Who would radio stations pay?
If noone, please elaborate further.
Would radio stations broadcast over each other?
It would be just like now, where frequencies would bleed into different stations every 50 miles or so, but with this occuring every mile or so instead.
Doubtful.
It won’t. In libertopia there will be no radio. This is ANARCHY ffs!
See this. It certainly helped me a lot when I first read it.
“See this. It certainly helped me a lot when I first read it.”
Why do people insist on writing articles like there loan contracts, with paragraphs full of unecessary verbose crap? Noone reads the fine print. Noone reads through pages and pages of legal speak.
Just give your position in plain english and stop acting better than everyone else. Writing like a lawyer doesn’t make you smarter than anyone, nor does it make your arguement any better. In fact, its going to bore and turn alot of people off of the writing.
that wasn’t directed at you, Autolykos , it was directed at whoever wrote that article.
I really didn’t think it was that bad? Can you point to some examples where you think the author used “legalese”?
Let me see if I can try to break it down for you. Before the radio spectrum was nationalized at the end of the 1920s, property rights in radio broadcasting were recognized based on two things: broadcasting power and broadcasting frequency. Homesteading in radio broadcasting took place whenever a radio station started transmitting at a previously-unused and unopposed power and frequency combination. Violations of broadcasting property rights thus took place when another station started transmitting at the same or similar frequency at a power high enough (given its distance from the first station) to interfere with the first station’s broadcast signal.
“I really didn’t think it was that bad? Can you point to some examples where you think the author used “legalese”?”
I’m probably just being a baby. Its been a long day so far.
“Homesteading in radio broadcasting took place”
who did they pay to broadcast? noone?
The early amateur radio operators developed a code of conduct which was enforced through peer pressure and neighborliness. It worked just fine.
The analogy by which to think of radio frequency property rights is the surface of a very large swimming pool. Who has the right to disturb the pool’s surface? Well, whoever has been disturbing the pool all along (easement). But if you even stick your finger in the pool it will send ripples through the entire pool, so only one person can use it, right? Wrong. Ripples lose their energy at 1/r-squared (just like gravity or RF) so if its a good size pool you can have one person on one end rippling the surface and another person at another end rippling the surface, There will be “interference” where the two wave fronts meet but this will already be very close to the noise margin.
Finally, radio receivers are frequency selective, meaning that they can choose between two simultaneous waves of equal strength so long as they are separated by enough freqeuency “distance”. So now you can have two people in the pool right next to each other disturbing the pool’s surface… so long as they are doing it at different frequencies, their customers can easily select which “station” they want.
There is nothing particularly challenging about applying property rights to radio frequencies. Property rights in air quality in a dense urban area is much more challenging.
Clayton -
[quoteuser=“Clayton”]
There is nothing particularly challenging about applying property rights to radio frequencies. Property rights in air quality in a dense urban area is much more challenging.
[/quote]
You think so? Wouldn’t an organic “common law” emerge from such a large aggregate of individuals? I thought you were a big proponent of that notion.
I somehow doubt there is any legitimate way to claim a “property right” on electromagnetic field oscillations.
If you find a radio station bleeding over yours couldn’t you just call them up and say, “hey man, let’s work this out.”?
Or strangle them in their sleep?
+1!
This is the true origin of all property rights!
Clayton -
This “bleeding over” isn’t even really an issue these days. In those early days, everyone believed the spectrum was limited (and it basically was, due to our limited technology)…and that Cato article was published almost 30 years ago. Today with digital radio technology, and now wireless Internet, the scarcity that once existed in the broadcasting world just doesn’t exist any more.
(Yes, we’re not completely there yet, yes there are many antiquated systems still in place, yes many NPR listeners would experience interference or lose their beloved This American Life if a total switch was made overnight…don’t try to come back with that weak crap. The point is the scarcity doesn’t exist, this isn’t really a problem any more, and it’s becoming less and less of an issue every day.)
“This is the true origin of all property rights!”
Well, it can be accounted for or described by property rights, but I’m not quite sure one particular property theory necessarily does so exclusively or better than any other.
that’s what State does, my friend.
Dude, you really need to read Human Action. I think it will blow your mind. It’s not what your friends have led you to believe.
Property doesn’t mean “gIt off my land 'fer I shoot ya!” … that’s a very vulgar, mean-spirited and low view of what property is about. Property rights are about harmonious cooperation in a world where humans are constantly rubbing elbows… in such a world, unintended conflicts arise frequently and property rights are the human social construct which has emerged to prevent and resolve many conflicts, often without the involvement of third parties.
Contrary to the propertarians and NAP-fundamentalists, I do not believe that property rights are a panacea. They just happen to be a huge chunk of what makes harmonious social order possible. Property rights exist within a larger framework of constant ideological tension pulling this way and that way and that tension operates on a much more fundamental level of the human psyche, the level that includes half-baked ideas, evolved mental reflexes, spriitual perception, and so on. Those aspects of human nature are not going away as far as I can see and so any truly comprehensive social theory must include them. I think that’s a large source of the misunderstanding between mises.org libertarians and left libertarians.
Clayton -
“Dude, you really need to read Human Action. I think it will blow your mind. It’s not what your friends have led you to believe.”
Funny enough, I actually did pick it up after posting here, and, I’m sorry to say, that it didn’t really rub my whistle.
“Property doesn’t mean “gIt off my land 'fer I shoot ya!” … that’s a very vulgar, mean-spirited and low view of what property is about. Property rights are about harmonious cooperation in a world where humans are constantly rubbing elbows… in such a world, unintended conflicts arise frequently and property rights are the human social construct which has emerged to prevent and resolve many conflicts, often without the involvement of third parties.”
I wasn’t trying to suggest that proprietarianism meant “git off my land 'fer I shoot ya!” All I was saying was that my initial post very well could be accounted for by proprietarianism. No doubt about it. But that plenty of other property theories or social theories could account for it just as well. So singling it out as the root of property rights probably isn’t accurate.
“I think that’s a large source of the misunderstanding between mises.org libertarians and left libertarians.”
I think it boils down to much more than semantics, actually. Otherwise people would’ve gotten over it at this point. It’s not like LLs and Misesesesianses are just discovering each other now.
MaikU,
But they are much harder to fight than little ol’ me!