There are No Good Arguments for Intellectual Property

There are some decent arguments out there that argue in favor of a state, welfare rights, war, democracy, drug laws, and so on. They are all flawed, since libertarianism is right, but there are coherent, honest arguments that we libertarians have to grapple with.

But it is striking that there are no decent arguments for IP--as Manuel Lora remarked to me, “You know, I haven’t seen a good pro IP article ever.” This is true. One sees the same incoherent or insincere claims made over and over, such as:

Mises on Intellectual Property

In this comment on a post here, I was accused of hiding or avoiding mention of one of Mises’s comments about copyrights and patents. I suppose the commentor was unaware of my extensive quotes of Mises in this comment on another thread, which quoted a large deal of Mises’s remarks on IP, including the one in question. So much for suppression. Since this extensive comment is buried on a thread, I reprint it below as a standalone post.

Blowing Bubbles

Mainstream economists either deny that financial bubbles can occur or that the “animal spirits” of market participants are to blame. Economists running central banks even claim that it is impossible to identify asset bubbles. Meanwhile, the Austrian school stands alone in pointing the finger at government intervention in monetary affairs as the culprit.

Is This America’s Dark Knight?

Obama is playing the part of the Joker to perfection, aided and abetted by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The only difference being that, instead of wearing a clown’s face, he has chosen to look promising and speak lofty words of nothingness as he and the other leaders push the nation ever closer to economic collapse. Ignoring any sound economic principles, these leaders have carved a path of prodigality unmatched in American history. It seems as if they desire the total economic failure of the country.

Economic Recovery Requires Capital Accumulation, Not Government “Stimulus Packages”

An economic system entering into a major recession or depression is in a situation very similar to a sleep-deprived individual. A stimulus further depletes his body’s already diminished energy reserves and takes him down the path of utter exhaustion.The main difference between such economic “stimulants” and pharmaceutical stimulants is that the economic stimulants will not succeed even in temporarily restoring the economic system to anything approaching its normal level of activity.

Stimulus, Savings, and Stocks

As the president signs the trillion-dollar stimulus package into law, financial networks are abuzz with investment pundits speculating on what companies will benefit, and thus what stocks should be purchased. Such analysis makes an error of causality commonly found in equities research. It assumes a direct correlation between business activity and stock prices.

Inauguration Tickets and the Failure of Central Planning

Tickets to Obama’s inauguration were in extremely high demand. Members of Congress were each allotted a couple hundred tickets to distribute freely to their constituents with only one rule: they were to be given out for free. With no pricing mechanism for allocating the tickets, which were going for as high as $40,000 on websites claiming to sell tickets, the government resorted to its favorite form of distribution: the political process.
Subscribe to