02/03/07
All property is defined through exclusion. If a thing is mine, it isn't yours. If it's ours, it isn't theirs. This is made fairly clear by the etymology of the word private,
affixed to the word property
in common speech about the institution:
Middle English privat, from Anglo-French, from Latin privatus, from past participle of privare to deprive, release, from privus private, individual
To hold private property is to deprive others of that property.
That's why many people don't approve of private property. It seems like stealing, depriving others and all. Property is theft,
wrote the first self-proclaimed anarchist.
The reason we allow private property is that, once a person has a claim against others for something, his or her uses of that something tend to benefit society more than if anyone could just up and take it or use it. Private property allows for long-term investments and exchange, and exchange allows for minute orderings of valuations in a social context, thus giving incentives to everybody to make the best use of what they have. When property is left in the commons, it tends to degrade in quality, through overuse. This is called the tragedy of the commons. It goes on throughout history. To offset this, you can either regulate resource use (by custom and taboo, religious threat, or political and legal machinations) or privatise it, where the regulation is divvied up severally, to the various owners. (Hayek preferred the term several property,
not coincidentally.)
I tend to prefer private property to common property, though I see the rationale for some common property.
On the subject of intellectual property, I've been mildly fascinated by the debates amongst people who are otherwise stalwartly for private property. There are many libertarians, for instance, who oppose some or all constructions of intellectual property (IP).
Stephen Kinsella is one. I've not read much of his work, though I think it is obvious that he's an intelligent guy.
Hmmm. I just used the word guy.
I rarely use that word. Why not gentleman
? Well, on a brief discussion of IP on the mises.org site, I replied to one of his anti-IP comments. It was not a wholesale attack. But Kinsella responded as if it were. Nothing he said would cause me to disagree, overmuch; he seemed to miss my point. But he did put "scare quotes" around my name Wirkman.
Apparently, he not only does not respect private property in intellectual property, he doesn't respect another person's name.
Perhaps he does this because he first read me using a different first name. Oh, well. During that same period of time I went by TWV, and that W did stand for something. It stood for Wirkman.
An interlocutor who not only misses the point of a small challenge but also insults his disputant is not someone whose books on theory I'll likely read soon.
Confession: I've not settled my mind on the issue of private property in intellectual matters. But, uh, here's my standard way of looking at copyright:
Say I write a novel.
I publish the thing, selling it and giving it on the express condition that no-one else copy it, or duplicate it for sale or free distribution.
I don't see how I'm violating anyone's rights in doing this.
Now, someone sees an abandoned copy of the book lying on a park bench. He hasn't purchased it; he's bound by no contract. He reads, thinks it's a great story, takes it to Kinko's and makes a thousand copies, which he promotes and sells for a small profit. Why shouldn't he do this?
Well, the state has indeed stepped in with copyright protection and defined abandonment of property out of existence, the better to promote the power of contract and the efficacy of market interaction. It has made property rights more firm. It has added value to the product. It allows a person to spend several months or years of his or her existence in the elaboration of a work of art and then get some remuneration over it. Without such protection, the chances of a publishing industry springing up are much less.
I guess that's what IP people are against. They're against that defining out of existence of the abandonment of property.
I haven't heard it expressed like that for the simple reason that most libertarians ignore the question of abandonment of property. But that seems what's germane, here.
For my part, I've no part with that extra step in the extension of contractual rights to abandonment/acquisition.
But then, I'm not an anarchist.
I also see a parallel between IP and land ownership by non-resident owners, that is, landlords. Say one establishes property in a parcel of land by usufruct. Then leaves, but with signs saying they'll rent out the parcel at such-and-such rate. Why obey the sign? A person could just reclaim the land. It's abandoned! The signs are mere
intellectual property! Rent is evil, land-ownership by continued use is all.There are anarchists who hold to this view of property.
Trouble is, leave on a vacation and somebody can claim that your property has been abandoned. And they take up stakes. Or renters could say:
my landlord doesn't live here; I do! I ain't payin' a dime.This is no way to conduct a civilization. There have to be general rules of abandonment. In land and intellectual property.
Of course, I could be wrong; Kinsella's book may take all these issues to consideration.
But I likely won't read it until he proves himself a more dignified interlocutor. I mean, is what I wrote really so nasty? Am I unintentionally harsh? (Click here and then click COMMENTS to read the interchange.)
Then again, maybe it was something I wrote in the past. Kinsella admires the work of Hans-Hermann Hoppe. I don't. And I've stated that lack of appreciation on numerous occasions. Is that worth a verbal war?
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