American patents, Chinese slavery

Yesterday, I made the argument that copyright is slavery, yet I admitted that it is only a tiny bit of slavery. Today, B. Psycho inadvertently reminds me that I should not have made any such concession; Intellectual Property plays a central role in a system that comes quite close to total slavery -- the devil's bargain between American tech companies and the Chinese state.

The gist of this accusation is Chinese workers allow themselves to be worked like slaves only because various restrictions on commerce (such as Apple's patents) prevent them from making a living any other way. These laws undermine the traditional method by which a free man would earn a living -- by working under an established and experienced mentor, and eventually setting up his own enterprise using the skills he learned on the job and the reputation that he developed. However, in the modern world, this form of upward mobility is prohibited by the law (both here and in China), creating permanent classes of employers and employees -- masters and slaves. In the Apple/China situation, patents prevent the workers from being independent, but other legal arrangements can produce a similar effect. The most glaring in my mind are the "non-compete" clauses found in many employment contracts; it's too bad that most progressives are satisfied to reform slavery without eradicating it.

Why "99%" is not about income

In a previous post, a comment suggested that I am trying to tell the Occupy movement (i.e. the 99%ers) what they care about. The 99% slogan is clearly about income/wealth inequality, yet I insist that the "real issue" is special privileges.

I'll briefly state why I don't think that I'm projecting my own values onto their action:

1) 99% is just a slogan. It cannot encompass the subtleties of the issue.
2) Many of them have explicitly stated that their main concern is that the 1% "give back" to the community that enabled their success. There is apparent tolerance for a large income disparity, as long as there is a social safety net and opportunity for upward mobility (e.g. education subsidies).
3) Many of them have distinguished between the worthy rich (e.g. Steve Jobs) and the unworthy rich (e.g. bailed-out bankers)
4) I'd bet that if you surveyed the group, almost everyone would say that there is a problem with special privilege and subtle corruption of public institutions. A lot of them (maybe a majority) may say that income disparity itself is a problem, but I'd bet that almost all of them would also say that privilege/corruption is a problem. So I think I'm safe if I treat "privilege/corruption" as a concern that I share with the Occupy crowd, and put income inequality (per se) on the back burner.
5) If you follow the campaign finance reform movement (which I think is a big part of the Occupy movement), the concern with wealth inequality is derived from a concern with unequal political influence.

At the end of the day, I also believe that much of the wealth inequality in our country arises from special privileges and corruption of public institutions. Maybe the Occupiers don't agree, but I don't think I'm projecting my opinions on them when I focus on the solution as I see it.