Intellectual Property Law and the Dream of Post-scarcity Society

Authors

Barton C. Beebe, New York University School of LawFollow

Files

Description

Luxury fashion seeks to aestheticize scarcity and transform its possession into a sign of social distinction. Intellectual property law plays a crucial role in this process. This essay considers the social function that intellectual property law may continue to play in a purportedly ‘post-scarcity’ society of the future. It asserts that though intellectual property law has long played a technologically progressive role in modern societies, its social function in such societies has been and will continue to be largely reactionary. Even in an otherwise post-scarcity society, intellectual property law will be used, as it is already being used, to preserve ‘social scarcity’ and regulate signs of social distinction.

First Page

49

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009519618.004

Source Publication

Fashion and Intellectual Property

Source Editors/Authors

David Tan, Jeanne Fromer, Dev Gangjee

Publication Date

10-27-2025

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Recommended Citation

Barton C. Beebe, Intellectual Property Law and the Dream of Post-scarcity Society, Fashion and Intellectual Property 49 (2025).
Available at: https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2169