Replicators And Branded Food?
- Thread starter Dingle Fritz
- Start date
I dunno. People created lots of things before modern IP law granted a property interest in ideas. I'm not actually convinced IP law fosters innovation even in technical fields--it fosters investment, but a command, IPless economy could hack that. I don't know how motivated technical personnel are by the common situation of shareholders owning the fruits of their intellectual labor, or even by the pecuniary benefits that accrue to IP they create and own outside of a work-for-hire context.
As for entertainment, yeah, it fosters investment, but does it foster innovation? People create art, ordinarily, out of a desire to create art. Even Michael Bay does. Probably. Getting rich is a nice side effect, but the putative Fed distributive economy apparently guarantees to everyone a standard of living unattainable by anyone now.
Then again, you have the Soviet Union. They built some cool stuff, I suppose. Some of it even worked.
But shouldn't it be the right of the creator/inventor to control his/her creation and to make the choice to either profit from it or release it to the public domain?
Why shouldn't creators get to make that choice for themselves?
Are intellectual property rights natural rights? It's a way of framing the issue, but not the only one, or, in my opinion, a correct one. The same principles that would dictate that the first person to make a bow and arrow is entitled to maintain physical dominion over his bow and arrow do not dictate that he also be permitted control over the idea of how to construct a bow and arrow.
Why shouldn't IP creators be permitted to hold dominion over their creations? Society is maximally benefited in the short term by the free (costless, not liberal) dissemination of knowledge. IP law exists to balance the long term side-effects of de-incentivizing innovation by such free dissemination. It's the old "If you don't buy my CD, I can't afford to make music, because I'll have to get a job that produces physical economic value instead" type thing, which has a measure of truth to it; likewise, "we won't make new, effective pharmaceuticals if we don't make a profit." The question is whether such innovation would cease in a world where physical value is practically valueless, and a dole or entitlement or whatever appears to exist to basically permit anyone to do whatever they want, whether they're good at it (that is, economically productive at it) or not. Is the balancing function of the IP law still necessary in that kind of society? I merely suggest that perhaps it is not, especially in the case of artistic as opposed to technical IP.
Also, and I know the issue is a muddle, and don't want to get into a big thing, but the (putative) lack of money in the Fed economy makes the notion of any kind of property meaningless, since without a medium of exchange it's virtually inalienable, and inalienable property is hardly property at all.
Why shouldn't IP creators be permitted to hold dominion over their creations? Society is maximally benefited in the short term by the free (costless, not liberal) dissemination of knowledge. IP law exists to balance the long term side-effects of de-incentivizing innovation by such free dissemination. It's the old "If you don't buy my CD, I can't afford to make music, because I'll have to get a job that produces physical economic value instead" type thing, which has a measure of truth to it; likewise, "we won't make new, effective pharmaceuticals if we don't make a profit." The question is whether such innovation would cease in a world where physical value is practically valueless, and a dole or entitlement or whatever appears to exist to basically permit anyone to do whatever they want, whether they're good at it (that is, economically productive at it) or not. Is the balancing function of the IP law still necessary in that kind of society? I merely suggest that perhaps it is not, especially in the case of artistic as opposed to technical IP.
Also, and I know the issue is a muddle, and don't want to get into a big thing, but the (putative) lack of money in the Fed economy makes the notion of any kind of property meaningless, since without a medium of exchange it's virtually inalienable, and inalienable property is hardly property at all.
Lest someone get confused, I'm not a fan of laissez-faire capitalism, either. I'm deeply skeptical of both Capitalism and Socialism; in my view, both, if left to their most extreme and "pure" forms, tend to inhibit the rights of many people, just in different ways using different justifications.
Oh, I agree that radical capitalism, (or, more appropriately, anarchy) is not truly free, moral, or practical, as it dissolves into mob rule, and fraud and exploitation run amuck.
Laissez-faire Capitalism, however, is not anarchy. It allows for a strong criminal justice system, which cracks down on fraudulent business practices.
What it is against is, among other things, the governement effectively declaring that the "consumer" has more rights than the producer (or vice-versa, of course), or that the employee has more rights than the employer (or vice versa), etc.
It allows for individual rights (Life, Liberty, Persuit of Happiness, and all the lesser applications of the Big Three), and declares that there is no other true, authentic catergory of rights--that the impostion of any other catergory, favoring one group over another, is simply a form of tyranny.
Actually, it is through the creation of wealth that the inventor contributes to society, without need of coerced "redistribution".
Consider:
The person's invention makes the lives of others better, and easier. Through the production of this product, then, he/she is contributing to society.
Logic suggests that the greater the contribution to society via production, the greater the reward. Money is the embodiment of this ideal, that production be rewarded in proportion to the amount of said production.
And yes, the businessman does "redistribute", in a sense, some of his wealth to the rest of society--every time he/she purchases a product in turn.
This, BTW, is another argument in favor of a society that includes trade--and why a "moneyless" society is doomed to faliure. Production, and the resulting contribution to society, demands a reward, proportional to the production.
Without the reward, even if someone decided to produce out of "boredom", there is no incentive whatsoever to increase production that much, because there is no tangible reward for this.
"Not getting shipped to a lithium cracking station on Delta Vega" is a kind of a reward.
But no, no one cleans toilets without pecuniary incentive; however, plenty of people undertake creative work without such incentive.
But no, no one cleans toilets without pecuniary incentive; however, plenty of people undertake creative work without such incentive.
But to go the extra mile--and get out of your comfort zone--that requires incentive, that requires reward, regardless of whether it's something you "like".
Why do you like to do a certain job? Because of the rewards you get. It may be a non-material reward, BUT--the harder the work is, the more tangible the reward must be.
And, technology are not, there will always be jobs that need rewards in order for people to fill them.
Why do you like to do a certain job? Because of the rewards you get. It may be a non-material reward, BUT--the harder the work is, the more tangible the reward must be.
And, technology are not, there will always be jobs that need rewards in order for people to fill them.
When was this mentioned? I would assume it was an Enterprise episode (as you did say 22nd century). The only referance to a cola I remember in Enterprise was Storm Front when we saw a Pepsi ad, but that was in the 20th century.
I prefer my milk ice cold... and (out of necessity) lactose-free.
If that were true, capitalism -- particularly the Chicago School that's currently in fashion -- wouldn't produce vast amounts of poverty. But it does. 20% of the population owns 85% of the wealth in America -- and the top 1% owns 34.6%! I'm sorry, but no matter how you cut it, there's something wrong with a system that distributes wealth so narrowly.
^You are assuming that wealth is always "distributed"--that the economy is a zero-sum game. If the rich get richer, the poor must therefore get poorer. The rich get richer just by taking "a bigger share of the pie" from the poor. And so on.
It is not a zero-sum game. There is not a constant, limited supply of money.
That theory can be refuted with a phrase that, interestingly enough, is used all the time:
"To MAKE money."
Or, "To CREATE wealth."
Money is made before it can be traded, or looted, or "re-distributed". Wealth is created, before it can be owned.
How is it made? Those dollars, printed and coined by the Mint, are worthless if there is not production to keep the dollar value up.
There is not a "zero-sum game" of production, of course. The very idea that if someone produces more, someone else therefore produces less is absurd.
Money creation--wealth creation--is directly proportional to the rate of production.
The economy is not a zero-sum game.
It is not a zero-sum game. There is not a constant, limited supply of money.
That theory can be refuted with a phrase that, interestingly enough, is used all the time:
"To MAKE money."
Or, "To CREATE wealth."
Money is made before it can be traded, or looted, or "re-distributed". Wealth is created, before it can be owned.
How is it made? Those dollars, printed and coined by the Mint, are worthless if there is not production to keep the dollar value up.
There is not a "zero-sum game" of production, of course. The very idea that if someone produces more, someone else therefore produces less is absurd.
Money creation--wealth creation--is directly proportional to the rate of production.
The economy is not a zero-sum game.
No, but poverty in general and wealth concentration in specific remains problematic--and more problematic than non-zero-sum advocates let on--because poverty is has an extremely strong relative, socially-defined dimension to it.
Rush, regarding innovation and wealth creation, is there a reason why people who already create extremely valuable innovations on a work-for-hire basis would no longer do so, were they to live in a land without our IP regime (and, of course, an independent investment stream)?
Rush, regarding innovation and wealth creation, is there a reason why people who already create extremely valuable innovations on a work-for-hire basis would no longer do so, were they to live in a land without our IP regime (and, of course, an independent investment stream)?
What do you mean by "socially defined demension"?
Even I thought that was obscure.