Dear Armchair economists, a few days ago, I had a discussion with a german economist who obviously had never heard about libertarian ideas. We discussed Intellectual Property, and he took the common arguments to defend it: * he talked about using simple models, and then proceeded with one that took into accoutn the beneficial effects only, and would specifically exclude any detrimental ones from his model. I responded that by that standard, just anything with a benefitter could be justified, including robbery or the tithe. * He said that the goal of IP was to promote creation. I said that there was already creation before IP, and that the role of IP with respect to creation was not so clear; in particular as to _what_ kind of creation it encouraged (useless noisy rubbish as opposed to real art). * I said that the first and foremost economical effect of IP was creating monopolies. He agreed, but said that this effect was maybe secondary with respect to the incentive for creation. I responded that not only couldn't the monopoly effect be secondary (and he had no argument to back this assertion), but it ought to be primary, since the direct effect of the law is the very monopoly, and not incentive: there is no injection of magic inspiration serum into people's head; instead, it is precisely the beneficial effects of the monopoly that are relied upon to create an incentive! Now, if you look at the big picture, it is laughable: the global effect of the monopoly is destruction of opportunities, in exchange of a concentrated creation of opportunities at a few spots. If we are to believe that there is any correspondance between opportunities of acquiring wealth and incentive for intellectual creation, then this global destruction should correspond to a global disincentive, which is not seen, with local spots of much increased incentive which is seen. What is the defining characteristics of these spots of much increased opportunity? The fact that the earnings are much undeserved as opposed to what they would be in absence of protection. I.E. the more they are protected, the nearer they are to robbery. I leave the last word to Bastiat (who btw was mistaken about IP in a quite interesting way). Any comments? [ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ] [ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ] What a lot of trouble to prove in political economy that two and two make four; and if you succeed in doing so, people cry, 'It is so clear that it is boring.' Then they vote as if you had never proved anything at all. --Frederic Bastiat, "What Is Seen and What is Not Seen", 1850
