On the Ownership of Ideas

Economics Political Theory
1

“In economics, we know that you must control certain things in order to act. In ethics, we need to provide a justification for the fact that you hold resources in order to act. So, private property is the link between these two areas of theorizing.”

    • Hans Hermann-Hoppe

“Without such plans or ideas there would be no action”

– Murray Rothbard

There can only be three theories of self ownership (as stated by Rothbard) that justify mans actions. 1) The individual possesses full ownership over his own self, over his mind, over his will, and his actions. 2) A theory of universal or equal ownership by all acting members (i.e. communism). 3) or Ownership by a few, i.e. a ruling class.

Since, I do not believe I need go into this further I will continue this inquiry using the “full ownership” theory. I bring these other premises of ownership to your attention, since I want the reader to be aware of these once I discuss the concept of relative economizing and the idea based disconnect.

Property over self entails the direct property over the mind, which consists of a bundled set of ideas organized and categorized by another set of ideas. Each individual, at this time, has full property over the set of ideas both categorizing and categorized. This is due to the fact that scarcity can not be a concern in the formulation of individual ownership, only in the case of appropriated ownership outside of the person (this is due to the constraints of the self ownership theory we have decided to use)

What we come to now is the categorization and appropriation of property outside of the individual self. Rothbard writes (pg. 92 MES):

“He acquires scarce nature given factors by appropriating hitherto unused factors for his own use or by receiving them…from someone else. (3) He acquires capital goods or consumers’ goods either by mixing his own labor with nature given factors… (4) He may exchange any type of factor for any type of factor.”

We already know all of this; I’m just repeating it so that it will be fresh.

“Economic is by no means equivalent to material” - Murray Rothbard

The good (or “factor”) demanded by a consumer need not be a material object, in fact the only important quality is that it is valued as a means in order to satisfy wants. This means that any intangible entity that is demanded is, in fact, an economic good - and is then a factor in human action.

It is here that we come to the scarcity disconnect.

In paraphrasing Rothbard:

– The distinguishing feature of an [idea] is that, once learned, it generally does not have to be learned again. It can be noted and remembered. Remembered, it no longer has to be produced; it remains within the actor as an unlimited factor of production that never ears out or needs to be economized by human action (in relation to the specific actor). In this way, it becomes a general condition of human welfare in the same way as air. –

But what needs to be dealt with are the complications involved in the original learning of any idea by the actor, which is the object of human action (“or the process of economizing” - Carl Menger). This directly implies the scarcity of the idea related to the individual actor. This is similar, though not in direct equivalence, to Rothbard’s example (pg.173) of air as an economic good:

"For example, if some people want their air to be changed […] the “conditioned air” becomes a scarce good and is owned by its producers."

The scarcity disconnect within ideas is as such: There comes a point, in which an acting individual originates an idea that is unknown to anyone else. If (I am creating an assumption), there is a point in time whereby the idea becomes infinite in supply - meaning all individuals are (or freely can be) full owners of an idea - then, there is created a temporal disconnect in its relative scarcity.

I define “relative scarcity” as such: The position whereby an actor is in possession of an non-scarce resource (on the grounds of individual ownership) while another actor is in demand of that scarce resource.

This position of relative scarcity can only come about as a result of individual ownership, meaning the general condition of human welfare (namely the idea) is bound up in the individual. The idea can be shared, but if it is not - then the person in possession of the idea has access to the non-scarce resource while the other person does not, thus creating a “relative scarcity”.

Since, ideas are owned of a very individual level in all men - and given that there is indeed a relative scarcity factor in the interpersonal relations between economic actors. It is rational to accept ownership of ideas outside of the self by way of contract (i.e. copyright, NDA, EULA, inventors copyright, etc.)

Note: This post is a carrying over of a previous thread.

2

Nope. ‘Self-ownership’ refers to ownership of one’s body. Strictly speaking, it is this subjective, mental aspect of an individual that has the capacity to own things, and it makes little sense to say that it can be owned at all.

In other words, in self-ownership the I that is owned is different from the I that does the owning.

3

It would be impossible to apply a natural rights (ethics) framework to anything if the subjective mechanism that “does the owning” was not owned by the original economic actor to begin with. This is why property over self, when futher deduced, must “entail direct property over the mind”.

4

All of these are of course, dealt with by Boldrin and Levine in Against Intellectual Monopoly. This is the reason why first mover advantage exists for inventors.

The “temporal disconnect” has already been bridged by free market process. Think about why people have teachers. Because It is not alway that easy to spread ideas! Do you know how hard it is to teach computer programming? It requires abstract thinking and banging your head against something for a long time.

You need to read up on innovation theory, jackskylark. idea ownership is contraty to how human make progress. We make progress through incremental improvement, not through fancy thinking of ideas and selling it process.

5

You have not addressed the argument I presented, especially since you are arguing on an emperical/utilitarian basis, while my argument rests solely on ownership of the individual and ethics.

By innovation theory, are you referencing Everett Rogers (S curves from the modeling of population growth used to present a theory of diffusion) - or are you talking about Schumpeter’s “creative distruction” as innovation?

Also, I think you might be misunderstanding my interpretation of the “temporal disconnect”, and are not examining it as a method of illuminating the concept of general scarcity in specific non-scarce goods.

6

And I guess you could say the air you breathe in, you own. And just like when you breathe it out, you do not own it anymore, the same goes for ideas. I suppose you could live in a bubble, and contract with someone else to live in the bubble with you and you could own all the air in the bubble together, but no one would.

7

Are you willing to use physical violence to enforce the ‘ownership’ of non-physical ideas ?

8

Ah, so you reject the whole second half of my argument? In reference to relative scarcity, you say ownership can not be contracted?

9

Emperical evidence is a sanity test. It shows that your theory is wrong since reality doesn’t work that way at all.

By innovation theory, I meant Boldrin & Levine’s explaination of market process, emulation, first mover advantage, how innovation came to be not gibberish mathematical models.

Without a theoritical economic framework, your ethical system will be blind. Emulation, cooperation, and competition are the three pilar of a free market.

10

The ownership of an idea (a single portion of the mind) invested in self, would be the same as ownership of the physical property of your body. Thus, in accordance with natural rights - defense could by justified in retaliation of aggression. Now, once we leave the ownership of self and enter the interrelationship of human actors - we a subject to contractual ownership (as well as redress of non-fulfillment). Enforcement of contract is all that is required, and this could be provided by a free system of courts.

11

Boldrin and Levine’s market process explanation leaves much to be desired (although it takes the same framework as those “gibberish mathematical models”). They also fail to bring uniformity of definitions to their emperical examples. As well as leading to the dishonest trick of forced analogies.

Also, I am not making predictions but arguing the philosophy of ownership. If you want to argue economics I’ll get into Mises argument for copyright, as well as Rothbards, and my critique on anti-IP and economic calculation. I don’t want to do that here, since once the scope of the debate grows beyond that of the individual subject-matter it becomes too hard to stay on the particular focus of the thread.

12

Ideas aren’t scarce, Jack. And an idea cannot be stolen. You’re not the first to attempt to justify IP; you won’t be the last.

13

So, is it the full ownership of self that you take issue with? Or, is it the concept of relative scarcity you oppose? Since, obviously there is exhibited a demand for non-scarce resources whereas they are still scarce relative to that individual.

Note: Are you referencing the ownership of the mind? As I have not brought up the wording IP as of yet.

14

Of course, I wasn’t refering to the mathematical model but their reasoning behind it.

Dishonest trick? How are they forced?

15

Your critque of economic calculation has already been addressed. Ideas that are scarce because it is only in one person’s head and not realized can be economized by contracting labors out to realize the execution of ideas or entrepneurs buying blueprints, etc.

16

Nobody denying full owernship of self and nobody is denying scarcity in-so-far as there are scarcity. Anything that need to be economized will be taken care of by the free market.

17

I meant by “dishonest trick of forced analogies”, the problem of limiting selected empirical examples as well as arguing on the basis of consumer utility without actually defining the model or proof of such.

Secondly, my main issue is that they exhibit a complete disregard for property in contracts (example ‘licensing restrictions’ Chapter 10 pg.11), although they waver in their abolitionist spirit once it comes to GNU (a strange reversal from a non-contradictory standpoint). The use of the analogy of slavery to a contract limiting action seems totally absurd from a libertarian standpoint. Their call for the eradication of certain company sided (non-governmental enforced) measures and contracts was deplorable, and ventured slightly into Marxian expropriation theory.

Once again, I don’t want the debate to become a question of consumer satisfaction, but of ethics and property. So, I would rather you start another topic if you would like to continue this line of questioning.

18

The concept of artificial scarcity.

19

Then we have no argument, as contracts will be enforced on the free market. Thus fulfilling the property rights we have have in self, as well as in contracts.

20

So you would argue that on a free market, equality in ideas will be posessed by all members of the economy? Thus there will be no relative scarcity? Since it seems that you are confronting the notion of relative scarcity (and thus the relative demand for disconnect based goods).