The commodification of information has contributed to the growth in social inequality over the last 30 years. An ideal type of an information commodity describes the features of a political, social, cultural, and legal apparatus that became institutionalized in the mid to late 1970s. This apparatus permitted the collection of rents, established a new mode of capital accumulation, and diminished the apparent importance of labor, especially abstract labor, in the making of exchange value. The proliferation of celebrity, conceptualized as excessively valorized labor, is also a consequence of the apparent change in the commodity form.
Arrighi, G. and Silver, B. ( 1999) Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN.
2.
Bell, D. ( 1976) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. Basic Books: New York, NY.
3.
Bluestone, B. and Harrison, B. ( 1982) Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment and the Dismantling of Basic Industry. Basic Books: New York,NY.
4.
Bookchin, M. ( 1971) Post-Scarcity Anarchism. The Ramparts Press: Berkeley, CA.
5.
Boyle, J. ( 2002) Fencing Off Ideas: Enclosure and the Disappearance of the Public Domain. Daedalus131(2): 13-26.
6.
Braithwaite, J. and Drahos, P. ( 2000) Global Business Regulation. Cambridge University Press:Cambridge.
7.
Butush, R. ( 1990) Home Video and Corporate Plans: Capital’s Limited Power to Manipulate Leisure. Richard Butsch (ed.) For Fun and Profit, pp. 215-35. Temple University Press: Philadelphia, PA.
8.
Cairncross, F. ( 1997) The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, MA.
9.
Castells, M. ( 2000) The Rise of the Network Society. 2nd Edition. Wiley Blackwell: Oxford .
10.
Collins, C. and Yeskel, F. ( 2000) Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity. The New Press: New York, NY.
11.
Collins, C., Leondar-Wright, B. and Sklar, H. ( 1999) Shifting Fortunes: The Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap. United for a Fair Economy: Boston, MA.
12.
Collins, R. ( 2000) Situational Stratification: A Micro-Macro Theory of Inequality . Sociological Theory18(1): 19-43.
13.
Coyle, D. ( 1997) Weightless World: Strategies for Managing the Digital Economy. Capstone: Oxford.
14.
Danziger, S. and Gottschalk, P. ( 1995) America Unequal. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
15.
Domhoff, W. ( 2002) Who Rules America?McGraw Hill: Boston, MA.
16.
Drucker, P. ( 1994) The Post-Capitalist Society. HarperCollins : New York, NY.
17.
Duménil, G. and Lévy, D. ( 2004) Capital Resurgent: Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution . Harvard University Press: Boston, MA.
18.
Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, K. ( 1997) Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman . Sage: London.
19.
Ebo, B. ( 1998) Cyberghetto and Cybertopia?: Race, Class and Gender on the Internet. Greenwood: Westport, CT.
20.
Ewen, S. ( 1978) Captains of Consciousness. McGraw-Hill : New York, NY.
21.
Ewen, S. ( 1990) All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. Basic Books: Boston, MA .
22.
Feinberg, R. and Eastlick, M. ( 1997) Direct Marketing in the USA: Past Failures and Future Promises. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management25(August): 256-61.
23.
Flynn, N. ( 2006) Baseball’s Reserve System: The Case and Trial of Curt Flood v. Major League Baseball. Walnut Park Group : Springfield, IL.
24.
Galbraith, J. ( 1958) The Affluent Society. Houghton Mifflin : Boston, MA.
25.
Gates, W. ( 1995) The Road Ahead. Penguin: New York, NY.
26.
Gilder, G. ( 1989) Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology . Simon and Schuster: New York, NY.
27.
Gouldner, A. ( 1976) The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology. Oxford University Press: New York, NY.
28.
Grusky, D. ( 2001) Social Stratification: Race, Class and Gender in Sociological Perspective. Second Edition. Westview Press: New York, NY.
29.
Hacker, J. ( 2002) The Divided Welfare State: The Battle Over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States. Cambridge University Press:Cambridge.
30.
Halbert, D. ( 1999) Intellectual Property in the Information Age: The Politics of Expanding Ownership Rights. Quorum Books: Westport, CT.
31.
Hardt, M. and Negri, A. ( 2000) Empire. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
32.
Hardy, S. ( 1988) ‘Adopted by All the Leading Clubs’: Sporting Goods and the Shaping of Leisure, 1800-1900. Richard Butsch (ed.) For Fun and Profit, pp 73-101. Temple University Press: Philadelphia, PA.
33.
Harvey, D. ( 2002) The Art of Rent: Globalization, Monopoly and the Commodification of Culture. Socialist Register38: 93-110.
34.
Harvey, D. ( 2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press: New York, NY. Henwood, D. ( 2003) After the New Economy. The New Press : New York, NY.
35.
Herz, J. ( 1997) Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Brains. Little Brown: Boston, MA.
36.
Hodges, D. ( 2000) Class Politics in the Information Age. University of Illinois Press: Urbana, IL. Huston, J. ( 1998) Securing the Fruits of Labor: The American Concept of Wealth Distribution 1765-1900. Louisiana State University Press: Baton Rouge, LA.
37.
Huws, U. ( 1999) Material World: The Myth of the ‘Weightless Economy’ , Socialist Register35: 29-55.
38.
Huws, U. ( 2003) The Making of a Cybertariat: Virtual Work in a Real World . Monthly Review Press: New York, NY.
39.
Inhaber, H. and Carroll, S. ( 1992) How Rich is Too Rich? Income and Wealth in America. Praeger: New York, NY.
40.
International Franchise Association (2005) Economic Impact of Franchised Businesses, Volume 2, Executive Summary and Highlights. URL (consulted 2 February 2009): http://www.franchise.org/uploadedFiles/Franchisors/Other_Content/economic_impact_documents/EconImpact_Vol2_HiLights.pdf
41.
Klein, N. ( 2000) No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs. Picador: New York, NY.
42.
Kloby, J. ( 2004) Inequality, Power, and Development. 2nd Edition. Humanity Books: New York, NY.
43.
Kuznet, S. ( 1955) Economic Growth and Income Inequality. American Economic Review45(1): 1-28.
44.
Lessig, L. ( 2001) The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. Vintage Books: New York, NY.
45.
Levy, F. ( 1998) The New Dollars and Dreams: American Incomes and Economic Change. Russell Sage Foundation: New York, NY.
46.
McNutt, J. ( 1998) Ensuring Social Justice for the Underclass: Community Intervention to Meet the Needs of the New Poor. B. Ebo (ed.) Cyberghetto and Cybertopia?: Race, Class and Gender on the Internet, pp. 33-48. Greenwood: Westport, CT.
47.
Marcuse, H. ( 1971) One-Dimensional Man. Beacon Press: Boston, MA.
48.
Marx, K. ( 1967 [1867]) Capital, Volume 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. International Publishers: New York, NY.
49.
Marx, K. ( 1981 [1894]) Captial, Volume 3: A Critique of Political Economy. Penguin: London.
50.
Meyer, C. and Davis, S. ( 1998) Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy. Addison-Wesley: Southport, NC.
51.
Microsoft (2008) Going beyond Timeline. URL (consulted 2 February 2009): http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/timeline/indexFlash.html
52.
Mishel, L., Bernstein, J. and Allegretto, S. ( 2007) The State of Working America, 2006-2007. Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY.
53.
Murdock, G. and Golding, P. ( 2002) Digital Possibilities, Market Realities: The Contradictions of Communications Convergence. Socialist Register38: 111-29.
54.
Neef, D. ( 1998) The Economic Impact of Knowledge: Resources for the Knowledge-Based Economy. Butterworth-Heinemann: Boston, MA.
55.
Norris, P. ( 2001) Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide. Cambridge University Press:Cambridge.
56.
Perelman, M. ( 1998) Class Warfare in the Information Age. St. Martins Press: New York, NY.
57.
Perrucci, R. and Wysong, E. ( 2003) The New Class Society: Goodbye American Dream? Second Edition. Rowman and Littlefield: Lanham, MD.
58.
Phillips, K. ( 2002) Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich. Broadway Books: New York, NY.
59.
Posner, R. ( 2002) The Law and Economics of Intellectual Property. Daedalus131(2): 5-13.
60.
Powell, W. and Snellman, K. ( 2004) The Knowledge Economy. Annual Review of Sociology30: 199-220.
61.
Quah, D. ( 2001) The Weightless Economy in Economic Development. M. Pohjola (ed.) Information Technology, Productivity and Economic Growth. Oxford University Press: London.
62.
Rayport, J. and Sviokla, J. ( 1995) Exploiting the Virtual Value Chain. Harvard Business Review73(6): 75-85.
63.
Reich, R. ( 1991) The Work of Nations. Vintage Books : New York, NY.
64.
Rostow, W. ( 1960) Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge University Press:Cambridge.
65.
Samuelson, P. ( 1999) Intellectural Property and the Digital Economy: Why the Anti-Circumvention Regulations Need to Be Revised. Berkeley Technology Law Journal14(1): 1-49.
66.
Schiller, D. ( 2000) Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System . MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
67.
Shulman, S. ( 1999) Owning the Future. Houghton Mifflin : New York, NY.
68.
Shandro, A. ( 2003) Review of Empire. Science and Society67(3): 361-4.
69.
Tapscott, D. and Williams, A. ( 2006) Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything . Penguin: New York, NY.
70.
Thurow, L. ( 1987) The Future of Capitalism. Penguin Books : New York, NY.
71.
Thurow, L. ( 1999) Building Wealth: The New Rules of Individuals, Companies and Nations in a Knowledge-Based Economy. HarperCollins : New York, NY.
72.
Toffler, A. ( 1990) Power-Shift: Knowledge, Wealth and Power at the Edge of the Twenty-First Century. Bantam Books: New York, NY.
73.
Travis, H. ( 2000) Pirates of the Information Infrastructure: Blackstonian Copyright and the First Amendment. Berkeley Technology Law Journal15(2): 777-862.
74.
Turl, A. ( 2007) Is the US Becoming Post-Industrial?International Socialist Review52(March/April): 46-58.
75.
Usda (2001) Why USDA’s Technology Protection System (aka Terminator) Benefits Agriculture. US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. URL (consulted 10 May 2005): http://www.ars.usda.gove/is/br/tps/index.html?pf=1
76.
Vaidhyanathan, S. ( 2001) Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity. New York University Press : New York, NY.
77.
Wolff, E. ( 2004) Changes in Household Wealth in the 1980s and 1990s in the US. The Levy Economics Institute and New York University , Working Paper No. 7.
78.
Wood, E. ( 1998) Modernity, Postmodernity, or Capitalism?R. McChesney et al. (eds) Capitalism and the Information Age, pp 51-69. Monthly Review Press: New York, NY.
