That’s not the way it works. The author first writes a book, then the publishing houses read through it and decides if it’s worth buying its publishing rights. In a libertarian society, the publishing house could just copy it while borrowing it, and start making money.
If government police services are so great, why do we have private security firms? Why is still being commited? If you hired your neighbor to protect your house while you were gone on vacation and your house was burglarized, why you re-hire your neighbor, would you give him a pay raise?
That’s not necessarily true. Some publishers hire authors to write books.
That’s not necessarily true. Some publishers hire authors to write books.
How about school books? At my university for instance, updated books cost up to 200 USD each. If people started copying them, the authors would not profit any more, and the level of education would drop.
In a libertarian society, the author would make the publisher sign a contract that they cannot use the story, or any reasonable likeness thereof, without permission, and if they do, then the penalty will be X, X and X.
That is what is called a non-disclosure agreement.
And remember, the publisher who does this once, will never get another author to show them a draft without a signed contract. Reputation is very important in a libertarian society operating on contract. If you have a bad reputation, you will be punished by your customers and your vendors. This will make it more expensive to operate, and you will have lower profits. You may even go bankrupt.
So it is in your best interest to operate a business ethically, when your customers have choices to go to your competitors. Much of what we have today, is simply not competitive.
These are authors whose names are normally written with a bigger font than the title on the frontpage.
If people started copying them, the cost of education would get cheaper and more people would get an education!
University books are an all time ripoff. Captive audience, who are forced to buy expensive texts with no competition.
Sounds fair.
It seems like you have an easy job repudiating my criticism. Honestly, there must be someone more intelligent than me out there who can give libertarian ideology more competition? Have you never heard an argument that has made you reconsider your positions?
It is completely crazy. It is anarchy! [:)]
There is a lot of work already done on private law, and there will be even more scholarship the closer we get to the day when it is needed.
Where people need and want those services, they will pay for them. They already pay for them, but there can be no competition for those services, so how can we know that the price of those services is rational and efficient? The only way to get a rational price is through competition and voluntary exchange!
It’s my gut feeling. Very few constitutionalists invoke Lysander Spooner (a famous anti-Constitutionalist). Even if Ron Paul was a true minarchist, through and through, it wouldn’t change how much respect I have for him. He’s changed my life and the lives of millions of people. He got me on the right path, even if I am now more radical than he is.
How do you make a profit from cleaning someone’s house?
Answer: By charging the owner for your services in a mutually beneficial trade. This only seems like a problem to you because you are thinking in terms of the current situation, with largely publicly owned streets etc.
You’re a good workout. I have engaged a lot of people on and offline about this. I don’t hide away in my libertarian cave. So my arguments are already fairly refined.
People can question some areas of libertarian philosophy that I might be weak on, but I haven’t met anyone with any better answers to the questions I can’t answer.
That person would have to argue for violence. I will never be swayed to a position where violence is not only expected, but it is desirable as a means to an end.
A little off topic, but do you think everyone should be allowed to build a house wherever he or she wants? For example in the middle of the highway (that he or she bought)…I think we need some central planning when it comes to infrastructure, city planning etc.
But we cannot rely upon old books in the future, at least not in some subjects. Someone will have to write new books.
I disagree. I don’t think central planning adds anything to the mix. If it did, the Soviets would still be in business. When you centrally plan, you ignore signals from the market, or cannot adjust to them quickly enough. This leads to compound errors, and particularly with infrastructure, can be very costly to correct and usually doesn’t get corrected.
Also, to centrally plan infrastructure, you have to tax and violate property rights. So that is another mess.
Free people can figure out solutions without politicians and bureaucrats. If they cannot, then they should not even be allowed to vote. If they can’t make a good decision with their own property, how can they make good decisions for the nation?
Possibly a stupid question: If prohibition doesn’t work, why prohibit anything?
Not a stupid question. Now you are thinking.
As long as there is profit in books, that is to say, consumers demand them, then someone will write.
The issue with the school books, is that it is a monopolistic racket. If the books could be printed in softcover, or downloaded as PDF, students could save a lot of money. Maybe people outside of school would buy the books to educate themselves or to supplement their education (maybe the graduated 20 years ago and want to be brought up to date).
No one is saying the books should be free. We’re saying that the student is trapped. They have to buy that book, and the educators know that, which is why the books are so insanely expensive.
Sure you would be free to do build whatever you wanted on your property, and it would be up to the owner to decide what would be best… would I profit most from keeping this highway here and getting some revenue, or would this land be more valuable to me with my house on it? There would be extra costs incurred on you for transforming the highway into a house, and you would probably lose that revenue, so that would probably not be the best decision, but again, that is up to the owner to decide.
Here is a great article on Zoning:
But with private polices, courts etc., there will be different laws, and whether we’re arrested or not depends on which police officer busts us…
I guess lots of people will exert their opportunity to let everyone else pay, something that will push prices per honest person up. That’s what tends to happen when people are not trading on behalf of themselves.