“Producers, being self-interested humans, will not sell a good for a price that does not cover their entire cost of production. They would rather go out of business and stay home than work in a business that loses them money. So trying to mandate lower prices simply results in the destruction of the human incentive to produce a good, resulting in higher prices and even lower supplies. The other inevitable consequence of price controls is the emergence of black markets where the seller and buyer can transact at rates suitable to both of them, but without the attention of the government.”
Principles Of Economics by nostr:npub1gdu7w6l6w65qhrdeaf6eyywepwe7v7ezqtugsrxy7hl7ypjsvxksd76nak
Yes. And this also addresses the value of intellectual property. Without voluntary contracts and licenses, and without product-developers owning the right to commercially distrubute their products to cover the costs of production, that production may not see the light of day.
May we also get rid of the overreaching IP laws that attempt to monopolize ideas, words and features. A product is IP, while an idea or feature must not be IP.
*distribute. Late night fat finger.
nostr:npub1gdu7w6l6w65qhrdeaf6eyywepwe7v7ezqtugsrxy7hl7ypjsvxksd76nak talks about all of this in his book Principles Of Economics. It really was a profound read. I highly recommend it.
Yes, I would like to hear his position on intellectual property rights.
“Yet a closer look at the alleged benefits of intellectual property shows that they have been massively exaggerated. Intellectual property laws, at the margin, increasingly incentivize innovators to obtain monopoly licenses at the expense of innovating to meet consumer demand. At the margin, these laws magnify the reward for obtaining state monopoly licenses for ideas and lead innovators to dedicate growing quantities of resources toward meeting that end, rather than seeking to satisfy consumers.
This is most apparent in the pharmaceutical and software industries, where large bureaucratic corporations can be increasingly seen as enormous patent trolls, whose primary focus is on hiring lawyers, patenting, litigating, and defending against litigation; while developing consumer software and drugs are an increasingly secondary focus.
While we are taught to value innovations for their own sake, valuable innovations are those that consumers value enough to make them profitable. Without intellectual property laws, the only way to monetize ideas and innovations is for idea holders to ensure their ideas provide greater value to consumers than the available alternatives.88 With intellectual property laws, entrepreneurs can legally ban their competitors from competing, and succeed by dint of their monopoly power over their ideas. The satisfaction of consumer wants becomes a secondary concern. By limiting the number of providers on the market, government enforcement of intellectual property laws effectively comes at the cost of consumer satisfaction.”
Principles Of Economics by nostr:npub1gdu7w6l6w65qhrdeaf6eyywepwe7v7ezqtugsrxy7hl7ypjsvxksd76nak
Seems like a very shallow take where he leaves out the positive aspects of IP and only focuses on the red tape overreach.
I agree with cutting away the harmful aspects of IP, but I can't take him seriously until he treats the subject seriously.
What do you mean by “treats the subject seriously”?
And remember I’ve cherry picked an excerpt from his book that I thought may be valuable here in our exchange about intellectual property. There is no supportive context to the excerpt I gave.
I read the book and understand what concepts the author was building on to support the quote I’ve referenced here. It may not make sense to you because of your lack of context.
Let's start here:
“Yet a closer look at the alleged benefits of intellectual property shows that they have been massively exaggerated."
If he claims that the benefits are "alleged', then this informs me about some of his assumptions.
Intellectual property is about property rights. Property rights are the benefit. The right of authors, product developers, game developers and musicians to own the fruits of their labor is not anything 'alleged'.
The core of IP is to protect products, not ideas. IP is primarily about securing the rights to commercially distribute products that you have crrated. Without IP, the game developer has no right to own his/her game and to own the commercial distribution of it. Hence, no property rights to the fruits of his/her labor.
The abuse of IP is in regards to protecting ideas, features, words and such. That is abusive red tape. It should be possible to condemn abuse and overreach without dismissing IP.
In a fully free market the primary means of protecting IP would be via reputation. One can respect people's right to own their product, and their commercial distribution,without assuming that we must have a monopoly structure that secures IP. Enforcement is separate from the theory of rights.
Your response seems to affirm my suspicion that because you don’t understand the context in which this excerpt was derived from you’re thinking the author is focusing on the aspect of the quote which you find question in.
This is inherently the fault with text message communication. We cannot communicate in real time verbally so I cannot get the point across. We’re limited. Let’s save that for another day….
The point I think you’re missing is that the author is in fact taking the subject of IP seriously. The author I believe in part is trying relay to the reader that IP rights and the authorities that enforce them cause the focus to switch from producing for the consumer benefit to protecting the ownership. This, in my opinion, is a critical point. I believe you would find that this point is well made of you read the book or at least this chapter.
And again…what do you mean by “taking the subject seriously”?
What would relay to you that the author is taking the subject seriously?
