Professor McKenzie Wark’s A Hacker Manifesto proves once more that “what’s old is new again.” Wark accessorizes an essentially Marxist ideology with a bit of cultural-studies vogue and modern anti-corporate sentiment, and applies it to current problems of intellectual property, information sharing and creation as well as good old-fashioned class struggle. It’s cumbersome at times and insufferably pedantic at others, but it’s also an intriguing still-shot of an emerging conundrum: the new fluidity of information and ideas bumping up against the increasing trend toward private ownership of every aspect of artistic and scientific innovation. The larger argument may not be novel (it’s plagued by the same flaws as Marx’s original utopian blueprint), but this updated version of that vision provides a clever repudiation of the commodification of art, ingenuity, and the creative impulse—and a useful lens through which to examine the complexities involved in the ownership of ideas in this digital age.