3
how scientific and technological innovation serves to generate new sources of revenue
through the appropriation and commodification of life.
4
Central to this argument is that
government policies not only allocate resources but they also create resources. Hence,
the process of marketization, establishing a laissez faire regulatory framework geared
toward privatizing public goods, exists as the backdrop for these policy tools to take hold.
Seen together, these policies and processes illuminate how the market conditions were set
for the agricultural biotechnology industry to emerge. As Steven Collins notes, U.S.
policy geared toward exploiting genetic engineering should be viewed as “industrial
policy masked as science policy.”
5
Before delving into the specifics of these two policy tools, this paper addresses
four issues central to the overall argument. First, it provides a brief overview of the
current landscape of the agricultural biotechnology industry to demonstrate the
significance of this sector for the U.S. economy. Second, it analyzes pertinent debates on
state theory and American Political Development as they relate to my theoretical
framework. Third, it provides the historical context in which molecular biology’s
commercial potential became evident. Finally, it links these rapid historical
developments to policymakers’ efforts to link intellectual property rights to trade for the
first time through the Trade Act of 1974.
and May discuss the “construction of scarcity” as an essential aspect of intellectual property rights. Also,
for another discussion of the term ‘manufacturing scarcity,’ see Finn Bowring, Science, Seeds and
Cyborgs: Biotechnology and the Appropriation of Life (London and New York: Verso Press, 2003).
4
Here, I refer broadly to living organisms and knowledge. For an important discussion of this process, see
Robert W. Herdt, (Director for Agricultural Sciences, The Rockefeller Foundation), “Enclosing the Global
Plant Genetic Commons,” Prepared for Delivery at the China Center for Economic Research, (May 24,
1999).
5
Steven Collins, “Genes, Markets, and the State: The Emergence of Commercial Biotechnology in the
United States and Japan” (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Virginia, 1994).
Convention