Classical Liberals, Libertarians, Anarchists and Others on Intellectual Property

by Stephan Kinsella on October 6, 2015

I’ve discussed before the IP stances of various older libertarians, classical liberal, and anarchist thinkers on IP.¹ I keep trying to add to this list. I’ll supplement this post from time to time, but here is some of what I’ve collected.² I’m omitting more recent libertarians such as Rand and Galambos. These are sorted chronologically (by date of birth). Good guys in blue (lighter blue for the ones that are semi-good). Bad in red.

- John Locke (1632–1704): weak, confused, but not as bad as some, like Adam Mossoff, claims he is³
- David Hume (1711–76): unclear, but seemed to reject aspects of Locke’s labor argument that are now used to justify IP⁴
- Adam Smith (1723–1790): apparently in favor, but somewhat cautious and skeptical⁵
- Blackstone (1723–1780): apparently opposed to patents⁶
- Thomas Paine (1737–1809): pro-copyright⁷
- Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832): weak⁸
- James Madison (1751–1836): bad⁹
- Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) bad¹⁰

Charles Comte (1782–1837): good¹¹
Charles Dunoyer (1782–1862): good¹²
Frédéric Bastiat (1801–50): In one writing he seems skeptical of patents, but elsewhere expresses support for copyright (“literary property”), based, as usual, on the confused labor theory of value and the tired old “fruits of one’s labor” metaphor.¹³
William Leggett (1801–39): very good, for his time, on both patent and copyright¹⁴
Charles Coquelin (1802-52): bad¹⁵
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873): bad¹⁶
Michel Chevalier (1806–1879): good¹⁷
Lysander Spooner (1808–87): horrible on IP, just about the worst, next to Galambos, Rand, and Schulman¹⁸
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–65): possibly bad on IP (claim disputed)¹⁹
JK Ingalls (1816–98): Seems to be almost identical to Tucker: good on IP, but for confused reasons, including hostility to the “land monopoly”²⁰
Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912): bad on patent and copyright²¹
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903): horrifically bad on IP²²
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) good on copyright
Auberon Herbert (1838–1906): unknown²³
Henry George (1839–97): bad on copyright²⁴
James Walker (Tak Kak) (1845–1904): excellent on both patent and copyright, like Tucker²⁵
Eugen Böhm-Bawerk (1851–1914): expresses skepticism about both patent and copyright²⁶
Benjamin Tucker (1854–1939): great on IP, but perhaps not completely for the right reasons²⁷
Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945): possibly skeptical of patents²⁸
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956): unknown
Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973): skeptical, but mixed and confused on IP; seem to be somewhat anti-patent but pro-copyright²⁹
Frank Knight (1885–1972): skeptical of patents, but perhaps in favor of state funding of R&D³⁰
Henry Hazlitt (1894–1993): weak³¹
Arnold Plant (1898–1978): skeptical of empirical case for patents³²
Lionel Robbins (1898–1984): skeptical of empirical case for patents³³
Leonard Read (1898–1983): appeared to be skeptical of ownership of ideas in general, i.e. anti-IP³⁴
F.A. von Hayek (1899–1992): seemed to be leaning against IP, though not entirely clearly³⁵
Fritz Machlup (1902–83): skeptical of the empirical case for patents³⁶
Robert LeFevre (1911–86): expresses very good, early skepticism of the notion of IP or ownership of ideas [Update: as noted in an update in the post linked below, LeFevre oddly has some quasi-pro-IP comments on the copyright page of his book This Bread Is Mine, which seem incompatible with his anti-IP thoughts expressed elsewhere. Not sure if his thinking changed on this, or he was just confused.]³⁷

***

Update: More recent thinkers (not a comprehensive list; for more on modern libertarian views on IP see The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism, The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism; see also Pro-IP “Anarchists” and anti-IP Patent Attorneys):

Ayn Rand (1905–82): bad (central plot point of The Fountainhead: IP terrorism)
F.A. “Baldy” Harper (1905–73): indications are he was or would have been bad on IP; infected by the Lockean “creationism” virus³⁸
Milton Friedman (1912–2006): TBD
Bettina Bien Greaves (1917–2018): bad/weak/confused (just as Mises and Rothbard were)
Andrew Joseph Galambos (1924–97): bad (one of the worst, with Spooner a close competitor for this title): total nutjob on IP, utterly in thrall the scientism, the labor theory of property, and non-rigorous, overly metaphorical reasoning
Murray N. Rothbard (1926–95): decent on patent; confused on copyright; good on defamation
Morris (1926–1988) and Linda Tannehill (1939–?): weak/confused on IP. They were anarchists but advanced a strained argument as to how a free market, anarchist society could still enforce some version of Ayn Rand’s insane IP views. It can’t. They were wrong. See The Market for Liberty, ch. 7 (confused comments about inventorship and royalties (i.e., patent law) and some vague assumption (like Rothbard tried to briefly advance) that IP law is based on contract–it’s not).
Israel Kirzner (1930–): seems to lean against IP, but not clearly³⁹
Jan Narveson (1936–): pro-IP⁴⁰
Robert Nozick (1938–2002): confused and weakly in favor of some form of patent law; very diletanttish reasoning, as often is the case for Nozick. See here, text at note 5
Tibor Machan (1939–2016): confused and bad on IP⁴¹
Henri LePage (1941–): somewhat skeptical⁴²
Deirdre McCloskey (1942–): somewhat skeptical of patent and copyright, but not in favor of abolition and expresses no principled or coherent view
Gary North (1942–): pretty good: appears to oppose patent and copyright on biblical and economic grounds, but favors trademark and defamation law⁴³
Richard Epstein (1943–): bad⁴⁴
Bertrand Lemennicier (1943–2019): good⁴⁵
Ejan Mackaay (1943–): bad⁴⁶
David Friedman (1945–) (bad/confused)⁴⁷
L. Neil Smith (1946–2021): bad⁴⁸
Sam Konkin (1947–2004): good (see Copywrongs)
William F. Shughart II (1947–): bad⁴⁹
Mark Skousen (1947–): bad (private correspondence)
George H. Smith (1949–2022): unknown; probably good
Mary Ruwart (1949–): good: indicates here she is generally against IP (previously, position a bit unclear: here she doesn’t clearly condemn defamation law, which is a type of IP [discussed further at this facebook post])
Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–): good
Sheldon Richman (1949–): good
Ken Schoolland (?): seems very skeptical of patents⁵⁰
Jacob “Bumper” Hornberger (1950–): apparently bad⁵¹
Randall Holcombe (1950–): unclear (said it’s an open question but admires my work)
Wendy McElroy (1951–): good (the first to get it basically right from a libertarian perspective)
J. Neil Schulman (1953–2019): very bad⁵²
Tom Palmer (1956–): good (at least originally)
Tyler Cowen: bad
James DeLong: bad
Matt Ridley (1958–): pretty good; somewhat skeptical about patent and copyright⁵³
J.C. (Jan) Lester: confused and bad on IP⁵⁴
Lawrence Lessig (1961–): weak/confused/unprincipled⁵⁵
Jeffrey Tucker (1963–): good
Roderick Long (1964–): good (early radical libertarian opponent of IP)
Stephen Davies: good
N. Stephan Kinsella (1965–): good (to say the least)
Alex Tabarrok (1966–): confused/bad-mixed⁵⁶
Adam Thierer (?): weak, unprincipled⁵⁷
Bryan Caplan (1971–): bad
Tom Bell: not abolitionist, but skeptical and favors significant rollbacks
Mike Masnick: not abolitionist, but skeptical and favors significant rollbacks
Cory Doctorow: not abolitionist, but skeptical and favors significant rollbacks (I believe)
Adam Mossoff: bad [basically: among the worst, along with Rand, Spooner, Galambos, and Schulman, all of whom were insane on IP]
Jerry Brito: skeptical of IP and favors reform, but not abolition
Paul Cwik: bad [so bad he’s hardly even wrong]
Peter Leeson (1979–): not clear; touches on it briefly in this paper
Michael Huemer: confused: doesn’t think it’s clear that IP is unlibertarian⁵⁸
Sharon Presley; and some less-known more modern soi-disant anarchists who are nonetheless confused and bad on IP: Bob Wenzel, for example,⁵⁹ as well as other lesser/modern figures such as Chris LeRoux,⁶⁰ Shayne Wissler,⁶¹ Silas Barta (aka John Sharp, “Person,” Richard Harding/Hard Dick).⁶²

See The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism, The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism, The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism. [↩]
See also my post Pro-IP “Anarchists” and anti-IP Patent Attorneys. [↩]
See the discussion of Locke and comments by Bell and Deazley etc. here: Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and “Rearranging”. [↩]
see Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor [↩]
From Lectures on Jurisprudence, Part I, Div. III, §8, p. 130: “The privilege, however, of vending a new book or a new machine for fourteen years has not so bad a tendency, it is a proper and adequate reward for merit.” From Wealth of Nations, G.Ed. p. 754: “When a company of merchants undertake, at their own risk andThe grant of a temporary monopoly to a joint-stock company may sometimes be reasonable, but a perpetual monopoly creates an absurd tax expence, to establish a new trade with some remote and barbarous nation, it may not be unreasonable to incorporate them into a joint stock company, and to grant them, in case of their success, a monopoly of the trade for a certain number of years. It is the easiest and most natural way in which the state can recompense them for hazarding a dangerous and expensive experiment, of which the public is afterwards to reap the benefit. A temporary monopoly of this kind may be vindicated upon the same principles upon which a like monopoly of a new machine is granted to its inventor, and that of a new book to its author.” (discussed in Adam Smith and the Role of Government). See also The Economist: “’The granting [of] patents “inflames cupidity”, excites fraud, stimulates men to run after schemes that may enable them to levy a tax on the public, begets disputes and quarrels betwixt inventors, provokes endless lawsuits…The principle of the law from which such consequences flow cannot be just.’ … The Economist may have put it rather strongly in 1851, but its disapproval of patents represented conventional wisdom at the time. A century earlier, Adam Smith had described them as necessary evils, to be handed out sparingly, and many other economists have since echoed his reservations. Patents amount to temporary monopolies on useful new inventions.” See also Tom Bell’s comments showing Smith did not view IP as natural rights. Update: See also pp. 7–8 of Machlup & Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century” (1950), where the authors point out that while Smith argued that monopolies in trade are harmful, he thought that “a temporary monopoly granted to the inventor of a new machine could be justified as a means of rewarding risk and expense.” [Citing Wealth of Nations, at Bk. V, chap. i., Part III, 388, from the Oxford version 1928; online]. [↩]
See Bob Baxt and Henry Ergas, “Australia” country chapter, in R Ian McEwin, Intellectual Property, Competition Law and Economics in Asia, p. 98 (2011), stating: “Arguments that ‘publicutility requires that production of the mind should be diffused as widely as possible’ [5] were common in the English literary property debate of the eighteenth century; so too was the hostility embodied in Blackstone’s view that ‘mechanical inventions tend to the improvement of arts and manufactures, which employ the bulk of people; therefore they ought to be cheap and numerous’. [6]” citing [5] “The Cases of Appellant and Respondents in the Cause of Literary Property before the House of Lords (1774) 6, cited in B Sherman and L Bently, The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999) 29.” and [6] “W Blackstone [as Counsel] in Tonson v Collins (1760) 96 ER 189″. See also Ronan Deazley, Commentary on: Tonson v. Collins (1762); and Tonson v. Collins, London (1762). [↩]
See Tom Paine, Copyright Statist. [↩]
See p. 7 of Machlup & Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century” (1950) [↩]
Madison Lied about Patent and Copyright [↩]
See Say, A Treatise on Political Economy:

“In Great Britain, the individual inventor of a new product or of a new process may obtain the exclusive right to it, by obtaining what is called a patent. While the patent remains in force, the absence of competitors enables him to raise his price far above the ordinary return of his outlay with interest, and the wages of his own industry. Thus he receives a premium from the government, charged upon the consumers of the new article; and this premium is often very large, as may be supposed in a country so immediately productive as Great Britain, where there are consequently abundance of affluent individuals, ever on the look-out for some new object of enjoyment. Some years ago a man invented a spiral or worm spring for insertion between the leather braces of carriages, to ease their motion, and made his fortune by the patent for so trifling an invention.

Privileges of this kind no one can reasonably object to; for they neither interfere with, nor cramp any branch of industry, previously in operation. Moreover, the expense incurred is purely voluntary; and those who choose to incur it, are not obliged to renounce the satisfaction of any previous wants, either of necessity or of amusement.

See also p. 7 of Machlup & Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century” (1950); also Louis Rouanet, “Michel Chevalier’s Forgotten Case Against the Patent System” (2015). [↩]
According to Louis Rouanet, “Michel Chevalier’s Forgotten Case Against the Patent System” (2015). [↩]
According to Louis Rouanet, “Michel Chevalier’s Forgotten Case Against the Patent System” (2015). [↩]
See Economic Harmonies, ch. X, which seems vaguely critical of the idea of patents; and clearer mentions in “Propriété et Spoliation“. Re Bastiat being in favor of not only copyright, or “literary property,” but in fact indefinite or perpetual copyright, see “Discours au cercle de la librairie” (“Speech to the bookstore circle”). In Economic Harmonies, ch. X, he writes: “if it were possible for the individual, family, class, or nation that finds certain natural advantages within reach or makes an important discovery in industry or acquires through thrift instruments of production, to be permanently exempt from the law of competition, it is obvious that this individual, family, or nation would retain the monopoly of its exceptional remuneration for all time to come, at the expense of mankind. Where would we be if the inhabitants of the tropics, free from all competition among themselves, were able, in exchange for their sugar, coffee, cotton, and spices, to demand from us, not amounts of labor equal to theirs, but pains equal to those we ourselves would have to take in order to raise these commodities in our rugged climate? By what an immeasurable distance would the various social strata of mankind be separated if only the race of Cadmus *92 could read; if no one could handle a plow unless he could prove that he was a direct descendant of Triptolemus; *93 if only Gutenberg’s descendants could print, Arkwright’s sons could operate a loom, Watt’s progeny could set the funnel of a locomotive to smoking? But Providence has not willed that these things should be, for it has placed within the social machinery a spring as amazingly powerful as it is simple. Thanks to its action every productive force, every improved technique, every advantage, in a word, other than one’s own labor, slips through the hands of its producer, remaining there only long enough to excite his zeal with a brief taste of exceptional returns, and then moves on ultimately to swell the gratuitous and common heritage of all mankind. All these discoveries and advantages are diffused into larger and larger portions of individual satisfactions, which are more and more equally distributed. Such is the action of competition. We have already noted its economic effects; it remains for us to glance at a few of its political and moral consequences. I shall confine myself to pointing out the most important.” Yet in “Discours au cercle de la librairie” he supports perpetual copyright. One commentator seems to note the contradiction: in note 9: “And yet! Bastiat would have done better to question this apparent contradiction further, until he found its substance; because despite his denials, Bastiat’s position in matters of literary property is indeed a form of protectionism that goes unnoticed. It must be said that he probably did not have a sufficiently valuable interlocutor to understand his position and show him the contradiction with valid arguments from his own point of view. As for the argument that follows, it must be said that with regard to special printing and publishing services, the usual arguments against protectionism apply to denounce the ban on printing and publishing abroad, while with regard to the authorship service, this is supposed to have been paid and remunerated before any printing, and any voluntary remuneration a posteriori for the work can then only be patronage and no longer an exchange of service. ( note from Faré, 2000-07-09 ).” [↩]
William Leggett on Intellectual Property [↩]
According to Louis Rouanet, “Michel Chevalier’s Forgotten Case Against the Patent System” (2015). [↩]
See p. 7 of Machlup & Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century” (1950), noting that Mill “stated categorically that [the condemnation of monopolies ought not to extend to patents …'”; also Mackaay, p. 359, n. 273: “John Stuart Mill justified intellectual property in similar terms: ‘an exclusive privilege, of temporary duration is preferable; because it leaves nothing to anyone’s discretion; because the reward conferred by it depends upon the invention’s being found useful, and the greater the usefulness, the greater the reward; and because it is paid by the very persons to whom the service is rendered, the consumers of the commodity’ (Mill 1985 [1848], 296 (Bk V, Ch. X, §4 [10.24]).” [↩]
Louis Rouanet, “Michel Chevalier’s Forgotten Case Against the Patent System” (2015). [↩]
Tucker on Spooner’s One Flaw [↩]
Proudhon: For Intellectual Monopoly [↩]
See his Social Wealth [1885], pp. 85–86: “The idea of a natural exclusive right in invention or in the publishing of books is absurd. If there is one, why our patent and copyright laws? Why not defend the right at common law or by general consent? Because a man utters a new word, or coins a new phrase, is that his property which no one may repeat? If we may not be prevented from reiterating it, why from rewriting it or reprinting it? Because a man builds a house to shelter himself and family, shall all mankind be compelled to dwell in caves to the end of time? or pay him and his descendants a royalty or kingly tribute? Doubtless, society will feel under obligation to one who has invented a useful thing or written an instructive or entertaining book. And the man who has conceived or perfected either of these has the power of property over it, while he keeps it private or secret, and will usually find means to secure an advantage from it before making it public property, as Daguerre did with his beautiful invention. Society, too, may take lawful methods of awarding services of that kind; but to create a monopoly is not one of them. For books and inventions a premium might be allowed for a given time; but not to interfere with the freedom of manufacture and sale by all who would respect the right.” See also Wikipedia: “He was an associate of Benjamin Tucker and the “Boston anarchists.” He believed that government protection of idle land was the foundational source of all limitations on individual liberty.” [↩]
Molinari (and Tucker, and Mutualists) on IP [↩]
See The Principles of Ethics, Vol. 2, Ch. 13, §§ 303–306; also, according to Roderick Long, from Spencer’s Autobiography. See also Spencer’s Social Statics, ch. XI, § 3: “As already remarked, it is a common notion, and one more especially pervading the operative classes, that the exclusive use by its discoverer of any new or improved mode of production, is a species of monopoly, in the sense in which that word is conventionally used. To let a man have the entire benefit accruing from the employment of some more efficient machine, [139] or better process invented by him; and to allow no other person to adopt and apply for his own advantage the same plan, they hold to be an injustice. Nor are there wanting philanthropic and even thinking men, who consider that the valuable ideas originated by individuals—ideas which may be of great national advantage—should be taken out of private hands and thrown open to the public at large. …. —And pray, gentlemen,—an inventor might fairly reply,—why may not I make the same proposal respecting your goods and chattels, your clothing, your houses, your railway shares, and your money in the funds? If you are right in the interpretation you give to the term ‘monopoly,’ I do not see why that term should not be applied to the coats upon your backs and the provisions on your dinner tables.” See also Spencer, The Principles of Ethics, vol. II, Part IV, Ch. XIII, “The Right of Incorporeal Property.” TBD: ADD stuff from the recent 1981 book on liberty by alan Burris… [↩]
Jeff Tucker assures me that Herbert was good on IP but I can find nothing in The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State and Other Essays [1885] definitive, though he has a bit of pro-IP-ish “libertarian creationism” in his comment “We claim that the individual is not only the one true owner of his faculties, but also of his property, because property is directly or indirectly the product of faculties, is inseparable from faculties, and therefore must rest on the same moral basis, and fall under the same moral law, as faculties. Personal ownership of our own selves and of our own faculties, necessarily includes personal ownership of property. As property is created by faculties, it would be idle, it would be a mere illusion, to speak of an individual as owner of his own faculties, and at same time to withhold from him the fullest and most perfect rights over his property, if such property has been rightfully acquired” [emphasis added] [↩]
Henry George on Intellectual Property and Copyright [↩]
See William Leggett on Intellectual Property; and Wendy McElroy, For Liberty, Life and Property….But Not The Ownership of Ideas [↩]
Böhm-Bawerk on Patent and Copyright [↩]
Molinari (and Tucker, and Mutualists) on IP; see also “Benjamin Tucker and the Great Nineteenth Century IP Debates in Liberty Magazine” (July 11, 2022). [↩]
According to a friend, “In his biography of Jefferson, he claims that Jefferson was against patents, and his phrasing makes it appear that he was against them, too. In his narrative about Jefferson’s views, he refers to them as monopolies.” [↩]
Human Action 3rd rev. ed. Chicago: Henry Regnery (1966), chap. 23, section 6, pp. 661–62; see also pp. 128, 364; see also Kinsella, “Mises on Intellectual Property” [↩]
Knight believed the patent system “is an exceedingly crude way of rewarding invention. Not merely do the consumers of the product pay, which is doubtless fair, but large numbers of other persons suffer who are prevented from using the commodity by the artificially high price. And as the thing works out, it is undoubtedly a very rare and exceptional case where the really deserving inventor gets anything like a fair reward. If any one gains, it is some purchaser of the invention or at best an inventor who adds a detail or finishing touch that makes an idea practicable where the real work of pioneering and exploration has been done by others. It would seem to be a matter of political intelligence and administrative capacity to replace artificial monopoly with some direct method of stimulating and rewarding research.” Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, “Part III, Chapter XII: Social Aspects of Uncertainty and Profit,” p. 372 (1921). As noted by Bob Baxt and Henry Ergas, “Australia” country chapter, in R Ian McEwin, Intellectual Property, Competition Law and Economics in Asia, p. 99 & n9 (2011), this was “a view the Nobel laureate in economics, Kenneth Arrow, echoed, some 40 years later, in his classic article on the economics of research and development (R&D). … Although often cited by those who support strong IPRs, suggesting that as with so much economic literature, it is far more often cited than read, Arrow’s main conclusion is that ‘for optimal allocation [of resources] to invention it would be necessary for the government or some other agency not governed by profit-and-loss criteria to finance research and invention.’ K. Arrow, ‘Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources to Invention’ in The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1962) 623. [↩]
In Hazlitt’s article “Patents and Monopoly,” New York Times, December 14, 1938 (p. 24; uncredited), he seems slightly skeptical of patents. He acknowledges that the government’s grant of patents helps create the monopolies that the government then complains about. He also wonders if patents have really promoted progress, or whether perhaps their “abuse” has hindered progress. Still, he does not seem to favor abolition or to oppose patents on principle. And in his 1962 National Review review of Rothbard’s MES, he criticizes Rothbard’s “abstract doctrinaire logic” such as his “sharp contrast between copyrights and patents, and his implication that the former might well be granted in perpetuity and the latter not at all”. He is right that Rothbard is wrong to imagine a sharp contrast between patent and copyright, and Hazlitt appears to oppose copyright in perpetuity (but not completely), and to oppose the abolition of patent law. Later he criticizes Rothbard for opposition to libel law (which very similar to IP law, in establishing intangible “reputation rights” [as trademark law also does]), and blackmail law, indicating Hazlitt favored established positive law, both common law (blackmail and libel) and statutory law (e.g. patent law). Hazlitt is very confused here, accusing Rothbard of being “misled by his epistemological doctrine of “extreme apriorism” into trying to substitute his own instant jurisprudence for the common law principles built up through generations of human experience”–since patent and copyright law were not based on gradually developed common law, but rather the result of state interference in human life and the market, and statutes such as the Statute of Anne 1710 [copyright] and the Statute of Monopolies 1623 [patent], and the patent and copyright clause in the US Constitution of 1789 and the patent and copyright statutes enacted immediately after by Congress. [↩]
“The Economic Theory Concerning Patents for Inventions,”Economica, New Series, 1, no. 1 (Feb., 1934). See also Robert Van Horn & Matthias Klaes, “Intervening in Laissez-Faire Liberalism: Chicago’s Shift on Patents,” in
Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the History of America’s Most Powerful Economics Program: “Echoing the anti-patent concerns of U.S. political leaders and the U.S. Supreme Court were two future European members of the Mont Pèlerin Society, Arnold Plant[12] and Michael Polanyi.[13] Plant maintained that patents, like all forms of monopoly, were deleterious to society because they diverted resources from other forms of production that might be more beneficial to society. According to Plant, with a patent system in place, a certain combination of output would result – say, Combination A. With an open market price system in place and without a patent system, another combination of output would result – say, Combination B. Which combination was more generally useful? According to Plant, this could not be determined by any system of economic analysis. Thus, he trenchantly stated, “the science of economics as it stands to-day furnishes no basis of justification for this enormous experiment in the encouragement of a particular activity by enabling monopolistic price control” (51). In lamenting the economic troubles of England, Plant asked: “Can it be that the patent system is in part responsible for our present economic troubles?” (51) 14.” Note 14: ” In providing additional criticisms of the patent system, Plant’s analysis included four noteworthy anti-patent claims. First, Plant observed that patents were unnecessary in some industries for the production of inventions. Without patents, the fashion industry burgeoned with a high rate of invention. Additionally, the creation of inventions in the field of medicine took place, partly due to altruistic motives and professional drive for repute. Second, according to Plant, the patent system only served the one who secured the patent, providing no financial reward to the numerous other participants in the invention process. Plant incisively stated, “Lotteries in open competition there may well be; but the lottery of the patent system awards but one prize, and that a monopoly, while those who subscribe most of its value may be precluded from qualifying for the prize” (46). Third, Plant asserted that patents prevented future discoveries because an inventor, fearing that he or she would transgress another’s patent, would be deterred. Plant observed, “competitors instead of helping to improve the best, are compelled in self-preservation to apply themselves to the devising of alternatives which, though possibly inferior, will circumvent the patent” (46). Thus, for Plant, the patent system caused a mal-distribution of resources. Fourth, the patent system was no longer necessary to ensure that businesses did not conceal their inventions. Although the patent system might have had a beneficial role to play in the eighteenth century, when numerous small businesses tended to be individually owned, the patent system, according to Plant, had no equivalent role to play in the early twentieth century, which depended on large scale manufacture. For Plant, because of large-scale manufacture, protracted secrecy tended to be infeasible. Even though there might be exceptions, such as a chemical process, Plant maintained, “such cases, if they indeed exist outside the pages of detective fiction and sensational literature, must surely be exceptional, and unlikely to be eradicated by the inducements of temporary patent production” (44).” Plant page references to this; Polanyi page references to Philip Mirowski, The Effortless Economy of Science? [↩]
Lionel Robbins on the Patent Monopoly [↩]
Leonard Read on Copyright and the Role of Ideas [↩]
see Hayek’s Views on Intellectual Property; also Tucker, “Misesian vs. Marxian vs. IP Views of Innovation“; Tucker, “Hayek on Patents and Copyrights“; Salerno, Hayek Contra Copyright Laws [↩]
U.S. Senate Subcommittee On Patents, Trademarks & Copyrights, An Economic Review of the Patent System, 85th Cong., 2nd Session, 1958, Study No. 15 (text excerpt) [“Report to the US congress from 1958, which also extensively narrates the history of the patent movement and of earlier economic research on this subject. Machlup, a renowned American economist of Austrian origin, is the first author of a large treatise on knowledge economics and other treatises which belong to the teaching repertoire of economics departments in universities. His report cites a wealth of historical and economic evidence to refute most of the reasoning used by lawyers to legitimate the patent system.”]; Fritz Machlup & Edith Penrose, “The Patent Controversy in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Economic History 10 (1950), p. 1 [↩]
LeFevre on Intellectual Property and the “Ownership of Intangibles” [↩]
KOL 037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory; “The Intellectual Property Quagmire, or, The Perils of Libertarian Creationism” (Powerpoint; PDF version), Austrian Scholars Conference 2008 Rothbard Memorial Lecture (audio; video; Google Video version); Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and “Rearranging”; Libertarian Creationism; Rand on IP, Owning “Values”, and “Rearrangement Rights”; Locke, Smith, Marx and the Labor Theory of Value. [↩]
see Cordato and Kirzner on Intellectual Property [↩]
Kraft & Hovden claim Narveson is anti-IP but this is incorrect. In The Libertarian Idea he hints are being pro-IP (“Those who produce information produce a useful product, and it can be bought and sold, spawning its own particular technologies and organizational problems (copyright questions, for instance). p. 218”); see also Jan Narveson – A Defense of Intellectual Property Rights and “Privacy, Intellectual Property, and Rights.” [↩]
See references in Remembering Tibor Machan, Libertarian Mentor and Friend: Reflections on a Giant . [↩]
see Mackaay, Ejan. “Economic Incentives in Markets for Information and Innovation.” In “Symposium: Intellectual Property,” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 13, no. 3 (Summer 1990), at p. 869. [↩]
See Gary North on the 3D Printing Threat to Patent Law. [↩]
See KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished. [↩]
Brevets d’invention, droits de reproduction et propriété intellectuelle, Patents, Reproduction Rights and Intellectual Property [↩]
“Economic Incentives in Markets for Information and Innovation“. See also Legal Hybrids: Beyond Property and Monopoly? and Law and Economics for Civil Law Systems, pp. 358 et seq. [↩]
David Friedman on Intellectual Property; also KOL377 | No Way Jose Ep. 140: David Friedman Debate Prep: Deontology vs. Consequentialism, Utilitarianism, Natural Rights, Argumentation Ethics, Intellectual Property; David Friedman on the “Problem” of Piracy; David Friedman on Copyright; David Friedman: Current Experiments in Self Publishing. [↩]
Replies to Neil Schulman and Neil Smith re IP; Kinsella v. Schulman on Logorights and IP; Schulman: Kinsella is “the foremost enemy of property rights” ; Query for Schulman on Patents and Logorights [↩]
Shughart’s Defense of IP; Independent Institute on The “Benefits” of Intellectual Property Protection [↩]
See ch. 31 of The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible; and “Exercising the Mind: An open marketplace of ideas is the best mechanism for reaching the truth,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, November 3, 2002. [↩]
He’s pro-defamation law and I was told he is also pro-IP; see facebook and twitter; also Kinsella, ““Libertarian” Lightweight and “Minarchist” (read: mini-statist) Jacob Hornberger on Defamation and Alex Jones,” Freedom and Law (substack) (Oct. 22, 2022; https://perma.cc/QEX8-4PH8). [↩]
Replies to Neil Schulman and Neil Smith re IP; Kinsella v. Schulman on Logorights and IP; Schulman: Kinsella is “the foremost enemy of property rights” ; Query for Schulman on Patents and Logorights [↩]
Ridley, The Rational Optimist, ch. 8: “there is little evidence that patents are really what drive inventors to invent. Most innovations are never patented. In the second half of the nineteenth century neither Holland nor Switzerland had a patent system, yet both countries flourished and attracted inventors. And the list of significant twentieth century inventions that were never patented is a long one. It includes automatic transmission, Bakelite, ballpoint pens, cellophane, cyclotrons, gyrocompasses, jet engines, magnetic recording, power steering, safety razors and zippers. By contrast, the Wright brothers effectively grounded the nascent aircraft industry in the United States by enthusiastically defending their 1906 patent on powered flying machines. In 1920, there was a logjam in the manufacture of radios caused by the blocking patents held by four firms (RCA, GE, AT&T and Westing house), which prevented each firm making the best possible radios. …“In the 1990s the US Patent Office flirted with the idea of allowing the patenting of gene fragments, segments of sequenced genes that could be used to find faulty or normal genes. Had this happened, the human genome sequence would have become an impossible landscape in which to innovate.” See also How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom, ch. 11, section “When the law stifles innovation: the case of intellectual property”: “there is no evidence that there is less innovation in areas unprotected by patents. … none of the following technologies were patented in any effective way: automatic transmission, power steering, ballpoint pens, cellophane, gyrocompasses, jet engines, magnetic recording, safety razors and zippers. … All in all, the evidence that patents and copyrights are necessary for innovation, let alone good for it, is weak. There is simply no sign of a ‘market failure’ in innovation waiting to be rectified by intellectual property, while there is ample evidence that patents and copyrights are actively hindering innovation. As Lindsey and Teles put it, the holders of intellectual property are ‘a significant drag on innovation and growth, the very opposite of IP law’s stated purpose’.” [↩]
See discussion in my post “Aggression” versus “Harm” in Libertarianism; also J.C. Lester: “Against Against Intellectual Property: A Short Refutation of Meme Communism” [↩]
Independent Institute on The “Benefits” of Intellectual Property Protection. [↩]
Tabarrok: Patent Policy on the Back of a Napkin; Tabarrok: Defending Independent Invention; Tabarrok’s Launching the Innovation Renaissance: Statism, not renaissance; Tabarrok on Ideas and Prosperity [↩]
See When Rights Collide: Principles to Guide the Intellectual Property Debate; also Reply to Adam Thierer on Net Neutrality and IP and Cato, Lessig, and Intellectual Property and Independent Institute on The “Benefits” of Intellectual Property Protection. [↩]
see Huemer vs. Epstein on Intellectual Property [↩]
KOL 038 | Debate with Robert Wenzel on Intellectual Property [↩]
KOL076 | IP Debate with Chris LeRoux ; Can you own ideas? Chris LeRoux debates Daniel Rothschild. [↩]
“Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Economics and Political Theory,” Liberty in the Pines Conference (March 2013). [↩]
Silas Barta: The shortest, safest libertarian case [sic] for IP. Re his nyms, he once confirmed this to me: “I also post at these places. (Usual handle in parentheses.) Asymmetric information, Megan McArdle’s blog (Person) Marginal Revolution (Person)
Overcoming Bias (Silas) Kip Esquire’s blog, A Stitch in Haste (Silas)
econlog.econlib.org (none, banned) economiclogic.blogspot.com (johnsharp9)” [↩]