>>This is a real standard move in libertarian labor theory of property
rights theories (to be distinguished from labor theory of value!(, on which
property rights are determined by having worked on stuff that no one else
has a right to or having acquired taht stuff by voluntary exchange. Locke
and more recently Nozick hold theories of this sort. In law, Richard
Epstein of the U of C law school is the big proponent of this view.
Theories of this sort are rightly called "natural rights" theories because
they supposedly derive current property rights from some sort of presocial,
prelegal state of nature. On this sort of theory, legal rights are supposed
to track natural ones, and natural ones are the sort described here.<<
The thing that interests me is how one might propose to go from a Lockean theory of property to *intellectual* property. Lockean property rights (I'm not sure about Nozick, because I always blew off reading him) only guarantees excludability with regard to rival goods (in Brad's sense) -- the "as much and as good" clause, if I recall correctly, means that when it comes to ideas, anything goes.
If you invent a widget, then you can claim property in an unowned idea which you have mixed with your labour. But if someone copies your widget, they leave "as much and as good" for you, so no harm done. But if you argue that your property in your idea prevents them from doing that -- that what you have taken ownership of is exclusive rights to that idea -- then you run up against the same restriction, because exclusive licensing clearly breaches the "as much and as good" clause by depriving future widget inventors of the fruits of their invention. So I don't see how a Lockean account of property rights can ever give you anything like patents. And the same, I think, goes for copyrights. Trademarks I think you could probably slip through under a Nozickian account by some sort of extension of "self-ownership".
I'll second the view that the argument on use of words begining with psych- is not getting anywhere. Whatever anyone's deontological view, I hope we can agree to use this terminology with care, on consequentialist ones?
ahhhhh, I think I'm feeling better. If anybody wants to see some truly terrible tendentious crap about how there's never going to be any banking crises again in the new economy, ask me what I've been doing for the last month.
cheers
dd
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