the other. Having notable differences between things is super important because it is was values them more than things cheaper made from overseas

Does this help me answer my question? Why or why not?

Yes. It connects the ideas of “owning ideas” to other sources. Owning ideas is what gives monopolies power and is also what gives small businesses power. They are able to make local products more appealing by giving the description using terms that can be used to only describe specific regional products.

Lingering Questions

Connections to other sources

JRPS, Division 4Betsy GoldmanNovember 20, 2020