Thursday, March 9, 2017

Block vs. Wenzel on Intellectual Property and Murray Rothbard

Murray Rothbard, pro IP

The following email exchange took place between Walter Block and me.-RW 

Hi Walter,

Why do you write at LRC that your position on IP diverges "somewhat" from Murray Rothbard's?

It is completely different. Murray was in favor of IP protection you are not.

Best Regards,

Bob
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Robert Wenzel
Editor & Publisher
EconomicPolicyJournal.com

San Francisco, CA

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Dear Bob:

Murray and I both oppose patents. They are part of IP, no?

Best regards,

Walter

Walter E. Block, Ph.D.
Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics
Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business                   
Loyola University New Orleans

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Hi Walter,

Your statement is misleading. Murray did not oppose patent law because he was against IP protection for the things protected by patent law. He merely believed that the best legal structure for them was the one used for copyright. Is this your position?

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Note: Return to this post for any further exchanges on this topic.

14 comments:

  1. --- He [Rothbard] merely believed that the best legal structure for them was the one used for copyright. ---

    What? Chapter and verse, please. Ideas cannot be property. My mind is mine and not of someone who claims to be the 'originator'.

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  2. Love Bob, but during his extended IP debate with Block on YouTube, he eventually argued that, in principle, a girl would be justified using violence against another girl who copied her hairstyle.

    While I commend him for being consistent and extending his views to their logical conclusion, I found this to be a devastating reductio against IP.

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    Replies
    1. The weakness in your argument and Block's is the way you frame it. I consider a violation of IP to be a violation of NAP.

      If you want to call justice against a NAP violator "violence" go for it, but it is a seedy way to argue.

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    2. RW, what is a "violation of IP"? If so-called "intellectual property" (ideas, information, etc.) is not legitimate property in the sense that to own it means to violate the NAP, how can one "violate IP"?

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    3. Sorry, but that's a straw man.

      We agree that defensive and retaliatory violence against bona fide NAP violators are justified and often commendable. But they're obviously not justified against a girl who braids her hair a certain way. It's just a really clear illustration of how IP necessarily conflicts with real property.

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    4. Actually it is a classic case of begging the question. Bob presupposes that IP violations are bona fide NAP violations and then argue that acting against IP violators as a form of justice is justified because these violate the NAP. Except that an IP violation is not the same as a NAP violation because there's NO force behind a so-called 'IP violation'. Just because a girl feels wronged by someone copying her hairstyle does not mean the other person used force against the girl.

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  3. Wenzel, you start out with asking Block if he agrees with Rothbard (suggesting that there is something wrong if he did not), when we both know that Rothbard would not agree with your extreme IP views.

    By the way, how do you enforce IP in your PPS, Robert?

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  4. I see that the IP haters are up to their usual tricks in the comments here, conflating copyright and patents and claiming that both control "ideas". While patents do attempt to protect ideas, copyright protects only specific implementations of ideas. I consider patents to be illegitimate for that reason, but support copyright. If I write a clever spreadsheet program, copyright prevents you from making money selling my program, but does not prevent you from writing and selling your own program, containing all the features mine has. How can any reasonable person be against this?

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    Replies
    1. What does it mean if I sell your "program," that you think should be prohibited? If expend my labor using my computer and writing your exact program into my DVDs, or uploading what I've written to my computer to transmit to others, what is it that you think copyright should prohibit? My use of my labor? My use of my computer? I've used your ideas, but my private property.

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    2. You're comparing the effort to duplicate a DVD with the effort to write the original program? You come off as someone who has never created anything useful, if you can't tell the difference.

      Or are you claiming that with your "labor" you've accidentally duplicated my program while writing your own? The odds of that happening are less than picking a particular atom out of the universe's 10^80 atoms.

      Your line of thinking is nothing more than an endless stream of hand-waving in an attempt to justify theft, pure and simple. It's the attitude of the Entitled Generation, who demand everything without paying for it.

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  5. Bob thinks IP should be decided by contract. what is so wrong with that?

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    Replies
    1. Well for one day thing, contracts don't bind 3rd parties.

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    2. Contracts don't bind third parties, so why should I pay for the open borders wanted by your people, Evan?

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    3. Oh Matt... Did you pull a hamstring making that stretch of logic?

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