Abstract
We are witnessing today a new phase in the national and global development of the productive forces where intellectual property and ownership of patents has become a key component of the imperialist system of domination under the aegis of neoliberal capitalism. This article explores the implications of this development for the agricultural sector and seeks to unravel fundamental features of the restructuring and capitalist development process involved, with particular reference to the new geoeconomics of capital (the evolution of extractive capitalism) in Latin America.
Highlights
We are witnessing today a new phase in the national and global development of the productive forces where intellectual property and ownership of patents has become a key component of the imperial(ist) system of domination under the aegis of neoliberal capitalism (Rodríguez 2008)
The profound restructuring undergone by the system of technological innovation at the heart of the capitalist development process over the last two-and-a-half decades, where the concentration and the private appropriation of the means of knowledge creation and technological innovation—what Marx defined as the general intellect—has reached major proportions
Agro-extractivism assumes diverse forms, but what has dominated the debate surrounding it in Latin America—apart from the meaning of the landgrabbing phenomenon—has been what we might term the political economy of biofuels capitalism: the conversion of farmland and agriculture for food production into the production of agrofuels
Summary
Because of its multilateral nature, intellectual property disputes within the WTO tend to become more complex, so the US strategy includes bilateral FTA negotiations as a far-reaching means to control markets and increase corporate profits. The regulations established by the Patent Cooperation Treaty—modified in 1984 and 2001—in the framework of WIPO–WTO have contributed significantly to fostering this trend. All of this has led to the unprecedented appropriation of knowledge, as intangible common goods, giving rise to an abundant expansion, concentration and private appropriation of the products of general intellect, which—far from promoting a progressive path to development in productive forces—has inaugurated a regressive phase in the advancement and application of knowledge.
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