Hello all,
I’ve been a consistent reader of mises.org for a while now, but since this is my first post, I decided it was prudent to put it in the “newbie” section.
My question is one that has been bugging me for a while. In a society where the State does not protect Intellectual “property”, how could businesses maintain their reputation? To illustrate my question, take the example of McDonald’s. McDonald’s is able to maintain its reputation because they (by using the power of the State) can prevent other people from hanging an ‘M’ on their property and selling McDonald’s menu items. Since the McDonald’s corporation has the ability to decide who gets to call their store a “McDonald’s,” they can also control the quality standards therein. Absent the state, they would presumably not have this ability. Were this the case, the McDonald’s trademark would have no value, since it would convey no information regarding reputation to the public. It seems that this would be an incredible disadvantage to consumers, who use trademarks on a daily basis to identify reputable businesses.
Are there free-market ways (comparable to a trademark) for a corporation like McDonald’s to protect its reputation? Or do we have to admit that absent the State, consumers would simply not have easy access to this sort of information?