More people are willing to pay to read my ideas on the economy.
The combination of this weekend, and to date this Monday, has brought in a record number of new subscribers to the EPJ Daily Alert--- new subscribers, who apparently don't live in Norman Stephan Kinsella's world with its tortured definition of scarcity. The ALERT turns out to be a scarce economic good in the real world, afterall.
The post that probably helped bring in the most of the new subscribers is here.
Because *you* are scarce. But you know that already, which leads many to believe you're being intentionally obtuse.
ReplyDeleteYou can attack his usage of a word until you're blue in the face, still doesn't disprove his point.
ReplyDeleteSo I was basically right when I posted this last week:
ReplyDeleteI have discovered the formula.
During the "debate" Wenzel said his formula was used to drive traffic to his site. In other words, the formula is the means, site views are the ends.
As long as he continues publishing these disjointed posts on the topic, without actually addressing any of the arguments made by Kinsella or readers opposed to so-called IP, he continues to generate traffic for his site.
The formula thus becomes irrelevant, since his ends are achieved by other means.
Hahaha!
ReplyDeleteImagine that. All the unownable, non-scarce ideas present in the back and forth between Wenzel and Kinsella in this debate on the blogosphere, which nobody here to my knowledge are paying the original creators, has resulted in Wenzel profiting anyway.
Now imagine if none of us could say what we did on the blogs, because we were all threatened with jail if we used the same ideas created by others. Would Wenzel have experienced the same boost to the daily alert? No.
Wenzel just proved Kinsella right in yet another way.
Keep it up Wenzel!
What was that you said about consequentialist arguments a couple of posts back?
DeleteThis has certainly been an insightful conversation. Albeit I haven't been convinced of any legitimacy for IP. The question is, If libertarians can't agree over this, what hope is there for the statists to ever agree with is over simpler issues like minimum wage, price controls, and taxation?
ReplyDeleteLibertarians are on average more intelligent than statists?
DeleteI would rather never agree with someone than agree with someone on the wrong thing.
DeleteBuying an EPJ Daily Alert does not imply one is pro-IP.
ReplyDeleteBuying an iPod does not imply one is pro-IP.
Refraining from buying an iPod does not imply one is anti-IP.
You know what I notice? EVERY SINGLE POST ON IP on this blog contains errors, fallacies, mistakes, and confusions.
And "tortured definition" of scarcity? That's just you trying to redefine your way out of being shown as wrong. You know the foundation for calling ideas "scarce" is weak, which is why you are constantly appealing to authority, appealing to ad populum, appealing to vague and fuzzy "normal/commonsense" reasoning, appealing to superficially interpreted dictationary definitions, and on and on.
I wish that Wenzel would address some of the arguments in the comments of his IP posts. Pete Petepete has ripped Wenzel's argument to shreds on numerous occasions. Hell, I even got in a couple of good shots, and I have never even formally studied economics. Wenzel's silence to these arguments is deafening.
ReplyDeleteHow about it, Wenzel? Are you ready for another debate?
Love all the anti-IP sock puppets here! You guys are hysterical in your desperation.
ReplyDeleteGet cracking on debunking these, you clowns: http://strangerousthoughts.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/the-economic-principles-of-intellectual-property-and-the-fallacies-of-intellectual-communism/
Dave,
DeleteMost of these fallacies are not advanced by principled anti-IP people like Kinsella. I'll address the fallacies that apply to the legitimate arguments.
2) Kinsella is extremely clear that by "scarce" he means "rivalrous." A rivalrous good is a good whose use by any one person for any one purpose would not in any way exclude (or interfere with or restrict) its use by any other person or for any other purpose. Patterns of information are not rivalrous.
4) First, the author is claiming that people who create "intellectual property" have some sort of right to "wealth." This is hardly consistent with any principled Austro-libertarian approach to rights. Second, if someone learns about a pattern of information that can be used to guide their action, how does that deprive anyone else of the ability to use that pattern of information? In other words, how was that pattern of information "taken" from them?
7) This is begging the question. Plus, the question is, how can property rights be assigned in patterns of information without undercutting property rights in physical things (which libertarians already agree there should be property rights in)?
8) Kinsella does say that the idea of ownership deriving from "mixing your labor" with something is wrong because that is not sufficient for a property right. If you "mix your labor" with something that someone else owns, that doesn't mean you own it.
15) Again, the author is trying to claim some sort of property right can exist in profits, and is making utilitarian arguments. Again, hardly consistent with Austro-libertarianism.
17) The entire history of IP is a history of state monopoly privilege. Pro-IP people argue that contract could create IP, but they have not been able to explain how this could be done without undercutting property rights in physical things. The idea of "intellectual property" has to do with assigning property rights in patterns of information and extends beyond contractual arrangements by binding third parties. If you have a property right in something, that means that you have the right to exclude others from using it. If A has a property right in a pattern of information, that means that he has the right to exclude others from using that pattern of information. This necessarily undercuts property rights in rivalrous resources because it prevents others from using rivalrous resources they have homesteaded or contracted for in any way they see fit, even when they have not entered into a contract.
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DeleteI deleted a duplicate comment.
DeleteLooking forward to your response.
I didn't make it even to point 2. Whoever it is draws up such a large straw man in point one that I couldn't read on.
DeleteIn another post this guy was on I liken it to listen to an anchor on CNBC explain Austrian economics and then refute it. It's pretty easy to argue against an entirely made up position.
Dave's silence after being so outspoken is telling.
DeleteBitcoin is to fractional reserve fiat dollar cartels as encrypted torrents are to IP. Long live liberty! May both be dissolved with the absence of violence like thief in the night.
ReplyDeleteSo did your EPJ subscribers triple from 2 to 6? Well, at least they're still "scarce".
ReplyDeleteWhy are you not defining "idea"? I think that's where the real confusion lies.
ReplyDeleteI just googled "Wenzel" on Drudge Report. Here is what I've got:
ReplyDeleteYour search - wenzel site:www.drudgereport.com - did not match any documents.
So, I suspect "the formula" is even more scarce than Wenzel led us to believe.
Most of the time, you anti-IPers are just dumb. This one is just too easy to let pass by. See third link:
Deletehttp://www.drudgereportarchives.com/dsp/search.htm?searchFor=Chelsea+Clinton
I mean really dumb:
Deletehttp://www.drudgereportarchives.com/dsp/search.htm?searchFor=+Tax+Increases+
I'm impressed with you ability to discuss ethical issues intelligently, without insulting your opponents.
DeleteYou publish, what, two dozen articles a day and two of them made it to Drudge? "The formula" is really working. You win.
And don't bother to answer. I'm done with your site. Who need statists with libertarians like you?
TOTALLY PAWNED!! And who said there are only two. That looks like two only in the month of March. How many did you get on Drudge in the month of March?
DeleteHere is NSK admitting that time is scarce (from http://archive.mises.org/5490/the-scarcity-of-time/):
ReplyDelete"Notice the similarity to the indestructible robot idea above. In this case, I think Hoppe is correct that our lives are finite and “The time used up in pursuing goal A reduces the time left to pursue other goals”, which means that time is, indeed, scarce. This is one factor that enters into our decisions as real, live acting humans in the real world of time scarcity."
Here is NSK arguing that time is not scarce (from http://archive.mises.org/007614/):
"Time is a scarce resource, that people own? Really? So if you are using one segment (?) of time, then others can’t? This is ludicrous and confused. With friends like you, IP advocates need no enemies."
Thanks!
DeleteNotice in your second quote that he included the words "that people own." Kinsella has said many times that time is scarce in a way, but that it's not an ownable thing because it is not rivalrous. He could not be clearer.
DeleteAgain, I have refuted your critique of Kinsella in full and you have not responded at all: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/04/intellectual-property-as-usual-rothbard.html?showComment=1365173436058#c3680566888621376287
Does Mr. Kinsella like being addressed as "Norman?" If not, it seems disrespectful (and petty) to do so.
ReplyDelete