It is normal that, as a ruling Thesis falls, its adherents fall into ridiculous extremism. We have talked about this before.
Well, it’s also very relevant to technology, as the so-called Progress & Freedom Foundation shows at its conference this week with a keynote by Richard Epstein that literally equates goods such as copyrights with physical property such as land.
Epstein’s Web page describes him as a libertarian. This is a lie. He is a statist, but of a peculiar sort. He prefers a private state, one owned by big business.
How extreme is this? It’s a call to make copyright eternal, to make everything patentable and all such claims absolute.
It would destroy the economy, destroy the U.S. tech sector, and transform consumers into the chattals of Disney and Microsoft.
That’s the basic idea.
There are two stupidities at work here:
- Historical Ignorance — Absolute IP regimes have always been precursors to the end of a society’s business leadership.
- Practical Ignorance — Such regimes are impossible to police. They push smart people underground, and push innovation into other countries.
The truth of this is to be found in America’s own history, and its
founding document. Epstein wants us to ignore the limited rights and
limited times granted copyright and patents by Article I, Section 8 of
the Constitution. He wants to ignore the country’s early industrial
history, which depended heavily on theft of IP from England (and
elsewhere). (To the left, Samuel Slater, founder of America’s first big factory, IP pirate.)
This is nonsense. This is willful ignorance. This is a legal, moral, and business obscenity.
But that’s what you get at the end of a generational thesis,
especially in an area which, like the present Big Industry order, has
been bowed-to by three generations of leaders.
At the heart of the Progressive Movement was an agreement. Big
business would accept the veto of government in its rule over the
people, and in exchange government would mainly work on the side of big
business. That contract was renewed in the New Deal, where the largest
companies came to accept "big government" regulation. But a hallmark of
this latest generational thesis has been an attempt to overthrow that
agreement — to make government as well as all people completely
subservient to the whims of big business, as in the pre-progressive
era.
And it is at this point that people will, are, and should revolt.
Hopefully that revolt will take Astroturfers like the PFF and fascist
apologies like "Dr." Richard Epstein with it.
It needs to.
Funny how most think-tank libetarians have property rights, especiall those of corporations as opposed to individuals, as their number one concern. That is certainly not Libertarianism in my book. Indeed, I would say it is just Conservatism under a different name (call it Statism if you must, but I think that just clouds the issue). Underneath it all, Conservatism has only a single goal — keeping those currently in power in power. That there are many apparently divergent paths to this goal is why so many Conservatives can successfully identify themselves with some other -ism. A real Libertarian is concerned with only one thing — keeping the balance between individual freedom and the well being of society. Since Conservatism is all about preserving an existing unbalance (in either direction — you could be a conservative Anarachist if you live in a government free place and want to keep it that way), it is pretty hard to mistake a Conservative for a Libertarian unless one takes political spin at face value.
Funny how most think-tank libetarians have property rights, especiall those of corporations as opposed to individuals, as their number one concern. That is certainly not Libertarianism in my book. Indeed, I would say it is just Conservatism under a different name (call it Statism if you must, but I think that just clouds the issue). Underneath it all, Conservatism has only a single goal — keeping those currently in power in power. That there are many apparently divergent paths to this goal is why so many Conservatives can successfully identify themselves with some other -ism. A real Libertarian is concerned with only one thing — keeping the balance between individual freedom and the well being of society. Since Conservatism is all about preserving an existing unbalance (in either direction — you could be a conservative Anarachist if you live in a government free place and want to keep it that way), it is pretty hard to mistake a Conservative for a Libertarian unless one takes political spin at face value.
Ok Dana, Richard Epstein actually is perhaps THE most thoughtful contributor to small-l libertarian thought over the past decade and a half. To put it in perspective, he was on everyone’s medium length list for the last two Supreme Court nominations. In a Kemp or Armey administration (two examples of socially moderate tax,/growth hawks, pro individual rights), he would be the first nominee without question. He is without a doubt a very brilliant man, and a recurring “thesis” of his is that strong property rights lead to more desirable social outcomes. Google “epstein kelo” if you’d like to learn the intellectual basis by which just about everyone across the mainstream political spectrum can be outraged by the Kelo decision.
Thomas Jefferson once undertook a wholesale revision of the laws of the State of Virginia. It is one the facts about Jefferson’s life that makes him a great man, respected across today’s political spectrum. Richard Epstein is one of those few guys who could probably do a similar task for property law today, and come up with something that most would agree with.
You have a disagreement with him, where you are disagreeing on politics (and he isn’t even arguing that). I wonder if you’d call a blogger like Eugene Volokh “stupid”. If you did, it would be silly. Epstein is a lot like Volokh except he is Jesus Christ to Volokh’s Cardinal (and Volokh is a pretty thoughtful guy). Also, Epstein’s medium isn’t the blogosphere.
Really Dana, 100 years from now, nobody is gonna know who you were. Epstein will be a significant historical figure, in academia if not in the wide field of law itself.
Ok Dana, Richard Epstein actually is perhaps THE most thoughtful contributor to small-l libertarian thought over the past decade and a half. To put it in perspective, he was on everyone’s medium length list for the last two Supreme Court nominations. In a Kemp or Armey administration (two examples of socially moderate tax,/growth hawks, pro individual rights), he would be the first nominee without question. He is without a doubt a very brilliant man, and a recurring “thesis” of his is that strong property rights lead to more desirable social outcomes. Google “epstein kelo” if you’d like to learn the intellectual basis by which just about everyone across the mainstream political spectrum can be outraged by the Kelo decision.
Thomas Jefferson once undertook a wholesale revision of the laws of the State of Virginia. It is one the facts about Jefferson’s life that makes him a great man, respected across today’s political spectrum. Richard Epstein is one of those few guys who could probably do a similar task for property law today, and come up with something that most would agree with.
You have a disagreement with him, where you are disagreeing on politics (and he isn’t even arguing that). I wonder if you’d call a blogger like Eugene Volokh “stupid”. If you did, it would be silly. Epstein is a lot like Volokh except he is Jesus Christ to Volokh’s Cardinal (and Volokh is a pretty thoughtful guy). Also, Epstein’s medium isn’t the blogosphere.
Really Dana, 100 years from now, nobody is gonna know who you were. Epstein will be a significant historical figure, in academia if not in the wide field of law itself.