Was James Watt’s patent of the steam engine a crucial incentive needed to trigger his inventive genius, as the traditional history suggests? Or did his use of the legal system to inhibit competition set back the Industrial Revolution by a decade or two? Here is a case study in how “intellectual property rights” do grave damage to the market economy.
David K. Levine
David K. Levine teaches economics at Washington University in Saint Louis and is co-author of Against Intellectual Monopoly. See his website.
