Download <Unjust Deserts: How the Rich are Taking Our Common Inheritance

<Unjust Deserts: How the Rich are Taking Our Common Inheritance 2008 by Gar Alperovitz and Lew
Daly, also, Distributing Our Technological Inheritance 1994 by Gar Alperovitz. The book is an elaboration
on the original article.>
<http://www.centerforneweconomics.org/publications/lectures/alperovitz/gar/distributing-ourtechnological-inheritance>
(1) What is the primary thesis of the work?
Everyone has an equal claim to those aspects of technological benefits which derive from the collective
factors of technological and economic development. Technology has expanded rapidly over the past few
decades but we underuse this information because the current institutional structure and intellectual
property regime allows privileged individuals to secure massively disproportionate shares of the benefits
from the collective factors of technological benefits.
What are the most powerful supporting arguments given to bolster the thesis?
< 1. The role of mathematical knowledge in technological development is greatly underappreciated and
the process of developing mathematical knowledge is largely based on collaboration and our collective
inheritance of knowledge from the past. Further, technology is the fundamental driver of economic
growth and increases in well-being.
“Collective advances do not come to us from the scientist and the engineer, the craftsman and the
technician acting alone. Each, of course, has been supported by a vast number of other members of
society at every stage of development. The miner and the farmer, the carpenter and the cleaning lady,
the cook and the nurse and the ditch digger as well - all contribute to establishing the conditions
(especially time free from other obligations!) required to create and pass on productive knowledge.”
In quantifying the collective factors of technological development we can start with exogenous changes
in total factor productivity. Economist Robert Solow won the Nobel Prize for his 1957 paper on growth
accounting which traces the origins of productivity growth. This was the first identification of what was
initially called the Solow residual and is now called total factor productivity. “Solow found that most
productivity growth was due to a shift in the production function, a change in output beyond what could
be explained by changes in the supply of conventional inputs like labor and capital.” The book provides
subsequent data on the percentage of growth attributable to the residual. The measurements say that
between 60% and 90% of productivity growth is due to the residual. In so far as the residual is the result
of collective activity, the benefits of the residual should be redistributed collectively.
Post WWII US government and particularly military research played an enormous role in developing
many of the technologies that modern fortunes have been founded on. The internet is one of the
clearest examples of this.
>
What are the weakest arguments given, if any?
<
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What antithesis was decisively addressed?
< The myth of the independent inventor is addressed. It is discussed how landmark inventions
commonly attributed to an individual are properly understood as the result of collective effort over time
and in any case could have been attributed to different individuals under arbitrarily different
circumstances with respect to the interests of the progression of human knowledge. It is often the case
that innovative breakthroughs occur in different places simultaneously since the most important factor
in these breakthroughs is the “technological and knowledge infrastructure” of the time, which is based
on inherited knowledge and an institutional foundation and these have nothing to do with individual
merit.
The telephone is given as a primary example. Several others had come up with similar devices as
Graham Bell at the same time but somewhat arbitrary factors lead to him receiving the patent and the
credit. If it wasn’t for Graham Bell’s efforts, the contribution to humanity that the telephone has made
would likely have been unchanged. We cannot let this argument compromise our value for hard work,
discipline, focus etc. We have to stress how our system will better facilitate innovation by properly
rewarding meritorious endeavor.
Another antithesis that is decisively addressed is the idea that the current distribution of technological
benefits is necessary for to incentivize innovation. This largely follows from the role that collective
factors play in making innovation possible. >
What significant antithesis remains unaddressed?
<>
What is the conclusion of the work?
< Most of our wealth derives from an increase in output that is not commensurate with any increase in
effort or cost incurred by those now alive.
Popular sentiments in political economy in the form of the Lockean labor theory of property, libertarian
natural rights theory, marginal productivity theory and Rawlsian liberal distributive justice all fail to
recognize the disproportionate share of current value that we receive simply because we have been
born later rather than earlier in human history.
A substantial portion of current wealth and income should be reallocated to the members of society.
>
Does the conclusion decisively corroborate the thesis?
<>
Is the conclusion weak? Why?
<Yes, all the book does is identify the problems with the political economy of technology, albeit very
effectively. There is however no clear program that addresses the problems. In his other works, he is
preoccupied with a new system that synthesizes state socialism and corporate capitalism. It seems like
he focuses a lot on worker ownership. Gar should learn about Meritocracy.
I would like have seen some economic theory of production based on equal distribution of collective
inheritance. This is where the theory from the book could have really come to fruition and is also where
social capitalism offers a better future. Production will be conducted much more rationally as incentives
are realigned and the profit motive is tamed.
>
(2) What epistemic validation is lent to Meritocracy by the work, if any?
Is the validation ontological, deterministic, analytical, or a mix; how?
< Epistemically, the work validates the thesis that the ruling regime is illegitimate. It maintains itself
through an entrenched unjust distribution of technological benefits, and social and political force to
obstruct any serious threats. The meritocratic prescription penetrates a myriad of social, political and
economic institutional constructs which will have to handle the redistribution of technological benefits.
>
Is the work worth analytically notating for the solidification of meritocracy?
<Yes,
Providing equal opportunity for every child relies heavily on the political economy of technology. The
Meritocratic conception of justice inherently coincides with the claims of our collective technological
inheritance. Just as the inheritance tax ensures that the dead cannot rule the living, so does a
meritocratic distribution of the benefits of technology. >
(3) What academic fields does the work target, address, or lend itself to?
<Political economy>
(4) Are you familiar with any other works that relate to the work's conclusion?
<Political philosopher Roberto Unger affirms many of the book’s sentiments and provides deeper
analysis into the political economy of technology.
“To encourage innovation in our societies, we must radically transform the regime of intellectual
property and its protection. The present regime, devised at the end of the 19th century and expressed
most characteristically in the patent system, transforms technological innovation into exclusive
property. Its result is to leave the most important technological innovations in the control of big capital.
We have no to accept such a system if our goal is to engage every part of society including small
businesses, including independent entrepreneurs and inventors in the work of innovation.
The patent and all its analogues should be relativized. Their domain of application should be restricted
and we should create alongside it, other mechanisms to encourage finance and support innovation. One
such mechanism would be a system of prizes or rewards that the state would grant to the scientific and
technological innovators. A second mechanism would be a system that would enable the inventors or
innovators to acquire capital or equity in the enterprises that would be established in partnership with
the state, on the basis of the technological and scientific innovations. In this way we begin to design a
long list of alternative mechanisms for the encouragement of innovation and prevent the exclusive
system that makes innovation the servant of commercial greed.”
>
(5) Are you familiar with any other works that relate to the work's subject?
< In this video recorded in 2007 but recently posted, Phillip Mirowski discusses the politics of science
and the Neoliberal ascendency of the past few decades which has led to changes in intellectual property
that facilitate the rich.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J13SDqmaNw
Mirowski also has written extensively about topics relating to the political economy of technology, one
relevant work is his 2011 book Science Mart.
Skill biased-technological change is a prominent idea in economics dealing with the effects of technology
on inequality. This idea is frequently used in defense of anti-meritocratic agendas. It says in short that
more technology will lead to more inequality as workers’ skills become obsolete. For an explanation of
the theory and why it is not entirely accurate see Winner-Take-All Politics by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul
Pierson pg 34-40.
Another good book is The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops
Innovation, and Costs Lives by Michael Heller which discusses what Heller calls the anti-commons. This
work deals with instances in which legal arrangements constrain the optimization of our resources.
Heller has presented some of the material in several videos available online. He has very good examples
of technologies which could greatly serve humanity but are under-utilized because powerful interests
benefit from their exclusion.
Economists Bill Lazonick and Marianna Mazzucato’s work deals with the economics of innovation. The
iPhone is the quintessential example. Consider the following from a recent interview on innovation with
Bill Lazonick.
“The iPhone didn’t just magically appear out of the Apple Campus in Cupertino. Whenever a company
produces a technology product, it benefits from an accumulation of knowledge created by huge
numbers of people outside the company, many of whom have worked in government-funded projects
over the previous decades. Öner Tulum, a researcher at The Academic-Industry Research Network
(theAIRnet), has shown how all of the technologies in the iPhone -– things like touch-screen technology,
GPS, and so on — originated with government spending, funded by taxpayer money.
That’s why a company like Apple should be using a substantial portion of its super-profits to support
government investment in the next generation of innovation. Instead, the company runs an entire
division devoted to finding ways to avoid taxation.”
http://ineteconomics.org/institute-blog/how-superstar-companies-apple-are-killing-america-s-hightech-future
“in the United States, government funding has been critical to the emergence and development of hightech sectors such as computers, the Internet, biotechnology, and alternative energy.164 Without these
government investments and subsidies, the United States would not lead the world in venture capital—
an industry devoted to new-firm formation and growth.165 Yet, in the United States, it can be argued
that a disproportionate share of the returns to a successful new venture accrue to those entrepreneurs
and financiers who put an innovation on the market. At the same time, the success neglects to reward
the contributions of other stakeholders, especially taxpayers, who made significant contributions to the
innovation process.166 In the name of “shareholder value,” rewards are reaped at the expense of nonshareholding” - The Financialization of the U.S. Corporation, Lazonick 2013.
Mazzucato’s 2013 book the Entrepreneurial State shows the importance of technologies developed by
state-funded research. The following is an excerpt from Mazzucato’s book. The book is a wellspring of
evidence that our laws of exclusivity vastly inhibit humanity’s potential for the sake of powerful
interests.
“three-quarters of the new molecular biopharmaceutical entities owe their creation to publicly funded
laboratories. Yet in the past ten years, the top ten companies in this industry have made more in profits
than the rest of the Fortune 500 companies combined. The industry also enjoys great tax advantages: its
R& D costs are deductible, and so are many of its massive marketing expenses, some of which are
counted as R& D (Angell 2004). After taking on most of the R& D bill, the State often gives away the
outputs at a rock-bottom rate. For example, Taxol, the cancer drug discovered by the National Institutes
of Health (NIH), is sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb for $ 20,000 per year’s dose, 20 times the manufacturing
cost. Yet, the company pays the NIH just 0.5 per cent in royalties for the drug. In most other cases,
nothing at all is paid in royalties. It is simply assumed that the public investment is meant to help create
profits for the firms in question, with little to no thinking about the obvious distorted distribution of risk
and reward this presents.
These favoured actors then propound ideological arguments, typically with intellectual roots in the
efficiency propositions of neoclassical economics (and the related theory of ‘shareholder value’), that
justify the disproportionate shares of the gains from innovation that they have been able to appropriate.
These ideological arguments invariably favour financial contributions to the innovation process over
both worker contributions and taxpayer contributions. Ultimately, precisely because innovation is a
collective and cumulative process, the imbalance in the risk– reward nexus not only results in greater
inequality but also undermines the innovation process itself. Finding a way to realign risk taking with
rewards is thus crucial not only for decreasing inequality but also for fostering more innovation.”
>
(6) Please share any unique hypotheses or insights that may provide a starting point for further inquiry.
< The topic covered is one of the many areas which reveal the illegitimacy of the ruling elite. It is
important that we demonstrate the absurdity of their claims to power.
Everyone knows how much technology is increasingly affecting our daily lives. As our technological
prowess grows, it is becoming ever more important to resolve the issues we have regarding the
distribution of technological benefits.
People worry about things like losing too many jobs to automated production. This is the most egregious
concern. Imagine producing goods in a more laborious manor in order ensure the demand for labor is
met, that’s insanity. We need to worry about rearranging the politico-economic structure so that we can
let the machines do the work for us and we can all benefit.
The theory covered in this report is entirely predicated on the offer to imagine institutional
arrangements which handle the distribution of the benefits of technology in a meritocratic way. This is
something that distinguishes a genius system like meritocracy, from the likes of the Zeitgeist movement.
The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) emphasizes the general theme of this report. It is our political philosophy
which is superior and while TZM may have legitimately good information about utilizing technology to
advance society, their political philosophy is not strong enough for an effective resolution.
At any rate, projecting the institutional framework of a new regime is an immense task that can only be
alluded to here but future work will delve into this deeper. Roberto Unger is useful to introduce the
idea. Unger provides the valuable insight that market institutions come in a wide variety of
arrangements that are politically and socially constructed, and it is the design of these arrangements
that determine economic outcomes.
“The concept of a market economy is institutionally indeterminate. That is to say, it is capable of being
realized in different institutional and legal directions, each with dramatic consequences for every aspect
of social life including class structure of society and the distribution of wealth and power. “
“There is a distance of uncertain length between the abstract idea of a market economy and its
realization in particular institutions and arrangements. Every decisive expansion of opportunity to and
through a market economy requires innovation in its institutional forms. Some institutionalized
expressions of the market will be more socially inclusive than others. They will be more likely to afford
to more people and more firms access to the key resources of work and production.”
“We cannot simply regulate the market economy, we cannot simply compensate for the inequalities
generated in the market by resorting to programs of retrospective redistribution through tax and
transfer. We need to reshape the institutional content of the market to ensure a sustained broadening
of economic opportunity.”
The meritocratic positive freedom doctrine must confront the likes of neoliberal economics and the
intellectual regime which has accelerated anti-meritocratic features over past few decades.
We can say that our program optimizes society because we can demonstrate instances in which
technology can be recruited in ways that clearly will lead to an enhanced level of material conditions for
everyone and would be impossible under the current regimes.
Solon Theron makes an appeal for basic income in a meritocracyparty.org article.
“ Given that wealth is accumulated and allowed through the concatenation of a society’s infrastructure,
a basic citizen income is absolutely necessary in order to keep its economy stable, i.e., all citizens of
Meritocracy will be granted the basic means to employ their aspirations.”
This conception of wealth accumulation is similar to the theory of collective technological inheritance
and both are essential to addressing basic income.
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