433 28. Skilled migration in the service of imperial innovation Raúl Delgado Wise Skilled migration is a phenomenon that has gained increasing importance on the international agenda, not only because it refers to the most dynamic segment of contemporary interna- tional migration, but also because it marks the beginning of a new cycle in North–South or core–periphery relations. This phenomenon is closely related to the new dynamics of the development of the productive forces and, more specifically, to the way in which innovation ecosystems have been restructured today, in which the skilled labour force from peripheral and emerging countries plays an increasingly significant role. Analysing skilled migration in this context is a complex task that requires, among other things, a departure from the traditional schemes by which the phenomenon has been analysed: brain drain, brain circulation and, more recently, displaying a fallacious and short-sighted optimism, brain gain or talent gain (Czaika, 2018). It should be noticed that the most important and dynamic segment of this type of human mobility corresponds to migrants trained in areas of knowledge related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM areas), i.e., areas of knowledge related to the capitalist development of the productive forces. This, in turn, is related to the growing demand for foreign scientists and technologists generated by the main capitalist powers to expand their capacity for innovation and the production of knowledge-intensive goods. Hence the need to unravel the restructuring process that inno- vation ecosystems are experiencing in the 21st century, as a sine qua non requirement for unveiling the new dynamism of skilled migration, its causes and consequences. Under these circumstances, it is crucial to delve into the analysis of the new architecture that characterizes innovation ecosystems, with Silicon Valley at the forefront, where open innovation modalities prevail—i.e., modalities that involve a wide and varied constellation of participating agents who interact through complex relationships (direct and indirect, local and transnational) that are regulated within a legal-institutional framework that governs intellec- tual property rights in favour of monopoly capital and the centres of imperialist power. It is important to underline that the new ways of organizing scientific and technological labour— which we refer to as general intellect, using a concept coined by Marx to emphasize the social nature of accumulated knowledge—have enabled an explosive growth in the rates of patenting and, simultaneously, an unprecedented concentration of patents in a handful of large corpora- tions that exercise monopoly power in capitalist markets. The contradictions between progress and barbarism inherent to capitalist modernity (Echeverría, 2011) are not only accentuated in this context, but also give way to rethinking dependency relations on the core-periphery horizon. On the one hand, large multinational corporations cease to act as agents promoting the development of the productive forces, to assume an essentially parasitic and rentier role. This implies that their entrepreneurial role—in the Schumpeterian sense of the term—is blurred and its ‘creative’ function is restricted to the acquisition, concentration, and administration of patents. On the other hand, the participation Raúl Delgado Wise - 9781789907131 Downloaded from https://www.elgaronline.com/ at 09/13/2024 11:20:45PM by rdwise@uaz.edu.mx via Raúl Delgado Wise