Lew, you are so right, and here is more evidence: Judge Says Blogs Not Legitimate News Source; No Shield Protections.
[LRC cross-post]
This report quotes Reason Foundation’s Bob Poole on what policies TSA ought to adopt:
among large and midsize airports, only Omaha and Colorado Springs, Colo., still use swabbing machines as the only means of screening checked baggage for explosives.
“I didn’t realize that any of the airports in that size category were still doing trace detection,” said Robert Poole, a transportation expert with the Reason Foundation, a nonprofit free-market policy group based in Los Angeles. “It’s long overdue for an airport the size of Omaha” to have scanning machines.
… Poole said Omaha should temporarily place the luggage scanning equipment in the lobby, sacrificing customer space in order to use superior security technology sooner.Scanning equipment, he said, can reveal timing devices or other suspicious details, while swabbing is meant only to detect explosive materials.
We’re from the government, and we’re here to help!
[LRC crosspost]
An interesting, fiery comment by Bob Kaercher to my post Happy We-Should-Restore-The-Monarchy-And-Rejoin-Britain Day!:
Bob Kaercher
I would never propose rejoining the Brits nor would I ever favor a monarchy, but I think I can appreciate what’s illustrated by the comparison being made here, which is that the vote-for-your-favorite-dictator democracy celebrated every 4th of July was hardly an improvement. As much as that may rankle the feathers of some American libertarians who have still not quite totally detoxed from the years of brainwashing by the media, popular culture, hearing family and neighbors spouting widely held assumptions with no or little basis in fact, and/or government schooling, the founding of the United States is hardly an historical event to be cheered by libertarians. Something good may be said for the secession from the British Empire, sure, but we should ask ourselves: To what did we secede?
“The revolution was betrayed!” This seems to be the view of the American War for Independence held by a lot of American libertarians. But on closer examination I think it’s more accurate to conclude that the rotten fruits we’re choking on today—endless war on bureaucratically defined vices at home and whatever country Uncle Sam feels like targeting abroad, increasing debt and taxation, the trampling of individual freedom, etc., etc., etc.—are what any libertarian should fully expect to have evolved out of the political arrangement established by the sacrosanct and hallowed founders.
The whole thing was corrupt from the get-go. As Stephan mentioned, really think about what’s written in the Declaration of Independence. Okay, there’s some great language about equality, which I take to mean equality of individual rights, not material or physical “equality,” i.e., no person may treat any other as their own personal property. Ah, but this did not apply to the slaves–no, no, no, no! A horrible compromise was made with southern slaveholding interests to strike Jefferson’s original language that was critical of slavery for the sake of unity. Remember, these new States with a capital S must be United with a capital U. Unity trumps principle! And we know what happened to a lot of Indians who weren’t exactly thrilled with going along with Uncle Sam’s Program.
So, okay, then as you proceed through the document there’s some great stuff about King George’s abuses of power. But then you get to the founders’ answer to this tyranny: A different brand of tyranny, one that’s homegrown! Those passages smack of collectivism through and through! There’s all this “We” being the “Representatives” of “the People” of the Colonies, and acting on the “Authority” of “the People” these purported “Representatives” declare that these Colonies are now independent of the King, sure, but as STATES that are UNITED. Lysander Spooner was right about the BS of such language. It’s the language of power.
Why not declare secession from the King as free and sovereign individuals with each person being free to secede (or maybe even not to secede for those colonists who didn’t mind staying under the King’s rule) by their own lights, entering into various associations by purely voluntary choice? Why did they have to secede as “United States”? Because that was the only way that the political elites who spearheaded that “American Revolution” could maintain any power.
So considering that this political unit called the “United States of America” was founded on the ideas of unity trumping principle and freedom, on the ideas of collectivism, we probably should conclude that it wasn’t that the founders’ principles were admirable but imperfectly implemented, or just a little flawed here and there, or were simply misinterpreted or misunderstood by succeeding generations, but that their principles were far less than libertarian to begin with and we are now tragically stuck with the bitter consequences of such principles.
Update: Hurrah for King George!, by John Attarian.
[LRC crosspost]
(From an old LRC post)
What’s So Bad About Slavery?
Posted by Stephan Kinsella on January 23, 2004 02:53 PM
A thought: nothing is wrong with slavery per se–a criminal who is imprisoned as a result of a crime is in essence enslaved. The problem with slavery–e.g., of Africans in the antebellum US–is that the slave is enslaved not as punishment for a crime but because of some other irrelevant action or status (e.g., being black). But this is the same problem with all positive laws that outlaw peaceful behavior, e.g. tax laws, drug laws, and so on.
Yet most opponents of African slavery do not oppose all victimless crime laws. That is, they are not against slavery. They are happy with actual criminals (aggressors) being enslaved (as are we libertarians); and they have no problem with enslaving other non-aggressors, who happen to violate whatever arbitrary positive laws are on the books. They are not anti-slavery at all. They simply seem to oppose one narrow ground for slavery–that is, they are against enslaving people based on the blackness of skin, but don’t seem to have a problem with other arbitrary and unfair “grounds”.
Lucy Lovejoy, Gospel Clown
(From an old LRC post.)
On the one hand, I love this. On the other hand, it frightens and confuses me. First saw this a couple years ago–a friend saw a flyer stuck on the wall of a Chinese restaurant. Ever since it’s been on the ledge of the whiteboard in my office. Every day… Lucy stares at me.
“Statism In Libertarian Thinking,” by the moronic Sarah Fitz-Claridge, attacks my anti-war/anti-state views.
Also, recent discussion of anarchy on the Reason blog, and related LewRockwell.com blog post about it. Comments by Robert Bidinotto, yours truly, et al., pasted below:
My friend Michael Barnett made this observation recently:
I hate this argument that slavery would have ended naturally without the Civil War because slavery is economically unproductive. No, it’s not. It is very productive which is why it’s had to be outlawed one way or another in every place which has forbidden it.
Great point. He put into words something I’ve thought before too. The argument against slavery has to be a moral one.
From the Mises blog, July 5, 2009.
Archived comments below.
Mises and Argumentation Ethics
My buddy Vijay Boyapati mused in an email whether Mises had anticipated the eventual development of argumentation ethics. “Here he has a little discussion here which really reminds me a lot of Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics:”
Any kind of human cooperation and social mutuality is essentially an order of peace and conciliatory settlement of disputes. In the domestic relations of any societal unit, be it a contractual or a hegemonic bond, there must be peace. Where there are violent conflicts and as far as there are such conflicts, there is neither cooperation nor societal bonds. Those political parties which in their eagerness to substitute the hegemonic system for the contractual system point at the rottenness of peace and of bourgeois security, extol the moral nobility of violence and bloodshed and praise war and revolution as the eminently natural methods of interhuman relations, contradict themselves. For their own utopias are designed as realms of peace.
As Vijay observed, “In a way it feels like a ‘macro’ version of Hoppe’s more ‘micro’ argumentation ethics.” (See my post Revisiting Argumentation Ethics.)
July 5, 2009 at 7:04 pm-
If there is one thing sillier than hermeneutics, it has to be argumentation ethics.
Mises was an Austrian economist. Nothing more; nothing less.
July 5, 2009 at 7:48 pm-
Not every use of the word “contradiction” is a sign of the influence or development of arg ethics.
July 5, 2009 at 7:58 pm-
I have to second Josh’s comment. I doubt Mises would have approved of this vain search for a supposed objective system of ethics.
July 5, 2009 at 8:29 pm-
Divine Economy Consulting
Sunday, July 05, 2009Free Market Economics Is Not “Individualism.”
People benefit from the mutually advantageous cooperation that is a part of the market process. Here is what Ludwig von Mises said about it:
“The greater productivity of work under the division of labour is a unifying influence. It leads men to regard each other as comrades in a joint struggle for welfare, rather than as competitors in a struggle for existence. It makes friends out of enemies, peace out of war, society out of individuals.” Socialism by Ludwig von Mises, p. 261
July 5, 2009 at 8:47 pm-
This extract certainly looks like a first step toward Hoppe’s argumentation ethics. Thanks for pointing it out. Silly or not, that is another question.
July 5, 2009 at 8:48 pm-
So are we reduced to, “Hey, sure, you want to be a thug and get your way through violence. That’s just your thing, though. It’s not cool with me. Plus, it’s super inconvenient for everyone if you keep murdering people”?
July 5, 2009 at 9:01 pm-
This similarity reflects the tradition of German language philosophy shared by both Mises and Habermas (originator of argumentation ethics). They both explicitly acknowledge enormous debts to Kant.
July 5, 2009 at 10:51 pm-
Libertarians don’t initiate violence, but once violence has been initiated against a Libertarian, you can be sure that the Libertarian will respond in kind and “payback” the agressor capital and insterest.
Libertarians are not wimps and if someone is violently attacked then he should defend violently.
- July 5, 2009 at 10:52 pm
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Libertarians don’t initiate violence, but once violence has been initiated against a Libertarian, you can be sure that the Libertarian will respond in kind and “payback” the agressor capital and insterest.
Libertarians are not wimps and if someone is violently attacked then he should defend violently.
July 6, 2009 at 4:48 am-
Tom Woods wrote:
“So are we reduced to, “Hey, sure, you want to be a thug and get your way through violence. That’s just your thing, though. It’s not cool with me. Plus, it’s super inconvenient for everyone if you keep murdering people”?”
Tom,
Your post is a curious one. I’m in what I think is a rather well-populated camp among libertarians: a group which defends natural rights but which, at the end of the day, isn’t itself sure the logic behind natural rights holds up. The reasoning in your post takes the ambivalence of myself and others and makes it positively nefarious (or at least grossly illogical). Essentially what you seem to be saying is: “How could you reject arg. ethics or nat. rights — if you do, we’re left with nothing of substance.” That may be so, but the potential repercussions of their rejection should not be grounds for us to cling to them for dear life. If they hold up under scrutiny, then excellent. If they don’t, we shall have to make recourse to other lines of argument. But for the sake of logic we should not let hope and fear be the foundation of our beliefs.
July 6, 2009 at 6:59 am-
MA state motto 1775: ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem
Mises is pointing out the inherent hypocrisy here by restating the following principle: non facias malum ut inde fiat bonum
If argumentation ethics is essentially the logical deconstruction of complex hypocrisy, this can properly be seen as such.
July 6, 2009 at 8:54 am-
“My buddy Vijay Boyapati mused in an email whether Mises had anticipated the eventual development of argumentation ethics.”
Yes, and it made him split his sides laughing.
July 6, 2009 at 11:12 am-
“Where there are violent conflicts and as far as there are such conflicts, there is neither cooperation nor societal bonds.”
This sounds more like Thomas Hobbes than argumentation ethics to me.
July 6, 2009 at 3:51 pm-
Matt_R.L. wrote:
“”How could you reject arg. ethics or nat. rights — if you do, we’re left with nothing of substance.” That may be so, but the potential repercussions of their rejection should not be grounds for us to cling to them for dear life.”
Exactly. What if libertarianism is founded on argumentation ethics and natural rights? What then happens if somebody comes along with the idea that arguing with someone doesn’t necessarily presuppose they have rights, or rediscovers the naturalistic fallacy? Then your bases are demolished, and the structure on top of the foundation comes crashing down, too.
- July 6, 2009 at 5:27 pm
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What if libertarianism is founded on argumentation ethics and natural rights?
It’s not. It’s founded on the personal preferences of liberals (in the classical sense), which are best satisfied by a truly free market.
- July 6, 2009 at 9:42 pm
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@RWW:
I didn’t mean that libertarianism (or liberalism in the classical sense) can truly be objectively based on either argumentation ethics or natural rights theory. I simply meant that, if we tried to base liberalism on either foundation, and those foundations were undermined (which I believe they can be), our opponents could then say that liberalism has been intellectually demolished and should be thrown on the scrap heap of history.
In other words, I agree with you, for the most part.
July 7, 2009 at 6:38 am-
I’ve taken to carrying around a hammer, and whenever anybody tells me they don’t believe they have such a thing as “rights”, I hit them on the head with it.
(Bang, bang, Maxwell’s silver hammer…)
- July 7, 2009 at 9:52 am
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What a typical non-sequitur, Peter. If I defend myself, it shows that I have personal values, not objective rights.
March 15, 2010 at 10:37 pm-
If their exists only personal preference and not universal preference, than isn’t that a universally true (or false) statement about preferences? And if we deny that their exists universal preferences, or universally preferably behavior, (or norms, or ethics or whatever), then isn’t that itself either a personal or universal preference? and it being a statement wanting to be valid universally, admit that their must be a universally valid ethic? “Universally preferable behavior does not exist” is either a true or false statement about universally preferable behavior is it not? Then in stating ethics do not exist, one is affirming the existence of ethics. By saying there are no valid and objective norms, you are making a valid statement about objective norms. (making your statement about the non-existence of valid norms, invalid) On the other hand, if your statement about objective norms is not an objectively true statement, or that of personal preference, or subjective experience, than it does not invalidate any objective norm, or carry weight. Actually I myself am skeptical of ethics, thanks to robert murphy, but Id appreciate a response.
Murray Rothbard wrote that “There have been only two wars in American history that were, in my view, assuredly and unquestionably proper and just”: “the American Revolution, and the War for Southern Independence.” Now these wars may be just under “just war” theory, but in my view they were all unjust by libertarian standards. The use of conscription and taxation alone–by the US in the former, and the CSA in the latter–is enough to condemn the actions of these states as criminal.
Libertarians are not usually reluctant to condemn state crime and war, but for some reason if you make similar observations about the Revolutionary War, or the Civil War (either Lincoln’s, or the CSA’s, criminal actions), libertarians become apoplectic. Case in point: the reaction to my post Happy We-Should-Restore-The-Monarchy-And-Rejoin-Britain Day! “Proud Patriot” in the comments says that I “blame the freedom-loving patriots of the American Revolution for the mass murdering tyrants of the twentieth century”.
Well, some libertarians may want to overlook the typical crimes committed by states anytime there is war, but I don’t. The Declaration of Independence of course led to all the standard evils of war and raising an army-as Hummel noted, “unfunded government debt, paper money, skyrocketing inflation, price controls, legal tender laws, direct impressment of supplies and wide-spread conscription.”
Casual googling leads to all kinds of information on this. E.g.: as noted here:
The absence of a strong, central, colonial government resulted in a vast shortage of funding and human resources. Paper money and bills of credit financed the war, and while the paper money became almost valueless, inflation rocketed. Profiteers took advantage of these conditions to make money while workers held strikes for higher wages. Soldiers were also in short supply, with state militias sometimes competing against the Continental Army for them. Soldiers were generally ill fed, poorly clothed, and lacked weapons.
Around 5,000 blacks served in the colonial army. At first only free blacks were accepted, but the shortage in soldiers led to the conscription of slaves. Blacks fought with whites in unsegregated units. Americans Indians, threatened by colonial expansion, most often fought for the British, and after the revolt ended their claims to land and self-rule were largely ignored.
And here:
As the war dragged on, it became more difficult to find soldiers. States increased bounties, shortened terms, and reluctantly forced men to serve. But conscription was such a distasteful and dangerous exercise of state power that legislatures would use it only in extreme circumstances. More frequently, legislatures tried to reinforce the army with men drawn by incentive or compulsion from the militia for only a few months of summer service. The army’s composition thus reflected a bewildering variety of enlistment terms. After 1779, for example, a Connecticut company might have eight or ten privates serving for three years or the war, and twice or three times that number enlisted only for the summer. Washington’s complaints to Congress have obscured his genius in building an effective army out of the limited service most Americans were willing to undertake.
Here:
During the Revolutionary War, state governments assumed the colonies’ authority to raise their short?term militias through drafts if necessary. They sometimes extended this to state units in the Continental Army, but they denied Gen. George Washington’s request that the central government be empowered to conscript. As the initial volunteering slackened, states boosted enlistment bounties and held occasional drafts, producing more hired substitutes than actual draftees.
Here:
Even with their powerful new ally, the Americans remained in dire straits. Enlistments were down and conscription, while utilized, was unpopular.
This book mentions the execution of soldiers during the Revolutionary War for desertion and other things — “For examples of soldiers executed without recourse to a trial by courts-martial, see Henry Lee, Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States ..”
As my friend Manuel Lora wrote me: “In order to be free we shall establish a state, inflate the money supply, control trade and enslave people to work the fields and the killing fields. … Happy 4th of July.”
Update: ¿Feliz día de la Independencia? by Albert Esplugas: an excerpt: “I am not convinced that [July 4th] should be celebrated in America either”
A good comment on Don Boudreaux’s post The Founders Would Be Appalled:
Ray Gardner,
I agree with you when you wrote that “the form of government that was laid down by these men set the stage for the most dynamic, and freest civilization the world has ever known.”
But I passionately hate this romantic notion regarding the founders of this country, purported by many libertarians and conservatives, as somehow being noble and good, and different from modern politicians, when in fact, many of them were hypocritical slaveholders.
To debunk this nonsense about these people as somehow being outstanding American citizens, I will emphasize my last post for the other readers to be perfectly clear:
“…these men knew what they were doing was not only morally reprehensible, but entirely against everything which they were fighting for, and yet they still held these people as slaves!
To be clear, they were hypocrites who talked a big game about liberty and justice, but were abject failures because they lacked the courage to follow their passionate convictions. They were pure cowards, and nothing better.”
That’s my beef…….that so many libertarians and conservatives look up to these cowards as somehow superior and worthy of emulation, when they failed at following up on even the most basic tenets of their writings and speeches.
In fact, had they not enslaved people, then yes, I probably would be exalting the things they wrote about too, but unlike many other libertarians, I see them for the complete cowards they were.
I mean, how can a man think, write, speak and fight for liberty and justice all day from the comforts of his home while looking out the window as the people he “owns”, his slaves, are being forced to work against their will.
Really, let’s stop this foolishness about the “founders” being so great and “better” than today’s politicians, and get a proper perspective of history here.
–Pingry
And from Trevor Bothwell:
Celebrating Evil
Today I will be celebrating friendships at the Fourth of July party I’ll be attending. Unlike the vast majority of people, however, I will not be celebrating my country’s decision to shed one criminal enterprise for the formation of another, nor will I delude myself into thinking that the United States is in any capacity a free country in terms of libertarian values.
We live in a state that sanctions the theft, assault, and murder of innocent citizens on a daily basis. That, my friends, is nothing to raise a glass to.
And in Los padres fundadores, con perspectiva histórica, Albert Esplugas discusses this post.
Update: Hurrah for King George!, by John Attarian.
[LewRockwell.com Cross-post]
[From Mises Blog, Jan. 2009; archived comments below]
Hayek, IP, and Knowledge
January 16, 2009 5:00 PM by Stephan Kinsella
I am hesitant to compliment Tucker’s A Book that Changes Everything, given that he generously over-praises me in it, but I can’t help it–it’s really a great piece–just perfect. And he has a tantalizing suggestion in it: “As I’ve thought more about their book, it seems that it might suggest a revision in classical-liberal theory. We have traditionally thought that cooperation and competition were the two pillars of social order; a third could be added: emulation. In addition, there is surely work to do here that integrates Hayek’s theory of knowledge with the problem of IP”
Now, I’ve long been critical of aspects of the Hayekian focus on “knowledge problems” (see my post Knowledge vs. Calculation). But Tucker has a good point. Property rights are rights in scarce resources. All actions employ means, including scarce resources in our bodies, and in appropriated scarce resources (property). All action employs these means to attain certain ends. But all action is based on information or knowledge: beliefs by the actor about what causal laws are operative, what ends are possible, and so on. People acquire knowledge as they develop and grow; some by introspection and experience, but so much more is acquired dissemination from others, by those in one’s community, and by the inherited body of knowledge passed down, and added to, over the centuries. Emulation and the acquisition of knowledge play a key role–are essential to–society, and economy.
So Tucker has hit the nail on the head: one problem with IP is that by monopolizing information, knowledge–patterns–it restricts and locks up the flow of knowledge. It thus impedes the operations of the free market and productivity, by reducting the scope of human action, impairing its efficiency by hampering the means at one’s disposal.
Update: See also my Against Intellectual Property, p. 53, noting that “All action, including action which employs owned scarce means (property), involves the use of technical knowledge. Some of this knowledge may be gained from things we see, including the property of others.”
Also, see my Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law, pp. 58-59, arguing that it should be realized that “knowledge” is merely a “technical problem that confronts any individual when choosing means to achieve certain ends, and when deciding which ends to pursue. … The need to acquire knowledge faces even Crusoe alone on his island, who has no need for private-property rules because there are no other people and thus no possibility of interpersonal conflict.”
And see Guido Hu?lsmann’s Knowledge, Judgment, and the Use of Property:
However, there is still a more fundamental condition of action. This is the fact that knowledge as such is never scarce. Knowledge problems thus do have a place in economics only insofar as knowledge has to be selected for application. Yet the selection of knowledge depends entirely on the property of the acting person.
At each moment we dispose of a myriad of information, and we often know of many ways to achieve any given end. For example, if my apartment is cold, I could keep my body warm through gymnastics or additional sweaters. I could also burn parts of my furniture or simply turn on the heating and pay higher bills. I could also sit down in my armchair and invent a new technology permitting one to heat my apartment at half of the present cost. To be sure, the latter alternative is the most elegant one. In any case, as conditions do not cease to change, we constantly have to acquire new knowledge if only to conserve our present standard of living. However, economic science does not have to deal with the factors conditioning the acquisition of knowledge.
… For the moment we are entirely unconcerned with the creation of knowledge, that is, of judgments that prove to be successful in action. We do not bother about the way we reduce our sheer ignorance. Rather we have to consider the principles that govern the selection of the judgments that we actually apply in our actions.
…In choosing the most important action we implicitly select some parts of our technological knowledge for application. In other terms, our choices imply a judgment upon the importance of our technological knowledge under the expected conditions of our action. This economic judgment is our only concern. Technological knowledge as such is immaterial for economics.
Notice how Hu?lsmann here distinguishes between action, and the means one employes, and the “technological knowledge” ones uses to guide one’s actions, to employ various causal means in the world to achieve certain ends–but that it is distinct from action and means.
Archived comments (2):
Comments (60)
- Bruce Koerber
- The interlocking threads of the fabric of the market process appear as cooperation, competition, and emulation. It is from these, as the warp and weft, that the pattern emerges.IP inhibits or prevents the tapestry of life from gracing the world.
- J Cortez
- Is this anti-IP day? :)I’ve really enjoyed reading all of today’s posts on this subject.
Great stuff. Thanks.
- Silas will say:
- One problem with personal property is that by monopolizing goods, items–things–it restricts and locks up the flow of resources. It thus impedes the operations of the free market and productivity, etc.
- Gil
- Why not? It has been asserted that a totally privatised landowing system will make a non-landowner a potential trespasser whereever he goes. Yet others would argue privatised landowning will make more efficient use of the land.
- Silas Barta
- Actually, Silas will show how Stephan_Kinsella’s argument works directly against him. More generally, the entire economic calculation argument favors IP. No matter what scarcity you claim it doesn’t have (and Stephan_Kinsella is extremely loose with his terminology when he talks about scarcity — the concept can’t help him justify anything because the very existence of a debate proves that there is scarcity, but let’s leave that all aside for now), the fact is that scarce means are employed in the *production* of intellectual works. This comes at the (opportunity) cost of employing those scarce means for goods that are *not* intellectual works (or are different intellectual works).Now, in the absence of intellectual property rights, you effectively put a price ceiling on intellectual works of zero, thus deleting all information provided by the rest of society to the entrepreneur about how “good of a choice” it was to employ his scarce means in the production of this intellectual work. Please, please do not respond by pointing out related scarce goods that you arbitrarily let the entrepreneur have property rights in, through which he can sorta-kinda capture the value of the intellectual work. These goods are not the same thing, and they are valued for different reasons. Purchasing them does not signal the value that the individual places on the *existence* of the intellectual work (which is what the innovator as such produces), but rather, the value he places on the production of a good, *given* the existence of the intellectual work.
As I argued on my blog:
“All of the economic calculation arguments equally apply as critiques of lack of intellectual property. When Mises and Hayek formulated their economic calculation arguments, they made a powerful case regarding the practical implications of the lack of property rights. However, they cannot delimit by fiat the full extent of their arguments’ logical implications: only the logical examination of the arguments’ premises and steps can do that.
“What Mises and Hayek actually accomplished was to establish the need for the ability to perform economic calculations in any situation in which an actor has the choice between alternate uses of any scarce means toward ends, not merely those that they deem “economic goods”. And indeed one quite common choice actors face is that of expending scarce means (their time and labor) to produce non-scarce intellectual works, versus expending those means toward some other end.
“In such a situation, any claim about the implications of lack of price signals (due to lack of property rights) would likewise work against the lack of property rights in the potential intellectual work produced. The absence of IP effectively places a “price cap” on the intellectual work of $0, although other goods and services related to that intellectual work (transmission of it, future cooperation regarding it, etc.) may still have prices. An entrepreneur would therefore always “see” zero monetary demand for the production of the intellectual works he is capable of, even though we know at least some intellectual works have positive value (at least one person would pay some amount of money for that intellectual work to be available somehow).
“While the existence of these other, related goods with prices, may appear to give the accurate, relevant price signals, it does not: prices for them signal consumer desire for different behavior than prices for the intellectual work would. (To be specific, the “price of an intellectual work” is the “price of the right to legally instantiate that intellectual work”, just as the “price of an orange” is the “price of the right to legally use that orange”.) For example: desire for a machine that is capable of producing a pill according to a given formula, is not the same as desire that the knowledge exists of how to make a pill that cures cancer. In the fomer case, the actor values physical manipulation capability; in the latter, he values the status of a malady changing from incurable to curable at a cost.
“Therefore, any libertarian critical of the ability of property-free economies to rationally allocate resources, should also see a type of calculational chaos to the extent that actors choose for or against producing intellectual works.”
***
All Stephan_Kinsella has done here is show a vague resemblance between Hayek’s argument and his personal beliefs; more realistically, Hayek has shown — though he may have wished to deem this “not an implication” without giving a reason — that IP-free societies are in a state of calculational chaos with respect to ideas.
Sadly, I doubt anyone’s going to give my point any serious consideration, as it criticizes a sacred cow here.
- RWW
- Silas,You come tantalizingly close to the truth of the matter in mentioning “other, related goods.” The fact is that ideas (the ones you mislabel IP) are useful in their ability to bring forth new goods, or to produce the old goods in greater quantity or quality. These goods are not only related to the ideas in question, but hinge directly upon them. The abundant demand for such goods is a more than adequate signal to the “producers” of ideas.
If your point is not taken more seriously than this, it is not because of ideology, but rather the weakness of the argument itself. But, condescending as always, you dismiss a very convincing position (the principled opposition to “IP,” as advocated by some here) as a sacred cow.
- kiba
- I have a hypothesis that whenever somebody inject the the idea of zero in economic reasoning, it will make 90% of otherwise smart economic thinkers’ brain to calculate to nonsense.We are so used to dealing with scarce goods that some of us couldn’t deal with the fact that digital goods and similar goods in which scarcity for all practical purpose do not exists.
It is kinda like the concept of zero is considered heretical in time past. In the mind of ancient thinkers, it was a concept quite difficult to grasp.
- Andras
- @kiba,
It is not surprising then that the early users of zero in twelve century Europe did not disclose their “invention”. They only sold their service instead of disclosing the knowledge to the masses for decades or as long as they could keep it secret. We had social planners instead of patent laws then, too. - Andras
- @RWW,
You showed in your reply that you are not an inventor. Here is the opportunity to show that you are not an entrepreneur either.
Again, back to Silas question translated for you: how do you expect an entrepreneur to rank and select an inventor from the inventor pool? - ktibuk
- Not all and every information is property in libertarian IP law. Only certain ones.Some maybe given out for charity, some for fame and some because transaction costs would be too high in the event of copyright protection.
Yes, people freely give out information to others (and have been for thousands of years) just like they give out tangible property. This doesn’t negate or abolish property.
This argument is so weak that full socialists aren’t even using it. No socialist claims there can not be private property because people like Bill Gates have been giving out parts of his wealth for years to others.
- Inquisitor
- Fascinating Silas, just fascinating. Now, when are you going to actually demonstrate ideas are scarce, i.e. economic goods? BTW, there’s no “right” to have property rights enforced… it’s up to the parties involved to secure them. So if they want to protect “their” IP (the same is true of their actual property), they can do so with their own money and time and stop wasting everyone else’s.
- RWW
- Andras, cut the ad hominem. If you have an argument, please make it. As to your question, I assume it’s related to some point you wish to make, so let’s cut to the chase. What aspect of selecting an inventor would be impossible if “IP” laws were eliminated?
- Michael Smith
- Kinsella wrote:So Tucker has hit the nail on the head: one problem with IP is that by monopolizing information, knowledge–patterns–it restricts and locks up the flow of knowledge.
This argument makes no sense at all.
In the first place, there is no right to a “flow of knowledge”, just as there is no right to an education. There is only a right to seek knowledge by means of your own effort or trade for it with others who know what you wish to learn.
In the second place, you are free to pass any book you purchase on to whomever you wish — just as you are free to restate the knowledge, using your own, new wording and phrasing, and publish a billion copies of if you wish. Indeed, there are vast numbers of such books published every year that contain restatements of knowledge first published by someone else.
In the third place, in the case of patents, you are not permitted to restrict any knowledge about the invention. To the contrary, the patent must contain a full disclosure of the details of the invention’s design, a complete description of its features, a disclosure of what distinguishes it from any relevant prior art — there is even a requirement that the patent disclose the best method of manufacturing the invention. When the patent is granted, the patent document is released into the public domain and may be copied and disseminated without limits.
So not only is there no right to a “flow of information”, there is nothing about IP that restricts such a flow. Your argument makes no sense.
- Michael Smith
- Inquisitor wrote:Fascinating Silas, just fascinating. Now, when are you going to actually demonstrate ideas are scarce, i.e. economic goods?
I don’t understand this notion.
1) In the first place, what is more “scarce” than a new design I just conceived and put on paper? Prior to my effort, it did not exist at all; now that I’ve brought it into existence, it constitutes a single new innovation. Why is that not “scarce”.
2) More importantly, why do only “scarce” items qualify as property? What is your definition of “scarce”?
- ktibuk
- Good job Silas.Although I think property issue is an ethical issue, calculation argument is a good one that demolishes socialist claims.
I am sure the original socialists were as baffled as these IP socialists are. They had no answer back then, they have no answer right now.
- Stephan Kinsella
- Smith: “”there is no right to a “flow of knowledge”, just as there is no right to an education. There is only a right to seek knowledge by means of your own effort or trade for it with others who know what you wish to learn.”Sure. There is also no right to food or a home or a job. But if state policies restrict food, make homes more expensive, or cause unemployment, we point this out, object to it, and count it as yet another harm imposed on us by the state. The state no doubt impoverishes us–recognizing this doesn’t rely on a right to wealth per se.
To the extent state policies–both IP itself and the others that reduce wealth–impede innovation, this, too slows the development and progress of new ideas, recipes, technical information, scientific discoveries.
“In the third place, in the case of patents, you are not permitted to restrict any knowledge about the invention. To the contrary, the patent must contain a full disclosure of the details of the invention’s design, a complete description of its features, a disclosure of what distinguishes it from any relevant prior art — there is even a requirement that the patent disclose the best method of manufacturing the invention. When the patent is granted, the patent document is released into the public domain and may be copied and disseminated without limits.”
Sure, but many companies do not even attempt to innovate in some fields, because they are afraid they can’t sell the products they develop because of patent problems. So the engineers don’t have an incentive to read up on the literature, to innovate, etc.
- Andras
- @RWW,
“What aspect of selecting an inventor would be impossible if “IP” laws were eliminated?”If you eliminate IP as worthless you will eliminate all the reference related to IP (Patents). Currently, patents serve also as a measure to rank inventors, too. Without them, at a job appication, you have resumes without references.
Again, back to Silas question translated for you: how do you expect an entrepreneur to rank and select an inventor from the inventor pool? - gene berman
- For quite some time, I’ve been mildly interested in the “patent/anti-patent controversy adroitly maintained on the LRC/Mises site by Mr. Kinsella. I, myself, am relatively ignorant of the entire matter and, therefore, inclined toward the conservative (“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”) prejudice on the subject.In that wise, I thought I’d “weigh in” on the topic at least just this once, since I’d noted an oft-made Kinsellian argument that I felt simply did not square with any clear-eyed perception of reality. The relative importance of the argument is larger than obvious at first glance because it is one of the foundations of the “anti-patent” argument, much of the balance of which has been very masterfully presented (over and over again, I might add) in Mr. Kinsella’s frequent posts.
So, with those thoughts in mind, I scrolled down to add my own thoughts to the preceding mix. And, lo and behold, the very final one (by Michael Smith) ably presents the very crux of the argument I should have made if he hadn’t beaten me to it. So, I shall restrict my further comments to some less-important (but variously germane). They are not organized into a “case” ; they’re just observations.
This is a “Misesian” site, i.e., one intended to provide a forum for questions and discussion particularly economic and particularly informed by our Austrian view, especially as propounded by Mises. But Mises himself is neutral on the subject. But, even in describing the matter as controversial, he insists (in considering “the external economies of intellectual creation”) that such controversy is not of catallactic significance. At this point (and in light of the foregoing), it thus seems to me to be somewhat of an “impropriety” to make the Mises site not only the place for frequent pieces devoted to the single, not-specifically-Misesian subject but, additionally, the seeming or apparent ‘sponsor” for one particular “side” or view of the matter. A visitor not particularly Misesian in view or knowledge might very well conclude that the anti-patent-and-IP view of Mr. Kinsella were specifically those of Mises and the Austrian School. In this wise, such articles render a distinctly negative (marginalizing) service to the site that it doesn’t need, no matter how well done are the pieces themselves. I would actually wonder why such pieces are carried on this site rather than on the LewRockwell.com site (as I note the usual, in all other regards, rather scrupulous separation on the basis of content).
Mr. Kinsella has (at many times and in many pieces) noted that the patent office seems inclined to superfluity in such awards; indeed, that very many are not only, on their face, impossible of practical realization but even eminently mockable. But here a point is missed (and it is an eminently Misesian point, at that). And that is that, at all times, there exist (whether the subject of patents or not is not at issue) a (“invisible mountain, reaching to the stratosphere,” the quoted expression being from somewhere I forget) plethora of as-yet-impracticable ideas available for the progress of civilization awaiting only some as-yet-unrealized event (as momentous as another enabling discovery or as prosaic as a change in price structure) for their practical (profitable) realization. With that understanding, it can be seen that many of the “far-fetched” patents are less unreasonably granted; they, too, add to the store of such ideas available to the future (and the very unlikelihood of their actually underpinning an exercised “monopoly” in the succeeding 20-year patent period ought to elicit some of Mr. Kinsella’s approval, rather than his scorn).
In closing, I would expand somewhat on another point made by Mr. Smith. The library of patents issued is a technical resource in and of itself. Whether or not its maintenance is a proper function of government or whether the costs of its operation are justifiable is not my subject; merely that the existence of the resource is an organized technical aid addressable not only by those seeking to learn whether a particular idea is liable to be patentable but also as a source for the enlargement or improvement of existing ideas (and whether already embodied in products and processes or not). Thus, it makes eminent sense for many already in business to periodically review such data; not only is it possible, thereby, to discover novelties of some potential value with respects to one’s own products, it is even within reasonable conjecture to find sales opportunites for one’s own products within the material (or process) requirements of someone else’s.
I don’t think I’ll find much disagreement in naming Ben Franklin an outstanding inventor and a true philanthropist and humanitarian. Bifocals are still in use
as was, until relatively recently, the “grabber” thingamajig he cobbled together to get books down from high shelves (and was ubiquitous in grocery stores), and the ideas of lending libraries, adult evening schools, and volunteer fire departments are only a few credited to him. Franklin was anxious not to delay public benefit from his innovations and so did not bother with seeking patents for them. That was, indeed, generous of spirit of him. However, we also shouldn’t overlook that ol’ Ben was a great believer in the efficacy of a paper money system, even relishing the fact that he was “in the business” of doing the printing on contract with the government. Nobody sees everything clearly. In the case at hand, I suggest that Mr. Kinsella (and others against patents and IP) have not much more than imagination to reveal what would occur were those institutions to be dismantled. - Kiba
- gene berman: We have much more than just imagination. We also have seen much practical examples and business models to support our anti-IP views, copyright and patents. Many examples are already covered in the Intellectual Monopoly books and more.This is not about some theoritical PDA, private courts and other agencies that only exist in an anarcho-capitalistic society. There are already real-world practical examples.
Economists like Mike Masnick have already covered this ad nasuem.
The pro-ip crowd choose to not see what can already be seen. It is a level of ignorance above “the seen and the unseen”.
- gene berman
- Silas:Though having sided more or less pro-IP and having commented in support of Michael Smith’s argument, I’ve read and agree with your own as well (and will certainly take a look at your site).
Actually, though, my major point is in my own 4th paragraph. It seems as though what appears to have been intended as and is represented as a Misesian site is constantly subject to attempts at “takeover” by those militating against IP and by those nearest the extreme libertarian end of the
authoritarian-freedom spectrum. Nor even have I paid enough attention to knwo whether there’s any relationship between those two groups or whether they’re just two separate sets of opinions each intent on grinding their own axes.I don’t have any well-formed opposition to either of these groups other than the constant intrusion of what seem to me to be partisan matters where they (in my own opinion) don’t belong. I cannot see either of those positions as following with any logical necessity from economic knowledge. And, as expressed in my comment to Mr. Smith, I view such intrusion as quite liable to mark (to visitors, especially those actuall interested in economic matters) the site as dominate, if not owned, by proponents, not of Austrian School views but by poartisan supporters of these two essentially political planks.
- gene berman
- Kiba:I haven’t got a clue. Give me a reference or better, a link. I promise—I’m actually queer for new shit.
(The shortest and most comprehensive, if those are available together.) - Kiba
- There are much literature on this so I’ll link you to one of the fundamental tenent of business models that take into consideration the non-scarcity of digital goods. This should get you started.http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml
- Rye
- Pardon me for butting into the flow of conversation here, but I would like to present an alternate tack for arguing against the governmental defense of IP. It seems to me that any use of someone else’s idea cannot be an aggressive use of force, so any force used against them for such a purpose would be aggressive. I’d also like to paraphrase Rothbard’s admonition: while it’s useful to argue about the ends of various actions, we cannot do so in lieu of arguing in favor of our ethical principles.
- DixieFlatline
- Gene, what is this about militating against IP?It’s not by any reasonable definition a valid form of property. Pro-IP folks usually end up making utilitarian arguments, because they cannot explain how ideas can be scarce, unique or have specific ownership.
Quite honestly, I find people like you who take a pro-IP stance to be pro-state, anti-freedom, and anti-free market.
LvMI is merely taking the reasonable ideological stance on this issue.
- Michael Smith
- Stephen wrote:Sure. There is also no right to food or a home or a job. But if state policies restrict food, make homes more expensive, or cause unemployment, we point this out, object to it, and count it as yet another harm imposed on us by the state.
All property rights are a “restriction” on the property in question and all of them constitute the acknowledgement and enforcement of a monopoly — specifically, the acknowledgement and enforcement of the owner’s monopoly on the exclusive right to the use and disposal of the property in question.
And yes, property rights make property more expensive — having to earn money and pay for property is more expensive than simply seizing it. Kroger certainly increases the cost of food by putting their profit margin on every item they sell.
So “restrictiveness” and “increased expense” cannot be grounds for excluding the recognition of IP — not unless you are going to exclude the recognition of all other property rights as well.
- Silas Barta
- @RWW: The fact is that ideas (the ones you mislabel IP) are useful in their ability to bring forth new goods, or to produce the old goods in greater quantity or quality. These goods are not only related to the ideas in question, but hinge directly upon them. The abundant demand for such goods is a more than adequate signal to the “producers” of ideas.First of all, I never labeled any ideas as “IP”; I labeled them as intellectual *works*. Unlike Stephan_Kinsella, I’m rigorous enough to distinguish between intellectual *works* (which are not scarce) and intellectual *property*, which is the exclusive legal right to instantiate an intellectual work, and thus can be scarce.
The rest of your point is a non-sequitur. From the fact that there is demand for goods related to intellectual works, it does not follow that the demand reflects the value of the intellectual work. Among other ways to prove this, imagine downloading data. In the absence of IP, it costs just the same to download a song as to download a randomized stream of bits. But who would claim that people are indifferent between artists a) producing recognizable music, and b) producing random bitstreams?
All such related goods have the same problem: you needn’t be the one that produced the intellectual work, or have any contractual relationship therewith, in order to produce them. So the price of them *can’t* reflect demand for the knew knowledge, no matter how big such demand is.
@gene_berman: Thanks for the feedback, I hope you take the time to read the main post and the discussion in the link I gave.
- Michael Smith
- @DixieFlatline:Pro-IP folks usually end up making utilitarian arguments, because they cannot explain how ideas can be scarce, unique or have specific ownership.
I’ll repeat two points and questions I asked of Inquisitor earlier:
1) In the first place, what is more “scarce” than a new design I just conceived and developed? Prior to my effort, it did not exist at all; now that I’ve brought it into existence, it constitutes a completely new innovation. Why is that not “scarce”?
2) More importantly, why do only “scarce” items qualify as property? What is your definition of “scarce”?
- Silas Barta
- I’d also like to thank ktibuk, Michael_Smith, Gil, Andras and gene_berman for their insights. This is a welcome change from the self-reassuring echo chamber Stephan_Kinsella usually gets when he posts about IP.Some more replies:
@Inquisitor: Now, when are you going to actually demonstrate ideas are scarce, i.e. economic goods?
As I said above, I don’t designate ideas (once widely known) as scarce, or as economic goods. However,
a) The *rights* to *exclusive* use of an idea are certainly scarce.
b) It doesn’t matter if ideas are scarce or if they’re “economic goods”; as long as people spend scarce goods to produce them, the lack of property rights in ideas creates calculational chaos when entrepreneurs decide whether they will produce ideas or physical goods.BTW, there’s no “right” to have property rights enforced… it’s up to the parties involved to secure them. So if they want to protect “their” IP (the same is true of their actual property), they can do so with their own money and time and stop wasting everyone else’s.
Yes, it’s certainly wrong to make third parties pay such costs. However. all that proves is that the costs should be shifted to the rights violators, not that the rights should simply not exist! It’s a red herring that IP opponents would spot in any other context.
- Peter Cohen
- My perspective is that which derives from the production of digital works of art. It would seem to me that the question of Intellectual Property however is a complex one and that a single paradigm for all IP is probably counter productive, if not futile. I can readily see how the world might well benefit from patents lasting maybe ten years instead of seventy five (or whatever). I can also however readily see how the world would be greatly harmed by inventors not having sufficient time to profit from the product of the work.The utilitarian argument however is only one facet and frankly from a rights perspective, perhaps moot. I would argue strongly from the perspective of personal rights, of self ownership which extends naturally to ownership of that which I produce. The existence of the work I create is the product of my labor, talent and capital. It is not just the first copy of my digital art work that is my property. Simply because another may with a button click create a new copy, does not render my work no longer my property. My first copy owes it’s existence to my labor and capital. However it is not only the first copy of that work that owes it’s existence to my labor and capital.
Remove my labor and capital from the equation and not only does the first copy of my work cease to exist; ALL other subsequent copies also cease to exist!
It is by that definition that I insist that I own the product of my work, that I retain rights in all copies. When I sell someone the right to possess a copy of my work, I sell them some rights, I do not sell all rights. I sell to them the right to possess my work themselves, to avail themselves of it, even to display it to their friends and family. I even assert that they have the right to make copies of my work for different media, so long as the use of that work remain in their possession and not passed on to others. I do not however sell to them the right to profit from my work nor to give away copies of my work to other people.
- Artisan
- Nobody says one cannot use information he reads in a book for his trade without paying its author… society rules that one just has to mingle it with his own “work” (copy-paste doesn’t count as work). This principle is called homesteading. So again the Tucker argument is not relevant for copyright, only for patent.
- jason4liberty
- Silas,By your definition, when does IP transition from IP to a work? In your posts I see that you refer to both, and distinguish between them. Can a transition happen? Does it happen by any other mechanism than state fiat?
How do you feel about use restrictions on IP? If the idea is sold, who then owns it, and can choose what to do with it?
Physical property theory has a “clear” system of determining ownership and transfer rights. Likewise, if I buy a pair of shoes, I get to determine where I walk in them. Do you posit that IP creates a new class of ownership rights, allowing rights and restrictions beyond those offered to physical property owners?
Physical property ownership, as proposed by Rothbard, is perpetual. Physical property does not transfer between classes or owners other than by the voluntary action of the owner. If an idea can be property, it doesn’t seem like it would ever be a work under that sort of property theory.
- newson
- to michael smith:
as regards “scarcity”, kiba has provided a useful link. once your idea has passed into the public domain, there is no limit to the number of people who can store and use that concept. by contrast, even abundant physical substances may be situationally scarce (ie sand at the north pole, water in the desert etc).absent ip, you would have to resort to private accords in order to maintain the scarcity value of your idea. over time, it’s difficult to imagine you being able to monopolize this know-how privately, but short-term it may be doable. - newson
- to peter cohen:
when i sell you a hammer, i hope you use it to hit nails, but i cannot compel you not to use it to hit your neighbour on the head. selling implies cessation of all ownership and associated rights. if i find you’ve been buying my hammers with violent acts in mind, the best i can do is to cease dealing with you. - Silas Barta
- jason4liberty: By your definition, when does IP transition from IP to a work? In your posts I see that you refer to both, and distinguish between them. Can a transition happen? Does it happen by any other mechanism than state fiat?Based on your first question, you must have gotten the wrong idea of the distinction I was making. To clarify the distinction, let me give a clear example: consider a Harry Potter book. The informational content of that book is the the intellectual work. The right to make copies of it, or to prevent others from doing so, would be intellectual property. In the physical realm, it’s the distinction between an apple, and ownership of that apple.
As for the other questions: it’s kind of interesting how anti-IP libertarians shift their standards when the topic changes to something they don’t like. I don’t know if that describes you, or if you’re just asking a clarify question, but that’s been sadly common in discussions on IP here that I’ve joined.
Yes, the state can and has dictated intellectual property rights. It’s done the same for physical property rights. Just the same, physical property rights can arise without the state, through convention and recognitions within private legal systems. And so too, I claim, can intellectual property rights.
- Stephan Kinsella
- Silas Barta:
As for the other questions: it’s kind of interesting how anti-IP libertarians shift their standards when the topic changes to something they don’t like. I don’t know if that describes you, or if you’re just asking a clarify question, but that’s been sadly common in discussions on IP here that I’ve joined.
Yes, the state can and has dictated intellectual property rights. It’s done the same for physical property rights. Just the same, physical property rights can arise without the state, through convention and recognitions within private legal systems. And so too, I claim, can intellectual property rights.
The problem with this reasoning is that (real) property rights predate the state and are not dependent on it; we libertarians can easily describe what we are in favor of. But IP exists only because of the state. Patent and copyright are legislated, positive-law grants of monopoly privilege. You fair-weather IP advocates back off of every jagged edge we point out, till we reasonably start to wonder what in the world you guys really favor, if you will agree with all of our critiques’ of manifest absurdities and injustices. You can’t just kick the can down the road and say, “let the courts figure it out,” like Congress enacting an Americans with Disabilities Requirement with an amorphous “reasonable accommodation” requirement; or Congress adding “privileges or immunities”, or “the general welfare,” or “necessary and proper,” etc. etc., to the Constitution, expecting later generations to figure out what the hell these positive law assertions mean in practice.
As I explained here:
The IP socialists faux-libertarians pull the trick all the time. You point to an obviously unlibertarian aspect of IP law (which they appear to support, since they bash opponents of IP law), and they crawfish and say, “well, naww, we are not in favor of THAAAAT”. Every problem you find, they just deny it–leaving you to wonder what they DO favor. What is this ideal IP system like that they favor? They can never tell you. The ones that do, like Rand or Galambos, either support systems that are either unprincipled and pragmatic and arbitrary (Rand) or obviously absurdly unjust (Galambos). The rest just clam up; they don’t know what the heck they advocate or believe in. They don’t believe in the current IP system–so don’t blame them for ITS deficiencies. But if you ask them what they believe in, it’s deer-in-the-headlights, “Hey, man, I’m not a lawyer, don’t ask me.”
As for their system having some kind of exception for “independent discovery,” I assume this means that:
1. If A invents it first (but keeps it secret), then B invents it later and patents it, then B can’t stop A, right? This is called prior-user right (but we don’t have a general one here). Is B’s patent still valid, against C?
2. If A invents first and patents it, then B invents it later *independently*, I suppose this means A can’t stop or get damages from B, right?
3. Take case 2, B is about to independently invent it, but happens to see a bus advertisement showing A’s product, so that now he’s prevented from claiming to be its inventor–sort of like when your moronic friend spoils a movie by telling you its ending. In this case, A can stop B, unlike in case 2… right? So B, who in the absence of patent law, and in the absence of A’s invention, *would have* been able to use the idea he was working on, is now prevented, Right?
Let me guess–you are not sure of the details. I.e., you literally do not know what you are talking about.
- Kiba
- Who did change their stance or standard?I still stand by my claim that IP is unethical.
It has nothing to do with my business and entrepneurship stance.
- Peter Cohen
- Newson wrote: “Selling implies cessation of all ownership and associated rights.”This is not always correct. There are several instances enshrined in law wherein the sales are made of ‘some’ rights, but not all. There is nothing that says that two people ‘must’ sell ‘all’ rights when they contract together.
- Peter Cohen
- Kiba wrote: “I still stand by my claim that IP is unethical.”I find that ironic in the extreme. There is a movement afoot here to legitimize your perspective, and the end effect of that is to enshrine in ‘libertarian’ principle, that you have the right to simply take, for free, the product of my labor and capital, simply because you have the technical means to do so. Libertarians who would champion property rights, as long as it is physical property that cannot be easily copied, would do the exact opposite for that which ‘can’ be easily copied. To assert that this stance is derived from one of ‘ethics’ is to me, utterly absurd.
- Marcelo
- [b]Peter Cohen[/b]It is unethical to be on the side that favors the socialization of ideas because making a copy of an idea is not a crime. And to punish someone for making a copy is unethical.
- ktibuk
- “Newson wrote: “Selling implies cessation of all ownership and associated rights.”This is not always correct. There are several instances enshrined in law wherein the sales are made of ‘some’ rights, but not all. There is nothing that says that two people ‘must’ sell ‘all’ rights when they contract together.”
Yes there is a concept called “renting” which I guess Newson is not familiar with. So this argument is only a matter of semantics.
- Peter Cohen
- Marcelo wrote: “It is unethical to be on the side that favors the socialization of ideas because making a copy of an idea is not a crime. And to punish someone for making a copy is unethical.”The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy is not simply an ‘idea’. It is a billion dollars worth of capital and labor that the creators have every right to sell viewership to. You do not have the right to steal it simply because it is easy to do so.
- Marcelo
- Peter CohenPlease come up with more strawman arguments. They are amusing. You should become a fan fiction writer.
- Peter Cohen
- Marcelo wrote: “Please come up with more strawman arguments.”In what way am I using strawman arguments? Kiba for instance would assert that he has the right to copy the movie, Lord of the Rings. He would assert that it is ‘unethical’ (!!!) for Peter Jackson and company to try to stop him.
- Marcelo
- No, what you said was this.You do not have the right to steal it simply because it is easy to do so.
Copying is not quoting. No one here is defending theft.
- Marcelo
- I meant stealing instead of quoting…
- John Boyle
- With zero intellectual property laws, it is still possible for, say, someone who writes a book to sell the book under the condition that the book a) be not copied and b) be not distributed to someone else except under this same condition. One can sell newly invented machines and drugs and everything like it under similar contractual conditions. The whole scheme that would make it harder for others to copy your work would be arrived at through perfectly voluntary contract between consenting individuals. I don’t think anyone here objects to voluntary contract-created “intellectual property”.As far as I can tell, the domain of the debate over IP is, therefore: should copyright restrictions be imposed on people who have not voluntarily agreed to them? Should someone (call him Bob) who somehow gets an instance of contractually copy-protected work, who did NOT sign a contract agreeing not to copy such work, be forcibly prevented from copying it anyway?
To me, the answer is obvious: no. The only difficult situation is if the way Bob acquired the intellectual work involved some illegal means.
If Joe breaks into Coca-Cola and steals their secret formula, and then he writes it down on paper and gives that paper to Bob (assume Bob had no prior contact with Joe), is Bob allowed to use it as he wishes?
This is kind of a difficult question, and it’s related to questions about all stolen property. If B steals something from A and randomly passes it onto C (C had no prior contact with either B or A), can A demand it back from C? What if C has demolished it, taken it apart? Is C required to pay for damaging A’s property? What if C has traded it to D, who has traded it to E, and so on?
I’m thinking there are two possible solutions.
1. Once B steals something, it becomes his property. While A does have the right to demand some form of restitution from him for the act of stealing–and this restitution may include returning the stolen property if B still has it in good condition (by the way, I think punishment is a difficult and perhaps a necessarily ad hoc issue)–the stolen property is B’s from the moment he takes it. Therefore, if B sells it to C, or breaks it up and sells the parts to D through J, then A cannot demand his property back from the others.
2. When B steals something, it remains A’s property. Then, if B sells it to C, C does not really own the property; B is guilty of fraud in addition to theft, and A has the right to demand it back from C. And if C sold it to anyone else, he is guilty of unintentional fraud as well; and if he broke the property up and built other things out of it and sold them, then the situation is really messy, because all those pieces still belong to A, but now it’s nigh impossible to get them out…I don’t like 2; 1 seems pretty elegant, and a lot more workable. Ok, I have now decided that, when you steal something, it becomes your property. (I repeat: the act of stealing it is a punishable crime, and if it’s in pretty unchanged condition, I would consider it a reasonable punishment for the previous owner to demand that you return it, plus possibly some other penalties. However, it remains the thief’s property until such punishment is exacted; you would be free to sell or break or otherwise mess with it in the meantime.)
I therefore conclude, in parallel: Suppose B does something illegal to obtain the information required to reproduce A’s intellectual work. Then, on the one hand, A does have a property-rights violation claim against B, and it might be a just punishment for B to be forcibly prevented from distributing copies of this information if he has not done so already. However, if B has already distributed copies of this information to C, D, and E, or if he does so in the future, then A cannot demand that C, D, and E refrain from using or redistributing more copies of this information. (A could say “Pretty please” and pay hush money to C, D, and E to hopefully persuade them to shut up, but A could not use force on them.)
To all of you who claim that zero intellectual property rights imply that the cost for copying someone’s intellectual work is zero… you’re wrong. For one thing, it is extremely easy to copy such things these days (e.g. patents) because those who have copyrights or patents on them post them freely on the internet, which they do because of currently existing IP laws. If those laws didn’t exist, the producers of such works would not post them on the internet, or at least they would require you to verify your identity and then sign a contract that said you would not copy it, before they let you load the page. (Perhaps you cannot imagine an efficient solution like that. Perhaps your imagination will be far outstripped by that of the free market.)
It’s like issues with free speech. There are certain kinds of speech that I find extremely unpleasant to listen to. So, are my rights being violated when others say extremely unpleasant things to me? Answer: Where are they saying these things? It has to be somewhere. If they’re magnifying their voices with big speakers and aiming them at my window, I might consider that a property-rights violation. If I’m at their house by their invitation, then my rights are certainly not being violated, unless they agreed to not say such things while I was there. If I’m at work with them, then it’s the responsibility of whoever owns the workplace to decide what behavior is allowed there and what isn’t.
People who don’t think about this, who don’t realize that offensive or hurtful speech has to occur someplace and that the rules can be whatever the owner of the place sets them to be, who think that laws about speech have to be the same everywhere, are forced to come up with a ridiculous ad hoc mishmash of an ethical system. (“Well, I support free speech in general, but surely kids shouldn’t have to put up with racial insults in school, and surely one shouldn’t have to hear loud profanity and insults on the street, although it’s certainly ok for people to use swearwords in normal conversation, and …, but …”)
Likewise, people who don’t think about where you would have to be in order to make a copy of an intellectual work (how do you, say, acquire a copy of a book without buying it or borrowing it from the library, both of whom could easily stipulate–some of which, today, stipulate–that you may not copy it? How do you copy the design of a machine without standing in a place owned by the person who owns the machine?) are forced to this ridiculous conclusion: if there isn’t an aggressively imposed law preventing people from copying certain things in certain situations, then there will be nothing preventing people from copying those things in those situations. This rests on the same line of reasoning as the idea that, if there isn’t an aggressively imposed law preventing people from saying certain things in certain situations, then there will be nothing preventing people from saying those things in those situations; it is just as fallacious.
- Peter Cohen
- You present two possibilities:”I’m thinking there are two possible solutions.
1. Once B steals something, it becomes his property…
2. When B steals something, it remains A’s property…”You then conclude that it is possibility number 1 that you find more workable and elegant and base the rest of your though upon that conclusion.
However actual law reaches conclusion number 2. If B steals something from A, and sells the stolen thing to C, The thing remains the property of A. If everyone is found out, A may demand the thing back from C and C’s only recourse is to sue B for restitution.
- John Boyle
- You seem to have just restated solution 2, without giving any reasoning to support this solution, other than that it is the status quo. I don’t think that’s a good reason; if it were, then I wouldn’t be able to argue against the status quo on intellectual property rights either.Can you justify solution 2 and tell me how it should apply in cases where, e.g., B steals something from A and then, generations later, a descendant of A demands that thing from a descendant of B? Or where B melts it down and combines it with some of his own property to make a product? Also consider the native Americans; do the descendants of those who were forcibly kicked out from their land have a claim to all the land we live on today? If not, why not?
Actually, after thinking about it for a while, I thought that perhaps it’s not the act of stealing something, but rather the act of destroying its original form, that makes the result into the thief’s property. That ethical system is functionally very similar to the system I stated as solution 1, where stealing something turns it into your property.
(Of course, the point where the original form can be said to be destroyed is kind of arbitrary–if all you do is paint it green, is it still the original owner’s property? What if you break it in half? What if you break it in half again? What if you glue one small piece of it onto something else? And what if you sell it to someone else? Etc. I think it’s cleaner if you simply say that the stolen property becomes the thief’s, and then the owner, in deciding on a punishment, can decide for himself whether he wants his stuff back or some other form of compensation. That would be kind of messy in some cases, though… as I mentioned, I suspect that proper punishments cannot be figured out a priori.)
Consider the situation where B sold the stolen property to C, who sold it to D, who sold it to E. E has made an agreement with D, paid money, and gotten something from D’s possession and put it into E’s own possession. Does E nevertheless not own this thing? I would hate to say no, although I could understand the response that E should have made sure that what he bought was not a stolen good (and ditto for C and D). There is cultural precedent for A having to buy it back from E, but… Meh, it’s hard to figure out, and the decision between these two ethical systems is not relevant here.
Regardless of whether B owns the property he just stole, he certainly owns the paper on which he writes down a copy of the information needed to produce an “intellectual work” like what he has just stolen. (You must either admit that or assert that, by stealing an intellectual work, B partially loses ownership of all of his property that could be used to copy what he just stole. I think that is kind of ridiculous, though I’m not absolutely eliminating the possibility.) If B owns whatever property he uses to make a copy of this information (including his brain and vocal cords), then he is perfectly within his rights to pass the information on to C through J, and each of them is perfectly free to pass it on to anyone else; the figurative cat is out of the bag.
Something else suddenly occurs to me. Just what do IP laws forbid you to do? You are allowed to memorize the contents of a book, presumably, but you are not allowed to make copies and sell them. Are you allowed to make a copy and not sell it? How about a partial copy? (See “fair use.”) It’s pretty arbitrary. I consider arbitrariness in the fundamentals of an ethical system–numbers or concepts that do not come from anyone or anything in the given situation–to be a damning flaw. So let’s see if the arbitrariness really is fundamental to the system of IP rights.
Is it arbitrary because the maker of the intellectual work has the right to prevent you from doing any kind of copying, but they voluntarily choose to waive most of that right? Could an author, in theory, decide that, for her next book, she is not going to waive her right to prevent you from mentioning any aspect of the plot to your friends? (Without that being stipulated as a condition of buying the book. Remember, once again, the IP rights that we’re arguing about is those that are not created by contract; I think everyone agrees that contractually created copy-protection is fine.) Could I decide, even though I have chosen to put this post where anyone with an internet connection can read it, to not waive my right to prevent you, the reader, from quoting any part of this post anywhere? Did Watt have the right to never allow anyone to duplicate his steam engine?
No. That’s absurd. Therefore, I think the theory of IP rights must rest on either some ridiculous empirical, ad hoc ethical system (“It is morally wrong to reverse-engineer and duplicate a machine you own, unless the design is 17 years old”), which I have already rejected out of hand, or on… utilitarianism. Hey, someone said that earlier. (“Utilitarianism” being the system where you assume that everyone’s happiness is a scalar quantity, and then you decide that anything that increases the sum of everyone’s happiness is morally allowed.) I reject utilitarianism, too. So I can’t see how one can ethically argue for IP.
Let me condense that into a question, then, to IP supporters: Suppose you say that IP is a natural form of property right, one that gives the creator of an intellectual work the absolute right to control the use of the information required to produce this intellectual work (even if the creator carelessly allows the information to spread around the world). How do you avoid the conclusion that anyone who gets a patent (or whatever form of IP-law protection), such as James Watt, would have the right to keep the IP rights for as long as he wants, and to pass them onto his children and basically have a perpetual, hereditary monopoly on this particular invention? How can you possibly justify giving them the monopoly, but only for X amount of time, with a natural-property-rights argument?
(It occurs to me that most of the second half of this post may have already been said in this thread. Which might be why this second half suddenly occurred to me. Oh well.)
- ktibuk
- “I don’t think anyone here objects to voluntary contract-created “intellectual property”.”You would be wrong John.
IP Socialists would claim otherwise because all they argue for is that they are entitled to other people’s fruit of labor.
- RWW
- ktibuk, you’re being incredibly dishonest. I have only ever witnessed one commenter on the LvMI blog argue that a non-disclosure agreement, agreement not to redistribute, or any other contractual form of “intellectual property” is illegitimate. I vehemently opposed that view at the time and still do, and I’m sure Stephen Kinsella and others would agree.
- ktibuk
- Don’t be so sure RWW.
- RWW
- Well, there’s a word for a hypothetical position that’s easy to argue against. On the other hand, your actual position, if I’m not mistaken, is that no voluntary contract is required in order to restrict a person’s use of his property in emulation of another person’s.My position is that each extreme is incorrect. Voluntary contracts and tangible property, along with the enforcement of both, are legitimate, but anything more or less is not.
- Tommy Rogers
- I agree with John Boyle’s rejection of arbitrariness and utility in ethical decisions, so IP is a tough one for me. This is a great discussion. I read from an IP supporter that “a thief acts to destroy the source of that which he desires”.
I’ll run with that argument here and appreciate replies to this question:
What becomes of the overall profit motive for creators in the absence of intellectual property rights?Again, to further this point of view and open it for rebuttal:
An inventor may invent, an author or musician may write, and a pharmaceutical company may develop- as a farmer may grow food- just for the love of bettering society. If not all primarily for the benefit of making money, though, certainly most people labor under the gamble that they may recoup their sometimes enormous expenses.
Profit is certainly the gamble entrepreneurs make when investing in creations.
Watt wanted fortune and fame. So did his competitors. Waiting was one of the costs of meeting their demands. Perhaps better to have their inventions later than never?
If “society” wants their fruits, “society” needs to offer them an agreeable benefit (such as money, or fame, or acknowledgement of ” their IP”).
Thanks in advance for your responses! - Peter Cohen
- Tommy Rogers asked: “What becomes of the overall profit motive for creators in the absence of intellectual property rights?”I can tell you from person experience. For most of the last twelve years I have supported myself and several other people creating videos which were sold on the web. Piracy has reached such rampant proportions in the field I serve as to effectively render Intellectual Property rights moot.
Absent IP rights, the profit motive disappears, ‘entirely’! I am out of business. Everything I have created for the last twelve years is for all intents, worthless, as it is available all over the place for free to anyone unscrupulous enough to not care that they are pirating. Absent IP rights, and the enforcement of those rights, there will soon be NO profit motive for any creative work that can be easily copied in an electronic medium.
This is the end of Hollywood, the end of HBO, the end of anything other than the most mediocre ‘reality’ tv. We are entering an age where all creative work will either be old, or amateur. And I am not exaggerating in the slightest.
Of course people will demand that the government do something about the deplorable state of art, and so the government will dutifully step in and levy taxes with which to ‘publicly finance’ government approved art.
- Tommy Rogers
- Thanks Mr. Cohen. Your experience certainly supports the position that “a thief acts to destroy the source of that which he desires”. I’d like to hear explanations for any conflicting views on that.To put the burden of proof on you for a bit, Mr. Cohen, can you also demonstrate that there is such thing as IP.
By that, I mean objectively identify a logical, concrete boundary (as opposed to establishing an arbitrary or utilitarian boundary) between the circumstance of IP existence and nonexistence. Criteria for a patent’s expiration certainly is arbitrary. So, if IP exists, how to go about discovering what is a logical, observable, objectively reasonable limit to the nature of IP rights as opposed to the natural limits of physical property?And to anyone who concludes that there is no IP, please demonstrate why there isn’t.
It isn’t because logical, observable, objectively reasonable limits to it’s nature haven’t been found (ad ignorantium).
It isn’t because the implications lead to a slippery slope of ridiculous obstacles as the undeveloped notion of IP rights snowballs into a freeze of technological progress (utility).I’m not giving anyone a hard time here. This is very interesting to me and in many years of the topic coming up, I’ve not thought about it before as much as I would like.
- Tommy Rogers
- No takers?
It seems to me that Peter Cohen has the firmest grasp of this issue here.
There are simple observations that hold true hear regardless of the complications that arise from acknowledging them.
IP is as natural and real as physical property. It’s natural limits seem to be what is really in dispute.
The problems with IP seem to stem from it’s limits so far being established and dictated, rather than observed. - newson
- so the last word goes to peter cohen…hollywood is dying. needs bailouts.even true ip believers might want to ask themselves how they can persist in supporting the current regime, if they believe it’s failing so badly?
like so many other government initiatives, failure merely invites calls to redouble efforts, not to evaluate the actual viability of the scheme.
- newson
- jimmy rogers says:
“IP is as natural and real as physical property.”except you can’t touch it, see it, smell it, taste it..not to worry, some god at the patents office can divine its true nature and origin. that’s reassuring.
- Tommy Rogers
- Newson said “except you can’t touch it, see it, smell it, taste it.”
I, “jimmy” rogers, repeat: “It’s natural limits seem to be what is really in dispute. The problems with IP seem to stem from it’s limits so far being established and dictated [as perhaps by “some god at the patents office”], rather than observed.”
I asked for anyone to demonstrate that there is such thing as IP by objectively identify a logical, concrete boundary (as opposed to establishing an arbitrary or utilitarian boundary) between the circumstance of IP existence and nonexistence.
Fair enough? - Frank H.
- Well, given the value of IP is it’s enabling the production of a marketable good. If someone sells such a good, it seems only fair they should pay license fees. I see the problem of IP laws mainly in the obstruction of scientific and non-profit efforts. That could be avoided by limiting IP license fees to for-profit use.
What do you think?
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