Interesting Proposal

I came across this at the Russian nationalist web site The Vinyard of the Saker, but it was originally published at The Cradle, which I found after Saker's website refused to load.  (Imagine that)

Pepe Escobar is writing about the sort of retaliation that Russia can create in response to Western sanctions, and while a lot of them are interesting, things such as the de-dollarization of the world economy, one falls into an area that profoundly interests me, that Russia might stop recognizing US and western intellectual property restrictions.

I find this interesting both because it is clearly a profoundly asymmetric response, as opposed to the current limited tit-for-tat responses that we are seeing, but also because copyright and patent protections, which are at their core public subsidies of private business, have for decades now exacerbated inequality and immiserated non-western nations around the world.

Additionally, the limitations of the current IP regime are so broad and so extensive that they serve to be an impediment, rather than an encouragement, to, "The progress of science and useful arts," as our constitution states.

Any actions to rein in the current international patent and copyright arrangements are an independent good:

So a congregation of NATO’s top brass ensconced in their echo chambers target the Russian Central Bank with sanctions and expect what? Cookies?

………

Meanwhile, we’re not even talking yet about Russian retaliation for these sanctions. Former President Dmitry Medvedev already gave a hint: everything, from exiting all nuclear arms deals with the US to freezing the assets of western companies in Russia, is on the table.

………

But that seems to tell only part of the story. Arguably, the lethal weapon in Russia’s arsenal of responses has been identified by the head of the Center for Economic Research of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO), Vasily Koltashov: the key is to confiscate technology – as in Russia ceasing to recognize US rights to patents.

In what he qualifies as “liberating American intellectual property,” Koltashov calls for passing a Russian law on “friendly and unfriendly states. If a country turns out to be on the unfriendly list, then we can start copying its technologies in pharmaceuticals, industry, manufacturing, electronics, medicine. It can be anything – from simple details to chemical compositions.” This would require amendments to the Russian constitution.

Koltashov maintains that “one of the foundations of success of American industry was copying of foreign patents for inventions.” Now, Russia could use “China’s extensive know-how with its latest technological production processes for copying western products: the release of American intellectual property will cause damage to the United States to the amount of $10 trillion, only in the first stage. It will be a disaster for them.”

Actually, Mr. Escobar here is missing something, not only was US industry built on ignoring IP restrictions (Not really theft), but the US also took human brains.

Following the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States had a program to smuggle British engineers out of the country in order to provide the technological wherewithal to build up its industry.

I, for one, would rather happy to see this happen under any circumstances, though obviously war is not be my favorite mechanism to achieve this.