Cultivating Industrial Society: A New England Case Study

• In Event: 051 - Regular Session. Economic Sociology. Law and Regulation in Economic Life

Abstract

This paper draws on theoretical resources from economic sociology and sociology of law to intervene in economic debates about the relationship between intellectual property and Industrialization. Utilizing historical evidence from the earliest period of American intellectual property law, and from a formative company in the New England textile industry, I propose a causal mechanism that connects intellectual property to Industrialization. I argue that, consistent with the findings of New Economic Sociology, social relationship structures are the proximate cause of Industrialization. However, I also argue that those social relationship structures are rooted in the logic of an Innovation-Hopeful Industrial Culture, and that intellectual property law provides a crucial linkage between the two levels of causality: social-relational and cultural.

Author

• Laura Ford, State University of New York-Buffalo