Wednesday 14 December 2011

Intellectual-property rights

Tangible-property rights are a good idea.  They both encourage the supply of additional stuff and provide a mechanism for apportioning finite supply to where it's most wanted.  (This would work better if wealth were shared more equally.)

Intellectual-property rights are a bad idea.  They encourage the creation of new intellectual property, but they impoverish humanity by restricting the use of non-rivalrous goods.

Starting from scratch, would anyone really want the system we have now?  I think one would explore every other idea for rewarding innovation and creativity before being willing to settle on what we have as the least bad option.  So I'm going to explore other ideas in future posts...

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