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How Intellectual Property Reinforces Inequality
An anonymous reader writes "Here is an article by Dr.Joe Stiglitz on how intellectual property reinforces inequality by allowing patent owners to seek rent (aka license / sue) instead of delivering goods to the society. From the article: 'At first glance, the case, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, might seem like scientific arcana: the court ruled, unanimously, that human genes cannot be patented, though synthetic DNA, created in the laboratory, can be. But the real stakes were much higher, and the issues much more fundamental, than is commonly understood. The case was a battle between those who would privatize good health, making it a privilege to be enjoyed in proportion to wealth, and those who see it as a right for all — and a central component of a fair society and well-functioning economy. Even more deeply, it was about the way inequality is shaping our politics, legal institutions and the health of our population.'"
That's common to all monopolies in general: by disallowing newcomers and competition, they serve no purpose but feeding whatever company/cartel holds that monopoly. And governments, instead of disrupting them, take more and more bribes to allow creating even more monopolies...
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
yes, the 'life is a race' concept. I heard of that. Nice concept. if everybody started at the same point (and not: some near the finish pole and others without legs outside the stadium)
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
In the valley everyone is ga-ga for patents. Their mantra seems to be greed is good and screw the little guy. It's an awful place to work if you have a heart.
The article author seems to assume that patented technology just falls from the sky and comes for free to the lucky patent holder who then exploits the rest of the world, when they say;
"But the patents had devastating real-world implications, because they kept the prices for the diagnostics artificially high."
they are arguing from false premises. Now in this case I happen to agree with not allowing patents on unmodified genes however it is still the case that the prices are only artificially high if the diagnostics would have existed had it not been possible to acquire patents on them in the first place,
According to the article it would have been ok if they had gotten the patents if they were motivated to save lives rather than make money. This is not an article which rationally discussed the problems of the patent system, and those problems are legion, it is an article that says if you try and make money you are bad. Not really very interesting.
-jon
Yet in Australia, the most corrupt and inequitable country in the English-speaking world, the courts ruled that the BRCA1 patent owners can screw 'we the people' for all they are worth, all the while their porcine politicians snorted and squealed in delight.
Gene patenting: Australian court rules BRCA1 patent is legal http://theconversation.com/gene-patenting-australian-court-rules-brca1-patent-is-legal-12240
This is nothing new. When asked to rule if Australians had free speech the Australian courts wouldn't even grant them that: http://www.findlaw.com.au/articles/4529/do-we-have-the-right-to-freedom-of-speech-in-austr.aspx http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1741850/QA-What-are-the-limits-to-free-speech http://www.ask.com/question/what-countries-don-t-have-freedom-of-speech
Well, nice to see America putting Australia to shame: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implications_of_US_gene_patent_invalidation_on_Australia
I'm not a fan of patents but Mr. Stiglitz's central argument is silly unless this is a pitch to Marxists or whatever-Richard-Stallman-is types. Landlords can hold arbitrary amounts of property and charge rent on all of them... isn't that an accepted part of our society?
I find it interesting that author opposes monopolies and then cries for help from the most eggregious monopoly of all....government. How else do patent laws exist without the government to enforce them? If the government did not exist at all, do you really think Myriad would be sending armed thugs to the doorstep of every one of their competitors claiming stolen property? That's not a winning business proposition to investors. He cries about the corportism that is rampant, completely ignoring the fact that corporations are an invention of government and only survive because of government protections. Clear case of not seeing the forest for the trees. Properly identified the problem but came to the conclusion that is guaranteed to simply propogate the problem further.
I've tried making that argument, but most people won't really care until it becomes a talking point beaten to death by demagogues on TV. Also, I cringed a bit when I read that summary, because every phrase screams "leftist academic". That's one of the quickest and easiest ways to get dismissed by moderates and center-right allies.
Since when /. became the platform for commie propaganda?
Inequality is good, it is what drives progress.
paying rent for imaginary things doesn't drive progress all that much - if you count progress as progress in the physical world, what if all combine harvesters cost 100x as they do today because someone had managed to extend patents to be 200 years?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Did you even read the article? There's nothing "commie" about it.
"Inequality" in itself isn't good or bad. Otherwise, please allow me to abscond with your savings and reduce you to pauperdom...I'll be doing you a favor, right?
Some inequality is good. When you expand the sum total of wealth available to humanity, and benefit from that, it's good. Inequality that is based upon rent-seeking is bad. As when someone patents an existing gene located in the human body and tries to charge you fees to access your own genome.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Innovation is moving faster than the laws. Just as in Trademark, one should have to prove actual use of patented material in the course of ordinary trade.
As others have said, all property rights exist to protect and promote inequality.
And what's the problem with that? Inequality is pretty much the defining characteristic of life. Evolution works because something got more than something else.
We must be progressing faster than ever.
... it is an article that says if you try and make money you are bad...
The author I'm sure very well understands patents. I think your statement over-simplifies his argument though.
One of the conversations we as a society need to be having right now is regarding HOW people make money. Is it bad to try to make money? Absolutely not. Everyone needs to be able to at a minimum cover basic life needs, and those that work harder should definitely be able to reap what they sow and have extra goodies and a good retirement. I think that's fair.
The question is, are people making money by exploiting people? Are they knowingly taking advantage of people's ignorance, or taking advantage of laws and systems, to maintain their upper hand and avoid competing against others that very well might have better ideas and more drive, but cannot get a foothold to even start a business? Worst of all, are people suffering when they do not have to, if such a business model was not in the way of a better system? Patents make sure that anyone with a better idea (perhaps someone could come up with a way to make healthcare more affordable while still making money??) is not able to actually compete. What about the right of the entrepreneur to establish a new business? Why is everything always framed in the established businesses, rather than the people prevented from creating businesses (and jobs)?
IMHO, there is something sociopathic about one's business model being to make money on the suffering of others (particularly things like medical issues, which are often through no fault of one's own -- cannot choose your DNA, etc.). Simply saying "Well someone has to pay for it, and they have a right to make money" doesn't really correct the fact that someone is still capitalizing on someone's illness. Perhaps this is a place where the government makes a lot of sense -- perhaps most medical research should be publicly funded and available to all. Get the idea of "I have to make money off of this cancer patient!" out of the system entirely. (Really, I think education and health care should be rights (or "perks", if you prefer) of any citizen; the function being to give everyone a similar base when they start out in the world. After that, it is up to you what you want to make of yourself, but at least everyone is given a fair chance.). This isn't saying patents in general are a bad idea, but simply questioning whether patents on human health are a good idea..
I can't say I know the answer, but I think pretending any attempt at conversation is an assault on business's rights to make money is disingenuous, and I'm really getting sick of "...but business!" being the response to everything. How about we agree that if current business models are not working, we try to allow new ones to take over?
This is a feature of all private property protections. We don't mind having private property because the goal of our society is promoting general welfare, not promoting equality. Sometimes these two goals are compatible, and sometimes they are not.
Wait... Are you implying that Windows 98 wasn't complete shit?
yes, the 'life is a race' concept. I heard of that. Nice concept. if everybody started at the same point (and not: some near the finish pole and others without legs outside the stadium)
That's the second part: "Life isn't fair".
So, what's your point?
If I start with nothing, work hard, and generate superior r results I get nothing?
If I raise a superior child, though time, dedication, and, yes, spending some extra dough, do they get nothing?
I think the key is the “OP” is a “little inequity”. Life is not always fair but it should be fairish. Hard work and bright ideas would be motivated with rewards, which will result in inequity. As for a “lot of inequity” - we should not live in a winner takes all, class bound gilded society – that takes away the incentive for hard work.
(I am still mulling the Supreme Court case. I think Myriad should be reward for the research it did but I think the patent may have been overly broad. )
Ah, but all people should be equally valued in the eyes of the law. That's the point. Laws should not favor the rich over the poor, or one ethnicity over another. While one person may be born into wealth, and their possession of it, therefore a given, another person born into poverty should not be barred from obtaining wealth through hard work and careful planning. When laws exist that effectively preclude the poor from gaining wealth, we now have inequality in the law, and that is what the article describes.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
So (in cases other than this DNA one) a company spending billions on research for something and then making a basic effort to prevent bottom-feeding generic companies and foreigners from ripping off their work with zero investment in the initial research causes Earth's elite population to move to an exclusive space station orbiting Earth called Elysium? I think this article is a little overblown, as is my hyperbolic oversimplification of it.
The real issue here is stupid patents. People patenting round corners and touch to open and the wheel or whatever other stupidity the patent office lets pass by. Those pretty much result in extortion to other companies. But then you've got Dungeons and Dragons. The company invents something that cost a fortune to develop with staff time, spell checking, math, balancing, etc. Someone shouldn't be able to rip it off freely and resell it or give it away just because it's intellectual property and not "real" property. Some copyrights and patents reflect actual value and some are made up BS to go around suing people over. THAT is what needs to be fixed. Depriving the poor masses of their right to D&D information by lording it over them with patents and copyrights is a completely made up fantasy though (pun intended).
That's the whole idea.
You are welcome on my lawn.
his articles are copyrighted.
The problem with IP today is the complete lack of reasonable limits on who can make money from IP and for how long.
It's is fundamentally unfair to the world to expect unlimited and life-long (or longer) income from your IP (or even worse, from someone else's IP to which you have acquired the 'rights').
IP is a human mental construct that was brought into being to address fairness. The pendulum has swung way too far.
Nice simple sound bite. Pity that like most sound bites it grossly oversimplifies the situation. Monopolies form for a variety of reasons, some of which are very much in the public interest. Monopolies are not something to be generally desired but it's not difficult to point out circumstances where they are the least worst option available.
Patents create a monopoly for a time in order to combat the free rider problem which is a FAR worse problem in most cases than a temporary monopoly. There are lots of inventions that are simply not economically viable without something resembling patent protection. If you want to do away with patents and the problems with their associated monopoly, all you have to do is explain how your alternative to patents will combat the free rider problem. So far no one has come up with a lesser evil but if you can do so I believe a Nobel prize awaits you. (and no, just doing away with patents without a replacement will NOT improve things - particularly for tangible manufactured goods) Please note that I'm in no way implying our current regime of patent law is well designed or without problems. I quite firmly believe our current set of patent regulations are quite broken. I'm merely saying that patents (with their associated monopoly) as a concept are in the public interest due to the existence of the free rider problem.
In many cases you have a natural monopoly whereby the lowest cost of production is only possible if carried out by a single firm. Public utilities tend to fall into this category. If the cost of production is not as low as possible then prices to consumers by definition cannot be as low as possible either and low prices are very much in the public interest. However because any monopoly creates potential opportunities for abuse and monopolistic pricing, such monopolies are often regulated. Again, it isn't perfect but it certainly serves a purpose beyond "feeding whatever company holds that monopoly".
How short-sighted can someone be? If a landlord couldn't collect rent, they wouldn't provide an apartment for a renter to live in. Innovation doesn't "just happen". It happens because people expect to profit from their investment of time and effort.
So what if you have to pay a royalty? If it's too much, you don't have to take advantage of the innovation. At least you have a choice, which you wouldn't otherwise.
Moreover, the newest innovation means the older stuff becomes cheaper. An old iPhone may have been too expensive for you in the past, but you can pick one up for nearly free now. And the same thing will happen to current products when the next generation comes out. This isn't just true of phones, but lots of other things like cars, medicine, computers, etc.
Disclosure: I am a certified accountant with a specialty in cost accounting.
If your competitor steals your idea and then is able to copy your idea for cheaper...doesn't that mean you just lost and SHOULD go out of business?
What it means is that you need to study cost accounting. It's quite easy to demonstrate how a company that knocks off another company's product can gain a cost advantage. Research and development costs are often a very substantial portion of the cost of a good. Copying someone else's research is usually cheaper than doing it yourself. For two similar sized competent companies there is typically little difference in manufacturing or distribution costs. Holding all other things equal it is quite impossible for the company doing the R&D to sell it cheaper than a company which can simply copy someone elses work. This is called the free rider problem and it is the entire reason why patents exist in the first place.
They improved upon your idea, right or else how would they sell it for less?
They can sell it for less because they do not have to recoup R&D costs. Please go find a cost accountant and they will explain this to you in exquisite detail. You do not have to improve on a product at all to sell it for less if you do not have to do any engineering yourself.
So if society is going to confiscate intellectual property for the good of the whole.. is it going to compensate those who spent millions iventing it. or subsidize those who in process? As hard as it may be for some of you to beleive.. these people and companies invested A LOT of time and money into these products.
While I can see the temptation to compare IP to land ownership, I do not think they make for a good comparison.
Land, as a limited resource, can indeed run into a lock-in problem. When a small number of land owners have a lock on the majority of the usable property they can collect rent and essentially prevent people from building their own resources without actually contributing anything. This was a serious problem when it came to say farm land since once land owners grab up the land, actual farmers have no other option other then to hand over their profits to the 'owner'. This resulted in a class system where you were born (or married) into one side or the other but the lock in prevented upward mobility.
IP is a little trickier since so much of it is 'optional'. Outside overly broad or critical path patents, for the most part you can operate and build your business by working around them rather then having to pay someone for the privilege of working.
Since when /. became the platform for commie propaganda?
Around the time you stopped beating your wife, maybe?
Inequality is good [...]
Good for who, you? Inequality has another aspect, which you probably wouldn't find as agreeable.
[Inequality] is what drives progress.
I suppose that may be partially true in some regards — for example, inequality helped drive the enactment of the Civil Rights Act and the Thirteenth Amendment.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Myriad Genetics did *not* patent a gene, they patented a propensity for disease test, that featured a specific gene at the center of the test.
If what you say is true then why did the recent Supreme Court ruling invalidate Myriad's patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2? Myriad was apparently granted patents on naturally occurring genes they had managed to isolate and they used these patents to prevent anyone else from testing for the presence of these genes. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Myriad on this topic. This does not prevent Myriad from developing some novel test technology, it simply means they can't patent something that is just found in nature the same way they cannot dig up a pile of some mineral and get a patent for what they found.
How many other diseases will go unstudied, now that there is no reward for linking a gene to a disease?
There is plenty of reward for coming up with a therapy, coming up with novel testing equipment, etc. There is no public interest to be found in allowing patents for things simply found in nature.
most people won't really care until it becomes a talking point beaten to death by demagogues on TV.
And the movie studios, which own the channels where these demagogues appear, have been doing their best to keep this from becoming a talking point because they benefit from expansion of copyright.
the goal of our society is promoting general welfare
In what way does increasing opportunities for rent-seeking increase welfare?
Forget getting any new software.
You underestimate how much free software is distributed to the public under permissive licenses.
Forget keeping GNU licensed software free...
If copyright in computer programs were to disappear, it would become lawful to make a copy of a proprietary derivative of a free program, disassemble it, comment it thoroughly, and spread the disassembly to the public. I've read that this would please RMS just as much as copyleft licensing.
> When laws exist that effectively preclude the poor from gaining wealth, we now have inequality in the law, and that is what the article describes.
Much of law defines the property and the rights of property owners. All of this prevents the poor from gaining wealth, and is inequitable in that the poor don't benefit from it. However personal property is also regarded as one of the Inalienable Rights bestowed on man by the Creator by the Founders of this nation.
IP law is just one facet of this. The idea that it is any different in this regard is preposterous.
IP law's justification is that it encourages the development of the useful arts. It is important to realize that progress in technology is the ONLY proven way to increase the standard of living. As such any institution that can be shown to accomplish this end deserves a special place in society. The Founders recognized this and gave it special status in the Constitution of the United States of America.
If it can be shown these laws are ineffective toward this goal they should be abolished. If they are shown to be inefficient they need to be made efficient. But the idea that they are unreasonable based on equity is not reasonable.
Perhaps this might be a job for the takings clause. The U.S. government already has power under the Fifth Amendment to seize private property in exchange for "just compensation", which courts have defined as fair market value. Here's how it could work: An independent assessor comes up with a figure for the value of a copyright or patent, some non-profit organization crowdfunds buying the property, and then the government condemns the property under eminent domain and makes it available to the public under a permissive license.
Amazingly confused.
Your first paragraph directlt contradicts your second.
Newton stood on the shoulders of giants because he didn't have to pay some mob of rent-seekers for the priviledge.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
if I had any belief at all that the current system led to a rich public domain of material before that material was largely devoid of value and/or forgotten due to publisher/creator neglect.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
No, telecommunications is responsible for the explosions of innovation, as well as existing technology to build on. Countries without patents and copyright did just fine compared to otherwise similar nations. Countries that shunned trade fell into to decay, and the ability to spread ideas faster and further greatly accelerated that growth in countries which the printing press was widely available and not greatly restricted. With patents, the giants are tripping you instead of letting you stand on their shoulders. Competition provides more than enough reason to innovate. Also, many innovations are the result of scratching an itch, so there is no need at all for an external incentive, and they may actually prove a distraction in some cases. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.
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it's almost as if there is some happy medium between no protection and the overbroad protection proposed by Big-IP...
It's a lot like land. A songwriter has been successfully sued over having accidentally copied an eight note sequence from another song. But there exist only a limited number of eight note sequences. There are seven intervals in the scale from one note to the next, and the time from the start of one note to the start of the next can be short or long. (The last note has no following note.) This means 7 * 2 = 14 possibilities per note other than the last, or 14^(n - 1) possible n-note sequences, or fewer than 106 million eight-note hooks. How many millions of songs do you think are already in the ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC repertories?
Except copyright and patent holders do tend to try to screw themselves quite often. They wanted to stop the VCR despite the gold mine it turned out to be, as well as many other technological processes. Allegedly, P.L. Robertson screwed himself out of the US market despite having a superior product because he refused to license his screw technology due to a bad business deal in England, and thus lost out to the inferior Phillips head.
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telecommunications is responsible for the explosions of innovation
Then what's responsible for the invention of telecommunications itself? Perhaps only telecom patents should be allowed to go through.
Countries without patents and copyright did just fine compared to otherwise similar nations.
Because they were able to mooch off inventions and works produced in other countries.
So what if you have to pay a royalty? If it's too much, you don't have to take advantage of the innovation.
The law requires individuals to buy particular services in order not to be sent to prison. The law further requires those who provide these services to provide a level of service or safety or both that happens to require the use of a patented process or material. This is true of at least health care, housing, and transport.
An old iPhone may have been too expensive for you in the past, but you can pick one up for nearly free now.
Free? Owning an iPhone still costs $99 per year payable to Apple, plus cellular charges.
As for a “lot of inequity” - we should not live in a winner takes all, class bound gilded society – that takes away the incentive for hard work.
The paradox of extremes. In a communistic society, there's no reason to work hard because your can get the same rewards without exertion. In what we simplistically call a "capitalistic" society there's no reason to work hard because the people who got there first will deny you the benefits anyway.
I use quotes around "capitalistic" because the term is routinely expanded to include aspects of business and philosophy that have nothing to do with how you raise and use capital.
Am I the only one who likes inequality? Not to the extend that it exists today, but it's pretty much the only thing that makes most folks to get out of bed in the morning: the hope that they'll be better off than those that skip the "getting out of bed and going to work" part. That's why inventors invent, researchers research, directors direct, actors act, writers write, software engineers code, and folks at Boeing make airplanes and space ships. What would be their motivation if no matter what they did, they'd still be "equal" to someone who sits on his ass all day and does nothing? There are not one but several large scale examples that equality does not work. Russia, pre-capitalism China just the two largest ones. And not working was a crime in those countries, punishable by jail time.
Why must everything be the lowest common denominator?
If I start with nothing, work hard, and generate superior r results I get nothing?
the part where hard work generates results is nice. in reality though, luck is much more important than all other factors.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
If inequality is the engine of progress, then you should live under Hitler or Pol Pot, with equanimity.
You will find, on only casual study, that excessive patent term extension kills progress, innovation and discovery - leading only to extractive rent-taking.
In the current, modern economy, wealth is created through POLICY. Not through innate virtue, or luck of evolutionary/social chances.
"Intellectual Property" was not even a term in the language 25 years ago. Extension - into near perpetuity - of copyright and patent protections is a perversion of policy to grant "intellectual" fiefdom.
All this article advocates is the removal of artificially created policy constraints, that grant near-feudal extraction concessions to those already privileged and benefiting.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
IP law is just one facet of this. The idea that it is any different in this regard is preposterous.
If IP law is just a facet of one of those Inalienable Rights, there would be no need to have a separate clause for it. Violations of IP would be treated under the same laws against theft instead of its own special set of laws.
So I say it's the other way around: to consider IP to be NOT different is preposterous.
IP law's justification is that it encourages the development of the useful arts. It is important to realize that progress in technology is the ONLY proven way to increase the standard of living. As such any institution that can be shown to accomplish this end deserves a special place in society. The Founders recognized this and gave it special status in the Constitution of the United States of America.
So you're saying while the Founders very much believed in letting the people decide things for themselves, the people can't be trusted when it comes to "useful" arts (and sciences) and who deserves to be rewarded, so it's up to government to regulate and tell people what is useful or not and give out limited monopolies.
If it can be shown these laws are ineffective toward this goal they should be abolished.
Or, you can question the goal itself, and seek to get the Constitution amended. Again I ask: why have government regulate it? Furthermore, why is it the only approved (written in Constitution) way to do this is via giving creators a "limited monopoly"? That's a lot of power you're granting the government - the power to give/revoke limited monopolies to select people who the government deemed as "useful" arts and sciences.
We play out our naughty fantasies on a holodeck
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The capitalist system does work. However, patents and copyright are not capitalist. They are legal monopolies, creating scarcity where it doesn't naturally exist. Capitalists is a free as in freedom market that is often cutthroat, and doesn't feel the need to treat inventors like special snowflakes that need a specific kind of protection just for them.
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Without poor people, who will do the work?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
And the only difference between China, the USSR, and the US is the patent system? There's no enormous gap on individual liberties or free communication or anything like that. They didn't act different in allocation of physical resources or labor or anything else like that.
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'IP law' is not an inalienable right. It is in the Constitution, but it is explicitly alienated at some point because it is for 'limited times' and is tied to a specific purpose. There are more stipulations on IP than a declaration of war. The founders had a healthy degree of skepticism towards the system, which makes sense given that it was quite new at the time. Given the limited data available to them, they didn't want to close the door completely, but wanted to keep this potentially dangerous tool in check.
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also, just to clarify, the Constitution ALLOWS Congress to pass patent and copyright laws, but it in no way REQUIRES it.
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EVERYTHING is a privilege to be enjoyed in proportion to wealth. You're kidding yourself if you think it can ever be any other way.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
We are fairly sure now that inequality really is bad, even just relative inequality in a world where everyone's basic needs are met. This is a scientific question about human well-being, and it's answerable in principle if not in practice. Just existing in an unequal society puts mental stress on human beings which correlates to significant negative health outcomes both physically and mentally. If you could instantly inflate the US economy ten fold, but following the same trend of inequality growth, you'd actually be doing a terrible thing. Everyone would have more wealth in an absolute sense, but the massive increase in inequality would make the majority of people demonstrably less happy. You would have greatly added to the human misery of the world.
This isn't intuitive, but there are a lot of true concept that aren't intuitive to humans. Certain types of people even find this idea quite repugnant, to the point where they simply reject it outright. Sadly, wishing it to go away won't change reality. You might be able to stake out some defensible territory around the proposition that SOME level of inequality is indispensable as a motivator, but that doesn't give you license to ignore the negatives that come with it. And if there can be too little inequality there can also be too much. When society becomes too unequal then inequality ceases to be a motivator, since it becomes clear to everyone that the struggle for improvement is virtually hopeless.
Inequality in itself IS bad. The single minded pursuit of ending all inequality is also bad (and impossible to achieve anyway). Our current society has reached an absurd level of unbalanced wealth distribution. It isn't sustainable, and it isn't optimizing human well being or potential. We can do a lot better.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Sigh. The death of hope. So sad.
Fortunately empirical studies show this is not true. (Class mobility looks to be declining but skill still seems to dominate.)
The paradox of extremes. In a communistic society, there's no reason to work hard because your can get the same rewards without exertion. In what we simplistically call a "capitalistic" society there's no reason to work hard because the people who got there first will deny you the benefits anyway.
I'll call BS on your simplistic view of capitalism. In my 54 years, I've met very few people that worked hard and were unsuccessful. There have been exceptions, and usually it was because they had made poor choices in the areas they worked. Working hard and smart is key, and stop blaming society if you have a rough time for a while. Shit happens to everyone, losers whine, winners work harder.
Just another day in Paradise
the court ruled, unanimously, that human genes cannot be patented, though synthetic DNA, created in the laboratory, can be.
If only that were true! Read the SCOTUS decision, already.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Of course it reinforces inequality. Not everyone has equally valuable ideas. Not everyone equally pursues to exploit those ideas. Not everyone executes a functional strategy to exploit those ideas. It would be a travesty to force Intel to share their schematics and fabrication designs with me or anyone else, just in the interest of 'equality'. Equality in the eyes of government recognition of rights=good. Equality in that all people have rights to your ideas=not good. That is theft, or servitude... neither of which is acceptable in a free society. The entire concept of 'equality' through abolition of IP seems to be balanced on social justice due to there being only one 'right' solution to a given situation. That is a fallacy. In the event I am prohibited from knowing how an Intel chip works, I am yet free to design my own if I have the ingenuity.
If copyright's suddenly disappeared. Copyleft software could be co-opted by *anyone* who could leverage the software, put their own unique spin on it, then sell the results for anything they could get. They could keep their additions to the software secret.
And anyone could buy a copy, disassemble it, document the additions, and spread the result.
"To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land so that the strong shall not harm the weak" - Hammurabi’s Code, Prologue You have discovered "Code of Laws"!!!!!
No. Patents exist to promote progress.
A distinction without a difference. Patents promote progress by mitigating the effects of the free rider problem. Patents make many investments in research and development in useful arts and sciences possible that otherwise would not be economically viable. There is absolutely no way that Intel or Pfizer or IBM would exist without some means to mitigate the free rider problem.
You characterize copying first as "free riding", which is not true, and second as a "problem", which it definitely is not.
If you are smart enough to prove that your (bogus) assertion above is correct then there is a Nobel prize in economics waiting for you because NOBODY in the field of economics will agree with you. Let's be clear - I'm not talking about the mere transfer of information. I'm talking about producing knockoff products based on someone else's research and investment effort which is why someone would care about patent protection in the first place. Producing knockoff products most certainly is free riding and it most certainly is an economic problem. If you think otherwise you have never tried to run a business. Seriously, take a deep breath and go do some reading about the free rider problem and what it means. It's not just about people on buses.
Why is copying not free riding? Because free riding is about material goods and services. Ideas are neither.
An idea for a drug or a microchip which does not take tangible (and thus potentially saleable) form is useless. The ideas relevant to patent protection have to manifest themselves into products to be economically useful. Turning ideas into products costs significant money and if this money cannot be recouped then it will never be spent and society will not progress. It is trivial to demonstrate the economic effects to the free rider problem. You can (and should) share ideas all you want but when it comes to making the investments to turn those ideas into tangible form, there HAS to be a return on investment. Companies like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Pfizer, and the rest could not possibly justify spending billions each year on research if others could simply take their findings and produce knockoff products. There would be no point to most of these investments.
If scientists cannot share their ideas with each other and the public without first getting permission and securing payment, to make sure no one is getting a free ride, we will progress very slowly.
Scientists are not prohibited from sharing ideas. They are however prohibited (temporarily) from profiting from someone else's ideas or buying knockoff products of patented ideas. Yes, unfortunately this sometimes this slows progress in places. However without patent protection from free riders progress would stop altogether in many technologies. If you want to argue that patent terms are too long or that patents are being granted for ideas that don't deserve protection then I will agree with you 100% since that is manifestly true. But until you can articulate a solution to the free rider problem or can articulate why it has somehow ceased to be a problem (and you have not done either) then you have no meaningful argument to make regarding whether to do away with patents.
Actually the concept is 300 years old and the term was introduced in 1818... thats a bit longer than 25 years. Your focus on the terms 'excessive' and 'extension' is a focus on IP excesses of length, while the article focuses on protecting ideas of a certain type, deeming a certain category (medicine) to be a right, and therefore morally repugnant to allow profit to be made.
Stiglitz does not point out that Myriad spent $500 million developing its BRCA tests. Without assurances of a limited period of patent protection, who would have made this investment?
What else did Myriad do? Myriad entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to provide at cost or below cost testing to the NCI and any researcher working under a NCI funded project. Myriad created a network of health care professionals, service providers and insurers, and hired a large number of genetic counselors to educate physicians on how to identify patients who would benefit from the test. Myriad is not a "patent troll", they actively invested and built the first market for genetic testing.
Stiglitz also makes the argument that "the two genes would likely have been isolated (âoediscovered,â in Myriadâ(TM)s terminology) soon anyway, as part of the global Human Genome Project."
This is complete BS. BRCA1 was linked to chromosome 17 in 1991. That year, Myriad Genetics was founded by Dr. Walter Gilbert, Mark Skolnick, Kevin Kimberlin and Peter Meldrum to develop a test for BRCA1. In 1994, BRCA1 was cloned at the University of Utah in Mark Skolnick's lab. Myriad launched BRACAnalysis in 1996. This was the first molecular diagnostic test for a common disease. This had never been done before.
The Human Genome Project did not publish an initial rough draft of the human genome until June 2000. The Human Genome Project did not clone genes nor did it develop any diagnostic tests.
Even if it did, would it have been better if four years had gone on with 20,000 or so women each year developing cancers due to BRCA who had no opportunity to have the test at any price?
The argument about equality is BS as well. If the government wishes to redistribute money, it should do that through taxing and spending, not manipulating the market. Yes Myriad rejected Medicaid's low-ball price, but they aren't alone in this - fewer than half of U.S. doctors and other health care professionals accept Medicaid patients. If the government really wants to offer BRCA testing to all who may benefit from it, they should tax people more and pay the company.
I can give an example where lack of patent protection is limiting the use of a pharmaceutical. Domperidone is a 5HT-3 receptor antagonist. It is well known by gastrointestinal specialists as an important tool for fighting the debilitating nausea of gastroparesis with many fewer side effects than other drugs. Its developer, Janssen Pharmaceutical, put it through FDA safety testing in the US and passed, but it failed FDA testing for efficacy in enhancing gastrointestinal motility in gastroparesis (we now know that gastric motility and nausea are often not highly correlated in gastroparesis). However it went off-patent before Janssen could bring it back for FDA efficacy testing for anti-nausea properties.
Because Domperidone never passed FDA efficacy testing in the US, it is illegal to prescribe in the US, despite being widely used around the world. Gastroparesis patients in the US must seek technically illegal supplies imported from outside the US because none of the generic makers now can afford to put it through FDA efficacy testing without an assurance of temporary monopoly pricing.
I'm not going to argue that the patent system is perfect, because it isn't. But I believe we are better with it than without. It should ensure that the benefits of temporary monopoly are limited to the specific intellectual contributions of inventors and nothing more. I agree with Stiglitz's amicus brief that it is possible that some types of patents should last longer or shorter than others. And I also believe that major international standards such as video compression should have a "put up or shut up" period to ensure that people developing systems know what patents are applicable and can license them without submarine patents showing up years later.
The U.S. Government decided that intellectual property don't have a meaning anymore as they decided that we don't need to have privacy (we aren't owners of what we produce for ourselves anymore?). So is another corporate leverage tool, not something that we can have. Is just another misplaced title over something that don't have that meaning, like "Department of Justice", to fool you.
You may want to read about the history of the harvester.
The promise of a short-term monopoly due to patents is what caused Lucius Lyon, Michigan's first U.S. Senator, to invest in its development by Hiram Moore.
It turns out that Cyrus McCormick pirated Moore's innovations and was able to make the most money out of it.
Can I subscribe to your newsletter?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The issue isn't the concept of Intellectual Property. The problem is how IP rights are doled out, and the breadth of patents issued.
The fact that patenting a genome was even ever up for debate is systemic of the patent office in general not knowing what the fuck they're doing. You should be able to patent the method by which a genome is altered, sure. You could even claim that a sequence that you created from scratch in a lab is your IP (assuming that sequence doesn't occur naturally) But the original proposition was beyond asinine. It would be like inventing a camera, taking a picture of someone, and then claiming that person's face is now your IP. And this concept gained traction. WTF. That they weren't immediately laughed out of the office is just another symptom of the root cause.
Likewise, Google has IP rights over their search process, and the algorithms used in searches ... but they certainly have no dominion over the concept of "web searching." Movie studios have IP rights over their specific movies, and characters contained therein... but Marvel doesn't have rights over the concept of Super Hero movies. These examples are obvious and clear. But as soon as we start talking about something even a little bit abstract, like "genomes," everyone drops the common sense.
I'm not familiar enough to know the root cause, but my SWAG* is simply age and indifference. Those in charge of the Patent Office are old farts who can't be bothered to learn these newfangeled thingy-ma-whats-its. A more cynical view would be that those in charge know exactly what they're doing, and have been well paid to keep doing it... but I'll side with Hanlon's Razor on this one.
*that would be this SWAG. Not whatever newfangled definition you kids are using today.
This signature is false.
We are fairly sure now that inequality really is bad, even just relative inequality in a world where everyone's basic needs are met.
Who is "we"?
This is a ... question about human well-being, and it's answerable in principle if not in practice. Just existing in an unequal society puts mental stress on human beings which correlates to significant negative health outcomes both physically and mentally.
I know that you're dissatisfied with your position and your place. But don't you understand it's not my problem?
If you could instantly inflate the US economy ten fold, but following the same trend of inequality growth, you'd actually be doing a terrible thing. Everyone would have more wealth in an absolute sense, but the massive increase in inequality would make the majority of people demonstrably less happy.
So, wait, you're talking about everyone 10 TIMES as wealthy, in absolute (not relative) terms? So I'm working the same, but can now afford 10 TIMES as much? It sounds like you're assuming that all human happiness is based on whether they are envious of someone else. Sorry, but that has nothing to do with income inequality. You can be envious of someone's looks, or their musical talents, or many other things. There are plenty of wealthy people jealous of what some poor people have - often, that's HAPPINESS. Because money doesn't make you happy, and neither does making sure no one has more money than you.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
But then, there is the matter of how many people you've met, and how diverse their walks of life are. If you are born into a family known for its success, you are likely to grow up around other children from families that are also known for success. Furthermore, those children are taught to believe that their success is due purely to their own "hard work". They don't actually have to work hard because they are taught how to use their family's advantages such as inheritance and connections with the other families known for success. Utilizing that knowledge is furthermore seen as the end all and be all of "hard work", when in fact it doesn't even begin to compare to the difficulty of the work those not similarly advantaged have to do just to survive much less be successful. Furthermore, those families tend to stick together into adulthood so these notions are all constantly reinforced in addition to your notion that practically everyone you met that "worked hard" were successful. It becomes a tautology. Just how many people have you met that haven't "worked hard" anyways?
Once you bring "empirical studies" into it, your statements can no longer be evaluated on whether they are internally logically cnsistent. you have to actually cite at least one relevant "enmpieical study" in order to even stand a chance of being elieved by a rational person. Such relevancy in this case would have to at the least havea rigorous definition of "skill" Of course you are free to withdraw your assertion that mpirical studies show this is not true.
Sure, but I am not sure how much IP work they are doing.
First, I will point out that even in Africa’s 200 million poverty bound woman, those woman who produce superior results get ahead economically. Sadly, African culture tends to discount heavily the value of woman and “woman’s work”.
Second, I would point out that a Free Market is not a magical wand. In order for it to work you need the right social institutions, like equal access to the court system to enforce contracts (and to protect your IP, to keep this vaguely on topic), infrastructure, land registry, etc.
Third, I mentioned superior results, not just hard work. This is to reflect human capital and in this regard you have been screwed by the government.
Some inequity drives the system. Too much inequity crushes all by the elite. You fall into the second category and you are being treated as second class citizens. This is not right.
You may want to chat with Lysistrata. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata
...Who is John Galt?
It is only AFTER a product is shown to be profitable does it attract imitators. This allows for a natural limited duration monopoly in which to recoup R&D costs.
Problem is that the time period you are talking about is FAR too short to recoup R&D costs. I've got 20 years experience in manufacturing and I assure you that the time period you propose is actually incredibly short. My company makes wire harnesses. We're a contract manufacturer. If you handed me almost any example of any wire harness, I could probably have a working prototype copy in your hands within a week. A month at the outside if it is really, really complicated. And we're a small shop with limited resources. One of the big companies could probably do it in a few days no matter how complex it is. Doesn't matter how innovative your product is, I can copy it cheaper than you can design it and I can probably have it in production inside of a month. Exactly how do you think you are going to recoup R&D costs on anything original in that short a time window?
Let's take drugs for example. Conducting the clinical trials to get a new drug approved takes many years and can easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Setting up the manufacturing equipment to produce the drug typically is trivial by comparison and may only cost a few million. If I gave you the chemical formula for a drug, you could have someone manufacturing it within a month for a few cents a pill. There is no possible way any drug company could recoup their investment in the time it would take someone to knock off their product and they certainly can't "just innovate more" because that literally takes a decade for just a single drug.
Same situation with lots of other technology and manufactured products. It is MUCH cheaper to copy than to produce original work. This creates an economic disincentive to conduct original research. You will note that there is a very strong correlation between locations with strong patent and copyright protection and locations with strong research. That's not to say research cannot happen at all in places without such protection but it is almost invariably less.
Patents cause a market distortion by setting an artificial hurdle for innovation. If you jump this high you get a 17 year monopoly.
Yes they do. Because that twenty year monopoly is incentive for you to conduct the R&D necessary to make the product in the first place. Patents aren't supposed to be for incremental improvements to existing products. They are supposed to be for genuinely novel inventions - things that were hard (and probably expensive) to come up with. I'm very much of the opinion that our current patent regime is in bad need of reform but doing away with it altogether would be unbelievably stupid. I've spent a lot of time in places like China and Southeast Asia with rather lax enforcement of patent rights and there is a very good reason why we still don't see a lot of original technology come out of those places. Companies that have to do R&D are VERY reluctant to do it in China because of the free rider problem. They can easily be put out of business by knock offs no matter how innovative they are. They make stuff there but they are very careful with sharing design information. I don't think you have an adequate appreciation for the economics at work here. What you are saying sounds good from an ivory tower but doesn't really work in the Real World (tm).
Amazingly confused.
Your first paragraph directlt contradicts your second.
Newton stood on the shoulders of giants because he didn't have to pay some mob of rent-seekers for the priviledge.
He also didn't publish his calculus, and kept them as his personal trade secret, until Halley approached him about the shape of the orbit of comets.
Similarly, Richard Feynman didn't reveal that he was using Clifford Algebras to solve systems of Feynman-Dyson diagrams; it made him look like he was skipping intermediate steps and leaving them as "an exercise for the student", and made him look vastly more intelligent than hist students.
Both men kept their methods secret to have an advantage. A patent is a trade for disclosing these trade secrets in exchange for a time limited monopoly - so the original author is being disingenuous with their perpetual rent argument.
.... if everybody started at the same point
And run equally as hard, or follow the same rules.
I'm willing to debate subsidizing your healthcare if I get to help decide how you live. Fair? You prove to me today and on an ongoing basis that you and your family eat healthy food, exercise, and don't take any unnecessary physical risks, and I will listen to your arguments on why I need to fund your healthcare. If you've got a Big Mac in one hand, and a Marlboro in the other, and a case of beer in in the fridge you plan on drinking right after playing full contact hockey tonight, then there is no legitimate argument that I must fund your healthcare.
I believe you have every right to drink what you want, smoke what you want, eat what you want, and do what you want right up to the point that you expect me to pay for the repercussions. You want to take the risks, be my guest, it's your life. But you pay for the result, not me.
So which is it? Do you agree to live as prescribed, in a way that will not generate unnecessary tax costs in the form of your healthcare? Or would you prefer to choose how you live?
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
300? I think you are stretching definition of "property" to meet your ideology.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Life isn't fair
but society should be.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Is it not perfectly fair to allow a person that has never even tried to succeed, to fail? Or do you mean to absolve all people of responsibility for failure?
"Fair" does not mean "equal results". Fair means that all else being equal there is equal possibility of an equal outcome, and the more you put in the greater your possibility of a positive result. This is a distinction that seems lost on more and more people.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Well, actually, if this sort of thing existed during the inception of combines, I imagine they'd simply have the three tasks be performed by three vehicles that are not combined into one. And it'd make a lot of farming tasks take an extra hand. Kinda unnecessarily.
But let's say that it wasn't something like a combine. Let's say that this cost applied to all harvesting. Since some people NEED to harvest, they'd be forced to pay and they'd pass the cost along to their consumers. Others would simply do without and have a bunch of piecemeal farms making vegetables on the side or whatever.
Kinda like how 3D printing was in the last few decades. You know that's why we have this 3D printing craze right? The patents are expiring. Where it was once the special niche market of serious manufacturing, now it's available to the public, and getting a lot more attention. 3D printing is a prime example of how IP laws have hindered the advancement of society. Some companies made a living. Which is good. Yay economy. But how would you feel if the invention of the PC was pushed back a decade or two because the owners of mainframe IP could shut down anyone trying to make a PC? Take your first experience with a computer (usually a PC, except for you greybeards). Push it a decade into the future. How does that make you feel?
If I start with nothing, work hard, and generate superior r results I get nothing?
No, you should get something. Specifically, you should get a reward commensurate to the superiority of your results, rather than with a factor of 0.1x for the low end of the scale, and 1000x for the high end.
The funny thing is that when they went around and asked people what they think the distribution of wealth in the country is like, turned out that most (even liberals, much less conservatives) have a picture that's far more rosy than what the reality is. Funnier still, when those same people were asked to draw the "ideal" distribution of wealth (taking into account motivation with rewards etc), 92% drew a picture that resembled real-life distribution in Sweden, of all places.
Reverse engineering, tooling up, getting resources and stock, setting up a market channel and meanwhile the first mover is getting the first mover bonus, where all those costs and time are already spent.
What? Do you think that you can just replicate a microwave?
Those are not R&D costs those are market entry costs, except for reverse engineering which would cost a fraction of the actual research and development costs.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
I do think we should keep in mind that they only acquire the content by buying it from producers. And I think we all agree that artists, engineers, and authors deserve to be paid for their work... otherwise they won't be able to do it as anything but a hobby.
I do agree that the publishing business should move more and more to a direct marketing approach. That is... you wrote a book... you host a website that sells the ebook... people click on the link... money shows up in the author's bank account minus some sort of profit sharing fee from the distributor. Something around 10-20 percent would be reasonable.
It would be really easy for most of the content distributors to provide simple easy to use systems for content producers to host and sell their content. And from that, content distributors could take a cut. But the producer would maintain control over it at all times.
Its all about contracts.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You provide no evidence that 3D printing would have been developed in the first place, if not for the additional profitability afforded by patent protection. The original inventors didn't release their IP into the public domain; they filed for patent protection, which is a pretty strong indicator that they were motivated by profit, and without that motivation they wouldn't have done the development work.
So the evidence is that we have the patent system to thank for the very existence of 3D printing. And something has to exist before it can become a craze.
The inventors of PCs (IBM, Xerox, Apple et.al.) received thousands of patents on the new features they developed. They poured billions into R&D, only because they knew they would receive patent protection. The IP system greatly accelerated development of PCs. How would you feel if they hadn't done the R&D, and we were still using 6502 processors and storing data on cassette tapes?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Yes, if my sample of people was statistically out of the norm, I'd agree with some of your points. Does it matter though...The parent argued "there's no reason to work hard...", which only requires a single data point to counter, and I've known easily a couple hundred. I'm including some like myself who started out poor in inner city Detroit...no inheritance, or connections. I've met plenty who haven't worked hard, but obviously, my estimation of hard work won't match yours or anyone elses.
Just one last point to add about my sample size. I've traveled to 50+ countries, and 48 states, and lived overseas for a dozen years. Is my view limited, certainly, but it's not insignificant.
Just another day in Paradise
IP law is one facet of the law that governs private property. There are other, much older forms of IP than the statutory copyright and patent law we have today. That being trade secrets and common law copyright. The Founders recognized that modern patent and copyright law is a significant improvement over the older IP law.
The recognition of the special benefits of these relatively new forms of IP law (at the time of the Founding of the Republic) is one of the reasons there is a special clause in the Constitution. Trade secrets are bound to contract law so you are pretty unlikely to be able to get rid of that aspect of personal property law. The issue of Copyright law over-riding common law copyrights was a large point of contention some hundreds of years ago. It might interesting to see if common law copyrights would become possible again if statutory copyrights were abolished. But I would not advise taking on that experiment.
You ask why have government regulate it? Well there is a history behind it. If you think current forms of IP are bad, you might want to consider that common law copyright and trade secrets have no expiration, and in the case of trade secret there is no disclosure requirement.
There are other aspects to this too. While correlation does not imply causation, modern patent law has been adopted by industrial societies almost universally. And the industrial revolution (really only the second major advance in human prosperity, after the development of agriculture) immediately followed the development of patent law in England. While you can argue that it was a coincidence, it is very important to consider that it may NOT have been a coincidence before you abolish it.
All else being equal? WTF? I really hate this attitude, lots of people "try", lots of people work really hard and many still struggle. There seems to be a large minority who believe that you can achieve anything if you try (good to not be locked into your position in life, but it often doesn't workout), so if you are struggling or god forbid somehow fail, then it's all your own fault and you have "chosen" to be unemployed/homeless/whatever. Increasingly if your parents are poorer, then you will probably be stuck at a lower socio-economic level as it is becoming harder to move to another level. Personal responsibility is great, I think we need more of it, but compassion and a fair go are needed too. No one chooses a hard terrible life, but sometimes it happens, and society should provide a way out of this cycle. If you lack compassion, then remember it's cheaper for your taxes if they don't need to be spent on welfare/private security/more insurance. Also the more people who have good jobs, the more people who can buy goods and services, and society functions better. Stepping around homeless people should make you sad and guilty, there should be a way out for those people. People who think like that act like it's some sort of in this life karma, you get the position you choose/work for. Crap. Some people have it easier, some much harder, we as a society are better off it most people are functioning members of society, so we should have systems in place to help people to get education, jobs and somewhere safe to stay until they can provide for themselves. " the more you put in the greater your possibility of a positive result. This is a distinction that seems lost on more and more people." It's not lost on me, I agree with responsibility, I agree that you have to work, but recognise that some start way behind others, and the "possibility" of a positive result is just that, a possibility, it doesn't workout for all so there have to be systems so that they can try again/something else.
"In my 54 years, I've met very few people that worked hard and were unsuccessful" Really? I've seen it quite a few times, and I'm 38. I've seen lives totally wrecked through no fault of their own. I've seen people unemployed for months after graduating from uni with great results, applying for jobs every day. It may be your age, it's getting harder to get a good position, in the 50s and 60s it was easier to get a good job, if you went to uni, you had an excellent chance of "making it". Working hard and smart is great, the smart part is partly luck, and it's not blaming society to ask for a little help and get it if you have a rough patch. Losers whine? Well maybe, but the difference between the winners and losers is sometimes their bank balance and family/friends who can help them through a rough patch. It's a lot easier not to whine when things go bad it you know that you'll be OK until you're back on your feet. I'm happy for some of my taxes to go to social programs to help people. I'd actually be happier if they spent a bit more in some cases and really helped them out of their position instead of just supplying their basic needs. Teach them to fish etc.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Everything you just said is perfectly valid. Its unfair to start behind the curve. Its unfair that you might be challenged by your genetics while another is gifted in the same way. Its unfair that assholes sometimes inherit wealth and power. But that wasn't my point. My point was that if you never tried to succeed, you do not deserve to. If you never attempt to better yourself, you wont. And like it or not, there's a growing culture of, "Fuck it. Why should I work when I can draw [disability/food aid/unemployment/etc.]"
I do not suggest for a second that there are not perfectly worthy recipients of assistance. There are many, and I have no issue with providing it. I do have issue with parents teaching their kids how to milk the system, and if you don't think it's happening you're deluding yourself.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Inequality is good, it is what drives progress.
That is not always true and there is an obvious example when it gets wrong: imagine an extreme inequality, where one person has everything and the others have nothing. Do you think this is desirable and/or efficient to drive progress?
Private property should exist but needs some limitations. This is just a reflect of the general will of the citizen. A majority of people want to own things, which usually turn in favor of enforcing private property. But if the majority have nothing, private property looks much less legitimate. This is not communism vs capitalism, this is just People sovereignty.
I agree, but I have to add one thing. It is not simply about hard work, it is also about making good choices. No amount of hard work can compensate for poor financial decisions and habits. I think there are far more people that work hard, but make bad financial decisions such as living beyond their means or deciding to invest their life savings with Uncle Bernie, than there are people who flat out refuse to work.
Newton wrote, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Of course, the "shoulders of giants" thing was meant as a crack at Leibniz, who wasn't very tall.
Yes, I'm well aware that times are tougher than usual at the moment. I see it with my own kid, who just graduated, having a difficult time finding a decent position even with the advantage of our connections and living in an area with low unemployment. I never insinuated that some don't have an advantage. Having advantage isn't always necessary. There are plenty of examples of immigrants to the U.S., who've started with the clothes on their back, and made it. Will everyone, no, is everyone smart, no. We've had too many kids going to school for degrees in areas where there is no decent career path, and wondering why it's so hard to get by once they graduate. I do agree with you on your point about social programs, they need to be for basic needs and training...mandatory training.
Times were tough when I got out of the military in 1981, in the middle of one of the U.S.'s worst recessions, and ~20% unemployment in the Detroit area, where I was. Yes, I was advantaged...my grandmother loaned me $1500 to obtain a workable vehicle. I'd love to heard your definition of "totally wrecked", I've seen a few around the auto industry that some would call "totally wrecked", but in my opinion they were far from it. Totally wrecked, are the people I came across in places like the outskirts of Jakarta, and Bangkok, and Seoul (much better now than when I was there), who's only opportunities were to farm what land they could, or sell their bodies to put food on their kids plates.
Just another day in Paradise
Agreed. That's what I meant about "and smart", though you expressed it more clearly than I. I was watching Bill Maher a couple days ago, and was surprised (I often disagree with him, but find his show entertaining) to hear him complain about too many kids trying to become actors, or sports stars, when there's precious few opportunities for them. The same goes for those who go to college for art, history, psych, etc., etc. Do we need some of those, yes. Can you expect to make a good living at it, your odds are as good as winning the lotto. So, if you made that choice, your right to complain about it is forfeit in my opinion.
Just another day in Paradise
Or turning this around, for instance, why do you have to pay rent for a house?
So why do exclusive rights to an invention last 20 years, to a work of authorship last 95, and to land last forever? Why shouldn't the Shakespeare estate still be getting royalties? Any defense of property rights must answer these.
Some folks think the tragedy of the commons or other such metaphors justify property ownership being generally good for increasing average welfare, but some do not.
For example, some folks recognize a concept of tragedy of the anticommons, in which an author or inventor lacks access to underlying property on which to base his own property, and this lack of access impedes the progress of science and useful arts. Once all 106 million possible melodies are copyrighted, how will anybody be able to write a song anymore? Consider the short story "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson.
No, it is you (and those who modded you up) who are confused.
Right now every inventor is free to either apply for patent protection, or to release their invention into the public domain. Those who have applied for patent protection, by definition, were motivated by profit. (And I shouldn't even have to point this out, but there's nothing wrong with profit, a.k.a. wanting to be able to feed your family as a result of the hard work you've put into your invention.) If there were no prospect of patent protection, those particular inventors would not have poured resources into creating their inventions in the first place. The world would be completely deprived of their inventions (until such time that they were independently invented by entities not motivated by profit -- in many cases, that time would be never).
The modern-day Newton can stand on the shoulders of (1) those who release their art into the public domain; additionally, he can stand on the shoulders of (2) those whose patents are no longer in force; additionally, if he obtains the required permissions and/or licenses, he can stand on the shoulders of (3) those whose patents are still in force.
The important thing to remember is, the inventions of (2) and (3) likely never would have even come into existence if not for the financial incentives provided by the patent system.
So to do away with the patent system would be to completely eliminate many of the shoulders the modern-day Newton could choose to stand on. To do away with the patent system creates no advantages for those who were planning to release their ideas into the public domain anyway. To do away with the patent system really is to kill a goose that lays many golden eggs, and to cut off your nose to spite those who seek to make a living from their inventions.
Elon Musk says he will release his Hyperloop designs into the public domain. More power to him... he doesn't need the money. I'm glad he is free to make that choice. How about you reciprocate, and be glad that those who do need the money are free to apply for patent protection?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Fair means no cheating: FAIR: free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice: a fair decision; a fair judge. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fair) It doesnt mean making everyone equal. That would be like everyone wins at the Olympics. Everyone gets equal groceries equal pay equal housing. Thats communism! Taxing (stealing) from me to pay for someone else's health care, or anything else, isnt fair. Its dishonest. Its stealing.
My totally wrecked begins at losing your house and living with your kids in your car and goes south from there to what you're talking about, that happens in western cities, without the farming. That's why you hear about homeless people doing anything for $10, they're that desperate. I see whiners all the time, and my response is basically "suck it up cupcake" and get on with it. I do think having an underclass is disgusting and there should always be a way out for those who can/will use the escape we can provide. I have no time for people who will wallow and not help themselves, especially if they have kids, but there needs to be support and help available. I have seen bullshit programs that the participants know are bullshit and are therefore not ecstatic about them and the people running them can't see why. If it's just a way to fudge the numbers and say that they are off unemployment then they'll soon work it out, we need real programs that can provide access to further training/apprenticeships/real work. We apparently have a skills shortage, youth unemployment and an aging population. WTF? Train the youth in the needed skills and they can help support the aging boomers! I don't get why that seems so hard?
Yes the system milkers really piss me off! I suppose a solution is to have the support there ,but expect x hours a week of compulsory community service, if it involves learning skills then all the better. That would reduce the sit around pretending to look for work lifestyle. I'm a volunteer fire-fighter, we have community service people at our brigade and they have to work hard and they learn heaps if they try. If they don't, we wont have them back next week.