The Root Of All Our Problems

[TheNightFly]

Do people own property just for kicks or is their a reason for it? Imagine back to when there was no property. You only had a right to whatever you could hold in your hands. As soon as you drop something, it was free for the taking. Somebody eventually noticed how this ancient tradition often lead to fighting and devised property as the solution for establishing who has the right to what.

Property has been essential to human existence ever since. To own something meant that you possessed the exclusive right to use it, and you were free to profit from selling whatever you produced with it. It was fair because everyone was free to produce whatever they wanted, and competition was only limited by the natural inclination of producers to satisfy scarcity.

But that wasn't enough for some greedy bastards. They over-extended and perverted the notion of property by including ideas, technology and artistic content, i.e. the means of production. By taking ownership, and therefore control, over technology and artistic content, people were able to limit what physical property owners were legally allowed to produce. It wasn't a problem at first, when there wasn't much technology or artistic content. But today, with millions of patents and copyrights 'protecting' every commercially viable piece of tech and art, physical property rights are nearly null. Artists, authors, and inventors certainly deserve recognition for their respective contributions but nobody deserves a monopoly.

Poverty, the disparity of wealth, the lack of competition, and the lack of opportunity for individuals to employ themselves, it all traces back to the exclusive rights of intellectual property trumping our physical property rights. As long as nobody without IP or a license from an IP owner is free to produce anything, nobody is free to employ themselves. And as long as our only practical means of earning a living is to work for the monopolies who would have any of us who tries to reproduce their products thrown in prison, taking a job is not a choice, it's slavery.

 

[Moonglow]

Reminds me of the 1960's....

..

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

As long as nobody without IP or a license from an IP owner is free to produce anything, nobody is free to employ themselves.

dear, that is utterly senseless liberal gibberish. If you have no intellectual property you are free to produce anything you want, just not free to reproduce another man's intellectual property.

Do you understand?

 

[Porker]

dear, that is utterly senseless liberal gibberish. If you have no intellectual property you are free to produce anything you want, just not free to reproduce another man's intellectual property.

Do you understand?

NO....he doesn't understand. And he never will understand.

 

[JakeStarkey]

As long as nobody without IP or a license from an IP owner is free to produce anything, nobody is free to employ themselves.

dear, that is utterly senseless liberal gibberish. If you have no intellectual property you are free to produce anything you want, just not free to reproduce another man's intellectual property.

Do you understand?

If Americans followed your economic theories, EB, the world's poverty level would increase by 10%. Do you understand?

 

[Jomama]

As long as nobody without IP or a license from an IP owner is free to produce anything, nobody is free to employ themselves. And as long as our only practical means of earning a living is to work for the monopolies who would have any of us who tries to reproduce their products thrown in prison, taking a job is not a choice, it's slavery.

well, a good start but you blew it at the end.

Here's one for you to consider, certain people are given to do certain things. Artists are going to create and when the system conspires against them (primarily, digital technology) they cant resist to the urge to create. So they do and they get taken advantage of because society benefits more than the person. Same thing can be said for inventors, primarily they invent - take away the incentive and they still create. entrepreneurs are the same. Take away the incentive and they continue to grow and create wealth. Don't listen to the republicans, take away the incentive for entrepreneurs and they're not going to turn into civil servants, they cant control their urges.

 

[TC_Triple3]

Do people own property just for kicks or is their a reason for it? Imagine back to when there was no property. You only had a right to whatever you could hold in your hands. As soon as you drop something, it was free for the taking. Somebody eventually noticed how this ancient tradition often lead to fighting and devised property as the solution for establishing who has the right to what.

Property has been essential to human existence ever since. To own something meant that you possessed the exclusive right to use it, and you were free to profit from selling whatever you produced with it. It was fair because everyone was free to produce whatever they wanted, and competition was only limited by the natural inclination of producers to satisfy scarcity.

But that wasn't enough for some greedy bastards. They over-extended and perverted the notion of property by including ideas, technology and artistic content, i.e. the means of production. By taking ownership, and therefore control, over technology and artistic content, people were able to limit what physical property owners were legally allowed to produce. It wasn't a problem at first, when there wasn't much technology or artistic content. But today, with millions of patents and copyrights 'protecting' every commercially viable piece of tech and art, physical property rights are nearly null. Artists, authors, and inventors certainly deserve recognition for their respective contributions but nobody deserves a monopoly.

Poverty, the disparity of wealth, the lack of competition, and the lack of opportunity for individuals to employ themselves, it all traces back to the exclusive rights of intellectual property trumping our physical property rights. As long as nobody without IP or a license from an IP owner is free to produce anything, nobody is free to employ themselves. And as long as our only practical means of earning a living is to work for the monopolies who would have any of us who tries to reproduce their products thrown in prison, taking a job is not a choice, it's slavery.

It's highly unlikely you will settle anything on this topic in this forum. This is a debate that has been going on for quite some time. If you want to read a good breakdown of this debate (both pro and con) see the link below. The debate is from a libertarian perspective, both for and against IP. I'm not aware of this debate (a serious one anyway) occurring outside of the libertarians. It's 17 pages, but you'll have a better take on IP than you will ever get here in this forum.

http://mises.org/sites/default/file...ual Property Rights in Austrian Economics.pdf

I tend to side with Rothbard that there is room for IP inside of the framework of property rights.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

take away the incentive for entrepreneurs and they're not going to turn into civil servants, they cant control their urges.

exactly!! This is why the USSR and Red China did not produce one single consumer product innovation ever? The liberal is a genius!!!!


see why we have to be 100% positive that a liberal willl be stupid??

 

[TC_Triple3]

take away the incentive for entrepreneurs and they're not going to turn into civil servants, they cant control their urges.

exactly!! This is why the USSR and Red China did not produce one single consumer product innovation ever? The liberal is a genius!!!!


see why we have to be 100% positive that a liberal willl be stupid??

You can make every effort to suppress entrepreneurs, but they will always find a way, hence Black Markets!

 

[boedicca]

Do people own property just for kicks or is their a reason for it? Imagine back to when there was no property. You only had a right to whatever you could hold in your hands. As soon as you drop something, it was free for the taking. Somebody eventually noticed how this ancient tradition often lead to fighting and devised property as the solution for establishing who has the right to what.

Property has been essential to human existence ever since. To own something meant that you possessed the exclusive right to use it, and you were free to profit from selling whatever you produced with it. It was fair because everyone was free to produce whatever they wanted, and competition was only limited by the natural inclination of producers to satisfy scarcity.

But that wasn't enough for some greedy bastards. They over-extended and perverted the notion of property by including ideas, technology and artistic content, i.e. the means of production. By taking ownership, and therefore control, over technology and artistic content, people were able to limit what physical property owners were legally allowed to produce. It wasn't a problem at first, when there wasn't much technology or artistic content. But today, with millions of patents and copyrights 'protecting' every commercially viable piece of tech and art, physical property rights are nearly null. Artists, authors, and inventors certainly deserve recognition for their respective contributions but nobody deserves a monopoly.

Poverty, the disparity of wealth, the lack of competition, and the lack of opportunity for individuals to employ themselves, it all traces back to the exclusive rights of intellectual property trumping our physical property rights. As long as nobody without IP or a license from an IP owner is free to produce anything, nobody is free to employ themselves. And as long as our only practical means of earning a living is to work for the monopolies who would have any of us who tries to reproduce their products thrown in prison, taking a job is not a choice, it's slavery.

I'm guessing you've been busted for downloading bootleg MP3s on the internets.

 

[Jomama]

dear edward you don't know shit. You're not an entrepreneur, you don't struggle to make weekly payroll for hundreds, you've never financed jobs with a personal guarantee, you've never gambled your kids college money on a business, you've never lost it all and gotten up the next day to try again - because you're not an entrepreneur. I am. I cant be anything else. You could double my taxes and I'd get up and work harder the next day. I'm the most exploited tax paying class in American. And I know WTF I'm talking about on this topic and you don't. dear

 

[TC_Triple3]

dear edward you don't know shit. You're not an entrepreneur, you don't struggle to make weekly payroll for hundreds, you've never financed jobs with a personal guarantee, you've never gambled your kids college money on a business, you've never lost it all and gotten up the next day to try again - because you're not an entrepreneur. I am. I cant be anything else. You could double my taxes and I'd get up and work harder the next day. I'm the most exploited tax paying class in American. And I know WTF I'm talking about on this topic and you don't. dear

The role of the entrepreneur is poorly understood (Keynesians don't get it) in economic terms. They are the drivers of economic growth via Capital Investment. Keynesians love to focus on Consumer Spending but it's Capital Investment they should be paying attention to. Government doesn't create jobs! People like you do.

 

[ralfy]

From what I remember, property rights in terms of land started during the late Middle Ages.

Also, intellectual property control involved extending the period covered, which meant a combination of corporate lobbying and government regulation.

 

[TC_Triple3]

From what I remember, property rights in terms of land started during the late Middle Ages.

Also, intellectual property control involved extending the period covered, which meant a combination of corporate lobbying and government regulation.

Property rights (land) started long before that, perhaps not always codified, but land ownership was clearly understood. Lobbying and regulation have muddled property rights in general, but in the case of IP even more so.

When it comes to property rights you can look to Ronald Coase's The problem of Social Cost:

http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/UCSBpf/readings/coase.pdf

various summaries exist that might make understanding Coase's position easier.

Or you can look to Hans-Hermann Hoppe's The Economics and Ethics of Private Property:

Books Mises Institute

Hoppe was a protege of Murray Rothbard and expanded on his ideas on property rights. You can find summaries of these works as well.

Property rights is a complicated subject so if you are interested in understanding it, you have to put in the work, and look at it from different perspectives such as Coase and Hoppe/Rothbard. This a good starting point of the subject.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

dear edward you don't know shit. You're not an entrepreneur, you don't struggle to make weekly payroll for hundreds, you've never financed jobs with a personal guarantee, you've never gambled your kids college money on a business, you've never lost it all and gotten up the next day to try again - because you're not an entrepreneur. I am. I cant be anything else. You could double my taxes and I'd get up and work harder the next day. I'm the most exploited tax paying class in American. And I know WTF I'm talking about on this topic and you don't. dear

sadly for your silly goofy dumb argument there are are whole countries with no entrepreneurs which proves my point that govt policy matters a great deal. isn't learning fun?

 

[Jomama]

You remain an idiot. If you had a point you would have named the country. But go ahead now, name one country, just one, that has no entrepreneurs, either legit or black-market. And don't say something stupid like North Korea, Tuvalu or Vatican City to make an even more stupid point.

 

[TheNightFly]

If you have no intellectual property, you are still free to produce anything you want, just not free to reproduce another man's intellectual property.

That's the same as saying I'm free to go wherever I want accept on private property, while every square foot of land in the world has been claimed.

 

[ralfy]

From what I remember, property rights in terms of land started during the late Middle Ages.

Also, intellectual property control involved extending the period covered, which meant a combination of corporate lobbying and government regulation.

Property rights (land) started long before that, perhaps not always codified, but land ownership was clearly understood. Lobbying and regulation have muddled property rights in general, but in the case of IP even more so.

When it comes to property rights you can look to Ronald Coase's The problem of Social Cost:

http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/UCSBpf/readings/coase.pdf

various summaries exist that might make understanding Coase's position easier.

Or you can look to Hans-Hermann Hoppe's The Economics and Ethics of Private Property:

Books Mises Institute

Hoppe was a protege of Murray Rothbard and expanded on his ideas on property rights. You can find summaries of these works as well.

Property rights is a complicated subject so if you are interested in understanding it, you have to put in the work, and look at it from different perspectives such as Coase and Hoppe/Rothbard. This a good starting point of the subject.

Property rights involve legal systems and titles, and that started only during the late Middle Ages. Its origins involve enclosures.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

From what I remember, property rights in terms of land started during the late Middle Ages.

Also, intellectual property control involved extending the period covered, which meant a combination of corporate lobbying and government regulation.

Property rights (land) started long before that, perhaps not always codified, but land ownership was clearly understood. Lobbying and regulation have muddled property rights in general, but in the case of IP even more so.

When it comes to property rights you can look to Ronald Coase's The problem of Social Cost:

http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/UCSBpf/readings/coase.pdf

various summaries exist that might make understanding Coase's position easier.

Or you can look to Hans-Hermann Hoppe's The Economics and Ethics of Private Property:

Books Mises Institute

Hoppe was a protege of Murray Rothbard and expanded on his ideas on property rights. You can find summaries of these works as well.

Property rights is a complicated subject so if you are interested in understanding it, you have to put in the work, and look at it from different perspectives such as Coase and Hoppe/Rothbard. This a good starting point of the subject.

Property rights involve legal systems and titles, and that started only during the late Middle Ages. Its origins involve enclosures.

funny I thought ancient Greece came before the middle ages???



Families governed their own affairs. Even the marking of property boundaries was a religious ceremony. Thus the men of the early ages . . . arrived . . . by virtue of their belief, at the conception of the right of property; this right from which all civilization springs, since by it man improves the soil, and becomes improved himself.[3]

Though this religion made it difficult to transfer property between families, it provided powerful barriers to the expansion of government. Every transfer of property needed to be authorized by religion. If a man could not, or could only with difficulty, dispose of land, for a still stronger reason he could not be deprived of it against his will. The appropriation of land for public utility was unknown among the ancients. Confiscation was resorted to only in case of condemnation to exile.[4] Fustel de Coulanges also notes that this strict protection of property rights lasted until the later democratic age of Greek cities.

 

[ralfy]

From what I remember, property rights in terms of land started during the late Middle Ages.

Also, intellectual property control involved extending the period covered, which meant a combination of corporate lobbying and government regulation.

Property rights (land) started long before that, perhaps not always codified, but land ownership was clearly understood. Lobbying and regulation have muddled property rights in general, but in the case of IP even more so.

When it comes to property rights you can look to Ronald Coase's The problem of Social Cost:

http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/UCSBpf/readings/coase.pdf

various summaries exist that might make understanding Coase's position easier.

Or you can look to Hans-Hermann Hoppe's The Economics and Ethics of Private Property:

Books Mises Institute

Hoppe was a protege of Murray Rothbard and expanded on his ideas on property rights. You can find summaries of these works as well.

Property rights is a complicated subject so if you are interested in understanding it, you have to put in the work, and look at it from different perspectives such as Coase and Hoppe/Rothbard. This a good starting point of the subject.

Property rights involve legal systems and titles, and that started only during the late Middle Ages. Its origins involve enclosures.

funny I thought ancient Greece came before the middle ages???



Families governed their own affairs. Even the marking of property boundaries was a religious ceremony. Thus the men of the early ages . . . arrived . . . by virtue of their belief, at the conception of the right of property; this right from which all civilization springs, since by it man improves the soil, and becomes improved himself.[3]

Though this religion made it difficult to transfer property between families, it provided powerful barriers to the expansion of government. Every transfer of property needed to be authorized by religion. If a man could not, or could only with difficulty, dispose of land, for a still stronger reason he could not be deprived of it against his will. The appropriation of land for public utility was unknown among the ancients. Confiscation was resorted to only in case of condemnation to exile.[4] Fustel de Coulanges also notes that this strict protection of property rights lasted until the later democratic age of Greek cities.

I'm referring to legal ownership, not one based on religious authority:

Private property - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

In relation to:

Enclosure - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia