I have been down this road before. Stranger would argue with Rothbard that Rothbard was wrong understanding himself, if it could keep him from having to admit an error.
I’d like to think that both Stephan and Hans have better things to do than cater to one guy who hasn’t read the literature he claims to use as a foundation in argument.
@Stephan, I want to take your course, but I don’t know if I can spare time from work. I think it’s the best course offered so far (by subject matter).
Do not think that being rewarded for expanding Rothbard’s critique of the patent system equates to a letter of marque against the entire body of Rothbardian intellectual property.
What I want is proof that Hoppe is against Rothbardian copyright. Your friendship with him is meaningless. I have crazy friends with crazy opinions who might say anything about me as well, not out of malice but just out of cluttered thought.
Your claim that Hoppe will not refute intellectual property in public and in print is highly suspect, as the man has written scathing critiques of such concepts as Popperian falsification and universal democracy and done so fearlessly. If he really did realize that Rothbard was wrong, we would have known this a long time ago.
I also came across this gem from Page 160, Property Freedom & Society, Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Chapter 18: A Note on Intellectual Property and Externalities by Hardy Bouillon
Summary:
The alleged collision between the two rights (material property
rights and intellectual property rights) seems to rest on a misinterpretation
of intellectual property. As some reflection on the different
types of usage of goods shows, this misinterpretation rests on
the confusion of intellectual property and its (material) externalities.
These externalities are not, as shown, per se property of the
owner of the idea. Only those externalities belong to him that
derive from material goods he owned before or from free goods he
appropriated. In particular he is not the owner of the material
goods owned by others. Hence the owner of the plum cake recipe
remains the owner of “his” idea but cannot claim sovereignty over
the ingredients owned by housewives. There is no collision with
his intellectual property and their “using his” recipe of baking a
plum cake.
To put it differently, we can talk meaningfully of intellectual
property and intellectual property rights. However, intellectual
property as such—being free of any material “extension”—is of no
immediate importance to business life. What counts in the market
are the externalities that can be derived from intellectual property.
How to deal with these externalities is, of course, a different matter.
I sure as hell did but if you want to be intellectually dishonest by all means continue on doing it.
THERE IS NO RIGHT TO PROPERTY. THE CONCEPT OF PROPERTY OR ANYTHING THAT EXTENDS BEYOND THE BODY IS A CLAIM. WHEN RESOLVING DISPUTES, PREFERENCE IS ALWAYS GIVEN TO VOLUNTARY CONTRACTS DURING ARBITRATION BECAUSE IT IS EVIDENCE OF THE INTENT OF EACH PARTY BEYOND WHAT ROLLS OFF OF THEIR LIPS RECALLING THEIR OWN FLAWED HUMAN OBSERVATIONS.
I don’t need to cite mountains of literary works for something that is self evident. There are no rights that extend beyond the body. The only unalienable rights that exist are an individuals right to control their own thoughts and actions. These rights are said to be unalienable because they can never be taken away only impaired using force.
When you enforce trespassing or anything else related to your home you are defending your contract evidenced by title to borders. Since the contract has nothing to do with anything but borders did you enter into a non-disclosure contract with people regarding privacy before allowing them to enter your home?
No you did not.
But let’s say you did enter into a non-disclosure contract. How are you going to enforce or defend it? And what do I as a non-contracting party have to do with your contract? Not a damn thing.
I noticed no one wanted to touch the definition of Capitalism because you can’t touch it. It is the only argument of IP that aligns with Capitalism. Anything else is statist. If the pro IP Nazi Monopolists would just declare their statist intentions we would not have to drag this on.
nskinsella wrote the following post at Thu, Oct 21 2010 11:26 PM:
You have obviously argued with moralists. These people take a principled moral stand, that each owns the fruit of his own labor and that includes his mental labor. That’s their starting point (which is a correct one), but most of these people don’t have the specialist knowledge required to know what IP law should look like, and it is really no wonder: you have to be an EXPERT to be able to know that. Very few people are that qualified. It’s no shame. A lot of knowledge is required.
Now, I’m not an expert in law (although I know more about the philosophy of law than most. I am currently writing a book on the rule of law, which contain a significant number of juridical novelties) but I am an expert in philosophy, and that is a requirement. Therefore you will find that I know a lot more about how I want IP law to be like than most. I don’t have the full-fledged answers because I am not an expert in law as well, but you’re not talking to your average principled pro-IP moralist here.
See, that’s because you’re not an expert in philosophy, and in ethics in particular, which is very, very bad when you want to have a strong opinion about property rights.
Ok, sorry. Then you are a rationalist instead it appears. These are the two typical libertarian stances and it’s often hard to see the difference in a heated debate because both are pretty wacko. There are THREE primary approaches to principles and these are:
subjectivity (pragmatist/utilitarian – unprincipled, ad hoc)
objectivity (scientific – reality based principled)
The pragmatist says “principles? What principles? There are no absolutes, and hence we need to do what’s best for the most people.”
The scientist says “we need to abstract the correct principles from reality.”
The rationalist says “I stick with my (arbitrarily acquired) principles! Reality be damned!”
All these three have a hard time distinguishing between the two other guys. So to a pragmatist both the scientist and the rationalist look “dogmatic.” To the rationalist both the scientist and the pragmatist look “unprincipled and arbitrary.” And to the scientist both the pragmatist and rationalist look equally out of touch with reality.
The way you loathsomely speak about taking reality and consequences into account as “arbitrary” and the fact that you confuse me with a utilitarian places you in the rationalist camp. You’re likely to be “principled,” sticking firmly with some arbitrarily stated principle such as “the non-aggression principle” as an irreducible primary and then proceeding from there to create a rationalist system of thought that crashes with reality.
Here’s a video of Hoppe where he clearly attacks IP.
[1:13:20]
[Audience member]
I’ve heard people defending intellectual property rights from the same rules as you use. Could you touch briefly on that?
[Hoppe]
Very briefly. I should make you aware of a great article by a friend of mine, Stephan Kinsella, who is actually a patent lawyer, but doesn’t believe in patents. That article has appeared a few years ago in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, which is available on the net @ www.mises.org, and if you just type in Kinsella, you get his five or six articles that he has are published for the journal, and from the title you would clearly recognize that it deals with intellectual property rights. But let me say this much at this point: recall, I said property rights can only be acquired in things that are scarce, and only because they are scarce, are conflicts over their use possible. Now ideas, once they have been thought, are no longer scarce. If I think the same idea that you think, I am not taking anything away from you. You can still think exactly the same thing as before. Nothing is diminished on your part. Thoughts are, once they have been thought, free goods and conflicts over them are impossible. Again, imagine what the consequences would be if we would not accept this view. Then we would owe royalties to the widow of Aristotle until the end of our lives. Not even the widow has survived up to this point either, but Aristotle’s little Aristotles run around in Greece. They might still collect money whenever we say A and non-A cannot exist at the same time. And I think I would consider that to be utterly unfair because I can think this idea myself also. I would not have needed Aristotle to come up with this idea, but nonetheless, he was the first one to write it down. So this is the same thing, you are all free-riding on my ideas, I could just collect royalties now from all of you, plus I’ve used some words that you might not have heard before, I might have expressed some thoughts that you will repeat, that you found funny or not so funny, and you will now be eternally indebted to me. I should throw you all into debtors prison unless you just deliver your weekly, or monthly, or annual royalties to me. So keep that, please, in mind.
Thanks for posting that Stephen. I have watched that lecture series with Hoppe and Hulsmann at least 5 times, and I forgot that was where he referenced Kinsella. I remembered the reference, but not the lecture.
Your whole post about reality is BS. There is only one reality and the present self evident truth acquired through centuries of human observation is:
The world is a Might Makes Right system and as we presently understand it, the only reason one could believe this is ever going to change is a religious belief or new evidence.
Society is an application of Might Makes Right in that a group of people choose to use force in a geographical region for a given belief or beliefs.
If you can refute the above by all means enlighten me and demonstrate the necessary philosophical expertise I lack…
So the only question is… knowing the above… what are you going to do?
Knowing the above my only objective is to establish and preserve a majority of force that strongly believes in the Non Aggression Principle.
I want to live in a society that strongly believes force should only be used against coercion.
Since you are incapable of logically, rationally, or objectively articulating how a non-contracting party initiates aggression against you, I do not respect your position. Furthermore I realize you can’t convince all the people all of the time and I have no moral dilema participating in a majority of force that imposes the Non Aggression Principle system on anyone that voluntarily continues residing in the geographical territory of the majority of force.
I lol’d. But also, what an elegant critique. It’s a simple appeal to logic. Makes me feel badly that I have spent so much arguing this topic without that much clarity or grace.
But regarding the Hoppe quote, while humorous, it doesn’t have much to do with IP law in the USA.
Contary to his example, you can’t copyright, patent or get legal protection for an idea or thought such as he suggested. Copyrights are for original works in a fixed medium that fit a specific criteria–not just any idea or thought. Patents also have strict criteria, and you cannot patent any idea.
Hoppe’s example “A and non-A cannot exist at the same time” would not fulfill the criteria for legally protected copyright or patent.
Also, even if it did, under existing copyright or patent law another party can discuss thoughts and ideas expressed in a copyrighted book, takes quotes out of the book and comment on material in it. And as far as patents it applies for 20 years, so royalties would not be due to Aristotle’s progeny today.
Hmm… ok, well that quote was posted as an example of Hoppe’s views on “intellectual property”.
My point was only that in the US, and probably many other places, a “thought” isn’t considered intellectual property (at least in the legal sense). So dismissing intellectual property law or norms on the basis of thought being a free good is kind of irrelevant to the discussion (or straw man?) and doesn’t add any insight into the whole “intellectual property” discussion.
I agree all of this is irrelevant to the debate but I disagree with your assertion.
Case in point:
Methods have been patented in the United States.
Formulas have been patented in the United States.
Genes have been patented in the United States.
How can you assert thoughts are not considered intellectual property in the legal sense? What is all of this patented crap I am staring at in this post?
Or are you asserting that once you write a thought down it is no longer a thought but a piece of paper containing symbols that becomes patentable?
So if the arrangement of symbols on the piece of paper is the only thing that has legal protection, not any thoughts, would it be ok for me to sell a method inducing cats to exercise using a laser pointer?