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0 pointsdragonwriter7y ago0 comments

> Considering that communists are historically against private property and their usage as a means of production

No, Communist are against “private property” where “private property” is specifically defined as exclusionary ownership of the means of production. If it isn't specifically in the means of production, “private property” in sense the term is used in the modern capitalist world is not “private property” as opposed by Communists (in more like what many Communists accept as acceptable “personal property”, which again is different than what that term means in capitalist society.)

And it's not clear to me that intellectual property (or other intangible personal property not representing control of tangible goods), strictly speaking, can be a “means of production” in the sense Communists are concerned about; it's certainly not in the sense of basic Communist theory.

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geezerjay7y ago

> No, Communist are against “private property” where “private property” is specifically defined as exclusionary ownership of the means of production.

...and in this case it's the intellectual property of content providers who use it to run their business.

>And it's not clear to me that intellectual property (or other intangible personal property not representing control of tangible goods), strictly speaking, can be a “means of production” in the sense Communists are concerned about.

Even if we ignore how this law was created to help private media companies that are vilified for controlling the press, I'm sure that we can agree that media companies do depend on the existence of strong intellectual properly rights to run their business. That's pretty much thr central argument: if they can't enforce their rights over their private property them it ceases to serve its purpose as a means of production.

dragonwriterOP7y ago

> and in this case it's the intellectual property of content providers who use it to run their business.

No, that's not a “means of production”, in the Communist sense, and so ownership of it is not “private property” in the sense that Communist theory opposes such.

> I'm sure that we can agree that media companies do depend on the existence of strong intellectual properly rights to run their business.

That's irrelevant to whether intellectual property qualifies as a means of production in Communist theory, which does not define “means of production ” as “anything a business relies on to run”, but instead as the physical instruments to which human labor is applied in the course of production.

Opposing media companies on this is not something which has anything to do with the Communist opposition to property rights in the means of production.

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