The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide

September 4, 2009 8:09 AM by Stephan Kinsella (Archive)

Like many libertarians, I initially assumed intellectual property (IP) was a legitimate type of property right. But I had misgivings from the start: there was just something too utilitarian and results oriented in Rand's purportedly principled case for IP, and something too artificial about the state's copyright and patent statutory classifications. I started practicing patent law around 1992, and the more I learned about IP, the more my doubts grew.

I finally realized that IP is incompatible with genuine property rights. (This echoed the sloughing off of my initial Randian minarchism in favor of Rothbardian anarchism, when I realized the state is aggression incarnate and cannot be justified. See my article, "What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist.")

And so, in 1995 I started publishing articles pointing out problems with IP, finally culminating in my lengthy 2001 Journal of Libertarian Studies article "Against Intellectual Property," which was republished as a monograph last year by the Mises Institute. A summary of the argument in this paper was set forth in my article "In Defense of Napster and Against the Second Homesteading Rule", and various of these pieces have been translated into other languages.

In recent years there has been a good deal of more useful writing on IP and, as my previous Napster article is somewhat dated now, the time is ripe to concisely restate the basic libertarian case against IP and provide links to some of the key anti-IP publications. FULL ARTICLE

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Comments (183)

Matthew

Like you, I am fully anti-IP, but your argument against "libertarian creationism" argument will be easily side stepped by pro-IP libertarians. They can simply make the argument that the laboring statue carver is simply exchanging his legitimately established ownership rights for wages in contractual exchange.

You assert that creation is an invalid method for establishing property rights (and again, I side with you), but I do not think your argument in this piece is going to change anyone's mind who has made up his mind that it is valid. I recommend that you bolster your argument in this area.

Published: September 4, 2009 10:11 AM
Stephan Kinsella

Matthew:

"your argument against "libertarian creationism" argument will be easily side stepped by pro-IP libertarians. They can simply make the argument that the laboring statue carver is simply exchanging his legitimately established ownership rights for wages in contractual exchange."

Except that this is not what happens. If the statue carver uses my marble with my permission, he simply never gains ownership of it. Further, this trick could not be used with the example of the thief using another person's marble. Finally, it is clear that if you own the marble already, you don't need to find another explanation of why you own the thing you carve it into--you owned the marble before you transformed it, so you own it even after transformation. There's simply nothing to explain.

"You assert that creation is an invalid method for establishing property rights (and again, I side with you), but I do not think your argument in this piece is going to change anyone's mind who has made up his mind that it is valid. I recommend that you bolster your argument in this area."

If you follow the links, you'll see I have. This was a concise piece and not the place to bolster in detail.

Published: September 4, 2009 10:33 AM
DixieFlatline

Matthew,

Stephan's points are usually addressed less at the IP supporter, and more at bolstering the confidence and foundation of the anti-IP argument.

People who want to believe in mythical founding fathers, property rights which are nonsensical, and that they can sell ideas permanently out of their minds, will do so regardless.

Reach for the low hanging fruit. For every person who wants to argue about IP being legitimate, there are several who have yet to think it through and are easier to reason with.

Published: September 4, 2009 10:44 AM
Silas Barta

I notice you left out discussion of rights to radio waves, which makes your criticism of claiming rights in what other people can do with their stuff, kind of ring hollow. Perhaps that's why you left it out -- didn't want to let people know about the acknowledged holes in your argument. Anyway, here goes:

***

Like many libertarians, I initially assumed radio spectrum property (RP) was a legitimate type of property right. But I had misgivings from the start: there was just something too utilitarian and results oriented in supposedly principled cases for RP, and something too artificial about the state's bandwidth and usage class statutory classifications. I started listening to the radio around 1987, and the more I learned about RP, the more my doubts grew.

I finally realized that RP is incompatible with genuine property rights. (This echoed the sloughing off of my initial Randian minarchism in favor of Rothbardian anarchism, when I realized the state is aggression incarnate and cannot be justified. See the article, "What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist.")

And so, in 2006 I started publishing articles pointing out problems with RP, finally culminating in my brief 2008 Setting Things Straight post "The Shortest, Safest Libertarian Case for IP".

***

Anyone want me to do the rest?

Published: September 4, 2009 12:11 PM
Michael A. Clem

Whatever one's position on the radio spectrum, it doesn't change the arguments against IP presented in the current post. At best, assuming you are right, you can claim hypocrisy or inconsistency, but not a legitimate argument for IP.

Published: September 4, 2009 12:35 PM
Bill in StL

Mr. Kinsella,

Your assertion that enforcement of IP requires a state is not precisely correct. Like murder, theft, and failure to pay taxes, all that is required for enforcement is a critical mass of people who will support, or at least accept, an enforcement action.

Such support is easily imagined for non-controversial crimes against person and property. It is only those actions about which opinions are divided, such as drug prohibition and abortion, where a state is required to enforce laws. It is the public opinion of, not the basic justice or injustice of a potential rule that determines whether it could be enforced in a stateless society.

So, when you say one cannot enforce IP without the state, you are only correct to the degree that public opinion dismisses it. Should enough people decide IP is valid, a stateless enforcement could be achieved.

For instance, it is not necessary to maintain a large database of inventions and artistic works along the lines of the patent and copyright offices. The demonstration of prior publication of an artistic work could be accepted as prima facie evidence of a copyright infringement, subject to the traditional common law refinement of details. Similarly, an invention could be presumed original until a plaintiff could demonstrate some theft of a trade secret.

Published: September 4, 2009 12:56 PM
Stephan Kinsella

Silas Barta:

I notice you left out discussion of rights to radio waves, which makes your criticism of claiming rights in what other people can do with their stuff, kind of ring hollow. Perhaps that's why you left it out -- didn't want to let people know about the acknowledged holes in your argument.

Silas, Silas, Silas, Person, John Sharp, Richard Harding:
As you know I have not dodged this issue; it's discussed here. But you know, there are plenty of issues that are not discussed in this concise guide to IP, such as punishment theory, causation, oil & gas law, and EM spectrum ownership.

Bill in StL:

Your assertion that enforcement of IP requires a state is not precisely correct. Like murder, theft, and failure to pay taxes, all that is required for enforcement is a critical mass of people who will support, or at least accept, an enforcement action.

Copyright and patent are statutes, like the Americans with Disabilities Act. To have a statute, you need a legislature, which requires a state. You can't have copyright and patent without a statute.

True, some crude, primitive form of invention rights could conceivably evolve without a statute, in which case it would merely be unlibertarian, but not legislated.

Published: September 4, 2009 1:10 PM
mpolzkill

Bill in StL,

I was just thinking along these lines and I was starting to allude to it on another forum. Isn't there a pretty widespread and strong distaste for rip-off artists and counterfeiters? (I'm thinking of a fake Rolex, pairs of Jordache jeans) Wouldn't a truly free market be a far more wary and thus far more informed market? And wouldn't said market have the strongest market penalties for rip off artists and counterfeiters?

On the other side of the coin: look at Michael Bolton. He may have made more money than every classic soul performer that he ripped off combined (and didn't even thank Percy Sledge when he won his Grammy! Oh, that burns me!)

On the other, other side though, he did provide a new, safely bleached product derived from the old dangerous one, and may well have brought people to Mr. Sledge who never would have heard of him otherwise.

Published: September 4, 2009 1:23 PM
jc butte

Kinsella writes:

"True, some crude, primitive form of invention rights could conceivably evolve without a statute, in which case it would merely be unlibertarian, but not legislated."

So now you are declaring volutary asssociations in an anarchical society "unlibertarian?" That actually strikes me as pretty funny.

Have you ever read DeToqueville? If the USPTO were abolished tomorrow, there would be a private firm(s) issuing patents and protecting IP soon afterwards, supported by every manufacturing and trade association. I'm amazed someone who actually practices law in that field couldn't recognize that eventuality.

Published: September 4, 2009 2:59 PM
Stephan Kinsella

"butte":

"True, some crude, primitive form of invention rights could conceivably evolve without a statute, in which case it would merely be unlibertarian, but not legislated."

So now you are declaring volutary asssociations in an anarchical society "unlibertarian?"

No. If this was a private contractual rule enforced only against members of the contractual regime, that's fine. I meant if it was enforced against third parties who had not consented to it.

Have you ever read DeToqueville? If the USPTO were abolished tomorrow, there would be a private firm(s) issuing patents and protecting IP soon afterwards, supported by every manufacturing and trade association.

Hhahaha, nonsense.

I'm amazed someone who actually practices law in that field couldn't recognize that eventuality.

That's like saying people would find ways to tax and regulate even without the state. Funny.

Published: September 4, 2009 3:02 PM
jc butte

"That's like saying people would find ways to tax and regulate even without the state."

This sentence reveals the source of your error.

You obviously have no experience with any manufacturing industry. You no doubt are also ignorant of the fact that many federal regulations are essential and would simply revert to private firms to enforce in their (state agency) absence.

Published: September 4, 2009 3:17 PM
Russ

If a stateless society could not enforce IP laws without effectively becoming a state, how could a stateless society enforce EM spectrum rights (against third parties who had not consented to it) without becoming a state?

Published: September 4, 2009 3:21 PM
Troy Camplin, Ph.D.

Why isn't an idea property? You make the argument that there are property rights in people, places, and things -- but why not ideas? With an idea, one is creating a new thing, and adding to the universe. It takes me a lot of time and effort to come up with an idea. IP ensures that I am compensated for the work I do.

Think of it this way. Suppose I agree to work for someone for $5/hr. But when payday comes, he only pays me $2/hr. Doesn't he rob me of the work I did if he pays me less than half we agreed to?

Another way to think of it is like this: a patent or copyright is a contract, or a contractual rule. If I invent something, I can just keep it to myself, maybe produce it as a corporate secret. Or, I can offer to release the idea for others to use under the condition that people pay me for that usage. Why is that not a legitimate contract? And isn't that cheaper for everyone to not have to keep reinventing the wheel because people are afraid they aren't going to be compensated for the work they do?

This anti-IP stance seems to me to devalue intellectual work. How can one get compensated for one's ideas? You are suggesting that ideas are common property and belong to everyone equally. Why, then, come up with anything? As a creative writer, I have a hard enough time making money from my work. Without IP, it would be impossible.

Published: September 4, 2009 3:41 PM
filc

True, some crude, primitive form of invention rights could conceivably evolve without a statute, in which case it would merely be unlibertarian, but not legislated.

Even if it was un-libertarian a non-government enforced IP is completely feasible in a libertarian society. It just won't succeed or produce good profit, thats all.

The difference is, I would speculate, that consumers would naturally tend to purchase goods not covered under encumbering IP licensing agreements. In the long run, any attempt to do this would be at the loss of business, so those firms would naturally over the coarse of time abandon the IP practices or go out of business.

Published: September 4, 2009 4:12 PM
mpolzkill

Dr. Troy,

Did you read the whole article?

"How can one get compensated for one's ideas?

Ask someone if they want to give you money for one.

"You are suggesting that ideas are common property and belong to everyone equally. Why, then, come up with anything?"

I don't know exactly. But they sure do. Look at the history of jazz music and how it grew into an incredible and original art form with very little funds all around. I'll venture to say Charlie Parker came up with more than you ever did without a getting a penny (no insult intended, take Thelonious Monk, or Beethoven if you don't like Bird).

"As a creative writer, I have a hard enough time making money from my work. Without IP, it would be impossible."

In the early days of jazz there were musicians who thought like this. You've probably never heard of them. They were overtaken by the musicians who were open and shared ideas. Their ideas were freely given, but they still made MODEST livings from people just wanting to be in the same room with them ("IP" created ultra wealthy artists but where is it written that artists must make a lot of money? Can any one show that art improved because of their newfound wealth. I have strong opinions that it is the inverse) They were great, maybe only a few in any art really are. Maybe a handful in any art are enough.

Maybe exactly what you do now WOULD be rendered impossible without "IP", maybe that would be good for you. Maybe you would move on to another, better plain. Again, no insult intended. I'm an average musician. I've worked thousands of hours on musical ideas and received a bit of beer for it. Great musicians get big halls to play, great writers used to read in big halls.

Just some ideas here, hope I didn't piss you off.

PS. I know that the record companies in the first half of the 20th Century had "IP" and that the industry had less problems with copying technology. But, the royalties somehow evaded most jazz musicians. Louis Armstrong died with 100,000 dollars in the bank after a wildly successful 50 year career.

Published: September 4, 2009 4:18 PM
jc butte

filc, thats a valid point but I believe an incorrect one. Sure, pirated products and rogue firms would exist but they would exist on the fringe of society. You would find such products where you currently find fake Rolex watches. Reasons? Trade and merchandizing association rules, branding... At the level of industrial products, it would be virtually impossible for unauthorized products to gain a foothold; the market is too limited.

Published: September 4, 2009 4:21 PM
filc

Err, It's also worth pointing out that the only way to enforce IP is via a state. IP ideologies in a libertarian society would have to come up with their own technological means to protect their so called IP rights. Presently the state has been ill-equiped to enforce these silly laws so business's have attempted to prevent "Piracy" on their own. This is being realized in systems known as DRM.

The result however ends up at a net loss for the music industry however rather then a gain. First they waste a huge pool of capital to develop these sofisticated tools at preventing so called 'pircacy'. Secondly, customers naturally move away from such confining systems and platforms. In fact, some of these DRM applications in the past have been labled virus's. Case in point. DRM is a natural customer deterrent. Therefore the whole system operates at an economic loss. Without the state to inflict fear of repercussion such a system would not sustain itself for a long period of time.

Published: September 4, 2009 4:25 PM
filc

JC Butte
You would find such products where you currently find fake Rolex watches. Reasons? Trade and merchandizing association rules, branding...

Thanks for the comment JC. I don't think comparing software piracy is an apples to apples comparison. The laws of scarcity apply much differently in the digital world.

Published: September 4, 2009 4:37 PM
jc butte

filc, I totally agree with the above. Often anti-IP advocates concentrate on copyright issues rather than patents. However Kinsella assumes a global anti-IP stance and makes the argument that IP protection itself is impossible without a state to grant and enforce it. I disagree. I just limit myself to the areas where I have direct experience. I'll grant that without the USPTO, the realm of IP maybe become more limited.

Published: September 4, 2009 4:56 PM
Russ

jc butte wrote:

"... Often anti-IP advocates concentrate on copyright issues rather than patents. However Kinsella assumes a global anti-IP stance and makes the argument that IP protection itself is impossible without a state to grant and enforce it...."

I think that SK believes a contractually-based pseudo-IP scheme is compatible with anarchy, but would not be very effective. I also think he believes that a "true" IP scheme that would affect those third parties who had signed no contracts, would not be enforceable without leaving the bounds of anarcho-libertarianism. If my understanding of SK's position is correct, I actually agree with it.

I would be interested in how EM spectrum rights could be enforced meaningfully against third parties who have not signed contracts, without also leaving the bounds of anarcho-libertarianism.

Published: September 4, 2009 5:26 PM
jc butte

Russ, your comments above are interesting. They cause me to wonder whether yours and SK's notion of anarcho-libertarianism would require a state to enforce it, or conversely that it would be possible that an anarcho-libertarian society would violate the principles that it's theoreticians submit as essential.

Published: September 4, 2009 5:32 PM
Russ

JC,

I won't speak for SK here on the larger issue of anarcho-libertarianism. I only gave my interpretation of his opinion on IP because it seemed clear to me from his posts on this thread.

My personal view is that I don't think that anarcho-libertarianism necessarily requires a state, or that it is necessarily self-contradictory. I do believe it might evolve into a state, but that's another issue.

BTW, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not an anarcho-libertarian. I believe EM spectrum rights are justifiable on utilitarian grounds. I believe "true" IP is *in principle* justifiable on utilitarian grounds, but am not convinced that a good enough utilitarian case has been made. I can't see how either could be enforced without some sort of state.

Published: September 4, 2009 6:02 PM
Russ

JC,

On second though, I'm not sure that even regular property rights or contractual rights could be enforced without some sort of state. Take EM spectrum rights as an example. Some people would think that EM spectrum rights are valid, others would think that they violate their property rights with respect to their own transmitters. How could you get everybody to agree to one version of EM spectrum rights without resort to coercion? You couldn't. If you put two anarcho-libertarians in a room, you will probably get two opinions on the matter; maybe three. *grin* Similarly, how could you get everybody to agree to one version of property or contractual rights? You couldn't. You'd have to resort to force. So maybe anarcho-libertarianism is self-contradictory.

Thanks for making me think about this.

Published: September 4, 2009 6:30 PM
filc

Russ, JC,

The Anarcho-Capitalist argument is that a free-market private organization could be realized to meet the services of things like protecting private property. A free market court system for dealing with contractual disputes, ect..

Incidentally Stephan Kinsella has already written about this.

Also read Chaos Theory by Robert Murphy.

Enjoy the reading.

Published: September 4, 2009 6:38 PM
Russ

filc,

I've read "Chaos Theory", and it depends wholly on a contractual basis for society. This depends on a shared notion of what constitutes contractual rights. But how do you make sure that everybody works from a shared notion of contractual rights? If you don't resort to force, the system breaks down. If you do resort to force, then you have a sort of state.

Published: September 4, 2009 6:43 PM
filc

Force isn't necessary. In a free society business's that choose to participate in more shadey types of agreements will naturally suffer since the consumer will responsibly decide not to associate with those providers.

Consumers will then naturally be drawn to responsible firms and business's they can trust. The market, through innovation, will also create technological means of protecting the consumer. Consider the now general retail standard, 30-day return policy agreements you see all over the place. This is a product of the free market, no government needed.

You will also see "Contracts" as we understand them simplify in most cases. As stated before in this thread our beleif is that typical licensing laws would dwindle as they wuold not be desireable in a true free-trade environment. What that means is if you purchase something from you, you own it. You wouldn't own a license to use it, you would simply own it.

This makes fraud, theft, extortion, and other criminal acts extremely transparent or more black and white. Unlike our society where Fraud, theft, and extortion are a hazy gray area and in some cases not always illegal. This would never be the case in an an-cap society. The point is the market would regulate itself.

If a man chooses to overtly be evil society will naturally tend to move away from doing business with him for fear of the 'guilty by association'. Business's incentive then becomes being honest and offering good business. Business's equally have the right to discriminate against who they do business with. They may decide to revoke doing business with the town drunk for fear of bad press. This offers incentive to all individuals.

I couldn't honestly begin to explain everything here and there are others who could do a much better job then I. What I would recommend for you, if your interested, is ask your very question above on the mises.org forums. Just be sincere and you will get sincere responses from people far more intelligent on the matter then I. Thanks Russ!

Published: September 4, 2009 6:58 PM
Russ

filc,

You're assuming that I am a newbie to libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. I've been interested in them for quite some time. I read Rothbard etc. in the mid to late '90s, and for a time considered myself an anarcho-capitalist. After 9/11 I started to reconsider my position. I just have sincere differences of opinion regarding how well anarcho-capitalism would work. But thanks for your advice, and for not ridiculing me for my differences of opinion. There are others here that will take care of that! *grin*

Published: September 4, 2009 7:17 PM
newson

russ and silas barta show the risk to the anti-ip position of acknowledging electromagnetic spectrum rights. i think this needs more fleshing out by kinsella and tecnical experts in the field. i think this is work-in-progress.

Published: September 4, 2009 7:52 PM
filc

JC,

If anything 9-11 should have you running from state-run protection. How can the worlds supposed most powerful military conveniently be running test operatives the day of 9-11? Where was or national defense that day? Oh thats right halfway across the country doing training ops! :) Some defense. And instead of holding those officials accountable for pretty much disposing of our entire national defense we went to war. If anything 9-11 was further proves that our country doesn't even have the managerial ability to protect us.

Also we've been foreign occupying those middle-eastern countries for a decade. It becomes a chicken-egg argument, which came first? There those who believe that 9-11 was nothing more then blowback from us already illegally occupying other sovereign nations.

I get your point though

Published: September 4, 2009 7:58 PM
scott t

"I was just thinking along these lines and I was starting to allude to it on another forum. Isn't there a pretty widespread and strong distaste for rip-off artists and counterfeiters?"

i dont know....i see something on tv called diamond-ique that is supposed to look like diamonds...and it apparently sells. numerous places serve 'the taco' are they ripping each other off?

Published: September 4, 2009 8:12 PM
jc butte

filc, the connection between IP and 9/11 is lost on me, lol.

Published: September 4, 2009 8:54 PM
Bob Alexander

I don't quite follow this argument. Let's say I come across some land and I'm the first human there. I start farming it, so now I have a claim to it. When someone else comes to use it, I basically say "I was here first. See all the labor I've invested." And so the land, which was created with the planet, becomes mine. Everyone else has to find some other land. If they want the food I grow, I might consider selling them some, but they can't just take it.

Alternatively, I sit and think and come up with an idea. When someone else comes to use it, why can't I say "I thought of it first. See all the thinking and experimenting and building I did"? Not only have I invested labor, but unlike the land that was created with the planet, I created something that didn't exist before. Shouldn't my claim be even stronger? Shouldn't I be able to demand that everyone else come up with different ideas, just as I demand that use different land? If they want to use my idea, I might consider selling it to them, but they can't just take it.

Rand tried to make an ironclad proof of rights by asserting that an individual's survival is good. But the reality is that her premise was not a fact; it was a value judgment. And the people she called anti-life would dispute it (e.g. saying that society's well being is more important than the individual's survival).

If something as basic as that is a value judgment, then ownership of land vs. ownership of ideas is also a value judgment. And value judgments, alas, end up being argued on utilitarian grounds.

I know libertarians (and I consider myself one) and objectivists hate to hear things like that. But all logical arguments start with a premise - an assumption. And in human affairs, the premises are always subject to debate.

Published: September 4, 2009 9:36 PM
newson

bob alexander says:
"Alternatively, I sit and think and come up with an idea."

- a completely original idea, which owes absolutely nothing to the ocean of ideas in which we swim? does that sound likely?

Published: September 5, 2009 12:25 AM
Bala

SK,

Thanks a ton for this post. This definitely is a better way of responding to my comment and request on your earlier blog ("Microsoft now wants a galactic IP"). This definitely makes the Libertarian position very clear to me. However, there is a very basic point I have to make. I will be brief now and will soon respond in detail. (The reason is that I live in India and it is now 2:30 pm. I am at work and will be able to post any detailed message only sometime tomorrow.)

The simple point is that a theory is only as valid as its axioms. Your axiom, which you have made adequately clear and referenced Rothbard for, is that

"All rights are property rights".

This is what I think is completely wrong. Yes. Like you said in an earlier response that Mises was wrong, I am now, with no loss of the respect I have for Murray Rothbard and his writings and ideas on Economics, saying that Rothbard was wrong on this one.

Hence, you are too.

More in my next post. Thanks once again for putting up this paper.

Published: September 5, 2009 4:04 AM
Bala

Sorry about the repetition. The first time I tried posting, I got an "error" message and hence, tried posting a second time and then found 2 occurences of the same comment.

Published: September 5, 2009 4:08 AM
Peter

You would find such products where you currently find fake Rolex watches

Currently, at least where I live, people selling fake Rolex watches can be prosecuted and the watches destroyed. This is because of the government. For this reason, I wouldn't know where to find fake Rolexes (I got mine at a street market in Kuala Lumpur, 25 years ago, for about $10). Get rid of the regulation, and that would change -- I'd bet you'd find fake Rolexes wherever you went.

Published: September 5, 2009 6:08 AM
Shay

Excellent summarizing article. Sorry for the length of the quotes below.

Troy Camplin wrote, "[...] there are property rights in people, places, and things -- but why not ideas? With an idea, one is creating a new thing, and adding to the universe."

IP causes this "addition" to take property rights away from everyone.

"IP ensures that I am compensated for the work I do. [...] Suppose I agree to work for someone for $5/hr. But when payday comes, he only pays me $2/hr. Doesn't he rob me of the work I did if he pays me less than half we agreed to?"

Yes, and if there was an agreement (contract), you can sue for full payment. Regarding IP, your example applies regardless of the work you do for that person. You could be digging ditches, coming up with ideas, or whatever you contracted to do. If he doesn't pay, you have a case against him. No IP laws are necessary for this arrangement.

"If I invent something, I can just keep it to myself, maybe produce it as a corporate secret. Or, I can offer to release the idea for others to use under the condition that people pay me for that usage. Why is that not a legitimate contract?"

Because it would have to bind all property owners now and forever, which is contrary to how contracts work, that is only binding those who agree to it.

"And isn't that cheaper for everyone to not have to keep reinventing the wheel because people are afraid they aren't going to be compensated for the work they do?"

The solution to being unable to find a viable way to make money isn't necessarily state intervention to force people to pay you money; you might need to accept that your chosen way of making money isn't going to work.

"This anti-IP stance seems to me to devalue intellectual work."

The way I see it, ideas are valuable, due to the laws of nature making them virtually costless to share. But since they are so easy to share, they don't naturally lend themselves to being sold. IP laws impose artifical restrictions on sharing, thus making it easier to use the standard "invest in product, sell product" model to find their creation. Thus, IP laws decrease the real value of ideas by making use of some of their most valuable aspects illegal.

"Why, then, come up with anything? As a creative writer, I have a hard enough time making money from my work. Without IP, it would be impossible."

Explain the existence of works created before copyright.

Bob Alexander wrote, "Let's say I come across some land and I'm the first human there. I start farming it, so now I have a claim to it. When someone else comes to use it, I basically say "I was here first. See all the labor I've invested." And so the land, which was created with the planet, becomes mine. Everyone else has to find some other land. If they want the food I grow, I might consider selling them some, but they can't just take it.

Alternatively, I sit and think and come up with an idea. When someone else comes to use it, why can't I say "I thought of it first. See all the thinking and experimenting and building I did"? Not only have I invested labor, but unlike the land that was created with the planet, I created something that didn't exist before. Shouldn't my claim be even stronger?" Shouldn't I be able to demand that everyone else come up with different ideas, just as I demand that use different land? If they want to use my idea, I might consider selling it to them, but they can't just take it.

In your land example, if they took your crops, you'd have fewer crops. If someone used your idea, you'd still have the idea. What you want is to be able to come up with an idea, and then tell everyone in the universe that they cannot use their property to implement that idea.

Published: September 5, 2009 8:15 AM
Troy Camplin, Ph.D.

I did read the entire article, and I'm not convinced. People do pay you for your ideas -- if you can prove those ideas. A copyright is given once you prove your ideas work. The copyright makes it accessible to the public. Otherwise, there is going to be greater temptation to keep things corporate secrets. The bottom line is that those against IP are somehow arguing that intellectual work doesn't create intellectual property, which itself isn't valid. As someone whose work is almost entirely intellectual, I couldn't disagree more.

Now, the fact that I'm not compensated monetarily doesn't mean that I don't produce. Quite the contrary. I've had poems and short stories published without being paid -- with one exception. Certainly, without IP, I would still be paid (or not) for original published work. But another problem would definitely come about.

One of the things copyright does is protect writers, musicians, etc. from the predatory actions of others. That may be corporations who want to use a song without my permission to make money from advertising (which makes me think those against IP aren't so much for the free market as for corporate interests -- which is a very different thing). That may be other authors who want to take my work and pass it off as their own. In academia, we call that plagiarism. IP is a legal protection against plagiarism. At least, for those still living.

One of the complaints I read against IP is regarding renewal. And on that, I agree. If the author is no longer living, the originator of the idea can no longer be compensated. The person's family didn't come up with the idea, so why should they receive compensation? I could be convinced of that argument. But not while the author of the idea is alive.

Overall, I just don't think China is a good example of how we ought to run things when it comes to IP.

Published: September 5, 2009 10:37 AM
gene

A good article and I agree that IP "rights" are a function of the State and not any "natural" or justified occurence.

what I didn't agree with is the ability of "contractual" monopolies to function in a free market.

one can contract the ability not to "copy" a purchased product and also prohibit any "giving" or "reselling" of the product without a further restriction on the new owner. actual theft is illegal.

in this way, although cumbersome and with transaction cost, monopoly is insured. it has a market cost and would have to compete against non restricted product. this is in contrast to the subsidized "idea" profit and "illicit" control of other's property that is the norm now.

it is a small disagreement and the article never states that such contracts should be made "illegal", so there is no real debate, just conjecture.

Published: September 5, 2009 10:40 AM
Bob Alexander

Shay writes:
"In your land example, if they took your crops, you'd have fewer crops. If someone used your idea, you'd still have the idea. What you want is to be able to come up with an idea, and then tell everyone in the universe that they cannot use their property to implement that idea."

In my land example, I also restrict other peoples' rights. I've laid claim to an area, and they're no longer allowed to walk onto it without my permission. Any property right imposes a restriction on others. Leftists frequently point this out as an argument that property is contrary to freedom.

Similarly, an IP right would impose a restriction on others. The original article says this is invalid because it restricts another person's freedom - essentially the same argument the leftists make.

Libertarians accept that one person's rights limit another actions - and that's OK. My property rights restrict what you can do. A criminal's actions can result in him losing his freedom. The question of whether to add IP to the list of things that can restrict freedom is a value judgment, not an objective principle.

Published: September 5, 2009 11:17 AM
Russ

Shay wrote:

"...What you want is to be able to come up with an idea, and then tell everyone in the universe that they cannot use their property to implement that idea."

EM spectrum rights work the same way; an "owner" of EM spectrum rights wants to tell everyone in the universe that they cannot use their property (their transmitters) on a certain frequency, if it interferes with the "owner's" broadcasts.

And as Bob Alexander has pointed out, property rights work the same way, also; an "owner" of land want to tell everyone in the universe that they cannot use their property (their cars, for instance) to drive through the "owner's" property.

All notions of property rights involve limitations on what others can do with their property. If one form of property rights is invalid in principle for this reason, then they all are. Of course, you could admit that they are all valid in principle, say on a utilitarian basis, but argue that some forms of property (IP, for instance) would not result in utilitarian gains.

Published: September 5, 2009 12:03 PM
mpolzkill

Bala REALLY wants to know, and writes (where I think hardly anyone saw his question):

"I wonder what would be the incentive for anyone at all to come up with good ideas if almost anyone could use a commercially viable idea that they produced (please note that I do not say created). I am somehow worried about the situation where no one at all is interested in investing a lifetime (or any portion of it) developing ideas that will inevitably be hijacked by someone else. I therefore have the sneaky feeling that Libertarianism is a one-way street to the Dark Ages. In simpler terms, I am saying that if you create an environment in which ideas cannot be given the status of property rights, you will have a world in which no one will create ideas or if they do create, share them. Is this not what the Dark Aages were all about? Would you care to prove me wrong?"

I'm sure someone else here can give a powerful response; but will they PROVE that not respecting the concept of "IP" will lead to a "Dark Age"? Passing over the novel suggestion that the supposed "Dark Ages" were the result of insufficient enforcement of "IP" "rights", I don't know how such a thing can be proved.

My response goes for Troy Camplin, Ph.D, as well. Particularly his, "how we ought to run things":

I plead with you both (and suggest to all who haven't) to read this (if you two have read it, I hope you do so again):

http://www.constitution.org/hs/ignore_state.htm

Spenser brilliantly lays out "that a legislature is not "our God upon earth," though, by the authority they [the politically superstitions] ascribe to it, and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is." The State is a foul tool, and it will never be your tool but in the smallest way possible, and only if you are of use to the State. Hence, you ask them to enforce "IP" at an unknowable price. It is my OPINION (based on my understanding of the history of the world and the successful predictions of economists like Mises) that this is a bad idea, as it is YOUR opinion that it's a necessary one. How shall this difference of opinion be resolved? Yes, if you somehow miss the powerful meaning of Spenser's essay, you will appeal to the gun.

As an aside: It is also my opinion that anyone who could ever believe that no one would create anything without IP, has never really created anything too earth-shattering. Creative people MUST create, I'd say they couldn't stop it short of suicide. I only speak as a musician and from my knowledge of the great ones. I'm imagining a young Beethoven on our forum here, trying to get some assurances that his "IP" is safely protected by the State before embarking on his profound life.

Published: September 5, 2009 12:07 PM
Ned Netterville

Great article invoking a great discussion. I concur with Mr. Kinsella's conclusion on the basis of his final argument alone. ("IP requires both a legislature and a state. For libertarians who reject the legitimacy of the state or legislated law, this is yet another defect of IP.") And I think mposkill's comments to Dr.Troy are most germane. ("Maybe exactly what you do now WOULD be rendered impossible without "IP", maybe that would be good for you. Maybe you would move on to another, better plain. Again, no insult intended."

No one knows exactly what the world without states would be like, but many smart libertarians (viz., anarchists/voluntaryists) like Rothbard have logically deduced that we would all be better off without 'em. The essential problem with states is that their nature involves the initiation of force without provocation, if for no other reason than to collect the taxes upon which states depend.

As I see it, there are two big barrier on the way to heaven (viz., that place without any states), which may actually be only one problem observed from two different angles. One is fear of the unknown and the other man's (innate?) desire for security. For God-fearing people, Frederic Bastiat's concluding advice in his magnificent essay, THE LAW, may contain the answer to overcoming these hurdles: "Let us cast out all artificial systems and give freedom a chance--freedom which is an act of faith in God and in His handiwork." Libertarian atheists may vanquish the bogeyman of the state as a necessary evil by resort to common sense: the initiation of violence is certain to produce more violence and a state of unending conflict. Impirically, that is what we've always experienced under the sway of human governments. (For a simple, observable, repeatable, practical experiment available to doubters that should establish the truth of this common-sense conclusion, walk into any crowded bar and initiate violence by punching a patron in the nose, or, more in tune with the actions of a state, by grabbing the cash off the bar that is in front of some patrons. You mayl become a believer)

Published: September 5, 2009 12:20 PM
Russ

newson wrote:

"russ and silas barta show the risk to the anti-ip position of acknowledging electromagnetic spectrum rights. i think this needs more fleshing out by kinsella and tecnical experts in the field. i think this is work-in-progress."

Thank you for saying this. This makes me feel that I have achieved a small victory, at least, in my self-appointed role as anti-ancap gadfly. *grin*

Published: September 5, 2009 12:25 PM
mpolzkill

I wanted to slightly amend and add to one passage of my sermon:

It is my OPINION (based on my understanding of the history of the world, moral philosophy and the successful predictions of economists like Mises) that this is a bad idea, as it is YOUR opinion that it's a necessary one. How shall this difference of opinion be resolved? Yes, if you don't change your opinion, and I copy an idea of yours, if you believe you have been financially hurt, you will appeal to the gun. You will appeal to the gun when I have not assaulted you, taken anything that was truly in your possession or broken contract with you.

Published: September 5, 2009 12:32 PM
mpolzkill

Russ, tongue-in-cheek, I realize, but still on the mark:

"my self-appointed role as anti-ancap gadfly"

Yet another treasure we have to thank 9/11* for.

(A very minor "treasure", not up there with the Rape of Baghdad or anything. I know that I, as a self-appointed anti-Russ gadfly, must always carefully qualify the level and effects of Russ's State advocacy)

* The tragic events resulting on 09/11/2001 from the State's self-appointed, exclusive and wildly incompetent protection of us.

Published: September 5, 2009 1:36 PM
mpolzkill

Ned Netterville,

I very much appreciate your small kudos and your thoughts on this forum (Bastiat is definitely the right call here). You have caused me a bit of embarrassment however. I had hoped no one would notice my "move on to another, better plain". And here you've unwittingly picked it out my error and reprinted it. That should have read, "better PLANE". I'm over-sensitive, I know. Consider me the Anton Bruckner of blogging.

Published: September 5, 2009 1:48 PM
mpolzkill

* overly sensitive

Ha ha, I didn't go to finishing school and a thousand taunts forever ring in my mind.

And I'm sorry to all for all the posts, and the unsolicited personal history, and amateur psychology, and generally going off topic. I'm done, even if I find another my gauchery. (I'm coining that, "gauchery")

Great forum, everybody.

Published: September 5, 2009 2:09 PM
filc

Sorry JC. I got confused. Apparently I should have responded to Russ.

Published: September 5, 2009 3:00 PM
Russ

filc,

I'd love to respond to your 9/11 remarks, but JC is right; that would be far off topic. So why don't we save such thoughts until a more opportune moment presents itself?

Published: September 5, 2009 3:19 PM
Mark Jones

This turned out to be quite long and is broken up into a few areas of inquiry. I think it worthwhile.

----
Those who argue that patent or copyright rights are separate from property rights have not a leg to stand on.

Disagree? Then, please, inform me of a definition of copyright and patent rights that make no mention of property rights, that are not defined by a description of property rights supposedly granted to the copyright or patent holder.

------

Secondly, to those claiming to own ideas and who say that others should not be able to use the ideas of their "creation," I ask how you expect people to know your idea and not use it.

That is, perhaps, unclear. If you claim complete property rights over an idea, such that any use is theft, how can you even inform others of your claim without causing them to use your idea?

--------

Thirdly, if you wish to declare a system of "intellectual property," it is your onus to prove, first, that what you describe can be properly called property. You can not expect others to honor property rights where no property exists.

---------

Fourthly, while you may currently sustain yourself from profits made due to the existence of the fallacy of intellectual property, this does not support the continuation of said fallacy. That you live only by theft or unprovoked coercion at this time does not justify the perpetuation of a system of theft and unprovoked coercion.

If what you do is not profitable without a bully acting on your behalf, then you must live by other means. It may be difficult for you, but that is just the way of things. I am both sorry for the state of mind which allows you to think otherwise in these matters and provoked to anger by your attempted usurpations of my property rights.

---------

As for how one might profit from ideas, I have a few suggestions that derive from the current state of affairs. All jobs require creativity to varying degrees. Consultants, lawyers, mechanics, and engineers all have jobs in which ideas and creativity are in great demand. Of course, these are all very "physical." Less physical are the jobs of journalists, graphic artists, editors, copywriters, and advertisers.

Now, perhaps not all jobs or work that is primarily "creative" will continue to be profitable. Some claim this would be a terrible occurrence. "What would happen to the artist? The musician!?" Current developments can provide a partial answer and an indication of a trend.

As you surely know, with the advent of inexpensive personal computing, the Internet, and personal music devices, outlawed property rights due to copyrights with relation to music have been flagrantly ignored. Music is now widely shared for little expense and for little recompense, in some cases, to the writers and performers. What has happened to the industry? What changes have occurred? How do those artists who find little monetary profit deal with these circumstances?

Despite the hubbub, many artists are very grateful for this state of affairs. Where 20 years ago their music would have had an exceedingly small effect without some providential occurrence, today their music is discovered, heard, and appreciated globally. Despite this, some benefit little monetarily and, yet, continue to produce music. Are these people mad? Perhaps, but they are still rational actors acting in their own benefit. To them, it brings them happiness that their music is so enjoyed.

Yet others manage to reap appreciable sums from their efforts while imposing no or comparatively lax copyright restrictions. How do they do this? The particular method varies, but it can be said that creative marketing and the use of the fame to sell related services and products describes many such operations.

Now, a similar approach can be used in any other creative industry. I know a fellow who invented numerous time, effort, and cost saving processes in the machining and mold and tool making industry. Many of these ideas were developed while working for others and freely shared. These ideas can be said to have allowed him to receive excellent recommendations to find very gainful employment. This then allowed him to save sufficient funds to go into business for himself and use his ideas and those he continued to create to great gain.

If you wish to gainfully employ your creativity, you must determine the best way to sell your creativity. It is often not enough to have a good idea; its execution will determine one's gain.

Published: September 5, 2009 4:55 PM
K Ackermann

Two examples that I see playing out right now speak poorly for the utility of IP ownership.

The first one is the systematic "trolling" for IP by organizations that intend to use legal mechanisms to maximize financial gain by licensing IP, and by sueing for damages in cases of infringment. They may have the right to do so, but let's look at what it does:

They contribute nothing to the actual development of R&D, and in all likelihood, tie up some amount of funding that would otherwise find it's way to direct R&D investment. Rather than feed the artist, they starve the artist and effectively invest in what can only be an inferior product, and probably delay the introduction of it to boot.

On the practical side, one recurring complaint is that the IP ownership is often obfuscated, with the net result being that companies lose out on the normal process of writing contracts, and negotiating terms, as the terms wind up being dictated in the course of a settlement. They neither create wealth, nor promote the creation of wealth.

The other example is the tax imposed by branding. Branding has great utility for the owner, but in most cases, it is a psychological phenomena. There is not practical value in a label to a consumer. For most products, I don't know how to argue this, but for medicine, it is an undue taxation.

Drugs are designed to fit very specific sites in biological organisms. In many cases, there are no other options, because the shape of the receptors cannot be changed. Drug companies effectively claiming rights to platonic Circles, and Squares, as
their property.

I find it impossible to completely divorce the issue from morality too. A charitable agent is actually prohibited from distributing life-saving, or life-enhancing platonic shapes that have no viable alternatives. Medicine is the one product people can be forced to consume, yet it is treated like any other product such as a car, even though you can pick from a wide variety of cars, and you will not die if you don't purchase one.

I don't know the right way to frame this axiomatically.

I do know that requests for me to rationalize the issue on free market principles over the years has so far left me unconvinced that medicine is not different. I would have to lie to myself that a company's right to patent a platonic shape that is important to people's very existance trumps all. I don't feel that way about cars, or anything else except maybe food, air, and water. Food is readily available in a variety of flavors, and air and water are pervasive for the time being. We will have to burn that bridge when we get to it.

Published: September 6, 2009 12:07 AM
newson

to k ackerman:

your argument that somehow medicine is different to other essentials like food, etc ignores why food is so abundant and cheap in the developed world - it's an area where the government does not exercise total control.

the non-ip pharmaceutical model would be different, to be sure; probably many more smaller, incremental developments rather than large-ticket projects. pharmaceutical companies may pool resources to fund the clinical trials (the largest cost item).

abolishing the fda would lower barriers to entry, and smaller firms could also compete more effectively. consumers would have to rely on trusted names, and review services would spring up to fill the information void.

Published: September 6, 2009 4:36 AM
K Ackermann

@newson, hmmm, I don't know about the gov't and food. They still have their hands in too much of it, and in the wrong areas.

I'm not against food safety inspectors. I am against subsidizing so much junk we put in our bodies.

A girl that I date has a little niece, and they stayed the weekend a while ago. I was up late working, and I figured I would have a piece of the carrot cake I bought. It was about 1:00am, and I tried opening the plastic shell to get at my cake, and I woke everybody up, and one guest was very upset, and the other one wanted carrot cake.

Instead of getting work done, now I'm babysitting a 3-year old who I watched become hyper after eating the cake. I only ate a couple of bites because I swear I could taste the chemicals in it.

The next day, I went shopping to cook a big Sunday dinner for them, and I bought a cake mix and pudding, and yes, a can of frosting, and instead of that little girl sitting in front of a TV, we kept busy for an hour and a half making a superior product that does not cause sleep loss, polute, and has ingredients that the human body knows how to digest. I didn't have to clean her, so it was a win all around.

Published: September 6, 2009 5:12 AM
Murray Rothbard

"Now the man who seizes another’s property is living in basic contradiction to his own nature as a man. For we have seen that man can only live and prosper by his own production and exchange of products. The aggressor, on the other hand, is not a producer at all but a predator; he lives parasitically off the labor and product of others. Hence, instead of living in accordance with the nature of man, the aggressor is a parasite who feeds unilaterally by exploiting the labor and energy of other men. Here is clearly a complete violation of any kind of universal ethic, for man clearly cannot live as a parasite; parasites must have non-parasites, producers, to feed upon. The parasite not only fails to add to the social total of goods and services, he depends completely on the production of the host body. And yet, any increase in coercive parasitism decreases ipso facto the quantity and the output of the producers, until finally, if the producers die out, the parasites will quickly follow suit.

Thus, parasitism cannot be a universal ethic, and, in fact, the growth of parasitism attacks and diminishes the production by which both host and parasite survive. Coercive exploitation or parasitism injure the processes of production for everyone in the society. Any way that it may be considered, parasitic predation and robbery violate not only the nature of the victim whose self and product are violated, but also the nature of the aggressor himself, who abandons the natural way of production—of using his mind to transform nature and exchange with other producers—for the way of parasitic expropriation of the work and product of others. In the deepest sense, the aggressor injures himself as well as his unfortunate victim. This is fully as true for the complex modern society as it is for Crusoe and Friday on their island.

Published: September 6, 2009 5:41 AM
Gil

"This anti-IP stance seems to me to devalue intellectual work." - Troy Camplin, Ph.D.

"The way I see it, ideas are valuable, due to the laws of nature making them virtually costless to share. But since they are so easy to share, they don't naturally lend themselves to being sold." - Shay.

Or should that be "intellectual work has been and still is artificially overvalued by threat of force"? People should be singing songs around campfires for the fun of it, it shouldn't be a serious multi-billion dollar industry.

"So, when you say one cannot enforce IP without the state, you are only correct to the degree that public opinion dismisses it. Should enough people decide IP is valid, a stateless enforcement could be achieved." - Bill in StL.

If I.P. is not real property and can be only be enforced through threat of violence then there can be no private equivalent as they are engaging in violence (or the threat thereof) too.

Of course, it is interesting the way real property doesn't need everyone to consent to it for it be held sacred in perpetuity.

Published: September 6, 2009 6:56 AM
thesixthsense

the channeled ghost of murray rothbard apologizes and says he screwed up on copyright. we are all dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants. he says the only parasites draw a public wage.

Published: September 6, 2009 7:08 AM
antiip

Let us do a basic thought experiment:

Imagine a world full of tiny objects called atoms, which are indivisible. These atoms can be stuck together to make molecules. There exist many such molecules which on a greater scale are found as certain structures/objects.

Imagine three inhabitants in this world: A, B, and C.
Those inhabitants are themselves a structure consisting of molecules, which whatever the circumstances are produce in these inhabitants some sort of mind.

Therefore A, B and C are considered to be some sort of intelligent acting agents.

Questions arise: Who is to determine what A, B and C are allowed to do, that is how the can use their body consisting of these atoms?

Questions of (natural) right arise.

Who is allowed to use the objects of this world (that is the atoms, which are found in the molecules, which are found in the objects)?
What is propertA, B and C

Questions concerning natural right about self-ownership and ownership arise.

The result:
Property is the right to exclude others from using the owned objects, that is the molecules in these objects, that is the atoms. The right to exclude certain interaction with these atoms.

So far so good.

But what about IP?

IP would be the right to PATTERNS of these object, the right to certain constellations of the atoms. The right to information.

Could there be a super-right to patterns, that is higher that the right to the atoms themselves?

Those rights (pattern-rights) would subsequently diminish the right to the object.

Imagine A was the owner of object X and himself.

Imagine B invented something with another object Y that was of the same kind as object X.

Does the (later) invention of B give him the right to certain forms of use of object X? Does B have a right to say in which kind of patterns X could be used and in which not?

What if A wants to sell object X to C? Does B have any right to forbid that?

You see: Rights to patterns LOGICALLY would be superior to rights to atoms, molecules and objects..

Published: September 6, 2009 2:26 PM
antip

The case of EM spectrum rights:

Imagine there is a large patch of unowned land. On the east of it there is land owned by person A.

Person A uses very powerful light signals (high light density) and smoke signals from the second floor of his house to inform some persons in the west of this unowned patch of land with news.

Imagine you homestead this patch of land.

Does A have a right to transmit his EM signals (YES light is EM!) through your patch of land? Does he have the right to tell you not to build ANYTHING obstructing the path of his light on your property?

Or do you have the right to build on your patch of land a house, even if that is in the way of the light stream?
Do you have the right to tell A to stop using his very powerful light signals in the night, because he is harming your property (plants don't grow too well if there isn't a long enough break of light because they can't rest)?

Other example:

Your neighbor B uses a powerful sender that emits certain EM waves, that do not harm anything you own at the moment. Sometime later you buy a certain machine that doesn't work, because of this EM waves. On the long run your machine will be destroyed by those EM waves If in your opinion your neighbor B had the right to emit those EM waves, than it is your problem that your machine is destroyed. Is that your opinion?

The problem of servitudes arise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servitude_in_civil_law

Published: September 6, 2009 2:39 PM
Troy Camplin, Ph.D.

It's not a matter of sitting around making sure my work is protected before I create. I create. Period. That being the case, why should I be forced to give everything away willy-nilly. I'm sorry, but that's the same logic the socialists have with material production. It's the duty of the capitalists to give away their intellectual labor that they put in that makes it possible to produce anything at all. That is the attitude of the Marxists and other socialists -- something Hayek observed to be the case. It is precisely intellectual production that must be protected, as that is the soul of the catallaxy. In the end, the creative worker ends up giving the vast majority of his work away anyway. Why go out of our way to make it even more difficult to receive payment for that work? Here is exactly the wrong attitude:

"People should be singing songs around campfires for the fun of it, it shouldn't be a serious multi-billion dollar industry."

What a load of nonsense! Marxist to the core is what that attitude is. The fact that people can make billions from music and songs doesn't in any way prevent people from atavistically sitting around a campfire and singing those same songs. In fact, there has been a proliferation of songs because of the music industry. In the end, though, if you don't like IP-produced songs, stop buying music and only get the stuff made freely available online. There's a pretty good reason why you and everyone else against IP likely don't or won't.

As for guns, why is it okay to threaten people for stealing physical property, but not for stealing my ideas, which may in fact provide me with a real chance at making a living. It may be right that IP isn't good law now, but that doesn't mean we throw out the baby with the bath water. We need good IP laws, that allow the various artistic spontaneous orders to be maximally productive and creative. Part of that means people who want their works protected can get them protected.

Intellectual work is not overvalued. Intellectual work is the only source of anything we have at all, is the source of all creativity and growth in all the spontaneous orders. If anything, we undervalue it. For the Marxist and socialists, it's barely valued -- or understood to have any value -- at all.

Published: September 6, 2009 9:01 PM
newson

troy, because your ideas aren't that original. what you think has also been thought and expressed by millions of others in the course of history.

Published: September 6, 2009 10:30 PM
Michael A. Clem

Troy, you are assuming that IP protection would increase creativity and creative works. This is the first argument and perhaps most important argument Stephan raised. Show that IP protection is truly beneficial, it's not self-evident.
Also, If intellectual "property" was truly property, then why shouldn't it be passed down in perpetuity to the creator's inheritors? Because it is not truly property. Can you imagine someone homesteading land, and when that person dies, it becomes common or public land instead of going to his heirs?

Published: September 7, 2009 9:25 AM
Bala

SK,

Like I promised, I am responding to the specific point I objected to. I think your entire theory is flawed because at the root lies the assumption that “all rights are property rights”. Even more monstrous is to go on and talk of “scarce resources” and treat people and their bodies as scarce resources. Sounds very much like an economist trying to apply the tools of economics to politics.

To begin with, I need to mention that while you may have read Ayn Rand, I think you don’t have a clue about the meaning and implications of what she said. Further, your entire understanding is from the perspective of a lawyer, not that of a political philosopher (though you seem to like to pretend like one). Hence the bundle of misunderstandings and misrepresentations.

What Rand proposed, above all, was a MORAL FRAMEWORK.

A moral framework is not a guide for designing a legal system (though it should be if the legal system is to make sense). It is a guide for individual action.

Morals are a code of values. A moral framework is a code that helps a man assign a value to every option he ever faces and thus enables him to make choices from available options. Value is subjective and relative. Nothing has intrinsic value. Value is that benefit which something brings to me. It is the enhancement of my life that comes with it. The ultimate value for man is his life. Everything else is valued relative to it. Without life, no other value has any meaning.

Life itself is a sequence of self-generated self-sustaining actions. While other animals engage in actions based on instinct, man acts based on rational choices worked out by his mind, which in turn works on the basis of the concepts he has gathered till-date and his (individual) assessment of reality. To sustain life, man needs to act. To act, he needs to what will enhance the conditions of his life and what will worsen them and thus make it tougher for him to sustain his life. This is where a Moral Framework comes in. Because man lacks the instinct that other animals have, he depends completely on his moral framework to guide his actions.

Man is also apart from other animals in the range of concepts he can form. “Range” here refers to spatial as well as temporal. Man, unlike other animals, can form concepts of time. In particular, he can form concepts of time way beyond anything he may himself experience in the short-term. He can talk of a life-time and beyond. He can conceptualise aeons past and future. When man acts, he acts not just for the range of the moment (which too he does) but also for the immediate and not so immediate future.

Man is different from other animals in another basic aspect - he lives by producing. He could live by hunting and gathering, but his rational mind led him into the task of production which greatly enhances his chances of survival and the period and quality of such survival. Modern man produces not just what he needs but also what he estimates other people need and to obtain which, they are prepared to give in exchange other products they themselves produce and which the man himself has need for. He produces not just for his own needs of today but for the needs of the distant future for himself and for others who are ready to trade with him.

Man’s only guide in all this is his mind. Man lives by his mind and not by his physical labour. Physical labour got him his first berries and deer to eat. The working of his mind brought him the tools he produced, the crops he cultivated, etc. Without his rational mind, man would still be in the jungles, much like the dinosaurs did or the tigers still do.

Man is a being of volitional consciousness. His senses bring him percepts of the world around him. His rational mind helps him make sense of these random percepts, organise them into concepts and thus derive principles according to which he may act. He chooses, on his own and based on his cognitive apparatus and the concepts he has formed using it, the course of action to follow in any circumstance.

We now come to the most important point of all – the concept of morals and the definition of the concept “right”

Life, especially human life, is not something that happens. It exists and sustains itself by choice. The most important choice man makes is the choice to live. Once he makes that choice, he has a whole lot of choices to make to be consistent with that. To a man who makes the choice to live, any action that tends to enhance his life (in terms of quantity and quality) is moral and that which diminishes it is immoral. As a simple example, to a man who wants to live, consuming poison knowingly is immoral.

Having said this, there is only 1 axiomatic right – the Right to Life. This right is a completely moral principle that essentially means that Man, as a being of volitional consciousness, needs to be able to act as per the directions of his rational mind if he is to live as per his nature as man. Violating the Right to Life is nothing short of condemning man to death. The only way to prevent man from acting as per the directions of his rational mind is to initiate force against him. In other words, by taking away his Liberty to act as he deems fit.

The Right to Life is very interesting indeed because it automatically prescribes the range of actions a man may undertake and simultaneously defines those that he may not undertake. This becomes clear when we realise that the very concept of Right to Life (and indeed all rights) makes sense only in a social context. In other words, the Right to Life, like all other Rights, is a political right. It is a statement that no man may prevent another from acting as per the directions of his own rational mind. Failure to acknowledge this principle is acceptance of the initiation of force. Since this is not in a man’s rational, long-range self-interest, he accepts the principle.

A man who says “I recognise the Right to Life” automatically says that he recognises the Right to Life of every rational human being like himself on the principle of reciprocity. He does so because doing so has a better chance of guaranteeing that others likewise respect his Right to Life.

The Right to Liberty is a logical corollary, though the most obvious one, of the Right to Life. Since preventing a man from acting as per the directions of his rational mind is a violation of his liberty, violation of the Right to Liberty is tantamount to violating his Right to Life. On the assumption of reciprocity, men thus realise that recognising the universality of this Right to Liberty is in their long-range self-interest.

Property is a tricky question, but then a little application of mind soon reveals that it too is a logical corollary of the Right to Life, but is meaningless in an environment that denies the latter.

Firstly, to recognise property, one needs to go back to the point that man acts to sustain his life as per the directions of his rational mind. He does this by seeking things of value. Value is that which one acts to gain or keep. On acts to acquire values because of one’s rational judgement that they add to one’s life. (In contrast, that which takes away from life would be called a disvalue).

There are 2 ways of gaining something – taking possession of that which exists and producing something that did not exist before in the form in which it becomes the value sought. As far as the former is concerned, the fundamental principle of nature is that of “finders keepers”. The first person to stake claim to something found in nature becomes the rightful owner. Absurd statements like “What if someone stakes claim to all the air on earth?” are easily disposed off by the sheer irrationality of such a claim, especially on the implementation. It would take a really stupid person to make such a claim on the air (unless of course he has the ability to trap all the air on Earth).

The tough part is production. Production is the act of modifying the environment to produce the value sought out of previously available materials. The key to this process is the production of ideas. The idea that something would be of value to his life logically and temporally precedes the actual production of the value. The ideas that make it possible for the creation of the value too go into the production of the value. These too are not given to man. He needs to produce them based on the range of concepts that he has managed to gather till date and their application and extension (meaning new ideas) to the problem on hand. Thus, a prerequisite for production of physical goods is the production of ideas. A world bereft of ideas will soon be bereft of valuable physical goods (except of course those that occur in nature).

Having said this, it is now time to come to the Right to Property. The Right to Property is nothing more than the right to the fruit of one’s actions. In other words, if the value man produces to sustain his life as per the directions of his rational mind may be taken away from him, he is condemned to death. A rational mind working in a man’s own long-range self-interest would conclude that a productive man is most benefited by an environment in which there is no taking away of the fruits of one’s actions. Every rational man now needs to make a choice. Either he decides to respect the right of everyone else to the fruits of their respective actions and thus hopes to get his respected as a reciprocal gesture. Or else he prepares for a world where everyone is just trying to take away that which other people have produced. Once again, a rational man working for his own long-range self- interest has only one option – Recognise the Right to Property.

By doing so, he immediately accepts the principle that the way to attain the value that someone else has acquired or produced is to deal with him on the principle of voluntarism – as a trader giving and receiving value.

As mentioned earlier, physical goods or ideas need to be produced. They do not pre-exist. Every man needs to make a moral choice. Either he respects the Right of each person to the value (physical good or idea) he has produced and trade with him to get it or he soon creates for himself a world in which people have no incentive to produce and hence, where he has nothing of value to get from them, by trading or otherwise (unless of course he chooses to live as a cannibal).

Rational men forced into a situation where others do not respect their right to the fruits of the ideas they produced have only two options. Produce ideas and stop sharing them with others (the beginning of the Dark Ages) or just keep mooching on others . The latter option of course assumes that others will continue to produce ideas which they can parasite on. Only a truly irrational person detached from reality will make that assumption. Such a world will soon become completely bereft of ideas.

Thus, the case for IP is a completely moral one, on the same grounds as the case for the Right to physical property. Rational men would recognise IP because doing so would be in their long-range self-interest.

Published: September 7, 2009 12:55 PM
steve kowalski

Two thoughts on this article, one minor the other more important. The minor one. It is diningenuous to contrast a utilitarian perspective from a principled one. I'm sure that Jeremy Bentham and JS Mill thought their perspective was highly principled. The contrast should surely be between a utilitarian perspective and a rights-based (or deontological) one. (I agree, incidentally that the rights-based one is superior).

The more major objection I have is with the thought that, to properly come to own a physical resource, there need be no element of creation or transformation. (We should be careful about using the term creationism, incidentally, for fear of confusion with the unscientific mumbo jumbo more usually associated with the term.) You yourself say that homesteading involves "using and thereby establishing publicly visible borders". Using, in this sense, means creating something from the resource, transforming it in some way, such that the borders become established via this process. John Locke calls it mixing one's labor with the resource. We do not, I presume, wish to claim that merely embordering a resource is sufficient to justify a claim - otherwise someone in the 19th century could have built a fence around the state of Iowa (or wherever) and made a just claim - even without doing any work on the land. Or, to use Nozick's example, stuck a pole on the moon. It seems our theory must include a proper element of transformation, such that, were it to be taken away, one's work on the resource would also be taken without justification. This introduces an element of something we may wish to call creation into the equation. (I agree entirely, incidentally, with all the points made about a hunk of marble). But if creation is necessary in this way in a theory of just ownership of resources, we have to admit that it opens the door for using creation as an element in justifying patentable objects.

I am quite prepared to accept that there may be an additional relevant difference between the two, such that patenting is unacceptable, but I don't believe we have yet been given it.

Published: September 7, 2009 1:29 PM
Russ

steve kowalski wrote:

"The contrast should surely be between a utilitarian perspective and a rights-based (or deontological) one."

A rights-based argument does not have to be deontological. There is also a rule utilitarian approach that justifies the rules because they result in the best outcome.

Published: September 7, 2009 1:41 PM
Michael A. Clem

Not bad, Bala, Rand is always stirring and inspiring. But I think I detect a couple of flaws near the end. First of all, you must be clear on this: ideas in themselves cannot be property. An idea must be fixed in some physical form or media. Obviously, a novel is fixed in a manuscript and/or book. A collection of songs are fixed in a compact disc or, increasingly, a network drive or hard drive. Less obvious, but still the same thing, is the idea for a chair design, fixed in the production of an actual, material chair.

I also find the right to property as the "fruits of one's actions" to be a little less than specific as a guide to property rights. Many actions are possible, and some actions are more effective than others. Some actions are intended to create some durable product or result, and others aren't. If I whistle a new tune without recording it, no property has been created, and thus, no property rights have been derived.

You're also making a leap that ideas have value to ideas should be protected. Obviously, in a more mundane sense, if I develop a unique accounting system to maintain my budget, it in no way interferes with my use of it if someone else also uses it. The only question is whether or not it is both unique and useful enough that others might value it, too. But even a common, ordinary budgeting system is valuable to many people, especially to young adults who have never had to juggle finances or keep a checkbook. So we see that an idea hardly has to be unique to have value. The question is, why should a unique idea be considered "property", whereas a common idea is not property?

Once again, no idea can be property. It can be unique only until more people know about it. But the fixed medium that holds an idea, be it common or unique, that is property. So, it comes back to Stephan's argument once again. If I purchase a book, a cd, a computer porgram, etc., what are my rights in relation to it, given that it is only a copy of what the creator produced? Or to take a different example, if I purchase a chair that has an original, all-new design, is it wrong for me to make a copy of the chair with the same design, or is it wrong to produce copies of the chair and sell them, or is it just wrong to produce copies of the chair and sell them with the same brand or designer notice as the original chairs? Is the design intellectual property and deserving of protection, or is it just the brand name that should be protected?

Published: September 7, 2009 2:04 PM
Bala

Michael A Clem,

" First of all, you must be clear on this: ideas in themselves cannot be property. "

Whether you choose to recognise something as property or not is your choice. But remember that while you are free to make your choices, you are not free to escape the consequences thereof.

" If I whistle a new tune without recording it, no property has been created, and thus, no property rights have been derived. "

A person who whistles a tune without recording it is deriving happiness out of the tune he whistles. (the reasons for that could be many) That is the reason he does so. That is the fruit he desired from his action and that is what he got. Clear?

" You're also making a leap that ideas have value to ideas should be protected "

I never said it. I said we each need to make choices. The choice in this case is "Am I going to respect the idea producer's right to the fruits of his actions?". You are free to make your choice, but once again, the consequences will be yours too.

" why should a unique idea be considered "property", whereas a common idea is not property "

All these are your distinctions, not mine.

" Once again, no idea can be property "

It is not easy, but when it is a moral choice, which side do you want to be on, the right side or the wrong side?

" If I purchase a book, a cd, a computer porgram, etc., what are my rights in relation to it, given that it is only a copy of what the creator produced? "

Wrong questions to ask. Ask yourself which way you will be benefited in the long run. By deferring to the author's and the publishers right to the fruit of their actions or by infringing on it? Remember that by reproducing the book and distributing it, you are adversely affecting their income. What would you expect the author and the publisher to do is a lot of people started doing that? Publish more books? Wishful thinking.

" Is the design intellectual property and deserving of protection, or is it just the brand name that should be protected? "

At the end of the day, it is a MORAL question. The issue at stake is your own long-term self-interest. All the best in making the choice.

Published: September 7, 2009 2:19 PM
Michael A. Clem

Oh, I get it. You're failing to make the necessary distinctions, because at the end of the day, morality is instinctive, not a matter of rationality.

Just kidding, I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean. But the vagueness of your responses leaves little for rational decision-making. That's exactly why I was trying to to make these distinctions and ask these questions that you've decided to avoid. Reason doesn't work in a vacuum. Logic is useless without the necessary inputs to work with.

Published: September 7, 2009 2:34 PM
Stephan Kinsella

Bala, thanks. But what is your question?

Published: September 7, 2009 2:46 PM
Bala

Michael A Clem,

" You're failing to make the necessary distinctions, because at the end of the day, morality is instinctive, not a matter of rationality. "

Oops!!! That's not the idea. The point is that the market is the best place to settle these distinctions but the idea of respecting the idea producer's Rights to the fruit of his actions is a rational moral choice. Very simply, it is in your rational long-term self-interest to respect it and against your interests to violate it. Morality is indeed very hard and rational. The only problem is our respective individual ability to recognise reality for what it is.

" But the vagueness of your responses leaves little for rational decision-making. "

I was making a moral case. My responses too were moral. I cannot and should not provide all the answers because you too as a rational human are capable of arriving at conclusions on what is in your long-range self-interest. In fact, you are the only person who can make the choice. All I am saying is that respecting IP is a morally sound choice irrespective of the distinctions you have made. The distinctions are just splitting hairs trying to find a loophole.

The quality of the idea and the returns the producer needs to get will be decided by the market, not by you or me.

" Logic is useless without the necessary inputs to work with. "

The inputs are clearly available - "Someone appled their mind and produced this idea. Am I going to respect his right to the fruits of his actions or am I not?".

Equally clear are the choices. A person seeking his own rational long-term self interest would choose to respect the producer's rights to the fruits of his actions (profits in the case of commercially valuable goods).

Published: September 7, 2009 2:49 PM
Bala

SK,

" Bala, thanks. But what is your question? "

That was no question. That was a complete refutation of your position on IP. I have said, stating my premises and my arguments, that by completely misunderstanding the very concept of Rights, specifically Property Rights, you are presenting a false and indefensible case against IP.

I would like to see your response.

Published: September 7, 2009 2:53 PM
steve kowalski

Russ - I agree that rule utilitarianism can be made to look rights based, but since the good precedes the right under utilitarianism, I doubt that it can be described as deontological. Anyway, it is a minor point. I don't particularly want to debate defintions - the point I was making that it is not correct to suggest that utilitarianism is unprincipled.

Published: September 7, 2009 3:21 PM
Antiip

"but not for stealing my ideas"

Ideas can NOT be stolen.

Ideas are a type of information.
Information itself can only be copied.
Only the medium in which information itself is presented can be stolen.

So if you write a manuscript and the manuscript itself is taken away against your will and without a contract that IT is stolen. But if only a person hears about your manuscript and its content NOTHING is stolen.

Clear?

Property rights only in physical matter can exist. There are no property rights in patterns/information.

Only by declaring positive law legitimate you could define such "property rights in information".

But that is NOT possible regarding natural rights. Objectivism failed.

Published: September 7, 2009 10:14 PM
Antiip

"I never said it. I said we each need to make choices. The choice in this case is "Am I going to respect the idea producer's right to the fruits of his actions?". You are free to make your choice, but once again, the consequences will be yours too."

Wrong.

Your statement is wrong, because you assert that there is right to an idea.
The right statement would be: "Am I believing that someone has a right in an idea, an information, or a pattern."

This is the choice people have to make.

Published: September 7, 2009 10:20 PM
Bala

Antiip,

" Your statement is wrong, because you assert that there is right to an idea "

I never said that. I spoke only of respecting the right to the fruit of one's actions. If that meant producing an idea, so be it. I never spoke of a right to an idea. That is your language.

Your last statement reflects that you either have not read what I have posted or you have not understood it at all. I said "Morals are a guide to individual action". I also said that whenever it comes to action, we need to choose from available options. In this case, the choice is from among 2 options - one that assumes the producer has a right to the fruit of his actions and another that assumes he does not. There is nothing to believe in. It is all about choices. All that each of us has to face up to is the choices we need to make in our actions, not in our beliefs.

Talking in meaningless language like this is the anti-IP propagandist's main problem. By doing so, he loses his touch with reality.

Published: September 8, 2009 12:00 AM
John Donohue

I second the posts of Troy Camplin, Ph.D. and Bala.

The concept that an idea is not property -- but the physical delivery system is -- pushed forward by Michael A. Clem above is a mild subset of Kinsella's deep hatred of the producer. Reality is quite different. Ownership, deep intellectual ownership of the soul has primacy. The creator owns his idea in the purest form when he thinks it. All of this sad anarchist mumbo jumbo to deny the root of ownership is like so much noise of insects crawling around in the basement compared to this.

Just as a human owns his own soul and body as an absolute, a human owns his own original thoughts with no justification, outside sanction or permission of another.

The creator can well discover totally original ideas. He can reference and build upon other truth, other original creations. Yet they can still be original themselves. Or, the owner/creator of the idea may have come upon something already thought of in total by another. He discovers this because the owner has published or invented or in some way publicly signaled his intent to exploit the idea. So be it. One can salute that person across the way and respect the steps the firstcomer has taken to profit by the idea. If one is of good soul, while perhaps being initially surprised or even crushed emotionally, one will soon be thrilled that the idea has validity and will look to expand into a branch or offshoot that leads to a new insight.

Naturally, the intricacies of "who got there first" or "how much of his or my idea is actually new and not simply rehash of other discoveries" can become complicated -- and not all are of good will.

But make no mistake, the fire of creation in the mind is like the roaring sun compared to the pitiful twiddlings of those laboring in some dank cave to sunder the creator from his creation.

Since this thread is totally against not only this creator soul ownership but also legal protection of the delivery of the content, I do not care to expound ways this complexity can be served by justice. Real justice with fair courts, monopoly of force, patent and copyright...everything the anarchist hates.

I simply wish to call Mr. Clem and Mr. Kinsella on the perfidy of rejecting primal ownership of ideas. If they had any shred of respect for man they would be doing everything possible to bolster protection for the creator when he decides to put his idea into practice for profit. Instead, their hatred for the creator and his mind is virulent, vicious and unrelenting.

Ayn Rand would not be happy with any Objectivist wasting time on this blog. She is probably right. However, I'll speak to Ludwig von Mises. I have not looked in on his writings in 25 years until now. It cannot be possible that the great mind I knew back then would support under the banner carrying his name the kind of violent anarchism and anti-mind mentality exhibited by Stephen Kinsella. It is a disgrace.

Published: September 8, 2009 1:11 AM
Bala

John,

" Just as a human owns his own soul and body as an absolute, a human owns his own original thoughts with no justification, outside sanction or permission of another. "

This is something Stephan finds impossible to digest. His entire approach seeks sanction outside of the individual. Take for instance the way he harps on "the benefit to society" due to IP protection. That is nothing short of collectivism, but then that's Stephan for you.

You and I would think that Law ought to be true reflection of Morality. People like Stephan think otherwise. That's part of the problem.

Published: September 8, 2009 1:28 AM
mpolzkill

John Donohue,

"creator soul ownership"

Funny slip (that was a slip, right?). I enjoy your sermons and Bala's too, I'm a big fan of skilled holy-rollers of all faiths; but I think it is quite absurd for you to suggest that Mises would have a problem with Mr. Kinsella researching and writing about this issue for this Institute:

Human Action, XXIII.

THE DATA OF THE MARKET...

6. The Limits of Property Rights

"The extreme case of external economies is shown in the "production" of the intellectual groundwork of every kind of processing and constructing. The characteristic mark of formulas, i.e., the mental devices directing the technological procedures, is the inexhaustibility of the services they render. These services are consequently not scarce, and there is no need to economize their employment. Those considerations that resulted in the establishment of the institution of private ownership of economic goods did not refer to them. They remained outside the sphere of private property not because they are immaterial, intangible, and impalpable, but because their serviceableness cannot be exhausted."

He goes on to discuss the economic implications and closes the subheading:

"Patents and copyrights are results of the legal evolution of the last centuries. Their place in the traditional body of property rights is still controversial. People look askance at them and deem them irregular. They are considered privileges, a vestige of the rudimentary period of their evolution when legal protection was accorded to authors and investors only by virtue of an exceptional privilege granted by the authorities. They are suspect, as they are lucrative only if they make it possible to sell at monopoly prices. Moreover, the fairness of patent laws is contested on the ground that they reward only those who put the finishing touch leading to practical utilization of achievements of many predecessors. these precursors go empty-handed although their main contribution to the final result was often much more weighty than that of the patentee.

It is beyond the scope of catallactics to enter into an examination of the arguments brought forward for and against the institution of copyrights and patents. It has merely to stress the point that this is a problem of delimitation of property rights and that with the abolition of patents and copyrights authors and inventors would for the most part be producers of external economies."

Sounds to me like Mises considered "IP" a pretty open field for research and discussion outside of the parameters of catallactics.

I have never been interested in the "IP" issue, but Bala here questioned me last week and I first examined my gut feeling and then went on to research a bit. Now YOU've got me looking for all the things Mises had to say on this (very telling, I think, that he had so little of it). Thank you, I was very pleased to discover that in one case I'm in perfect harmony with the great man (sans the eloquence):

VII. ACTION WITHIN THE WORLD

3. Human Labor as a Means

The Creative Genius

"Far above the millions that come and pass away tower the pioneers, the men whose deeds and ideas cut out new paths for mankind. For the pioneering genius to create is the essence of life. To live means for him to create.

The activities of these prodigious men cannot be fully subsumed under the praxeological concept of labor. They are not labor because they are for the genius not means, but ends in themselves. He lives in creating and inventing. For him there is not leisure, only intermissions of temporary sterility and frustration. His incentive is not the desire to bring about a result, but the act of producing it. The accomplishment gratifies him neither mediately nor immediately. It does not gratify him mediately because his fellow men at best are unconcerned about it, more often even greet it with taunts, sneers, and persecution. Many a genius could have used his gifts to render his life agreeable and joyful; he did not even consider such a possibility and chose the thorny path without hesitation. The genius wants to accomplish what he considers his mission, even if he knows that he moves toward his own disaster.

Neither does the genius derive immediate gratification from his creative activities. Creating is for him agony and torment, a ceaseless excruciating struggle against internal and external obstacles; it consumes and crushes him. The Austrian poet Grillparzer has depicted this in a touching poem "Farewell to Gastein." We may assume that in writing it he thought not only of his own sorrows and tribulations but also of the greater sufferings of a much greater man, of Beethoven, whose fate resembled his own and whom he understood, through devoted affection and sympathetic appreciation, better than any other of his contemporaries. Nietzsche compared himself to the flame that insatiably consumes and destroys itself. Such agonies are phenomena which have nothing in common with the connotations generally attached to the notions of work and labor, production and success, breadwinning and enjoyment of life."

Published: September 8, 2009 9:12 AM
antiip

@Bala:

There is no property right to an idea. Understand that.

YOU have to decide: Either there is property rights in matter or their is property rights in patterns.

Both can not exist at the same time.

If you are of the opinion that there are property rights in patterns and information than you yourself are not your own owner! Because if you used ideas "coming" from someone else and therefore instantiate "his" ideas you would become part of his property.

And do not forget: There is no such thing as a fresh or new idea. There is no such thing as creating something totally new. Everything is based on something people already thought of.

Therefore YOU had to pay many people for just using a simple idea. Do you do that? Or are you just another objectivist hypocrite?

@John:

"original thoughts"
Wrong. There are no original thoughts. If you think that there are you have to pay everyone in the chain of your education, in the chain of development of languages and so on.

You don't do that. Therefore your position is that of a hypocrite.

Published: September 8, 2009 9:33 AM
antiip

One addendum to the objectivists:

Remember: Property rights are inheritable

Do you pay the heirs of eg Gutenberg royalties for using HIS inventions?

Do you pay the heirs of eg Edison royalties for using HIS inventions?

No?

Thought so.

Published: September 8, 2009 9:38 AM
Stephan Kinsella

antiip: "@Bala:

There is no property right to an idea. Understand that.

YOU have to decide: Either there is property rights in matter or their is property rights in patterns.

Both can not exist at the same time."

good point. another way to look at it is to recognize that both the libertarian, and the IP advocate, want to assign an owner to a particular scarce resource--say, a person's body or other property such as his paper and ink or his automobile. The libertarian says that the person is the owner of his own body, and of the paper, ink, and machines he himself homesteaded, manufactured, or purchased from someone who did.

The IP advocate, by contrast, says that some remote third party is a partial owner of that person's body, paper, ink, and machines--because the third party thought of a way to use his own property.

this is absurd. It is socialism.

Published: September 8, 2009 9:44 AM
antiip

One addendum to the objectivists:

Remember: Property rights are inheritable

Do you pay the heirs of eg Gutenberg royalties for using HIS inventions?

Do you pay the heirs of eg Edison royalties for using HIS inventions?

No?

Thought so.

Published: September 8, 2009 9:46 AM
newson

good point antiip, which is why randians seem selfish, not just self-interested.

besides, attributing value to the myriad of inputs to the creative thought would make the socialist calculation debate look a cinch.

Published: September 8, 2009 10:49 AM
Bala

antiip,

" There is no property right to an idea. Understand that. "

I wonder what makes you think that repeating the same meaningless statement n-times over makes it correct.

I have made an elaborate moral case for IP. The simple conclusion is that all rights are moral concepts and you need to choose, based on your assessment of the extent to which your self interest is served, to recognise the rights of others to the fruits of their actions. There is nothing automatic in it, but one option (deferring) serves any person's rational long-range self interest better than the other (infringing). The only question is "Are you going to make that choice?".

This is the moral meaning of ALL property rights. Separating them into rights to physical property and rights to intellectual property and then refuting the existence of the latter while accepting the existence of the former is contrived and stupid.

If you can and care to, please try refuting my arguments. Or else, do the gracious thing and remain silent.

Published: September 8, 2009 10:53 AM
antiip

"I wonder what makes you think that repeating the same meaningless statement n-times over makes it correct."

Yeah, you should ask YOURSELF this question.

Objectivism failed. It failed big time.
So please stop repeating your "oh it is my new creation"-nonsense.

There is no such thing as new creation. There is only some sort of putting together that which was always there.

Are YOU going to make the choice between rights to matter and rights to patterns? So? What will it be?

Before YOU tell anyone else that his position is stupid you should yourself ask if YOUR position is stupid itself. So did you ask yourself if your yada yada yada objectivism is stupid?

And please remain silent yourself and do not repeat your blunt nonsense. Thanks in advance!

Oh, and least i forget: Did you pay ALL the guys who made it possible for you to post here by inventing things like technological equipment their royalties? Or are you a bad guy aka hypocrite?

What's your choice: Property rights to matter or to patterns? Do not forget: Both cannot be established at the same time!

Published: September 8, 2009 11:18 AM
Bala

SK,

" The IP advocate, by contrast, says that some remote third party is a partial owner of that person's body, paper, ink, and machines--because the third party thought of a way to use his own property.

this is absurd. It is socialism. "

How does this address my Moral case for IP on grounds of rational long-range self-interest? I think you are avoiding addressing my post and trying to use antiip's meaningless posts to sidetrack the issue.

I think there are only 2 routes left for you.

1. Refute my arguments with solid reasoning or

2. Stop posting any more against IP

Please make you choice and stop evading the issue (as an anarchist and anti-ip advocate, evasion is in your nature. Hence I need to mention this.)

Published: September 8, 2009 11:19 AM
Michael A. Clem

Bala, of course ideas are important. I agree that man is a volitional being and that ideas are necessary for man's abilty to function and his survival. But you have failed to connect ideas to property. If I have the idea to put on matching socks in the morning, how can this possibly be "property"? it is not a unique idea, it is not a scarce idea (millions of other people have the same idea every morning), and my having the idea gives me no control and no need or reason to control everyone else who has the same idea. Even with more complex ideas, or unique ideas, the same reasoning exists. In what way can an idea be property, and what purpose does it serve for it to be property?

The question is not about any moral choice for the individual, but what you think normative case law should be. Remember, we're talking about IP laws and whether they should exist or not, and if so, then in what form.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:29 AM
antiip

"I think you are avoiding addressing my post"

Before you tell this to anyone you should yourself ask: Why do I not answer their questions?

The only things you made here from the beginning are ad hominem attacks and stating your own opinion (!) as truth. Is that what objectivism is for you?

Your moral is not universal. Your point of view is not universal. Understand that.

There is no moral right to ideas and information. If there where you could and should be punished for spamming your nonsense because by that you yourself would be violating others property (remember, you are a fan of ip, therefore stating information to others without them wanting it would be trespassing!).

So please take your own advice "2. Stop posting any more [on] IP" and stop posting nonsense.

Nevertheless (and for all the other readers you are trying to deceive): Your arguments have been refuted in many ways and many times here. Just READ and UNDERSTAND the postings and arguments.

"as an anarchist and anti-ip advocate, evasion is in your nature"

Yeah and as an ad-hominem-spamming objectivist behaving in a stupid way is in your nature, isn't it?

Published: September 8, 2009 11:29 AM
Bala

Antiip,

" Property rights to matter or to patterns? Do not forget: Both cannot be established at the same time! "

This statement is possible only under your (and Rothbard's and SK's) flawed definition of Rights. My post was essentially a demolition of that absurd notion of yours. Unless you demolish my arguments, you should not be talking.

If your intention is to just repeat the same thing till I buzz off, you have picked the wrong guy.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:34 AM
antiip

@Bala:

One more time a simple question for you:

Imagine a person A invented a machine by combining object X to object Y in a certain way Z. A claims to have a "intellectual property right" to this pattern/combination.

Person B was and is the long time owner of some exemplars of objects X and Y.

a) What if person B combined objects X and Y?
b) Does he have to (!) pay A something?

c)What if he does not pay anything to A?
d) Does A have some right to punish B?
e) What if A destroyed the combined objects X and Z of B? Would that be what you call "moral"?

Please answer those questions!

Published: September 8, 2009 11:37 AM
antiip

Somehow you seem to speak to your mirror image...

Otherwise statements like this cannot be explained:

"Unless you demolish my arguments, you should not be talking."

"If your intention is to just repeat the same thing till I buzz off, you have picked the wrong guy."

It must be a lonely world this objectivism.

Oh and please answer the questions i posted if you have time to leave your mirror alone! :-)

PS: Do not confuse subjective moral with ethics. That may be your error.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:47 AM
Stephan Kinsella

Bala:

" The IP advocate, by contrast, says that some remote third party is a partial owner of that person's body, paper, ink, and machines--because the third party thought of a way to use his own property.

this is absurd. It is socialism. "

How does this address my Moral case for IP on grounds of rational long-range self-interest?

It sidesteps it as irrelevant metaphysics.

How does your blathering show that it's not socialism?

Published: September 8, 2009 11:51 AM
Bala

Michael A Clem,

Thanks for the sensible discussion.

" The question is not about any moral choice for the individual, but what you think normative case law should be. Remember, we're talking about IP laws and whether they should exist or not, and if so, then in what form. "

Law ought to be an offshoot of rational morality, not something plucked out of thin air with no relation to man's nature. Rational Moral positions define ideal legal positions. Unfortunately, that that is not the case is our big problem.

Very simply put, if it is morally the right choice for individuals to respect the right of others to the fruit of their actions, be they physical products or ideas, then there should be IP law. It can't be simpler. Hope that clarifies.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:54 AM
Bala

SK,

" It sidesteps it as irrelevant metaphysics.

How does your blathering show that it's not socialism? "

This only shows you have no clue what socialism is.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:59 AM
Michael A. Clem

The Right to Property is nothing more than the right to the fruit of one’s actions. In other words, if the value man produces to sustain his life as per the directions of his rational mind may be taken away from him, he is condemned to death.

I've already shown that actions do not necessarily lead to "fruit", and thus do not necessarily produce property. I've also already shown that if two people have the same idea, neither is taking "fruit" away from the other by having it or acting on it. This is true even if one person got the idea from the other person, instead of thinking of it independently. Furthermore, it could be argued that knowing why one has a right to property doesn't sufficiently define property, and thus doesn't really answer the immediate question, why should ideas be considered property? And if ideas should be considered property, then why shouldn't all ideas, no matter how small or inconsequential, be considered property?

Published: September 8, 2009 12:19 PM
antiip

There is no right to the "fruit of ones actions" if that means rights in patterns.

Just think of two neighbors:

Person A has a very nice garden. He designed it so cleverly that you it is pleasant to your eyes.

Person B, As neighbor, designs his own garden in a similar way.

Should B have to pay A something for copying "his" garden design?

Do you really think that way?

Or another example:

Person C is a designer of clothes an hairdo. Sometimes C sits for days and weeks overthinking "new" designs.

C also wears those clothes and hairdo in public.

Should everybody who sees C pay him for having a look at him? Should everyone who sees a photograph of C pay him?

What if not?

Another example:

Imagine person D as an architect. D designs a skyscraper.

There is another person E who sees the design of the skyscraper and builds a house that is reminiscent of it.

Does E have to pay D something because he built this skyscraper?
Does D have a right to destroy the skyscraper of E?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead

The main problem is that objectivists do not value property. They value some mystified "soul fruit".

Published: September 8, 2009 1:00 PM
antiip

Every action, even human existence itself is consisting of transportation and usage of information. See the cognitive science!

Just standing still on a street an watching means getting information. Whether or not you and the watched persons want that.

So if there was some sort of right to information because of some "effort" behind this information, where to begin?
Who to pay?
How much to pay?

Do YOU, Bala, pay everyone who made an effort in "creating" information ("fruit of their souls") who gives you that information, or from whom you take thatinformation (even against their will!) royalties?

Be honest!

Published: September 8, 2009 1:18 PM
Bala

Michael A Clem,

" And if ideas should be considered property, then why shouldn't all ideas, no matter how small or inconsequential, be considered property? "

That choice is ultimately left to the producers themselves. It is a reflection of their intent behind the act of producing the idea. It could also be a reflection of the producer's own assessment of the value that the securing of the status of property for use of which others ought to and would be willing to pay them. The latter would also include a rational assessment of their own ability (given their limitations) to benefit from such a status as property.

Like in the case of the person who created a whistled tune, what would he gain by getting property status for his whistle? Getting property status for such a product and then trying to exercise it would be the height of irrationality because he just cannot do it. It would just be acting on a whim. The person who indulges in it will face the consequence of the loss of the most valuable resource of all to man - a certain portion of his lifespan - in an activity that will add little or no value to his life. He is thus facing the consequence of his bad choices.

That's what I meant when I said "leave it to the market". Leave it to the producers and consumers to decide what merits the status of property and what does not.

Published: September 8, 2009 3:00 PM
Mark Jones

@ Bala:

If you require an intellectual property owner to go through some process to achieve "property status," you deny him the property rights you claim he has through his act of "creation."

The whistle-maker of your example need not achieve "property status" because you've claimed already that he has rights owing merely to his "creation."

Published: September 8, 2009 5:06 PM
Bala

SK,

" It sidesteps it as irrelevant metaphysics. "

Irrelevant???? You really have some nerve to say that.

What I said in my long post is that your definition of Rights is flawed. I have shown that your approach to the concept of Rights has no relevance to man as a rational animal and a being of volitional consciousness. I have thus shown that your entire harangue against IP is based on a set of notions of law that are not just not relevant to man, but are infact detrimental to man's existence qua man. You are therefore guilty of peddling a monstrosity. I just hope this opens the eyes of those people who think you are the "great hope".

What I have shown is REALITY. What you are implying by saying that it is "irrelevant metaphysics" is that REALITY is irrelevant to your theory of Law, especially as it pertains to IP. In effect, you are admitting, rather confessing, that your theory is completely a figment of your imagination and has no connection with reality.

You want to create a false world where reality does not matter. You think you can do that by hiding behind the facade of Law. You think you can bamboozle people into agreeing with you and see obfuscation and spreading intellectual confusion as the route to achieving it. Rand had a special name for your kind - moocher.

Published: September 8, 2009 6:35 PM
Bala

Mark Jones,

" If you require an intellectual property owner to go through some process to achieve "property status," "

The "process" is only to secure the legally valid claim that would then announce to one and all that there is a producer who wishes to trade. Incidentally, I do not require it. Reality requires it. Do you, like SK want to deny Reality?

Incidentally, ALL property requires a "process" for it to achieve legal "property status". That it is so for IP does not take away from my argument.

" The whistle-maker of your example need not achieve "property status" because you've claimed already that he has rights owing merely to his "creation." "

I did not say anything of this sort. I was just showing possible reasons the whistler may not wish to secure property rights to the tune he whistled. The rest of it, including the "creation" bit, is your language, not mine.

Published: September 8, 2009 6:43 PM
mpolzkill

Bala,

You may stir up fellow special pleaders, but you can't possibly open up anyone else's eyes when you refuse to acknowledge, let alone answer most of the questions put to you.

The onus IS on you to sell this thing. I can't imagine who you could have sold with your performance so far.

Published: September 8, 2009 6:49 PM
Bala

antiip,

To all your questions and all the examples you have given, I have only one answer. It is up to the person who came up with the idea to decide if he wants to secure recognition as his Intellectual Property. If he has produced it for a commercial purpose, he will do so and them price it as the market allows him to. He may just as well choose not to secure property rights in which case all your questions on who to pay, etc become wholly irrelevant.

In other words, market forces will determine which idea deserves the status of "property" and will also fix its price.

Stop worrying about how others will find answers to their yet unknown and unrecognised problems and look for answers to your fundamental problem (which you share with SK) - the tendency to evade REALITY and build a false world around yourself based on untenable notions not supported by REALITY.

Published: September 8, 2009 6:55 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" The onus IS on you to sell this thing. "

Wrobg. This blog is trying to sell an anti-IP position. I am refusing to buy in. If I were blogging trying to sell a pro-IP position, the onus is on me.

In fact, the onus is on SK to try to show that my arguments, which show that his most basic premises, his conception of Rights, have no relevance to man, are incorrect. I have shown that by building on false premises regarding Rights, he is peddling a false theory on IP. He needs to prove me wrong.

Until then, there is absolutely no point discussing specifics, for which this is not the correct forum - the market for goods and services is the correct one.

If you want to continue to be beguiled by SK and his false theories, be my guest.

Published: September 8, 2009 7:04 PM
mpolzkill

Bala,

"It is up to the person who came up with the idea to decide if he wants to secure recognition as his Intellectual Property. If he has produced it for a commercial purpose, he will do so and them price it as the market allows him to."

Who do they secure that with? The entirety of society, is that correct, because you said there is no need for the State to enforce this vision of "REALITY"? So you ARE on a literal mission to sell the world on this, it IS required they all go along voluntarily, right?

Published: September 8, 2009 7:09 PM
John Donohue

So you construct one paragraph of von Mises puttering along suggesting the issue of ownership of the fruit of one's mind might be "controversial" -- absent any position taken -- to equate with Kinsella's militant violent anarchism? Prestidigitation! And way lame, pitiful.

As for that paragraph of von Mises bravely insisting artists ought to suffer? Screw him.

I require a translation. What the hell does this mean? "...with the abolition of patents and copyrights authors and inventors would for the most part be producers of external economies."

Once again I continue to snark at all anarchists who think that producers will continue to produce with your gun pointed at their head ready to steal their productive ideas the minute you see them. [really cool parting insult self-edited]

I'd also like to suggest to all other readers that Kinsella et al likes everyone to think of his position on the level of a book, or maybe some technological tweak. I suggest that is just window dressing. The real target is deep and powerful capital formation and the exploitation of it by large corporations.

Published: September 8, 2009 7:52 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" Who do they secure that with? "

That's where Government may come in. The same way I register land in my name to stake a claim.

" ..... to enforce this vision of "REALITY"? "

What's there to enforce? It is to be recognised. Man is a rational animal. He is a being of volitional consciousness. He acts in his long-range self interest. He chooses. Which of these needs enforcing?

" So you ARE on a literal mission to sell the world on this, it IS required they all go along voluntarily, right? "

I am not a fool to do that on this forum. There are better ways, like starting a number of schools to educate children. Out here, I am just trying to learn. To begin with, I was questioning my convictions. Now, having seen that IP-opponents are just moochers seeking moral and legal solace from other moochers, I have little more to learn. However, because I respect Mises, Hayek and Rothbard, it hurts to see someone like SK being able to get away with all his falsehood.

Published: September 8, 2009 7:54 PM
Bala

Michael A Clem

" I've also already shown that if two people have the same idea, neither is taking "fruit" away from the other by having it or acting on it. This is true even if one person got the idea from the other person, instead of thinking of it independently. "

Not true. If the idea has commercial implications, both are likely earn less. The copycat derives income he never deserved and which might otherwise have gone to the originator. By saying copying is not legally punishable, you are punishing the originator with indeterminable loss of income.

Published: September 8, 2009 8:06 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" because you said there is no need for the State to enforce this vision of "REALITY"? "

Where did I say that? I just did not mention government in my original post because I was presenting a Moral case. What Government OUGHT to do logically flows from this.

Published: September 8, 2009 8:13 PM
newson

so it's settled. randians have never loaned friends cd's, movies, or books, because that would be a breach of the creator's right to economic rents (lending is denying the creator opportunity profits).

no "fair use" is acceptable, because no percentage of a "theft" is tolerable.

libraries are a theft perpetrated against the creator, who didn't give explicit permission to have opportunity profits denied him.

Published: September 8, 2009 8:20 PM
Bala

newson,

" libraries are a theft perpetrated against the creator, who didn't give explicit permission to have opportunity profits denied him. "

You said it, not I. Incidentally, are you prepared to allow the authors to decide on whether they want to take up such issues or do you want me to pontificate on that too?

Further, authors may find many reasons to agree with the aproach of libraries. That may include the fact that they take their books to many people, entice the people and then get the people buy them. For example, I read a large number of PG Wodehouses borrowing them from the library nearby, but because I enjoyed them so much and would like to read them many times over, I now have a collection of PG Wodehouse and recommend his books to thousands of my students every year.

So, in summary, most authors are not as dumb as anti-IP shills on this site are.

Published: September 8, 2009 9:00 PM
mpolzkill

"Where did I say that?"

Bala, please note the usage of a question mark at the end of my sentence. That indicates a question. I do not understand most of your positions. I'm asking for clarity. I received the impression that you don't advocate force to back "IP". You say: "What's there to enforce?" then you say, "What Government OUGHT to do logically flows from this". What is that OUGHT? The only thing the State does is force. But really, I have changed my mind, forget it, you are giving me a headache.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

On to the other dizzy special pleader here, John Donohue who earlier today said:

"I'll speak to Ludwig von Mises. I have not looked in on his writings in 25 years until now. It cannot be possible that the great mind I knew back then would support under the banner carrying his name the kind of violent anarchism and anti-mind mentality exhibited by Stephen Kinsella. It is a disgrace."

Followed by:

"von Mises puttering along...Mises bravely insisting artists ought to suffer? Screw him. I require a translation [of Mises] What the hell does this mean?

Are you not speaking to him any longer then?

"So you construct one paragraph of von Mises"

I provided six unedited, complete paragraphs Mises wrote.

"absent any position taken -- to equate with Kinsella's militant violent anarchism?"

Bizarre. In response to your hyperbole, I looked into what Mises said; and that was the point, I could find no position he took. Do you have any evidence that he was anywhere near your view on "IP". Let's hear it. I was cleary saying that as he had no position on "IP" it makes no sense that he would find SK's position "violent and anti-mind".

"What the hell does that mean?"

From Percy L. Greaves' "Mises Made Easier":

"External economies. Those gains, benefits or other advantages of a human action which necessarily go to a person or firm that does not participate in the action. Such advantageous results are often neglected in the economic calculations which determine whether or not an action is or will be considered profitable. An example of such an incidental benefit would be the gain A's neighbors reap from a fence built by A on their boundary lines."

"von Mises bravely insisting artists ought to suffer"

Your problems are becoming clear to me now, you can't read and/or think very well. Thank you for the compliment on my lame[!] skill in performing conjuring tricks with the hands. Good day.

Published: September 8, 2009 9:36 PM
Gil

"Once again I continue to snark at all anarchists who think that producers will continue to produce with your gun pointed at their head ready to steal their productive ideas the minute you see them. [really cool parting insult self-edited]" - J. Donohue.

Or of course then there's the real life alternative - people stop producing or produce at an amateur level. After all there was a time when you could earn a good living by painting realistically because photography didn't exist. Once high quality colour photography was invented the demand for realistic portrait painters fizzles away (admittedly not out). Hence it could be said for other industries that rely on I.P. - they will just fizzle away. Sure movies will still be made and be available on the Internet but it will be all 'independently produced' with volunteer actors. You might get high quality stuff but then again there's no real incentive instead the better ones will fall into the "it's so bad it's good" and get a cult following and maybe the producers might make some money too.

Published: September 8, 2009 10:02 PM
newson

to bala:
authors have no say in whether or not their works are viewed in libraries, or loaned to friends of yours.

they may be randian authors, in which case they may strongly disapprove of your library "theft", or your unauthorized loan to a friend.

you should write out a cheque to the estate of pg wodehouse and the other authors you stole from via the public library. theft is theft. that you came good with the money after many reading doesn't cancel the original crime.

Published: September 8, 2009 10:12 PM
Bala

newson,

You are beyond hilarious. As I said, it is for the authors and the publishers to decide what is to be done. You sound like a typical PDA representative. Too much of anarchy in your blood and brain for you to be able to recognise reality and think logically .

Incidentally, libraries have existed for many decades now and no publishing house or author has ever protested what they do. If they think it hurts them they would have by now proceeded against them legally.

I do understand that it is painful to have your entire scheme of thought (or imagination gone wild) torn to shreds in a single post, but the simple point is that you IP-opponents are just moochers and parasites pretending like producers in a free market.

Your axioms are faulty and everything you say to support your "cause" only takes you deeper into the quicksand.

Published: September 8, 2009 10:51 PM
Bala

newson,

Incidentally, where I live, there are also a number of private libraries. Just in case you still have a little bit of ability to think, they bring into the market people who would not have otherwise been able to pay the full price of a book (we have a lot of them out here).

Secondly, they are distributing the physical printed book, not reprinting its contents. By your logic, shall we also start proceeding legally against second-hand book stores? Hope you realise how brain-dead your position is.

Published: September 8, 2009 10:59 PM
John Donohue

mpolzkill's response silly and left all my points intact.

He tried to posit extortion and theft as the default position, but the only place that is true is in The Lord Of The Flies.

The default for civilization is protection of property.

How about all you other patrons of the Ludwig von Mises Institute? Was he a radical anarchist? This is his blog, you people should know him cold and be able to point to many tracts where he sounds like FatherOfKinsella. Don't think so. The thieves have taken over the place.

Meanwhile, we discover that von Mises (and Gil above) suggests that when patents and copyrights are squashed, artists and inventors will work on a poverty/subsistence basis but can be comforted by the fact that their labors will indirectly benefit others.

That was what the communists thought. Mao and Lennin had songs about it. In fact, they had slave composers writing songs about everyone being everyone's slave...er...Peoples Hero. It was glorious.

Miss Rand would just glance over at me and say, "You must observe that of course none of them actually believe the productive will continue, stripped of the rights to their brains. The anarchists know they won't; that is not their motive. It is pure hatred of the good for being the good. They just want them taken down."

By the way, my prior reference to von Mises as a great mind was largely from the book "The Anti-Capitalist Mentality." In that book he fingers the core driver of those, like Kinsella, who wage war on capitalism: deep abiding fear they cannot produce anything of value and thus not be able to trade on a volitional basis combined with burning bitter envy.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:49 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" I do not understand most of your positions. I'm asking for clarity. "

OK. So here is a concise version.

Stephan Kinsella (and all IP opponents) is writing nonsense. His entire theory on IP is false because it rests on an incorrect understanding of the concept of Rights. (Yes. I am saying Rothbard was wrong too.)

The correct understanding of Rights is that they are a Moral concept representing a condition for the survival of man as per his nature. i.e.e as a rational animal with a volitional consciousness. Rational man recognises the rights of all others to Life, Liberty, Property (the fruits of their actions) and the Pursuit of Happiness because he hopes that their doing so reciprocally enhances his chances of survival qua man.

The division of Property Rights as Physical and Intellectual and then conceding the former but refuting the latter is an artificial construct created on the false definition of Rights.

In reality, it is always upto every individual whether or not he chooses to respect the Rights of others to the fruits of their actions (Property) is Moral question. It is not dependent on whether the "property" is physical or intellectual. That division is false.

Hence, Stephan's position on IP is utter nonsense.

Hope this makes it clear while still being simple.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:50 PM
John Donohue

Bala, maybe you should direct them to the Henry(Hero of the Homestead riots) Frick private libraries on 5th Avenue. They are housed in mansions from the Golden Age of Capitalism.

One of them was made out of one of Frick's private bowling alleys.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:58 PM
Bala

Made a few typos. Sorry about the trouble. Reposting with the corrections.

Stephan Kinsella (and all IP opponents) is writing nonsense. His entire theory on IP is false because it rests on an incorrect understanding of the concept of Rights. (Yes. I am saying Rothbard was wrong too.)

The correct understanding of Rights is that they are a Moral concept representing a condition necessary for the survival of man as per his nature. i.e., as a rational animal with a volitional consciousness. Rational man recognises the rights of all others to Life, Liberty, Property (the fruits of their actions) and the Pursuit of Happiness because he hopes that their doing so reciprocally enhances his chances of survival qua man.

The division of Property Rights as Physical and Intellectual and then conceding the former but refuting the latter is an artificial construct created on the false definition of Rights.

In reality, it is always upto every individual whether or not he chooses to respect the Rights of others to the fruits of their actions (Property). It is a Moral question the answer to which is not dependent on whether the "property" is physical or intellectual. That division is false.

Hence, Stephan's position on IP is utter nonsense.

Hope this makes it clear while still being simple. Thanks once again.

Published: September 8, 2009 11:59 PM
Stephan Kinsella

Bala and this Donahue are just spouting confused, incoherent theories, as best I can tell. By the way, Mises was this close to being an anarchist, and Rand basically was one--see Galt's Gulch, combined with her stated opposition to taxes. She was a self-hating anarchist.

The bottom line is this: why do Bala and Donahue here support aggression? Real libertarians don't. But of course if you support the state, you support aggression; if you support legislation, you have to support the state, and thus aggression. And if you support IP, a type of legislated right, .... Moreover, IP transfers rights in property owned by A, to a new owner B who didn't homestead the property or contractually acquire it. I.e., the state lets B steal some of A's property. We real libertarians call that aggression. I haven't heard anything yet in Bala and Donanoe's fumbling thoughts that shows why this aggression is justified.

Published: September 9, 2009 12:08 AM
Bala

SK,

" Bala and this Donahue are just spouting confused, incoherent theories, as best I can tell. "

I have put out a long post and a short one too (thanks to mpolzkill) explaining why your fundamental position is completely flawed and why I think you are spouting utter nonsense.

Either prove my arguments wrong or stop posting nonsense yourself. Please tell what is it that "you can tell".

Don't try diversionary tactics to try to veer off course. I am not stupid enough to be taken in by that.

Published: September 9, 2009 12:24 AM
Gil

". . . when patents and copyrights are squashed, artists and inventors will work on a poverty/subsistence basis but can be comforted by the fact that their labors will indirectly benefit others." - J. Donohue.

I think S. Kinsella & co. are saying that a great many people are getting artificially inflated incomes because they are forcing out competition through I.P. protection. In other words, they see I.P. as guild protection therefore if I.P. is dropped then a great many bloated incomes are going to go out the door with it.

For example, it is asserted that only George Lucas owns the Star Wars franchise because of I.P. and is artificially wealthy as no one else is allowed to continue the saga or sell merchandise without his permission. The conclusion is that George Lucas is artificially rich because he is using guvmint force to prevent competition. However what would happen if George Lucas didn't have I.P. protection? Would he have been able to profit from the ticket sales from the first three movies because the special effects were ahead of their time? Would Star Wars fans really stick to 'authentic' Star Wars stories and merchandise and avoid the cheaper competition? Or once the story was released to the public everyone would be write their Star Wars and share it for free with others and George Lucas may be savvy enough to become a millionaire but not a billionaire?

Published: September 9, 2009 12:31 AM
Stephan Kinsella

Bala,

Either prove my arguments wrong or stop posting nonsense yourself. Please tell what is it that "you can tell".

Don't try diversionary tactics to try to veer off course. I am not stupid enough to be taken in by that.

Let's agree to disagree on this latter point. But as for the former, no--this is about fundamentals, and you and Donatoo's slippery points help evade this.

So answer, if you dare, these simple questions:

1. Why do you support the aggression that states necessarily commit?
2. Why do you support IP if it requires states, which commit aggression?
3. Why do you support the aggression of taking my property rights in my own property and giving them to some third party just because he thought of a way to use his own property and was able to persuade the criminal state to issue him title to some of my property on these grounds?

Published: September 9, 2009 12:53 AM
John Donohue

Gil, write your own story. Space is big.

Mr. Kinsella, you would do well to not attempt to characterize Ayn Rand or Objectivism, it just lays your poverty of understanding her starkly naked.

If you say von Mises was basically an anarchist, fine, maybe his is, no one else here is standing up for him. Just be aware that unless he repudiated the book I cited, he is one that understands the anti-Capitalist mentality, as explicated in my post above. I despise his 'be content with your beneficent externalities' justification of denying copyright and patent.

It was been mentioned by me in these threads that your flaw is not respecting the volitional nature of consciousness and what that implies concerning a type of searing soul/mind ownership of its product. That is not an attempt to teach you anything; you are monolithic in your anarchistic world view. I won't even repeat my opinion of that world view. No, that concept is merely a pointer. If you ever have a moment of clarity that -- as I said previously, and you once must have believed as a patent attorney -- you should be doing everything in your power to protect the individual's -- or corporation's -- ownership of it's product, you know where to look. It is in Objectivism.

Published: September 9, 2009 1:09 AM
Bala

SK,

Oh please!!!! Don't try to slime out of it by putting the onus of disproving specific claim of yours on me.

The situation is this. You posted a blog, based on certain premises, that castigated the very concept of IP. I raised basic questions about your most fundamental premises (fundamental enough to say you have treated them as axioms) and thus demolished your entire argument against the concept ot IP. I showed that you are talking nonsense.

The onus is now on you to defend your position. The way to do that is by defeating my arguments, not by throwing fresh questions at me. That only shows you are unable to counter what I have said.

As for your questions, all of them are stupid questions posed by someone who has made a lot of false and untenable assumptions and is working on flawed axioms.

Just as an example, I shall respond to the first question.

" Why do you support the aggression that states necessarily commit? "

Can you feel the slime oozing out of this question? I can do it sitting here in India. Now to answering it.

What is the aggression that states necessarily commit that I support? From all previous encounters with Anarchists, I presume you mean the force exerted by an Ideal Objectivist Government (to take my best case scenario) on a competing PDA.

That is not aggression. That is self-defence. It is the PDA that has declared war on the Government and on the liberty of all the people living in the domain of the Government. The Government's action is an act of retaliatory force protecting people's liberty.

As I had said elsewhere just yesterday, under an ideal Objectivist Government, there would be a need for a competing PDA only for a person whose Moral positions and hence Legal positions differed considerably from those of the Ideal Objectivist Government. Since I consider the latter the most Moral option, I consider the act of raising a rival PDA immoral and the Government's act of crushing it justified retaliatory force. Clear????

If you mean any other type of aggression, the onus is on you to specify it so that I can address it.

Published: September 9, 2009 1:25 AM
Bala

John,

" Mr. Kinsella, you would do well to not attempt to characterize Ayn Rand or Objectivism, it just lays your poverty of understanding her starkly naked. "

SK is getting hilarious. Elsewhere, he has characterised Ayn Rand as a minarchist. He is now so shaken he has started contradicting himself.

Published: September 9, 2009 1:31 AM
mpolzkill

Bala,

Yes, yes, yes, I know that you have declared your opinion "REALITY": that creative men will not have enough motivation to create without "IP", inevitably sending us into a "Dark Age" if we were to all stop recognizing "IP". And I understand you have decreed that physical, scarce items are in fact exactly the same thing as immaterial things that are not scarce when it comes to ownership. The part I was not understanding was what you advocate in order to advance your theology. You always seem to me to try to avoid this part for some reason. So then, to be perfectly clear: you advocate the State enforcing your concept of morality (sorry, MORALITY) on the millions of recalcitrants who are never going to buy your FACTS as fact, correct?

If so, no sale. I would never join you in aggrandizing the State. On the other forum you denigrated libertarianism as axiomatic, an end in itself. Well, it IS an end in itself for full-fledged adults, but the more liberty (under Natural Law) there is, the better it is for you too. I sincerely believe that if you were to ever get off your misguided obsession with your special interest and honestly studied the history of the world, you would come to find it true that "liberty is the mother, not the daughter of order."

Published: September 9, 2009 1:38 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" So then, to be perfectly clear: you advocate the State enforcing your concept of morality (sorry, MORALITY) on the millions of recalcitrants who are never going to buy your FACTS as fact, correct? "

That's called law when Government codifies Morality into a system by which true conflicts of interests between individuals may be resolved.

" On the other forum you denigrated libertarianism as axiomatic, an end in itself. "

No. I said it is based on the false axiom of Liberty. I have also shown in my post that Liberty is not axiomatic and Life is. The Right to Liberty is a logical corollary of the Right to Life but it is only a by-product of the Right to Life. When you take it axiomatically, you make mistakes like Stephan Kinsella is making.

Published: September 9, 2009 1:51 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" Yes, yes, yes, I know that you have declared your opinion "REALITY": "

The "opinion" I stated was very simply that man is a rational animal with a volitional consciousness who needs to act consistently in his own self-interest and whose sole tool for comprehending the world around him is his mind. If that is want to smear by calling it "REALITY", please remember that it is a reflection of the disconnect your axioms have with the real world.

Published: September 9, 2009 2:00 AM
mpolzkill

Ah, I should have put that one sentence:

"And I understand that you have decreed that when it comes to ownership, physical, scarce items are in fact exactly the same thing as immaterial things that are not scarce."

Bala answered me while I typed I reckon:

"...under an ideal Objectivist Government, there would be a need for a competing PDA only for a person whose Moral positions and hence Legal positions differed considerably from those of the Ideal Objectivist Government. Since I consider the latter the most Moral option, I consider the act of raising a rival PDA immoral and the Government's act of crushing it justified retaliatory force. Clear????"

Sorry if I missed you posting your insane creed yesterday (Was objectivist government in caps that time?). You are only different in the source of your biases and obsessions, not in principle, from a diehard Communist. Just like you, Commies sincerely, and wrongly believe that they alone possess MORALITY and once they finally get their "ideal" government, they will then mete out perfect justice. You will all fight each other until you wipe us all out or until some unknown critical percentage of humans completely reject the political means.

Published: September 9, 2009 2:01 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

Do you even realise that you have started smearing and stopped arguing?

Published: September 9, 2009 2:05 AM
scott t

"However what would happen if George Lucas didn't have I.P. protection? Would he have been able to profit from the ticket sales from the first three movies because the special effects were ahead of their time?"

i guess so. if movie production, distribution and viewing were under the same umbrella i would think so.

again, i am not completely certain, but i used to deliver film movies to theatres and pick them up after their runs.

the large heavy rolls of film were in locked hexagonal steel cases. i assumed the film was returned to some type of warehouse owned or controlled by the production company (for $1.00 movie showings post run).
so to make a copy of star wars would have been a pain in the ass.
control production, distroibution and some ownership of theatres - and the audience would be captive to great degree.
a 'pirated' roll of film showing in a rouge theatre would be known to be movie subterfuge (somehow copying thousands of feet of film using sophisticated expensive equipment, etc).
i made about 6.50 /hr doing that .

Published: September 9, 2009 2:18 AM
mpolzkill

Bala,

My belief that libertarianism is the "mother of order" is not derived from my desire for it as a means unto itself. I believe some people are born libertarians, I believe I was. I ask nothing of freedom, even as a child I didn't care what happened to me as long as I was free. It came as a slow realization through study that in fact it is the greatest philosophy for the maximization of what you (the egomaniac here who constantly pronounces what IS reality, what IS morality and claims the right [through an agent, I suppose, that cleans it up for most] to crush those who disagree) pronounce axiomatic: life. Now, it could be said that I had a confirmation bias here. That may be, but it doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't matter what it does for me, so I don't know why I would exaggerate its benefits.

Anyway, got to hit the hay, nice talking to you. I really do enjoy some of your sermons. I only ask that you please reevaluate yourself so that you stop advocating the State's crushing of those who disagreeing with you would have the temerity to defy YOUR decreed "morality", OK?

Published: September 9, 2009 2:22 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" I only ask that you please reevaluate yourself so that you stop advocating the State's crushing of those who disagreeing with you would have the temerity to defy YOUR decreed "morality", OK? "

The "crushing" was reserved for a rival PDA. As long as the rival PDA follows the same principles of law and does not engage in what Objective Law would call initiation of force, there would be no problem. That is the meaning of federalism and local self-government. It is only when it departs from the path of Objective Law that trouble erupts.

Good night.

Published: September 9, 2009 2:28 AM
mpolzkill

Bala say:

"Do you even realise that you have started smearing and stopped arguing?"

Of course, totalitarians are beneath arguing with. Our freedom is not negotiable, not up for discussion at any rate. I'm just drawing out of you as clear an expression of your authoritarianism as I can for all who don't belong to your strange cult to see and be repulsed by. I think SK got you to give a pretty good snapshot of it, I'm satisfied. Goodnight.

Published: September 9, 2009 2:33 AM
newson

to bala:
i find your logic difficult to follow. why is it fine to watch a cd borrowed from the library, and not borrowed from a friend? if i can borrow it from a friend, where's the distinction between downloading it from a well-wisher? are you aware of any authors or publishers who have ever denied public libraries books?

have you randians ever borrowed or loaned books, or must you buy everything in order that royalties be devolved to the creator?

why, indeed, don't authors claim royalties on secondhand books, as you've mooted? the works of creation would still belong to the creators, not to the purchaser, in randland.

Published: September 9, 2009 3:26 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" Of course, totalitarians are beneath arguing with. "

To return the compliment, thieves who seek to make thieving an honourable profession are beneath contempt. That's what all you moocher anti-IP propagandists are.

I wonder how a person with an unrelenting commitment to individual rights can be called totalitarian just because he opposes the concept of competing PDAs not just as an affront to Liberty but also as something that makes Liberty impossible.

To the moocher, the producer who threatens to use force ro put an end to his mooching always appears like a totalitarian. Thanks for the clarification that you too belong well and truly in the moocher camp.

Published: September 9, 2009 5:49 AM
Bala

newson,

" why, indeed, don't authors claim royalties on secondhand books, as you've mooted? "

For the same reason that no one stakes claim to all the air on Earth - Rationality and practicality.

Published: September 9, 2009 5:56 AM
Lord Buzungulus, Inspirer of Awe

Here's another anti-IP paper that might be of interest; I didn't see it on Stephan's list:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1117269

I have to say, I find it amusing how Randroids use physicalist metaphors like the "fruit" of one's actions in their defense of IP.

Published: September 9, 2009 8:43 AM
mpolzkill

Bala,

"I wonder how a person with an unrelenting commitment"

I was fading and too lazy to think of a better word. "Totality": I still can't come up with the word for a religious cult that seeks world government to enforce their nutty ideas about morality. Your commitment to individual rights is quite relenting, it relents as soon as anyone disagrees with your ideas of morality. If they refuse to bow to the theocrat army you advocate, you call for their crushing.

"just because he opposes...that makes Liberty impossible."

We've gone through this: your opinions are somehow facts and you wish to make them universal law. "All ways are MY ways!" is all that rings in my ears when you speak.

"thieves who seek to make thieving an honourable profession"

This tack you've adopted is asinine. It is clear that I think "IP" is almost a non-issue, whereas you are so obsessed with it you call for world government to enforce it. It is obvious what my motivation is; why don't you tailor your spiel, it is absurd and offensive for you to act like all those who don't share your obsession have nefarious objectives. I don't think you have evil intentions, I think you are wrong. Even in D.C., I think it's the vast majority who have good intentions. THEY always do more harm than the conventionally rapacious. You are all completely ignorant about the nature of the tool you wish to become the wielder of.

I don't know anything about any mooching. I guess in the broad sense we are ALL moochers, making your name-calling ridiculous. On the personal level, I gather from the quality of your argumentation and from your quaint ideas about the creative process that you've never created anything that anyone would want to mooch. Far from giving honor to a poor stooge who would copy you, I'd feel pity for the hypothetical fellow. Moochers are beggars, after all. Try a different tack, Bala. You won't convert anyone possessing a functioning mind this way. And if you can't persuade with words you'll have to use the gun to force your views on us and that never works the way anyone but the power mad would like.

Good day.

Published: September 9, 2009 8:50 AM
newson

to bala:
so it's as i thought, there are tremendous invocations of morality to justify ip when it comes to downloading and copying digitally, but "practicality and rationality" kick in when the complexity of enforcement becomes too great, or the internal contradictions are highlighted.

Published: September 9, 2009 10:29 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" I still can't come up with the word for a religious cult that seeks world government to enforce their nutty ideas about morality "

I never spoke of "world government". That's your embellishment.

I never spoke of enforcing my morality. You are adding it.

I said Government would exert what I call defensive force on a competing PDA. I did omit to mention that that would happen when the PDA exerts what it claims is defensive force and what Objective Law considers aggression. As long as the PDA works within the framework of Objective Law, no conflict is possible.

" it relents as soon as anyone disagrees with your ideas of morality "

How stupid can you get? Or are you just low-life that you put words in my mouth and then claim they are mine?

" We've gone through this: your opinions are somehow facts and you wish to make them universal law "

Please... That anarchy would degenerate into tyranny is my hypothesis. How about trying to prove me wrong? Especially when all the nut jobs out in force on this site are preaching it. Read that to mean you are trying to sell Anarchy.

" it is absurd and offensive for you to act like all those who don't share your obsession have nefarious objectives "

I only said your most basic premises are false. If that means that I am implying that you have nefarious objectives, that's your problem, not mine.

" You won't convert anyone possessing a functioning mind this way. "

Who said I am trying to convert anyone? When I want to do that, I use a different approach. Here, I am just showing that you are all taking nonsense.

" On the personal level, I gather from the quality of your argumentation and from your quaint ideas about the creative process that you've never created anything that anyone would want to mooch. "

Now you turn to personal slander when you run out of arguments completely. Rand really identified you types and your approaches. So, I am ready for this.

I employ well over 120 people. I have been running a successful business in education for 10 years now. I am the biggest player in my field within my operating area, twice as big as all my competitors put together. I am also the most successful in my territory in terms of the success of my students. I train over 6000 students in long and short-term courses every year. Students and prospective students know my company and look up to it with respect.

What have you achieved to talk of me like this???? Dumb moocher.

Published: September 9, 2009 10:34 AM
newson

thanks to buzungulus for the sandefur ip paper.

Published: September 9, 2009 10:48 AM
Stephan Kinsella

Buzungulus, I didn't cite Sandefur because (a) he's evil; (b) he's a lightweight and a moron; (c) he's not a libertarian; (d) his IP stuff is not original or non-cumulative with other stuff. Plus his thesis is not that principled: he writes: "Nor do I assert that patents and copyrights are necessarily bad things; although I contend that they are not natural rights, they might be justified on prudential grounds." Plus, he does not criticize the central Randian error, of assuming creation is an independent (indeed, the primary) source of property rights.

Who needs this lightweight, sellout, preachy, tut-tutting, laughably sanctimonious, insufferable neocon statist twit?

Published: September 9, 2009 11:40 AM
Lord Buzungulus, Bringer of the Purple Light

Stephan,

Yes, I agree, Sandefur is a little prick. I haven't read the entire article, but the little I did seemed reasonable, so I thought I would mention it here. Perhaps the rest of it will prove to be crap, but I don't know yet.

Published: September 9, 2009 11:50 AM
Stephan Kinsella

Bala:

" Of course, totalitarians are beneath arguing with. "
To return the compliment, thieves who seek to make thieving an honourable profession are beneath contempt. That's what all you moocher anti-IP propagandists are.

But your calling it theft is question-beggings. On the other hand, you have admitted (or not denied) that you favor the state and its aggression. So it's not symmetrical, I'm afraid. Your "moocher" accusations are vague and non-rigorous; but in any event, libertarianism is about respecting property rights. It opposes aggression. It does not oppose "mooching," whatever that is, any more than it opposes being a jerk or rude or lazy.

I said Government would exert what I call defensive force on a competing PDA. I did omit to mention that that would happen when the PDA exerts what it claims is defensive force and what Objective Law considers aggression. As long as the PDA works within the framework of Objective Law, no conflict is possible.

Jesus, look at the damage Rand has wrought. Not worth responding to.

Lord Buzungulus, Bringer of the Purple Light:

Yes, I agree, Sandefur is a little prick. I haven't read the entire article, but the little I did seemed reasonable, so I thought I would mention it here. Perhaps the rest of it will prove to be crap, but I don't know yet.

The paper's not bad and does show some problems with Rand's views, but it does not really start from a thoroughly principled libertarian view of property rights nor is it systematic. It is sort of a collection of ad hoc criticisms (e.g. the stuff about "derivative rights" while omitting more fundamental ones). Anyway, he's at least basically right and on our side on this one--but you know being right on IP does not exactly make up for being in favor of millions or billions of state murders in war.

Published: September 9, 2009 12:00 PM
Bala

SK,

" Jesus, look at the damage Rand has wrought. Not worth responding to. "

You are sick. When you have nothing to say, you make a virtue out of a necessity, is it? If you are so dumb that you couldn't understand that, that part meant that till it transgresses the line between engaging with people to try and settle disputes and forcing people in the name of acting on behalf of its clients, it is just a legal adviser. When it forces someone to satisfy its client, it becomes a criminal. Guess you dumb moochers will always find this tough to comprehend. I guess your brain is Anarchic as well - One half refuses to agree with the ideas of the other half.

Published: September 9, 2009 12:27 PM
Bala

SK,

How about addressing the huge holes I punched in your premises? You have had a day to think (if you ever do that). I addressed at least 1 of your 3 questions immediately. How about returning the courtesy?

Or do you just want to evade till you think I will lose my patience and buzz off so that you can restart your rubbish again?

Published: September 9, 2009 1:37 PM
mpolzkill

SK is right, this isn't worth it, but it is slightly amusing and I feel sorry that no one will respond to his ranting. Bala said:

"I never spoke of 'world government'. That's your embellishment...I never spoke of enforcing my morality. You are adding it....

...I said Government would exert what I call defensive force on a competing PDA. I did omit to mention that that would happen when the PDA exerts what it claims is defensive force and what Objective Law considers aggression. As long as the PDA works within the framework of Objective Law, no conflict is possible."

I think I have it now, you believe in magic words. Change the words and your statism is softened. That's incorrect. Will there be a place in the world your government has no jurisdiction over? And the hypothetical PDA not working within your framework, that "framework is defined by your concept of morality, correct? The "Mr. Blonde" philosophy here: "If they hadn't done what I told them not to do, they'd still be alive", ha ha. You ARE wacky

"How stupid can you get? Or are you just low-life that you put words in my mouth and then claim they are mine?"

Pretty stupid I guess, I have no idea how you think you won't have to enforce your obscure, quaint philosophy. I try to put your gobbledy-guck into clear language so I can understand and I ask you if you agree with it. I didn't quote you as saying anything you didn't.

"How about trying to prove me wrong?...sell Anarchy."

Already been through that. I won't be definitively proving anyone right or wrong on their theories regarding the future of the world. I only have a general belief that the more people build social power, the better, the more resort to the political means, the worse off the world will be. I don't require and won't be decreeing "anarchy", so I don't know how or why I would be "selling anarchy". Quite ridiculous; advocating personal responsibility, you bet. No, I'm not in your system selling game.

"only said your most basic premises are false. If that means that I am implying that you have nefarious objectives"

You didn't imply, you said we were "thieves who seek to make thieving an honourable profession "

"Who said I am trying to convert anyone?"

Well, that's good for you. Though I then have no idea what you're doing. You have shown nothing other than you are an absolutist nut. Please do show me something: show me exactly what a "moocher" is and how I am any worse of one than yourself. I'm guessing it must be because I'm not a part of your silly cult.

"Now you turn to personal slander when you run out of arguments completely. Rand really identified you types and your approaches. So, I am ready for this."

You employ slander all the time, please get off your high horse. It is also pathetic how you constantly have to assert what a bad-ass you are. We're all impressed by your manic tenacity OK? And your cult leader has trained this young Jedi well...god, give it a rest.

"I employ well over 120 people. I have been running..."

See above: pathetic. What in the world does any of this have to do with being good at argumentation or with being truly creative? You give your opinions that we are thieving idiots, I give my opinion that you are a clown that obviously has no knowledge of what drives the creative to create. No need to try to pull rank over it. How strange!?!

"What have you achieved to talk of me like this???? [childish name-calling]"

The ability to get on-line and type in English.

Published: September 9, 2009 7:10 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

You are a shameless liar. Follow the thread to see who did the first name calling. You started it by calling me a "totalitarian". Until then, I was arguing with you too.

Your type - the descend to slander when you have nothing to say to defend yourself - was well identified by Rand. I just didn't expect to find that out here on this site.

" See above: pathetic. What in the world does any of this have to do with being good at argumentation or with being truly creative? "

Dumb schmuck.... That says I produce. I live on the ability of my brains and my hard work. WTF do you do but sit around and slander others??

Published: September 9, 2009 7:59 PM
mpolzkill

Bala,

Another stellar job avoiding questions that will take you away from the magical words you prefer. Kudos.

You have serious comprehension problems, Bala. "Shameless liar"? Where did I say you were the first to call me a name? I have no idea who was the first and I claimed no such thing. It is a fact that your name-calling, wild accusations and defamations of character against others are all over this forum. That's all I referred to.

"the descend to slander"

No, I took the liberty of defining someone who has proved to be a hopeless nut-case. Slander must be purposely untruthful, btw. I was sincerely trying to define the personality of someone who advocates a government that must crush opposition on every part of the globe according to their SUBJECTIVE philosophy (an absolutist world government, I calls it, and I definitely won't use your most cherished magic word that you have pathetically tried to appropriate). So, the word "totalitarian" came to me, thinking of "totality". I admitted the word is too strong because of the birth of the word and the general public's understanding of it. How about absolutist loony?

"[more CHILDISH name-calling]...That says I produce...[witless, unfounded conjecture]"

I'll ask again (as I almost always have to): what does your having ANY job or business have to do with the ability to argue well and what does it have to do with understanding what drives the creative to create. You boldly suggest that it is above all money: no "IP", no creation. That makes you a cretin in MY book, and goes a long way to explaining your obsession.

Published: September 9, 2009 8:45 PM
antiip

"the tendency to evade REALITY and build a false world around yourself based on untenable notions not supported by REALITY."

Yeah, you sure have a problem: Either you are too dumb to answer my questions or you are just a blunt troll.

Which one will it be?

"You are a shameless liar. "

The only liar here is you. You wasted the precious time of thoughtful man here with your stupid trolling about your fantasy rights to "the fruits of my soul".

Why the hell should anyone be discussing with you, if you even do not care to answer questions and repeat your senseless sermon like a fanatic religious preacher? You sound like one.

You do not want to discuss, instead you just want to spew your objectivistic ideology all over here.

Nobody needs that. So stop trespassing (in your world your actions could be called that!) our minds!

Published: September 9, 2009 8:50 PM
antiip

@to all but Bala:

Bala is a typical objectivist hypocrite because he preaches a theory in which everyone would be obliged to pay EVERY person who had the simplest idea for that idea because they have in his pov the right to "the fruits of their souls".

But he himself does not pay those persons (because they are innumerable). He just wants others to believe in that kind of religion: The religion of IP!

It must be a very lonely, sick world that IP-Mumbo Jumbo alternate reality.

Published: September 9, 2009 8:57 PM
antiip

"and what Objective Law considers aggression. As long as the PDA works within the framework of Objective Law, no conflict is possible."

That sounds like:

"and what Positive Law considers aggression. As long as the PDA works within the framework of Positive Law, no conflict is possible."

Your deception does not work!

@SK

"Why do you support the aggression that states necessarily commit?
2. Why do you support IP if it requires states, which commit aggression?
3. Why do you support the aggression of taking my property rights in my own property and giving them to some third party just because he thought of a way to use his own property and was able to persuade the criminal state to issue him title to some of my property on these grounds?"

Because Bala won't answer ANY questions here (he seems to see them as enemies!) here the quintessence of a typical objectivist mind:

The REAL objectivist answers:

1. Because it is our state. And because I want to gain profit from it. States and government are only bad if they are not on our side. If we are in power glory will be ours!

2. Because we like monopolies so we can dictate prices! We want cash! And we do not want to work for it!

3. Because we do not support full property rights by others. Only Objective Law (oh it so objective!) is truth (and no, although is seems as if Positive Law would be similar to that it is not so, because we say so!).
We decide who has to give us something of his property. And we like enforcing state... ahh Objective Monopolies!

Published: September 9, 2009 9:13 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

Thanks a ton for continuing the discussion until this point. As I said elsewhere, I came here to learn and not to make life miserable for you, SK or other IP-opponent on this board.

I have been thinking long and hard about almost everything you have said from our first interaction and I think I am beginning to comprehend your position. I am a little tied up with a professional engagement till Sunday and would like to get back on Monday (Sep 14).

I request you to check this comment page around that time to continue this discussion definitely along better lines, largely because I am now beginning to understand your position.

On one of these discussion forums, Michael A Clem asked a question - "How can Objectivists and Anarchists work together?". Initially, I thought "No way!!". Now, thanks to this discussion, I see possiblities that we can study. Maybe, SK could take it up since he is wedded to it.

Once again, thanks for persisting. I owe you a lot. I hope you will be around on Monday.

Published: September 10, 2009 4:57 PM
Ned Netterville

mpozikill: "[Y]ou've unwittingly picked it (sick) out my error and reprinted it. That should have read, "better PLANE". I'm over-sensitive, I know. Consider me the Anton Bruckner of blogging."

Whose Anton Bruckner? (Its PLANE to see hees unknown to me.) [P's intended.]

Bala: "[t]hieves who seek to make thieving an honourable profession are beneath contempt. That's what all you moocher anti-IP propagandists are."

Mr. Bala: As I said before, my objection to IP is that it cannot exist in the absence of government. Of course, and obviously, I am merely an ignorant anarchist, or, more precisely, a pacifist voluntaryist. My objection to the state is quite simple: its existence is dependent upon the initiation of force and violence without provocation, if for no other reason--and, manifestly, once employed with apparent "success," force and violence are always repeated for other "good" purposes--than to collect the taxes upon which the state's existence utterly depends.

And it is my humble evaluation that taxation is theft because it is indistinguishable from that category of theft generally known as extortion. The only reason tax collectors are not imprisoned by the state for what the state designates as the crime of stealing is because tax collectors work for the state and the state grants them immunity for their crime, which is, taking property from people without their consent, a.k.a., stealing.

So it seems to me that IP is derived from theft, and it seems rather a gross distortion of the truth for you to ignore the theft by which the state creates IP when calling those who would do away with the state and its thieving ways thieves. Isn't that putting the horse on top of the cart?

Bala, you also wrote, "That's called law when Government codifies Morality into a system by which true conflicts of interests between individuals may be resolved."

That, to me, sounds like nonsense. For how is an individual to achieve a just resolution of a conflict with the state when the state insists--and backs its insistence with its force and violence--that the state alone must be the final arbiter of true conflicts? To whom can the put-upon taxpayer turn to protect his or her property from impositions (thefts) by the state's tax collectors? It seems beyond ludicrous that the state (forcibly) insists on sitting in judgment of such conflicts.

Mr. Bala wrote: "I employ well over 120 people. I have been running a successful business in education for 10 years now. I am the biggest player in my field within my operating area, twice as big as all my competitors put together. I am also the most successful in my territory in terms of the success of my students. I train over 6000 students in long and short-term courses every year. Students and prospective students know my company and look up to it with respect."

Ahh, Mr. Bala, for this I sincerely congratulate and respect you. Providing one-hundred twenty jobs at a time when the state has affected so very much unemployment and made the work of entrepreneurs so much more difficult by its various interventions in the economy is truly a blessing. Mind you, my respect for "entrepreneurial" success, however, does contain one caveat: that it not depend on state subsidies or regulations except to the extent that the entrepreneurial activity serves to subvert them.

Published: September 11, 2009 12:24 PM
John Donohue

are anarchists pacifists?

Published: September 12, 2009 12:53 PM
mpolzkill

John Donohue,

No. They could be if they wished. I don't recommend adhering to it too strictly.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Ned Netterville,

A self-educated composer considered by many to be a bumpkin.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Bala,

You bet.

Published: September 12, 2009 1:36 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,
Just checking if I got it right.

Your position is basically that because acknowledging IP means transgression of rights to physical property and liberty, we are better off looking for alternate ways to "protect" intellectual property than legislation.

Secondly, your (and SK's) other point is that the State is inherently evil and since implementation of IP enforcement through government gives government the power to violate individual liberties and rights to physical property, the transformation of even the initially most benign of governments into the evil State is inevitable. Hence, calling upon Government to enforce IP is an invitation to disaster.

In Objectivist language, you are saying that choosing IP, especially getting government to enforce IP, is an immoral choice.

You are also saying that it is not upto anyone else but the producers of ideas (or creators as we wish to call them) to figure out how to protect their ideas and derive maximum benefit (whatever they feel is the suitable benefit) from them.

Put this way, I don't see how and why I would disagree with you. The one point to note, however, is that these conclusions are automatic once you introduce into my original argument on the Objectivist understanding of Rights, the ideas that

1. the State is inherently evil and violative of Individual Rights
2. there is an inherent conflict between IP and physical property rights and we therefore have to make a Moral choice between the two.

However, I still feel that the Libertarian view of Rights, starting as it does from the claim that all Rights are Property Rights is flawed because it is not based on Man's nature. Ultimately, Human Action is driven by an individual's sense of Right and Wrong, i.e., a man's code of Morality. The more closely your definition of Rights conforms to a rational Morality, the greater will be the chance that you can get rational men to accept it and work by it.

It is here that Ayn Rand becomes indispensable for Libertarians. Her concept of Individual Rights has the potential to provide a solid Moral foundation to Libertarianism and hence greatly increase the appeal of the latter. In fact, it can provide valuable Moral ammunition against a whole host of attacks launched on Liberty and the only economic system based on it, i.e., Capitalism.

Rather than take a confrontationist approach towards Objectivism, I feel that Libertarians would do better to integrate the fundamental ideas of Rand with their own to provide the much needed Moral justification for their political philosophy, thus making it complete in all respects. Doing so may also help you get a whole host of Objectivists who currently see Libertarians as misguided and dangerous. You would do well to keep in mind that there are 2 kinds of people who claim to be Objectivists

1. True Objectivists who understand the basic principles of the philosophy and are ready to question their conclusions when confronted with new facts (which they had earlier omitted)
2. Randites to whom Objectivism is what Rand said it is and for whom to reject any part of it is to reject the entire philosophy - something sacriligeous.

By demonising Rand inspite of all her positive contributions to philosophy, you are losing a number of potential allies, epsecially those of the first group.

Published: September 15, 2009 11:44 AM
mpolzkill

Bala,

That's in the ballpark. I'm super-busy right now, but I'll try to respond tonight (America time). Thanks for your input and your thoughtfulness; a pleasure speaking to you.

Published: September 16, 2009 9:24 AM
mpolzkill

Bala said,

"we are better off looking for alternate..."

I just straight have no idea what "intellectual property" is; no offense, I just literally don't recognize it. You may as well be talking about transubstantiation; a person talking about either "thing" sends my mind in the same place.

"Secondly..."

Yeah, for me that's pretty close.

"...especially getting government to enforce IP, is an immoral choice"

It's worse than immoral, it’s a mistake. As for your believing in it and peacefully trying to convince others of its reality, I see nothing immoral about that. Again, no offense, I think you could use your energies more productively.

"not upto anyone else"

Yes, everything is up to individuals.

"I don't see how and why I would disagree with you"

Terrific. I would say that all rights are made POSSIBLE through the observance of property rights. I think that Murray Rothbard's major essay on Natural Rights provides a large amount of evidence that this view IS based on the nature of man.
I like your attitude here, and I think there are myriad ways we can make and have to make liberty more attractive to those who don't naturally desire it (for whatever inconceivable to me reasons those are. I'm again at a loss here).

Could there be a third kind of Objectivist who has completely ditched Rand? I'm sorry, yet again, but for me, personally, she has been a millstone around my neck. I have never read her, never been influenced by her, and yet can't count the number of times I've been dismissed as a Randroid by members of the illiterate masses. I don't believe we could ever draw as many Rand fans as we would lose from those who hate her. I know that she had a lot of fine qualities and has moved many fine people towards the philosophy of liberty, but she has got some SERIOUS baggage. Can you give me an explanation for this? How did she get here?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uHSv1asFvU

Frankly, I am repulsed by her, and I don't think I'll ever be close to alone on that. If you need it and can't find it, I'll send you the entire context. I don't believe that the context helps her though. "THE Arabs" Collectivism?!? Or is she just an innocent victim of semantic infiltration?

I really appreciate your new tone here and I truly hope my frankness isn't taken as an attack.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I forgot to tell Ned Netterville that his playful mockery of my scab-picking was very funny.

Published: September 18, 2009 9:59 AM
mpolzkill

Bala, please note the latest comment on the video (which I have just now noticed myself):

"Egoism is the dumbest and crudest philosophy I can think of. It just REEKS of greed and self-centeredness. I mean, Objectivists who believed in this crap actually thought that teaching people to be generous and charitable was 'a bad thing' or something to that effect. Please! Even libertarians believe in private charity."

At least this guy realizes there is a difference and places your philosophy EVEN lower than OUR evil philosophy, ha ha. Except for his knowing the bare minimum required to grant the difference, this is typical and overwhelmingly widespread, believe me.

Published: September 18, 2009 10:36 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" Could there be a third kind of Objectivist who has completely ditched Rand? "

Tough. Actually, impossible. For whatever you may reject about Rand's position on Government or IP, her view of man and her framework of Morality makes great sense for anyone who chooses to live as a human being.

" ..... yet can't count the number of times I've been dismissed as a Randroid by members of the illiterate masses "

That's because on most things, Objectivists and Libertarians have more or less the same things to say. A listener (more exposed as he is likely to be to Rand's ideas because of their greater popularity - there lies my claim :) ) is bound to think of you as an Objectivist (or a Randroid as you like to name it). So, I'm not surprised.

" but she has got some SERIOUS baggage. Can you give me an explanation for this? "

My speaker isn't working. So, I will need to ask for explanations. Are you referring to Rand's stand on Israel and specifically in the Arab-Israel conflict? If so, I have my own theory on that which I will post in case you would like to discuss it. As of now, I will state briefly that the case for Israel is a Moral one and the Arab "cause" is an immoral one because it is essentially a case of rejection of the right of Jews to live in Israel. I know this is a diversion on this thread, but I am just responding.

As for the comment you have pasted, what else can you expect from a supporter of the Arab "cause" except for rubbish like this? It is true that to support the Arab "cause", one has to declare the selfishness and the refusal to let yourself be treated as a sacrificial lamb are wrong, immoral and vile.

Further, the comment also shows that how easily people comment on something they have no clue about. For instance, nowhere has Rand said that charity is not a virtue. She has only stated that it is a secondary and not a primary virtue. She has clearly stated that to engage in charity is also a moral choice and to advise people to engage in charity without regard for (or worse, compromising) their own selfish interest is the hallmark of an evil mind.

" It's worse than immoral, it’s a mistake "

The 2 are the same to an Objectivist. To recognise a choice as a mistake and still choose it is what we Objectivists call an Immoral choice.

" Frankly, I am repulsed by her "

Remember that you are saying this without (by your own admission) having ever read her. I hope you realise how erroneous such a judgement could be. It also tells me that most (or even all) of your complaints against Rand are based on complete ignorance and may need serious questioning or even to be dismissed outright.

Published: September 19, 2009 10:09 AM
Fallon

Morris and Linda Tannehill weave Objectivist themes while rejecting the state in The Market for Liberty.

http://mises.org/books/marketforliberty.pdf

Published: September 19, 2009 10:36 AM
mpolzkill

Bala, we've been through this before: I can't read everything. For instance, and to consciously demonstrate Godwin's Rule (as one is wont to do when using a reductio ad absurdum): I can live with my dismissal by a Nazi because my repulsion has precluded my reading "Mein Kampf." She called THE Arabs savages. You, right here, ASSUME that someone else who is also repulsed by her MUST be a "supporter of the Arab 'cause'". I must be one too: to a crude collectivist, which is what you both sound like to me. How about neutrality on the hideous mess over there? Can the poster and I possibly be neutral?!? (although I will admit great sympathy for the victims in Gaza, squeezed in by Israel, and on the south by one of America's abominable puppet governments) You two are out to lunch. I could go on, but what's the point?

The Bible teaches a mighty time-saving mental tool so that I don't have to read all the scribblings of Ayn Rand, or L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith or Chairman Mao; or whatever any huckster and/or ego-maniac can write or dictate to a stooge: "by their fruits shall ye know them"

Published: September 19, 2009 11:10 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" Can the poster and I possibly be neutral?!? "

Actually, no. The poster, by denouncing the concepts of greed and self-centredness, has shown that he has swallowed the morality of Altruism hook, line and sinker. Sadly, by taking a line from the Bible as your lodestone, you are showing that you too have swallowed the same Altruistic code of morality. All the best in your attempts at spreading Libertarianism, especially in your attempts to mix the Altruistic moral code propounded by the Bible with the selfish moral code required for a Capitalistic system to have moral sustenance. With this approach, you are bound to fail (and then wonder why). If you are looking for proof, look no further than me.

Published: September 19, 2009 11:36 AM
mpolzkill

Bad company, eh? Bala, you have fundamental problems with basic logic; too obvious to even bother with. Major comprehension problems too (or something worse): can we be neutral on the PALESTINE horror, Bala? I plan on "spreading" nothing; my only goal is to expose criminals and criminal thought. Rand did it to herself and you jump right in with her.

btw, there's no wondering from me why the corrupt-minded like yourself reject liberty, it's just a mystery to me why some are born loving it while most are apparently born slaves.

Published: September 19, 2009 12:05 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" there's no wondering from me why the corrupt-minded like yourself reject liberty "

I am ignoring these meaningless allegations coz they are clearly incorrect.

" can we be neutral on the PALESTINE horror "

Could you please define what you mean by the "PALESTINE horror"? Specifically, could you please state the causes and the time-line of events? More specifically, could you explain why the founding charter of every group fighting for the Palestinian Arabs calls for the destruction of Israel? Could you explain how Israel has managed to have unbroken peaceful relationships with Arab neighbours like Egypt and Jordan which have recognised Israel's right to exist while the problem is mainly with other Arab countries that refuse to do the same? Could you explain the causes for the murder of innocent Jews by Arab mobs in 1914, the killings that (to my knowledge) started off the violence? Could you please read up the report of the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry and give me your interpretation? Could you explain the causes of the Arab Riots of 1920-21, 1929 and 1937? Could you explain the odd coincidence that all 3 usually maligned Jewish Defence Forces - Haganah, Irgun and the Stern Gang - were formed AFTER one of these bouts of violence from the Arabs? Could you also try to explain who declared war on who in 1948?

I wonder who is having problems with logic and comprehension. Or are these problems related to refusal to recognise facts?

Published: September 19, 2009 10:14 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" btw, there's no wondering from me why the corrupt-minded like yourself reject liberty "

Just detected a logical flaw. I only spoke of not buying into Libertarianism. I did not speak of rejecting Liberty. It is now clear who is having comprehension problems. Or is it a package deal you are talking of?

Published: September 19, 2009 10:19 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

Just adding to my set of questions...

Why should Israel talk to Hamas whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel?

Why was the PLO formed in 1964 with a charter to "liberate" Palestinian territory? To my knowledge, Israel occupied West Bank and Gaza in the 6-day war of 1967. What then was the PLO 'liberating" in 1964?

Is the "horror" caused by the IDF or is it self-inflicted? Why do the Arabs keep electing to posts of power, representatives of Hamas which calls for the destruction of Israel? Does that or does that not make the average Arab in Palestine an eager and active participant in Hamas' war on Israel?

Published: September 19, 2009 10:35 PM
mpolzkill

You're giving me a headache again, Bala. The suffix, "-arian" is not ever used by the literate or the sane to invalidate or move away from a word. Yeah, I use "-arian" in package deals...god. I think your English is fine, I don't believe I need to give you a lesson in it. I've seen other people question your grasp of the language; but no, I think you have a firm grasp of it. You are clearly not an idiot, so that leaves one thing in my mind: I'm very sorry, I'm at a loss again because I fear you are unhinged. I believe your mind is literally corrupt; as in rotting; falling apart; disintegrating. I believe your insanity is the cause of your comprehension problems (and I'm fairly bonkers to try to tell you that, so who am I to say? ha ha). I don't know how or why to proceed...but what the hell? Let me try to get inside your fun-house here: YOU are very unobjective and you have appropriated THAT word; so maybe you think I really don't advocate liberty? Oh...now my head is really splitting...forget it.

There is no getting around the English lessons, I guess.

"horror: the quality of inspiring horror : repulsive, horrible, or dismal quality or character"

Of course I'm not going to go into any of your questions, all from the position of a pro-Israeli: I'm NEUTRAL! I DON'T CARE!!! (outside of feeling great pity for many on BOTH general sides and please don't say now: then why did you bring it up? I was merely asking how your hero came to make such an insanely statist and racialist comment. She could have been speaking about the Cherokees and why she thought THEY all had to be COLLECTIVELY shafted and murdered or emasculated) The creation of Israel is to me (that's: in my OPINION) the most insanely idiotic COLLECTIVE act ever perpetrated by a bunch of statists (state advocates). It will end in far greater horror than what we've already seen and I would say "I wash my hands of the whole idiotic matter" if I had ever had anything to do with any of it (other than to be robbed to pay the Israeli and Egyptian governments, among whatever other relevant robberies I'm dimly aware or wholly unaware of.)

Published: September 20, 2009 2:16 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" I was merely asking how your hero came to make such an insanely statist and racialist comment "

Please explain what was Statist and Racialist about the comment. As I heard it, it was a characerisation of the Arabs who were fighting Israel around 1979. That, I guess means Arafat and his PLO. I guess you feel that making a negative characterisation of a group of people identifiable by certain characteristics is racist. I am not sure I would disagree with her assessment of Arafat and his men. So, if you would please explain yourself....

Oh!!! I really didn't need the English lesson. I wanted to know which specific horror - the details of it - that you are referring to. Unless of course you do not wish to specify it.

As for refusing to answer my questions, why are my questions those of a pro-Israeli questioner? Is asking what caused specific recorded events or who did specific things indicative of a partisan approach? Elucidation will help.

Finally, about my sanity or the lack of it, I fail to see how that is a valid argument, unless of course you are trying to intimidate me. Now, YOU are getting rather childish in your posts. Sad to see the degeneration. Maybe that's what is causing your headache. Or maybe it is the facts that you preferred to ignore while taking your "neutral" position??? As Rand said, facts cannot be changed by a wish, but the facts can destroy the wisher.

You seem to believe that being "neutral" is a virtue. I am sorry to say that nothing could be more ridiculous than that. In the choice between right and wrong, neutrality means submission to the wrong. Unless of course you believe that there are no "black"s and "white"s and only "grey"s. In this case, whatever facts I have been able to dig up indicate that the Israelis are the "white" and the Arabs are the "black". If you have any other facts, please do present them so that I may understand your position and, who knows, maybe even revise mine.

Published: September 20, 2009 9:25 AM
mpolzkill

Your obtuseness beggars description. She said that we should support the STATE of Israel because THE ARABS are pathetic, racist, envious savages. You have got to be kidding me!?! That was her word, "savages". You're saying she is an idiot, and over and over again forgot to use the term "PLO" instead of slurring an entire race? Btw, my ancillary point was that around 90 percent of the audience audibly recoiled from her disgusting racialism and exploded with applause when Donahue condemned her for it. This goes to your pathetic claims of her popularity.

"I guess you feel that making a negative characterisation of a group of people identifiable by certain characteristics is racist."

Bala, you are making a fool of yourself. I rather like you and I wish you would stop. Yes, Bala, perhaps 99% of people would agree with your definition...my god. I actually make a distinction though. You have described "racialism". I reserve the stronger "racist" for deliberate institutional policies of oppression based on race and the full support of said policies. I'm not sure I would put Rand in that box because of her sloppy thought and speech (apparently endemic to the lot of you). Along the same lines, to try to help you: I reject the dictionary definition of "statism". My definition is the sensible one based on the root:

state = state
-ism = advocate
statist = Ayn Rand

"I wanted to know which specific horror"

I told you: the insanely idiotic creation of the state of Israel (what on earth is wrong with you?!?). Here are some other "horrors" as examples since you have such problems understanding clear speech: The things about the Constitution of the United States that caused George Mason to walk out of the convention; the "Louisiana Purchase"; both sides' general policies in the CSA's failed secession; the United State's insanely idiotic entry in WWI; the creation of Iraq by the the empire America later took over.

"I fail to see how that is a valid argument"

It is not an argument or intimidation, it is an attempt to understand what in the world is wrong with you.

"why are my questions those of a pro-Israeli questioner?"

Are you kidding?

"Maybe that's what is causing your headache"

I've said this time and again, here goes again: you have an incredible ability to ignore the obvious and invent what pleases you. Your mind-bending take on libertarianism verses liberty and my being faced with answering to it because of my own kookiness: that was the cause, Bala, as I clearly suggested.

"maybe it is the facts that you preferred to ignore while taking your "neutral" position???"

I took my neutral position based on my opinion that the political means is inherently evil. There are thousands of criminals and innocent victims on both sides, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to support either. I also take it on the fact that neither general side has ever done anything to me. I don't even begrudge the Israeli people that AIPAC is so successful in persuading D.C. to steal my money for their purposes; at intimidating cowards and generally curbing free speech on all related matters. Go ahead and call me an "anti-Semite" now. I mourn for Israelis and the inevitable upcoming loss of their country and their lives too if they don't get the hell out soon. But it could have been no other way, the creation of the state IS the horror. When our forefathers here picked out their spot for a "homeland", times were different and they had the isolation, the numbers, the means and the will to slaughter or emasculate ever single male aborigine. Not in the cards for Israel. Demographics: look into the subject, all whacko Israel supporters. (I mourn for us too, we will never stop paying for what was done to the Aboriginal Americans. Don't read this, Bala, this is for my own amusement and will definitely go WAY over your head. In the final scene of "The Maltese Falcoln" when leaving Bogart's apartment, Mary Astor, under arrest, takes the elevator down and Bogart, free, takes the stairs down. Israel is Astor, we are Bogart)

"You seem to believe that being "neutral" is a virtue"

It sure is when neither side has done anything to one. It sure is when one doesn't and can't have all the facts. It sure is when one can't know what subconcious idiotic prejudices may influence one. It sure would have been virtuous of U.S. lunatics to grow brains and stay out of WWI, for instance.

"In this case, whatever facts I have been able to dig up indicate that the Israelis are the 'white' and the Arabs are the 'black'"

Yikes, Bala.

"present them so that I may understand...and...maybe even revise mine."

That'll be the day. Again, I like you, Bala, you're crazy, but I like you.

Published: September 20, 2009 11:49 AM
mpolzkill

And what the hell, I didn't want to get dragged into this, but your position is so moronic, I can't help myself. Here's an impressive coalition of "whites" (one in particular) on the scene splashing some gray on your cartoon world:

http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/Einstein.htm

Published: September 20, 2009 12:58 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" Here are some other "horrors" as examples since you have such problems understanding clear speech "

I am not sure if you are seeing it the way I do, but while you think you are clear in speech, I think not (no offence intended). You are assuming a certain knowledge (which may not be possessed) and a certain perspective (which may not be shared) making your posts near incomprehensible.

But thanks all the same for the specific instances you cited.

" The things about the Constitution of the United States that caused George Mason to walk out of the convention; the "Louisiana Purchase"; both sides' general policies in the CSA's failed secession; the United State's insanely idiotic entry in WWI; the creation of Iraq by the the empire America later took over. "

I think I am once again beginning to comprehend your position.

What you are saying is that the problem revolves around the creation of the STATE of Israel and not Jews living in that region or even moving in as they did in the last 150 or so years.

You are also saying that if the Western powers had not created a whole host of States in the Middle-East (via the Balfour Declaration and its follow-up actions), you would not have had this problem at all. You are saying that the Statists within the Western world have created a Frankenstein that is now well and truly out of their control.

What you are also implying is that the only way out is the elimination of The State (that implies all the States out there and probably in the rest of the world too). If and once that is done, people will have to (and will probably choose to) rely more on social processes rather than political ones (which you see as inherently dangerous and prone to subversion of Liberty) to figure out all issues and disputes.

" Here's an impressive coalition of "whites" (one in particular) on the scene splashing some gray on your cartoon world: "

I think he is showing a new "white" rather than splashing grey. He is essentially introducing a new premise which is that the State is inherently evil and that people in general will be better of without it. That's pretty much in-line with your overall position.

Thanks for all the links. I think I have understood a lot. I guess the next thing I would request is a few links to read Rothbard and his theory of Natural Rights. Couldn't find the book on mises.org/book. In any case, is the book "The Ethics of Liberty"? Please confirm so that I may go ahead and procure it if it is not available in downloadable version (that being the easiest).

Published: September 20, 2009 9:07 PM
mpolzkill

http://mises.org/daily/2426

was what I was referring to.

Near incomprehensible to you; well then I must be on the right track, ha ha. You're the one with the Knowledge around here, I only give opinions and impressions and make calls for others to join me in looking at and searching for more. I didn't really say what you're interpreting here. I've told you about 30 times now that I am merely against crime. In speaking of crime today, the subject of the State and statists is bound to be predominant in my conversation.

Published: September 20, 2009 10:04 PM
Bala

mpolzkill,

I did read the article you gave the link to. I have just one question (and some supplementaries).

How will you explain the concept of Natural Rights to a person who firmly believes that Man is a creation of God, that his true nature is that of one who seeks permanent union with that God, that the right action in any circumstance is that which takes him closer to that permanent union with that God and that the right action or the way of identifying the right action is defined clearly in one or more specific religious texts that were revealed by his God himself?

To such a person, Moral actions are those that conform to the word of his God. If the pursuit of Liberty and the concept of Private Property conflicts with the word of God, he is bound to see the entire theory of Natural Rights as propounded so far as very practical and reason oriented but immoral. How then is one to sell to him the concept of natural rights and thus the consequent concepts of Liberty and Private Property?

Given that most of the world believes deeply in one God or the other and follows a moral code supposedly revealed by God and given that the Moral Codes of most existing religions are clearly altruistic and do not give a clear postive mandate for ideas such as Liberty and Private Property (e.g., the implications of statements such as "Man is his brother's keeper" or "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven"), I think this is a pertinent question.

Replace God with Society and you get the Socialist's problem in accepting the theory of Natural Rights.

In other words, how is one to sell the theory of Natural Rights to people who see such a theory as practical and beneficial but immoral and hence abhorrent? I am afraid most of the world as it exists today will do so. An answer would be appreciated.

Published: September 21, 2009 11:41 PM
mpolzkill

Very strange. You must have no idea how constantly and extremely you twist and contort the world to fit your preconceived notions. You'll have to show me the major religious texts that not only DON'T find robbery and assault abhorrent, but actually command the commission of robbery and assault against those wealthier than the believer. Natural law precepts aren't that tough to understand, most four-year-olds have the basic concept down. Major religions are in tune with them, they have to be, or they don't get major. Check this out, Bala: religions sprang from man's nature. An eternally minor one sprang from your hero. She was plain wrong-headed on her obsession with altruism (as is your bizarre take on these Bible quotes here). There doesn't have to be any conflict on this point (liberty vs charity). Charity means charity. If one's religion commands one to be charitable you'll have to show me where a major religion says: "Ye shall rob those with greater incomes then thy hast so as to give to those with smaller incomes. If they should protest, ye shall strike them down." One could start a goofy criminal religion, I suppose. If this caught on, this would be a religion full of moronic criminals. You couldn't "sell" such lunatics on not robbing you, you'd have to defend yourself from them...wait a second...I just described the Democratic Party.

I don't have any handy solutions, plans or hopes. I don't know what the right thing is for anybody else to do, I only know a couple wrong things for them to do. You're barking up the wrong tree, Bala. I just spot and mock random violence advocating goofballs to keep from going totally insane myself.

Published: September 22, 2009 1:05 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" Check this out, Bala: religions sprang from man's nature "

Yes, but not faith-based religions. I don't know what you mean by religion, but I meant faith-based religion. As I see it, faith is the anti-thesis of reason. To accept a set of arbitrary diktats on faith requires man to suspend his rational mind and hence goes against man's basic nature - that of a rational animal with a volitional consciousness. I would like to see you explain how it is in line with man's nature to suspend his rationality.

" as is your bizarre take on these Bible quotes here "

I have not even specified my take but you have labelled it bizarre. So let me try your approach - defining the key words.

Man - A rational animal
Brother - Sibling
Keeper - Caretaker, person responsible for the well-being of

As I understand it, it does not specify any particular men but refers to man as in every man. Is there any different inference you think I should be drawing other than that it is every man's responsibility to take care of his brothers' well-being? Please do enlighten.

Similarly for the other quote. Since it does not specify a particular rich man, I infer that it refers to any rich man. Since the key criterion for entry into heaven is how much (or how little) of a sinner one is, a rich man is automatically deemed to be one of the worst of sinners. If you think I am making a mistake, please correct me. I shall be grateful for that.

Published: September 22, 2009 6:56 AM
mpolzkill

bleh...I thought earlier about moving this over to a religiously themed blog post, but this thread has died and no one is here but us anyway.

Of course the major religions sprang from human nature (and the minor ones too). What are you saying, a super-natural being (or beings) invented them whole cloth and artificially placed their tenets in billions of minds?

You don't know what I mean when I said the major religions? You don't know what those are? You are really trying my patience. I guess I could link you to Wiki with my every reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Religion_distribution.png

Not all faiths are the antithesis of reason.

All faiths could only seem to be "arbitrary diktats" to a very crude and ignorant man, I'm sorry. The great faiths contain much truth. Their tenets were not the result of some scam-artists throwing darts at a dart board with proposed wacky rules on them or whatever bizarre thing you imagine. Also, people use faith every day: HAVE to. I have faith that the builders of my roof were craftsmen and cared about their customers' satisfaction (safety is a big part of satisfaction). I have faith they didn't bribe the inspector (I have bordering-on-zero faith in the State's inspector). No one can spend their lives getting 100% proof that things really are as they think or hope them to be.

Man doesn't generally suspend his rationality; the average man is barely acquainted with it.

Your take is what I was vigourously mocking with my entire previous post. Your out-of-left-field invention that because the Bible advocates charity and discourages avarice this...I'm not going through it again.

Thank you, I know what "keepers" and "brothers" are (and "camels" too), I'm not fully down with your "man" definition though: I'm not a member of your faith.

You are taking (and as I do a Google search, I see this must be one of Rand's catechisms) a part of the Bible and applying a boneheaded interpretation. In the story, or parable, or myth, (that is a useful, easy to understand life-lesson teaching tool for those not blessed with your awesome Reason ) Cain MURDERED his brother out of the basest emotions and motives, and when he was asked where his brother was he gave a smart-ass reply: "Am I my brother's keeper?" This indicated that he was indignant that he should be expected by anyone to have ANY sort of concern for his brother's well-being. Of course, successful human societies frown on this character's benighted attitude.

"one of the worst of sinners"

Yes, you are wrong, hilariously wrong; but I'm done giving you my half-assed theology lessons for now, my headache is coming back.

Published: September 22, 2009 9:12 AM
Bala

mpolzkill,

" This indicated that he was indignant that he should be expected by anyone to have ANY sort of concern for his brother's well-being "

Please do tell me why I should have ANY concern for my brother's or anyone else's well-being.

" Of course, successful human societies frown on this character's benighted attitude "

It would indeed be interesting to see the connection between concern for fellow human beings and the success of a society. I am sure the converse would also make interesting reading.

" Cain MURDERED his brother out of the basest emotions and motives, and when he was asked where his brother was he gave a smart-ass reply: "Am I my brother's keeper?" "

How interesting to note that you imply that the answer ought to be "Yes. You are!". How about saying "No. You are not, but that's not the issue at hand. I am trying to locate him." That's the difference between your position and mine.

Feel free to stew in your faith. I am quite comfortable free of any faith and placing my entire trust on my mind to figure out right and wrong.

My (and Rand's) simple point is that when you take half-baked ideas on faith, a lot of rubbish comes along with it. For instance, when you accept Christian faith, you accept the concept of Original Sin. I wonder how you justify this abomination that makes every human being ashamed and guilty for being born a human being. I wonder how you will say that this does not declare man's nature as rooted in sin and vileness. Please try. I am sure to be amused.

The simple point is that at some stage, when man had a more limited understanding of the world around him, religion was a source of Morality, something indispensable for man's survival. However, the moral code of every major religion is a mixed bag unsuitable for a man to live a happy life on this Earth and live true to his nature, that of a rational animal with a volitional consciousness. Rand's philosophy of rational selfishness provides a viable alternative moral code to a person who sees man as a noble being capable of heroism. Unless of course you see selfishness as a vice.....

Published: September 22, 2009 11:24 AM
mpolzkill

I still speak to you because I don't think you are a bad person; I think a lunatic has educated you stupid. Don't take my frank language as anger. I am dismissing you out of hand as you are incredibly exasperating in your dense, dense, obtuseness. I am actually quite pleased that you continue to expose the extreme superficiality and ugliness of your faith.

"why I should have ANY concern"

DON'T have any: murder your brother if you feel it's to your advantage, see how it goes for you. I don't believe there is a mystical right and wrong; just stupid ideas. I am thankful the vast majority are still more sensible than EITHER one of us, despite what lunatics try to put in their minds. I know, I know, when you have Reason, you act in your own best interest and everything is peachy. What about the billions who aren't as brilliant as you and don't have as much time to formulate elaborate first principles? The ones here in America that I know and who fit that description are self-righteously screaming for free medical services.

"would also make interesting reading"

Try opening up some books on world history. Start with ones focusing on societies and communes based on "reason."

"you imply that the answer ought to be 'Yes. You are!'....

There is a word I want to call you, but I'm refraining. I am rolling on the floor at your "interpretation". I have noted this for years: Fundamentalist Christians, creationists, particularly those who would say that the Universe is 6 thousand years old or that God created stars' entire light beams at that time so that we may see them; they and virulent anti-theists are mirror images of each other: prosaic, overly-literal dunderheads merely with different agendas.

I didn't say anyone should be a keeper! Refraining from murdering your brother is not being his keeper! Having concern is not being a keeper. Cain is the bad guy here, you understand, HE's the one...[I'm just shaking my head here. You are hopeless. I give up.]

"feel free..."

What faith?

"entire trust on my mind to figure out right and wrong."

Yeah, I was really impressed by the results from your rigorous and fair study of whether to support Israel or not. No worrying about you! In fact...I'm joining you! Hey, why don't we take 'em further out in the dessert and nuke them savages?! Yaahh hoo! Not back to the stone ages, mind ya, they're already there! ha hah hahahaha!!!

"My (and Rand's) simple point is"

You mean simplistic. You two wouldn't be near so dangerous if you ever got to "half-baked."

"For instance, when you accept Christian faith..."

Wrong, as per usual. And what if I were a Jew? The concept is not in their Bible, the one I'm discussing. (I'm not either Jew or Christian and to me it says it all about anti-theists that to them, anyone who is being fair about a religion MUST be a member.) MANY, not ALL, Christians INTERPRET things Paul said regarding the Hebrew Scriptures to extrapolate the concept of "original sin". Never made a lick of sense to me, I think the concept is stupid.

"Unless of course you..." aren't an over-confident simpleton who doesn't believe there is a hell of a lot of insoluble mystery in the Universe and in people.

Let me just do your follow-up post for you and then we can wrap this up.

"These are not proper arguments. I am very disappointed that you are stooping to these childish attacks. Now: yada, yada...Rand...yada yada...faith...yada yada...virgin sacrifices..yada yada, yada. Now, I would be very happy if you will explain the world to me, thank you."

OK, got it. Carry on. No, I'm done, I couldn't explain a thing to you with a damned 2 by 4.

Published: September 22, 2009 12:52 PM

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