As I am researching the author’s profile of the book that I
am reviewing- Towards a Political
Economy of Information, I became interested more to read his works because
Mr. Robert Verzola has been awarded “father of Philippine email because he ran an email service for NGOs for
almost a decade (1992-2000).Educated and trained as an engineer, he has worked
closely with social movements and civil society organizations on issues ranging
from nuclear power, intellectual property rights, information technology,
genetic engineering, environmental issues, farming methods, and election
automation. Now he actively participates in the international Copy South
Research Group, and is currently writing a book on the political economy of
abundance.
How he was encourage writing the book? Combining his
technical background and social commitment, he has regularly served as
technical resource person for Philippine as well as Southeast Asian NGOs. As a
product of his decades of work on ICTs and their social impact, his book
'Towards a Political Economy of Information' was published in 2004.
In the first few paragraphs of a chapter in his book,
Towards a Political Economy of Information he said “We are all familiar with
the typical story of an isolated village at the edge of the forest. Some villagers
have to go to town to buy a few necessities, and maybe to stock the village
store. Others need to go to sell some products for cash. Villagers start to
feel that the foot path to town is insufficient for their needs. Village
activists may even pursue the issue and organize the people to demand a better
road. Eventually, public opinion is swayed, and a petition is submitted. The
government, the villagers are pleasantly surprised, is amenable to the idea.
Road-building eventually starts.
As completion date nears, the village organizes a welcome
party for the first vehicle that is coming in. A few days later, the village
wakes up to the rumble of engines and smell of diesel exhaust. The vehicles
have come. And they are logging trucks, carrying men with chain saws.
Reading the statement of the author above, it is evident
that there are issues and problems concerning the necessities of the village
people and actions for development could be achieved in the cooperation of the
authority and the citizens.
Let us now discover
the content of the written work of Mr. Verzola. The book was composed of 5 parts. It evolves
around information and property rights, ICTs and Internet, genetic information
and genetic engineering, monopolistic information economies and alternatives: non-
monopolistic information. In every part of the book there are certain issues
and the author gives his overview and reactions.
Part I: Information
and intellectual property rights
Information is a distinct commodity already apparent in
books, tapes and computer which became a mass consumer product. Reading further,
the book focuses on conflicting attitudes towards information: as a good which
in developing world one naturally shares with others and as a commodity which
in developed world one stake an exclusive ownership claim for
profitmaking. The issue here is the U.S.
insists that developing countries are violating their copyrights and this
cannot go on. The government has agreed to phase out the book reprinting law.
This means that the book reprints which have kept textbooks cost relatively low
will soon be banned, forcing as back to an era of expensive imported textbooks.
The conflict manifests as “offensive “by the US and other information economies
to impose on developing countries a strict regime of intellectual property
rights (IPR) enforcement. Through this regime, they expand and consolidate
their ownership and control over information. In this situation, developing
countries need to follow the rules given by the developed countries in using
their commodities (information).
Part II: ICTs and the
Internet
Technology is great but it is only accessible at
considerable cost. Internet towards with new information and communication
technologies are converging today-essentially as democratizing factor. But issues
arise regarding ICTs and Internet. Internet creates its own hierarchy of access
that retains and may even worsen the gap between the rich and poor. The internet
reinforces the automation mindset that replaces workers with machines. In this
situation ICT becomes a status and job destroyer. It is obvious nowadays, that
machines and computers are taking over work previously done by human beings.
The matter of balance is essential to manipulate the human and technology
resources. Human should be the one to use technology not the technology that
will control the mind of human.
Part III: Genetic
Information and Genetic Engineering
To give you a background about GI and GE, let us have these
definitions.
Genetic information
includes information about an individual’s genetic tests and the genetic tests
of an individual’s family members, as well as information about the
manifestation of a disease or disorder in an individual’s family members.
Genetic engineering is the alteration of genetic code by
artificial means, and is therefore different from traditional selective
breeding. It makes the whole digital revolution look nothing. Digital technology changes what we do. Genetic engineering has the power to change
who we are.
In the book the issue is a about piracy. An alarming
development in the intellectual property laws of the Western countries is the increasing
number of patent on life forms. And what is patent? A paten is a form of
intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a
sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time
in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention. Many plant varieties
were developed from natural varieties freely taken from farming areas all over
the world. To manipulate, they change parts of the plants’ genetic make-up,
claim ownership over these, and then sell them back to us at much higher
prices.
Genetic engineering also contaminates the natural world with
runaway engineered mutants that may threaten our health and environment. The
problem is an even patent on human genetic material is spreading specially in
the US. This is why the patenting of life forms must be opposed completely: it
gives multinationals monopoly over genetic resources and erodes biodiversity.
Part IV: Monopolistic
Information of Economies
The monopolistic nature of current information economies
hinges on corporate ownership and control of information infrastructures and
monopolistic ownership of information through property rights. The issue
revolves around cyber lords, and who are they? Cyber lords control the software
including the owners of software companies, database companies, music, video
and film companies, publishers, genetic engineering firms, pharmaceutical and
seed firms, and similar companies who earn most of their income from IPR rents.
Cyber lords, therefore, have no choice but to globalize their operations as
well, and to follow where their information products go. They push the
globalization process incessantly to ensure that every country, every nook and
corner of the globe, is within the reach of their mechanisms for rent
extraction.
Strategies against
cyber lords- we must oppose privatization and fight for public domain
information content, tools, facilities and infrastructure. A strong campaign
must be mounted against patenting of life forms. We should propose
non-monopolistic rewards for intellectual activity and the social sharing of
non-material goods. We should advocate various forms of community/ public
control or ownership over backbone information facilities and infrastructure to
minimize private rent seeking through corporate control over such commonly used
facilities.
Part V: Alternatives:
A non-monopolistic sector
Information monopolies work against the nature of
information that is why alternative approaches exist. Countries which want to
take advantage of the benefits of the internet may do so at a much lower cost
through appropriate technologies, free/open software, genuine compulsory
licensing, public access stations and public/community ownership of the
information infrastructure.
Insights
Now that we are in the digital era, information is easily
copied and perfectly reproduces exact copy. Even if there are certain
securities, people tend to experiment and find the possible way to discover it.
Authorities set rules and implemented laws in protecting intellectual property
rights. I agreed on what scientist said that information is that which resolves
or reduces uncertainty. What is interesting is that since information is
non-material it is very easy to reproduce.
The good thing about information economy is it can produce
with a minimum of input in labor ad raw materials. This means that information
economies are in position to realize huge margins of profits when trading with
other economies, therefore, they are also in position to extract huge amounts
of wealth from trading partners. But the weakness of information goods, many
people simply copy them.
Developing such a political economy of information that has
become an immediate necessity, given the rapidity with which the information
sector has established its dominance, there should be an analysis of the basic
contradiction in an information economy and its various expressions
(agriculture & industry). Identification of the main forces, the reliable
allies, the middle forces and opponents of change are important for the
discovery of new property relation that is more consistent with the nature of
passing information goods. One of the key concepts in ecology is the idea of
harmony. In comparison with the nature of information, we must learn to search
for harmony and to work for it because the dynamic balance that it represents
gives peace to our lives.
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