That does not answer the issue of independent discovery of the drug.

Horrible website.

Economic calculation problems arise when property rights are violated because a violation of property rights skews the price system and makes future predictions less accurate.
Since I am arguing that copyrights and patents are a direct violation of property rights, it is easy to see that I am arguing the opposite of what you’ve just described. I am saying:
The employment of IP (copyrights and patents) must create a misesian economic calculation problem.

As for your second question, I’ll repeat part of Mises’ quote:
“If on a competitive market one of the complementary factors, namely F, needed for the production of the consumer’s good G, does not attain any price at all, although the production of F requires various expenditures and consumers are ready to pay for the consumers’ good G a price which makes its production profitable on a competitive market, the monopoly price for F becomes a necessary requirement for the production of g.”

I fail to see why a government granted monopoly is required to solve this problem.

Why can’t F be leased out via private contracts which prevent copying, duplication, etc from occurring?

There seems to be no need to institute government enforced patents or copyrights. The same result can be achieved via private contracts.

But government protection has a downside that private contracts don’t. And that is that it can lead to many situations where property rights are violated.

I feel it is an error to assume Mises’ example is justification for copyrights and patents.

she lowered some of the marginal tax rates, and crushed the unionocracy, but let’s not get too teary-eyed. the state increased in vigour during her watch. like reagan, she’s popularly and erroneously viewed as a laissez-faire statesman, as is the “free-trader” gwb.

It is true that the action axiom can be applied to any situation, even situations devoid of any property rights. However, in those situations economic calculation is impossible.

Economic calculation is only possible in situations where property rights are present. This is the crux of the economic refutation of socialism. Without property rights, there is no price system, future predictions become virtually impossible, decisions become arbitrary and everything must break down.

That is exactly why property rights are a core principle of Austrian Economics. The alternate must result in economic collapse. Mises’ demonstration of this is one of his greatest contributions.

This conclusion resulted in property rights being established as a core principle of Austrian Economics which later economists built upon.

She’s probably the greatest politician with classical liberal convictions for the second half of the 20th century. Quite unlike Reagan. But I agree that her instincts were largely conservative – classical liberalism is the ideal, but in a less than ideal world you are compelled to undertake certain actions (defense, etc). This problem is particularly acute in a democracy where you’re held hostage to the whims and fancies of the populace.

I’ve read Rothbard’s opinion of her. Anyone know what Hayek thought of her legacy?

by the way, don’t you have a vested interest, working in pharma?

in many cases, reverse engineering is a costly and time-consuming exercise. even if innovation becomes, on average, more step-like, so what? progress could equally be effected by many more smaller steps, than irregular, large steps. there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Since you claim to not argue based on “natural law” but on utilitarinism or pragmatism, have you ever thought that the absence of IP (by which I mean Rothbard’s “inventors copyright”, not modern patent) would create a misesian economic calculation problem? As well as the problems Mises pointed out in the quote I provided in my first post?

You are wrong to say that property rights are essential to austrian economics. In many cases Mises states that property rights are assumed so as to show individual effects of a localized action. But this in no way says that they are required, the principals of human action will be present in any property rights environment.

I would say you are making a value statement in claiming the austrian necessity for property rights, which is entirely un-austrian. So perhaps it is you who needs to do some more reading.

“…These services (artistic creation) are consequently not scarce… NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE IMMATERIAL, intangible, and impalpable, but because their serviceableness cannot be exhausted.”

This makes a whole lot of difference in terms of economy and logic.

Many libertarians don’t bother to reflect upon that difference it seems and I’m sure in ten years they will still write about economy and property being all a question of atomic structure…

Simply saying “natural rights do not exist” does not mean that Austrian Economics is not fundamentally based on property rights.

I completely agree with Mises, the concept of natural rights is very silly. Mises was utilitarian in his approach to the formulation of Austrian Economics and natural law has no place in it. I’ll try to explain.

Natural rights is a concept derived from natural law. Natural law philosophy defines natural law as the concept of a body of moral principles that is common to all humankind and, as generally posited, is recognizable by human reason alone.

Natural law does not describe the laws of nature but instead is a human created concept of justice … the way things ought to be as perceived by human beings. The laws of nature are the limitations on what mankind can and cannot do. The two are very different but are often confused with one another.
For the rest of this response I will call “the laws of nature” “the laws of the universe” instead to avoid possible confusion.

The formulation of Austrian Economics is independent of so-called natural law. Austrian Economics combines the laws of the universe with utilitarian restrictions.

The founding assumption of Austrian Economics (the action axiom) is a law of the universe. I prefer to state a partial version of this: “With every action, every human being seeks to maximise their satisfaction” because it’s much easier to explain Austrian concepts this way.

Next, the utilitarian restriction “Every individual has the right to own and aquire property” is combined with this starting law of the universe and the formulation of Austrian Economics abounds from that.

There are, of course, other assumptions and restrictions that form the basis for Austrian Economics but there is no need to go into them here.

Yes, Mises said Natural Rights do not exist and yes I agree with him. Austrian Economics is not a formulation of natural law but instead is a formulation of the consequences of placing utilitarian restrictions on the laws of universe.

The only restrictions placed are in the forms of individual rights, ie you have the right to your life, you cannot physically interfere with other individuals, you have the right to own and aquire property, etc. These individual rights are not assumed because they represent the laws of the universe, they are restrictions placed on the system because they lead to mutual cooperation and the greater prosperity of humanity.

In some areas Microsoft do, indeed, produce substandard software. Vista is regarded as a poor operating system that is not worth the upgrade fee from XP. However, their developer tools are really good, Visual Studio is good value in my opinion. There is no blanket statement that could sufficiently describe the quality of the products that they offer.

Sadly, for you, EULAs exist and are valid contracts. If you didn’t like a EULA you could disagree and – significantly – not use the software. Instead, use a free / open source / shareware alternative. To agree and violate the EULA is simply illegal currently, regardless of your ideology.

Also, I’m not sure you can claim that a software product that you purchased is entirely yours to do with what you will. Whether this applies both in the current status quo – in which you certainly can’t make such a claim – or in an Austrian hypothesis – which this IP argument pertains to – I have absolutely no idea. I’m open to suggestions as to where to delineate rights.

Reverse engineering isn’t an inherently nefarious practice; it can be a valid learning experience and one that I have dabbled in myself. But, is using that knowledge to derive unauthorised use of software, create a keygen or provide valid serials akin to breaking a physical lock on property? Extending the metaphor, those that walk by the house and opportunistically take something from inside would be analogous to people who use a keygen to circumvent software protection. Are both the reverse engineer and the opportunist not culpable in some way?

IP seems to apply more and more to software development. There are innumerable ways to implement software and the justification for one method over another can border on religious, let alone subjective. It is a relatively young discipline. Does the lack of scarcity of a software product mean that it can should be copyable and redistributable freely by anyone? Once compiled, copying and redistribution is trivial.

As a quick example, I googled for software patents and found this: http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=7013284&KC=&FT=E This worries me because it is so generic, and potentially natural, a solution that it could probably be implemented by anyone without any knowledge of this patent at all.

My current conclusion is this: if the entrepreneur brings his creation to market, the entry costs to the first person to buy the software are so negligible that they could undercut the innovator almost instantly. However, contracts can protect the innovator and impose restrictions on the use of the software, which the buyer must agree to or the deal is off. I see no need for state monopoly enforcement through copyright / patent / any other IP. If the buyer contravenes the contract, they are culpable under an applicable contract law.

I never agree to any EULA, it’s nothing but shams and gobble-dy-gook and 100 pages.

It’s only a take it or leave it but many times you have no choice but to take it even if you don’t agree with what’s said.

I consider EULA’s to be FRAUD. I paid for the fucking software, it’s MINE and I will do whatever I want with it.

I will reverse engineer it if I want and I will copy and paste stuff from it if I want.

I really hate companies and legal terms that are designed to prevent others from being competitive, I hate monopolies and I hate theft like EULA’s are.

It’s really gross and shameful theft. Microsoft are more concerned about protecting themselves against “piracy” and against copying than they are concerned about making a good product that works.

Well, even if Microsoft is swimming in cash, has an army of lawyers and the “best” programmers, it is being threatened by Google, Apple and Linux.

The market prefers the quality and innovation of it’s competitors rather than the rude and arroguant attitude of Microsoft.

Von Mises said that natural rights do not exist, so I would support Jack Skylark’s position position in this case. I think the action axiom stands alone at the foundation.