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Trouble in E-topia: Knowledge as Intellectual Property

Faculty of Economics and Social Science, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS161QY, UK, christopher.may{at}uwe.ac.uk

This article looks at the claims made about the city's new workplace, where information-related endeavour is leading to a new world of work. However, this can only be regarded as a positive step in labour relations if the central role of intellectual property in the information age is forgotten or obscured. After briefly laying out the claims made about the new age, the article identifies the continued importance for capitalists of controlling property rights, leading to an examination of the continuing property-based relations between information labour and capital(ists). Rather than representing an e-topia, the city's new mode of economic activity exhibits significant continuities with previous modes of capitalism. The claims for the empowerment of information and knowledge-workers in the new age are therefore optimistic at best and mistaken at worst.

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