E-Property - How we no longer own ourselves

Writing Sample I Ottley James.pdf

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Using John Locke and his 2nd Treatise of Government, Donna Dickenson and her Property in the Body: A Feminist Perspective, Leigh Phillips & Michal Rozworksi and their People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundations for Socialism, and Karl Marx I explore how the application of property and ownership has morphed into what it is today; a now neoliberal logic which commodifies user information, behavior, patterns, and activity to streamline manufacturing and distribution to accurately reflect, to an incredible degree, instantaneous demand. I conclude users produce property (viz. information, behavior, etc.) which was, in part, inherently owned by the users themselves, but is now owned by corporations. The electronic property is commodified with new technology harvesting it from user activity online. My argument is, essentially, that we no longer own our electronic identity, and thereby, are subject to commodifying ourselves in daily life.