Rockefeller's Standard Oil created a monopoly in kerosene refining by buying others out. A huge drop in the price of fuel followed, benefiting consumers, due to production efficiencies. Rothbard then discusses pietists, prohibitionists and the big political shift of 1896.
Eventually, every aspect of productive life will be so controlled that capitalist drive and ingenuity will become relics of the past.
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.
"Government intervention in the housing market leads to further and further intervention."
"Calls for abolition of the patent system — especially those coming from a principled, rights-based approach — are very unlikely to be adopted at the present time."
There was just something too utilitarian and results oriented in Rand's purportedly principled case for IP, and something too artificial about the state's copyright and patent statutory classifications.
It’s true that the US health-care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure.
"Since most matter in the universe could be used to encode an idea, intellectual property is a claim over the entire universe."
