The Laws of Knowledge, Knowledge of Laws: A “Political Epistemology” Perspective on Pistor’s The Code of Capital

Herzog Lisa ()
Additional contact information
Herzog Lisa: University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands

Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, 2021, vol. 11, issue 1, 27-35

Abstract: This commentary, part of the book symposium on Katharina Pistor’s The Code of Capital, focuses in particular on the epistemic dimensions of the phenomena she describes. Knowledge can be coded as capital, through intellectual property rights, and these can be done in ways that unjustly favor privileged actors at the cost of the common good, as Pistor demonstrates with regard to the patenting of genetic markers. Interestingly, however, knowledge can also be appropriated without the use of legal tools, simply by appropriating data from consumers, as Zuboff, for example, has argued. A second epistemic dimension of Pistor’s work lies in the fact that the legal coding of capital is itself little know and receives little public discussion. This, of course, plays into the hands of those who benefit by problematic forms of such coding. By putting these issues up for debate, The Code of Capital fulfill itself an important epistemic role, which can be categorized as a form of "democratic professionalism", i.e., professionals enabling a critical public discourse about the activities in their own field.

Keywords: capital; political epistemology; democratic professionalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D89 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/ael-2020-0064 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:11:y:2021:i:1:p:27-35:n:5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/ael/html

DOI: 10.1515/ael-2020-0064

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium is currently edited by Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yuri Biondi and Shyam Sunder

More articles in Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().