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Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page): [continue reading…]

Assembled below are various posts and articles I, and a few others, have made on the topic of drug reimportation and the controversy about whether drug reimportation from countries with price caps should be reimported into the US even though this would undercut the higher patent-caused monopoly price charged here. This started with some allegedly free market scholars associated with Cato coming out against drug reimportation, and, thus, against free trade, since they also support patents, namely Doug Bandow, Michael Kraus, and Richard Epstein:

• Protectionist Cato? (July 24, 2003)
• Epstein and Patents (July 25, 2003)
• Edward H. Crane & Roger Pilon, Conservative Drug Split (July 29, 2003)
• Cato Tugs Stray Back Onto the Reservation (July 29, 2003)
• Cato Tugs Stray Back Onto the Reservation; Epstein on reimportation (July 29, 2003)
• Re: Cato on Drug Reimportation (July 30, 2003)
• Jude Blanchette, The Reimportation Controversy (July 31, 2003)
• Patents, Prescription Drugs, and Price Controls (Jan. 5, 2004)
• Palmer on Patents (Oct. 27, 2005)
• Re: Bandow, Cato, and Drug “Reimportation” (Dec. 18, 2005)
• Re: Bandow and reimportation, by Norman Singleton (Dec. 19, 2005)
• Richard Epstein on “The Structural Unity of Real and Intellectual Property” (Oct. 4, 2006)
• Intellectual Property and Think Tank Corruption (Oct. 17, 2006)
• Pilon on Patents (Sept. 28, 2007)

More recently: See the Wall Street Journal editorial also opposing free trade for the sake of upholding US patent monopoly prices: “When Biden, Trump and DeSantis Agree on Something, Watch Out” (Jan. 10, 2024): “The real point of the Biden-Trump-DeSantis mind-meld is to import foreign drug price controls that Congress won’t pass. This will erode U.S. intellectual property protection that rewards innovation and investment.”

And now we have former/alleged libertarian David Henderson in the War Street Journal writing this embarrassing, cringe doozy: “Be Thankful for High Drug Prices,” by David R. Henderson and Charles L. Hooper (Feb. 4, 2024). Subtitle: “If Americans weren’t overcharged, we wouldn’t have innovative treatments”. The article is full-throated in defense of our insane patent system and the monopoly prices it supports. Embarrassing and ridiculous, especially as he used to pretend to be against IP (Jeff Tucker winning economist David Henderson over to the anti-IP side).

And now Reason implicitly endorses IP and patents by treating patents as property rights. Pathetic. The state taking back a monopoly privilege grant it never should have made is not a taking or a “grab.” Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Feds Make a Pharma Patent Grab A Biden administration ploy could give the federal government control over drug prices, Reason (March 2024).

Update: see Trump’s “Worst Idea”: Undercutting Patent-Inflated Monopoly Pharmaceutical Patents.

My reply to Kevin Carson’s post Libertarians for Junk Science:

Whatever the sins of libertarians re junk science the statists are 100x worse. And in my view the libertarians (and fellow travelers) have been very good on junk science–Bruce Ames (of Alar fame), Peter Huber (Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists A Conservative Manifesto, Galileo’s Revenge: Junk Science In The Courtroom and others), Elizabeth Whelan (Toxic Terror), Petr Beckmann.

And various libertarians have been good on critiquing the pseudo-scientific enviros, e.g. Lew Rockwell and Bob Bidinotto (as much as we might disagree w/ Bidinotto on other issues like war, Ron Paul, statism v. minarchy, IP, etc.)

As for AGW — it’s a mystery to me why anyone would believe this has been established. First, there is little doubt we are between ice ages–we are in an interglacial period. The earth will start cooling again–even if for some reason it does warm up a bit more before it finally starts to cool. [continue reading…]

My wife and I saw Avatar this weekend in 3D. Here’s the verdict: four out of four stars. Absolutely amazing special effects–best I’ve ever seen; fun story; all in all a very fun, nice movie.

And at its core it was very libertarian: it was about a group of people (the Na’vi) defending their property rights on the world Pandora from aggressors (the human invaders), and about one of the humans (a soldier named Jake Sully) deciding to join and help the right side. Sure, the movie has some stilted dialogue in parts, and a few cliched scenes (I liked how the evil military commander referred to their outrageous assaults on the Na’vi as “shock and awe,” but his telling the troops that they would “fight terror with terror”–when the Na’vi had not really been shown to have done anything characterizable as terrorism–was a bit of a stretch in its attempt to dig at the current American “war on terror”), but overall it was great and fun, and libertarian. And the passion and vision and craft that has gone into this movie is amazing to behold. Cameron is to be commended for this great work of art. [continue reading…]

I was recently reminded of “The Reluctant Anarchist,” a wonderful piece by the great columnist Joseph Sobran about his intellectual journey from conservatism to strict constitutionalism to anarchist–thanks to Rothbard and Hoppe. Highly recommended.

[Mises; AM]

[Please reply to this at the original Mises Blog post]

It’s my impression that in the last 5-10 years, there has been a striking movement towards the anti-IP camp among libertarians and Austrians. This is a result of the mounting everyday evidence of injustice resulting from the digital age magnifying the baleful effects of IP that have always existed; and the mounting scholarship, from a pro-property rights, pro-free market perspective, against both the moral and principled case and the utilitarian case for IP (resources listed in the final section of my “The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide“).

I’m personally aware of dozens of people who have changed their minds or seen the light on this issue–including, say, myself, Jeff Tucker, and many others. For some things I’m writing and just for general curiosity it would be interesting to get a better idea of this trend. Please feel free to add a brief comment to this post specifying whether you have moved toward the anti-IP position in recent years.

Update: Some here may also find of interest the Patent Rights Web Poll I did a while back, pasted below. Feel free to take it if you haven’t:

***

On a patent practitioner email list I posted the following:

It seems to me that many small/medium companies live in fear of a big patent lawsuit. Even if they had their own IP, I suspect many companies would gladly give up forever their right to sue for patent infringement, in exchange for some kind of immunity from patent liability–at least, if they could eliminate the threat of an injunction, so that the worst penalty they might face is some kind of mandatory royalty. Surely IBM et al. would not take this deal, but I bet a lot of other companies would. What do you think?

Second, in view of this, does this mean there is some kind of market for a service that would let a bunch of companies get together and “pool” their IP and have some kind of agreement (a) never to sue each other; (b) to have access to this pool of patents to countersue any company that sues any of the members.

This post drew some interest so I am doing a simple webpoll. I think the results might be interesting. (DIGG it here.)

Patent Rights

Would you give up your right to sue others for patent infringement in exchange for immunity from all patent lawsuits? Yes No Current Results

In Seen and Unseen Costs of Patents, Jeff Tucker notes, “Intel’s CEO spoke for many when he said he would be glad to cut patents to a tenth of its current rate provided that others did the same.”

In the Dec. 18 Slate Political Gabfest, the three liberal hosts discuss a case (also discussed here by host Emily Bazelon) of whether a high school could “punish” a student who posted a YouTube video mocking and insulting a fellow student of the same high school. The mean girl was suspended for 2 days (some punishment!) and of course sued for violation of her “right to free speech.” The case apparently turned on whether the mean girl’s out-of-school actions “caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities.” And the Slate pundits seem to have no problem with this framing of the issue.

Incredible as it may seem, the quite obvious solution never seems to occur to them: and that is that the issue is now what the school’s policy should be, but what the law should be. A school has the right to allow or disallow, to suspend or expel, or to set rules for same, on any grounds they want. If a school chooses to permit students to use its private property only if they comply with certain rules of conduct (whether on or off campus), that is the school’s right. Period. It has nothing to do with free speech. Free speech only means the state itself may not use force of law to censor or regulate speech. The right against the state committing this form of aggression has somehow been transformed into a right to use others’ property even if they don’t want you there. (Arguably if the school was public, some of the restrictions that apply to the state could apply to it; I can’t tell whether it’s a public school here or not, but apparently neither do the Slate pundits, who seem to think this is irrelevant, and would favor such a lawsuit even against a private school.)

[LRC]

I was driving my 6 year old to school this morning. We somehow got into a conversation about how laws were made. I started explaining to him the distinction between law formed by courts, and law artificially made by legislation. This led into a brief explanation of the British system, the role of the king or queen and parliament, how parliament is bicameral, and Britain’s “unwritten” constitution, and to a contrast with our own system with a President instead of king, a bicameral congress, and a written constitution. And so on.

During this Ethan blurts out, “I wish they would make a law against war.” So, this led to a discussion of the United Nations and treaties, and the attempt to limit warmaking in the UN charter. He asked me if it worked. I told him it hasn’t worked very well. He says, why? I say, well, if you are a powerful nation then you are sometimes tempted to use that power to get your way, and so on. So we still have wars.

Ethan is silent for a minute, and then mutters, “The earth is not as peaceful as it looks.” It kind of creeped me out.

Nicholas Dykes: Robert James Bidinotto and “The Contradiction in Anarchism”.

I just recalled interesting article by Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center, Randy Barnett and the Destruction of Federalism. I had made some comments on it to someone in email, which are adapted below. I also commented on this previously in Randy Barnett’s Proposed “Federalism Amendment”. In my view, a better view is that amendments are pointless, as the state is construing its own limits. (See on this Hoppe and de Jasay.) [continue reading…]

What we need is an amendment forbidding the circumvention of the Constitution. It could read: “The Constitution shall not be circumvented.” I just got a big laugh from any lawyers who may be reading this.

–Joe Sobran, “Constitutional Legerdemain,” syndicated column of April 11, 1996 (reprinted in Sobran’s, May 1996, Vol. 3, no. 5, page 12) (quoted here).

Other favorite quotes here.