The authors I cited, except Marx, primarily work outside such economics, and the parts of Marx that I cited don't deal with this particular issue, which I personally regard as separate from the psychological and social aspects of capitalism, though core issues nontheless.

I'm not so sure if zero-cost reproduction of means of production would render Communism unnecessary in the eyes of the theorists I have mentioned. People would still effectively need to sustain themselves via wage labour, though they pay wages to themselves. This is forgetting the fact that most of the products made to my knowledge can't be made using zero-cost means of production; bread for example requires not only the bread machine, but also the mill, the labour input to sow the seeds of the wheat, to reap it, to grow the yeast, etc.

I would not say that the concept of Communism applies to goods which require zero cost to reproduce - I think this is for two reasons; firstly, one could say it is already Communistic that the means of production for digital objects can be considered to be producing commodities with very low value, tending to zero though not quite zero (electricity and maintenance of computer comes to mind), though as I will later note, considered in isolation then they only have use values and thus a PDF isn't a commodity, so software doesn't count as MOP; secondly, wage labour, which the Communists aim to liberate the proletariat from, is not necessary with the factories and publishing you mentioned - as such, most such instances, such as my laptop I'm using now or your phone you publish torrents with, these objects are personal property, not private.

But there is of course still the problem of who creates (labour) the computers which are used for near-zero cost reproduction, and indeed their maintenance (labour) and powering (labour). These three instances of labour is what Communism concerns itself with, rather than reproduction.

So while I don't know of anyone who has written about it (certainly not Marx, though I wonder about modern day Communists), I think I'd agree with what you said originally - the theory of Communism does not apply when we are talking about files/compliers/torrents, primarily because when considered in isolation, these do not require wage labour. It's similar to how Communism doesn't apply, for example, to the case of the garden which you personally tend to in your back yard.

Edit: Communism, being an anarchist ideology, is inherently opposed to the ideas of "intellectual property", copyrights and patents in the first place. I feel as though most Communists would very much agree with Jefferson, as I do. What's rather strange is that Communism, to some, is considered the legitimate offshoot of classical liberal thinking, especially considering the warnings or outright condemnations of the usage of private property by early liberals.

I have no idea. However I will say that neoliberalism or even social democracy is very different from the views espoused by Communists pre and post Marx; as Marx said, the theory of Communism can be condensed to one statement: the abolition of private property. However as Badiou notes, there is the Communist Hypothesis[0], that is, the idea of these subversive movements which aim for liberation and the removal of our class structures - these may not necessarily involve the full abolition of private property.

I do not consider neoliberalism to be a modern Marxist invention, though I can't claim to know about its history, and of course hitsory is extremely important to reveal a movement's origin and aims. My reasoning is from the idea that neoliberalism supports private property and what Marxists see as a class society. It does not aim for the abolition of these classes, but rather its stated goal is to acheive development within the capitalist system.

In this way, neoliberalism is identical to social democracy in its overall aim - it works within a class society to try and bring better conditions, though people frequently criticise neoliberalism as being uncaring of the poor, the Marxist would say a similar thing about social democracy.

For a read by a thinker inspired by Marx, I've heard good things about David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism. I have not read it, so I don't know if I should recommend it, but since you mentioned modern Marxists, and he is one, it may be of some use to you.

[0] https://newleftreview.org/II/49/alain-badiou-the-communist-h...

We may be assigning motives and anthropomorphizing far too quickly things that are just secondary environmental effects, i.e., emergent behavior.

It's rather selective in what it doesn't consider, namely nations and culture. To oppose neo-liberal policies with Keynesian economics doesn't get you very far in explaining the state of things. Was Bill Clinton a Hayekian who rejected the "dashing and socially connected" Keynes? Slight of hand.

But I liked the article overall and think it's a good starting point for discussion.