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.

Latest work

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.