On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 13:11:07 -0400 // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> writes:
> On Aug 8, 2012, at 12:30 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Ken: "I have often been been puzzled by the fact that most
> defenders
> >> of capitalism and free markets are also firm defenders of
> >> Intellectual Property rights. These rights ensure that companies
> and
> >> authors have monopolies and run counter to the spread of ideas
> and
> >> competition among companies in free markets. The whole idea is
> to
> >> prevent competition.”
> >
> > [WS:] Do not expect logical consistency from the defenders of
> > privilege. "Free market" is sugar coating for medieval
> domination.
That is certainly true. One example of this is the strange case of Friedrich Hayek. In 1949 in a vituperative criticism of intellectuals, who Hayek maintained are without “that experience of the working of the economic system which the administration of property gives” and thus without “direct responsibility for practical affairs,” he lamented that “the growth of this class [of despicable people] has been artificially stimulated by the law of copyright.” (see: Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism,” The University of Chicago Law Review, XVI (1949) , 420.) On the other hand, years later he would declare that “encyclopedias, dictionaries, textbooks and other works of reference could not be produced if, once they existed, they could freely be reproduced.” (Hayek, ed. W. W. Bartley III, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), 36-37.) By that logic things like Wikipedia, MIT OpenCourseWare, healthfinder.gov, pubmed.gov, should not flourish.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math
> > It is absolute freedom and protections for haves and competition
> and
> > market discipline for have-nots, stupid. Intellectual property
> rights
> > are good because they protect the former from the encroachments by
> the
> > latter. By the same logic - social welfare is bad and against
> free
> > market, but bank bailouts and corporate subsidies are good and
> > perfectly compatible with free market.
> >
> > Pointing logical contradictions in what these people say is a
> waste of
> > time. A better way is to chop off the heads that hold these ideas
> -
> > as good old revolutionaries did. All crowned heads deserve a
> > guillotine.
> >
>
> Woj, I am not sure I agree with the above. AFAIK, for Adam Smith and
> Enlightenment liberals the free market and capitalism were a means
> to an end that included general welfare and common good. They were
> convinced from their “understanding” of “human nature” that a free
> market was the way to get there, but they also called for explicit
> attention to moral goals/outcomes. Modern
> conservatives/libertarians, from what I can tell, proceed rather
> from a goal of purely individual rights point of view. The goal is
> the preservation of an individual’s rights, which is to say, his
> ability to just about do anything as long as it does not directly and
> demonstrably harm another individual. Free market and capitalism as
> a means, to them, are expressions of this goal and make sense only
> insofar as they preserve/enhance individual liberties and prevent
> expropriation of his/her effort. The way I see it, for a Smithian or
> old-school capitalist or free-marketeer IP rights are problematic
> because they make the market inefficient. They face this and other
> paradoxes and invent ad hoc fixes (e.g: trust busting) rather than
> examine their assumptions. For the modern conservative/libertarian,
> OTOH, the goal of the free market is not about the “spread of ideas”
> or “competition”, but the safeguarding of individual rights in the
> marketplace. The market remains “free” as long as it does not
> trample the rights of the individual to participate in his own terms
> (including the choice of non-participation). There is no conflict
> since general welfare is *not* a goal (that’s under the purview of
> religion and charity).
>
> At least that’s how I see it,
>
> —ravi
>
>
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