This paper examines and situates theoretically from a Marxist political economic perspective the capitalist model of academic publishing using Marx’s concepts of ‘primitive accumulation’ and ‘alienation.’ Primitive accumulation, understood as a continuing historical process necessary for capital accumulation, offers a theoretical framework to make sense of contemporary erosions of the knowledge commons that result from various enclosing strategies employed by capitalist academic journal publishers. As a theoretical complement, the article further suggests that some of the elements of alienation Marx articulated (...) in respect of capitalist-controlled production processes capture the estrangement experienced by the actual producers of academic publications. After offering a short assessment of the open-access movement as a remedial response to the enclosing and alienating effects inherent in the capitalist-controlled academic publishing industry, the article briefly outlines a suggested alternative model for academic publishing that, building on open-access projects, could radically subvert capitalist control. (shrink)

This article examines the privacy of personal medical information in the health research context. Arguing that biomedical research in Canada has been caught up in the government's broader neoliberal policy agenda that has positioned biotechnology as a strategic driver of economic growth, the author discusses the tension between informational privacy and the need for medical information for research purposes. Consideration is given to the debate about whether privacy for medical information serves or hinders the “public good” in respect of medical (...) research and to discussions of informed consent as an element of “fair information practices” designed to safeguard the privacy of personal information, including attempts to subvert requirements for informed consent in the medical research context. (shrink)

Following in the footsteps of a variety of previous research that elaborates on the current state of affairs in academia, this article sets out the argument that neoliberalism and its corresponding iterations of science and technology and research funding policies in this country have implications for the types of knowledge that can be generated within and communicated without contemporary institutions of higher education. Using agricultural biotechnology as the lens through which to focus analysis, the article outlines a number of empirical (...) examples that illustrate how the free flow of knowledge either critical of or not readily appropriated by capital is being impeded. (shrink)