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1 results

  • 2 - Legal Orders and Social Performance

  • Laura R. Ford, Bard College, New York
  • Book:
    The Intellectual Property of Nations
    Published online:
    04 June 2021
    Print publication:
    20 May 2021, pp 57-84

  • Summary

    This chapter establishes a basis for the book's meta-narrative in a present-day context, highlighting the importance of intellectual property - particularly patents - for the foundation of Facebook. The chapter emphasizes the weaving together of formality and substantive rationality in contemporary patents, which are theorized as instruments of legal power. By showing how patents were important in the founding of Facebook, the chapter emphasizes the role that instruments of legal power - like patents - can play in linking people together into social groups, classes, and networks. Michael Mann's IEMP model for social power helps us to understand the dynamics of exclusivity, as seen in contemporary intellectual property, particularly in patents.