Property-18.

The capitalist class recognises the value of
the hack in the abstract, whereas the pastoralists
were slow to appreciate the productivity that can
flow from the application of abstraction to the
production process. Under the influence of capital,
the state sanctions forms of intellectual property,
such as patents and copyrights, that secure an
independent existence for hackers as a class, and a
flow of innovations in culture as well as science
from which development issues. Information, once it
becomes a form of property, develops beyond a mere
support for capital -- it becomes the basis of a
form of accumulation in its own right.

[[18]]

p017 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p018w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p019

v?